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Hugh and Craig,

In GA {ah} /A/ is used for many words spelled with a short o.
The contrast in GA might be odd /Ad/ and awed /Od/.

Steve

------------
> In traditional Shavian there are only a few words where 'ah' is
used, anyway! Words
like "psalm", "father", "palm", "calm", "Saddam", "qualm", etc etc
etc -Hugh B

> > For example, when in a
> > situation where "on" or "ah" could be used, I always use "on."

> I'm all for it, and I'm glad to see someone else has picked the
> easy-to-write choice out of this pair. --Craig




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> SMS will be in the U.S. in full force next year

You mean it isn't there in full force already??

It's been in the UK in very full force for the past 5 years!

Hugh B


---------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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--
No virus found in this incoming message.
Checked by AVG Anti-Virus.
Version: 7.0.300 / Virus Database: 266.1.0 - Release Date: 18/02/2005

> SMS will be in the U.S. in full force next year

You mean it isn't there in full force already??

It's been in the UK in very full force for the past 5 years!

Hugh B


---------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]

=====

To join SAUNDSPEL - The Phonology Forum
send a blank email to saundspel-subscribe@...

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At about 10:35 p.m. CDT May 26, I went to Simon Barne's Shavian site,
but got only a directory page with nothing but a link to the parent
directory. What is the problem?



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> At about 10:35 p.m. CDT May 26, I went to Simon Barne's Shavian site,
> but got only a directory page with nothing but a link to the parent
> directory. What is the problem?

My guess is, he's not accessed it in so long that it's been taken offline.

I'm sorry to tell that mine is going offline soon also, as I no longer have
a subscription to BT Internet (the webspace provider) - we have moved house
and no longer have a BT phone line. I will find some webspace pronto but
until then, you might want to make use of the site while it's still
available...

Hugh B

> At about 10:35 p.m. CDT May 26, I went to Simon Barne's Shavian site,
> but got only a directory page with nothing but a link to the parent
> directory. What is the problem?

My guess is, he's not accessed it in so long that it's been taken offline.

I'm sorry to tell that mine is going offline soon also, as I no longer have
a subscription to BT Internet (the webspace provider) - we have moved house
and no longer have a BT phone line. I will find some webspace pronto but
until then, you might want to make use of the site while it's still
available...

Hugh B


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I have finished my first major Shavian undertaking, a transliteration
of "Overruled," and it only took me about 25 hours to do so. In the
transliteration, there are an abundance of "up" and "err" sounds,
because that is how I feel they would be pronounced in my dialect.
There should be little to no problems in reading it, and I hope that
you enjoy my work.


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It seems I almost forgot to provide the address.

http://www.geocities.com/theomnis/overruled.rtf

I used "Lionspaw" font.


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Hi Mike
A good first draft.
Did you want me to edit it and point out the missed spellings?

Unfortunately, there is no spell-checker out yet for the Shaw
Alphabet.

For example in your first paragraph. I noticed a few typos.
You used E instead of F for seaside and night.
Overlooks had a M instead of a U.
You used T for (THE) insead of H
you have grin instead of green
and glum instead of gloom.
Unused needs a V
and near is usually spelt nC or maybe nID in some pronunciations.

Regards, Paul V.

P.S. It is good practice to always use a for a and not E.
Likewise an for an.
--- In shavian@..., "Mike" <theomnis@y...> wrote:
> It seems I almost forgot to provide the address.
>
> http://www.geocities.com/theomnis/overruled.rtf
>
> I used "Lionspaw" font.


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by Dr. John Wells, University College, London.
English Accents and their Implications for Spelling Reform
From an article published in the Journal of the Simplified Spelling Society

5. SPELL TO SHOW ALL CONTRASTS?

5.1 Maximalism and minimalist

Logically there are two extreme positions one can adopt towards phonemic contrasts. The maximalist position would say our orthography must reflect all the contrasts that anyone makes, and the minimalist position would say we should reflect only those that everyone makes.

5.2 Problems of maximal contrast

The maximalist position would lead to very undesirable consequences, as the following examples show. Many southern English make a longer vowel in bad than in lad and may even have minimal pairs between the name Sally and the verb to sally, or between shandy the long drink and brandy the short drink; obviously spelling should ignore this distinction. Likewise some Scots distinguish tide:tied. The point here is not the quality of the vowels as such, but whether contrasts are made between vowels in different sets of words. In fact for these Scots the difference between the diphthong in tie#d and that in tide reflects the presence of a grammatical boundary before the suffix in the first but not the second. They make a similar distinction between the diphthong in Fife and that in five, but here it depends on the identity of the following consonant. So this distinction is on the whole predictable, and can accordingly be ignored. In Northern Ireland and a few other places they disti nguish days and daze; we are obviously going to have to ignore that, too, as we must the contrast between late and eight or mane and main made in various parts of Britain, for historical reasons reflected in traditional orthography.

5.3 Who needs the distinctions?

Then there is a contrast within the lexical set NURSE, where English and Americans make no distinction; but the Scots and Irish may distinguish pearl and curl, for example, contrasting them in the same way as perry and curry; and they may well make a similar distinction between Hertz and hurts, or fir and fur. That is a kind of justification for present spellings, which accurately reflect this distinction (though sometimes writing the first vowel ear, as in pearl, sometimes er, as in defer). But if, like New Spelling, we abolish that distinction, then we are ignoring that contrast, which is a real one for millions of Scots and Irish. English or Americans will typically say these distinctions are subtleties they can't possibly cope with. The only point I would make is that those who make the distinction are going to feel that logically it ought to be retained in a reformed spelling, and they are going to have to be convinced otherwise if we want to abolish it.

5.4 Contrasts matter, not sounds

In all of this we must remember that it doesn't matter what the actual phonetic realization is; what is important is the network of contrasts, because that is what the orthography must reflect. If we take, say, the word soap where we all use our long-o vowel, it doesn't matter what precise quality of vowel or diphthong an individual speaker uses, provided he or she uses the same sound in rope, goat, coat and all other words in the same lexical set.

6 PROBLEMS OF MINIMAL CONTRAST

6.1 A Jamaican merger

The minimalist position, spelling only the contrasts everybody makes, has difficulties too. One might think everybody contrasts pat and pot (the lexical sets TRAP and LOT), but that is not so. Jamaicans, for example, typically say /pat/ for both. Now people may object that there are not many Jamaicans, so they can be ignored; but as a group they have very special problems with English spelling. Whereas other English-speakers mainly follow their pronunciation in spelling the a - o contrast (ignoring one or two exceptional words like wash), for Jamaicans it is hard to decide which spelling is right and what therefore is also the posh pronunciation. Ordinary Jamaicans say /rat/ both for the animal and for putrefaction, and have to learn which to spell rat and which rot. A social factor is also involved: to speak educated Jamaican, they have to learn to distinguish rat and rot in pronunciation, too, as other English-speakers do. But if we are aiming to lighten the burden of arbit rary spelling distinctions, no reform project I have ever seen solves this difficulty for an important group of West Indians.


6.2 A southern US merger

Then there is the START-NORTH distinction, exemplified in pairs such as farm and form. It is not only the Jamaicans that tend to pronounce these identically; many Americans speaking popular accents in the south do so too. They have a test phrase about being born in a barn, and it is well known that some people confuse or reverse the two: country bumpkins in the southern states are ridiculed as being barn in a born, with the typical confusion of people trying to introduce a contrast into their speech that they don't natively have. Again, I think on balance we must retain the spelling distinction in those sets of words. But it will constitute a difficulty for some.

6.3 Another southern US merger

Many American Southerners, of all social classes, and including most Californians, don't distinguish the vowels in KIT and DRESS before nasals, and so make no difference between pin and pen (hence the terms writing-pen and stick-pin, to make the distinction clear). Listen to Jim Reeves singing Lord, give me strength, where the strength begins just like string. It would be rather drastic, I think, to abolish this contrast and write pin and pen identically in a reformed orthography, but unless we did, it would cause many American Southerners a big spelling problem. For them the logical reformed spelling of many might be minny rather than the menny that seems logical to the rest of us.

7. FEASIBLE MERGERS

7.1 FOOT and GOOSE

New Spelling was criticized for distinguishing the vowels of the lexical sets FOOT and GOOSE, and this distinction, I think, could indeed be dispensed with. Consider the pair good and mood, which for most of us do not rhyme perfectly. However in Scotland they do, and also in Ulster. Forcing a contrast of spelling with good - muud, as New Spelling does, is therefore an arbitrary extra distinction from the point of view of the Scots and the people of Northern Ireland. As there are very few word-pairs distinguished in this way (only pull - pool, full - fool, look - Luke, and a few pairs involving inflected forms, such as wood - wooed, could - cooed), I think we wouldn't suffer too seriously if we ignore the distinction.

7.2 Functional load of sh - zh

What is involved here is the important question of what is known technically as functional load, that is, the number of words that are distinguished by a given contrast. When the functional load of a contrast is low, then the contrast can be ignored, whereas when the functional load is rather high, then presumably it ought to be reflected in the spelling. Using this criterion, one might well decide not to distinguish the consonant sounds sh and zh, because there are very few word-pairs distinguished by this contrast. There are indeed non-rhyming pairs like pressure - measure, mission - vision, there are no everyday words directly distinguished by this contrast. (We can safely ignore such rarities as Aleutian - allusion, Confucian - confusion.) Rather than impose the non-English-looking zh to furnish a consistent spelling for the voiced member of this pair of sounds, we might write sh for both. This would have the welcome side-effect of remopving the uncertainty that would oth erwise arise in words such as Asian, where some speakers use one sound and some the other.

source: JSSS33 [subscription $10/yr for two 40p journals. Membership £20]
[Contact the editor, Steve Bett, for details stbett@...]




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