Some editors were recently giving *The New Yorker* a hard time because they continue to insist on using the dieresis. The editor in me wanted to join in the jeering, but the contrarian wanted to applaud them for refusing to coöperate.
I love your explanations! So easy to understand. And I especially love the personal sketches of the main character that you start your posts with.
I just wish I knew this before I retired. As a remedial reading teacher to middle schoolers, I taught phonics, often the first time they learned it. I always tried to make it more adult so they wouldn't feel they were learning "baby stuff." But I often resorted to "English is weird."
Us Northerners are still struggling from the Sack of the North! (Actually, the real problem with UK being so London-centric goes right back to the Romans)
As English becomes a global classical language, I can see it acquiring diacritics originally as a tool to help non-native learners. Similar to what happened with Classical Greek, the Latin macrons, or the dots in Hebrew.
The acute accent is Spanish only marks stress, which in unaccented words is extremely regular and predictable. It would be useful for English language learners to have a stress accent given that stress is not álways éasy to predíct in Énglish
And just for the sake of completeness, we do use the dieresis for distinguishing a silent from a voiced “u” in a specific case. It could be argued that the tilde (~) is used in the spirit Colin describes, making the same letter have a different sound, but we actually consider the “ñ” as a separate grapheme.
When I started learning Spanish class, I picked up a dictionary and read the preface in which the author described the RAE's decision to stop alphabetizing 'ch' and 'll' as separate letters. I'm glad to hear they haven't done the same for 'ñ'!
For anyone reading who hasn't heard about this: from a strictly formal perspective, you could look at Spanish 'ñ' as being 'n' + '˜', but people tend not to do so. It's even alphabetized as a separate letter from 'n'.
The “ch” case is interesting, because it has in some way been fought against by people that would use it as their initial. The most visible case I know of is the footballer Charles Aránguiz that wears a jersey with “Ch. Aránguiz”.
When I learned to recite the ABC’s in Spanish in high school, I was taught that they recite the letter “che” (CH) and eñe (ñ) separately from C and N, as well as (elle) LL and (erre)RR, separately from L (ele) and R (err). So they have four extra “letters” compared to English.
The whole recitation:
A Be Ce Che De E Efe Ge Hache I Jota Ka Ele Elle Eme Ene Eñe O P Cu Ere Erre Ese Te U Ve Doble-Ve Equís Y-Griega Zeta
That was indeed the case with “ch” and “ll” in the past and how I learned in the eighties, but the reform made by the academies did away with them as letters. I’m quite positive that I always recited “r” simply as “erre”. Also this list looks mostly like how I learned the names, but there are a few regional variations.
This absolutely fascinating! I never knew where the accents in French came from, nor wht we don't have them despite English being so enormously influenced by French.
I often come across some weird and wonderful spellings in old documents. One of my favourites, from a will written in the 1580s, is "quyshyans". I had no idea what that was meant to be, until I read it aloud.... Cushions!
A will from the early 1500s mentioned leaving tithes to the "high awtar". What was that? Altar, of course! The will was written in a town only a few miles from where I grew up, and it's hilarious really because I drop the L in the same place. That feature of the local accent hasn't changed in 500 years!
Thank you, Helen! "Quyshyans" is a thing of beauty! The kinds of spellings like "awtar" are a gold mine for future linguists to try to discern just how people must have pronounced things back then.
Another incredibly fascinating article. So accessible and yet literary. Thank you so much!
BTW would the same inherited alphabet you speak of in the Spanish evolution from Latin have anything to do with the fact that many Spanish speakers pronounce vacuum as bacuum?
Thank you, Louis! Interestingly, the Spanish letters 'b' and 'v' represent the same sound and have for a long time. Most of the time, when a Spanish word is spelled with a 'v' rather than a 'b', it's because its Latin ancestor was spelled with a 'v' as well.
I Imagine monks „translating“ into their own dialect unconsciously.
Monks read aloud in the Middle Ages, then would write down what they heard themselves read. My background is medieval German language literature. I imagine a Bavarian monk would automatically turn a b into a p without giving it much thought. We can’t know these things for sure, but it’s interesting to ponder.
Or even translating out of their own dialect, as happened a lot during the Old English period, when people tended to write in the West Saxon dialect no matter where they were from.
Thank you for this insightful explanation! I really appreciate the clarity and depth you brought to the topic. This is relevant to me as I have been immersing myself with French language and culture in Geneva.
The name "Dead Language Society" is fantastic — it’s clever and fitting, reminiscent of "Dead Poets Society," and it adds a layer of intrigue and character to your publication.
Keep up the great work, and thanks again for sharing your knowledge!
Such an interesting discussion, thank you for sharing! It had never crossed my mind before that English owes so much to the French language yet doesn’t use diacritics, yet once you pointed it out I really wanted to understand why.
Thank you, Holly! When I first learned that French only systematized its use of diacritics in the Renaissance, it suddenly made sense to me: the diacritic is the perfect example of Renaissance thinking applied to language. You can keep the old spelling, but bring it up to date simply by adding a mark. The perfect blend of old and new!
Absolutely fascinating! 😍
Thank you!
Another nicely written and informative essay.
Some editors were recently giving *The New Yorker* a hard time because they continue to insist on using the dieresis. The editor in me wanted to join in the jeering, but the contrarian wanted to applaud them for refusing to coöperate.
Thank you, Joseph! I think we all need to reëxamine our prejudices from time to time.
I love your explanations! So easy to understand. And I especially love the personal sketches of the main character that you start your posts with.
I just wish I knew this before I retired. As a remedial reading teacher to middle schoolers, I taught phonics, often the first time they learned it. I always tried to make it more adult so they wouldn't feel they were learning "baby stuff." But I often resorted to "English is weird."
Thank you, Anne! I like trying to figure out some human angle to look at these stories from. They can be a bit abstract otherwise!
And English is weird indeed!
When in doubt, blame the French 😉 (said as an Englishwoman, born and bred in the Danelaw)
We're never going to let them live down the Norman Conquest...
Us Northerners are still struggling from the Sack of the North! (Actually, the real problem with UK being so London-centric goes right back to the Romans)
As English becomes a global classical language, I can see it acquiring diacritics originally as a tool to help non-native learners. Similar to what happened with Classical Greek, the Latin macrons, or the dots in Hebrew.
I'd enjoy that a great deal!
The acute accent is Spanish only marks stress, which in unaccented words is extremely regular and predictable. It would be useful for English language learners to have a stress accent given that stress is not álways éasy to predíct in Énglish
And just for the sake of completeness, we do use the dieresis for distinguishing a silent from a voiced “u” in a specific case. It could be argued that the tilde (~) is used in the spirit Colin describes, making the same letter have a different sound, but we actually consider the “ñ” as a separate grapheme.
When I started learning Spanish class, I picked up a dictionary and read the preface in which the author described the RAE's decision to stop alphabetizing 'ch' and 'll' as separate letters. I'm glad to hear they haven't done the same for 'ñ'!
For anyone reading who hasn't heard about this: from a strictly formal perspective, you could look at Spanish 'ñ' as being 'n' + '˜', but people tend not to do so. It's even alphabetized as a separate letter from 'n'.
The “ch” case is interesting, because it has in some way been fought against by people that would use it as their initial. The most visible case I know of is the footballer Charles Aránguiz that wears a jersey with “Ch. Aránguiz”.
When I learned to recite the ABC’s in Spanish in high school, I was taught that they recite the letter “che” (CH) and eñe (ñ) separately from C and N, as well as (elle) LL and (erre)RR, separately from L (ele) and R (err). So they have four extra “letters” compared to English.
The whole recitation:
A Be Ce Che De E Efe Ge Hache I Jota Ka Ele Elle Eme Ene Eñe O P Cu Ere Erre Ese Te U Ve Doble-Ve Equís Y-Griega Zeta
That was indeed the case with “ch” and “ll” in the past and how I learned in the eighties, but the reform made by the academies did away with them as letters. I’m quite positive that I always recited “r” simply as “erre”. Also this list looks mostly like how I learned the names, but there are a few regional variations.
This absolutely fascinating! I never knew where the accents in French came from, nor wht we don't have them despite English being so enormously influenced by French.
I often come across some weird and wonderful spellings in old documents. One of my favourites, from a will written in the 1580s, is "quyshyans". I had no idea what that was meant to be, until I read it aloud.... Cushions!
A will from the early 1500s mentioned leaving tithes to the "high awtar". What was that? Altar, of course! The will was written in a town only a few miles from where I grew up, and it's hilarious really because I drop the L in the same place. That feature of the local accent hasn't changed in 500 years!
Thank you, Helen! "Quyshyans" is a thing of beauty! The kinds of spellings like "awtar" are a gold mine for future linguists to try to discern just how people must have pronounced things back then.
Another incredibly fascinating article. So accessible and yet literary. Thank you so much!
BTW would the same inherited alphabet you speak of in the Spanish evolution from Latin have anything to do with the fact that many Spanish speakers pronounce vacuum as bacuum?
Thank you, Louis! Interestingly, the Spanish letters 'b' and 'v' represent the same sound and have for a long time. Most of the time, when a Spanish word is spelled with a 'v' rather than a 'b', it's because its Latin ancestor was spelled with a 'v' as well.
I didn’t know I needed to read a post on this topic until now. Thank you!
Thank you for reading!
I Imagine monks „translating“ into their own dialect unconsciously.
Monks read aloud in the Middle Ages, then would write down what they heard themselves read. My background is medieval German language literature. I imagine a Bavarian monk would automatically turn a b into a p without giving it much thought. We can’t know these things for sure, but it’s interesting to ponder.
Or even translating out of their own dialect, as happened a lot during the Old English period, when people tended to write in the West Saxon dialect no matter where they were from.
I could see cwen catching on in some circles.
They look good as a pair too: cyng and cwen
These were my only clue in the "Bera" as to whether a c is a kappa or ? (s, ch).
Thank you for this insightful explanation! I really appreciate the clarity and depth you brought to the topic. This is relevant to me as I have been immersing myself with French language and culture in Geneva.
The name "Dead Language Society" is fantastic — it’s clever and fitting, reminiscent of "Dead Poets Society," and it adds a layer of intrigue and character to your publication.
Keep up the great work, and thanks again for sharing your knowledge!
Thank you very much!
Have you even been down South?
Maybe... depends on which country you mean!
Very informative, very well written. Along with a cup of coffee, great way to begin the day. Thank you.
Thank you, Donna!
Thanks. Many things I didn't know about my native language and my 'adopted' one.
Such an interesting discussion, thank you for sharing! It had never crossed my mind before that English owes so much to the French language yet doesn’t use diacritics, yet once you pointed it out I really wanted to understand why.
Thank you, Holly! When I first learned that French only systematized its use of diacritics in the Renaissance, it suddenly made sense to me: the diacritic is the perfect example of Renaissance thinking applied to language. You can keep the old spelling, but bring it up to date simply by adding a mark. The perfect blend of old and new!