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This article on Braille jewelry appeared in the Wall Street Journal,
September 2nd 1999. If Braille, why not Shavian? There's an opportunity for
one of us (don't look at this elderly pathologist) to make a buck (or a quid)
here! I took these notes from the article - look up the Web sites if you're
interested.

Bob Richmond
***************
The Latest Trend in Newfangled Bangles is Braille

"This fall, a company called Lara Boeing 747 will launch a jewelry collection
with the phrase "love is blind" in Braille on...cuffs and bracelets. The dots
aren't raised, so blind people won't be able to understand the words. But
company founder Lara Bohinc just thinks Braille looks cool."

"In recent years, Braille advocates have been embroiled in a fight to
preserve the relevance of the code, which was invented by Frenchman Louis
Braille in 1824. With such technological advances as talking computers, some
schools have been reluctant to teach Braille to their visually impaired
students. A dearth of qualified teachers adds to the struggle."

New York designer Christopher Roule uses real Braille dots. He has a Web site.

Designer Kim [male] Christiansen won the first Creative Use of Braille Award
from the American Printing House for the Blind, in Louisville KY.

National Association to Promote the Use of Braille, a division of the
National Federation of the Blind, in Baltimore.

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Evenin' All...

I am about to embark upon a project, to convert More's "Utopia" to Shavian. It will be a long project, but made much easier (I hope) by my phonetic translator. Here is an extract I have already done:

Aftx wI hAd sevrul tFmz met wiTQt kumiN tM An ugrImunt,
HE went tM brusulz fYr sum dEz tM nO Hu prinsuz pleZx.
And sins Qx biznus wUd udmit it, F went tM Antwxp. wFl F
woz Her, umuN menI HAt vizutud mI, Her woz wun HAt woz mYr
Akseptubul tM mI HAn enI uHx, pItx JFlz, bYrn At Antwxp, hM
iz u mAn uv grEt onx, And uv u gUd rANk un hiz tQn, HO
les HAn hI duzxvz; fYr F dM not nO if Her bI enIwer tM
bI fQnd u mYr lxnd And u betx bred juN mAn: fYr Az hI iz
bOT u verI wxHI And u verI nOiN pxsun, sO hI iz sO sivul tM
Yl men, sO portikjulxlI kFnd tM hiz frendz, And sO fUl uv
kAndx And ufekSun, HAt Her iz not pxhAps ubuv wun Yr tM
enIwer tM bI fQnd HAt or un Yl ruspekts sO pxfekt u frend.
hI iz ikstrYrdunerulI modust, Her iz nO ortufis un him; And jet
nO mAn hAz mYr uv u prMdunt simplisutI: hiz konvxsESun woz sO
plezunt And sO inusuntlI cirful, HAt hiz kumpunI un u grEt
meZx lesund enI lYNiNz tM gO bAk tM mF kuntrI, And tM mF
wFf And cildrun, wic An Absuns uv fYr munTs hAd kwikund
verI muc. wun dE Az F woz rutxniN hOm frum mAs At strIt.
merIz, wic iz Hu cIf cxc, And Hu mOst frIkwuntud uv enI
un Antwxp, F sY him bF Aksudunt tYkiN wiH u strEnJx, hM
sImd pAst Hu flQx uv hiz EJ; hiz fEs woz tAnd, hI hAd u
lYN bird, And hiz klOk woz hANiN kerluslI ubQt him, sO
HAt bF hiz lUks And hAbut F kunklMdud hI woz u sImun.

(You need Lionspaw for this, if it didn't work for you)
Then I will need to polish it up, probably using Ghoti Fingers. Obviously there will be a lot of words not in the dictionary, and these won't get converted. So I'll have to do these by hand. The block above is a direct conversion with no intervention from me, but most have a few words unconverted. Utopia has some unusual words in it, words such as SYPHOGRANT, TRANIBOR and ARCHPHILARCH. I'm not even sure how to pronounce some of them!

Anyway, the main idea is to give TPT a thorough workout, and see how effective the results are, and at the same time get myself more familiar with the alphabet.

Once done, I'll place the results on my web site. They'll probably be in plain text, which means you'll have to do the font setup when you download, but I may put them in PDF format, or maybe even as a neobook publication.

Any preferences?


- .+'^'+. A.M.Callaway ----------------- acal@...
- A N D Y Melbourne, Australia --- a.callaway@...
- `+.,.+' www.ozemail.com.au/~acal <http://www.ozemail.com.au/~acal> -------------------------
________________________________


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Greetings, everyone.

Someone else had the idea months ago of putting the vault
to use, and I acted on it somewhat. Thought I would just
let people find it on their own, but I'm not sure anyone
ever did. :)

Anyhow, I created a fonts directory, with three subdirectories
(macintosh, windows, other). The "other" is because I know
for a fact there is a TeX font out there somewhere.

I'm a Windoze user, so I uploaded the Win fonts.

Of course, if anyone disapproves of this action -- in particular
the creators of the fonts -- it can obviously be reversed.

There is also a Links directory, which is empty. This could have
a lot of stuff put into it.

Finally, I advocate the creation of an "apps" directory which
would store executables like the Shavian typewriter, the phonetic
translator, and whatever else you clever netizens have come up
with.

This, of course, is not to usurp anyone's web site, or to replace
the "universal" site that some have suggested. Just a way to
introduce a little constructive redundancy and to make this e-group
a bit more of a "one-stop shopping" area.

Comments?

Hal Fulton




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Hal,
Sounds good to me! I can't imagine anyone should really worry at this
point about being proprietary about Shavian fonts or translations. We
are neither so large a movement nor so settled in, that we should start
being dogmatic or possessive. All that will achieve is discrediting the
notion of spelling reform in general and make us look like inmates of an
asylum. Now, I think, is a time for us to enable each other to be
creative, try things out, see what works and what doesn't, and share our
thoughts and creative activities.
Spelling reform is idealistic in a society that resists change. But
idealists needn't be either egotistical or narrow-minded. For me,
Shavian (in which I keep my diary and personal notes on my calendar, as
well as practice trans-spellings) is a beginning point from which to
work.
I look forward to hearing about where I can get ahold of the writings
in Shavian of other people, so we can see what happens when we attempt
to use it as a reading system as well as a writing system.
I appreciate your efforts! Sincerely, Dr. Dan Szczurek,
Doctor of Anthropological Linguistics

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On 28 Sep 99, at 10:54, hal9000@... wrote:

> Comments?

Good idea!

How does one use the vault, though? I assume this is some eGroups-
specific thing?

Cheers,
Philip
--
Philip Newton <Philip.Newton@...>

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On 28 Sep 99, at 10:54, hal9000@... wrote:

> Comments?

Good idea!

How does one use the vault, though? I assume this is some eGroups-
specific thing?

Cheers,
Philip
--
Philip Newton <Philip.Newton@...>

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hi,

I came across Shavian recently and have been learning
it bit by bit. What method can anyone suggest to
approach the learning. Is it just a matter of sitting
down and working to match phonemes to symbols?

I got particularly interested in the idea of a single
phonetic alphabet to represent all spoken languages,
but it seemed that Shavian as is could not represent
even French or Spanish, and would have a rough time
with several other languages I can think of. Right
now I'm looking at Hungarian and have been struck by
its phonetic representation of spoken Hungarian, and
the different way it uses to indicate the various
vowel pronunciations - accents, dots, tildes, standard
sounds for letter combinations.

This reminds me that Shavian as Shaw said to be spoken
in the accent of King George, and felt it important to
move towards standardization of pronunciation -
perhaps forwarding the homogenous metaphor of
industrial production - whereas in this century
regionally distinct accents and its associated pride
have taken off, clearly evidenced at least in the UK
by the variety of TV personalities' accents.

So anyway, to stop rambling, and throw out an idea for
discussion: would an "international Shavian" be
feasible? If and why not, or why, given the
proliferation of regionalism?

thanks

- Bruce
idiotic dilettante

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> 245. Daniel G. Szczurek Re: The Vault
>
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> ------------------------------ message 245
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> Date: Thu, 30 Sep 1999 02:31:34 -0800
> From: "Daniel G. Szczurek" <twojbrat@...>
> MIME-Version: 1.0
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> Subject: [shavian] Re: The Vault
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>
> Hal,
> Sounds good to me! I can't imagine anyone should
> really worry at this
> point about being proprietary about Shavian fonts or
> translations. We
> are neither so large a movement nor so settled in,
> that we should start
> being dogmatic or possessive. All that will achieve
> is discrediting the
> notion of spelling reform in general and make us
> look like inmates of an
> asylum. Now, I think, is a time for us to enable
> each other to be
> creative, try things out, see what works and what
> doesn't, and share our
> thoughts and creative activities.
> Spelling reform is idealistic in a society that
> resists change. But
> idealists needn't be either egotistical or
> narrow-minded. For me,
> Shavian (in which I keep my diary and personal notes
> on my calendar, as
> well as practice trans-spellings) is a beginning
> point from which to
> work.
> I look forward to hearing about where I can get
> ahold of the writings
> in Shavian of other people, so we can see what
> happens when we attempt
> to use it as a reading system as well as a writing
> system.
> I appreciate your efforts! Sincerely, Dr. Dan
> Szczurek,
> Doctor of Anthropological Linguistics
>
>
>
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>
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>


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Dear Hal,
I am a computer illiterate. What is the Vault?
Dr. Dan Szczurek



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Dear Bruce Hearn,
There already exists an alphabet for writing all the world's languages,
The International Phonetic Alphabet. Shavian is a proposed solution to
writing English more phonetically, so that it can more easily be learned
by learners of reading and writing.
Some of us Shavians do not accept the idea that we should use a
standard pronunciation, but write the way we speak. If you can't
understand our speech, you wouldn't be able to read what we wrote. I'm
willing to face that reality. And I'm not going to learn British
Received Pronunciation as a second language to speak to people who can
understand me, when I speak my own Standard Midwestern American English.
I'll spend that time on Esperanto or another unconstructed human
language.
For reading you might get in contact with those of us who are
transcribing writings we like into Shavian, and exchanging them. I
haven't been able to download a Shavian font yet, so all my
transcriptions are by hand and photo-copied. Anyone who wants to use
what I have for reading practice is welcome to e-mail me their address
and I will send out what I have transcribed. I encourage other Shavians
to share, too.
Dr. Dan Szczurek, MST, Ph. D.



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Thout this one raised important points:

[snip]
> Some of us Shavians do not accept the idea that we should use a
> standard pronunciation, but write the way we speak. If you can't
> understand our speech, you wouldn't be able to read what we wrote.

To what extent, 'write the way we speak'? If I may be so bold, I would like
to put it to you all that at least half of
all the differences that arise between writers' spellings do not occur thru
dialectual differences, as is always assumed, but thru the way writers
interpret the individual letters. I frequently see writers completely
ignoring the 'array' letter, for example, and always using 'err' instead; I
find it hard to believe that this is dialectual, more the writer's own
opinion on how the character should be used. Other writers have differing
opinions on 'if'+'ado' versus 'ian' in words such as 'bohemia', 'if' versus
'eat' at the end of words such as 'funny', 'yea'+'wool'+'array' versus
'yew'+'array' in words such as 'manure' - again, this is purely a matter of
opinion on usage and nothing to do with dialect. If we are concerned with
adequate cross-literacy, a good step in the rite direction would be to
combat the usage differences. Somehow I think standardizing usage of letters
would be a whole lot more agreeable than asking people to think about
changing their 'written accent'.

> I'm willing to face that reality. And I'm not going to learn British
> Received Pronunciation as a second language to speak to people who can
> understand me, when I speak my own Standard Midwestern American English.

A word on differences in English (the ones that DO concern written Shavian):
with regard to the somewhat dogmatic attitudes I have observed many a time
regarding "being proud of one's dialect" and "not having to 'conform' to a
single pronunciation", this is possibly overdoing it a bit. IT IS NOT
DIFFICULT to alter one's spelling habits slitely to make one's writing
easier to read for the majority, if not everyone; a prime example of how
writers are already
doing this (possibly unknowingly) is in the use of American 't's - if
American
writers wrote exactly the way they spoke (as many claim to), surely they
should not be writing the letter 'tot' in words such as 'better', but 'ded'
instead? I myself have managed to make my written Shavian much closer to
Androcles orthography just by practicing it regularly - and
I've only been writing Shavian for just over a year!! And nobody ought to
make the assumption, just because of my British nationality, that my dialect
is far closer to Androcles orthography than, say, American ones (thus making
it far easier to change spellings) - IT IS NOT!! If I were adamant that my
own 'dialect' would suffice, and wrote exactly as I spoke, my writing would
be far more difficult to read, and would make all of you slow down a great
deal in order to understand it, I can guarantee it! Tho I am proud to be who
I am and what nationality I am, I don't care about my stupid accent or my
own ideas about letter usage - I want people to be able to read what I write
with the minimum of effort, so I use the orthography and letter usage from
Androcles as a base, as that is the writing that most Shavia have already
seen and, most likely, new Shavia see when they first encounter the
alphabet. . If I find that any spelling of my own is obviously objectionable
I
will change it straitaway. After all, it's WHAT I write, not HOW I write it,
that matters most; and I don't want to run the risk of people having trouble
understanding the former of those two because of the latter.

And, just by the way, the Androcles orthography (supposedly 'standard'
orthography) is by no means received pronunciation. All the rhotic vowels
have been included (which never occurs in RP). I don't know why the
'phonetic expert' in charge of transliterating Androcles did that, as it
'disobeys' Shaw's wish that it use the pronunciation of King George V. To be
honest I can't think which dialect it does represent - no dialect I know (on

either side of the pond) uses a combination of both rhotic vowels in words
such as 'park' and 'ah's in words such as 'grass'... curious. Maybe they
were trying to strike a balance between standard British and standard
American accents.

[snip]
> Dr. Dan Szczurek, MST, Ph. D.

Hugh Birkenhead
www.funkymusic.co.uk

P.S. You mite have noticed that my e-mail address has changed again - it's
now mixsynth@.... Sorry to all who have already had to get used
to the last one!