I read a comment recently about English not being a normal language. This is not surprising given that the English language has more exceptions than the rule. These exceptions can be seen in all the aspects of the language; spellings, plural formations, verbal constructions and pronominal forms. In each of these cases, there are more exceptions than rules.

For example: With spelling, letter ‘a’ has five different pronunciations – about, father, fall, fat, fate, fare. ‘o’ is hardly pronounced as it is ‘ou’  in open, ‘o’ in offer and other has a different pronunciation. It is ‘u’ in woman and ‘i’ in women.

What is true about vowels is also true of consonants. ‘C’ is ‘s’ before  ‘i’, ‘e’, ‘y’ as in city, center and cycle. it is pronounced as k in other places as in cat, call, success. Interestingly first ‘c’ is pronounced as ‘k’ but second as ‘s’ because the second one occurs before ‘e’.  In combination with ‘h’, it has 3 pronunciations; ‘ch’ as in chart, ‘k’ in cholesterol and school and ‘sh’ in chef. The combination of ‘ea’ also has several pronunciations e.g. Heat, hear, hearth, heart, health, and words like bear have a totally different pronunciation. Combination of ‘ough’  also has several pronunciations like tough, though, thought and thorough.

There are several letters that are silent in this language but again no specific rules can be formed about them. ‘p’ is silent in receipt but not in reception; ‘b’ is silent in debt and doubt but not in other places. There are words like should, could, would where ‘oul’ is silent but we also have shoulder, mould where we pronounce them.

There is no specific letter for the sound ‘sh’. It is written with several combinations of different letters, e.g. ‘tio’ in nation, station, as ‘ciou’ in precious, conscious, as ‘sh’ in shut or shop , as ‘ch’ in chef, chauffeur etc.

All the geminates, which means letters that are written twice, are pronounced as single consonants e.g. rubber, daddy, occur, offer, suggestion, summer, sunny, happy, merry, mess, letter and fuzzy.

The reason for this erratic nature of English lies in its history.

English is basically made up of six different languages.  Original people of this land were Celts and spoke Celtic.  Around 600 AD some tribes from northern Germany and Denmark migrated to England. These tribes were the Jutes, the Angles, the Saxons. In 1066, the Norman conquerors brought French words and while leaving the country left behind their words to be added to the English language. Around 1500, printing technology was invented and many publishing houses were set up and a lot of books were published. Language was standardized. Grammars and Dictionaries written. Words were heavily borrowed from French and Greek. Colonial rule over a quarter of the world led to the influence of the languages spoken in those colonies.

Thus English has always been a developing language. It has borrowed words from all over the world. While doing so it has tried to retain the pronunciation and their spellings of most of the words, especially French and Greek ones. But a lot of the borrowed words have got adapted to the English Phonology. The script was first prescribed in 1500. It was reformed some time in the early 19th century, where both the spelling and pronunciation was designed as they were at that time. Since then words have been borrowed from all over the world with the original pronunciation and spelling; making it difficult for the learner of English language, a real challenging task.

Challenges I would list in the level of difficulty :

•         Verbal constructions
•         Plural formation
•         Use of articles
•         Degrees in adjectives
•         Use of prepositions
•         Question framing
•         Reported speech
•         Complex sentence formation
•         Spelling and pronunciation