----- Original Message -----

From: stbetta@aol.com

To: shavian@yahoogroups.com ; euro-english@yahoogroups.com

Cc: shawalphabet@yahoogroups.com

Sent: Thursday, December 02, 2004 6:48 AM

Subject: Re: [shavian] How to write "ance"?

Seb, Carl, and other Shavians,

 

Shavian is a dicitonary key spelling of English.
If you want to know the correct spelling, find and transcribe the dictionary key spelling.

 

Most dictionary keys recognize schwa - an unstressed mid lax vowel.

 

Schwa spelling may be a little difficult for novices to pick up.  It takes a some practice.

 

It is based on the fact that one of the key features of English speech is relative stress.
In many languages, length or duration is critical, in English the important feature is stress.

 

In English, almost every multisyllable word will have relative stress.  All unstressed vowels can be represented with a schwa.  This means that there can be radical changes in the root: fótó,  fót&graf,  f&tägr&fy, f&tägr&f&r, etc.  A spelling system that maintains the spelling of the root no matter how the word is pronounced is called morphemic. 

 

A schwa is very short.  At 50 ms in length it is shorter than other short vowels which are usually over 100 ms in duration. 

 

For example, penance at www.m-w.com is transcribed as 'pen-&n(t)s
Some speakers do not distinguish penance and pennants. 
This means that may reference /ts/.

 

REF:  www.foolswisdom.com/~sbett

check out schwa.htm and related topics

Hi Seb,

 

I would write "penance" as "penans" in Shavian. --Carl

Seb wrote:

How does one write this in shavian? For example, how does one write "penance"?

The closest I could get is "penens".

That doesn't sound right to me...forgive me beacaue I just began learning something like half an hour ago.

Cheers, Seb

----- Original Message -----

From: stbetta@aol.com

To: shavian@yahoogroups.com

Cc: saundspel@yahoogroups.com

Sent: Thursday, December 02, 2004 8:45 PM

Subject: [shavian] Difference between a and u in Shavian

Seb,

 

If you look at the IPA/Shavian chart, you will see that a corresponds to the unstressed schwa and u to /^/, the sound in up.  Both are used in the word abut.  Webster:  /&'b&t/
The two vowels in abut share the same quality but one is unstressed and very short compared to the other.   www.foolswisdom.com/~sbett/shaw-short.htm

 

I presume that you have a Shavian chart that provides key words that contain the reference sound.  Some of these are less than ideal due to differences in pronunciation in different dialects. 

 

Problem words:

arived        arFvd

ugly          ugli  or uglI

access     'Akses also ik'ses      'ak-"ses also ik-'ses
  *note this is one of the rare cases where there may be no unstressed syllable.

Ulysses    jvlisez  also jvlisaz

Pronunciation: yu-'li-(")sEz
Etymology: Latin Ulysses, Ulixes, from Greek Oulixes, Olysseus, Odysseus

I got that you convert dictionary keys to Shavian, the problem is there are any number of characters that can be used. For example what is the difference between "a" and "u"?

 

Is there a key that shows which Shavian characters should be used for which sounds in a more detailed fashion than the one supplied on the official Shavian site (preferably with some more detailed examples)?

 

I need example that will tell me which characters to use when certain sounds are succeeded with certain other sounds. For example the difference when using Roman between "a-rrived" and "a-ccess" or "u-gly" and "u-lysses".

 

Thanks,

Seb

----- Original Message -----

From: stbetta@aol.com

To: shavian@yahoogroups.com ; euro-english@yahoogroups.com

Cc: shawalphabet@yahoogroups.com

Sent: Thursday, December 02, 2004 6:48 AM

Subject: Re: [shavian] How to write "ance"?

Seb, Carl, and other Shavians,

 

Shavian is a dicitonary key spelling of English.
If you want to know the correct spelling, find and transcribe the dictionary key spelling.

 

Most dictionary keys recognize schwa - an unstressed mid lax vowel.

 

Schwa spelling may be a little difficult for novices to pick up.  It takes a some practice.

 

It is based on the fact that one of the key features of English speech is relative stress.
In many languages, length or duration is critical, in English the important feature is stress.

 

In English, almost every multisyllable word will have relative stress.  All unstressed vowels can be represented with a schwa.  This means that there can be radical changes in the root: fótó,  fót&graf,  f&tägr&fy, f&tägr&f&r, etc.  A spelling system that maintains the spelling of the root no matter how the word is pronounced is called morphemic. 

 

A schwa is very short.  At 50 ms in length it is shorter than other short vowels which are usually over 100 ms in duration. 

 

For example, penance at http://www.m-w.com/ is transcribed as 'pen-&n(t)s
Some speakers do not distinguish penance and pennants. 
This means that may reference /ts/.

 

REF:  www.foolswisdom.com/~sbett

check out schwa.htm and related topics

If you want to understand the problem that people have with
Shavian, take a look at Tengwar....an equally opaque phonemic
representation of English.

Introduction | Tengwar

This table shows how to use the Tengwar to represent consonants. I also show the name of each letter.

	I	II	III	IV
1	t as in time tinco	p as in pass parma	ch as in chill calma	k as in can quesse
2	d as in do ando	b as in bit umbar	j as in just anga	g as in go ungwe
3	th as in think thuule	f as in field formen	sh as in sheet harma	kh as in loch hwesta
4	dh as in then anto	v as in vast ampa	zh as in leisure anca	(not used) unque
5	n as in not nuumen	m as in mind malta	ny as in canyon noldo	ng as in sing nwalme
6	r as in star oore	w as in wild vala	y as in yes anna	qu as in queen vilya

r as in right roomen	rd as in hard arda	l as in light lambe	ld as in told alda
s as in silver silme	s as in silver silme nuquerna	z as in cause aaze	z as in cause aaze nuquerna
h as in hill hyarmen		y as in try yanta	w as in gown uure
"the"	"of"	"of the"

http://www.skymind.com/~ocrow/tengwar/teng.html

In this mode vala and anna are used for W and Y when used as consonants.
Uure and yanta are used for W and Y when they appear as part of a vowel sound.

war	—	yet	—
gown	—	gay	—

A bar over the tengwa, but under any tehta, should be used for a preceeding N or M that is part of the same syllable.

bond	—	camp	—
tent	—	gamble	—
song	—	somnambulant	—

PV:  It all depends on you point of view.

If you want a phonetic Alphabet based on the Roman Alphabet
you should used Pitman's I.T.A.
If you want a replacement Phonetic Alphabet for English, that is
completely divorced from the Traditional Orthography
then you use the Shavian Alphabet.

Which one do you want.

--- In shavian@yahoogroups.com, stbetta@a... wrote:
> If you want to understand the problem that people have with
> Shavian, take a look at Tengwar....an equally opaque phonemic
> representation of English.
> The problem is that there is little connection between a string of tengwar
> symbols
> and a string of Roman symbols.  One has to learn the symbol-sound
> correpondences
> and then identify the pronunciation with ones ear vocabulary. 

Using @ for the schwa was in lieu of not thinking of anything better; q and
Q look like a pretty good choice for ash and alms. But if you use 'v' for
the vowel of 'book' and V for the vowel of 'boot', what do you use for v
itself? Are you aware that some dictionaries have skipped the schwa
altogether and simply use the 'u' for both functions?

SAMPA is not made to be looked at all, I don't think, not when it uses
brackets and suchlike to indicate letters ‹ but then I don't think it was
intended to be visual.

How do you pronounce "cost?". I'm afraid I use an older pronunciation, once
standard I believe, or at least widely heard, in fact still heard today,
that has  cost as "cawst", the 'dawg' vowel that modern dictionary notations
prefer to ignore. But that isn't what you meant, I don't think.
Rather, the short o-sound of box, I suspect. Well, no you don't on second
look, box/ox is 'ah' for you. Then you must mean 'o' as any low-back vowel.

I too would prefer to keep owl and oil as unobscure.

There is a reason why people in general do not take kindly to these
alternative spelling systems; they all look like some new national alphabet
of a central Asian country that has just abandoned Arabic or Cyrillic for
Roman.

I personally liked Pitman's Augmented Roman very much. Given the choice
between strange letter-choices, diacritics, or digraphs, I think the latter
to be preferable for English. The Danes manage perfectly well with æ and ø.
I've always wondered if, in his heart of hearts, he had hoped that his
alphabet would be more than just an Initial Training Alphabet.

Oh by the way, I believe I have been banished from ever again trying the
patience of the tender souls at shavian.org. I tried twice this evening to
post a message without success. Oh well.

regards,
dshep




 
Fun is a better motivator than idealism.  

Origin of the Spelling Reform Movement
 How far back does the interest in spelling reform go?
www.foolswisdom.com/~sbett/rules_for_simpler_spelling.htm

Efforts to simplify and standardize European orthographies began shortly after Gutenberg found an efficient way to print books in 1450.  Greek and Latin had been standardized but few of the regional languages had. 

Around 1490, Nabrija, a Spanish University professor, came up with a way to represent the dialect of the Spanish court [similar to the dialect spoken around Toledo].  This dialect and associated writing system was called Castilian. 

Unlike his counterparts in England, Nabrija selected a dialect and invented the simplest way he could think of to represent it.  This involved reducing the number of vowels from ten to five.  Nabrija published not an essay but both a Dictionary and Grammar for Castilian. 

Nabrija's orthography was not standardized or government sanctioned for another 200 years but because it was generally available, writers and printers who wanted to write in the vernacular and reach an audience in Spain used it.  An English writer had no such resource. Had something similar been available in England, much of the chaos we see today would have been avoided.

Deliberate efforts to simplify English spelling began as early as 1554. Every changed spelling now in general use - whether for better, as FISH from fysshe, DOG from dogge, , or for worse, as RHYME from rime, DELIGHT from delite -- was once the overt act of a single writer, who was imitated at first by a small minority. 

Spelling reform is not new; it is in accord with the historical development of the language.

Organized by Filolgists 1876

The American Philological Association in 1875 started the present movement to improve our spelling resulting in the formation of the Spelling Reform Association [SRA] in 1876.  and joind with the Philological Society (London) in making specific recommendations in 1883. 

Among those taking prominent part in the movement were F.J. Child, Charles Darwin, A.J. Ellis, F.J. Furnivall, James Hadley, T.R. Lounsbury, John Lubbock, F.A. March, J.A.H. Murray, Isaac Pitman, W.W. Skeat, Henry Sweet, Alfred Tennyson, J.H. Trumbull, and W.D. Whitney.  All of these luminaries can be found in Who's Who or the Encyclopedia.

SSB 1906

The U.S. Simplified Spelling Board (SSB) was founded in 1906 and the U.K. Simplified Spelling Society in 1908 by representative members of these and other leading educational organizations including the editors of the Century, Standard, Webster's and Oxford English dictionaries, eminent educators, authors, scientists men of affairs, and such filologie experts as Henry Bradley, F.J. Furnivall, C.H. Grandgent, George Hempl, T.R. Lounsbury, F.A. March, Murray, Scott, Skeat, and Calvin Thomas.

SB: Bradley, an editor of the OED after the death of Murray, attended meetings but disagreed with the proposals.  He went on to write the best critique of spelling reform.

General Aim

The purpose of the movement is to hasen the process of rational orthographic change and gide it in the direction of simplicity and economy, and gradually to substitute for our present caotic spelling, which is neither consistent nor etimologic, a simpler and more regular spelling based on existing rules and analogies.

Early Progress

The National Education Association approved the movement in 1898 and adopted 12 simpler spellings for immediate sue: tho, altho, thru, thruout, thoro, thorofare, catalog, decalog, demagog, pedagog, program, prolog.  In 1916, it voted to use t in the past tenses of verbs ending in -ed and pronounced t, e.g. dropt.

for more go to www.foolswisdom.com/~sbett/rules_for_simpler_spelling.htm 

comments welcomed

SB: The devil is in the details and you haven't provided much.

A pronunciation guide spelling as found in a dicitonary has to settle on one broad dialect. Each dialect will have its unique inventory of phonemes.

 

ZE: ... we invent a broad dialect. It takes the existing english pronunsiation that goes the neerest to the TS-form. Sinse sum peeple in New England say "aunt" to "aunt", we don't change it to "ant" az is the genneral american pronunsiation or to "aant" az is the british one.

 

The fact is that thair is only one sort of peeple who defend the idea of uzing broadcast GA: sum americans. But remember that no non-american agrees with it, especialy in the Commonwelth, and quite menny americans don't agree with it either. 

... in Brazil u lern the rotic american english, stil u don't lern that father and bother rime. Wy should we hav this non-sense if british dusnt hav it? And of corse they rime few and new. They look alike and they sound alike in british? Wel, lets take that then. Sumhow the teechers of the world agreed on a sort of world english. And it is the group of sounds that hav sum similarity with the forms.

We could rite a mannual for non-anglos wat to speek: international english. Wich is a mix of british and american english, becauz so menny peeple don't no wich one to uze and so make a mix of it, sutable to themselvs.

We could say wat is mor or less standard. I tend to speek a british english, becauz my frends in Germany ar all english, but it has menny americanizms, becauz az i sed in prinsiple we lern american english - exept the rubbish. It would be a kind of oficializing an international english. How dus the world say it?

 

Would be worth a thought, maybe: if u dont want to speek american or british english, u can lern a new language: international english. It takes the most logic it can from the 2 standard acsents. And it can do it only with a new spelling... just say u speek international english.

 

Instead of regularizing the spelling of English, you regularize the pronunciation.

 

I don't know who you'r talking abaut [see reference above],

A third alternative is to identify the sound-signs that represent the greatest difference between two dialects and allow them to fluctuate.  They can be pronounced either way and still be understood.  Instead of rewriting path as paath or päth, we just allow that interpretation. 

Hi Steve
The 3d Alternative might actually be practical.
It is certainly understandable. Most of the accent variation in
English only affects the Vowel sounds.
You just need to add about 9 Variable Letters (Generic Sound
Markers) to the Alphabet and plug them in when the sound being
pronounced is indeterminate.

1 for any Voiced Consonant, 1 for Unvoiced consonant, one for a
Nasal or Liquid Consonant. 6 more for different types of vowels.
(i.e. Short, Long, Dipthong) and whether they are part of a closed
or open syllable.

I came up with a scheme to do this for Shavian. It was quite nice.

Regards, Paul V.

--- In shavian@yahoogroups.com, stbetta@a... wrote:

> A third alternative is to identify the sound-signs that represent
the greatest difference between two dialects and allow them to
fluctuate.  They can be pronounced either way and still be understood.  Instead of
rewriting path as paath or p?h, we just allow that interpretation.

48 characters  download font Shaw sans2
The Shaw Alphabet
       an alternate pronunciation guide or dictionary key spelling      
 shaw.htm  is an addendum to shaw-short which became rather long.

   Some purists have been dissatisfied with a  spelling reform that retains the conventional Roman sound signs and have advocated going beyond phonemic notations such as Webster's diacritics. 
/'webstørz dýø'kritiks/ vs. /webstDs dFakritiks/

Both Mark Twain and GBS were dissatisfied with simplified spelling because it looked ugly and uneducated.  To have appeal, they reasoned, the phonographic orthography would have be clearly distinguished from conventional spelling.

The Shaw Alphabet [aka Shavian] is the  most well known radical reform.  A bequest from dramatist an social reformer, George Bernard Shaw [d. 1950], financed a public competition in 1957 - 58  for the design of a new alphabet that would have at least 40 letters and no digraphs [2 letter symbols such as Sh] or diacritics  [such as á è î ô ü].   [See Haas, Alphabets for English]

The rules also included provisions to accommodate Shaw's wish that the new spellings should not be seen as uneducated traditional spellings.  Both Shaw and Twain believed that this required the abandonment of the Roman alphabet. 

Shaw also wanted the new script to have the economic benefits of a linear shorthand.  It should be compact and allow rapid hand writing.   Read's script did meet all of the expectations: 

SY olsO wantad H nM skript tM hav H ekanomik benafits v a linFD shorthAnd.

To view the example, you must first download the font.
More? go to  www.foolswisdom.com/~sbett/shaw.htm