Correlation is not causation
An academic study claims that 10 percent of people in English-speaking countries are functionally illiterate, which is to say that they can read (some degree of literacy), but not enough to adequately perform at a job. Moreover, the researchers maintain that part of the problem is because of the spelling system used in English. In addition, that same spelling system contributes to dyslexia, or difficulty in reading.
Unlike some other languages, there is often a disparity between a letter and the sound it represents. That is, a given letter in the English spelling system can represent three or more sounds. And this disparity, researchers claim, causes dyslexia.
Some hundred years ago, Benjamin Lee Whorf postulated that the language you speak dictates how you perceive the world. Taken to an extreme, the Whorfian Hypothesis says that those in a culture who do not measure activities in terms of hours and minutes, or have no words equivalent to "hour" or "minute," therefore have no concept of time.
Whorf picked up this idea during his travels among the Native Tribes of the American Southwest as an insurance salesman or adjuster with a side interest in linguistics.
The flaw in the Whorfian Hypothesis, however, is that when speakers of a language with few or no time words revert to English, they can and do measure activities in terms of hours and minutes.
So it's not that they have no concept of time, but that European notions of the importance of time had less value in their native culture.
They also had no writing system, but that is no obstacle to expressing valuable thoughts. Unfortunately, in Western culture the ability to read is considered so important that being "illiterate" is too often equated with a lack of intelligence.
In any case, literacy is crucial to success in society today. And anything that interferes with learning to read is an issue that needs to be studied and resolved.
But how to correlate literacy with dyslexia, if in fact there is a correlation? And the Psychology Department at the University of Dundee in Scotland is leading an effort to extend literacy research based on the English language and to establish a relationship, if any, to other European writing systems.
It seems the academics have compared the difficulty in learning to read with the relationship of sound to letter. In some written languages, such as Finnish or Spanish, a given letter almost always has the same sound. In English, however, a given letter may represent several sounds, for example, the "a" in "hat" is different from the "a" in "hate," and the word "can" as a verb is pronounced differently from the same word representing a container. Dialect, too, affects pronunciation.
Another issue is the number of letters available. The English language uses 26 letters, but the number of phonemes, or meaningful sounds, is larger -- and this can be 35 or 40, varying with dialect and individuals.
Italian, on the other hand, uses 22 letters, and has a closer relationship of sound to letter. And in Finnish, there is a 1:1 relationship. One letter represents one sound only.
English is an amalgam of several languages, and its spelling system more accurately represents Shakespearean era pronunciation than today's. However, we're stuck with it.
All of this has little to do with dyslexia, which is a neurological disorder in the brain. If in fact dyslexia is more widespread in English speaking countries than in others, I wonder if it is coincidence or some other cause. At the moment, it's a hypothesis, with a causal link yet to be proven.
Moreover, English is easier to learn (as a second language) than others, because there are fewer internal word changes in reference to gender or number, and the case system --- common in German and Russian, where a word changes form according to its function in a sentence -- no longer exists in English, except for one small set of words (pronouns).
Dyslexia, of course, refers to reading, not speaking. And some who have it compensate and become successful. Tom Kean, former governor of New Jersey, is dyslexic, as is Richard Branson, founder of Virgin Airlines. Also, those who have it compensate by becoming better listeners, with much better memories, since they cannot rely on written notes.
People with dyslexia have difficulty differentiating letters, such as misinterpreting the letters b and d, or p and q. Again, this is a neurological issue, not orthographic.
Language and culture are certainly inter-related, but now comes a theory that the spelling system a language uses may contribute to dyslexia, or difficulty in reading. Reading, of course, is a skill to be learned, and the spelling system is certainly confusing,
A study by the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association (ASHA) notes that "the United States has the highest number of functionally illiterate persons in the world." Worldwide, ASHA said, "there are 875 million people without access to literacy." But unlike spoken language, the ability to read requires instruction, and this means being able to "associate script symbols with speech sounds," the group said.
This association, of symbol, sound and meaning, differs widely. Most European writing systems use a type of alphabet, with each letter representing one or more sounds, including consonants and vowels. Others, however, such as Chinese, use symbols to represent a concept, which can be "read" by speakers of various languages and dialects that are mutually incomprehensible. An example for users of the European group of languages is a number, such as "46." Users of English, French, Spanish or German, for instance, would verbalize that "46" in four different ways.
So the question remains: Does the spelling system of a language contribute to dyslexia, and if so, how?
There may be many who come to America with limited ability to read in English, but that does not mean they are illiterate. They may be quite fluent in their native language using a phonic alphabet similar to that used in English, or in a phonic alphabet such as Russian or Greek that is not similar to English, or they may be fluent in a syllabic alphabet, or in a symbol writing system that is not an alphabet at all.
Bottom line: Dyslexia is a neurological learning disorder that may interfere with literacy, but it's not likely that a writing system causes dyslexia.
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