I agree that spelling should not be standardised. This
would undermine the point of shavian. You are correct in
that the pronunciation variations are structured. How else
to those in showbiz learn to "do accents" as they do? Take
a french speaker who has learned English for instance. One
one hand, French has no /th/ sound, this is replaced by /s/
or /z/, also, the /h/ sound becomes silent in most uses and
can therefore be dropped.
My feeling is this: if the pronunciation is different due
to accent, then it will also affect the way the person
reads shavian, iow, if the New Zealander uses a short e
sound where NBC american uses a short a, this will carry
over to the pronunciation guide. What is ash will be
pronounced with a short /a/ sound for americans, while
someone else may pronounce it with a short e, "esh," so the
pronunciation used to demonstrate the letter sound carries
over. Or, if one sees no difference between up and ado,
then if they see either letter, they will us a short u
sound. the understanding come in the context.
That, and with shavian, children will finally be able to
spell words like gnu gnome gnat know business dictionary
psychiatry psycology and, my personal favorite, people.
Clear as mud?
--Star
--- Paul Gershon Vandenbrink <pvandenbrink@...>
wrote:
> Hi Steve
>
> The point that I wished to make to Star, was that even
> without standardized
> spelling, the Shaw Alphabet is an extremely efficient way
> to write English.
> As far as someone from another accent group reading
> something written in
> Shaw, there would be minor difficulties, but I believe
> that those reading
> difficulties, essentially a few multiple spellings for
> the same word, are
> almost insignificant, compared the variability of English
> Spelling using
> the Roman Alphabet.
>
> Also the English phonetic variations are quite regular,
> and apply generally
> to the less significant vowel sounds, in the word.
> Personally, I think there are a number of solutions to
> create standardized
> spelling after the fact.
> For instance, you could have a Standardized Shaw
> Spelling, where similar
> vowel sounds are grouped together under one character. If
> a vowel sound has
> multiple pronunciations in different accents, you could
> just put in a vowel
> placeholder, leaving the exact pronunciation open.
> For example, in the example given of "day" being
> pronounced as spelt in an
> Austrailian accent and as "dey" in General American
> English. The sound in
> both cases is a Dipthong ending in an "ee" sound. We
> could have one letter
> covering the both dipthongs. I think we need to minimize
> the vowel
> variations that we consider in English. Anyway, A lot of
> unstressed vowels
> in English words are now pronounced with the ubiquitous
> Schwa sound.
>
> Is English Spelling Standardization under Shaw really an
> issue at this point?
> Couldn't we leave it for later?
>
> Regards, Paul V.
> P.S. A number of Alphabets get by without vowel letters
> altogether.
> __________________attached_______________________
> At 06:43 AM 9/14/02 +0000, you wrote:
> >Star and Paul,
> >
> >I think the printing industry would demand a
> standardized spelling.
> >
> >As long as Shavian remains a parallel script for
> pronunciation guide
> >spelling, there is no problem. As soon as it becomes
> mainstream, it
> >would have to face the standardized spelling issue.
> >
> >When you start spelling one dialect, some single shapes
> start to
> >become associated with more than one sound. It is very
> difficult to
> >prevent this.
> >
> >What generally happens is that the phonemic script
> becomes
> >reinterpreted in every locale. DAY is pronounced as
> spelled in
> >Australia but pronounced /dey/ in the U.S. I am not sure
> what would
> >happen if NBC-English became the base pronunciation.
> Day would be
> >spelled dey in the U.S. Even if it were standardized,
> Aussie
> >pronunciation would not change.
> >
> >When Pitman went international with the i.t.a., he
> insisted that it
> >was a reading guide not a pronunciation guide spelling.
> >Pronunciation was to be adjusted to every locale. All
> he wanted to
> >retain were the contrasts.
> >
> >So he had standardized spelling and variable
> pronunciation.
> >
> >Etymology is often important for understanding word
> meanings. There
> >is no real need, however, to provide etymological cues
> in the
> >spelling.
> >
> >
> >Steve.
> >
> >
> >--- In shavian@y..., Paul Gershon Vandenbrink
> <pvandenbrink@s...>
> >wrote:
> > > Hi Star Raven
> > > It is beneficial to have a phonetic alphabet, such as
> Shaw, even
> >without Spelling standardization.
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to
> http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
>
>
>
=====
"You know what they say, 'Human see, Human do.' "
--Julius, Planet of the Apes
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