The Marchant Spelling (1934, The Netherlands)
Teachers and linguists continued to object to certain features of the spelling. It was thought that too great an emphasis was being given to etymology. Why lezen (single vowel word meaning read) but heeten (double vowel word meaning called)? There were etymological reasons for this, but it was hard to teach as it did not reflect pronunciation. R.A. Kollewijn produced an article in 1891 Onze lastige spelling. Een voorstel tot vereenvoudiging (Our awkward spelling: a proposal for simplification). He emphasized the need for spelling to relate to pronunciation, therefore mensch (person/human) and Nederlandsch ought to become mens and Nederlands, Russisch (Russian) he thought should be spelt Russies and moeilijk (difficult) moeilik. Heeten would be written heten, but lezen would stay the same.
In 1916, a Dutch commission looked into the possibility of a compromise between De Vries and Te Winkel and the Kollewijn spelling. This gradually led to adaptations: on 1 September 1934, the minister for Education, Marchant, accepted most of Kollewijn’s proposals. The Netherlands and Belgium were starting to diverge once again.
The Marchant spelling included:
- abolition of declension for cases (e.g. den heer for accusative form of “de heer” (the gentleman))
- oo and ee at the end of open syllables (zoo (so), heeten (to be called)) changed to zo and heten, but ee at the end of a word remained (zee (sea)).
- unpronounced 'ch' in words like mensch (person/human) and visch (fish) disappeared.
The endings '-isch' (as in logisch (logical)) and '-lijk' (mogelijk (possible)) remained unchanged. Kollewijns proposals '-ies' and '-lik' remain popular in some circles as a "progressive" spelling to the present day.
Read more about this topic: History Of Dutch Orthography
Famous quotes containing the words marchant and/or spelling:
“A marchant was therwith a forked berd,
In mottelee, and hye on horse he sat,
Upon his heed a Flaundryssh bevere hat,
His bootes clasped faire and fetisly.
His resons he spak ful solempnely,”
—Geoffrey Chaucer (1340?–1400)
“We drove the Indians out of the land,
But a dire revenge those Redmen planned,
For they fastened a name to every nook,
And every boy with a spelling book
Will have to toil till his hair turns gray
Before he can spell them the proper way.”
—Eva March Tappan (1854–1930)