1 A Stony Brook University-led study of the history and spelling of English suffixes demonstrates that the spelling of

2 English words is more orderly and self-organized than linguiístics have previously thought. The finding, details of which

3 are published in the journal Language, is an indication that the self-organization of English occurred even though the

4 language has never been regulated or governed through the centuries.

5 Unlike France and Italy, and other countries where national academies oversee the written language, no English-speaking

6 country has a language academy to organize and regulate the language. Yet, in the paper, titled "Self-Organization 1n the

7 Spelling of English Suffixes: The Emergence of Culture out of Anarchy," the rescarch examines previously unnoticed

8 systemic aspects of English spelling and explams how the system emerged on its own. Lead investigator Mark Aronoff,

9 Distinguished Professor in the Department of Linguistics at Stony Brook University, and Kristian Berg of the University

10 of Oldenburg, specifically investigated the spelling of four derivational suffixes and showed the spelling over time 1s

11 quite consistent -- even considering the sounds of the suffixes, like many English words, can be spelled in various ways.

12 The suffixes include: -- ous, found in words such as hazardous and nervous; -- ic, found in words like allergic; -- al, such

13 asim the word final; and -y, as in funny.

14 "English spelling was well on its way to its modern incarnation, and no single group seems to have played a notable role

15 in the movement of English spelling toward greater consistency," says Professor Aronoff. "We show in this article that

16 thesystem became gradually more consistent over a period of several hundred years, starting before the advent of printers,

17 orthoepists, or dictionary makers, presumably through the simple interaction of the members of the community of

18 spellers, a sort of self-organizing social network," he summarized.

19 For cach of the suffixes, the authors analyzed a large sample of written English documents dating back close to one

20 thousand years. For every word that follows a certain modern spelling with the suffix the authors looked at cach instance

21 in their sample and kept track of how the world was spelled. They found a number of spellings for cach suffix over time.

22 However, for cach suffix one form of spelling eventually won out over another and followed a pattern that led to

23 consistency in spelling.

24 Asafollow-up to the research detailed im the paper, the linguists are now testing their findings on fluent readers of English

25 to see if they use the regularities found and to see 1f those learning English can learn to read more quickly and fluently

26 with consistent spellings.

                                                            Source: Stony Brook University. "The English language organized itself, study reveals." ScienceDaily. ScienceDaily, 10 March 2017.

                                                            <www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/03/170310183146.htm>.

The words finding (line 2), spelling (line 10), starting (line 16) and learning (line 25) are, respectivelly,