A Brief Hi·sto·ry· of Wri·ting·
1. The De·ve·lop·ment· of Wri·ting· is Re·cent·:
Hu·man· be·ings· have used speech to co·mmu·ni·cate· with each o·ther· for hun·dreds· of thou·sands· of years. Wri·tten· co·mmu·ni·ca·tion· was de·ve·loped· on·ly· a few thou·sand· years a·go·.
2. The Use of I·cons· to Write Down I·de·as·:
The first a·ttempts· at wri·ting· down speech in·volved· the use of sim·pli·stic· pic·tures· called i·cons· si·mi·lar· to those that are used on signs and in com·pu·ter· pro·grams·. I·cons· were fine for co·mmu·ni·ca·ting· ve·ry· sim·ple· i·de·as·, but poor at co·mmu·ni·ca·ting· com·plex· i·de·as·.
3. The Use of Al·pha·bets· to Write Down Sounds:
The use of le·tters· to re·pre·sent· sounds (in·stead· of i·cons· to re·pre·sent· i·de·as·), made it ea·si·er· to write down what peo·ple· say. Some lan·gua·ges· such as In·do·ne·sian·, use a straight·for·ward· pho·ne·tic· code where each le·tter· in the al·pha·bet· re·pre·sents· just one sound. Be·cause· of hi·sto·ri·cal· fac·tors·, the code for wri·tten· En·glish· is more com·pli·ca·ted·.
4. Back·ground· to the de·ve·lop·ment· of the rules of En·glish·:
E·ssen·tia·lly·, the En·glish· lan·guage· is a con·glo·me·ra·tion· of its five pa·rent· lan·gua·ges· — Greek, La·tin·, Ger·man·, Norse and French. En·glish· in its cu·rrent· form is a re·la·ti·vely· new lan·guage· — Mo·dern· En·glish· has been in use for a·bout· 400 — 500 years. Re·gu·la·rised· spe·lling· be·came· the norm e·ven· more re·cent·ly· than that. The con·fu·sing· thing a·bout· the spe·lling· rules that were a·dop·ted· is that they re·flect· two things:
5. The En·glish· lan·guage· has a com·plex· code be·cause·:
- Groups
of
le·tters·
are
o·ften·
nee·ded·
to
re·pre·sent·
sin·gle·
sounds
be·cause·
on·ly·
26 le·tters·
are
used
to
re·pre·sent·
the
44 speech
sounds
of
En·glish·.
(E.g. The /oi/ sound as in the word ‘boy’ is spelt with the pair of le·tters· ‘oy’. - There
is
more
than
one
way
to
write
down
ma·ny·
‘c’ of
the
44 sounds.
(E.g. The /k / sound can be spelt u·sing· a as in ‘cat’, or by u·sing· a ‘k ’ as in ‘kite’). - Some
le·tters·
can
be
used
to
re·pre·sent·
a
va·ri·e·ty·
of
sounds.
(E.g. The le·tter· ‘c’ re·pre·sents· the /k / sound in ‘cat’ and the /s / sound in ‘ci·ty·’.)
A·part· from the com·plex· code, there are three o·ther· di·ffi·cul·ties· a·sso·ci·a·ted· with de·co·ding· stan·dard· En·glish· text — sy·lla·bles·, stress pa·tterns· and si·lent· le·tters·.