Shavian eGroup Archive Browser

Paul

I understand completely what Craig said - he's completely correct. I am aware that most Americans don't use the 'ah' phoneme. This is why I included (in brackets) the possibility of *minimalising* its use by using 'ash' instead of 'ah' in the majority of words where British readers would be able to use either. That way, 'ah' would be a much more rare occurrence.

I would be keen on undertaking a study to see if we can cut down the occurrence of 'ah' to the bare minimum (i.e. keep it to the occasional word such as 'father').

I will try to use 'ash' from now on so that I can monitor how much I *really* use 'ah'... I suspect it won't be very often.

Hugh

P.S. Another important point - am I correct that Americans don't have any problems knowing when to use the rhotic 'are' letter?

----- Original Message -----
From: Paul Gershon Vandenbrink <mailto:pvandenbrink@...>
To: shavian@... <mailto:shavian@...>
Sent: Monday, July 29, 2002 3:29 AM
Subject: [shavian] Revised response: American versus British Pronunciation

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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Star/All

Install the font attached to this message, if you can, and try the Shift-W character... look familiar? ;)

What do you think? Try it out in writing and tell me what you think! Do you guys think you could make use of it?

Hugh

----- Original Message -----
From: Star Raven <mailto:celestraof12worlds@...>
To: shavian@... <mailto:shavian@...>
Sent: Monday, July 29, 2002 2:19 PM
Subject: Re: [shavian] Take a look at American Shaw Subset

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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Star Raven wrote:

>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.
>
Hmm, how would you spell "American" in Shaw? Paul spelled as
ado-mime-air-ado-kick-up-nun. The second "ado" and the "up" are perhaps
debatable; picking the "right" quality for unstressed vowels seems to be
notoriously difficult.

>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)
>
"Ian" is two syllables where I come from, not a diphthong. Why would you
have a letter for that?

> 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.
>
Can you list some word pairs that differ only in whether they contain
"on" or "ah"? That would go a long way towards seeing if there's a
reason to make the distinction. If the slight difference in
pronunciation is only conditioned by the surroundings, then they can be
considered the same (just as we use the same letter "peep" for "pit" and
"spit", the same letter "kick" for "kill", "skill", and "cute", etc).

The only examples I can think of from my forays into dictionary
pronunciation guides are the series of "o" vs "al"-with-silent-l words:
"bomb"/"balm", "com"/"calm", "pom[-pom]"/"palm", and I'm still not
convinced I make this distinction in real life, though obviously someone
does or they wouldn't list 'em that way.

("Hall" is listed as pronounced with "awe", not "ah", in every
dictionary I've checked.)

> 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."
>
Same as "on" in my dialect, but the difference in other dialects is
fairly well predictable thanks to long years of effort memorizing the
traditional orthography.

>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.
>
In which case there is no reason to consider them as separate letters,
since they will be naturally written that way as vowel+"roar".

> 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."
>
They're pronounced identically in my dialect, so there's nothing to
resolve. ;)

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)



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Thank you for finally resolving this in a font :)

Love and luck,
Star

--- Hugh Birkenhead <h.birkenhead@...> wrote:
> Star/All
>
> Install the font attached to this message, if you can,
> and try the Shift-W character... look familiar? ;)
>
> What do you think? Try it out in writing and tell me what
> you think! Do you guys think you could make use of it?
>
> Hugh
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: Star Raven
> To: shavian@...
> Sent: Monday, July 29, 2002 2:19 PM
> Subject: Re: [shavian] Take a look at American Shaw
> Subset
>
>
> 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
>
> __________________________________________________
> Do You Yahoo!?
> Yahoo! Health - Feel better, live better
> http://health.yahoo.com
>
> Yahoo! Groups Sponsor
>
> Click here to find your contact lenses!
>
> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to the Yahoo!
> Terms of Service.
>
>

> ATTACHMENT part 2 application/octet-stream
name=GHOTI2__.TTF



=====
"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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Yahoo! Health - Feel better, live better
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I concur about the usefulness of letters that represent common pairs
of sounds like AIR and IAN. From an educational standpoint, tho, one
would certainly teach an elementary school student the essential
letters first, thus giving total literacy quickly, and introducing
combining letters later. I don't pronounce WH any differently than W,
but a little loop on W wouldn't bother me if it made sense to you. I
however would never figure out when to use it.

--- In shavian@y..., Star Raven <celestraof12worlds@y...> wrote:

> 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."

I would like to harp on the matter of phonemes for another moment. It
is not adequate evidence of seperate phonemes, deserving seperate
letters to say the vowel in "god" and "hall" is different, because the
vowel is being produced in a different environment. As likely as not,
the difference is really a matter of the consonants stretching the
vowel position. There are a limited number of sounds that produce
distinct meaning in each language, but tremendous variation in how
they are produced. Short A before a nasal sounds very different than
in front of a dental, (pat vs pan) and in other languages that
difference may make them two different sounds.

The only way to demonstrate that they deserve consideration as
independent phonemes is with a minimal pair of words whose only
difference is that vowel. It is well-documented that for large
portions of the US, listeners cannot hear distinguish between "cot"
and "caught" out of context, and that linguists cannot differentiate
their production of those sounds. It is meaningless to refer to them
as seperate sounds. A foreign example: Ask a Spanish speaker how
many sounds E makes. They will answer one. Yet to English-speakers
(used to many more vowel sounds) it sounds very different in open (no
ending consonant) and closed syllables. "De la luna" and "Del sol"
sound like they contain they contain the sounds in "date" and "debt".
But just try to get a Spanish-speaker to hear the difference. It
isn't audible because the the difference carries no meaning, and in
childhood language acquisition, their brain was not wired to note that
difference. Similarly, CH and J are allophonic to most
Spanish-speakers (esp. in Spain.) Thus they cannot hear any
difference between "age", "edge", "H", and "etch"; and if they read
those four words, they will all sound the same to you, unless they
have devoted huge effort to their pronunciation.

If you ask people to write in a system that has more letters than
phonemes, that's the kind of educational difficulty you get into.
While it will be easier to READ than T.O., it will be frustrating to
WRITE in ways a language with too few letters isn't.

So keep all the letters needed to write all varieties of English.
Tell learners what letters they will find themselves using, and make
them familiar with additional letters they may read, but do not try to
demand that people distinguish non-existent differences in their writing.

Craig

P.S. Sorry that I haven't been able to back up some of these
illustrations with soundfiles, but I'm on vacation and without my home
computer.





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Your reply to this letter seems a little harsh to me, but I
will TRY not to take it into account as I respond below.

--- Brion VIBBER <brion@...> wrote:
> Star Raven wrote:
>
> >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.
> >
> Hmm, how would you spell "American" in Shaw? Paul spelled
> as
> ado-mime-air-ado-kick-up-nun. The second "ado" and the
> "up" are perhaps
> debatable; picking the "right" quality for unstressed
> vowels seems to be
> notoriously difficult.

Try Ah-mime-air-if-kick-ado-nun.

>
> >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)
> >
> "Ian" is two syllables where I come from, not a
> diphthong. Why would you
> have a letter for that?

/Ia/ in "Ian" is a dipthong. Period. As much as the /ou/
sound in "out" and the sound in /yew/, as is /awe/. A
dipthong is two vowel sounds formed into one sylable.

>
> > 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.
> >
> Can you list some word pairs that differ only in whether
> they contain
> "on" or "ah"? That would go a long way towards seeing if
> there's a
> reason to make the distinction. If the slight difference
> in
> pronunciation is only conditioned by the surroundings,
> then they can be
> considered the same (just as we use the same letter
> "peep" for "pit" and
> "spit", the same letter "kick" for "kill", "skill", and
> "cute", etc).
>
> The only examples I can think of from my forays into
> dictionary
> pronunciation guides are the series of "o" vs
> "al"-with-silent-l words:
> "bomb"/"balm", "com"/"calm", "pom[-pom]"/"palm", and I'm
> still not
> convinced I make this distinction in real life, though
> obviously someone
> does or they wouldn't list 'em that way.

Let me add that the /l/ in those letters is pronounced in
American RP, as well as in my own speech, despite the /awe/
allowance that the dicionaries make.

>
> ("Hall" is listed as pronounced with "awe", not "ah", in
> every
> dictionary I've checked.)

English or American? Does it reflect the true pronunciation
or the difference between "the King had a great hall" and
"the king had a great haul"?

>
> > 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."
> >
> Same as "on" in my dialect, but the difference in other
> dialects is
> fairly well predictable thanks to long years of effort
> memorizing the
> traditional orthography.

I'm not sure if I quite understand your meaning here. I am
not saying that shaw should be entirely phonetic. It is
phonemic, meaning that it is based on DIFFERENTIATING the
sounds that we make.

>
> >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.
> >
> In which case there is no reason to consider them as
> separate letters,
> since they will be naturally written that way as
> vowel+"roar".

But there is also no reason to change them. BTW, if the
dipthong of "Ian" is two sylables to you, is the rhotic
dipthong /ear/ also two sylables?

>
> > 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."
> >
> They're pronounced identically in my dialect, so there's
> nothing to
> resolve. ;)

But not in mine. I say "what" as /hw-ah-t/ not /w-o-t/. I
am late in this reply though, as Hugh has already resolved
this issue for us simple Americans.

Respectfully,
Star

P.S. It isn't as if I am asking, like quickscript, to use
an x-like letter, but only when an x would be used in TO, I
am only asking that we think about why these letters were
included, and what were the designers intentions.

=====
"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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--- craigiest <shavian@...> wrote:
> I concur about the usefulness of letters that represent
> common pairs
> of sounds like AIR and IAN. From an educational
> standpoint, tho, one
> would certainly teach an elementary school student the
> essential
> letters first, thus giving total literacy quickly, and
> introducing
> combining letters later. I don't pronounce WH any
> differently than W,
> but a little loop on W wouldn't bother me if it made
> sense to you. I
> however would never figure out when to use it.

But some of us crazy people might just snap if we lost the
/hw/ sound. Just remember that if you see it, it is the
same as /w/.

As for teaching, true. When I learened Japanese I learned
the easy letters first. Then again, I couldn't spell in
Japanese either.

Help stop the insanity,
Read and Write in Shavian,
--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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Star Raven wrote:

>Your reply to this letter seems a little harsh to me, but I
>will TRY not to take it into account as I respond below.
>
I apologize if that seems so; any apparent harshness is intended only as
friendly sarcasm.

>>Hmm, how would you spell "American" in Shaw? Paul spelled
>>as
>>ado-mime-air-ado-kick-up-nun. The second "ado" and the
>>"up" are perhaps
>>debatable; picking the "right" quality for unstressed
>>vowels seems to be
>>notoriously difficult.
>>
>>
>
>Try Ah-mime-air-if-kick-ado-nun.
>
The last two vowels sound right, but I can't make the first syllable
anything like "ah" unless I stress the word on it, which is quite
unnatural to me. It's definitely "ado" in my speech.

>>"Ian" is two syllables where I come from, not a
>>diphthong. Why would you
>>have a letter for tha
>>
>
>/Ia/ in "Ian" is a dipthong. Period. As much as the /ou/
>sound in "out" and the sound in /yew/, as is /awe/. A
>dipthong is two vowel sounds formed into one sylable.
>
Since I only have the personal name "Ian" to go on, which is (at least
conceptually) two syllables in my speech, I'm at a loss to continue
here. What other words include this sound? I'm not so sure about 'awe'
being a diphthong either; I've only seen explicit IPA for the British RP
version, which is [O:] (where O is turned-c), a long pure vowel, but I'm
willing to believe there might be a dialect with a diphthong in this place.

>>The only examples I can think of from my forays into
>>dictionary pronunciation guides are the series of "o" vs
>>"al"-with-silent-l words:
>>"bomb"/"balm", "com"/"calm", "pom[-pom]"/"palm", and I'm
>>still not convinced I make this distinction in real life, though
>>obviously someone does or they wouldn't list 'em that way
>>
>
>Let me add that the /l/ in those letters is pronounced in
>American RP, as well as in my own speech, despite the /awe/
>allowance that the dicionaries make.
>
I can't comment on that as I'm unsure what American RP is, but those are
certainly silent "l"s in my dialect. I've occasionally heard the "l"s
pronounced as an artificial aid when attempting to explicitly
distinguish such words, but never in regular speech. Nor are sounded
"l"s listed as normal or alternate pronunciations in the dictionaries
I've checked (see below).

>>("Hall" is listed as pronounced with "awe", not "ah", in
>>every
>>dictionary I've checked.)
>>
>>
>
>English or American? Does it reflect the true pronunciation
>or the difference between "the King had a great hall" and
>"the king had a great haul"?
>
I checked both the American Heritage Dictionary and the Collins-Robert
French-English Dictionary, which lists British RP pronunciations on the
English side.

Neither of these dictionaries nor my own pronunciation shows any
difference between "hall" and "haul".

>>>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."
>>>
>>Same as "on" in my dialect, but the difference in other
>>dialects is
>>fairly well predictable thanks to long years of effort
>>memorizing the
>>traditional orthography.
>>
>>
>
>I'm not sure if I quite understand your meaning here. I am
>not saying that shaw should be entirely phonetic. It is
>phonemic, meaning that it is based on DIFFERENTIATING the
>sounds that we make.
>
Exactly; in dialects that do not differentiate, they are *not* different
phonemes. They are neither produced nor perceived as different, and the
choice of which letter to use for that single phoneme in some given word
therefore requires rote memorization. Less rote memorization than
traditional orthography, to be sure, but still rote memorization that
does not reflect the phonemic inventory of those dialects.

>>>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.
>>>
>>>
>>In which case there is no reason to consider them as
>>separate letters,
>>since they will be naturally written that way as
>>vowel+"roar".
>>
>>
>
>But there is also no reason to change them. BTW, if the
>dipthong of "Ian" is two sylables to you, is the rhotic
>dipthong /ear/ also two sylables?
>
No, "ear" is one syllable, which I would spell in (alternate) Shavian as
eat-roar.

As for reason to change them; if I break the "Ian" and "ear" ligatures
into their components, "if-ado" and "if-ado-roar", I wouldn't pronounce
the result the same as I do the words "Ian" (more like "eat-ado-nun")
and "ear" (more like "eat-roar"). I find it very strange that ligatures
are to be pronounced differently from the combination of their
components, particularly when users of Shavian are encouraged to link as
many letters as possible in writing, making the ligature 'letters'
indistinguishable from their components appearing in sequence.

>>>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."
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>They're pronounced identically in my dialect, so there's
>>nothing to
>>resolve. ;)
>>
>>
>
>But not in mine. I say "what" as /hw-ah-t/ not /w-o-t/. I
>am late in this reply though, as Hugh has already resolved
>this issue for us simple Americans.
>
That was a joke. ;) This simple American, however, makes no distinction
between the words, and would have to memorize use of a "hw" letter by
rote, just as with on/awe.

>Respectfully,
>Star
>
>P.S. It isn't as if I am asking, like quickscript, to use
>an x-like letter, but only when an x would be used in TO, I
>am only asking that we think about why these letters were
>included, and what were the designers intentions.
>
With all due respect, you might as well be. To those of us who don't
have your /hw/ phoneme, the usage of such a letter (instead of /h/ or
/w/) can only be predicted by knowing where <wh> is used in TO, or
learning it separately by rote just like we learned TO.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)



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So difficult!

> >P.S. It isn't as if I am asking, like quickscript, to
> use
> >an x-like letter, but only when an x would be used in
> TO, I
> >am only asking that we think about why these letters
> were
> >included, and what were the designers intentions.
> >
> With all due respect, you might as well be. To those of
> us who don't
> have your /hw/ phoneme, the usage of such a letter
> (instead of /h/ or
> /w/) can only be predicted by knowing where <wh> is used
> in TO, or
> learning it separately by rote just like we learned TO.

I have been trying to stress learning the letters that are
outside one's phoneme set but included in shavian for this
very reason. If you see a check instead of a slash, since
there is no distingtion for you, the check and the slash
make the same sound. If you have no difference between ah
on and awe, then you would read them as the same sound.
That way--And I hope I am stating this clearly enough to
finally adress this point--you will read the three symbols
as easily as you read the word succinct (suh-sinkt)with the
c making an s sound, or bread making a short e-sound. The
purpose is to reduce the spelling changes. If "hall" and
"haul" sound the same to you, spell them /h-awe-l/, I will
read them the same. If one of our limey friends (no offense
to those across the pond) uses ah in past instead of a
short a, you should be literate enough to understand that
pahst to them is the same as past to you and me, and pahtee
is the non rhotic form of party. That should only be hard
for one thinking in TO terms as opposed to shavian terms.

No harm, no foul,
--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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Hi Brion and Star Raven
Thanks for taking a close look at our suggested American Shaw Subset. From
your comments, we seem to be going in the right direction.
Excuse my spelling. ("regjalD") is indeed the right way to spell "regular"
in the Shaw Alphabet.
I was pleasantly suprised at how much of the symmetry of the original Shaw
Alphabet is preserved in the American Subset, especially in the Dipthong
letters.
In my opinion, it looks like a good basis to make up some sample
transliterations and see if there any additional words that require
additional letters to clearly represent General American speech.
Is "amXeken" a more acceptable spelling of American?
I have noticed that sometimes the difference between words, is not
accentuated by Shaw Alphabet spelling.
For example in the words "barrier" "bXID" or "bXrID"
and "bare rear" "bX rID" the main difference seems to be just an
unmarked syllable break between the "I" and the "D".

A couple of good example of word pair where the main difference in
pronunciation is between the "on" sound and the "awe" is
"Doc" versus "Dawg"
"frock" versus "frog"
The difference in voicing between the final consonants, disappears if you
whisper the words.
I am surprised this distinction is not in your dialect, too.

As for words pairs where there is difference based on the distinction
between "on" and "ah", you would have to ask
Hugh or someone more familiar with an British RP accent.
Mid-western Canadian recognizes both as valid sounds, but does not
distinguish between them. The 2 phonemes that use those sounds more or less
overlap. A messy situation, I would remedy if I could.

Let me quote Brion and Star Raven and respond.
Star Raven says
>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.
>
Brion responds
In which case there is no reason to consider them as separate letters,
since they will be naturally written that way as vowel+"roar".
Paul responds
Shaw Alphabet is interesting in that it distinguishes between the r-sound
starting a word or before the vowel
and post-vocalic r-sounds. This is a major innovation.
Linguistically, it indicates that while some vowels can incorporate a
retroflex R-sound; Most vowels have to glide into the R-sound.
In any case I would like to preserve the distinction. Obviously it is very
important for British RP pronunciation, where the r-sound is usually
replaced by another vowel sound or dipthong.
This is my long winded way of suggesting that where there is no r-sound
letter in the Shaw Alphabet for a post-vocalic r-sound,
it should be written vowel+ "array".

Thanks again for all your feedback.
Regards, Paul V.
_____________________attached_______________________


At 12:51 AM 7/29/02 -0800, you wrote:
>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 regjalD 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 quite 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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