English orthography

English orthography is the system of writing conventions used to represent spoken English in written form that allows readers to connect spelling to sound to meaning. Like the orthography of most world languages, English orthography has a broad degree of standardisation. However, unlike with most languages, there are multiple ways to spell nearly every phoneme (sound), and most letters also have multiple pronunciations depending on their position in a word and the context. Several orthographic mistakes are common even among native speakers. This is mainly due to the large number of words that have been borrowed from a large number of other languages throughout the history of the English language, without successful attempts at complete spelling reforms. Most of the spelling conventions in Modern English were derived from the phonetic spelling of a variety of Middle English, and generally do not reflect the sound changes that have occurred since the late 15th century (such as the Great Vowel Shift). Despite the various English dialects spoken from country to country and within different regions of the same country, there are only slight regional variations in English orthography, the two most recognised variations being British and American spelling, and its overall uniformity helps facilitate international communication. On the other hand, it also adds to the discrepancy between the way English is written and spoken in any given location. Letters in English orthography usually represent a particular sound (phoneme). For example, the word cat /ˈkæt/ consists of three letters ⟨c⟩, ⟨a⟩, and ⟨t⟩, in which ⟨c⟩ represents the sound /k/, ⟨a⟩ the sound /æ/, and ⟨t⟩ the sound /t/. Sequences of letters may perform this role as well as single letters. Thus, in the word ship (pronounced /ˈʃɪp/), the digraph ⟨sh⟩ (two letters) represents the sound /ʃ/. In the word ditch, the trigraph ⟨tch⟩ represent the sound /tʃ/. Less commonly, a single letter can represent multiple successive sounds. The most common example is the letter ⟨x⟩, which normally represents the consonant cluster /ks/ (for example, in the word six, pronounced /ˈsɪks/). The same letter (or sequence of letters) may be pronounced in different ways when it occurs in different positions within a word. For instance, the digraph ⟨gh⟩ represents the sound /f/ at the end of some words, such as rough /ˈrʌf/, though not in others (though /ˈðoʊ/). At the beginning of syllables (i.e. the syllable onset), the digraph ⟨gh⟩ is pronounced /ɡ/, as in the word ghost (pronounced /ˈɡoʊst/). Conversely, the digraph ⟨gh⟩ is never pronounced /f/ in syllable onsets other than in inflected forms, and is almost never pronounced /ɡ/ in syllable codas (the proper name Pittsburgh is an exception). Some words contain silent letters, which do not represent any sound in modern English pronunciation. Examples include the ⟨b⟩ in doubt, debt, dumb, etc., the ⟨p⟩ in psychology and pneumatic, ⟨gh⟩ as mentioned above in numerous words such as though, daughter, night, brought, and the commonly encountered silent ⟨e⟩ (discussed further below).