![]() The re-Latinized words did have a very distant connection, through French, with the Latin words they were based on, even though they were borrowed into English without the extra sounds. This is also how debt and doubt got their b, salmon and solder got their l, and indict got its c. They thought it looked more educated and fancy to write February (on analogy with Latin Februarius) rather than Feverere, and receipt (like Latin receptum) rather than receyt. In the 16th and 17th centuries, a craze for the ideas and artifacts of antiquity caused some writers to introduce spellings for English words based on Latin and Greek, even when those words had never been pronounced according to those spellings. ![]() It was cool to change spellings during the classical craze Most French words from this period were adapted to English pronunciation and spelling ( attend, blame, enchant, flower, farm, join, lesson, minister, proof, etc.), but plenty retain traces of their origin that cause little spelling headaches today: people, jeopardy, muscle, marriage, autumn.ģ. While the general population carried on speaking English, French was used in universities and the courts, eventually leaving its imprint on the whole of English vocabulary. When the Normans invaded England in 1066, they brought their own words with them. ![]() The literate class used French until the 15th century But by the time all those sound changes were widespread and complete, the spellings for those words had been established.Ģ. They had also stopped using the back-of-the-throat-sound (represented by the ch in German words like ach!) that had been spelled by scribes with gh and had been pronounced in words like night, laugh, thought, and eight. When this period was over people had stopped pronouncing the k in knee, the g in gnaw, the w in write, the l in talk, and the b in lamb. Middle English was becoming Modern English. The unlucky thing for English spelling is that during the very same time, huge changes in pronunciation were happening. But after the printing press came to England in the late 1400s, texts could be spread more widely, and printers started to standardize spelling. People did their own thing, trying their best to match up tradition with current pronunciation. Look at some of the ways beauty used to be spelled: bealte, buute, beuaute, bewtee, bewte, beaute, beaultye. Spelling was established while big pronunciation changes were underwayīefore the printing press came along, there was a lot of flexibility in English spelling.
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