Orphographical change

Question 1

The Great Vowel Shift

Answer 1

After the American War of Independence from 1755 to 1783 Americans were keen to break free of their association with England. Webster reasoned that many spelling conventions were artificial and needlessly confusing, so he urged altering many words.
- This led to long Vowel sounds changed hence the mismatch of the long vowel sounds of English with their European counterparts.
- Contrastingly long vowel were shortened but in their spelling was a long vowel or diphithong that would normally be spelt the another way. For example the ‘ou’ in ‘double’ and ‘oo’ in ‘blood’ became identical with a short ‘u’.
- Additionally it led to a number of sets of vowel sounds that had formerly been distinct became identical, while their spelling distinction was largely maintained. e.g the long ‘a’ vowel in ‘mane’ and the diphthong ‘ay’ or ‘ai’ in ‘main’ or ‘may’.

Question 2

The Norman Conquest 1066

Answer 2

English became reinstated as the official language around 1430 and many of the scribes and clerks of court who had written in only Latin or French had trouble switching to it. Their difficulties are chiefly responsible for most of the French spelling words of French origin and spelling inconsistencies such as ‘bubble’ and ‘double’

Question 3

Printing Press

Answer 3

this began to fix English spelling. After 1476, Caxton returned to London and set up the first English printing press. He brought with him printers from Belgium who spoke little to no English and therefore made numerous spelling errors.

Question 4

Printers were paid by the line

Answer 4

This meant they often lengthened words to earn more money or make margins look neater. Many words with earlier similar spellings became more complex.

Question 5

Cootes

Answer 5

Cootes cut many surplus letters inserted by printers such as ‘hadde’ into ‘had’. This was popular within pamphletes of the English Civil War who liked words to be shorter in order to fit more onto a page.

Question 6

Interchangeable letters

Answer 6

• the ‘u’ and ‘v’ were graphic variants of the same letter with the ‘v’ used in the beginning and ‘u’ in all other positions.
• the ‘j’ was only an extended form of ‘i’ with the ‘i’ being generally used for both vowel and consonant sounds and its capital form resembled a ‘J’ that was used in initial positions for the consonant sound.
• The silent ‘e’ at the end of words was more commonly found with no phonetic function
• The letter ‘y’ was commonly used for the vowel ‘i’
• finally instead of ‘t’ at the end of words, the letter ‘c’ was also used.