REFORMED SPELLING
[To the Editor of the SPECTATOR.] ,SIR,--During a recent short visit in the U.S.A. to friends who have retained such connexion with their French origin as to speak little else but their mother-tongne• in the family circle, .I was drawn into the time-worn discussion of a phonetic spelling of English. Such arguments rarely serve any practical purpose, as we well know, but a point of interest did arise in this case when, in reply to a query as to their opinion of the spelling of French, my friends volunteered the statement that the French Academy in Paris was engaged in the preparation of a simplified spelling. May I inquire if this statement is correct and, if so, with what success has the revision met ?
-One -has- heard-- that-the --equivalent -authority-in Madrid.' has made. flogn time to time. ielgision in the -A-eel/emir-spelling- of certain Spanish words.;. Mit, from my experience in both Spain and South America, faults by presumably well-educated people of these countries are noticeably common in spite of the fact that the spelling of Spanish is almost perfectly phonetic. Public official notices—to give but one example— are not infrequently issued with misspelt words, though the usual errors seem due to a close similarity in the pronunciation of certain letters or of combinations of letters. Primary mispronunciation in these cases accounts for the mistakes, and from that fact one might deduce that phonetic spelling is not such a sure remedy as many people maintain.—I am,
Bolivia, S. America.
[It is true that the French Academy in Paris is engaged in a revision of spelling. This, however, is with a view to complete modernization of the language, and does not neces- sarily mean that words spelt in a new way will be spelt in ."a simpler way.—En. Spectator.]
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