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17. ENGLISH SPELLING

Why does English spelling have a reputation for being difflcult? English
was fírst written down when Christian monks came to England in Anglo-
Saxon (1 )______ . They used the 23 letters of Latin to write down the sounds
of Anglo-Saxon (2 )______ as they heard it. However, English has a (3 )_______
range of basic sounds (over 40) than Latin. The alphabet was too small, and
so combinations of letters were needed to (4) ______ the different sounds.
Inevitably, there were inconsistencies in the way that letters were combined.
With the Norman invasion of England, the English language was put (5)
______ risk. English survived, but the spelling of many English words
changed to follow Erench (6) ______ , and many Erench words were (7)
______into the language. The result was more irregularity.
When the printing press was (8) ______ in the fifteenth century, many
early printers of English texts spoke other íírst languages. They (9) ______
little effort to respect English spelling. Although one of the short-term (10)
______of printing was to produce a number of variant spellings, in the long
term it created fíxed spellings. People became used to seeing words spelt in
the same way. Rules were (11) ______ , and dictionaries were put together
which printers and writers could (12) ______ to. However, spoken English
was not fixed and continued to change slowly - just as it still does now.
Letters that were sounded in the Anglo-Saxon period, like the ‘k’ in ‘knife’,
now became (1 3 )______ . Also, the pronunciation of vowels then had little in
(14) ______ with how they sound now, but the way they are spelt hasn’t
changed. No (15) ______ , then, that it is often difficult to see the link
between sound and spelling.

1. A. times B. centuries c. ages D. years
2. A. chat B. communication c.speech D. discussion
3. A. wider B. longer c. thicker D. deeper
4. A. explain B. tell c. períorm D.express
5. A. in B. at c. on D. under
6. A. guides B. plans c. patterns D. types
7. A. announced B. íound c. started D. introduced
8. A. discovered B. made up c. invented D. taken in
9. A. made B. did c. brought D. put
10. A. actions B. effects c. conclusions D. meanings
11. A. handed out B. filled in c. got across D. drawn up
12. A. check B. refer c. look D. see
13. A. dumb B. quiet c. speechless D. silent
14. A. common B. alike c. same D. similar
15. A. idea B. wonder c. problem D. mention

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