Dominick IngleseDr. MeehanEng 316March 8, 2002

The Origins and Development of the English Language

Chapter Three: “Letters and Sounds: A Brief History of Writing”

I.) Letters: A.) Ideographic writing: A symbol that represents a word

B.) Phonogram: A symbol based on sound of a word rather than meaning

C.) Alphabetic writing: Symbols have lost resemblance to object named and now represent a letter in conjunction with other existing letters.

D.) The Greeks borrowed symbols from Semitics and Romans borrowed letters from Greeks. i.e. Semitic yod becomes Greek iota and Roman i.

This one letter is very interesting since it is used as a vowel in Roman and expanded to create the letter j .

E.) Diacritical markings: markings used in various languages to symbolize sounds not used in the Roman alphabet umlaut is superimposed pair of dots; accents: acute, grave, and circumflex; the wedge; the tilde in Spanish; and cedilla in French

F.) Digraphs and trigraphs are two or more sequential Roman letters used to create a sound that only one letter lacks.

G.) Ligature: two vowels combined like oe or ae rarely used on English

H.) Runes: ancient markings used by Germans.

I.) Insular Hand: style of writing in Old English; Irish modification of Roman alphabet.

II.) Spelling:

English has a limited way a speech: Consonants A.) The Stops: [b], [p], [d], [t], [g], [k], bib, pup dud, toot, gag, kit B.) The Frictives:[v], [f], [o with running man on top= th],[o with line in middle= th], [z], [s]: valve, fife, then, ether, zoos, acid. C.) The Affricitaves: [j with wedge] gem D.) The Nasals: [m] mum E.) The Liquids: [l], lapel

F.) The Semivowels; [w], which, [y], yet Vowels;

A.) Front vowels: [ i ] evil, [I] EnglishB.) The Central Vowels: upside down [e] butC.) The Dipthongs: [ai] ride [au] how, upside down {ci} boyD.) Vowels before [r]: [I] mere, [ai] fireE.) Unstressed Vowels: [I] body

How to spell:A.) Pronunciation Spelling : Spelling of a word changes to conform to

pronunciation. B.) People spell words the way they hear them It is awkward that people can understand a word or someone’s name if it is spelled out for them.C.) Eye Dialect : used in novels to denote a character’s speech pattern. i.e. Zora Neale Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God.

D.) Writing preserves language, speech uses language.