Shavian eGroup Archive Browser

Hi Edward

Thanks for your kind words. I will respond to your points in order
to expound my opinions, of course. Also I am trying to be as a
accurate as possible when answering specific questions.

Unfortunately, as you point out Shavian is being used as a tinkertoy
for people interested in languages and phonetics rather than being
used as a valid replacement for the Roman alphabet.
The people who can recognize the benefits of Shaw Alphabet, tend to
want to adapt the Shaw Alphabet for their own personal dialect of
English.
In a lot of cases for their use as a Diary Alphabet, rather than a
mode of communication.

I came from that School of thought, and my particular revision of the
Shawian Alphabet as described on my web site, www.shawalphabet.com
was optimized to incorporate a Glottal Stop, and to minimize the
spelling differences between various accents of English, while still
remaining Phonetic.

However, I have put that particular hobby horse aside for the moment
and have concentrated my effort on making the Shaw Alphabet more
approachable to people speaking English with an American Accent.
Some of inconsistencies you noted in Androcles, are simply older
Britsh pronounciations that are not commonly used any more, even in
England.

First things first. We need a speech/reading/writing community.

Regards, Paul Vandenbrink

P.S. I set up a Dictionary file in Hugh's Ikon Board.
I still have an outstanding question on how to incorporate English
text into the Shaw postings.
I will have to experiment, unless someone knows?
P.P.S. Apologies to Rubik, my FAQS are not 100% applicable to the
orginal Shaw Alphabet.

--- In shavian@..., "Chanticrow" <chanticrow@m...> wrote:
> >I believe Philip is being unduly pessimistic in his responses.
>
> We all have our opinions. Both of your answers are helping me form
mine.
> Thank you very much for the information.
>
> So far, despite the various sites about the alphabet (thanks for
the links,
> Paul!), it seems that the potential "Shavian movement" is rather
> disorganized. Right now Shavian appears to me to be a tinkertoy
for people
> interested in languages and such rather than a valid replacement
for the
> Roman alphabet.
>
> Paul, your site is very interesting. Are your revisions to Shavian
a solo
> effort or are you collaborating with like minded people to generate
new
> ideas?
>
> I have read in a few places that there were errors in Androcles and
the Lion
> (which I was fortunate enough to find a hardback copy of), and that
> Quickscript corrects these errors. Is there a version of Shavian
that takes
> these corrections into account?
>
> >P.S. I hope you will proceed with your interest in the Shaw
Alphabet.
> >I have foundit very rewarding myself. Please let me know, if you
have
> >any questions?
>
> I would like to keep looking into it. It's an interesting subject
and
> possibly something worthwhile to share with others. I'm still at
the "sound
> it out" phase of learning/reading it, but this is after only a few
hours of
> looking at it. So far it's a great system.
>
> Based on the websites there are a few people who really love this
alphabet
> and they have obviously put a lot of work into getting more
material out and
> available. Unfortunately, I can't see Shavian becoming anything
more than a
> hobby until there are more useful resources (such as a dictionary
and an
> agreed upon glyph/phonetic standard) available. Then it has to be
> advertised to people who might find it useful (people teaching
English as a
> second language, perhaps?). There are some very compelling
arguments on the
> web in Shavian's favor, but unless people know it's there no one
will ever
> see it.
>
> Again, thanks for the info. I look forward to learning and
discussing with
> you.
>
> Edward


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I didn't notice any errors in Androcles when I read it
around 40 years ago. I just assumed that it
represented the pronunciation of a "standard" dialect
of British English, which I also noticed in my
correspondence. My correspondents wrote "your" and
"our," for example, as two syllables, as "you-er" and
"Ow-er," while I thought of them as one syllable. In
my Midwestern dialect of English, and in others also,
the word "ours" is, or almost is, a homophone of
"arz." For example, in the song "Home on the Range,"
one finds the following rhyme:

"How often at night,
When the heavens are bright,
With the light from the glittering stars,
Have I stood there amazed,
And asked, as I gazed,
If their glory exceeds that of ours."

There are of course many more examples I could use.

Jerry

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Edward:

The Quikscript mailing list is at Read_Alphabet@.... The
"Jerome" font was put together by Jon Zuck. In addition, there is a simple
way to adopt an alternative keyboard mapping to make it simpler to type in
QS if you already know TO. This can be turned on and off with a click of
your mouse. Good luck in your studies.

Paige Gabhart


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Hi Jerry
To my ear, "hour" and "our" are homonyms.
Interestingly, as a Canadian, my mind accepts both "arz"
and "ow-erz".
I tend to say "ow-erz" and "ow-erz" in when the words are in stressed
circumstances.
Still, it is a distinct sound, in the long form, just not common enough to
have its own Shaw letter

Regards, Paul V..

At 08:56 AM 12/20/02 -0800, you wrote:
>I didn't notice any errors in Androcles when I read it
>around 40 years ago. I just assumed that it
>represented the pronunciation of a "standard" dialect
>of British English, which I also noticed in my
>correspondence. My correspondents wrote "your" and
>"our," for example, as two syllables, as "you-er" and
>"Ow-er," while I thought of them as one syllable. In
>my Midwestern dialect of English, and in others also,
>the word "ours" is, or almost is, a homophone of
>"arz." For example, in the song "Home on the Range,"
>one finds the following rhyme:
>
>"How often at night,
> When the heavens are bright,
> With the light from the glittering stars,
> Have I stood there amazed,
> And asked, as I gazed,
> If their glory exceeds that of ours."
>
>There are of course many more examples I could use.
>
> Jerry
>
>__________________________________________________
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>Yahoo! Mail Plus - Powerful. Affordable. Sign up now.
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>
>
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Paul, I wonder where in Canada you live. Some of my
relatives live or lived in Perth County, Ontario, at
the west end of the "Pennsylvania Dutch" settlement of
New Hamburg, Waterloo, Kitchener. (Kitchener was named
"Berlin" prior to WWI.) My Canadian ancestors were
German-Speaking Alsatians, mainly of distant Swiss
ancestry, who settled at Seebach's Hill, near
Stratford, in 1835.

My grandmother Baker was born in Iowa, but she always
pronounced "Mary" as something like "May-ree" or
possibly even "May-uh-ree." I guess she got that from
her mother, who, although born in the German state of
Thuringia, spent part of her childhood in New York
City, probably Brooklyn, before coming to Iowa with
her husband in 1851.

She seemed unable to pronounce my name. She pronounced
it "Churld," to rhyme with "world." She pronounced her
husband's name, which was "Jake," as "Check."

My great-aunt Mary Baker, whose parents came from the
Rhineland Pfalz, pronounced my name as "Jurld." When I
visited Germany in 1970, I noticed that my relatives
there pronounced a "g" that preceded an "e" or "i" as
"zh," and wondered why their dialect, which I've heard
called "Middle Frankish," differed from other forms of
German. They also pronounce the "ei" diphthong that
occurs in words such as "Heim" (home) as "hame," just
as Robert Burns did in his west lowland Scottish
dialect.

Some of my German ancestors were originally French in
the 17th Century. At that time, several families from
the Amiens area of Picardie migrated to Fehrbach, a
German "ghost town" that had been totally depopulated
by the 30 Years' War. My ancestors of that group
included people named "Raquet" as well as the
descendants of Jacques Augustin and Anne Madeleine
Charron, who married in 1667, apparently before going
to Germany. In some records his name is changed to
"Jacob" and hers to "Anna Magdalena Scharon," the
German forms.

Gerald "Jerry" Baker
Cedar Falls, Iowa


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Hi Gerald

I live in Toronto, Ontario currently, but I grew up out west in Alberta and
so have vague mid-western American accent along with a few Canadianisms.
You have quite a number of influences on your speech.
Must be nice to know your family history in such detail.
Mine fades away after a couple of generations. Some Scottish and Huguenot,
but the Canadian, Dutch and American ancestors predominate.
The "zh" sound is fairly new to English. It seems to pop up in relatively
recent French loan words.
For example, azure, measure, leisure, espionage, usual and
Jean, all incorporate the "zh" sound.

Regards, Paul Vandenbrink

_____________ attached _________________
At 11:39 AM 12/22/02 -0800, you wrote:
>Paul, I wonder where in Canada you live. Some of my
>relatives live or lived in Perth County, Ontario, at
>the west end of the "Pennsylvania Dutch" settlement of
>New Hamburg, Waterloo, Kitchener. (Kitchener was named
>"Berlin" prior to WWI.) My Canadian ancestors were
>German-Speaking Alsatians, mainly of distant Swiss
>ancestry, who settled at Seebach's Hill, near
>Stratford, in 1835.
>
>My grandmother Baker was born in Iowa, but she always
>pronounced "Mary" as something like "May-ree" or
>possibly even "May-uh-ree." I guess she got that from
>her mother, who, although born in the German state of
>Thuringia, spent part of her childhood in New York
>City, probably Brooklyn, before coming to Iowa with
>her husband in 1851.
>
>She seemed unable to pronounce my name. She pronounced
>it "Churld," to rhyme with "world." She pronounced her
>husband's name, which was "Jake," as "Check."
>
>My great-aunt Mary Baker, whose parents came from the
>Rhineland Pfalz, pronounced my name as "Jurld." When I
>visited Germany in 1970, I noticed that my relatives
>there pronounced a "g" that preceded an "e" or "i" as
>"zh," and wondered why their dialect, which I've heard
>called "Middle Frankish," differed from other forms of
>German. They also pronounce the "ei" diphthong that
>occurs in words such as "Heim" (home) as "hame," just
>as Robert Burns did in his west lowland Scottish
>dialect.
>
>Some of my German ancestors were originally French in
>the 17th Century. At that time, several families from
>the Amiens area of Picardie migrated to Fehrbach, a
>German "ghost town" that had been totally depopulated
>by the 30 Years' War. My ancestors of that group
>included people named "Raquet" as well as the
>descendants of Jacques Augustin and Anne Madeleine
>Charron, who married in 1667, apparently before going
>to Germany. In some records his name is changed to
>"Jacob" and hers to "Anna Magdalena Scharon," the
>German forms.
>
> Gerald "Jerry" Baker
> Cedar Falls, Iowa
>
>
>__________________________________________________
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>Yahoo! Mail Plus - Powerful. Affordable. Sign up now.
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I found another Phonetic Alphabet for English on the Web.
It is called G l o b u l . 2 0 0 0 . F o n e t i k . A l f u b e t
and can found at www.strongware.com
It uses Diagraphs to specify the full 40 English Phonemes.
Seems simple and easy to use than CUT spelling.

Long A => Ay
Ah & O => Aa
Short A same
Ee => Y
I => Aay

Long O is same
Long U=>Uu
Could =>coud
Sure => shuor
Caught =>caut

House =>haaus
Bait =>bayt
Rough =>ruf
Light =>laayt
Weigh =>way

Bought =>baut
Bough =>baau
Cough =>cauf
Philo- =>filo-
Psi =>saay

Clock =>klaak
Catch =>katc
Judge =>djudj
Thin =>qin
That =>xat

Is =>iz
Battery=>batery
Apple =>apul
Write =>raayt
Give =>giv

Of =>uv
Women=>wimen
Love =>luv
Was =>wuz
Xylo- =>zaaylo-

Nation=>nayshun
Oil =>oyl
Two => tuu
Sugar=>couguor
Shoe =>shu=>cu


The Globul 2000 A alphabet will then contain all 26 of the
traditional symbols plus 14 symbols (Diagraphs) for phonemes that are
missing from the traditional alphabet and be:

A Aa Aau Aay Au Ay B C D E Ee F G H I J K L M N O Ou Oy P Q R S Sh T
Th Dh U UU W X Y Z Zh


> Regards, Paul Vandenbrink
>



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Somebody sent me a JPG of a Shavian text - in one of the present day Shavian
fonts - and asked me for a transliteration. I tried to reproduce the "cowboy"
dialect. (I can e-mail the JPG to anyone who wants to see the original.)

Has anyone seen this text before? Looks like it might be part of a treasure
hunt.

Bob Richmond
Knoxville, Tennessee USA
RSRICHMOND@aol.com
***************
Howdy y'all,
Ah don't aim to talk your ear off, so I'll yest [sic] git raht to it. That
way yuh cn start lookin for the letterbox bifore the heeit of the Sun addles
yer brains. First off, yuh gotta git to the finest town in Texas. 'N' no, it
ain't Dallas. It's our little bit of heaven on earth raht here in the hill
country. The capitol of this great state and the live music capitol of the
world. That's Austin for you yankees. If yuh come downtown yuh'll see that
the capitol and just 'bout evrythang they build for the state's made outa
pank granite. And where yer gunna start yer search ain't no difrunt. it's
raht on the edge of the state's finest institution of higher learning, the
University of Texas. And in case yer dumber than a box of rocks, Ah'll give
yuh one more clue: raht out front is the biggest dadgummed star Ah ever seen.
Now, once yuh git heer you've gotta walk 'bout three blocks down the hill
towards the sunrise and just across Waller Crick. Heer yer gonna find the ol'
Santa Rita number one oil well. It's a raht intrestin ol' thang. While yer
standin thar lookin at it, turn back to the west and yuh'll see a big
limestone rock raht thar at the top of the crick nex' to some powerboxes on a
pole. Ah hid mah box under the edge of that rock. Ah hope yuh injoy mah stamp
and thanks fer comin, it was raht kind of yuh.
Oh, in case y'all was a-wondrin' why Ah write like this, well, ain't no good
reason other than yuh maht be able to heer the way Ah talk. Just to share the
sweet sounds of Texas with yuh.

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Solved the mystery myself when my correspondent replied.

Bob Richmond
**************
This is indeed part of a treasure hunt of sorts. I am a hopeless

afficionado of a hobby called letterboxing. There are over four thousand

of these boxes hidden around the U.S. often in places of historic

interest or natural beauty. Inside the (hopefully) waterproof container

is some sort of guest book and a rubber stamp. When a letterboxer finds

a box they stamp into the guest book with their signature stamp and

collects an impression of the hidden box's stamp in their own personal

journal. Everything is then replaced for the next letterboxer to find.

Many of the rubber stamps are hand-carved and depict an image that

reflects their location.


The hobby attracts people of all ages and interests. There seems to be

highly creative (and quirky) element to many of the followers. Clues can

be highly cryptic, humorous, informative or downright straightforward.

The stamps hidden can be store bought, which I find boring, beautiful

original creations, or very primitive. I have found boxes under rocks,

inside logs, in a pub, even hidden in the ceiling tiles of a public

library. To learn more take a look at www.letterboxing.org


My guess is that the writer of the Shavian Cowboy Clue is involved with

the University of Texas. In reading about G.B. Shaw and the alphabet, I

discovered that the institution has a collection of Shaw manuscripts.

The person who hid the box is probably connected somehow... and may well

be from someplace other than Texas.

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Henry Kirchner, a Shavian correspondent of mine in the
1960s & mid-1970s, lived in Garland, Texas. He worked
for Jaggers-Chiles-Stovall in Dallas, the same place
as Lee Harvey Oswald, and mentioned to me about
running into Oswald 2 times at work. He sent some of
my ideas to Dick Hitt, a columnist for the Dallas News
& Hitt published them in his column. One was a
sentence that included all the sounds represented by
the Shaw alphabet. Another was this sentence, which
included all the letters of Roman-lettered English:
"Five zany ex-cops gambled with queer jacks."

Some time around 1970 Henry quit JCS and went to work
as a printer for the Dallas News. However, he became
increasingly depressed and in 1975 or 1976 he killed
himself, or at least that's what the police said. He
had told me 2 or 3 years before it happened that his
life was "a suburban hell."

It may have been I who got an English professor at the
U of Texas interested in the Shaw alphabet. When in
1964 or so Kingley Read began publishing Shaw-Script,
typed on his Shaw Alphabet typewriter, (perhaps the
only one in existence), and printed by offset, I wrote
to several University people around the country and
got them to subscribe. (Read mentioned to me in a
letter that they'd subscribed.) I remember that I
contacted several University people whose letters had
been published in Harper's Magazine, an around that
time Harper's did a very laudatory article about the U
of Texas.

Jerry

--- RSRICHMOND@aol.com wrote:
> Solved the mystery myself when my correspondent
> replied.
>
> Bob Richmond
> **************
> This is indeed part of a treasure hunt of sorts. I
> am a hopeless
>
> afficionado of a hobby called letterboxing. There
> are over four thousand
>
> of these boxes hidden around the U.S. often in
> places of historic
>
> interest or natural beauty. Inside the (hopefully)
> waterproof container
>
> is some sort of guest book and a rubber stamp. When
> a letterboxer finds
>
> a box they stamp into the guest book with their
> signature stamp and
>
> collects an impression of the hidden box's stamp in
> their own personal
>
> journal. Everything is then replaced for the next
> letterboxer to find.
>
> Many of the rubber stamps are hand-carved and depict
> an image that
>
> reflects their location.
>
>
> The hobby attracts people of all ages and interests.
> There seems to be
>
> highly creative (and quirky) element to many of the
> followers. Clues can
>
> be highly cryptic, humorous, informative or
> downright straightforward.
>
> The stamps hidden can be store bought, which I find
> boring, beautiful
>
> original creations, or very primitive. I have found
> boxes under rocks,
>
> inside logs, in a pub, even hidden in the ceiling
> tiles of a public
>
> library. To learn more take a look at
> www.letterboxing.org
>
>
> My guess is that the writer of the Shavian Cowboy
> Clue is involved with
>
> the University of Texas. In reading about G.B. Shaw
> and the alphabet, I
>
> discovered that the institution has a collection of
> Shaw manuscripts.
>
> The person who hid the box is probably connected
> somehow... and may well
>
> be from someplace other than Texas.
>



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