Shavian eGroup Archive Browser

From: Hugh Birkenhead
Date: 2002-07-25 20:01:33 #
Subject: Re: [shavian] American versus British

Toggle Shavian
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.

The problem I foresee is that people won't see any need to learn the other letterforms 'later' if they have something that suits them just fine 'now'. This will destroy any notion that Shavian will be unified. The British will write using ah/awe/on but leave out rhotic vowels, while the Americans will use all the rhotic vowels but neglect to distinguish between ah/awe/on. The result: two similar, but incompatible, writing systems.

I think we will all eventually admit that, for the alphabet to be effective as an *english* alphabet (rather than a regionalised/ghettoised one), US and UK speakers will BOTH have to make some small concession.

The mutual concession could be:
-- Brits/Australians learn to use rhotic vowels 'are', 'or' and 'ear' (and possibly use 'ash' instead of 'ah' in words such as 'past', 'fast', etc.*)
-- Americans/Canadians (any who don't already differentiate) learn to use 'ah', 'awe' and 'on'

[[ * I mention the use of 'ash' instead of 'ah' because 50% of speakers in the UK already speak like this (generally in the north), and also it is the way the vast majority of American English speakers speak, so it could make the alphabet more unified to do this. ]]

Sounds sensible, doesn't it? Mutual compromise. And not a very difficult one to come to. This is all that has to be done to make writing more or less phonetically unified. It will take some time initially, but the long-term result is a more unified alphabet. As has been pointed out, both parties can find out when to use the appropriate letters from the current alphabet as it is.

Hugh

From: craigiest
Date: 2002-07-26 18:11:22 #
Subject: [shavian] Re: American versus British

Toggle Shavian
--- In shavian@y..., "Hugh Birkenhead" <h.birkenhead@u...> wrote:

> 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

It seems fine to start people off not connecting digraphs (and
ultimately encouraging them to write with even more than are made
explicit in the Shaw alphabet.) But the last one of these confuses
me. Why would a stressed "er" sound be denoted with two consecutive
schwas? Writing "world" waDld instead of wxld seems strange and
cumbersome.

Craig



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From: craigiest
Date: 2002-07-26 19:23:41 #
Subject: [shavian] Re: American versus British

Toggle Shavian
> The mutual concession could be:
> -- Brits/Australians learn to use rhotic vowels 'are', 'or' and
'ear' (and possibly use 'ash' instead of 'ah' in words such as 'past',
'fast', etc.*)
> -- Americans/Canadians (any who don't already differentiate) learn
to use 'ah', 'awe' and 'on'
>
> Sounds sensible, doesn't it? Mutual compromise. And not a very
>difficult one to come to. This is all that has to be done to make
>writing more or less phonetically unified. It will take some time
>initially, but the long-term result is a more unified alphabet. As
>has been pointed out, both parties can find out when to use the
>appropriate letters from the current alphabet as it is.

But that's exactly the thing--you can't. Nothing in TO indicates to
north americans when to use AH, AWE, or ON. This analogy to
non-rhotic spreakers is not appropriate. As I understand it, the
"missing" R in Britain isn't really missing. It's just a null
allophone of the R phoneme which the brain is still processing as an
R. In non-rhotic Boston they say, "pahk the cah." But in the right
sound environment, the R appears: "pahk the cah rover theah."


Do those of you who profess to be R-less pronounce "moreover" the same
as you pronounce "mow over"?

Where ON an AWE have merged, they are allophones of the same phoneme.
(And for many people they aren't even produced as different
allophones.) Differentiating them in writing would be equivalent to
NOT writing the R in a non-rhotic accent, because one would be
recording what particular version of a sound is being used, not just
what sound. But we don't have different letters for the two versions
of ASH in "fan" and "fat" (totally different in the US) or a special T
to show that the T's in "what I want" are really glottal stops.

Perhaps it's not a matter if teaching additional letters "later", but
just saying up front, AWE and AH exist, but Americans should use ON
for these merged sounds in their writing. If we don't say that, then
there won't be any consistency within American English, much less
across the seas, because people will be randomly stabbing at what
vowel to write. It seems like a British reader would prefer to have
ON consistently replacing AWE and ASH always replacing AH, than ON
sometimes meaning AWE, and AWE sometimes meaning ON, and AH sometimes
meaning AWE, and AWE sometimes meaning ON...

Shavian is not a phonectic alphabet--it doesn't record every nuance of
pronunciaiton--so it can withstand quite a bit of regional variation
without showing it. However, it is meant to be phonemic. What we are
seeing here is that two varieties of English have different phoneme
sets. The number of phonemes has changed and their boundaries have
shifted. If, for the sake of internationality, it fails to represent
that, it quits being a phonemic writing system. Above all other
conflicting concerns, Shaw wanted a phonemic system.

There is no such thing as a perfect writing system because so many of
the ideals are incompatible. I think it makes sense to pick a
philosophy and stick to it. Compromise is the reason TO is such a
mess, but also one reason it is so successful. Without any unbending
rules it is incredibly adaptable, but that benifit comes with a high
cost in the time it takes to learn. We can abandon the phonemic
system for Shavian and adapt it to be invariable across dialects, but
that will make it less intuitive and harder to learn as well.

Craig



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From: Star Raven
Date: 2002-07-27 17:10:30 #
Subject: Re: [shavian] Re: American versus British

Toggle Shavian
Very nicely thought out, Craig. I think the emphasis here
should be on how each of us represents our own writing and
allow patterns to emerge before we start to assume certain
things. For one, I know that the "missing r" does not mean
that the non-rhotic speakers NEVER have an r sound, it is
only that it is not consistant with the rhotic speakers use
of the same sound.

Another good point that you made was the a in ash for
Americans is not an ah sound, but a short a as in fad or
bat. Perhaps a new name should be found for that letter to
avoid confusion across the Atlantic, but that is another
issue.

Once again, great job, Craig,
--Star

=====
"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

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From: Paul Gershon Vandenbrink
Date: 2002-07-28 07:09:36 #
Subject: [shavian] American versus British Pronunciation

Toggle Shavian
Hi Hugh
Obviously, I would prefer the Shaw written English words to be as close as
possible, irregardless of the writers accent. So, I am very interested in
working out a compromise of some sort.
Your suggested mutual concession sound quite workable,
but let me clarify a couple of points, to see how close we actually are.

-- Brits/Australians learn to use rhotic vowels 'are', 'or' and 'ear' (and
possibly use 'ash' instead of 'ah' in words such as 'past', 'fast', etc.*)
-- Americans/Canadians (any who don't already differentiate) learn to
differentiate 'ah', 'awe' and 'on'.

I personally don't find it hard to differentiate 'on' and 'awe' based on
the duration of the vowel sound. And this matter of duration is used to
differentiate a large number of words. So that is fine.

But to consistently differentiate the "ah" sound from the "awe" sound is
much more difficult for me and probably most Americans as well.
If the British more or less consistently use 'ash' instead of 'ah',
perhaps it would be enough for Americans to just recognize that 'ah' can
pronounced like 'on' but usually represents the 'ash' sound in American
pronunciation.

I agree that your qualms that our simplification of the Shaw vowel letters
for American speakers might prove so conducive to learning an adequate
grasp of the Shaw Alphabet, that the learners would not bother to expand
their understanding to include other accents.

But I think you are not consider the reality that a student of Shaw has to
learn 2 separate skills.
First, to write his own speech, more or less phonetically, with the
addition of a few conventions to keep his writing close to the standard
English Shaw Spelling.
Second, to decode those Shaw writings back into something he recognizes,
either speech or the printed Roman letters.
Then to decode other peoples writing. (Androcles & the Lion)
Obviously, my recommendations to simplify the vowels are mainly to help the
American student to learn to write a sub-set of the Shaw Alphabet.
Once the student starts reading, he or she has to puzzle out different
spellings in the same way we puzzle out the pronunciation and meaning of a
new word in the Roman Alphabet.

The Universality of English writing makes it likely that the American
reader will absorb an understanding of these additional letters. He will
recognize the alternate spellings. If I can recognize gaol as jail, vowel
variations should be easy.
My all-time favorite author is Peter Dickenson. And I would not allow the
minor hurdle that he speaks a non-rhotic accent to prevent me from reading
his works.
My main interest is in getting interested new Shaw students and then
getting them over the difficulty of the getting started without having a
Linguistic background.
We want every English speaker to be able to use the Shaw alphabet. To more
approachable.
Regards, Paul Vandenbrink
_____________attached_______________________
At 08:01 PM 7/25/02 +0100, you wrote:
>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.
>The problem I foresee is that people won't see any need to learn the other
>letterforms 'later' if they have something that suits them just fine
>'now'. This will destroy any notion that Shavian will be unified. The
>British will write using ah/awe/on but leave out rhotic vowels, while the
>Americans will use all the rhotic vowels but neglect to distinguish
>between ah/awe/on. The result: two similar, but incompatible, writing systems.
>
>I think we will all eventually admit that, for the alphabet to be
>effective as an *english* alphabet (rather than a regionalised/ghettoised
>one), US and UK speakers will BOTH have to make some small concession.
>
>The mutual concession could be:
>-- Brits/Australians learn to use rhotic vowels 'are', 'or' and 'ear' (and
>possibly use 'ash' instead of 'ah' in words such as 'past', 'fast', etc.*)
>-- Americans/Canadians (any who don't already differentiate) learn to use
>'ah', 'awe' and 'on'
>
>[[ * I mention the use of 'ash' instead of 'ah' because 50% of speakers in
>the UK already speak like this (generally in the north), and also it is
>the way the vast majority of American English speakers speak, so it could
>make the alphabet more unified to do this. ]]
>
>Sounds sensible, doesn't it? Mutual compromise. And not a very difficult
>one to come to. This is all that has to be done to make writing more or
>less phonetically unified. It will take some time initially, but the
>long-term result is a more unified alphabet. As has been pointed out, both
>parties can find out when to use the appropriate letters from the current
>alphabet as it is.
>
>Hugh
>
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>
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From: Paul Gershon Vandenbrink
Date: 2002-07-28 07:33:55 #
Subject: [shavian] American versus British Pronunciation

Toggle Shavian
Hi Craig
I was hoping that we would iron out as many differences as possible, rather
than get tangled up in the details.
Obviously, as the English accents of the TV Media (CNN + BBC)
are understand around the world, so there is a common ground, outside of
current Roman Alphabet spelling.
It should be possible to examine the vast majority of phonemes we have in
common, before dwelling on the relatively few phonemes that have different
allophones.

Regards, Paul V.
P.S. We are working on a strategy for teaching not rebuilding the English
pronunciation.
P.P.S. Regarding the addition of a Schwa(ado) to differentiate the sound of
'urge' from 'array'. It was just suggestion to mark the longer "urge"
sound. Most Americans do not consistently differentiate those 2 sounds.

_______________attached_______________________


At 06:23 PM 7/26/02 +0000, you wrote:
> > The mutual concession could be:
> > -- Brits/Australians learn to use rhotic vowels 'are', 'or' and
>'ear' (and possibly use 'ash' instead of 'ah' in words such as 'past',
>'fast', etc.*)
> > -- Americans/Canadians (any who don't already differentiate) learn
>to use 'ah', 'awe' and 'on'
> >
> > Sounds sensible, doesn't it? Mutual compromise. And not a very
> >difficult one to come to. This is all that has to be done to make
> >writing more or less phonetically unified. It will take some time
> >initially, but the long-term result is a more unified alphabet. As
> >has been pointed out, both parties can find out when to use the
> >appropriate letters from the current alphabet as it is.
>
>But that's exactly the thing--you can't. Nothing in TO indicates to
>north americans when to use AH, AWE, or ON. This analogy to
>non-rhotic spreakers is not appropriate. As I understand it, the
>"missing" R in Britain isn't really missing. It's just a null
>allophone of the R phoneme which the brain is still processing as an
>R. In non-rhotic Boston they say, "pahk the cah." But in the right
>sound environment, the R appears: "pahk the cah rover theah."
>
>
>Do those of you who profess to be R-less pronounce "moreover" the same
>as you pronounce "mow over"?
>
>Where ON an AWE have merged, they are allophones of the same phoneme.
> (And for many people they aren't even produced as different
>allophones.) Differentiating them in writing would be equivalent to
>NOT writing the R in a non-rhotic accent, because one would be
>recording what particular version of a sound is being used, not just
>what sound. But we don't have different letters for the two versions
>of ASH in "fan" and "fat" (totally different in the US) or a special T
>to show that the T's in "what I want" are really glottal stops.
>
>Perhaps it's not a matter if teaching additional letters "later", but
>just saying up front, AWE and AH exist, but Americans should use ON
>for these merged sounds in their writing. If we don't say that, then
>there won't be any consistency within American English, much less
>across the seas, because people will be randomly stabbing at what
>vowel to write. It seems like a British reader would prefer to have
>ON consistently replacing AWE and ASH always replacing AH, than ON
>sometimes meaning AWE, and AWE sometimes meaning ON, and AH sometimes
>meaning AWE, and AWE sometimes meaning ON...
>
>Shavian is not a phonectic alphabet--it doesn't record every nuance of
>pronunciaiton--so it can withstand quite a bit of regional variation
>without showing it. However, it is meant to be phonemic. What we are
>seeing here is that two varieties of English have different phoneme
>sets. The number of phonemes has changed and their boundaries have
>shifted. If, for the sake of internationality, it fails to represent
>that, it quits being a phonemic writing system. Above all other
>conflicting concerns, Shaw wanted a phonemic system.
>
>There is no such thing as a perfect writing system because so many of
>the ideals are incompatible. I think it makes sense to pick a
>philosophy and stick to it. Compromise is the reason TO is such a
>mess, but also one reason it is so successful. Without any unbending
>rules it is incredibly adaptable, but that benifit comes with a high
>cost in the time it takes to learn. We can abandon the phonemic
>system for Shavian and adapt it to be invariable across dialects, but
>that will make it less intuitive and harder to learn as well.
>
>Craig
>
>
>
>
>
>Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/




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From: Paul Gershon Vandenbrink
Date: 2002-07-29 04:43:23 #
Subject: [shavian] Revised response: American versus British Pronunciation

Toggle Shavian
Hi Craig
Excuse my earlier rushed response, (see below) to your note.
Because I had been focusing on Hugh's suggestion,
I neglected to respond properly to your points.
Primarily, we are trying to work out some minimum sub-set of Shaw
characters, that would be usable to all American learners of Shaw, for the
purposes of getting across a basic understanding of the sounds of the Shaw
letters.
But secondarily, we do want to preserve sound distinctions that exist in
pronunciation, even tho the speaker doesn't notice them or as you put it,
considers them allophones for the same phoneme in American English. That is
the situation we have with the ON and AWE sounds.
This is a much different situation than the AH sound which I suspect, just
isn't used anymore in General American.
It appears from what Hugh is saying, to not be used in most British
Accents, although it is preserved in British Educated Received Pronunciation.
As you pointed out correctly, Shaw is not entirely a phonetic a language.
Although it was built on phonetic principles, it has concentrated on
providing phonemes for all the common sound in the various British accents.
I believe those phonemes are sufficient to include all the commonly used
General American Phonemes of English.
In fact I keep harping on the fact that the Shaw Alphabet represents a
superset of phonemes needed to represent General American English. I
believe that there are more phonemes than needed for the American
pronunciation. That needs to be checked, of course.

There may be a need for other phonemes in General American such as the \hw\
sound Star Raven keeps bringing up.
But can we agree that a recognizable set of shared phonemes between General
American and British R.P. are a necessary starting point. Different accents
will have their own idiosyncratic phonemes, but they can be marked as
pertaining to specific groups of English Speakers. I would like to put the
Ah sound in that category.

Regards, Paul V.

P.S. My apologies again for my previous rushed response.

P.P.S. You are correct that even in non-rhotic accents the r-sound can pop
up before a following vowel. This is does not alway occur tho. Once you
start dropping a sound in English, there is tendency over time for it to
disappear in conversational speech. This can be seen in multiplicity of the
silent letters in Roman Alphabetic spelling. (i.e. gh)
__________________attached_________________________


>Date: Sun, 28 Jul 2002 02:19:58 -0300
>To: shavian@...
>From: Paul Gershon Vandenbrink <pvandenbrink@...>
>Subject: American versus British Pronunciation
>
>Hi Craig
>I was hoping that we would iron out as many differences as possible,
>rather than get tangled up in the details.
>Obviously, as the English accents of the TV Media (CNN + BBC)
>are understand around the world, so there is a common ground, outside of
>current Roman Alphabet spelling.
>It should be possible to examine the vast majority of phonemes we have in
>common, before dwelling on the relatively few phonemes that have different
>allophones.
>
>Regards, Paul V.
>P.S. We are working on a strategy for teaching not rebuilding the English
>pronunciation.
>P.P.S. Regarding the addition of a Schwa(ado) to differentiate the sound
>of 'urge' from 'array'. It was just suggestion to mark the longer "urge"
>sound. Most Americans do not consistently differentiate those 2 sounds.
>
>_______________attached_______________________
>
>
>At 06:23 PM 7/26/02 +0000, you wrote:
>> > The mutual concession could be:
>> > -- Brits/Australians learn to use rhotic vowels 'are', 'or' and
>>'ear' (and possibly use 'ash' instead of 'ah' in words such as 'past',
>>'fast', etc.*)
>> > -- Americans/Canadians (any who don't already differentiate) learn
>>to use 'ah', 'awe' and 'on'
>> >
>> > Sounds sensible, doesn't it? Mutual compromise. And not a very
>> >difficult one to come to. This is all that has to be done to make
>> >writing more or less phonetically unified. It will take some time
>> >initially, but the long-term result is a more unified alphabet. As
>> >has been pointed out, both parties can find out when to use the
>> >appropriate letters from the current alphabet as it is.
>>
>>But that's exactly the thing--you can't. Nothing in TO indicates to
>>north americans when to use AH, AWE, or ON. This analogy to
>>non-rhotic spreakers is not appropriate. As I understand it, the
>>"missing" R in Britain isn't really missing. It's just a null
>>allophone of the R phoneme which the brain is still processing as an
>>R. In non-rhotic Boston they say, "pahk the cah." But in the right
>>sound environment, the R appears: "pahk the cah rover theah."
>>
>>
>>Do those of you who profess to be R-less pronounce "moreover" the same
>>as you pronounce "mow over"?
>>
>>Where ON an AWE have merged, they are allophones of the same phoneme.
>> (And for many people they aren't even produced as different
>>allophones.) Differentiating them in writing would be equivalent to
>>NOT writing the R in a non-rhotic accent, because one would be
>>recording what particular version of a sound is being used, not just
>>what sound. But we don't have different letters for the two versions
>>of ASH in "fan" and "fat" (totally different in the US) or a special T
>>to show that the T's in "what I want" are really glottal stops.
>>
>>Perhaps it's not a matter if teaching additional letters "later", but
>>just saying up front, AWE and AH exist, but Americans should use ON
>>for these merged sounds in their writing. If we don't say that, then
>>there won't be any consistency within American English, much less
>>across the seas, because people will be randomly stabbing at what
>>vowel to write. It seems like a British reader would prefer to have
>>ON consistently replacing AWE and ASH always replacing AH, than ON
>>sometimes meaning AWE, and AWE sometimes meaning ON, and AH sometimes
>>meaning AWE, and AWE sometimes meaning ON...
>>
>>Shavian is not a phonectic alphabet--it doesn't record every nuance of
>>pronunciaiton--so it can withstand quite a bit of regional variation
>>without showing it. However, it is meant to be phonemic. What we are
>>seeing here is that two varieties of English have different phoneme
>>sets. The number of phonemes has changed and their boundaries have
>>shifted. If, for the sake of internationality, it fails to represent
>>that, it quits being a phonemic writing system. Above all other
>>conflicting concerns, Shaw wanted a phonemic system.
>>
>>There is no such thing as a perfect writing system because so many of
>>the ideals are incompatible. I think it makes sense to pick a
>>philosophy and stick to it. Compromise is the reason TO is such a
>>mess, but also one reason it is so successful. Without any unbending
>>rules it is incredibly adaptable, but that benifit comes with a high
>>cost in the time it takes to learn. We can abandon the phonemic
>>system for Shavian and adapt it to be invariable across dialects, but
>>that will make it less intuitive and harder to learn as well.
>>
>>Craig
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/




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From: Paul Gershon Vandenbrink
Date: 2002-07-29 07:29:12 #
Subject: [shavian] Take a look at American Shaw Subset

Toggle Shavian
Hi Star Raven & Craig
I thought you would like to see the 43 letters would be organized
43 letDz fP amXakunz.
HX R 21 konsunents 2 semI-vQalz n 1 AsparEt P Ec.
YlsO HX R 4 R-sQndz.
konsunents hAv 8 vqst, 8 un-vqst, 3 nEzal n 2 lEbials.
n HX iz wun SwY, 10 regMlD vQalz n 4 dipTYNz.
HX R 4 lYN vQalz N 6 SPt vQalz
semI-vQalz R j + w
AsparEt iz h
nEzalz R m + n + N
lEbIalz R l + r
R-sQndz R D + R + P + X
lYN vQalz R I + Y + M + O
SPt vQalz R i + o + U + e + A + u
SwY iz a
dipTYNz R Q + q + E + F
vqst konsunants R b + d + g + v + H + z + Z + J
unvqst consunants R p + t + k + f + T + s+ S + c
It breaks down quit nicely, I think.
Regards, Paul V.
_____________-attached_____________________________
At 09:09 AM 7/27/02 -0700, you wrote:


Very nicely thought out, Craig. I think the emphasis here
should be on how each of us represents our own writing and
allow patterns to emerge before we start to assume certain
things. For one, I know that the "missing r" does not mean
that the non-rhotic speakers NEVER have an r sound, it is
only that it is not consistant with the rhotic speakers use
of the same sound.

Another good point that you made was the a in ash for
Americans is not an ah sound, but a short a as in fad or
bat. Perhaps a new name should be found for that letter to
avoid confusion across the Atlantic, but that is another
issue.

Once again, great job, Craig,
--Star

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By the self same gale that blows.
'Tis not the gale, but set of sail
That determines which way it goes."

--Unknown

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From: Brion VIBBER
Date: 2002-07-29 08:52:26 #
Subject: Re: [shavian] Take a look at American Shaw Subset

Toggle Shavian
Paul Gershon Vandenbrink wrote:


Hi Star Raven & Craig
I thought you would like to see the 43 letters would be organized
43 letDz fP amXakunz.
HX R 21 konsunents 2 semI-vQalz n 1 AsparEt P Ec.

y, sI wat dAmaJ H tradiSanal RTografI kYziz? H _nQn_ fRm v "aspirate" iz pranQnst "AspDit".

YlsO HX R 4 R-sQndz.
konsunents hAv 8 vqst, 8 un-vqst, 3 nEzal n 2 lEbials.

n HX iz wun SwY, 10 regMlD vQalz n 4 dipTYNz.

("regjalD", no?)


HX R 4 lYN vQalz N 6 SPt vQalz
semI-vQalz R j + w
AsparEt iz h
nEzalz R m + n + N
lEbIalz R l + r

R-sQndz R D + R + P + X
lYN vQalz R I + Y + M + O
SPt vQalz R i + o + U + e + A + u
SwY iz a
dipTYNz R Q + q + E + F
vqst konsunants R b + d + g + v + H + z + Z + J
unvqst consunants R p + t + k + f + T + s+ S + c
It breaks down quit nicely, I think.

Except for the o vs Y distinction which I can't reliably make, sounds pretty good. The remaining letters appear to be covered just fine by others (W=Ia, C=Ir, V=jU) or have no apparent distinction from other letters (x=D, y=o)... at least in my dialect. On o/Y, I noticed these in your text:

"YlsO" - Feels intuitively wrong to me, but matches the "aw, augh, ough, al" rule.
"lYN", "dipTYNz" - These felt wrong and didn't match my rule, so I looked them up. My Collins-Robert lists the RP pronunciations of these and other -ong words as having "o", but in the American Heritage Dictionary I was surprised to see both "Y" and "o" pronunciations listed as possibilities.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)


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From: Star Raven
Date: 2002-07-29 14:19:57 #
Subject: Re: [shavian] Take a look at American Shaw Subset

Toggle Shavian
Thank you for the letter break-down. First of all, I don't
know the first thing about html, so please bear with me.

First, I am not an uh-MER-uh-cun, I am an American. This,
perhaps is one of those times when a proper spelling in
shavian would be best.

Outside of my own patriotism, I don't understand why we
have to change the alphabet before we have even seen where
the real problems are. For instance: I prefer the seperate
letter that shaw has for the dipthong in "Ian," and also
(with an ah, not an awe) I believe that some of you may be
over simplifying the distinctions beween ah, on and awe.

These letters are distinctive in more than just the length
of the vowel (v+ow+l in my pron.), they are changes in the
way that they are spoken. The sound of /o/ in "on" is a
short /o/ found in words like "long," "lost," and "god;"
while the /ah/ sound is as in "father, "Hannuka," or
"hall," is in a different part of the throat, as well as a
different lip position. This leaves /awe/. This sound is
more than a longer version of ah, it is more of a
combination of /ah/ and /w/, used in words such as "law,"
"caught," "brought."

Lastly, the vowel+r characters that you seem to dislike
are, as I have said before, are only natural continuations
of the letters. Unlike Roman, several shavian letters can
and should connect to following letters. Also, I am sorry
that I "keep bringing up" /hw/, but the issue remains
unresolved, and it is an important sound to differentiate
between "witch" and "which."

--Star

=====
"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

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