Specimens of English literature from the 'Ploughmans crede' to the ...

INTRODUCTION,XVU§7. Spelling. It is a common error to look upon thespelling of Old English as utterly lawless, and unworthy ofnotice. Because it is not uniform, the conclusion is at oncerushed to that it cannot be of much service. No mistakecould well be worse. It is frequently far better than ourmodern spelling, and helps to shew how badly we spell now,in spite of the uniformity introduced by printers for thesakeof convenience.Old English spelling was conducted on anintelligible principle, whereas our modern spelling exhibitsno principle at all, but merely illustrates the inconvenienceof separating sounds from symbols. The intelligible principleof Old English spelling is, that it was intended to bepho7ietic. Bound by no particular laws, each scribe did thebest he could to represent the sounds which he heard, andthe notion of putting in letters that were not sounded was(except in the case of final e) almost unknown. The veryvariations are of value, because they help to render moreclear in each case what the sound was which the scribeswere attempting to represent. But to bear in mind that thespelling was phonetic is to hold the clue to it. Scribes differedin their modes of spelling for several reasons.Most ofthem were guided by the pronunciation of the dialect oftheir place of residence, and dialects were then numerous.Some were more ignorant than others, whence the exceptionalbadness of the spelling of the piece called ' ChevyChase.'Many were influenced by what they had previouslythemselves read, so that changes of spelling took place moreslowly than changes in pronunciation, and were often a littlebehind it ; the most marked instance of this being in thecase of e final, which was retained in spelling after it hadb