The spellings of homophones in English are a constant source of confusion and errors in writing across ages and abilities; they are also a constant source of frustration for students learning English spelling and teachers and parents striving to better student writing and spelling. This post is a composite of many conversations I have had in 10 years of learning to teach English spelling.
1. What is homophony?
homo + phone + y ➜ homophony
homo = same
phone = sound
y = suffix indicating state, condition, or quality
Homophony occurs when two or more words have identical pronunciations but different meanings.
For example, <rear> and <rare>, <sun> and <son>, <read> and <red> are all homophones (words with the same pronunciation).
homophones ➜ homo + phone + s
I prefer etymonline's definition because it brings attention to etymology and clarifies that spelling is not a criterion in classifying a set of words as homophones.
"a word pronounced the same as another (whether spelled the same or not) but different in meaning and etymology"
CAUTION!
Two words can be homophonic to one person and not be homophonic to another. One's accent, home language, dialect, place of residence, and just individual differences all play a role. For instance, <cot> and <caught> are homophonic to me, but I learnt from friends from the West that people pronounce them differently in some regions.
NO ONE has the authority to uphold false hegemonies surrounding pronunciation. Such actions serve only useless superiority complexes; they help no one learn or use the language well.
2. English is weird. It has all these confusing characteristics.
That's not true.
In Historical and Comparative Linguistics, Raimo Anttila writes, ". . . all languages have homophony to different degrees..."
For example, ಕಾಲು (1/4th) and ಕಾಲು (leg = ದೇಹದ ಕಾಲು ಭಾಗ) in Kannada and कल (yesterday) and कल (tomorrow) in Hindi.
English does have a large number of homophones, but so do French and Mandarin Chinese.
3. Why do languages have homophones? Doesn't it make them less efficient?
I will answer this question in 2 parts.
3A. Why do human languages have homophones?
It is important to understand that homophones are probably not planned for or designed consciously in a language. The Collins Dictionary's definition of homophony, "a linguistic phenomenon whereby words of different origins become identical in pronunciation," indicates that two words that are not homophonous to begin with may become homophonous diachronically as language evolves over time. For example,
<write> and <right> are homophones in PDE (Present Day English). But in Old English (OE), they weren't. In OE, the <w> in <wr> used to be pronounced until around 1450-1700. The spelling <wr> preserves this etymology, especially to start words implying twisting or distortion. (Anttila, 1989, 184; Harper, n.d.)
The graphemes <f> and <ugh> are homophonous in PDE. Originally, the word <laugh>, for instance, was pronounced with a "hard" -gh- sound, as in Scottish loch; the spelling remained after the pronunciation shifted to "-f." (Laugh | Etymology, Origin and Meaning of Laugh by Etymonline, n.d.)
Usually, at this point, a follow-up question I encounter is: "Why do languages change?" Although the answer is out of the scope of this post, this is a fascinating topic. I encourage you to read Chapter 1 of This Language, A River: A History of English by L. Aaron Smith and Susan M. Kim. If you can't read the book for any reason, I highly encourage you to read this 7-page document called 'Explanation' by Lyle Campbell from the Linguistic Society of America. (This looks like an explanation for an online class that is not meant to be read out of context, but I find it simple and to the point with relevant examples.)