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The Problem of Spelling:
In the Early Modern Period of English, there was no generally accepted system of spelling, and it was neither fixed nor phonetic. As we said earlier, it was not possible to match spelling with speech, though old and Middle English tried it with fair success. Even then, Norman scribes created some confusion in spelling by writing English words the French way. This created more problems when certain spellings became conventional and pronunciation gradually changed. Discrepancies between sound and symbol increased when certain symbols which represented actual sounds in Latin were inserted in the English words. An example is ‘b’ in debt or doubt from Latin debitum and dubitare. In English, the ‘b’ is silent. The ‘gh’ in English words like night, delight, light, tight, fight, knight etc. represents actual sounds in Latin words.
The 16th-century spelling was so unstable that it became varied from writer to writer, depending on education, temperament, and purpose. An individual could adopt his own spelling and be consistent with it. An example is Sir John Cheke, for example, doubled long vowels, e.g. maad, staar, haat etc.; he discarded final –e, in giv; belev, recev etc.; he used ‘I’ instead of ‘y’ e.g. mighti, beuti, dai etc. Richard Stanyhurst adopted his spelling to soothe his translation of Latin poetry e.g. woorde, yeet, mee, thee (the), too (to) etc. There was then a very great need to devise a means of achieving some kind of agreement. Scholars began to attempt to draw up some rules and to devise new systems. Thomas Smith, for instance, published a Dialogue Concerning the Correct and Emended Writing of the English Language in 1568. He increased the English alphabet to 34 letters and marked the long vowels. His reform, however, did not receive significant acceptance, as it was moreover written in Latin. John Hart in 1570 published A Method or Comfortable Beginning for All Unlearned, whereby they May Bee Taught to Read English.
Again this work did not win any favor despite some special characters (or phonemes) he used for ch, sh, th, ek. Another attempt at phonetic reform was made in 1580 by William Bullokar in his Booke at Large, for the Amendment of Orthography for English Speech. This work applied much of vowels and consonants sounds based on old letters of English. The author also introduced new characters, accents, and apostrophes which almost bought English spelling and accents to resemble that of French.
The most important of these reform efforts was Elementaire (1582) by Richard Mulcaster. Mulcaster viewed spelling as right wrting and felt that spelling problem could not be solved by a radical bending of spelling to fit sounds of words. He believed that the same letter can be used to represent different sounds just as we use one word in different senses. Thus he refused to adopt any form of phonetic reform, and opted for custom and usage. This means that he considered acceptability, ease, and convenience in writing as the most important thing. Popular approval must be the final authority. He believed that no set of rules can solve the spelling problem, but some things must be left to observation and daily practice. While he did not totally discard sounds, he insisted that it needed not receive undue attention. These were his contributions: (i) He got rid of extra letters in words e.g. putt, grubb, ledd, became put, grub, led, etc. (ii) He retained ‘t’ as necessary letters in words like fetch, scratch, hatch etc. (iii) He allows double consonants when they belong to separate syllables e.g. wit-ting sit-ting etc. (iv) Words ending in – ss; he wrote-sse e.g. glasse, confesse, professe, impresse-ed, (v) Final – e used to indicate long vowel, making a difference between made and mad, stripe and strip, bite and bit (vi) ‘y’ used to represent ‘loud’ and ‘sharp’ sound of ‘i’ e.g. cry, deny, fry, try (vii) If we spell ‘hear’ we should also spell fear, tear, dear etc.
At the end of his book, Mulcaster gave a ‘General Table’ giving the recommended spelling for some 7,000 common English words. Though Mulcaster’s spelling could not be said to be the model that was eventually adopted, it is clear that English spelling developed along his recommendations. During the first half of the 12th century, spelling tended towards uniformity and this tendency increased with Dr. Johnson’s dictionary. We shall examine this in Unit 2 of Module 3.
The Inkhorn Controversy
Inkhorn terms were used by critics of foreign terms mainly from French and Latin to describe words indiscriminately introduced into English. Such critics - one of them Thomas Wilson called it “outlandish English” which were merely “counterfeiting Kings English.” Some of the critics considered the use of these words as too pedantry (bookish) and strange. The strongest objection which Wilson represented believed that words such as affability, ingenious, mundane, celebrate, extol, magnificent, dexterity, scholastic; relinquish, intelligence, compendious were essentially obscure, and therefore should be thrown out. Sir Thomas Chalouer (1549) said they were “disused words of antiquitee” borrowed from “strange languages” out of “wrotten pamphlets.” These oppositions were at their heights during the middle of the 16th century. By this time borrowing had become excessive and the procedure for borrowing was simply being abused. Those who defended borrowing argued that it was simply a means of enriching the English language just as Latin and French had enriched themselves. It was a means of getting acquainted with new things, which as great novelties would be quite entertaining when they have been fully integrated into the new language. So borrowing actually gave credit to the English language and new words were linguistic legacies for posterity.
Writers should beware of indiscriminate borrowings of inkhorn terms but must also give room to borrowing when such became inevitable. One of the scholars, by name Puttenham who had earlier moved against inkhorn terms defended such words as scientific, significative, methodical, placation, function, audacious, compatible, subtiling, refining, compendius, proflixe, figurate, inveigle, penetrate, indignite etc. Note that these words were inkhorn terms. Some of the words Puttenham justified did not survive the test of time but some of them like methodical, function, audacious, compatible etc have become part of English lexicon today.
In fact, one interesting thing you will notice is that most of the ‘inkhorn terms’ that were vehemently opposed during the 16th century are of common use today. Nouns such as allurement, allusion, atmosphere, autograph, capsule, denunciation, dexterity, disability, disrespect, excursion, expectation, and jurisdiction were as difficult and strange as to become the subject of controversy. Others were adjectives like agile, appropriate, conspicuous, dexterous, expensive, external, habitual, hereditary, impersonal, insane, and malignant. Some verbs like adapt, alienate, benefit, consolidate, disregard, emancipate, eradicate, erupt, excavate, extinguish, harass, meditate, were also described as inkhorn terms. I’m sure you can tell the meaning of many of these words. Most of the words in the list are Latin words. But some of them like anachronism, atmosphere, autograph, antipathy, chaos, chronology, climax, crisis, critic, dogma, emphasis, enthusiasm, epitome, parasite, parenthesis, pathetic, scheme, skeleton, system, tactics, were acquired by Latin from Greek.
During the Renaissance, there was a renewed study of Greek which led to the introductions of more Greek words such as anonymous, catastrophe, criterion, ephemeral, idiosyncrasy, lexicon, polemic, tonic, tantalize, and thermometer.
As these words came into the English language, some retained their forms and meanings, while some lost aspect of their forms in the process of adaptation. Words like climax, appendix, epitome, exterior, delirium, and axis retain their Latin form. Some lost their Latin endings e.g. consult (L. consult-are) exclusion (L. exclusion-em) and exotic (exotic- us). Some others went through some different forms of change e.g. conspicuous (L. conspicu-us), external (L. externus) brevity (L. brevitos). Many English verbs borrowed from Latin usually end in –ate (e.g. create, consolidate, eradicate, educate etc.) Some of the words had been borrowed more than once, thus assuming different meanings. For example, the Latin words episcopus and discus were borrowed in Old English as bishop and dish and later appeared during the Renaissance as episcopal and disc. Many of the inkhorn terms that were outrightly rejected somehow survived, while some didn’t. Can you think of why this happened? Some were found and used a few times and dropped and forgotten, others remained but again forgotten. Among some of the words that eventually disappeared were anacephalize (Greek), deruncinate, adminiculation, illecebrous, expede, exciccate, deciccate, eximious, disaccustom, disacquaint, disadorn etc. Some of these Greek words had alternatives in Latin that the language has absorbed, or were simply modified, e.g. discongruity (incongruity) appendence (appendage), attemptate (attempt) denunciate (denounce).
The borrowing of this period was largely experimental; they were being tried out, introduced by individuals’ judgments and choices. Some of the words survived, some disappeared. In Shakespeare’s days for example, no one knew whether to say effectual, effectuous, effectful, effectuating or effective. But today, you can see that about two forms have survived i.e. effectual and effective. We shall see more about how French, Italian, and Spanish words were adopted to reinforce the English lexicon in the next sub-headings.
SELF ASSESSMENT EXERCISE 2
1. Explain the term “inkhorn terms”.
2. Describe some of the issues raised against the introduction of inkhorn terms into English.
3. What was the justification for their use?
Further Enrichment of Vocabulary
Foreign borrowing of words in the 16th century was not limited to learned words taken from Latin and Greek but from more than fifty languages (Baugh & Cable 2001), the most prominent being French, Italian, and Spanish. The English vocabulary of this time showed words adopted from French such as alloy, bigot, bizarre, bombast, chocolate, comrade, detail, duel, entrance, equip, essay, explore, genteel, mustache, naturalize, probability, progress, retrenchment, shock, surpass, ticket, tomato, vogue, volunteer. Italian words: algebra, balcony, caprice, design, granite, pizza, stanza, violin, volcano. Some of these Italian words were introduced through French or adopted to French forms, such as battalion, bankrupt, brigade, carat, charlatan, gala, gazette, grotesque, infantry, rebuff, etc. Though there were initial protests against these words, they were eventually adopted in England and often read in English books. Many of the Italian words for a time, preserved their Italian forms.
Spanish/Portuguese: alligator, apricot, armada, banana, barricade, bravado, brocade, cannibal, canoe, cocoa, embargo, hurricane, maize, mosquito, mulatto, Negro, potato, renegade (renegade) tobacco, yam, etc. With the new spirit of exploration and adventure characterized the Renaissance, a great deal of impact on the English vocabulary became quite evident.
The method through which these words entered the English vocabulary was generally through writing. Latin especially was through churchmen and scholars. Even words borrowed from Romance languages (French, Italian, and Spanish) in the 16th century often came through books and writers. It might be difficult to name individual writers who introduced each particular word. But it is believed that one notable English writer- Sir Thomas More introduced words like absurdity, acceptance, anticipate, combustible, compatible, comprehensive, congratulatory, contradictory, denunciation, dissipate, endurance, exit, exaggerate, exasperate, explain, fact, frivolous, impenitent, implacable, indifference, insinuate, monopoly, necessitate, obstruction, paradox, etc. Another scholar - Sir Thomas Elyot added the following words: accommodate, adumbrate, analogy, animate, beneficence, encyclopedia, excerpt, exhaust, experience, exterminate, frugality, infrequent, irritate, modesty, etc. Sir John Cheke first used adapt, alienate, assassinate and benefit. John Milton introduced consolidate, disregard, while Sir Philip Sidney brought in emancipation, eradicate, erupt, excavate, exert, exhilarate, exist, extinguish, harass, meditate, etc. More and Elyot were sometimes referred to as “makers of English” because of their contributions in the 16th & 17th centuries by introducing or helping to establish many new words in English. No doubt most of the words that came into the English vocabulary during the Renaissance came from sources outside, England. Yet, a good number were to come from native sources, either through development of words through old roots or through a revival of expressions that had gone out of use. At least this was the thought of someone like John Cheke. Cheke was so strongly opposed to borrowing from Latin or Greek that he sought English native equivalents from whatever source. In his translation of the gospel of St. Matthew, he attempted to change Greek words with English equivalents as much as possible. For instance, he used mooned for lunatic, toller for publican, hundreder for centurion, foresayer for prophet, byword, for parable, freshmen for proselyte, crossed for crucified and gainrising for resurrection.
Poets on their own part tried to revive old words, especially words they learned from Geoffrey Chaucer. This revival was sometimes referred to as “Chaucerism,” which was about a conscious use of old words to enlarge the vocabulary of poetry. One of the most prominent poets in this movement was Spencer. These poets revived old words like astound, blameful, displeasance, enroot, doom, forby (past, empight, (fixed), natheless, whilere (a while before). Others were askew, filch, flout, freak. The origin of these words was uncertain. Some were coinages such as Spencer’s blatant, braggadocio, shrimp, cosset (lamb), delve (pit), squall (to cry), and wrizzle (wrinkled). Many of the words were simply adaptations and derivations of old words such as baneful, drear, hapless, sunshiny, or wolfish. The words English acquired in this way were not as much as half of those obtained from outside, but the fact remains that Spencer and his colleagues contributed a great deal to the enrichment of the English vocabulary. Many of the words like belt, bevy, dapper, fortnight, glee, glance, surly, banishment, birthright, don, enshrine, drizzling, gaudy, gloomy, merriment, shady, wary, etc. which they also introduced, have since passed from the language of poetry into common use.
SELF ASSESSMENT EXERCISE 3
1. Write ten (10) words that were adopted from Romance Languages.
2. Describe the contribution of Spencer and the poets to the enrichment of English vocabulary.
Conclusion
You can see that the spelling and vocabulary of the English language had pulled the language in two opposite directions in terms of their rate of growth and development. On one hand, spelling had been quite unstable, especially due to the fact that printing stabilized early, while pronunciation had changed many times over. On the other hand, vocabulary had been quite rapid in its development, which had indeed attracted heavy criticism from English language watchdogs. Words had been borrowed indiscriminately from Latin, Greek, and the Romance languages which had threatened the existence of native English words.
Summary
Spelling had been one problem area in the development of English because there was never a generally accepted system of spelling. And it was neither fixed nor phonetic. Early Norman scholars created more problems by trying to spell the French way. To compound the problem was the attempt by scholars to force spelling to correspond with speech sounds. At a point, writers adopted their individual modes of spellings and tried to be consistent with them. Finally, Richard Mulcaster (1582) introduced a reform which differed from previous efforts and brought in the method of spelling which simply allowed itself to be tested and proved by observation and practice. Popular approval was to be the final authority. Mulcaster’s spelling revolution eventually influenced modern English spelling like no other.
Unlike spelling, vocabulary had been very dynamic. The English vocabulary since the 16th century had been enriched much more from words borrowed from Latin, Greek, French, Italian, Spanish, and about fifty other languages. However, English scholars raised an alarm during the Renaissance at the rapid rate of foreign words or “inkhorn terms” being introduced into English. Though some of these borrowed words naturally disappeared, most of them survived, along with English native words to give it the richness that it enjoys today.
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