The question of script was paramount in the nineteenth-century debate over Hindi and Urdu, two closely related languages that are characterised by "extreme digraphia". Rather than rehearsing the well-known story of the culturally and politically charged process of differentiation in which the two sister languages became prime markers of…

The current spelling of words in English is so lacking in consistency that the time is ripe for the adoption of an alphabet that embodies some semblance of phonetics. This paper proposes a new alphabet for English that uses the English (Roman) letters as elements so that current type and typewriters can still be used. Furthermore, allowance is…

Responds to an earlier essay that made claims about the origins of written language as the basis for advocating a particular method of teaching reading, clarifying: the origins of the alphabet, the "flimsy" nature of the alphabetic principle, and the implications of both for teaching reading. After examining the origins of written…

Responds to a critique of an earlier article on alphabetic writing that made claims about the origins of written language as the basis for advocating a particular method of teaching reading, suggesting that the critique actually supports the original article's position, and nothing in the critique justifies its conclusion that children need…

Argues that it is important to consider just what the written language requires of learners so that educators may understand reading and writing disabilities and find appropriate methods of remediation. To do so, a theory of written language must be developed that regards the alphabetic systems as just one particular development among several that…

THE NECESSITY OF KEEPING AN EXPERIMENTAL, OPEN-MINDED OUTLOOK TOWARD FURTHER IMPROVEMENT IN THE INITIAL TEACHING ALPHABET (ITA) IS STRESSED. A LIMITED AMOUNT OF RESEARCH HAS LED TO THE CONCLUSION THAT THE TRADITIONAL ORTHOGRAPHY OF ENGLISH IS AN IMPORTANT CAUSE OF DIFFICULTY IN TEACHING AS WELL AS IN LEARNING READING AND WRITING IN…

Analyzes a report by D.D. Steinberg and J. Yamada that investigated which of the different types of scripts used in Japanese writing was the easiest to learn to read. (MKM)

Offers a rebuttal to Tzeng and Singer's criticism of the authors' study of the ease of learning to read the different Japanese scripts. States that the symbols and words were taught in the ordinary situation in which they are learned. (MKM)