2007-01-20 14:52:49 · 6 answers · asked by Anonymous in Education & Reference ➔ Words & Wordplay
Because English is made up of words from dozens of different languages, and letters aren't pronounced the same exact way in every language.
Some languages do work the way you are asking about, though. Spanish has a one letter - one sound correspondance.
2007-01-20 15:01:02 · answer #1 · answered by maluba 3 · 1⤊ 1⤋
English has a long history and pronunciations change over time. Letters and combinations of letters that were once pronounced are no longer sounded or have changed their sound. There are dialectal differences in pronunciation so what might be spelt as it sounds in one dialect is very different in another. English also borrows words from many different languages and brings spellings and pronunciations from those.
On top of that, there are 23 consonants and 11-13 vowels in English (depending on dialect) which have to be represented by 26 letters of the alphabet, three of which, C,Q and X are redundant.
English spelling can be learnt and it is not difficult to check it.
2007-01-20 16:01:29 · answer #2 · answered by tentofield 7 · 1⤊ 0⤋
Because they aren't and that's the English language like it or not . It's too bad the whole language teachers didn't realize that when they taught young people to spell in the last 15 years. They sure tried hard to promote that ....
2007-01-20 15:00:46 · answer #3 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 1⤋
A lot come from their country of origin, others in how they have delveoped through the years
2007-01-20 15:04:40 · answer #4 · answered by Anonymous · 1⤊ 1⤋
You mean like the word 'phonetic'?
2007-01-21 05:16:13 · answer #5 · answered by Judy B 1 · 0⤊ 0⤋
because it'll be weird
or because the man that "created" the word has a small penis
2007-01-20 14:57:54 · answer #6 · answered by →sugarwuss 3 · 0⤊ 2⤋