Spelling Lesson

This national spelling bee contests are going on right now. On television I saw a young girl, who lives in nearby Richardson, using sign language to spell words in the local competition.

It seemed odd to see someone using hand signs to spell obscure words. Hand signs are used by deaf people who can not form words vocally. Children who are born deaf and who never heard a spoken word have great difficulty not only speaking, but also reading. Our written language is based on the sound of words. To a deaf person, each word is as puzzling as Chinese symbols are to me.

The child I saw on television was born with cerebral palsy. As a result, she has poor muscular control. Her head wobbles from side to side and she has difficulty walking. She cannot speak. But she has acute hearing and a big vocabulary. She can spell.

I’ve never been a good speller. English, with its “gh” and “ph” and other weird spellings left over from Early English, makes it necessary to memorize lots of words. Fortunately my computer has a spell checker which keeps me out of trouble. Most of the time, except for words I spell so badly that the spell checker can not find them.

Proper names are a big problem. I hear a name on television but have no idea how to spell it. And the spell checker does not help. So I guess – and usually I am wrong.

Which brings me to Iceland, and that country’s peculiar use of names. I finally found the right way to write the name of the capital, Reykjavik. By the way, the real name of the nation is not Iceland, but Island. That’s the way it is spelled on its stamps.

(English speakers have a habit of changing countries names. How about Germany for Deutschland, Hungary for Magyar, and Finland for Suomi?)

Some other things I learned when I went to Island with the stamp collectors:

As I mentioned before, the first settlers could read and write. Iceland still has the highest literacy rate in the World. During the long, cold winters, they read lots of books. Also, they write. A fifth of them have published at least one book.

During the long, dark winters they also drink. Besides having the highest literary rate, Iceland also has the highest alcoholism rate in the World.

Just as they preserve the language of the Vikings in their every day speech, they preserve Scandinavian names: Gustav, Gunar, Eric, Peder. This leads to confusion as the last name changes with each generation. Gustav Gunarson’s son Eric becomes Eric Gustavson, and Eric Gustavson’s son Pedar is Peder Ericson. .

A foreign minister has the improbable name – that is, improbable to Texans – of Bjarri Benedktson.

Every woman is someone’s “dotter.” My father was Byron Pattie, so I would be Ilene Byrondotter. Woman do not change their name when they marry. Many Islanders don’t bother to get married.

With few last names, the Icelanders found a solution in making alphabetical lists. People are listed in the telephone book by first name. You would find Ilene Pattie under “I”.

To me that seems like an excellent idea. I wish we had a list like that here at the retirement home where I live. I know most people by their first name, yet I know few last names.