Spelling Reform Research Articles

Diachronic/Synchronic Dynamism of Russian Literary Language: Democratization of Language ― Graphics and Orthography of Russian Literary Language ―

The purpose of this paper is to study the history of graphics and orthography of the Russian literary language in terms of the democratization of language. In this paper, democracy of language is defined as the ideal situation of communication and optimizing linguistic means for the ideal situation of communication as the democratization of the language system. The most important features of a democratic language are openness to speakers and easy accessibility of speakers, which is most effectively secured when the literary language is their own mother tongue and ordinary language. Russian transitioned from bilingual (Church Slavic-Eastern Slavic language) to a national unified literary language in the late 17th and early 18th centuries, and it laid the foundation for the breakthrough to its democracy. The graphics system of the Russian literary language improved simplicity and efficiency and acquired openness and accessibility by eliminating surplus spellings from civil characters in the early 18th century to the spelling reform in 1917/18. The traditional subject of debate, the “Ъ, Ь” type, lacks a theoretical system and efficiency of acquisition, but linguistic traditions and customs work strongly with this type and the principle of majority decision is respected, so it remained unchanged for more than 100 years. The type “спорттрасса/спорт˗трасса/спорт трасса,” which requires normalization as a recent phenomenon, allows for exceptional forms and variations, enriches linguistic means and expands the horizon of linguistic choice. In this way, the democracy of language is enhanced. The democracy of Russian graphics and orthography has historically improved, and this is verified by the democracy of its usage. The existence of the language is based on the premise of the use of the language, so that as more speakers use it more freely and easily, the graphics and orthography are more democratic. However, as the environment and conditions of language use change with the times, the democratization of language use also changes in focus. In the 18th - early 20th centuries, language equality and freedom were realized by replacing other graphics with their own and achieving its simplification and unification. In the late 20th century, we should allow exceptions and variants and recognize diversity. It also strengthens the democratic nature of the graphics and orthography by ensuring verbal abundance and freedom.

“That spelling tho”: A sociolinguistic study of the nonstandard form of though in a corpus of Reddit comments

AbstractTho, the nonstandard spelling of though which was proposed by American spelling reformers in the 19th century, is making a comeback. In 2013, internet memes such as that backflip tho gave a boost to the shortened form. This sociolinguistic study investigates the use of tho in RedditGender, a 19 million-word corpus of comments posted by 1044 Reddit users. First, concordance lines generated from the whole corpus were analyzed in order to compare the use of tho with the meme and the standard spelling. Then, regression analysis was conducted with a sample of the corpus, containing only complete cases. Results show that tho is rarely used in the meme construction that contributed to popularize it, and that it appears more often as an adverb than as a conjunction. They also seem to indicate that the use of tho is correlated with gender and race. Most frequent users are black males. This suggests that the shortened spelling is not simply a way to save time when typing, and that it is not semantically equivalent to though. It seems to be a marker of affiliation with a social group and of familiarity with internet subcultures.

#JeSuisCirconflexe: The French spelling reform of 1990 and 2016 reactions

ABSTRACTIn February 2016 the French spelling reform of 1990, which introduced changes to approximately 2,000 words, became the object of discussion online, after it was announced that the new spellings would be included in textbooks from September. Analysing a corpus of tweets, containing key terms from the online discussion, JeSuisCirconflexe; ognon and réforme orthographe, this study gives an insight into the reactions to this governmental linguistic intervention, the recurring themes in their discourse and how this can be interpreted as prescriptive or purist behaviour. Although previous studies have extensively analysed reactions to the 1996 spelling reform in Germany, little research has considered online lay-reactions to the French reform. Given observations that online interactions differ in many ways to equivalent offline interactions, this study can form a point of contrast to previous studies conducted in offline contexts, thereby enriching the existing literature in this field. It is also often claimed that France is a country in which linguistic purism is deeply entrenched; this article will seek further evidence for these claims.

Відображення розвитку української наукової термінології початку ХХ ст. в “Українсько-російському словнику” А. Ніковського

The article analyzes the specific features of the Ukrainian scientific terminology at the beginning of 20th century that appeared in the Ukrainian-Russian dictionary by A. Nikovsky (1926). The register of the analyzed edition exceeded the most complete at that time dictionary by B. Grinchenko about 10 thousand words. This dexicographic work reflects the strong development of the Ukrainian language at the beginning of the 20th century in the formation of the body of terminals. The article describes the most notable features of modern scientific discourse on its lexical, morphological, word-forming and spelling levels. Interesting thing on the lexical level of the modern terminology is the specific vocabulary presented in the dictionary, which in modern literary language is replaced by the borrowings. Also, A. Nikovsky’s dictionary gives a lot of specific words that disappeared from the active vocabulary due to imposing on our language lexical-word-building models that are close to Russian. On the morphological and word-formation levels we have defined five characteristic features of the Ukrainian-Russian dictionary by A. Nikovsky: significant productivity of non-affixal method of word formation; the presence of adjectives formed by other word-building models than modern language units; fixation of adjectives with the suffix “уват”, which were subsequently replaced by complicated adjectives calculated from the Russian language with the second part “подібний”; some names of persons whose specialty or type of activity in the analyzed dictionary differs in their morphological features from the modern ones; a series of nouns of the female genius presented in the form of a male language. The attention is also focused on some spelling features of the Ukrainian language in the beginning of 20th century which attracts our attention in view of the discussion of modern spelling reform. The study made it possible to outline the meaning of this dictionary for contemporary users and for current scholars.

The American Library Journal: an instrument in the hands of 'Dui'

The American Library Journal was founded on May 17 1876, when Melvil Dewey met the publisher Frederick Leypoldt in New York; in the same occasion they also organized the first conference of American librarians, during which, at Dewey’s motion, the American Library Association and its Supply department were founded. Moreover, again in 1876, Dewey founded two other Associations, the American Metric Bureau and the Spelling Reform Association, each with its own Bulletin and Supply department. This paper takes into account the nature and evolution of the passions and obsessions that drove the whole life of Melvil Dewey and that led him to undertake a real crusade to reform America, educate the masses in the shortest possible time, optimizing time and costs, as well as to «synchronize» the American libraries by standardizing rules, cards and equipment. In this perspective, The American Library Journal seems to have been the tool chosen by Dewey to spread its reforming ideas of library cooperation among the community of American librarians, but also a showcase to promote resources and materials from the ALA supply department, from those of other Associations and from the companies that Dewey himself will established later.

The Pursuit Of Insular Authenticity: The Spelling Reform of Loanwords in Palauan

The Pursuit Of Insular Authenticity: The Spelling Reform of Loanwords in Palauan

К 100-летию реформы правописания. Судьба русского языка в публикациях журнала «Народоправство»

The work dedicated to the 100th anniversary of the Russian spelling reform deals with the history of the fight for the national cultural values in the epoch of revolutionary destruction. The research focuses on the publications of 1917 in Narodopravstvo weekly that have been staying out of view of the academicians. These are articles “Fate of language” by D. Arkin, “Obligatory illiteracy” by N. Dosekin and “Our language” by B. Zaytsev. These works allow to clarify some specifics of linguistic consciousness of the Russian society, bring additional shades to the picture of cultural and historical process of early 20th c. Realizing the threat of the cultural layer destruction, the authors of the articles oppose the escalation of negative trends in language and suggest the ways to purify Russian speech, bringing back its vitality and strength. The central point of polemics is the spelling reform begun by the Provisional government and then violently enforced by the Bolsheviks. Arguments against new spelling, the most important of them being a gap with centuries-old heritage of the people are considered. The work also includes the review of declarations of writers and creative figures who attempted, following suit to Narodopravstvo, to have the reform cancelled in the first year of the Soviet power. Evaluations of traditional spelling among the Russian émigré and in the modern academic discourse are also presented.

Legal Languages – A Diachronic Perspective

Abstract The aim of the article is to discuss the legal language transformations from a diachronic perspective taking into account the following factors: (i) spatial and temporal, (ii) linguistic norm changes, (iii) political, (iv) social (customs), and (v) globalization as well as (vi) EU-induced. Spatial and temporal factors include legal relations influenced by climate and the cycles of nature. Linguistic factors include spelling reforms and grammatical changes each language undergoes, for example, as a result of usage. As far as the law is concerned, normative changes can be observed when laws are amended. Other factors such as customs, usage, etc. cannot be neglected when discussing the language of the law. Analogously political correctness and usage can be observed in gender sensitive language and the introduction of such terms as chairperson instead of chairman. Social factors should not be overlooked. As a result of social changes, numerous terms have been introduced to legal lexicons in many countries starting with same-sex unions or same-sex-marriages. The so-called political correctness enforces some language changes and leads to the introduction of new terms and at the same time the abandonment of others. Consequently, some terms cease to be used and consequently become archaic. The aim of the article is to focus on diachronic changes in legal languages and present the communication problems resulting from them from intra- and inter-lingual perspectives.

A "Artinha de Leitura" de João Simões Lopes Neto (1907): um projeto para o ensino da leitura e da escrita

The main goal of this article was to analyze the primer composed in 1907 by Joao Simoes Lopes Neto, natural of Pelotas, Brazil, one of the most important regional writers. We understand it as an artifact capable of revealing not only the author’s assumptions about early teaching reading and writing, but also a broader social project he conceived. Therefore, even though it was not published at the time it was produced, Artinha de leitura is a singular and important document that displays Joao Simoes’ ideas on the teaching of reading and writing, as well as his civic and educational project. It also shows his adherence to the Spelling Reform of the Brazilian Academy of Letters, the main reason Artinha de leitura was not approved by the Council on Public Instruction of the State of Rio Grande do Sul.

Spelling reformers and artificial language advocates

AbstractThis article explores the shifting relations that took place from the last decades of the 19th to the first years of the 20th century between two of the most innovative language movements of the time: the spelling reform and the artificial language movements. The article focuses on the United States, the United Kingdom, Germany and France. Although both movements shared a similar language ideology which run counter to the organicist perception of language and emphasized its democratic function, the article shows how the shifting political environment in which they operated affected their relation. The article identifies three stages. In a first stage, and convinced that the reform of the spelling and the promotion of an artificial, neutral language were not mutually exclusive projects, the spelling reformers were favorably inclined towards artificial language projects. In a second stage relations began to skew when some reformers advocated for the “natural Esperanto” solution, which implied the promotion of a small language to the status of the international lingua franca. In the last stage, when nationalist sentiments and international rivalries mounted, the spelling reformers broke ties with the artificial language movement and worked to improve as much as possible the international standing of their own languages.

The Russian Spelling Reform in the Early 20th Century and Its Infl uence on Publishers in Baku in 1915–1917

The Russian Spelling Reform in the Early 20th Century and Its Infl uence on Publishers in Baku in 1915–1917

Steam Writing in the Urli Daiz: William Orr, the Canadian Phonetic Pioneer, and the Cause of Phonographic Reform (pp 57-92)

In the early 1850s, a young and reform-minded phonographer named William Orr , based in Oshawa C.W., devised an ambitious plan to promote phonography and reformed spelling throughout Canada West and the British North American colonies. A promoter of Pitman shorthand, the editor and publisher of the journal the Canadian Phonetic Pioneer (1859-1861), and in all probability the country's first phonotypographer, Orr was considered in his own day to be a "fonetic pioneer" and even today can be considered an innovator in the fields of media and communications. This essay reconstructs the life and work of William Orr and the publishing history of the Canadian Phonetic Pioner, traces his involvement in the politics of the international phonographic community, and looks at related mid-century efforts to promote the "art phonographic" (through platform demonstrations, new associations, and Mechanics' Institute classes). "Spelling reform" is placed here, as it was for its practitioners, in the context of other mid-century social reform movements.

The Means and End(s) of Spelling Reform in the Victorian Press

The Means and End(s) of Spelling Reform in the Victorian Press A. Robin Hoffman (bio) In March of 1847, Thomas De Quincey was granted many column inches in the Edinburgh Magazine to sum up his frustration with the growing tide of critics, teachers, and other parties calling for spelling reform. Laypeople and professionals alike had noted the endless exceptions to rules of pronunciation and spelling and accordingly had suggested changes ranging from minor adjustments in phonetic consistency to complete overhauls of the alphabet. Linguistic scholars also lamented the ways that the evolution of spelling obscured words' etymological histories and relationships. Observing these debates, De Quincey declared that "it is work for a separate dictionary in quarto to record all the proposed revolutions in [English] spelling," adding sarcastically that "even in the last century, and in the present, what a list of eminent rebels against the spelling-book might be called up to answer for their wickedness . . . if anybody would be kind enough to make it a felony!"1 De Quincey's allusion to a "separate dictionary" is an acknowledgement that Samuel Johnson's Dictionary of the English Language had, since its first publication in 1755, been the authoritative reference that provided both friends and foes of spelling reform with a center of gravity for their discussion, along with endless examples for illustrating their points.2 But De Quincey's outrage was most likely prompted by a more recent controversy: the national debates over whether to adopt Isaac Pitman's Stenographic Sound-Hand, which had been published just a decade earlier, as the orthographic standard. Stenographic alphabets and variations had been introduced in an attempt to ease the difficulties of reading, writing, and teaching English. But Pitman's system was ingeniously founded upon a phonetic rendering of speech. As the Practical Teacher recalled, "Very early in his phonography labours Sir Isaac advocated the phonetic principle, 'a sign for a sound,' by which he rightly contended that the absurd anomalies of English orthography could be removed."3 The [End Page 737] commercial success of that system, coupled with a personal commitment to the cause of education, prompted Pitman to go further by advocating more general spelling reform: he pushed for everyone, including printers and teachers, to adopt a consistently phonetic orthography. He was soon joined in this effort by others, especially Alexander J. Ellis, author of A Plea for Phonetic Spelling (1848). This tract was routinely cited in debates about spelling reform for the next several decades.4 De Quincey's screed suggests that by the late 1840s, pressure for reform had gathered enough strength that individuals in the literary community felt compelled to weigh in. After detailing the ways in which illustrious authors ranging from Milton to Pope had been attacked by Pitman, Ellis, and their sympathizers for spelling that was inconsistent, phonetically irrational, or otherwise wayward, De Quincey concludes "that the whole world lies in heresy or schism on the subject of orthography."5 Nevertheless, Queen Victoria declined to condemn spelling reform. In fact, she knighted Isaac Pitman in 1894 in recognition of his tireless efforts to render English orthography more manageable, accessible, and, above all, teachable. The honor accorded to Pitman obscures the complete failure of Victorian-era attempts at spelling reform. The task only grew more imposing as educational reform kept pace throughout the century. At least one Spelling Reform Association was founded in 1869, anticipating the much better-known and better-organized English Spelling Reform Association formed in 1876. A year later, Parliament passed the Elementary Education Act of 1870, the first in a series of laws that provided for government-run schools and prohibited child labor, gradually transforming primary education into the "work" of childhood.6 The challenge of educating every British citizen prompted the school boards and Parliament, as well as individual pedagogues and parents (not to mention students), to seek economy and efficiency wherever possible and to confront the limitations of existing strategies and technologies. The most popular argument for spelling reform, most commonly understood as a shift to phonetic spelling, was that it would save time currently being wasted on teaching spelling, by either abbreviating the period that students spent in national...

And All the Arts of Peace: Phonography, Simplified Speling, and the Spelling Reform Movement, Toronto 1883 to 1886

And All the Arts of Peace:Phonography, Simplified Speling, and the Spelling Reform Movement, Toronto 1883 to 1886 Heather Murray (bio) On entering the large front room, which is on the second flat, we were almost overwhelmed with the witchery of the scene. The brilliant electric light, shining through the glass front, and casting its silvery sheen over the statuary, house-plants, and pottery with which the room was decorated, with the parlor furniture strewed among these decorations, and the gay throng of ladies and gentlemen moving about at ease; it needed no lively imagination to make one feel that he was enjoying a moonlight ramble in some horticultural paradise. Three fine transparencies on the large panes, symbolizing respectively music, literature and shorthand, added to the beauty of the scene. On a pleasant summer evening in 1883, Toronto was treated to a gala conversazione and a celebration of modernity, as Thomas Bengough moved his offices across the street to larger premises at 29 King Street West and launched the Shorthand Atheneum. Electric floodlights blazed in the street (a standard feature of any grand opening today, but a novelty in Toronto then), illuminating the entire city block and shining, symbolically, through the images of the three sister arts on to the gathering within. The crowd was treated first to refreshments—cake and strawberries, since it was June, [End Page 171] as well as temperance drinks—and then to a "feast of reason" opened by John Taylor, a former city alderman who was a leading proponent of the free library movement. Taylor—himself one of the "old-time phonographers" (Bengough's Cosmopolitan Shorthand Writer 3.6 [October 1882]: 61)—praised the "winged art" of shorthand and stressed the increasing importance of its practice but also indulged in a moment of levity, ribbing the proprietor for his inconsistency: "He only wondered that the leader of Phonetics did not spell his name phonetically, so that we might know whether it was Bengo, Bengow, Bengof, Benguf, or Bengup" ("Opening" 6). The phonetically-minded audience greeted the joke with laughter, for the family name could well be one of the examples of spelling irrationality that reformers like Bengough were fond of employing. Richard Lewis, the well-known elocutionist and reading promoter, also was a platform speaker, along with "Professor" Samuel Clare, a teacher of penmanship. They were speaking in their respective roles as the president and the secretary-treasurer of the Canadian Spelling Reform Association, an organization founded only weeks before, which now would meet at Bengough's new premises. Thomas Bengough himself closed the proceedings, mentioning the approaching International Congress of Shorthand Reporters to be held in Toronto in August and expressing hope for the effect that meeting would have "upon our shorthand and phonetic organizations" ("Opening" 7). It appears to have been a most satisfactory evening, at least according to this account, which was drawn from the journal launched almost simultaneously with the Shorthand Atheneum and the Canadian Spelling Reform Association: The Atheneum: An Advocate and Exponent of Educational, Literary, and Social Progress; or, as it was called in its expanded and even more utopian title, The Atheneum: A Nineteenth-Century Journal of Progress; Devoted to Literature, Journalism, Science, Shorthand, TypeWriting, Simplified Speling, Penmanship, Music, and all the Arts of Peace. "Speling," it should be noted, is not an error in the title; rather, it flags a new direction that many spelling reformers were about to take. While the opening of the Shorthand Atheneum may seem to twenty-first century eyes like the launch of a business school, the account makes it apparent that the goals were further-reaching. The elevated title of "atheneum" signals this as well, as does the grouping together of music, literature, and shorthand in an illuminated tableau. In 1883, "shorthand" and "atheneum" did not create an oxymoron; neither did penmanship and peace, spelling and music, sit uneasily together for the progressive viewer, who would have discerned the relationship of these seemingly disparate elements. Indeed, then, to see their relationship was a particularly modern [End Page 172] thing to do; modernity was signaled, too, by the technological élan of the electrically-lit opening and by the "nineteenth-century" of...

Реформа русской орфографии и пунктуации 1960-х годов: неизвестные страницы истории

Реформа русской орфографии и пунктуации 1960-х годов: неизвестные страницы истории

From a Dictionary to the Copyright: Linguistic and Legal Aspects of Noah Webster’s Media Discourse

The article examines the complex process of forming the national sociocultural model in the US in the last two decades of the eighteenth century in the context of the creative activity of one of the leaders of the federalist parties - Noah Webster (1758-1843). Webster\'s contribution to the development of national identity cannot be overestimated, since he was able to realize himself as an editor, essayist, lexicographer and reformer of the English language, as well as a lawmaker, one of the authors of the American concept of copyright. All these components of Webster’s personality are analyzed in general linguocultural aspect and legal contexts typical of the America of the specified period, taking into account the influence of the existing at the time media practices on the minds of his contemporaries. Webster, being inside the system of informational influence (as a publicist and an editor), defined the ‘agenda’, pushing and sharpening issues that he considered important for the creation of a new nation. Two extremely complex tasks (a linguistic reform and protection of intellectual property), which had to be located in different areas of application, turned to be united in the media discourse proposed by Webster and were put into practice in the framework of the available historical, cultural and political situation.Keywords: Copyright Act of 1790, Hermeneutic Microhistory, Media Discourse, Noah Webster, Sociocultural Model of the US, The English Language Spelling Reform

English Spelling Variation and Change in Newspapers in Mainland China, Hong Kong and Taiwan

English spelling has a reputation for being notoriously difficult to learn, whether for native speakers of English or for those who learn it as an additional language. An additional problem for EFL learners is that there are two somewhat different systems to choose between: the British system and the American one. As Bondesen (2004: 4) points out, ‘although the two spelling systems are much more similar than they are different, there is variation between them.’ (For surveys of some of the main differences see Trudgill & Hannah, 1994; Carney, 1997.) The spelling discrepancies between the two varieties are systematic, and originate in large part from American spelling reform as a symbol of ‘linguistic independence’ (Knowles, 1997), and from the work of early American linguists such as Benjamin Franklin and Noah Webster. The aim of this article is to investigate the spelling preferences of English users in a few regions outside Britain and the United States, and to establish whether any clear patterns of regional variation are discernible.

Rhetorics of Literacy: The Cultivation of American Dialect Poetry by Nadia Nurhussein (review)

Reviewed by: Rhetorics of Literacy: The Cultivation of American Dialect Poetry by Nadia Nurhussein April C. Logan Rhetorics of Literacy: The Cultivation of American Dialect Poetry. By Nadia Nurhussein. Columbus: The Ohio State University Press, 2013. 292 pp. $64.95. Did readers of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries read, recite, and hear American dialect poetry the same way we do today? This is the question at the center of Nadia Nurhussein’s impressively-researched Rhetorics of Literacy: The Cultivation of American Dialect Poetry. Nurhussein offers surprisingly novel answers to this question in her formalist study, reconstructing the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries through astute textual analyses of the works of the well- and lesser-known dialect poets Bret Harte, James Whitcomb Riley, Paul Laurence Dunbar, Frances Ellen Watkins Harper, Maggie Pogue Johnson, Langston Hughes, and Claude McKay, along with a range of print culture, including but not limited to editorials, book reviews, newspaper advertisements, personal letters, and drawings. She “[explores] the production and reception of dialect in late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century American poetry, examining the contexts in which dialect poetry was written, read, and performed” (4). Although she offers original perspectives on longstanding debates about the works of Hughes, Harper, Dunbar, and McKay, Nurhussein’s greatest contribution with Rhetorics of Literacy: The Cultivation of American Dialect Poetry is her detailing of dialect poetry’s history in America. Another important insight that Nurhussein develops over the course of six chapters is that dialect poetry is a paradoxical genre in that, as much as people associate it with replicating speech and illiteracy in particular, it is, in reality, a particular poet’s imaginative rendering of the acquisition and possession of the ability to read and write in Standard English. In the Introduction, she explains, “Throughout this book, I use the terms ‘dialect’ and ‘literary dialect’ to describe the limitless ways in which writers evoke so-called nonstandard speech in written English and not speech itself. Written English does not correspond to a particular spoken dialect; thus orthographical alteration wrongly suggests deviation from a correct standard” (6–7). This theory makes it possible for her to reevaluate the bodies of criticism on Dunbar, Riley, and McKay that have focused largely on questions of whether their dialects are realistic representations of their heritages or, at the very least, the personas portrayed in their dialect poetry. Late nineteenth-century America underwent several historic transitions that, according to Nurhussein, shaped the projects of these poets: increases in literacy among African Americans and Euro-Americans, “nostalgia for a primarily oral culture” (9), and the “emergence of the figure of the silent dialect poetry reader” (10). For example, “Strange spellings, in the forms of both dialect writing and orthographies encouraging phonetic spelling reform … [End Page 98] reflected cultural dissatisfaction with the inaccuracy of written English and the desire to have American spelling correspond closely to the way people really spoke,” notes Nurhussein (9). In other words, dialect poets joined advocates of spelling reform, educators, and dictionary publishers, such as Webster, in a national dialogue about the very nature of the English language and how it could be better understood through their bound and performed poetry. Debates about educational opportunities for African Americans, shifting attitudes toward oral culture(s), misconceptions about the relationship between dialects and literacy, and racial prejudice also greatly influenced Harte, Riley, Harper, Pogue, Hughes, and McKay. In Chapter 1, “The Difficulty of Dialect Poetry,” Nurhussein argues that James Whitcomb Riley’s success and artistry embody late nineteenth- and twentieth-century American attitudes towards language, orality, and literacy. In addition, she articulates her criterion for evaluating the level of difficulty involved with reading a particular poem: “Because I argue that the most unintelligible feature of dialect poetry, the feature inhibiting our ability to ‘read it at an optimum speed’ and the feature to which most detractors of dialect poetry objected, is spelling and not, for example, syntax, I use the number of dialect spellings as my measure of readability” (30). The moderate readability of Riley’s poetry and the venues in which it appeared—elocution books rather than school textbooks and “highbrow” magazines such as the Atlantic Monthly—help scholars see that a...

Twelfth-Century Rise of Spelling Reforms: The Ormulum and the First Grammatical Treatise

The twelfth-century renaissance was a new stage in European intellectual life. This paper examines the works of two distinguished medieval phonologists and spelling reformers of the time, namely Orm’s Ormulum and the so-called First Grammatical Treatise, which mark a significant step in medieval grammatical theory and show a number of similarities in the intellectual background, governing principles, and sources of their orthography.

Spanish

In addition to being one of the founding fathers of the modern novel, Mateo Alemán also wrote a stimulating treatise on spelling reform published in 1609 in Colonial Mexico. The Ortografía castellana is widely considered one of the best books on spelling reform written in Early Modern Spain and its territories due to its unparalleled display of elaborate literary artifice. But beyond its great significance for the study of the history of language, orthographies and national identity, and the rise of phoneticism in the 16th century, Alemán’s book has an autobiographical dimension unparalleled among works of its kind. This autobiographical data consists of recollections of his childhood, his time at university, his conversations with school teachers, his work for the Contaduría Real, and many other events that transform his book into a personal diary. The present study examines the role of autobiography and how it determines the structure of the treatise. Our analysis will show that behind the autobiographical allusions hides a self-fashioning project whose main purpose is to create an image for posterity of the artist called Mateo Alemán and provide him with an epic background.