Spelling pronunciation

A spelling pronunciation is the pronunciation of a word according to its spelling, at odds with a standard or traditional pronunciation. Words spelled with silent letters (e.g. island, knife), or traditionally pronounced with reduced vowels or omitted consonants (e.g. cupboard, Worcester), may be subject to a spelling pronunciation.

If a word's spelling was standardized prior to sound changes that produced its "traditional" pronunciation, a spelling pronunciation may reflect an even older pronunciation. This is often the case with compound words (e.g. waistcoat, cupboard, forehead). It is also the case for many words with silent letters (e.g. often), though not all—silent letters are sometimes added for etymological reasons, to reflect a word's spelling in its language of origin (e.g. victual, rhyming with little but derived from Late Latin victualia). Some silent letters were added on the basis of erroneous etymologies, as in the cases of the words island and scythe.

Spelling pronunciations are generally considered incorrect next to the traditionally accepted, and usually more widespread, pronunciation. If a spelling pronunciation persists and becomes more common, it may eventually join the existing form as equally acceptable (for example waistcoat and often), or even become the dominant pronunciation (as with forehead and falcon). If a rare word is more often encountered in writing than in speech, the spelling pronunciation may be assumed by most, while the traditional pronunciation is maintained only by older or educated individuals.

Large numbers of easily noticeable spelling pronunciations only occur in languages such as English where spelling tends not to indicate the current pronunciation. Spelling pronunciations can arise in any language when the majority of the populace only obtain enough education to learn how to read and write, but not enough to understand when spelling is not indicating modern pronunciation; in other words, many people do not clearly understand the relationship between spelling and pronunciation.

On the other hand, spelling pronunciations are also evidence of the reciprocal effects of spoken and written speech on each other. Indeed, there is quite a bit of truth in this in the sense that many spellings represent older forms and corresponding older pronunciations. Some spellings, however, are not etymologically correct.

Though many people may believe (to various degrees of accuracy) that the written language is "more correct", this (in turn) can become a self-fulfilling prophecy, with the written language affecting and changing the spoken language if a spelling does not represent an older pronunciation.

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