DESPITE being the world鈥檚 lingua franca, English is the most difficult
European language in which to learn to read. Children learning other languages
master the basic elements of literacy within a year, but British kids take
two-and-a-half years to reach the same point.
In the most extensive cross-national study ever, Philip Seymour of Dundee
University and his team compared the reading abilities of children in 15
European countries. They found that those learning Romance languages such as
Italian and French progressed faster than those learning a Germanic language
such as German and English. 鈥淐hildren do seem to find English particularly
complex and problematic though,鈥� says Seymour.
The team focused on the earliest phase of learning to read. They tested the
children鈥檚 ability to match letters to sounds, their capacity to recognise
familiar written words, and their ability to work out new words from
combinations of familiar syllables. The Germanic languages are tricky because
they have more words that contain clusters of consonants. The word 鈥渟print鈥�, for
example, is difficult because the letter p is sandwiched between two other
consonants, making the p sound difficult to learn.
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Another feature of English that makes it difficult is the complex
relationship between letters and their sounds, says Seymour. Unlike Finnish, for
example, where the relationship between a letter and its sound is fixed, in
English a letter鈥檚 sound often depends on its context within the word. For
example, the letter c can sound soft (as in receive) or hard (as in cat). Many
words, like 鈥測acht鈥�, don鈥檛 seem to follow any logic at all.
Seymour鈥檚 findings might explain why more people are diagnosed as being
dyslexic in English-speaking countries than elsewhere. In languages where sounds
simply match letters, some symptoms just wouldn鈥檛 show up, says Maggie Snowling,
an expert on dyslexia at the University of York. The condition would be more
difficult to diagnose in children who speak these languages, though subtle
symptoms such as impaired verbal short-term memory would remain. 鈥淧eople might
be struggling, but no one would notice,鈥� she says.
However, the things that make English difficult to read might have
contributed to Britain鈥檚 rich literary tradition. Words like 鈥渟ign鈥� and 鈥渂omb鈥�
are difficult because of their silent letters, but these hint at relationships
with other words. The connection with words like 鈥渟ignature鈥� and 鈥渂ombard鈥� is
obvious.
Mark Pagel, an expert on language diversity at the University of Reading,
acknowledges the irony that despite being the international lingua franca,
English is the most difficult to learn. The dominance of English has more to do
with historical accident than any innate superiority of the language, he says.
鈥淧eople who speak English happen to have been the ones that were economically
and politically dominant in recent history. Those forces greatly outweigh any
small difficulties in language acquisition.鈥�