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Language reform, both official and gradual, has occurred in many modern languages to make them easier to learn and more expressive. Major languages have undergone official linguistic reform, often for streamlined and simplified orthography. The history and principles of English language reform are explained in a book that also includes a style guide and dictionary. Language reform suggestions have had varying degrees of success.
Every modern language has undergone both hybridization and reform to become the agreed-upon medium of communication for a particular group of people. When language reform occurs, it is often the result of a ruling power seeking to make a language easier to learn and more expressive of life. Language is also being reformed, more gradually and largely unnoticed, by dictionary publishers and many other media, aiming to set the standard of communication in the modern era.
In the last century alone, most major languages have undergone official linguistic reform, often through crusades for streamlined and simplified orthography. In China, the Mandarin dialect has been chosen as the official language to be taught in all schools across the nation. In countries like Greece, Germany, Somalia, Japan, and Turkey, the invariable motivation behind every effort was to make language simpler and broader, in terms of how many people used it. The United States took the helm of English reforms in 1906, when President Theodore Roosevelt headed a simplified spelling board, which eventually resulted in a simplified spelling manual in 1920.
The book devotes two-thirds of its efforts to explaining the history and principles of English language reform. The last third is a style guide and dictionary. Coming to every school, library and dictionary publisher, this in turn has led to several revisions of the official standards for the English language.
The forerunner of this official political act, however, was an academic one. It was the professorial American Philological Association that actually made several recommendations in 1875, eventually leading to a Spelling Reform Association. However, many of the group’s main recommendations were criticized by the official federal effort only three decades later. Although “catalog” made the cut, the following words were obviously rejected: ar,definit,gard,giv,hav,infinit,liv,tho,thru,and wisht.
Britain’s politicians and academics have also been involved in language reform efforts throughout modern history. In 1908, just two years after the American Handbook was formulated, the Simplified Spelling Society was born. Prominent editors, publishers, professors and writers such as HG Wells have made suggestions that have brought more official style guides and English dictionaries further into agreement on a range of topics.
Sometimes language reform suggestions are successful, other times they fail. The National Education Association succeeded in 1916 when it recommended adding a “t” to the end of several past tense words ending in “-ed”. According to the Handbook of Simplified Spelling, this language reform resulted in the change of approximately 900 English words. Many of the other recommendations, however, have yet to gain acceptance as of 2011, illustrated by recommendations for styles that allowed for words like “steppd,” “linotipe,” and “hoodwinkt.”
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