Phonetic spellings in the Late Modern English dialect of the Isle of Wight (based on EDD Online)

Phonetic spelling was common practice in English dialect texts until the API (English: IPA), in 1893, launched its normative signs of transcription. Nevertheless, phonetic spellings have rarely been studied, the least in dialects. This paper ventures to trace some of the immanent norms and the sound functions of some phonetic spellings in the Isle of Wight during the Late Modern English period. The investigation is mainly based on data retrieved from EDD Online, which allows for sophisticated aggregate queries so that spelling practices can be quantified and mapped. The paper focuses on spellings unique to the island, such as double a, e, and o before another vowel, that is, in diphthongs, and u-spellings for schwa in posttonic syllables. The figures for non-unique features, such as voicing of fricatives, are normalized and allow for correlation to other counties. In sum, the Isle of Wight accent was marked by its typical “drawl.”