Shavian eGroup Archive Browser

First, I should draw it to everyone's attention that the
alphabet that we use is arranged fairly randomly. Who
dictated that it shoud be abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz and
not something more logical. We could sort it as it is on
the traditional layout---

tall: peep, tot, ect.
deep: bib, deed, ect.
short: everything else.
then Rhotics and Dipthongs.

As for the keyboard layout, I still feel that for some it
may be easier to learn the shavian keyboard if it is not
halfway connected to the roman keyboard layout. The problem
is that the keyboard should either be completely connected
so that it is easy to understand, or completely set apart
so that one does not have, say, voiced TH as H while
breathless th is t or what have you. This is why I must, in
all fairness, say that the keyboard layout of androlocles
and lionspaw is atrocious. This is also why I don't type in
Shavian. It is not a problem with using the shift key. The
problem comes when you have to use the wierdest letters to
represent others as opposed to using deep letters as
"qwertyuiop" while the tall letters would be "QWERTYUIOP"
then the short letters which would use the shift key to
flip them, lets say that you would use the inner
"dcfvgbhnjm" for the bottom row of short letters, while the
capital versions of these would be the top row. The "shift"
key then become the "flip" key.

I am sorry to admit that I am relatively inept at doing a
standard keyboard lay out, but I think in terms of the
chart by which I learned shavian. I don't want to have to
look up each sound on a random chart of halfway related
letters and non related letters. I learned by the standard
shavian chart, and I am sure that others have as well, so
why don't we base more of our layouts, dictionaries, ect on
that?

I think I've been rambling, so that will be all from me for
now...

--Star

=====
"You know what they say, 'Human see, Human do.' "
--Julius, Planet of the Apes

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Hello all. I've been lurking for quite some time and thought it time
to weigh in. I started teaching myself Shaw this summer and I guess
some of you will be happy to know I'm 20.

Anyway, to weigh in on some of the running arguments...

Seems to me that there a few different ideologies out there about the
Shaw alphabet.

1. Those in favor of spelling reform.
2. Those who want to use Shaw for (broad) phonetic transcription.
3. Those who enjoy Shaw's aesthetics and consistency.

I'm not saying there's no overlap. In any case, people are free to
adapt Shaw to their own puposes (tip of the hat to Mr. Vandenbrink).

What I enjoy in Shaw is the consistency (category 3). I would like
to see this consistency extend to a regularized system of spelling
and I agree with others that the best way is to tie it to a pre-
existing Pronunciation Scheme (not orthography). I like NBC English
because there are fewer digraphs, i.e. fewer characters to recognize.

Shaw is what it is. Perhaps we as a group could make amendments for
greater consistency, but I think the only real contribution we can
realistically agree on is the addition of new special characters for
the sounds of different dialects. This is more enhancement than
amendment. Quikscript is already superior in terms of phonetic
representation and perhaps we should abandon the idea that one Shaw
letter will always represent one sound...

With one major exception. In terms of the spelling/pronunciation
system, one Shaw letter will always represent one sound. In a way,
this is already true. The original alphabet is tied to a standard
British pronunciation. Having lived in England as well as the US, I
can sympathize with those who want to tie spelling to RP. But I
think that the digraphs should be counted as extra dialect letters.
Of course, there's no reason why we can't have a Standard British
Shavian and a Standard American Shavian.

I don't see why Shavian, Quikscript and Traditional Orthography can't
peacefully co-exist. TO could be left to universities and scholars
interested in etymology. Quikscript is well-suited for
transcription. And Shavian is the more suitable for your day-to-day
reading. Japanese has multiple alphabets, so maybe it's not too pie-
in-the-sky.

Anyway, if we really want to expand the userbase of Shavian, I vote
for emphasizing its readability and consistency. That's my two cents
and its worth no more as I am new to the brotherhood of Shaw.
--thousandshipz




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I have already written about free and user-firendly utility called KDWin which enables you to create as much keyboard layouts as you wish.

Yenovk





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Welcome,

On Sat, 2002-09-21 at 20:29, thousandshipz wrote:
>
> Hello all. I've been lurking for quite some time and thought it time
> to weigh in. I started teaching myself Shaw this summer and I guess
> some of you will be happy to know I'm 20.
>
> Anyway, to weigh in on some of the running arguments...
>
> Seems to me that there a few different ideologies out there about the
> Shaw alphabet.
>
> 1. Those in favor of spelling reform.
> 2. Those who want to use Shaw for (broad) phonetic transcription.
> 3. Those who enjoy Shaw's aesthetics and consistency.
>
> I'm not saying there's no overlap. In any case, people are free to
> adapt Shaw to their own puposes (tip of the hat to Mr. Vandenbrink).
>
> What I enjoy in Shaw is the consistency (category 3). I would like
> to see this consistency extend to a regularized system of spelling
> and I agree with others that the best way is to tie it to a pre-
> existing Pronunciation Scheme (not orthography). I like NBC English
> because there are fewer digraphs, i.e. fewer characters to recognize.
>

I just wanted to clear up what you meant by "digraphs". "Digraph" means
two letters written together to represent a single sound, such as "th"
for the dental fricative. This is a feature of orthography, not
pronunciation. And, unfortunately, I'm quite unclear what you are
actually referring to.

> Shaw is what it is. Perhaps we as a group could make amendments for
> greater consistency, but I think the only real contribution we can
> realistically agree on is the addition of new special characters for
> the sounds of different dialects. This is more enhancement than
> amendment. Quikscript is already superior in terms of phonetic
> representation and perhaps we should abandon the idea that one Shaw
> letter will always represent one sound...

I've always thought of it as "one letter, one phoneme". I can't think
of any occasion where someone has protested that the "tot" character is
used in the middle of the word "better" in American pronunciation when
the sound is quite different from either of the consonant sounds in
"tot". On an unrelated note, I should add that I haven't taken a hard
look at Quikscript, but IIRC it follows more or less the same ideas as
Shavian.

>
> With one major exception. In terms of the spelling/pronunciation
> system, one Shaw letter will always represent one sound. In a way,
> this is already true. The original alphabet is tied to a standard
> British pronunciation. Having lived in England as well as the US, I
> can sympathize with those who want to tie spelling to RP. But I
> think that the digraphs should be counted as extra dialect letters.
> Of course, there's no reason why we can't have a Standard British
> Shavian and a Standard American Shavian.
>
> I don't see why Shavian, Quikscript and Traditional Orthography can't
> peacefully co-exist. TO could be left to universities and scholars
> interested in etymology. Quikscript is well-suited for
> transcription. And Shavian is the more suitable for your day-to-day
> reading. Japanese has multiple alphabets, so maybe it's not too pie-
> in-the-sky.
>
> Anyway, if we really want to expand the userbase of Shavian, I vote
> for emphasizing its readability and consistency. That's my two cents
> and its worth no more as I am new to the brotherhood of Shaw.
> --thousandshipz
>

--
Cheers,
Bob Schmertz


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If keyboard layout is up in the air, then I think we have the
opportunity--responsibility even--to create an efficient means of typing
Shavian. The QWERTY keyboard is much like traditional
orthography--inefficient, illogical, and a historical relic. I learned the
dvorak layout:

',.pyfgcrl/=\
aoeuidhtns-
;qjkxbmwvz

several years ago and after a good bit of hard work and
disorientation, I can type faster with less effort. It only makes sense to
come up with a similar scheme for Shavian that places the most frequently
used characters directly under th fingers and maximizes alternating between
hands for successive letters. It is not a problem having characters
disconnected from those printed on the keyboard. In fact it forces you to
touch type. That said, I'm not sure I have the energy at the moment to cram
a third layout into my head.

There is the question of whether the layout should be achieved by mapping
the shavian letters to unconnected TO letters so you could use a normal
keyboard, or should an actual keyboard layout be created that one would
switch to in the system, in which case you could have some connection to TO
letters. The advantage of some connection to TO letters is that some sense
can be made of text that is not displayed in a shavian font.

In creating a new keyboard, it would make sense to avoid shift characters.
It might make sense for all the rhotic digraphs to be shifted versions of
the plain vowels, though. That would reduce the intrusion of letters onto
keys needed for punctuation and numbers.

Has anyone done any sort of analysis of character frequency in Shavian?

Craig (29)



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OK, I might have convinced myself to try to create a shavian "dvorak"
layout. Anybody else out there using Mac OS X.2 that I could share with?

Craig



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I suppose by "digraphs" I meant mostly the rhotic vowels. Being new to
the terminology, I'm afraid I use it with lack of precision.

I'm not sure what you mean when you refer to the American
pronunciation of "better." Are you suggesting it be spelled with
a "dead"?

--- In shavian@y..., Bob Schmertz <rschmertz@s...> wrote:
> Welcome,
>
>
> I just wanted to clear up what you meant by "digraphs". "Digraph"
means
> two letters written together to represent a single sound, such as "th"
> for the dental fricative. This is a feature of orthography, not
> pronunciation. And, unfortunately, I'm quite unclear what you are
> actually referring to.
>
> I've always thought of it as "one letter, one phoneme". I can't think
> of any occasion where someone has protested that the "tot" character
is
> used in the middle of the word "better" in American pronunciation
when
> the sound is quite different from either of the consonant sounds in
> "tot". On an unrelated note, I should add that I haven't taken a hard
> look at Quikscript, but IIRC it follows more or less the same ideas as
> Shavian.
>
> --
> Cheers,
> Bob Schmertz



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On Sun, 2002-09-22 at 17:10, thousandshipz wrote:
> I suppose by "digraphs" I meant mostly the rhotic vowels. Being new to
> the terminology, I'm afraid I use it with lack of precision.
>
> I'm not sure what you mean when you refer to the American
> pronunciation of "better." Are you suggesting it be spelled with
> a "dead"?
>

Well, most Americans pronounce the "tt" in "better" as what linguists call a
"flap" -- a sound that is mostly like the sound of "d", but much shorter than
the d in "ado". This is actually nearly the same sound as r in many languages,
such as Spanish. So it is a different sound, but it is an allophone of the /t/
phoneme in US English.

Anyway, I'm not suggesting that it be written with anything other than "tot".
However, if we wanted this to be a phonetic alphabet, rather than a phonemic
one, we would have a separate symbol for the "flap" sound, as the IPA does
(the IPA symbol looks like an "r" without the little thing sticking up in the
upper left corner).


> > I've always thought of it as "one letter, one phoneme". I can't think
> > of any occasion where someone has protested that the "tot" character
> is
> > used in the middle of the word "better" in American pronunciation
> when
> > the sound is quite different from either of the consonant sounds in
> > "tot". On an unrelated note, I should add that I haven't taken a hard
> > look at Quikscript, but IIRC it follows more or less the same ideas as
> > Shavian.
> >
> > --
> > Cheers,
> > Bob Schmertz
>
>
>
>
>
> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
>
>
--
Cheers,
Bob Schmertz


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On Sunday, September 22, 2002, at 10:41 , Craig Butz wrote:

> OK, I might have convinced myself to try to create a shavian "dvorak"
> layout. Anybody else out there using Mac OS X.2 that I could share
> with?
>
> Craig
>
>
Craig,

I run Jaguar. If you want to share with me you can. By the way,
my Unicode Shavian pages are readily readable using OmniWeb. :-)

--Scott



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-----Oorspronkelijk bericht-----
Van: Steve Bett <stbett@...>
Aan: shavian@... <shavian@...>
Datum: vrijdag 20 september 2002 23:22
Onderwerp: [shavian] Locating copies of Shaw's Androcles...


[snip]

>It would be simpler to drop the ligatures that are used with
>diphthongs and combinations. e.g., use *laik instead of *lFk. A
>converter could be used for typesetting so the ligatures could be
>used in printed materials.
>
>I prefer to write out ai, oi and au and the r-combinations to having
>to memorize some arbitrary character assignment.

[snip]

My keyboard drivers do just that! go to http://quikscript.teraiten.cjb.net/
and read all about them. Although stil in a test phase, and only for
Quickscript, it does work like you've just described.

If you type 'laik', the program recognises the letter-combination 'ai' and
automatically converts this to 'F', so it would read 'lFk' on the screen.

Let's take a look at a part of the sourcecode:

'a' + 'a' > 'y'
'a' + 'e' > 'A'
'a' + 'u' > 'Q'
'a' + 'i' > 'F'
'a' + 'a' + 'r' > 'R'
'a' + 'r' > 'D'

It's very easy to understand. The first line means that an 'a' followed by
an 'a' turns into a 'y'. It is not hard to make your own conversion schemes.
I have made three different drivers at the moment; one which converts
English in a NewRomaji-like spelling scheme into Quickscript, a 'maximum
efficiency' typing scheme (you use less keypresses for more used characters)
and a special NewRomaji scheme that should convert certain characters into
alternate forms (Quickscript has various forms for the same letter, to make
connections in handwriting easier. The program tries to mimic this. For more
information on this, see the Quickscript manual).

Ewout

/EvQt stym




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