why the english language is not written as your pronounce?

Question

well according to the history of the english language it was written as your pronoun but after a long time..the english it started to write in another way as well the pronounciation.. so what's happened ?

for example in spanish we say CASA in phonetic is like K-A-S-A...but in spanish the c it sounds as K sometimes as well as S.. in english for example you say Hello as in hell.. I cannot remember.. but the mayority they sound like you write.. for example Read it sounds like riiid

the mayority of the english words are not pronounced like you write..

Answer 1

English spelling (or orthography), although largely phonemic, has more complicated rules than many other spelling systems used by languages written in alphabetic scripts and contains many inconsistencies between spelling and pronunciation, necessitating rote learning for anyone learning to read or write English.

Throughout the history of the English language, these inconsistencies have gradually increased in number. There are a number of contributing factors. First, gradual changes in pronunciation, such as the Great Vowel Shift, account for many irregularities. Second, relatively recent loan words from other languages generally carry their original spellings, which are often not phonetic in English. The Romanization of languages (e.g., Chinese) using alphabets derived from the Latin alphabet has further complicated this problem, for example when pronouncing Chinese place names. Third, some prescriptionists have had partial success in their attempts to normalize the English language, forcing a change in spelling but not in pronunciation.

Answer 2

Mostly because the language has evolutionized and not only have the pronunciations changed but, in many cases, the meanings, too. Also, remember that the language borrows many words and terms from other languages. I think you refer to things such as the word, "Say" which we all pronounce as "SEH-ee" but if we add an "s" to the word, it is then pronounced, "sezz." Yes, and it can get very, very complicated sometimes. Lead (metal) is pronounced "led" while the infinitive verb is pronounced, "leed."

Someone invented a word (which has no definition) to show the inconsistency of our language; we came up with "ghoti," and said that it is pronounced as "fish" because the "gh" in "enough" sounds like an "f" while the "o" in "women" sounds like an "i" and the "gh" in tough" is pronounced like an "f." Yes, it can get a bit confusing.

Good ol' Ben Franklin tried to change the American spelling system to a more phonetic version and he gave up a few years later; it was too confusing!

Answer 3

Good question, a LOT of languages are like this, in fact I think EVERY language is like this.

The only exceptions that come to mind are Finnish (In a WAY, I'm not saying its purely phonetic, but when I hear a word, I know how to spell it, vice versa to pronounce, with of course double letters ;).)

And Bosnian, which is 100% purely phonetic, no X's, Y's, W's Q's, every sound has a letter corresponding to it, and native Bosnian speakers can spell automatically how a word is spelt when it is heard. (This does not go for speakers of any other language, adding in the way of which letter for instance is used. By letter I mean "dž, đ" which sound the same, but "ž" is more harder, and can be told apart. Then there is "č" and "ć" which you simply must memorize where either go (This means memorizing the word itself, of which there are a LOT.))

There yah go ;)

Answer 4

Many words were pronounced differently in different part of the country but had the same spelling. In the end we chose a single pronounciation but it was sometimes one that didn't coincide with the spelling. Even now, in the south we say 'glass' (pronounced glarse) while in the north they pronounce it as it's written.
It confuses us sometimes!!

Answer 5

England is the real English language maybe they pronounce how it's written?

Answer 6

sorry I'm having a little trouble understanding what you're asking....why the english language isn't written as it's pronounced. I don't know...I don't know of many languages that are pronounced exactly how they look except maybe Hawaiian.

Answer 7

ya, desafortunadamente, es asi. no se porque.

maybe it's because there are lots of little sound differences in english that are formed with letter combinations. eventually you just have to get used to them!

Answer 8

Sorry about that, you are right. But the French laguage has varying pronunciations/spellings, also.

Answer 9

I've got that on my things-to-fix list.