PRONUNCIATION AND SPELLING

   The English language has some 40 simple sounds plus 8 diphthongs, consonantal and vocalic. For EXPRESING these sounds in writing, there is an alphabet of only 25 letters. It is therefore necessary for some letters to represent more than one sound. In fact, the letters and letter combinations EXPRESS an average of five sounds apiece.

发音方法与拼写

英语语言有大约40个简单的发音，外加8个双元音，辅音和元音。在书写时为表达这些语音，有一个只有25个字母的字母表。因此，一些字母代表一个以上的发音是很必要的。实际上，那些字母与字母组合，每个可表达平均5个发音。

   If the sounds of English are considered and an attempt is made to count the letters and combinations of letters that may represent certain sounds, the situation is indeed complex. For example, one may give a number of possible sounds with the spelling ai—as in aisle, mail, said, pair, and porcelain. Even more striking is the number of sounds connected with an un-phonetic group of letters ough—in bough, cough, rough, through, dough, and thorough. The numerous spellings of the sound represented by the International Phonetic Alphabet symbol [ ] provide yet another instance; chivalry, ocean, moustache, fuchsia, politician, schwa, conscious, nausea, shell, fashion, mansion, pressure, passion, initiate, position, complexion, anxious. From these examples it is evident that the present alphabet is inadequate to EXPRESS the sounds of Modern English. Old English and Middle English were much more phonetic in representing sounds.

    如果考虑到英语的发音并试图数数字母和那些可能代表某些发音的字母组合，这种情况确实很复杂。例如，一个人可以用拼法ai进行许多可能的发音---比如在aisle（走廊）、mail（邮政）、said（说）、pair（一对）和porcelain（陶瓷）中的情况。更令人惊讶的是与一组不发音的字母ough连接的许多发音---如bough（大树枝）、cough（咳嗽）、rough（粗糙的）、through（穿过）、dough（生面团）和 thorough（彻底的）。由国际音标符号[ ]代表的众多发音拼写还提供了另一种例子；chivalry（骑士精神）、ocean（海洋）、moustache（胡子、fuchsia（紫红色）、politician（政治家）、schwa（中性元音）、conscious（意识到的）、nausea（恶心）、shell（壳）、fashion（时尚）、mansion（大厦）、pressure（压力）、passion（激情）、initiate（发起）、position（位置）、complexion（气色）、anxious（焦虑的）。很明显，从这些例子中可以看到，目前的字母表对表达现代英语的发音并不充分。古英语和中古英语在表现发音方面更注重音标。

   Some changes have been made in the alphabet since the Old English period. During the Middle English period the Old English symbols , , and ð were lost, and the symbols j, z,q, and v were added, owing to French influence. Finally in the 17^th century u and v were separated—u u and v for vowel use and v for consonant use.

    自古英语时期以来，字母表已发生了一些变化。在中古英语时期，由于法语的影响，古英语符号，，和 ð已经消失，而增加了符号j，z，q，和v。最终在17世纪，u 和v分离--- u 用作元音，而v用于辅音。

   Certain changes in spellings of symbols took place in the Middle English period. The symbols and ð came to be spelled th, and the graph became a. Also Old English u, reflecting the French orthographical conventions, came to be spelled ou or ow. As a result, Old English u became Middle English thou, and Old English fder became Middle English fader.

    在中古英语时期，在符号的拼写中发生了某些变化。符号 和ð被拼写成了th，而图形符号变成了a。此外，古英语u反映了法语拼字法的习俗，拼写成ou 或ow。因此，古英语u就变成了现代英语的thou，而古英语fder就变成了中古英语的（音量控制器）fader。

   With the introduction of printing many Middle English spellings became well established as visual representations of words. Thus there gradually emerged a generally accepted system of spelling, which has continued to the present with a few slight modifications. Since a revolution in English pronunciation was taking place at the time the spelling was being standardized, the present orthography does not indicate the phonology very well. Nevertheless, the written word has had a strong unifying effect on the language. Today the principal forms of Modern English (British, American, and commonwealth) are practically the same on the printed page, thereby providing linguistic and cultural unity despite the almost endless variations in spoken English.

伴随着印刷术的引入，作为词汇视觉表征的许多中古英语的拼写已变得非常确定。因此，逐渐出现了一种普遍接受的拼写系统，它只做了一些轻微的修改，一直持续到现在。在拼写进行标准化的时候，由于英语发音的一场革命，目前的拼字法并没有很好地显示音韵学。尽管如此，书写文字对语言已产生了强大的统一作用。今天，现代英语的主要形式（英国的，美国的，以及英联邦的英语）在印刷方面来说几乎是一样的，从而提供了语言和文化的统一，尽管在英语口语中有几乎无穷无尽的变化。

It is therefore not likely that a significant change will occur in the present written English alphabet for the sake of making it phonemic. If a phonemic alphabet were adopted, all literary masterpieces and other writings would have to be translated into the new system, or readers would have to learn the old spellings as well as the new. Then would come the problem of what pronunciation system to use. In addition, the present spelling often indicates the etymology of the word. Thus the quandary of English spelling remains unsolved. There seems to be a tendency toward greater tolerance of misspellings than formerly, but the standardizing effect of the printed page seems certain to prevent absolute individuality in orthography.

因此，在目前的书面英语字母表中为使它音位化不太可能出现显著的变化。如果要采用一种音位字母表，那么所有的文学杰作和其它的作品都必须要转入这种新系统，或读者都必须学习老拼法和新拼法。那么就会出现使用什么发音系统的问题。另外，目前的拼法通常表明这个词的词源。因此，英语拼法的困惑问题依然未能解决。现在相比以前对拼写错误的容忍度似乎有了较大的趋势，但印刷页面的标准影响似乎一定会阻止拼字法的绝对个性。

THE FUTURE OF ENGLISH

   If World Wars I and II and the vigorous participation of English-speaking nations in international commerce carried English to every inhabited quarter of the globe—as they did—the nature of the language itself helped make it virtually a second tongue to millions of users of other languages. Among features of English favoring its widespread use are its sentence structure, based on a simple word order instead of complicated inflections, and its “natural” gender, instead of the “grammatical” gender system of some other leading languages.

英语的未来

    如果一次和二次大战以及在国际商务中说英语国家的积极参与，把英语带到了全球每个有人居住的地方---就像它们做的那样---语言本身的性质帮助使其实际上成为了数以百万计的其它语言使用者的第二语言。英语使其广泛使用的特点之一是它的句子结构，基于一种简单的词序而不是复杂的词形变化，及其“自然的”性别，而不是一些其它主要语言的“语法”性别系统。

   English is almost ever-whelming in the richness of its vocabulary, estimated to contain more than a million words and to be the world’s largest. From this vast storehouse, users of the language can coin words to suit their needs or give new meanings to existing words in ways that seem natural and effortless. Many other features lend force and flexibility to the language. Among them is the fact that an action verb can be linked with a variety of prepositions to convey both literal and figurative meanings, as in combining put with across, away, down, on, over, and through. Another is the ease with which a word can be made to function as more than one part of speech. For example, many nouns may be used as verbs in popular speech, and vice versa, as table, chair, seat, curtain, and shop. No other Indo-European language can approach English in this freedom of conversion.

英语以其丰富的词汇几乎总是令人印象深刻，估计收纳了一百多万个词汇，并成为了世界最大的词汇系统。从这种巨大的宝库中，语言的使用者可以创造词汇来满足他们的需求，或以似乎自然、轻松的方式为存在的词汇赋予新的含义。许多其它的特点为该语言赋予了力量和灵活性。其中一个事实是，一个动作动词可以连接各种介词来传递字面和比喻的含义，就像将put 与across(圆满完成)，away（放好），down（放下），on（穿上），over（推迟）和 through（接通）组合起来那样。另一个是它拥有的轻松，一个词可以赋予一个词性以上的功能。例如，许多名词在通俗的口语中可以用作动词，反过来也一样，如桌子、椅子、座位、窗帘和商店。没有其它的印欧语言能够在这种自由的转换中接近英语这种程度。

   Examples of the flexibility of English are not nullified by its un-phonetic and often irrational spelling. And even here a defense of sorts can be made. Users of other languages sometimes get a clue to the meaning of a word written in English because in that form it is similar to a word in their own languages, even though the English pronunciation may fall strangely on their ears.

    英语灵活性的例子并没有因其非表音的和常常不合逻辑的拼写而消失。甚至在此它可以为自身进行辩解。其它语言的使用者有时会理解一个英语书写单词的含义，因为在形式上它与自己语言中的词很相似，即使他们听上去英语的发音可能很奇怪。

   Whatever the future may hold for English, it has proved to be eminently suitable for almost all forms of written EXPRESSION as well as for everyday use. It is sure to develop and change, for such is the nature of a living language. Probably it will become increasingly informal and utilitarian, under the impact of mass education and the mass media. Thus the written and the spoken forms of the language will be drawn closer together, making for greater flexibility. In the view of some, English might in time become the one generally accepted international language, although national political rivalries and the reluctance of speakers of other major tongues to yield primacy to English are formidable barriers.

无论英语的未来如何发展，实践已证明，它非常适合几乎所有的书写以及日常使用的形式。英语肯定会发展和变化，因为这种语言是一种鲜活语言的本质。在大众教育和大众传媒的影响下，它可能会变得越来越非正式和实用。因此，这种语言的书写和口语形式会更加相似，变得更为灵活。在一些人看来，尽管国家的政治竞争以及说其它主要语言的人们并不情愿让位于英语是巨大的障碍，但英语迟早会成为一种普遍接受的国际语言。

                                          MARGARET M.BRYANT

                                Author of “Modern English and Its Heritage”

                                         玛格丽特·M. 布赖恩特

                                      “现代英语及其遗产”的作者

                                            2022年9月14日译

（译者注：该部分词条位列《大美百科全书》1985年版，第10卷，第425页至426页）