Today is the finals for the Scripps National Spelling Bee, where kids from all over the country wow us with their ability to spell all kinds of words you’ve never heard of before. For example: last year’s winning words? “Feldenkrais” and “gesellschaft.” Since we didn’t know what they were either, here’s their definition and etymology below:
Feldenkrais (definition: used for a system of aided body movements intended to increase body awareness and ease tension.) - This word actually comes from the name of the system’s inventor, Moshé Feldenkrais, an Israeli engineer.
gesellschaft (definition: a rationally developed mechanistic type of social relationship characterized by impersonally contracted associations between persons.) - This word comes from the German fairly directly, which is not uncommon in English: think of the words schadenfreude, doppelgänger, angst, blitzkrieg.
It would make sense that German words used in English or words named after people would be tricky to spell, but what about plain old English? Why is it so hard to spell? Think of the words though, tough, ought, and cough. Why are the vowel sounds different? And why is the “gh” pronounced differently in each?
This article from Mental Floss helps explain why English orthography (or spelling) is so tricky: it’s primarily down to pronunciation shifts that were happening already as English emerged as a language, as well as a trend for inventing new spellings based on Latin and Greek. Additionally, as you’ve seen above, we borrow so many words from other languages and simply retain their native spelling. Other languages don’t do this in quite the same way: when Russian or Japanese borrow words from English or other languages, the orthography changes to match the target language rules. Thus, “taxi” in Japanese, which requires consonants be separated by vowels for each syllable and wouldn’t permit the “ks” sound, becomes “タクシー (takushi).”
So how well can you spell? You can test your own spelling abilities on the Scripps Spelling Bee website.
Learn more English, or start learning one of the many languages that have influenced English here.