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Aspelling pronunciation is thepronunciation of a word according to its spelling when this differs from a longstanding standard or traditional pronunciation. Words that are spelled with letters that were never pronounced or that were not pronounced for many generations or even hundreds of years have increasingly been pronounced as written, especially since the arrival of mandatory schooling and universal literacy.
Examples of words with silent letters that have begun to be often or sometimes pronounced includeoften,Wednesday,island, andknife[citation needed]. In addition, words traditionally pronounced withreduced vowels oromitted consonants (e.g.cupboard,Worcester), may be subject to a spelling pronunciation.
If a word's spelling was standardized prior to sound changes that produced its traditional pronunciation, a spelling pronunciation may reflect an even older pronunciation. This is often the case with compound words (e.g.,waistcoat,cupboard,forehead). It is also the case for many words with silent letters (e.g.often[1]), though not all—silent letters are sometimes added for etymological reasons, to reflect a word's spelling in its language of origin (e.g.victual, rhyming withlittle[2][3] but derived fromLate Latinvictualia). Some silent letters were added on the basis of erroneous etymologies, as in the cases of the wordsisland[4] andscythe.
Spelling pronunciations are oftenprescriptively discouraged and perceived as incorrect next to the traditionally accepted, and usually more widespread, pronunciation. If a spelling pronunciation persists and becomes more common, it may eventually join the existing form as a standard variant (for examplewaistcoat[5] andoften), or even become the dominant pronunciation (as withforehead andfalcon).
A large number of easily noticeable spelling pronunciations occurs only in languages such as French and English in which spelling tends to not indicate the current pronunciation. Because all languages have at least some words which are not spelled as pronounced,[6] spelling pronunciations can arise in all languages. This is of course especially true for people who are only taught to read and write and who are not taught when the spelling indicates an outdated (or etymologically incorrect) pronunciation. In other words, when many people do not clearly understand where spelling came from and what it is (a tool for recording speech, not the other way around), spelling pronunciations are common.
On the other hand, spelling pronunciations are also evidence of the reciprocal effects of spoken and written language on each other.[7] Many spellings represent older forms and corresponding older pronunciations. Some spellings, however, are not etymologically correct.
Speakers of a language often privilege the spelling of words over common pronunciation, leading to a preference for, or prestige of, spelling pronunciation, with the written language affecting and changing the spoken language. Pronunciations can then arise that are similar to older pronunciations or that can even be completely new pronunciations that are suggested by the spelling but never occurred before.[7]
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Spelling pronunciations give rise to varied opinions. Often, those who retain the old pronunciation consider the spelling pronunciation to be a mark of ignorance or insecurity. Those who use a spelling pronunciation may not be aware that it is one and consider the earlier version to be slovenly since it slurs over a letter. Conversely, the users of some innovative pronunciations such as "Febuary" (forFebruary) may regard another, earlier version as a pedantic spelling pronunciation.
Henry Watson Fowler (1858–1933) reported that in his day, there was a conscious movement among schoolteachers and others encouraging people to abandon anomalous traditional pronunciations and to speak as is spelled. According to major scholars of early modern English (Dobson, Wyld et al.), in the 17th century, there was already beginning an intellectual trend in England to pronounce as is spelled. That presupposes a standard spelling system, which was only beginning to form at the time.Similarly, quite a large number of corrections slowly spread from scholars to the general public in France, starting several centuries ago.[24]
A different variety of spelling pronunciations are phonetic adaptations, pronunciations of the written form of foreign words within the frame of the phonemic system of the language that accepts them. An example of that process is the final silent consonant in Frenchcroissant/kʁwa.sɑ̃/ sometimes being pronounced/kɹəˈsɑnt/ in English.
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Children who read frequently often have spelling pronunciations because, if they do not consult a dictionary, they have only the spelling to indicate the pronunciation of words that are uncommon in the spoken language. Well-readsecond language learners may also have spelling pronunciations.
In some instances, a population in a formerly non-English-speaking area may retain such second language markers in the now native-English speaking population. For example, Scottish Standard English is replete with second language marks from whenScots started to be subsumed by English in the 17th century.
However, since there are many words that one reads far more often than one hears, adult native-language speakers also succumb. In such circumstances, the spelling pronunciation may well become more comprehensible than the other. That, in turn, leads to the language evolution mentioned above. What is a spelling pronunciation in one generation can become the standard pronunciation in the next.
InFrench, the modern pronunciation of the 16th-century French authorMontaigne’s name as[mɔ̃tɛɲ], rather than the contemporary[mɔ̃taɲ], is a spelling pronunciation.
When Englishclub was first borrowed into French, the approved pronunciation was[klab], as being a reasonable approximation of the English. The standard then became[klyb] on the basis of the spelling, and later, in Europe,[klœb], deemed closer to the English original.[25] The standard pronunciation inQuebec French remains[klʏb]. Similarly,shampooing "shampoo; product for washing the hair" at the time of borrowing was[ʃɑ̃puiŋ] but it is now[ʃɑ̃pwɛ̃].
Old Italian had a pair of post-alveolar affricates/t͡ʃ/ and/d͡ʒ/ (as in[ˈpaːt͡ʃe] and[priviˈlɛːd͡ʒo], writtenpace andprivilegio), and one of post-alveolar fricatives/ʃ/ and/ʒ/ (as in[ˈbaːʃo] and[ˈprɛːʒo], writtenbascio/bacio andpresgio/pregio), which could only occur between vowels. During the 13th century, the afore mentioned affricates became allophonically fricatives if singleton and intervocalic (the modern Tuscan pronunciation ofpace andprivilegio being[ˈpaːʃe] and[priviˈlɛːʒo]), essentially merging/t͡ʃ/ -/ʃ/ and/d͡ʒ/ -/ʒ/ into positional allophones and rendering obsolete and useless the -s- spellings. After the Italian Unification, the Tuscan pronunciation ofpace andprivilegio was deemed too vulgar and dialectal for the standard language, and the original pronunciation was indirectly restored; in the modern Standard Italian accent, they're always realized as[ˈpaːt͡ʃe] and[priviˈlɛːd͡ʒo]. Since the spelling did not distinguish between the original pairs of post-alveolar affricates and fricatives,bacio andpregio started being unetymologically pronounced[ˈbaːt͡ʃo] and[ˈprɛːd͡ʒo] as well.
In present-day Italian, a few earlyEnglishloanwords are pronounced according toItalian spelling rules such aswater ("toilet bowl," from Englishwater (closet)), pronounced[ˈvater], andtramway, pronounced[tranˈvai].[26] The Italian wordovest ("west") comes from a spelling pronunciation ofFrenchouest (which, in turn, is a phonetic transcription of Englishwest); that particular instance of spelling pronunciation must have occurred before the 16th century, when the lettersu andv were still indistinct.[27]
A few foreign proper names are normally pronounced according to the pronunciation of the original language (or a close approximation of it), but they retain an older spelling pronunciation when they are used as parts of Italianstreet names. For example, the name ofEdward Jenner retains its usual English pronunciation in most contexts, butViale Edoardo Jenner (a main street inMilan) is pronounced[ˈvjaleedoˈardo'jɛnner]. The use of such old-fashioned spelling pronunciations was probably encouraged by the custom of translatinggiven names when streets were named after foreign people:Edoardo forEdward, orGiorgio forGeorge forViaGiorgio Washington.
InSpanish, the ch in some German words is pronounced/tʃ/ or/ʃ/, instead of/x/.Bach is pronounced[bax], andKuchen is[ˈkuxen], butRorschach is[ˈrorʃaʃ], rather than[ˈrorʃax],Mach is[maʃ] or[mat͡ʃ], andKirchner is[ˈkirʃner] or[ˈkirt͡ʃner]. Other spelling pronunciations areclub pronounced[klub],iceberg pronounced[iθeˈβer] in Spain (inthe Americas, it is pronounced[ˈajsbɚɡ]),[28] andfolclor andfolclore as translations offolklore, pronounced[folˈklor] and[folˈkloɾe]. Also in Spanish, the acute accent in the French wordélite is taken as a Spanish stress mark, and the word is pronounced[ˈelite].[29]
When Slavic languages likePolish orCzech borrow words from English with their spelling preserved, the pronunciation tends to follow the rules of the receiving language. Words such asmarketing are pronounced as spelled, instead of the more phonetically faithful[ˈmarkɨtɨng].
In standardFinnish, the sound/d/ developed as a spelling pronunciation for the letterd, though it originally represented a/ð/ sound. Similarly,/ts/ in words likemetsä (forest) is a pronunciation spelling oftz used in pre-1770s orthography, which originally represented a long/θ/ sound. The dental fricatives had become rare by the 1700s, when the standard pronunciations started to develop into their current forms, which became official in the 1800s. The /d/ sound, however, is not present in most dialects and is generally replaced by a/r/,/l/ or simply dropped (e.g.lähde "water spring" may be pronounced aslähre,lähle orlähe). Standardts is often replaced withtt orht (mettä,mehtä).[30][31]
InVietnamese, initial v is often pronounced like a y ([j]) in the central and southern varieties. However, in formal speech, speakers often revert to the spelling pronunciation, which is increasingly being used in casual speech as well.
Chinese has a similar phenomenon calledyoubian dubian where unfamiliarcharacters may be read with the pronunciation of similar characters that feature the samephonetic component. For instance, the character町 is rarely used in Chinese but is often used inJapanese place names (where it is pronouncedchō). When read inMandarin Chinese, it came to be pronounceddīng (such as inXimending, a district inTaipei that was named duringJapanese occupation) in analogy with the character丁 (also pronounceddīng), even though its expectedetymological reflex istǐng.
InWelsh the wordcadair is traditionally pronounced with either a/a/ or/ɛ/, depending on dialect, in the final syllable – i.e.⟨ai⟩. The pronunciation/-air/ is a spelling pronunciation, the spelling was settled on so as not to give preference to any particular dialect. A similar situation occurred with the wordeisiau which is usually pronounced/ɪʃɛ/ or/ɪʃa/ but many younger and second-language learners pronounce it as spelt:/ɛiʃaɨ/.
