Hi Star Raven
It is reasonable objection to be concerned that useful letters could
be lost.
This American Manual would stress this sub-set of the Shaw letters just
to get the beginning Shaw learner started, by giving him the most commonly
used vowels in the American pronunciation. To go from 5 vowel letters with
a short and a long form to 24 different vowel letters is a big jump,
especially when you can't differentiate some of them. Ideally Shaw should
be easier to learn than Roman alphabet.
So we start the new learner off with just the vowel letters that he he uses
in their own speech. (standard accent group)
Once the Shaw learner has the basics of the Shaw Alphabet in is own accent
down solid, then he can learn the exceptions to his or her standard
pronunciation and the other sounds used by the innumerable other regional
accents.
This should make the Shaw Alphabet more accessable to the people speaking
American standard accented English.
The teaching manual could be tailored for other accent groups as well, I
suppose.
Regards, Paul V.
________________attached _________________________
At 07:32 AM 7/24/02 -0700, you wrote:
>I think that my objection stems from the fact that some
>people will have and use shavian letters that may not be
>used in the "simplified" american. Perhaps a simpler set of
>letters *would* be good to learn shavian, but eventually,
>the entire set of letters has to be used.
>
>It would be like leaving out x, z, q, c, and silent e in
>TO... as english speakers, we do use these letters, though
>in the mirriam-webster dictionary, x has only 22 entries,
>and is either used as a /ks/ sound or /z/ sound. Z can be
>replaced with an s in many words--the difference is in
>pronunciation--and if I am not mistaken, that is one of the
>differences between British and American spellings. (ex.
>realise-Br.; realize-Am.) C only has a place in ch to make
>a voiceless j sound, and otherwise makes an s or k sound,
>and q *must* be partnered with u unless it is in a foreign
>word and then it makes a k sound anyway... this is why TO
>is so confusing. The difference between car and care is the
>silent e, yet far and fair it is an i.
>
>Spelling bees are a thing of the past anyway (biting her
>lip about the american education system). "path" for me
>will never be pronounced with an o, ah or awe... it is
>pronounced with an a as in "can."
>
>Dialect is something that has developed over time. America
>has one dialect, Austrailia another, New Zealand, Canada,
>Ireland, Scotland, Wales, England, and within those there
>are variations, such as in America there is the southern
>versus the northern, within the southern, there is the
>tennessean, virginian, georgian, alabman and other
>sub-dialects, and within tennessee, there is eastern,
>middle and western inflections, and if you have a good ear,
>you could even tell from what part of these the speaker is
>from. I myself have supressed this to have more of a
>American Recieved Pronunciation: which is to say, the
>clearly enunciated pronunciation of national news anchors.
>
>Alright, I've talked too much at this point.
>Love and luck,
>Star
>
>--- Paul Gershon Vandenbrink <pvandenbrink@...>
>wrote:
> > Hi Star Raven
> >
> > As I recall both Benjamin Franklin and Webster attempted
> > to simplify
> > English spelling for Americans with mixed results. See
> > Craig's paper for
> > Details. My main intention is simplify the Shaw Alphabet
> > so that it is
> > easily accessible by even un-lettered Americans.
> >
> > As for recognizing all the letter sounds, you have a good
> > ear.
> > I have a problem predicting when to use Ah in English,
> > myself. Maybe down
> > south, they still preserve the distinction to some
> > extent. I doubt that
> > your use of Ah matches with exactly the same words in
> > which Ah is used in
> > British English, in any case.
> >
> > I can usually determine whether the soft or short "o" of
> > On is needed, as
> > opposed to the longer, more emphatic, more distinct "o:"
> > of Awe, just by
> > pronouncing the words and listening for the difference.
> > The fact that Awe
> > which is much closer to the sound of On than Oak is, is
> > spelled with an
> > letter "a", shows the many inconsistencies of the Roman
> > alphabet.
> >
> > The British English speakers, would probably use more of
> > the 24 vowel
> > letters than the 19 Shaw vowel letters suggest for Shaw
> > Alphabet beginners
> > from America.
> >
> > The limitation of 19 Shaw vowel letters is just for the
> > vast majority of
> > Americans and Canadians who don't make or even recognize
> > the Ah Ash
> > distinction.
> >
> > Fond regards from just another uncomplicated Canadian.
> >
> > Paul V.
> > ________________attached______________________________
> > At 08:54 AM 7/23/02 -0700, you wrote:
> > >Simplify english for us Americans? would you bee keeping
> > >the original 24 for the British? Once I figured out a
> > clear
> > >difference between the letters, I had no problem using
> > >them.
> > >
> > >Also, yew is y & long oo combined. To combine /eat/ and
> > >/ado/ into a letter would be more complicated than
> > >combining /if/ and /ado/ for the dipthong sound of
> > /Ian/.
> > >/Ear/ is the natural connection of /Ian/ and /r/ and
> > urge
> > >is also the natural connection of /ado/ and /r/ perhaps
> > >what needs to be taught fo these letters is not that
> > they
> > >are different sounds but that they are natural
> > connections
> > >between letters, like cursive but not to the extent of
> > >quickscript. With shavian, there are many natural
> > >connections, which is one of the reasons that it is
> > better
> > >than roman.
> > >
> > >Just another simple American,
> > >--Star
> > >
> > >--- Paul Gershon Vandenbrink <pvandenbrink@...>
> > >wrote:
> > > > Hi Star Raven
> > > > Thanks for looking at my modest suggestion. I believe
> > > > that your ear can
> > > > differentiate the sounds relating to all 5 redundant
> > > > letters. What I am
> > > > suggesting tho is that for Ah letter, the sound it
> > > > represents is not
> > > > significantly different from my pronunciation of
> > words
> > > > like father, fodder,
> > > > path, cloth, rather, bother, after, asked and cart,
> > where
> > > > I use the soft
> > > > "o" sound of "on". I can not think of any two words
> > that
> > > > I would
> > > > distinguish by the slight variations between these 2
> > > > sounds. For some
> > > > speakers, a sound difference exists, but perhaps it
> > is
> > > > not significant
> > > > enough to distinguish different words. Can you
> > suggest
> > > > some of the words
> > > > that you found with the Ah sound? Perhaps, we need to
> > > > look at this letter
> > > > again, not matter how confusing most Americans find
> > its
> > > > use.
> > > > As for the other 4 letters which I said were
> > redundant, I
> > > > don't mean to say
> > > > that the sound that they represent don't exist.
> > > > I just think that those 4 sounds would be better
> > > > represented by the
> > > > following 4 other letter combinations. The sound
> > > > represented by the letter
> > > > Ian would be more accurately represented by the Eat
> > Ado
> > > > Letter combination.
> > > > And so forth.
> > > > Ian == Eat Ado
> > > > Yew == Yea Ooze
> > > > Ear == If Array
> > > > Urge == Ado Array
> > > >
> > > > The \hw\ sound that you hear can certainly be
> > represented
> > > > by
> > > > the 2 Shaw letters Ha-Ha and Woe. Why would we need
> > to
> > > > create a new Shaw
> > > > Letter at this point for a rarely used sound, if 2
> > Shaw
> > > > letters work well
> > > > and can not be interpreted as any other sound.
> > > >
> > > > Remember, we are not deleting the redundant letters.
> > We
> > > > are just taking
> > > > them out of mix to allow American English speakers
> > to
> > > > avoid the confusion
> > > > of having to consider more letters than absolutely
> > > > necessary when first
> > > > learning to write American English in the Shaw
> > Alphabet.
> > > > They need a simple basic understanding. So
> > > > We would like to provide simple clear rules of
> > spelling,
> > > > with a minimum of
> > > > alternate spellings.
> > > > Dropping the vowel letters from 24 to 19, will be a
> > great
> > > > help to students.
> > > > Regards, Paul V.
> > >
> > >
> > >=====
> > >"One ship goes east, another west,
> > >By the self same gale that blows.
> > >'Tis not the gale, but set of sail
> > >That determines which way it goes."
> > >
> > >--Unknown
> > >
> > >__________________________________________________
> > >Do You Yahoo!?
> > >Yahoo! Health - Feel better, live better
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> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to
> > http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
> >
> >
> >
>
>
>=====
>"One ship goes east, another west,
>By the self same gale that blows.
>'Tis not the gale, but set of sail
>That determines which way it goes."
>
>--Unknown
>
>__________________________________________________
>Do You Yahoo!?
>Yahoo! Health - Feel better, live better
>http://health.yahoo.com
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