Shavian eGroup Archive Browser

Having seen the dead horse beaten into the dust, I have to agree with
you, Mike

--Star

--- Mike <theomnis@...> wrote:
> Hi all,
>
> In my opinion as to this whole phonetic fiasco, I think it is most
> important to be consistent when using characters. Because some
> people cannot differentiate between certain sounds, I feel that they
> should simply choose one letter for the sound, and use that
> consistently. It is far better to be consistent than to attempt to
> use the correct characters and further complicate things.
>
> Just my two cents...
>
> -Mike Stolz
>
>


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Problematic Words containing unstressed @ and stressed
3 -- the "obscure vowels" The proof of their
obscurity is confirmed in the covered up error, the X
for x [err for air] switch, which was not corrected
until Quickscript was published.

Some orthographies merge them. Shavian doesn't.
Instead 3` or 3:r is assigned to X "err".
While @r <ar> is assigned to D "array".

Paul wrote: "According to the rules, there shouldn't
be an English word starting with [the D] sound?
Any suggestions on how to get out of this conundrum?"

The Shavian @r ligature is assigned to D instead of
leaving it as <ar> as in ENgliS. The key word for @r
combination is "array" which means that array in
Shavian would be keyboarded DE instead of <arE>.

Having a unigraph for a phoneme combination creates
more problems than it solves. The ligatures can be
added in published materials by sending the copy thru
a converter. Ligatures are a typographic feature. This
complication is not needed in sound writing.

There is always a problem with arbitrary substitutions
in a new orthography. ar is easy enough to remember
as the representation of /@r/ but D for the ar
combination is problematic.

There is no way in Shavain to write 3 apart from 3r
[X]. So while "other" can be written uHar or uHD.
"Urgent" has to be written Xjent. ENgliS gets in a
similar problem with Rjent for urjent.

/3`/ is a pure vowel and so deserves its unique sound
sign. Sweet used to use @@ for the stressed schwa
sound. urgen @@jent in BBC English and @@rjent in
NBC-English.

I have suggested that a new simplified keyboard be
created for a new set of Shavian and Quickscript
fonts. The ENgliS phonemic keyboard could serve as
the new readable keyboard. Compare the readability of
unigraphic ENgliS and unigraphic keyboard Shavian.


ARRAY = "Ado" "Roar" "Egg" like "a ray" surfer
"DE" or arE in Shavian
SAMPA = @ r e/eI @ reI s3`f@`
ENgliS a r A a rA sRfar

URLs: SAMPA
http://www.phon.ucl.ac.uk/home/sampa/home.htm
ENgliS
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/saundspel/files/en/englis-short.html
Spanglish
groups.yahoo.com/group/saundspel/files/spanglish/sp-3c.html


This is how the lists should look:
----------------------------------
tradspel Spanglish ENgliS Shavian
----------------------------------

hurrah haraa harc hary both unigrafs bad
alms aamz cmz ymz
spa spaa spc spy
arson aarsan crsan yrsan
awsome awsam osam Ysam osam more readable
sofa so[w]fa sOfa sOfa
cipher saifer sYfar sFfD sYfar readable
ado adu adw adM w for uu better
book bvk bvk bUk
beauty biuty bUty bVtI
very vary very varry very vqry verI vArI
avary eivary Avary FvDI Avary is readable
cowboy couboy kowboy kQbq kowboy readable
"Array" arey arA DE "array" is a key word
a ray a rey a rA a rE in the Shaw alpha
card caard kcrd kRd-kyrd
caught cawt kot kyt
court cort kort* ky[r]t
Richard Richerd riCard riCDd
richer richer riCar riCD
record record rikord rikord
tailor teiler tAlar tElD
mirror mirer miar miD-mCD
mere mir mir mir-mC
ear ir ir ir - C
herder hurder hRdar hXdD
surfer surfer sRfar sXdD

rider raider rYdar rFdD
roar rowr/ror rOr rOr
rower rower rOar/rOwar
braggart braggert bragart brAgDt
southern suthern suDarn suHD

"Err" ur R, ur X
error errer erar XD
terror terrer terar tXD
scarer skerrer skerar skXD
scary skarry skqry skArI
starry staary stcry styrI
forfeit forfit forfit forfit
earth urth RT/urT XH
unearth anurth anRT anXH
unsightly ansaitly ansYtly ansFtlI

ermine urmin Rmin-urmin/urman Xmin
irksome urksam Rksam, urksam Xsam
her hur hR, hur
fur fur fR, fur
turn turn tRn, turn
learn lurn lRn, lurn
cur cur kR, kur
courage curaj kRaj, kuraj
courtesy curtasy kRtasy, kurtasy

fern furn fRn, furn
furnace furnas fRnas
spurn spurn spRn
Turk turk tRk
turkey turky tRky/tRkE
herd/heard hurd hRd
further further fRDar
urgent urjent Rjant
purge purj pRj
burn burn bRn
earn/urn urn Rn, urn
early urly Rly, urly

It may sound "too simple" that the only difference is
stress. But that's how it is. Except....

under under undar
unreal unriel anrEl
unreliable anrelaiabl anrelYabl
primary stress not on <un> but <an> looks odd

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Steve Bett wrote:
> Having a unigraph for a phoneme combination creates
> more problems than it solves. The ligatures can be
> added in published materials by sending the copy thru
> a converter. Ligatures are a typographic feature. This
> complication is not needed in sound writing.

I tend to agree with this. Ligatures should be left as typographical
features. But if one person's ligature is another person's phonemic
letter, it might be best to leave it alone, and allow its use to be
optional.

> There is no way in Shavain to write 3 apart from 3r
> [X]. So while "other" can be written uHar or uHD.
> "Urgent" has to be written Xjent. ENgliS gets in a
> similar problem with Rjent for urjent.
>
> /3`/ is a pure vowel and so deserves its unique sound
> sign. Sweet used to use @@ for the stressed schwa
> sound. urgen @@jent in BBC English and @@rjent in
> NBC-English.

I have personally solved the problem by simply using the letter Err (X)
to represent the rhoticized "3" sound in my pronunciation. I don't
pronounce it or use it as a ligature, but as a simple vowel.

> I have suggested that a new simplified keyboard be
> created for a new set of Shavian and Quickscript
> fonts. The ENgliS phonemic keyboard could serve as
> the new readable keyboard. Compare the readability of
> unigraphic ENgliS and unigraphic keyboard Shavian.

?? ?????? ?? ????
?? ???? ???????? ???????
The first two lines were written in Unicode, which is the only "proper"
way to store Shavian text in electronic form. The first line is encoded
in the "Private Use" area as coordinated by the Conscript Unicode
Registry. The second line is encoded in the Shavian area on plane 1, as
found in the Unicode 4.0 standard recently released. As you can see,
there is no "readability issue" here! Either it works, or it doesn't.

"Keyboard Shavian" is nothing but a workaround, a temporary solution to
allow people to use Shavian even if their computers or software don't
support Shavian text. Once everybody's computers support Shavian text
properly, then there will be no need for "keyboard Shavian" or for fonts
which are encoded for it.

A proper keyboard layout for Shavian text ideally would be the one which
permits the greatest of ease in typing. It should place the most
frequently used characters at one's fingertips, on the home keys. The
lesser used characters would be placed in positions which are more
difficult to reach. The letters which are least used of all would be
placed on a different keyboard plane, accessible by typing two keys at
once, such as the shift key and another key. This is something which I
plan on working on. For now, I'm simply concentrating on getting proper
functionality with Unicode Shavian.

How am I doing? Well, I can read both lines above using my text editor
(Yudit), but I can only read the first line using Mozilla 1.3, which is
my email client. I haven't yet figured out how to convince Mozilla to
display any text beyond Unicode plane 0. This could be a problem for a
while, until software manufacturers begin to comprehend the need to
support 32 bit Unicode characters. Until then, we use what works. In
my case, that's the first line, and the following:

?? ??????? ??? ??? ??? ??? ???, ???? ??????? ? ??? ?? ??. ???? ?!
???????,

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--
Ethan




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For anybody interested, I just posted some fonts on my webpage. There
are fonts containing both Latin and Shavian characters in their proper
locations, with the Shavian in the Conscript encoding (Private use area)
at U+E700, and also in the secondary multilingual plane (plane 1) at
U+10450.

There is also a version of the same font with Shavian characters in the
Latin portion, as well as the Unicode areas. This works similar to such
fonts as have been available previously.

These fonts are all the same style - Gothic or Sans-serif, similar to
Ghoti and Arial, but of my own design. Like most freeware fonts, the
True Type fonts are not properly hinted, (due to patent issues) but they
are anti-aliased, so if you have good sofware, they will look pretty
good. Printing on modern printers should not be affected by the lack of
hinting. If you can use Open Type fonts, you might want to try that
version. The hinting support there is much better than with True Type.

Any problems, please let me know, so I can correct them.

You can download them at my site:
http://www.30below.com/~ethanl/fonts.html

Enjoy!

--
·???? - Ethan



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Ethan and everyone,

Looks like we are working on similar ideas. I started
getting into alternative keyboards for a while. In
fact, my laptop is connected to a Dvorak keyboard. I
started looking into adapting Shavian characters to a
keyboard layout. First thing I did was write a small
program which counted character occurances from my
BEEP dictionary translated into Shavian. (But it is
not an accurate count because it was the dictionary
not mounds of representative text). Then I looked at
Dvorak's keyboard layout to arrange according to
frequency. Ideally, you should be able to type
without touching the shift key. I've always disliked
the idea of capital letters, I don't even care for the
naming dot, (it doesn't get pronounced). However,
there are too many sounds, (or not enough fingers). I
tried combining a few by capturing rhoticized
characters in two strokes: press a key for "ah" and
one for "r" to make a single "ar" letter. But there
are still too many letters. Another thing, (I was
looking at IPA at the same time), is that "ch" and "j"
are considered combinations of two sounds, so I
thought of using two keystrokes for those sounds as
well, but that seems to be too much. You could
probably create a 10-key keyboard that created most
sounds through those kinds of combinations. I even
looked into keyboard manufacturers, especially ones
that can do one-off deals. Unfortunately, many of
those manufacturers are dying off. Even Dvorak
keyboards are getting hard to come by. Right after I
bought mine, the company that made them discontinued
the line.

As for the alphabet. I saw an easy opportunity to
turn my Linux machine into a 100% shavian machine.
Simply run some conversion scripts over the English
message files and resource files to produce Shavian
versions, then all my menus, windows, icons, and
editors would be Shavian. But then there was the
problem that most programs still expect ASCII/Roman
script. Many of the UNIX commands like "ls" and "cp"
have to remain ASCII, not translated. Therefore,
"keyboard shavian" doesn't really make sense. There
has to be a page-0 ASCII in addition to a page-n
Shavian. There ought to be something analoguous to
the "iso-8859-X" fonts, (probably "x-shavian"), which
map the upper 8-bit characters to Shavian. Then, your
keyboard needs to map one key to switch between ASCII
and Shavian sets.

I hope that Shavian can be standardized. I can
understand the desire for someone to spell exactly the
way they pronounce things, but there has to be a
"commerical Shavian". I know that technology is at a
point where we can customize someone's spelling down
to the individual level, but there are some
applications that will have to assume a standard for
printing and writing on stone even if it is not the
way the speakers write. This is a big difficulty. Do
you cover the sounds that most people use, or the ones
that someone might use one day in some remote corner
of the globe? I would think it ought to really tend
toward the simplest solution, just enough so that
similar sounding words are still distinguishable by
context. You can even go to extremes and throw out
some vowels, (like Arabic and Hebrew), or reduce them
to a common set. That is where I left stuff at.



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Mike asks:

How important is it to distinguish "on" and "ah"
or the sounds in

path - father - bottle - bought
{ A A A Q O O:
bath - palm - bother - caught

Due to the variable pronunciation of words such as bother
in various English accents, I have suggested that we develop
ambivalent sound signs.

Of course we already have ambivalent sound signs but the point
is to allow ambivalence only where needed - not across the board.

As to the acceptability of "spelling as you speak", you first need
to establish a context. There is certainly nothing wrong with
writing dialect as long as it is identified as such.

If we ever make it to a standardized phonemic writing system, then
this implies a standardized pronunciation. That standard will
probably be broadcast English.

You can approximate this situation today by simply consulting a
dictionary or pronunciation guide. They typically represent
broadcast English and the dictionaries in American, England,
Scotland, and Australia do not always agree since they are
representing different dialects.

Regards,

Steve

--- In shavian@..., "Mike" <theomnis@y...> wrote:
> I am an American, so I am
> subject to that whole deal of not pronouncing a difference between
> some letters ("on" and "ah" being the most frequent).

> In my transliteration, I am not attempting to distinguish
> differences that are hard for me to hear. I figure that I should
> at least be consistent, and use the same letter.
> For example, when in a
> situation where "on" or "ah" could be used, I always use "on."

> Is this acceptable to do?



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Paul, Mike, Hugh, and others:

Semagrams [meaning signs] and logograms [word-signs] are useful
additions to an otherwise phonemic writing system.

I think our writing system should have about 30 word signs for the
high frequency function words.

Steve

"For the trained observer the vagaries of English orthography
contain a wealth of linguistic history; for most others, however,
this disparity between sound and spelling is just a continual
nuisance at school or work." From the introduction to _Learning to
Spell_, Perfetti, Rieben, and Fayol (Lawrence Erlbaum Associates,
1997):

--- In shavian@..., "paul vandenbrink" wrote:

> Hi Mike & Hugh

> The Namer Dot as well as indicating a Proper Name, normally
marked in the Roman Alphabet by Capitalization, has been expanded to
handle some Abbreviations



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Hi Steve
I beleive the Shaw Alphabet already includes 7 or 8 logograms for some
common English words.
1. t = to
2. v = of
3. H = the
4. n = and
5. F = I
6. P = or
7. V = you
8. a = a
These include some of the most common English words.
Which ones would you suggest adding?
I believe the Files have a document with some suggestions along this line.
It was written by the Linguist Professor, who transliterated "Androcles".
I would go along with retaining some current English Logorams.
For example, I prefer that & = and, rather than a lonely "n".

Regards, Paul V.

_____________attached__________________________-

At 12:11 AM 5/16/03 +0000, you wrote:
>Paul, Mike, Hugh, and others:
>
>Semagrams [meaning signs] and logograms [word-signs] are useful
>additions to an otherwise phonemic writing system.
>
>I think our writing system should have about 30 word signs for the
>high frequency function words.
>
>Steve
>
>"For the trained observer the vagaries of English orthography
>contain a wealth of linguistic history; for most others, however,
>this disparity between sound and spelling is just a continual
>nuisance at school or work." From the introduction to _Learning to
>Spell_, Perfetti, Rieben, and Fayol (Lawrence Erlbaum Associates,
>1997):
>
>--- In shavian@..., "paul vandenbrink" wrote:
>
> > Hi Mike & Hugh
>
> > The Namer Dot as well as indicating a Proper Name, normally
>marked in the Roman Alphabet by Capitalization, has been expanded to
>handle some Abbreviations
>
>
>
>
>
>Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/




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On Thursday, May 15, 2003, at 08:43 US/Eastern, Ethan wrote:



You can download them at my site:
http://www.30below.com/~ethanl/fonts.html

Enjoy!

--
·???? - Ethan




Thanks. I just downloaded the TTF font and hopefully this weekend will be able to start converting my documents over to their proper Unicode values. I will let you know how it all goes.

--
Scott Harrison PGP Key ID: 0x0f0b5b86

Paul,

I would not call all of these logograms or sight words
or concept signs.

In ENgliS tw [two, too] could be abbreviated t. ENgliS
ov could be abbreviated v. Da [keyboard Shavian Ha]
can be abbreviated. P, V, and a are complete
phonograms.

SMS will be in the U.S. in full force next year so now
might be the time to work on some combination of
phonograms and logograms. The current SMS code, see
www.transl8it.com, doesn't have much logic.

---------Paul wrote:---------------------
Hi Steve,

I believe the Shaw Alphabet already includes 7 or 8
logograms for some common English words.

1. t = to
2. v = of
3. H = the
4. n = and [Paul prefers &]
5. F = I [Does anyone have the logic of this choice]
6. P = or
7. V = you
8. a = a

--------------Alternate list with ENgliS------------
1. t = to
2. v = of
3. D = the
4. & = and [Paul prefers &]
5. Y = I [/ai/ ]
6. o = or [lYf o deT]
7. U = you
8. a = a [a=@-schwa]

----------------------------------------------------

[Paul] These include some of the most common English
words. Which ones would you suggest adding?
I believe the Files have a document with some
suggestions along this line.

It was written by the Linguist Professor [McCarthy?],
who transliterated "Androcles".
I would go along with retaining some current English
Logorams. For example, I prefer that & = and, rather
than a lonely "n".

Regards, Paul V.

---------Steve wrote--------------------

>Semagrams [meaning signs] and logograms [word-signs]
are useful additions to an otherwise phonemic writing
system.

>I think our writing system should have about 30 word
signs for the high frequency function words. [Abe
Citron, ca. 1960, suggested about 30 word/concept signs]

=====

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