Spelling Pronunciations in Children and Foreigners
Children who read a great deal often produce spelling pronunciations, since they have no way of knowing, other than the spelling, how the rare words they encounter are correctly pronounced. Well-read second language learners are likewise vulnerable to producing spelling pronunciations.
However, since there are many words which one reads far more often than one hears, the problem also affects adult native-language speakers. This, in turn, leads to the language evolution mentioned above. What is a spelling pronunciation in one generation often becomes standard in the next.
Read more about this topic: Spelling Pronunciation
Famous quotes containing the words spelling, children and/or foreigners:
“My spelling is Wobbly. It’s good spelling but it Wobbles, and the letters get in the wrong places.”
—A.A. (Alan Alexander)
“The risk for a woman who considers her helpless children her “job” is that the children’s growth toward self-sufficiency may be experienced as a refutation of the mother’s indispensability, and she may unconsciously sabotage their growth as a result.”
—Letty Cottin Pogrebin (20th century)
“Have you never heard of German Becoming, of German Wandering, of the endless migratings of the German soul? Even foreigners know our word ‘Wanderlust.’ If you like, the German is the eternal student, the eternal searcher, among the peoples of the earth.”
—Thomas Mann (1875–1955)