We Need English Critics - Diacritics!

While teaching my 6 year old daughter to read, I have noticed something about the English language that I never really noticed before. In fact I have noticed this for the last couple of years, as she has been going through the learning process.

The fact is, English needs accents, squiggles and tildes, (collectively known as diacritics) to tell us exactly how to pronounce certain vowels and consonants. It is only when you are teaching a young child to read, or I suppose if you are learning English as your second language, that you realise there are so many odd pronunciation rules to navigate.

For instance, shouldn't silent "Ks" have some kind of symbol to notify us of the fact? As in knight or knife.

Hmm, methinks there is a case to be made here...

Sounding It Out

It was so long ago now, that I don't remember learning to read; apparently my mother taught me when I was 4 years old.

Anyway I'm not bothered about my primary education, now fogged in the faded times of a distant past. I'm interested in modern teaching techniques; these days, in England, they teach children to read by sounding out the letters.

I have always had a major problem with this; whilst I cannot remember the minutiae of the teaching methods employed on me. I do remember being able to recite my alphabet, fairly early on in life.

I remember Sesame St. talking about letters and numbers that was positively delightful to me. However nowadays, it seems the emphasis is on sounding out letters, rather than calling them by their actual names.

So an alphabet recited by an average 4 year old today sounds like; aa, ber, ker, der, eh, fff, and so on. Let me go on record right now and say I absolutely bloody hate this method of teaching.

I feel like it stiffles them unecessarily, and in fact, before she started school, I taught my daughter the alphabet, and this phonics way of doing it, made her forget it.

Apart from them not knowing the names of letters "C" becomes curly ker and "K" becomes kicking ker, it does not take into account that letters in English generally have at least two different sounds and rather ironically, you cannot sound out the word phonics using phonics!

A Case For Accents

I love languages; I am semi-fluent in Spanish (i.e. most Spaniards that speak with me believe I am 100% fluent, however I'm not), I speak a smattering of German a tiny smidgen of Swedish and am learning Mandarin at the moment.

I love the sounds of different languages; I think my favourite at the moment is Brazilian Portuguese, although I love the sound of Swedish and Mandarin almost as much.

What I love about these European languages, and also written Chinese, when European lettering is used. Is that there are a variety of symbols to let you know how to pronounce the letter or group of letters when you are reading the language.

For example a little squiggle under a "C" might indicate that you pronounce it more like an "S", or an angled line above a vowel says you put the stress on that particular letter. From the umlaut in German to the little round circle in Swedish (no idea what it's called), languages are awash with pronunciation aids; so why not English?

English is perhaps the most complex language to learn when it comes to its rules. But Cryptogee, English is such a flexible language! I hear you cry; yes, and it is the very flexibility built into the language that can make it so complex.

The Ultimate Borrower

I think one of the great things about English, is that it borrows so many words and meanings from other languages. We freely use words like entrepreneur, déjà vu, and schadenfreude, yet we do not borrow the visual aids which help pronunciation.

The problem with the French, is they don't have a word for entrepreneur

-- George W. Bush

This has always baffled me, because our language is so diverse and you cannot sound it out with any kind of regularity, like you can with certain languages, like Spanish for instance.

The amount of times I have to say to my daughter, pronounce that "i" as eye and that one as ih, like in the words time and little.

A simple squiggle or line above or even below an "A", "i" or "E", would sort this problem out immediately. So why don't we import this handy little feature from other languages?

Perhaps it is because often when we borrow a word we change its spelling and so therefore drop the accent. Still though, for people learning the language, whether they be children who are native speakers, or foreigners learning it for the first time, accents would be handy!

Surviving Accents

Naïve - The accent over the i shows that the two vowels are to be pronounced separately, not merged together into one sound.

Noël - The same as naïve

pâté - The accent over the "a" makes it sound like ah, and the one over the "e" makes it sound like a hard "A".

cliché - The next three examples are the same, as in pâté, the accent over the "E" makes them sound like an "A".

pureé

café

résumé - The first accent shortens the "e" sound the second, as before turns it into a hard "A" sound, without them the word becomes resume (to start again).

WHAT DO YOU GUYS THINK? THERE ARE A LOT OF FOREIGN LANGUAGE SPEAKERS ON STEEMIT I'M INTERESTED TO KNOW WHAT YOU FEEL ABOUT LEARNING ENGLISH. WOULD IT MAKE IT EASIER TO LEARN IF IT HAD WRITTEN ACCENTS? WHETHER YOU'RE A NATIVE SPEAKER OR NOT, LET ME KNOW BELOW.

Cryptogee