Language and literacy

Certainly it is possible for people to live happily without being able to read. However, in our modern technological society, lack of literacy cuts the ignorant off from so many opportunities and consolations that they should be able to access as a right. To become able to read raises IQ, increasing chances in life (PDF 425KB).

B.O.O.K.s are Bodies of Organised Knowledge in a way that the Internet cannot be - they complement each other, and both really require knowledge of print, rather than restriction to the aids of audio and graphics.

Do we care that millions of English speakers in the world cannot read, when English is - for the time - the lingua franca? Literacy for centuries has been reserved for an elite. Today it is still reserved for those who are advantaged enough to be able to cope with the “discipline” (read “unpredictabilities”) of English spelling. There is now enough research showing how English-language children are held back several years in learning to read compared with children where spelling is not a problem. Now there needs to be research in what would help them - and us - with human engineering to improve the task, while still keeping our heritage of print accessible. There is nothing sacred about spelling today. It is only an instrument, which should be maximally efficient for reading and writing the language.

Current debate is raging in UK about allowing undergraduates to spell badly since so many seem unable to do otherwise. But this would add to the present chaos of unpredictable spelling. It would be better to start to make English spelling keep to its own rules. The first start, for example, could be dropping surplus letters, that are useless to show meaning or pronunciation and often only mislead.

Experiments which can be replicated show how omitting surplus letters can help child and adult learners, English language learners and readers. Current trends are to streamline English spelling, from dictionaries that have been admitting alternative spellings like demon, duet, economy error, ether, exotic, horror, medieval, music, program, develop, music, salad, satin and toxin, which increasingly replace the former daemon, omelette, oeconomy, errour, aether, exotick, horrour, mediaeval, musick, develop,  programme, and sallad to popular use of the shortest possible spellings in text messaging. Unpredictable English spelling has been used for two centuries as a social screener to prevent social mobility; but now society needs to make reading more accessible to the less advantaged world-wide. It would be good to have an International English Spelling Commission by the time of International Literacy Day 2009.

Some readers may dispute this last recommendation but they of course can read. I hope that they can still take seriously the recommendations to remove the other barriers to literacy which add up to stack the odds so heavily against the less advantaged.

The message of International Literacy Day is that everyone should have the right to free access to literacy, at any time, in any way that may help them, regardless of distance or disadvantages or ability to pay.