Upon speaking with someone with a British accent it dawned on me that despite the difference in how he pronounced a word, I could still understand him. There is a difference in the way we say the words <process> and <leisure>. It really got me thinking about the myth that spelling is about “sounding it out.” If this were true, we would have to change a spelling for every dialect or accent of English.

Here are the different pronunciations of <process>: /ˈpɹɑˌsɛs/  /ˈpɹoʊˌsɛs/. I pronounce it the first way, like many Americans, while British and Canadians might pronounce it the second way. Sometimes it’s helpful to look at how we think we could spell something and that shows us why it needs to be spelled the way it is. So, why don’t we spell it as *<prases> or *<pracess>?  For *<proses> the word sum would be <prose+es> /pɹoʊzəz/. In essence, both <s>’s would be pronounces /s/. For the other * <pracess> it’s hard to say how to represent this nonsense word as a word sum: * <pra+cess>? The incoherence is that *<pra> is not a valid prefix. In order to be a valid prefix, the prefix must show up in another word as that element. It does not. The SPELLING needs to be the prefix <pro-> with the base <cess>. What does <cess> represent in meaning? It has to do with going forward. A process moves something forth.

The other word that had me really thinking about how a pronunciation shift does not change a spelling is <leisure>. I pronounce it /ˈliːʒɚ / while my friend says /ˈlɛʒɚ/. We certainly understand one another, but the difference in how we pronounce the vowel is quite distinct. Would we attempt to spell it *<lezur>, *<leezur>, or *<leazur>? The only one of the graphemes that could support both /iː/ and /ɛ/ pronunciation is the <ea> grapheme. So why isn’t that grapheme used? The history. The etymology shows that this word came from Old French leisir. In fact several words with an <ei> grapheme come through French, such as <seize>, <rein>, <deceit>, although not every <ei> has such a history.

Another concept is that of allophones. Accents and dialectical differences in pronunciation while still understanding one another is an example of allophones. So the /iː/ and /ɛ/ are allophonic in <leisure> for American and British speakers. In <process> the /ɑ/ and /oʊ/ are allophones. The concept of allophones is important because it gives the groundwork for when there is a zero allophone, to be discussed in a future article (or two, or three). The takeaway is that just because something is pronounced differently, it doesn’t mean that the spelling changes when the meaning is the same.

I hope this discussion of dialectic variances and allophones helps with the understanding that spelling is not “sound written down.” Spelling is a connection for morpheme structures that are affixed to each other. The morpheme spelling (graphemes) is influence by its history or etymology. Spelling is complex but orderly. If we learn the code of how the writing system works, then we can understand spelling. If we are at the mercy of phonology alone, we and our students will be lost. The importance of exposing students at all ages to all aspects of our language is an important key to their understanding.