Spelling pronunciation

Spelling pronunciation occurs in English when people display their literacy by using a pronunciation that more closely reflects the spelling, under the impression that to do so must be more correct. It is an ongoing phenomenon and can be attributed to the increase in literacy over the last half-century.

Very often the sounding or not of a particular letter, which may have traditionally long been silent, is at issue. Some examples are whether or not to pronounce the t in "often", the l in "salmon", or both rs in "February" or "library". [1]

Depalatalisation

Much spelling pronunciation concerns depalatalisation, usually that of s, c or t when followed by i or u as an 's' sound where a 'sh' is normal. A classic example is íssue: should it be pronounced *íssyûe (IPA /'ɪsju/) or palatalised as *íshûe (IPA /'ɪʃu/)? Clearly, the unpalatalised version *íssyûe reflects the spelling and is of greater antiquity, but is has long been the norm to say *íshûe. Even so, *íssyûe has never quite gone away, as it is perceived that resisting the urge to palatalise to the 'sh' sound is somehow more correct. The same can be heard with tíssue, and of course there is no palatalisation in assûme and consûme: both always have -syûme: a -shûme pronunciation would sound comically uneducated. But foreigners should learn to palatalise words that normally have this pronunciation, if they are not to sound mannered. Nobody says *insyûrence for insûrance; indeed it most often sounds like *inshŏrance (British) or *inshûrance (American).

And sûre itself retains its palatalisation: AmE *shûre, BrE sůre certain = shŏre sea: it does not sound like seŵer. spêcies however has been showing signs of returning from *spêeshíz to *spêessíz or *spêessêez. Meanwhile, Cambôdia, ‘Cambodge’ in French, was for a time in the 1990s Kampuchêa in English: we can see that the -dia represents a palatalisation to a 'j' sound that has been lost in English, and that the K- spelling was an attempt by some to restore it in the form of a 'ch'.

Other words not normally palatalised are: assûme, dûe, ensûe, euthanâsia (-zìə), Galícìa, Parísìan (-zì-), presûme (-zyûme), pursûe, redûce and other words in -dûce, sûicide, sûit (cf. shoôt), synaesthêsia - though anasthaêsia might be (AmE both -nəs-), Tunísìa (BrE *Cheŵ-nízier) and Valéncia. Other normally palatalised words are: amnêsia (-zhə), apprêciâte, Âsia, assôciate, atrôcious, caucâsian and other words in -sian (-zhn), Chrístian (*Kríshchən) and other words in -tian (-shn), Indonêsia, milítia, negôtiate, Patrícia, Përsian, pléasure (-zh-), précious and other words in -cious, préssure (-sh-) and other words in -sure, sôciology, sôldier, substántial, Croâtia (Crô-, and other words in -tia), vísion and other words in -sion (-zhn), vítiate, volítion and other words in -tion (-shn).

Another spelling pronunciation is Colómbia for Colòmbia (= Colúmbia British, trademark), unnecessary, as there is no danger of confusion. In óften, normally *óffen, many people pronounce the t; a regular pronunciation of âi in agâin and agâinst can sometimes be heard instead of *agén and *agénst; toûr alternates with tŏur; BrE pŏor increasingly sounds like poôr, although dŏor remains unaffected.

Lengthening of -íz to -êez

From around the beginning of the twenty-first century, another very strong tendency, perhaps influenced by the spelling pronunciation of some foreign learners, is to lengthen the vowel sound in the ending -ies in nouns, but, interestingly, not in verbs (cárries is still *cárríz). Traditionally the -êez sound is used only for the plural of words from Greek ending in -is: crîsis, plural crîsês (*crîsêez), but it can now be heard in the plurals of nouns in -y, such as pàrties:

traditional > trendy

-íz (= ís) > -êez (= êase)

pàrtíes (*pàrtíz) > pàrtìês (*pàrtêez)

fámilíes (*fámilíz) > fámilìês (*fámilêez)

Similarly:

he’s (*híz) > hê’s (*hêez)

she’s (*shíz) > shê’s (*shêez)

Sometimes Dâvies can be heard with this pronunciation, instead of being homophonous with Dâvis.

This appears to be the continuation of a change, as we can hear in films from the mid-twentieth century how the -y ending too was once pronounced í. But this new change can be considered unfortunate for listeners, as it reduces the distinction between spoken singular and plural to just the z sound (written s).

This tendency may also be spreading to the past tense of verbs ending in -y: accòmpaníed becoming accòmpanìêd.

Other Spelling Pronunciations

• While it is normal to pronounce the n in autúmnal, because of the change of stress from åutumn (*åwtəm), one now sometimes hears also the n of cólumn (*cóllum) in cólumnist.
• Woòlwich, Gréenwich and Nórwich, which traditionally echo pórridge, can now be heard with final consonant unvoiced, as in Ípswich.
• The traditional *crézzent may be giving way to a hissing sound in créscent.
• There has also been a slight tendency to pronounce Chílean ‘Chilèan’, perhaps inspired by the Spanish version ‘Chileno’.
• Weak pronunciations of syllables traditionally with the schwa sound sometimes give way to strong ones: cándidate /kændɪdət/ becomes cándidâte /kændɪdeɪt/; Thaîland /taɪlənd/ becomes Thaîlánd /taɪlænd/ ('tie land'). The latter is an interesting example: one would never use such a pronunciation for England, Scotland, Ireland, Iceland, Greenland or New Zealand, and it recalls the days of the British Empire: Basûtolánd; Swàzilánd and Matabêlelánd do indeed usually retain such a pronunciation.

Converse trend: glottal starts

In complete contrast to spelling pronunciation is a trend to replace the traditional word-linking sounds r and w with glottal stops (\) even when this means leaving silent a written letter. This may also be the result of a foreign learners’ habit, that of pronouncing each word separately, without liaisons. These could be called 'glottal starts', as they attach themselves emphatically to the vowel beginning the second word:

traditional > trendy

yŏur ôwn (*yərôwn) > *yə \ôwn

to òther (*tuwòther) > *tə \òther

yoû ônly (*yuwônly) > *yə \ônly

thê ãrea (*dhê-yãrêə) > *dhə \ãrêə

spectácular_ôcean > *spectákyûluh \ôcean,

thére_ísn’t any > *thé \ísn’t \ény

and even where written as one word:

foréver > *fə \éver

wheréver > *whé \éver

unêasy > *ún \êasy

But this does not happen with the consonantal 'y' liaison: hîgh úp is still normally pronounced *hiyúp. And conversely, people still tend to join words where the first ends in a with an imaginary, invisible 'r', by analogy with the -er ending: Chîna-América relâtions (*Chinərəmericərəlâshənz).