English orthography

English orthography is the set of rules used when writing the English language. These rules help people connect the letters they see on a page to the sounds they hear when speaking. English orthography covers many things, such as how to spell words, when to use hyphens, how to use capital letters, where to break words, how to show emphasis, and how to use punctuation.

Like most other world languages, English has a standard way of writing. This standard started to grow when printing with movable type came to England in the late 1500s. But English spelling is tricky because many words can be spelled in more than one way, and most letters can sound different depending on where they appear in a word.

This complexity comes from the many words borrowed from other languages over history of English. There have been no full attempts to change spelling to match sounds exactly. Sometimes, early printers used spelling patterns from other languages by mistake, and these stuck. For example, the word ghost used to be spelled gost in Middle English, but a Flemish pattern was used by accident and accepted.

Even though English is spoken in many different ways around the world, there are only small differences in how it is written. The two most well-known types are British and American spelling. This uniformity in writing helps people communicate across countries, even though the way English sounds can vary a lot from place to place.

Function of letters

Letters in English spelling usually show a specific sound in a word. For example, the word at has two letters, ⟨a⟩ and ⟨t⟩, which stand for the sounds /æ/ and /t/.

Sometimes groups of letters work together to show one sound. In thrash, the two letters ⟨th⟩ make the sound /θ/, and ⟨sh⟩ makes /ʃ/. In hatch, the three letters ⟨tch⟩ make the sound /tʃ/.

A single letter can sometimes show more than one sound. The letter ⟨x⟩ often stands for the sounds /ks/, like in the word tax.

The same group of letters can sound different depending on where they appear in a word. For example, ⟨gh⟩ makes the /f/ sound at the end of some words, like tough, but it sounds different at the start, like in ghost. Some words have quiet letters that do not make a sound, such as the ⟨l⟩ in talk or the ⟨e⟩ at the end of mate.

Word origin

Some spelling patterns show where a word came from. For example, the letter ⟨y⟩ makes the /ɪ/ sound in words from Greek, like myth, while other words use ⟨i⟩ for that sound, like pith. Words from Greek often use ⟨ph⟩ for the /f/ sound, like in telephone, instead of ⟨f⟩.

Homophone differentiation

Spelling can help tell apart words that sound the same but have different meanings, like heir and air. Even though they sound the same, they are spelled differently to show their different meanings.

Marking sound changes in other letters

Some letters change how other letters sound in a word. For example, a quiet ⟨e⟩ at the end of a word can make the vowel before it say its longer sound, like in mate compared to mat.

Multiple functionality

Sometimes a letter can show a sound and also change how another letter sounds. For example, in statue, the ⟨u⟩ shows the /u/ sound and also makes the ⟨t⟩ say /tʃ/ instead of /t/.

Underlying representation

English spelling often shows the basic form of a word, even if the word sounds different in different places. For example, the ending -⟨ed⟩ is always spelled the same, even though it can sound like /t/, /d/, or /ᵻd/ in words like payed and hated. This helps show how words are related, even if it makes spelling more tricky.

Diacritics

Main article: English terms with diacritical marks

Some English words use special marks called diacritics, mostly from words borrowed from other languages, like French. Over time, many of these marks are often dropped, even in formal writing. For example, words like rôle and hôtel once had accents but now usually don’t. Words like café and pâté keep their accents because they help show how the words are pronounced.

Other words sometimes keep these marks, such as ångström, appliqué, attaché, and jalapeño. In some cases, like in poetry, these marks can show how a word should be said for special effects.

Ligatures

See also: American and British English spelling differences § ae and oe

In older books, especially from British writing, special letters called ligatures like ⟨æ⟩ and ⟨œ⟩ were often used in words such as archæology, diarrhœa, and encyclopædia. These words came from Latin or Greek. Today, most people use two letters together, like ⟨ae⟩ and ⟨oe⟩ (as in encyclopaedia, diarrhoea) in British English, or just ⟨e⟩ (as in encyclopedia, diarrhea) in American English. Some words use only ⟨e⟩, like economy or ecology, while others still use ⟨ae⟩ and ⟨oe⟩, such as paean, amoeba, oedipal, or Caesar. The way people spell these can differ, even within the UK, where both encyclopedia and encyclopaedia are used.

Phonic irregularities

See also: English spelling reform

English spelling can be tricky because it doesn’t have an official group in charge of the rules, like some other languages do. This makes English harder to read than many other languages. For example, some letters and letter groups in English can make many different sounds, which can be confusing. This is especially true when trying to guess how an unfamiliar word is pronounced just by looking at its spelling.

Spelling irregularities

Attempts to change English spelling to make it more consistent have mostly failed. However, Noah Webster helped make spelling more like how words sound in the United States. For example, flavor instead of flavour and defense instead of defence.

English spelling can be tricky because there are more sounds than letters. Some letters can make many different sounds, and some sounds can be spelled in many ways. For example, the letters "ou" can sound different in words like out, soul, and soup. Even the same group of letters, like "ough," can have many meanings — in though, tough, and through, for instance.

Sometimes English keeps the original spelling of words from other languages, even if it seems strange to us. This can change how we say the words over time. Spelling also changes because of advertising and everyday use, like using lite instead of light.

Spelling-to-sound correspondences

See also:

English spelling has special rules that help us know how words sound. Sometimes, a hyphen after a letter shows it must be at the start of a syllable, like in "jumper". A hyphen before a letter shows it cannot start a word, like in "sick".

There are different sounds for vowels. For example, the letter "a" can sound like in "hat" or "hate". Adding a silent “e” at the end of a word often changes the vowel sound, like turning “hat” into “hate”. Other times, two vowels together change the sound, like in “main” compared to “man”.

These rules help us read and write English correctly, even though there are many exceptions. Knowing which syllables are stressed and how vowels combine also matters for pronunciation.

Sound-to-spelling correspondences

The table below shows different ways to write each sound in English. It starts with the most common ways and then lists others in alphabetical order. Some ways to write sounds are very rare or only used in special cases.

Nasal vowels used by some speakers in words from French, like enceinte, are not included here.

History

English spelling has changed a lot over time, especially from the late medieval and early modern periods. As pronunciation shifted, spelling often stayed the same, leading to the mix of rules and exceptions we see today. Big changes like the Great Vowel Shift made many words sound different from how they were spelled.

Early English used a more regular spelling system, but after the Norman Conquest in 1066, French influence changed things. Many words came from French, keeping their original spellings even when they didn’t match English sounds. Spelling became less consistent, with the same word sometimes spelled differently by the same writer. Over time, especially after the printing press was introduced in 1476, spellings began to standardize, though they still hold many old patterns and quiet letters. By the 1800s, most English words had settled into their current forms, with small differences between British and American spelling.