[ELI5] Why have some languages like Spanish kept the pronunciation of the written language so that it can still be read phonetically, while spoken English deviated so much from the original spelling?
In: Culture
Short version: The Latin-based words in English haven’t shifted much. Ditto, Spanish. The Germanic/Old English words *have* shifted lots, because they’re not used as much by the posh people who controlled Standard English and therefore controlled the pronunciation of English. Also, the spellings *used to be* phonetic but they only reflected the pronunciations that the 1% used. So, from the very start, the spellings were all jacked up.
English was given standardized spelling in the 15th Century by the Chancery, a government agency (king’s court, whatever). The spelling was based on the way words were pronounced within the London-Oxford-Cambridge triangle, a chunk of England where rich, posh, well educated people lived. This led to two problems.
1. Other accents, other dialects (subgroups of English), etc. were ignored.
2. As pronunciation shifted, both inside and outside the London-Oxford-Cambridge triangle, spellings didn’t keep up. Therefore, over time, spellings ceased to reflect the pronunciation.
Spanish is heavily derived from Latin. So are Italian, Romansch, Languedoc, Romanian, French, and … something else. That’s why their spelling and pronunciation didn’t shift all that much. They’re Romance languages, which means they’re balls-deep in Latin. (That’s a technical term.)
English, on the other hand, is primarily Germanic. It uses a lot of French and Latin because of the Norman Invasion and the Catholic Church respectively. Still, there’s always been a tension between the two groups of words. Old English (AKA Anglo Saxon, AKA pre-1066 ‘English’) words tend to be pronounced *very* differently from Latinate (AKA Latin/French/romance) words.
If you look at the posher, more highfalutin’ words, they’re Latinate and their pronunciation hasn’t shifted that much. Check this out. “I desire to inquire as to the propinquity of my artisanal cutlery. Your concomitant reply is appreciated.” It sounds pretentious because it’s all Latinate. The bigger words’ pronunciation hasn’t shifted much because they’re Latinate and share much with Spanish/French/etc.
Now, try the inkhorn (more Germanic) version. “I want to ask where my stuff is. Tell me. Thanks.” Much more casual, much more ‘common’, and much more prone to shifts in pronunciation. ‘Want’ was *vanta*. ‘Ask’ was *ax* or *ascian*. Stuff was *stoppian*. Thanks was probably *tanke* or something.
Compare that to ‘desire’ (French *desirer*, Latin *desiderare*), ‘inquire’ (French *enquerre*, Latin *inquirere*), etc. The Latinate words are so close to Latin that you can almost understand high-register English without studying it, if you know enough Latin.
Now, consider this. The posh folks who controlled English spelling also controlled Standard English pronunciation, either consciously or unconsciously. (Think about Downton Abbey and how influential it is. Then, think about monks, politicians, and aristocrats. They control the schools, which produce the next generation of high-register English speakers, and so on.) So, not only do the 1% control the money, but they also control how high-register English (Latinate English) evolves. Pronunciation won’t shift much, because spelling won’t shift much, because the spelling of Latinate words doesn’t usually *need* to change, because the pronunciation is already set by the Oxford-Cambridge-London triangle. It’s quite circular in reasoning and in feedback.
Common English, AKA inkhorn English, AKA low-register English, can evolve much more and *does* evolve much more. There are 100 dialects, 200 regional accents, etc. and most of them contain words and phrases that pre-date the Norman Invasion. Fore example, Geordie contains a surprising about of Danish. Naturally, those words didn’t make it into Standard English. Still, the spellings of inkhorn English could evolve in those communities because most people spoke two dialects anyway (Standard English and the local dialect of English). The 1% felt no need to regulate non-standard dialects, and hoi polloi felt no need to kiss the 1%’s ass by tweaking their own spellings.
Eventually, as I said, the Chancery did standardize inkhorn spellings, but no one really paid attention to *speaking* in those spellings. The spellings *were* phonetic briefly, but they were standardized about the Oxford-Cambridge-London pronunciation! So, from the very start, the spellings did not reflect the way that most English-speakers talked. Matters worsened as the centuries passed, because English evolves… and whereas Latinate words’ pronunciations stayed true to their roots (because the 1% tried super-duper hard to keep on speaking ‘nicely’), the inkhorn words’ pronunciations shifted all over the bloody shop (because that’s what happens when normal people speak normal English in 200 different ways).
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