Written Representation Of English Language Essay

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English is the most used language in the World. In fact, there are more people learning it as a second language than there are native speakers.

Nevertheless, English has a number of peculiar features that are not well known, not only to foreign-language students, but even to those who were born in it.

This work focuses on the written representation of the English language, particularly its spelling rules (or lack of them), from the viewpoint of a foreign-language speaker who may be used to specific rules in his or her own language and may be wondering: “What exactly are the rules for English?”

In the English language the concept that the way a word is spelled represents its sound does not apply consistently. As opposed to most other major …show more content…

This is the origin of words, which are sounds that represent some part of human activity. For example, one tribe could have used “oosh” to express “let’s go fishing” while another one far away could have used the sound “annok.” Thus the different dialects and languages of the world evolved.

At the beginning, most languages used imitative sounds (those whose sound resemble the sound of what they are trying to represent). Examples of this are the words “crash,” and “slap.” This way the different human societies developed their words which mainly originated spontaneously and were transmitted through each generation orally.

A big problem inherent to spoken language is that the reproduction of sounds from one person to another tends to vary. For example the above imaginary word “oosh” could eventually shift to “hoosh.” Therefore, we can see the problem that ancient civilizations must have had while trying to control and standardize the use of their languages.

Notwithstanding, rules were developed through time to control not only which sounds should be used, but also how to combine them into words, phrases, and sentences. It is admirable how a few of these ancient languages became more complex and defined than some modern ones, even before the invention of

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