Shavian eGroup Archive Browser

You might want to take a look at the Read_Alphabet group here at Yahoo. It is about the Quickscript method of writing. It has optional characters that represent the sounds that Shavian does not have single characters for. It is pretty interesting stuff.

-Scott

----- Original Message -----
From: rubik67 <mailto:rubik67@...>
To: shavian@... <mailto:shavian@...>
Sent: Tuesday, April 30, 2002 7:20 PM
Subject: [shavian] Questions, and a proposal.

I just discovered Shavian writing on the 18th, and by the 20th I was
so royally pissed with standard English spelling I pretty much
resolved right then and there to bring about the reformation that
Shaw wanted, even if I had to do it solo. However, I have a couple of
questions about the alphabet. First of all, what's the difference in
pronunciation between "o" (short), "ah", and "awe"? Second, how do
you represent the nasal "i" sound in "ing"? It's somewhere between
"ih" and "ee", but it doesn't seem to have any representation
anywhere.
Now for the proposal: As cool as the Shavian alphabet is, there
appears to be one major flaw in it... the letter "x", which is
pronounced either "ks" or "gz", depending on context. Shavian,
unfortunately, doesn't have any similar compound, so there are
occasional words which actually expand in Shavian (for
example, "exit", "maxim", etc). To correct this, I suggest adding a
couple of new characters to the standard set, which are a
combination of the "k" and "s" characters for the unvoiced x, and a
combination of "g" and "s" for the voiced version. To create these
new characters, simply add the top of the "s" character to the "k"
character and the bottom of the "s" to the "g" character. The little
loop extension shouldn't be any longer than half the length of the
top third of the Shavian letter space to prevent blending and
potential confusion (ie. xi with kp and ix with bg). This will
eliminate the one and only advantage that standard spelling has over
Shavian.
As for shawalphabet.com's "Shavian", it seems to violate at least two
of Shaw's proposed rules (ie. pleasant to look at, and everything
being written with a single stroke), so I seriously doubt it can be
considered real Shavian. For now, I'm definitely sticking with the
alphabet provided in Androcles. L8r.




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Also, check out the Shavian Board at http://www.shavian.org/hugh/ikonboard/ikonboard.cgi. It's a good place to practice and find out other information.

----- Original Message -----
From: usmaak <mailto:usmaak@...>
To: shavian@... <mailto:shavian@...>
Sent: Tuesday, April 30, 2002 7:45 PM
Subject: Re: [shavian] Questions, and a proposal.

You might want to take a look at the Read_Alphabet group here at Yahoo. It is about the Quickscript method of writing. It has optional characters that represent the sounds that Shavian does not have single characters for. It is pretty interesting stuff.

-Scott

----- Original Message -----
From: rubik67 <mailto:rubik67@...>
To: shavian@... <mailto:shavian@...>
Sent: Tuesday, April 30, 2002 7:20 PM
Subject: [shavian] Questions, and a proposal.

I just discovered Shavian writing on the 18th, and by the 20th I was
so royally pissed with standard English spelling I pretty much
resolved right then and there to bring about the reformation that
Shaw wanted, even if I had to do it solo. However, I have a couple of
questions about the alphabet. First of all, what's the difference in
pronunciation between "o" (short), "ah", and "awe"? Second, how do
you represent the nasal "i" sound in "ing"? It's somewhere between
"ih" and "ee", but it doesn't seem to have any representation
anywhere.
Now for the proposal: As cool as the Shavian alphabet is, there
appears to be one major flaw in it... the letter "x", which is
pronounced either "ks" or "gz", depending on context. Shavian,
unfortunately, doesn't have any similar compound, so there are
occasional words which actually expand in Shavian (for
example, "exit", "maxim", etc). To correct this, I suggest adding a
couple of new characters to the standard set, which are a
combination of the "k" and "s" characters for the unvoiced x, and a
combination of "g" and "s" for the voiced version. To create these
new characters, simply add the top of the "s" character to the "k"
character and the bottom of the "s" to the "g" character. The little
loop extension shouldn't be any longer than half the length of the
top third of the Shavian letter space to prevent blending and
potential confusion (ie. xi with kp and ix with bg). This will
eliminate the one and only advantage that standard spelling has over
Shavian.
As for shawalphabet.com's "Shavian", it seems to violate at least two
of Shaw's proposed rules (ie. pleasant to look at, and everything
being written with a single stroke), so I seriously doubt it can be
considered real Shavian. For now, I'm definitely sticking with the
alphabet provided in Androcles. L8r.




Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to the Yahoo! Terms of Service <http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/> .



Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to the Yahoo! Terms of Service <http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/> .



Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to the Yahoo! Terms of Service <http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/> .

On 1 May 02, at 0:20, rubik67 wrote:

> First of all, what's the difference in pronunciation between "o"
> (short), "ah", and "awe"?

It depends on your dialect ;) Shavian is based on an accent very close
to British RP (Received Pronunciation), which makes a distinction
between those three vowels; however, many (most?) American dialects do
not have this distinction (if I remember correctly, they usually merge
"short o" with one of the other two). Anyway, here are some example
words, in case it's any help:

"short o": lock, pot, dog, Bob, astonish, gone, bother, on, cough,
bomb, cloth, comma, cot, doll, often, sausage (first syllable).

"ah": father, grass, calm, path, pass, castle, master, fast, aunt,
balm, almond, clerk, half, laugh, vase (pronounced "vahz", not
"vayce").

"awe": awe, law, bought, caught, brought, prawn, all, call, bald,
drawl, taunt.

Notice the distinctions bomb/balm, cot/caught, grass/lass ("lass" has
the "a" of "hat, bat, tan, ran, ash"), doll/drawl.

> Second, how do you represent the nasal "i" sound in "ing"? It's
> somewhere between "ih" and "ee", but it doesn't seem to have any
> representation anywhere.

_Androcles_ uses short "ih" for that sound. I'd say, though, that as
long as you are consistant, you can probably use either -- and
similarly for final -y in words such as "city, briefly, really" and so
on; _Androcles_ again uses short "ih" but some people feel that sound
is closer to "ee".

Cheers,
Philip
--
Philip Newton <Philip.Newton@...>


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On 1 May 02, at 11:31, Philip Newton wrote:

> "ah": father, grass, calm, path, pass, castle, master, fast, aunt,
> balm, almond, clerk, half, laugh, vase (pronounced "vahz", not
> "vayce").

And also "dance".

Cheers,
Philip
--
Philip Newton <Philip.Newton@...>


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"ah": father, grass, calm, path, pass, castle, master, fast, aunt, balm,
almond, clerk, half, laugh, vase (pronounced "vahz", not "vayce"). - And also
"dance".

I knew fawthuh and lawf and daunce, but not grawss or fawst or cawstle. Guess
I don't watch enough of those pippy-poo British mystery movies my wife loves.

Speakers of British Received Pronunciation need to understand that North
American speakers need to look these words up in a British (not American)
dictionary to know which sound to use. (I recently noticed that my new
German-English dictionary has its English pronunciations in BRP.)

Or as GBS said, it is only necessary for an English speaker to open his mouth
for some other English speaker to hate him.

Bob Richmond
Knoxville, Tennessee


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Speakers of British Received Pronunciation need to understand that North
American speakers need to look these words up in a British (not American)
dictionary to know which sound to use.

Try www.dictionary.com <http://www.dictionary.com> .

The phonetic transcriptions used there are from the American Heritage Dictionary; the transcriptions make the distinction between 'ah', 'awe' and 'on'. In fact, every 'distinction' that is made in Shavian (except 'ian')is made by this book's transcriptions.

Hugh Birkenhead recommends
www.dictionary.com
as a source for British Received Pronunciation.

I can't find a key to their pronunciation markup on their Web site - do they
have one?

It looks the old school dictionary markup that was the usual one in the USA
50 years ago. Does anybody know the name of that markup system, which uses
large numbers of diacritical marks - really impractical to set in type now -
to avoid altering spellings. It's the markup used in a pronouncing King James
Bible.

Bob Richmond
Knoxville, Tennessee


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Hey bob... I used to live in Maryville.

Anyway, I have found that I often make a distinction be ah, short o,
and awe. But let's be frank here, we Tennesseeans say grass, path,
pass, castle, master, fast, aunt, half, laugh, AND dance with a short a
as opposed to the ah sound.

My question is, then: Clerk?
If you used ah, wouldn't it be Clark--like the name? as opposed to a
store clerk?

--Star

--- RSRICHMOND@aol.com wrote:
> "ah": father, grass, calm, path, pass, castle, master, fast, aunt,
> balm,
> almond, clerk, half, laugh, vase (pronounced "vahz", not "vayce"). -
> And also
> "dance".
>
> I knew fawthuh and lawf and daunce, but not grawss or fawst or
> cawstle. Guess
> I don't watch enough of those pippy-poo British mystery movies my
> wife loves.
>
> Speakers of British Received Pronunciation need to understand that
> North
> American speakers need to look these words up in a British (not
> American)
> dictionary to know which sound to use. (I recently noticed that my
> new
> German-English dictionary has its English pronunciations in BRP.)
>
> Or as GBS said, it is only necessary for an English speaker to open
> his mouth
> for some other English speaker to hate him.
>
> Bob Richmond
> Knoxville, Tennessee
>


=====
Defeat is not the worst of failures. Not to have tried is the true failure.
--George E. Woodberry

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On 1 May 02, at 8:28, Star Raven wrote:

> My question is, then: Clerk?
> If you used ah, wouldn't it be Clark--like the name? as opposed to a
> store clerk?

In (standard, non-rhotic) RP, both "clerk" and "Clark" are pronunced
like "clahk". The first word doesn't rhyme with "work", even though it
looks as if it should -- it's one of English's strange spellings.

Sort of like the Thames, which is pronounced "Temz", not "Thaymz" or
"Tamez".

Cheers,
Philip
--
Philip Newton <Philip.Newton@...>


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Star writes: >.Hey Bob... I used to live in Maryville.<<

Of course, Maryville, Tennessee (a community to the south of Knoxville) is
pronounced murvle by the locals. - over toward Nashville is Gordonsville,
pronounced gurnjvl. And down past 'Nooga is Whitwell, pronounced whuwwll.

Bob Richmond
Knoxville TN (occasionally pronounced K-Town)


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