Shavian eGroup Archive Browser

I would spell "retired" like "rItFxd"...I apologize again for the
horrible beginning of my transliteration. I hope to sometime go back
and fix things.

As Hugh and I were talking about, the difference in spelling is
almost insignificant. When reading Shavian, I think many people,
myself included, have a tendency to go character by character like we
would while reading Roman. However, with Shavian I think it is
necessary to throw out the old methods of reading and begin with a
new way. Most of the spelling differences people make note of do not
really matter.

Understanding different Shavian spellings is similar to understanding
different dialects, and most people are capable of that. I propose
that we move on, and accept that there will be differences in
spelling, and agree that these spelling differences matter little, if
at all.

I think I'm done...I've been somewhat quiet as to my opinions, so I
thought i'd offer them for once.


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This is good idea, especially if we include alternate pronunciations.
In particular American pronunciations.
If we had that information teaching Shaw would be much easier. Also
I am very curious to know what percentage of the English words would
have an alternate pronunciation (Shaw Spelling)when spoken with a
General American Accent. I expect that less than 15% of the words
would be affected. And expect that the change would almost always
involve only a single letter, and probably only an embedded vowel
sound.

Regards, Paul V.
____________________attached___________________________________

--- In shavian@..., "b124201" <yfnb@c...> wrote:
> CMU posts a pronouncing dictionary on the web at
> www.speech.cs.cmu.edu/cgi-bin/cmudict. In it, a word like "cheese"
is
> transliterated as "CH IY Z", with spaces between the phonemes.
With a
> little manipulation, this could be transliterated into Shavian
> letters "cIz". Of course, Carnegie Mellon University's file is in
> American dialect, but if CMU has a list out there, maybe one of the
UK
> universities has a similar list in Received Pronounciation. We
could
> then have an official list of Shavian spellings.
>
> Is this idea worth pursuing?
>
> Gary


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Hi

I agree with your statement:
"Most of the spelling differences people make note of do not
really matter."
where the spelling difference reflects a different pronunciation.

I suspect most people, Americans anyway, use a sub-set of the
available vowel sounds consistent with the local vernacular and use
them in a very regular manner.
Almost every person simplifies his pronunciation, if only by avoiding
certain of his words that other people missunderstand. Much like a
person with a Lisp (r or l pronounced as w, th pronounced as s)
avoids words with the "th" or the "r" sound.
Also many people trying to speak quickly will elide some of sounds.

While we can all compensate for these individual idiosyncrasies,
I suspect it would be better to understand which sounds are
troublesome and make a point of being consistent in our own writing,
at least.

And if we can make our standard match, local pronunciation and
restore elided sounds, so much the better for the person trying to
read our words.

Regards, Paul V.

-----------------ATTACHED_______________________________

--- In shavian@..., "Mike" <theomnis@y...> wrote:
> I would spell "retired" like "rItFxd"...I apologize again for the
> horrible beginning of my transliteration. I hope to sometime go
back
> and fix things.
>
> As Hugh and I were talking about, the difference in spelling is
> almost insignificant. When reading Shavian, I think many people,
> myself included, have a tendency to go character by character like
we
> would while reading Roman. However, with Shavian I think it is
> necessary to throw out the old methods of reading and begin with a
> new way. Most of the spelling differences people make note of do
not
> really matter.
>
> Understanding different Shavian spellings is similar to
understanding
> different dialects, and most people are capable of that. I propose
> that we move on, and accept that there will be differences in
> spelling, and agree that these spelling differences matter little,
if
> at all.
>
> I think I'm done...I've been somewhat quiet as to my opinions, so I
> thought i'd offer them for once.


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Shavian is made for English. And that means it is suited for it's various dialects. So this means that, of course the spelling will be different from region and individuals. The fun thing about Shavian is that it shows the writer how they talk (or think the words are pronouced in their head. If we are looking for standard spelling in Shavian, then we might as well just keep the Roman spelling (so as to know what word we're talking about)

That's all for today.

Mike <theomnis@...> wrote:

I would spell "retired" like "rItFxd"...I apologize again for the
horrible beginning of my transliteration. I hope to sometime go back
and fix things.

As Hugh and I were talking about, the difference in spelling is
almost insignificant. When reading Shavian, I think many people,
myself included, have a tendency to go character by character like we
would while reading Roman. However, with Shavian I think it is
necessary to throw out the old methods of reading and begin with a
new way. Most of the spelling differences people make note of do not
really matter.

Understanding different Shavian spellings is similar to understanding
different dialects, and most people are capable of that. I propose
that we move on, and accept that there will be differences in
spelling, and agree that these spelling differences matter little, if
at all.

I think I'm done...I've been somewhat quiet as to my opinions, so I
thought i'd offer them for once.



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I have to be a boor and disagree. Spelling
standardization is essential. In fact, here is a
quote from James Pitman's introduction on the Shaw
alphabet:

"In personal and intimate writing the forty-eight
(40+8) characters of the Shaw alphabet may faithfully
portray the pronunciation of the individual; but, as
Shaw pointed out, too eccentric a dialect may hamper,
and even destroy, effective communication. He
considered that, though there was no need to
standardize writing if not intended for publication,
there was every need for conformity in print; standard
spellings being particularly desirable when that print
is intended for circulation throughout the
English-speaking world."

(copied directly from
http://victorian.fortunecity.com/vangogh/555/Spell/pitmans-intro.html)

I make the counter offer, if you don't want to
standardize on spelling, why not just throw out the
Shavian alphabet, (why learn more rules?), and
standardized English spelling. While talking to a 1st
grade teacher recently, (in California), she said that
her current methodology was to *not* punish children
for mispelling words, but instead, let them explore
their creativity by spelling words any way they want
to. This horrified my wife, (also a school teacher,
but from a British-based system). There may be some
advantage to writing in a local dialect, (which is
more clear in Shavian because of the wider range of
distinct sounds), but in business and non-fiction
communications, there has to be a standardized
spelling dictionary that everyone must know, even if
their local dialect doesn't make a distinction.

But in either case, read more of the document, it
doesn't talk about throwing out the Roman alphabet,
either, any more than we threw out Roman numerals,
although relegated to movie titles and credits.

--- carl easton <shavintel16@...> wrote:
> Shavian is made for English. And that means it is
> suited for it's various dialects. So this means
> that, of course the spelling will be different from
> region and individuals. The fun thing about Shavian
> is that it shows the writer how they talk (or think
> the words are pronouced in their head. If we are
> looking for standard spelling in Shavian, then we
> might as well just keep the Roman spelling (so as to
> know what word we're talking about)
>
> That's all for today.
>
> Mike <theomnis@...> wrote:
> I would spell "retired" like "rItFxd"...I apologize
> again for the
> horrible beginning of my transliteration. I hope to
> sometime go back
> and fix things.
>
> As Hugh and I were talking about, the difference in
> spelling is
> almost insignificant. When reading Shavian, I think
> many people,
> myself included, have a tendency to go character by
> character like we
> would while reading Roman. However, with Shavian I
> think it is
> necessary to throw out the old methods of reading
> and begin with a
> new way. Most of the spelling differences people
> make note of do not
> really matter.
>
> Understanding different Shavian spellings is similar
> to understanding
> different dialects, and most people are capable of
> that. I propose
> that we move on, and accept that there will be
> differences in
> spelling, and agree that these spelling differences
> matter little, if
> at all.
>
> I think I'm done...I've been somewhat quiet as to my
> opinions, so I
> thought i'd offer them for once.
>
>
> Yahoo! Groups Sponsor
> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to the Yahoo!
> Terms of Service.
>
>
> ---------------------------------
> Do you Yahoo!?
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06/20/03 2:09:54 PM, Scott Stephens <swstephe@...> wrote:

>I have to be a boor and disagree. Spelling
>standardization is essential. In fact, here is a
>quote from James Pitman's introduction on the Shaw
>alphabet:
>
>"In personal and intimate writing the forty-eight
>(40+8) characters of the Shaw alphabet may faithfully
>portray the pronunciation of the individual; but, as
>Shaw pointed out, too eccentric a dialect may hamper,
>and even destroy, effective communication. He
>considered that, though there was no need to
>standardize writing if not intended for publication,
>there was every need for conformity in print; standard
>spellings being particularly desirable when that print
>is intended for circulation throughout the
>English-speaking world."
>
>(copied directly from
>http://victorian.fortunecity.com/vangogh/555/Spell/pitmans-intro.html)

I think that it would be great if people who intend to circulate their writing
widely would be educated in the "standard dialect" of their country. In the US
that would be the dialect you hear on radio and television all the time,
basically the mid-western or California dialect. And in the UK that would be
"BBC English". Others may possibly be used as well, but those are the main two.
This would assure that they write according to the standard dialect, as radio
and television personalities today learn to speak the standard dialect.
Speaking and writing should not be so completely separate as they are now, but
rather we should seek to standardize speech, and writing as well. I see no
reason to expect a person to write differently than the way they speak. If a
person is educated, then they should be educated on proper speech as well as
proper writing.

>
>I make the counter offer, if you don't want to
>standardize on spelling, why not just throw out the
>Shavian alphabet, (why learn more rules?), and
>standardized English spelling. While talking to a 1st
>grade teacher recently, (in California), she said that
>her current methodology was to *not* punish children
>for mispelling words, but instead, let them explore
>their creativity by spelling words any way they want
>to. This horrified my wife, (also a school teacher,
>but from a British-based system).

This would horrify me too! I can think of nothing uglier than the attempts to
write English phonetically by using an outdated, inflexible system of 26 letters
originally designed to write Latin efficiently. Every attempt I have seen to do
this has resulted in some of the worst looking junk I have ever seen! And when
students are told to "Just spell it however you think it should be spelled",
well, the result is confusion and a major mess! That's not education.
Education must have structure, because if everybody does it however they feel
like it, things get out of hand very quickly. I have seen some of this stuff
recently, and it was written by a local elementary student. I don't really know
why we pay teachers to do stuff like that!

>There may be some
>advantage to writing in a local dialect, (which is
>more clear in Shavian because of the wider range of
>distinct sounds), but in business and non-fiction
>communications, there has to be a standardized
>spelling dictionary that everyone must know, even if
>their local dialect doesn't make a distinction.

I agree that a standard should exist. Just make it the standard pronunciation
which already exists. It might need a little refining, but I think it's pretty
close already. Broadcasters already use this standard today.

>
>But in either case, read more of the document, it
>doesn't talk about throwing out the Roman alphabet,
>either, any more than we threw out Roman numerals,
>although relegated to movie titles and credits.

No, we don't need to throw out traditional orthography, as it has historical
purposes. It should still be taught and used, although its use would obviously
become limited if the use of Shavian became widespread.

--
Ethan




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This sort of knee-jerk reaction to a simplified 3rd-hand story is troubling.
It would seem to me that people on a spelling reform forum would be the most
likely to look at a sketchy description of such an educational practice and
deduce WHY teachers might find such an approach effective, even though it at
first seems counter-intuitive.

English spelling is frustrating. As a high school teacher, I have worked
with numerous "low-ability" teenagers who simply refuse to write. While I
have no quantitative evidence, my guess is that most of them had negative
experiences with writing and being told that they did it wrong at a very
early age. Punishing children for miSSpelling (double-s, Scott) words means
telling them they are wrong for screwing up the exceptions to the rules
before they have even learned what the rules of English phonics are.
Becoming comfortable with those rules takes time and is inhibited by the
crazy rules of English. If a young child writes "wimmen" instead of "women"
when they are grasping after examples to confirm the rules, and a teacher
marks out the "im" and replaces it with an "o", it just confuses things, and
repeated failure doesn't create correct spelling, it just makes many kids
fear and hate writing.

Obviously, "correct" spelling is going to be positively reinforced. We
don't punish children when they go through the speech-acquisition stage in
which they say things like "She goed to school," and they work out the
regularity of the system first, and then pick up the exceptions just fine.
Why shouldn't teachers take a cue on how to help children learn written
language from the way millions of years of evolution have worked out for our
species to learn spoken language?

From what I have read about such approaches, they allow kids to start
writing far earlier, because they aren't limited to the words they've
learned to read. Realize that traditional reading and spelling methods keep
students away from hard-to-spell words that are already in their spoken
vocabulary for years. If they are afraid of misspelling words, they quickly
teach themselves to write an easier word whenever they want to use a hard
one that they don't know how to spell. While that may increase spelling
accuracy, it hardly advances writing skills.

One extremely impractical solution is to revamp the entire spelling system.
A much more workable solution is to allow kids some flexibility when they're
starting out and then nudge them into the standards as they become capable
of handling them.

I'd be interested to hear everyone's reactions to this article:
http://www.csmonitor.com/2003/0422/p14s01-lecs.htm

Craig

In a previous episode, shavian@... said:

>> While talking to a 1st
>> grade teacher recently, (in California), she said that
>> her current methodology was to *not* punish children
>> for mispelling words, but instead, let them explore
>> their creativity by spelling words any way they want
>> to. This horrified my wife, (also a school teacher,
>> but from a British-based system).
>
> This would horrify me too! I can think of nothing uglier than the attempts to
> write English phonetically by using an outdated, inflexible system of 26
> letters
> originally designed to write Latin efficiently. Every attempt I have seen to
> do
> this has resulted in some of the worst looking junk I have ever seen! And
> when
> students are told to "Just spell it however you think it should be spelled",
> well, the result is confusion and a major mess! That's not education.
> Education must have structure, because if everybody does it however they feel
> like it, things get out of hand very quickly. I have seen some of this stuff
> recently, and it was written by a local elementary student. I don't really
> know
> why we pay teachers to do stuff like that!


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Third-hand? I was in the room, it was first-hand for
me. I was reviewing my step-son's written material
and the teacher was explaining why all of his writings
were illegible. Knee-jerk? I base my opinion from a
lot of personal experience. I started in an American
system when "new math" was in full swing. I remember
coming home and teaching my parents why "2+2=11" was
correct in base-3. I went into a European system,
then transferred back to the American system. I had
to re-take all my courses because the American
students of my age weren't advanced as I was, (after
only 3 years).

I didn't mean to put down the teacher. I'm sure the
teacher was being told to practice this based on
education board guidelines. My wife was offerred a
job as a teacher at that school, (they are *really*
desperate for teachers because nobody can survive on
what little they get paid -- and still the state laid
off more teachers). When they told her that she
wasn't allowed to say, "you are wrong", and could even
be put on probation for punishing a student too much
for violent behavior, she turned them down.

I've taught student myself. I taught American
high-school graduates who hadn't quite grasped the
concept of fractions and percentages, (2nd grade
material). I've taught in Taiwan, where
rote-memorization is the only standard. If "stifled
creativity" is so bad, why is it that many Asian
countries still manages to generate a highly educated
society? Does positive re-inforcement work with every
student? I think if you split a school into two
groups. Those who did well being left on their own
and those who did well being dictated to, most people
would be in the second group.

I don't think that encouraging creativity and
confidence is bad, but it is an extreme from which I
think the value is overestimated. To Americans, that
idea may sound outdated and uninformed. But to me,
the comments from my step-son's teacher sounded like
they were placing more value on whatever he already
possessed than in adding value. I think thousands of
years of human progress is of greater value in an
educational system than this modern group-therapy
technique. It seems to tend toward the absurd, that
any scratches a person can put down on paper is
considered "writing". I think true creativity can't
exist in a vacuum. A constant stream of new and
existing ideas need to be built upon.

I agree with spelling reform, but as a way to
streamline the process of written communication and
education. I follow Shavian, even though there are
more letters than Roman, and more sounds than are used
by nearly any group of native English speakers. If
your focus is mainly on making it easy for people to
become productive, earlier, you need a different
alphabet. One that has a reduced character set and a
reduced range of sounds, (Chekt? NeuSpel?). I don't
think that any spelling reform movement can join
forces with the "creativity" education extremists.

It's really just the old "carrot and stick" analogy.
Certain personalities can be lead by only carrots and
nothing else. Those kinds of people could succeed
even without an education, but with access to
information they needed, but most people would
flounder if their interests lay elsewhere or if they
haven't learned the self-discipline at home that is
required to educate themselves in a hostile
environment.


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I imagine we all have a spelling teaching horror story.
Mine occurred in Grade 3, not so long ago.

I misspelled the word "remember". My teacher told me it was spelled
incorrectly and I had to return to my desk, erase it, correct it and
bring it back for her inspection. I remember bringing it back to her
about six times, each time feeling more embarrished and more of a
failure. Finally, I respelled it the way that I had done it the
second time and she accepted it. I suspected later that my writing
was illegable from my poor handwriting and the smudges from the
constant erasure, so she didn't bother to try and interpret the
letters. She just said "wrong! ,do it again".
To her there was only one right answer. Spelling was not a system for
representing sounds, but a means of demonstrating you had memorized
the rules. She was in testing mode instead of teaching mode.

Without using phonetic concepts a teacher can not explain very well
to his student what is wrong.
The host of exceptions in English Roman Alphabet spelling, make a
phonetic teaching method difficult.
The alternate is Shavian.

Personally, I don't think any teaching method is exclusively wrong or
right.
A good teacher tries different methods until she attains rapport with
her student.
Some students can only learn to read with Phonetic instruction.
Doesn't mean that every student will benefit significantly from
phonetic instruction. Depends on the student.

After all I didn't give up and I learned to read English.

Regards, Paul Vandenbrink.

P.S. I am interested in how one would go about teaching a child
Shavian from scratch. Rather than starting with Roman and switching
him over to Shavian later. Reading should go from easy and
consistant, to idiosyncratic and difficult.
There weere sollid gains in this method using the I.T.A. Alphabet.


--- In shavian@..., Scott Stephens <swstephe@y...> wrote:
> Third-hand? I was in the room, it was first-hand for
> me. I was reviewing my step-son's written material
> and the teacher was explaining why all of his writings
> were illegible. Knee-jerk? I base my opinion from a
> lot of personal experience. I started in an American
> system when "new math" was in full swing. I remember
> coming home and teaching my parents why "2+2=11" was
> correct in base-3. I went into a European system,
> then transferred back to the American system. I had
> to re-take all my courses because the American
> students of my age weren't advanced as I was, (after
> only 3 years).
>
> I didn't mean to put down the teacher. I'm sure the
> teacher was being told to practice this based on
> education board guidelines. My wife was offerred a
> job as a teacher at that school, (they are *really*
> desperate for teachers because nobody can survive on
> what little they get paid -- and still the state laid
> off more teachers). When they told her that she
> wasn't allowed to say, "you are wrong", and could even
> be put on probation for punishing a student too much
> for violent behavior, she turned them down.
>
> I've taught student myself. I taught American
> high-school graduates who hadn't quite grasped the
> concept of fractions and percentages, (2nd grade
> material). I've taught in Taiwan, where
> rote-memorization is the only standard. If "stifled
> creativity" is so bad, why is it that many Asian
> countries still manages to generate a highly educated
> society? Does positive re-inforcement work with every
> student? I think if you split a school into two
> groups. Those who did well being left on their own
> and those who did well being dictated to, most people
> would be in the second group.
>
> I don't think that encouraging creativity and
> confidence is bad, but it is an extreme from which I
> think the value is overestimated. To Americans, that
> idea may sound outdated and uninformed. But to me,
> the comments from my step-son's teacher sounded like
> they were placing more value on whatever he already
> possessed than in adding value. I think thousands of
> years of human progress is of greater value in an
> educational system than this modern group-therapy
> technique. It seems to tend toward the absurd, that
> any scratches a person can put down on paper is
> considered "writing". I think true creativity can't
> exist in a vacuum. A constant stream of new and
> existing ideas need to be built upon.
>
> I agree with spelling reform, but as a way to
> streamline the process of written communication and
> education. I follow Shavian, even though there are
> more letters than Roman, and more sounds than are used
> by nearly any group of native English speakers. If
> your focus is mainly on making it easy for people to
> become productive, earlier, you need a different
> alphabet. One that has a reduced character set and a
> reduced range of sounds, (Chekt? NeuSpel?). I don't
> think that any spelling reform movement can join
> forces with the "creativity" education extremists.
>
> It's really just the old "carrot and stick" analogy.
> Certain personalities can be lead by only carrots and
> nothing else. Those kinds of people could succeed
> even without an education, but with access to
> information they needed, but most people would
> flounder if their interests lay elsewhere or if they
> haven't learned the self-discipline at home that is
> required to educate themselves in a hostile
> environment.


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Why not just consider a number of methods since students are individualistic too. Those who want to go for the spelling will do so anyway and those who don't will undoubtedly pick it up reading books. I presume the students are taught to read and eventually the correct spelling will be learned if they are visually oriented. If auditorily oriented then let them go for the spelling they enjoy but they should be aware that there are conventional ways to spell words and that may be a separate course from creative composition.





--- On Sun 06/22, Craig Butz < shavian@... > wrote:


From: Craig Butz [mailto: shavian@...]
To: shavian@...
Date: Sun, 22 Jun 2003 20:25:25 -0400
Subject: Re: [shavian] Digest Number 468

This sort of knee-jerk reaction to a simplified 3rd-hand story is troubling.
It would seem to me that people on a spelling reform forum would be the most
likely to look at a sketchy description of such an educational practice and
deduce WHY teachers might find such an approach effective, even though it at
first seems counter-intuitive.

English spelling is frustrating. As a high school teacher, I have worked
with numerous "low-ability" teenagers who simply refuse to write. While I
have no quantitative evidence, my guess is that most of them had negative
experiences with writing and being told that they did it wrong at a very
early age. Punishing children fo r miSSpelling (double-s, Scott) words means
telling them they are wrong for screwing up the exceptions to the rules
before they have even learned what the rules of English phonics are.
Becoming comfortable with those rules takes time and is inhibited by the
crazy rules of English. If a young child writes "wimmen" instead of "women"
when they are grasping after examples to confirm the rules, and a teacher
marks out the "im" and replaces it with an "o", it just confuses things, and
repeated failure doesn't create correct spelling, it just makes many kids
fear and hate writing.

Obviously, "correct" spelling is going to be positively reinforced. We
don't punish children when they go through the speech-acquisition stage in
which they say things like "She goed to school," and they work out the
regularity of the system first, and then pick up the exceptions just fine.
Why shouldn't teachers take a cue on how to help children learn writte n
language from the way millions of years of evolution have worked out for our
species to learn spoken language?

From what I have read about such approaches, they allow kids to start
writing far earlier, because they aren't limited to the words they've
learned to read. Realize that traditional reading and spelling methods keep
students away from hard-to-spell words that are already in their spoken
vocabulary for years. If they are afraid of misspelling words, they quickly
teach themselves to write an easier word whenever they want to use a hard
one that they don't know how to spell. While that may increase spelling
accuracy, it hardly advances writing skills.

One extremely impractical solution is to revamp the entire spelling system.
A much more workable solution is to allow kids some flexibility when they're
starting out and then nudge them into the standards as they become capable
of handling them.

I'd be interest ed to hear everyone's reactions to this article:
http://www.csmonitor.com/2003/0422/p14s01-lecs.htm

Craig

In a previous episode, shavian@... said:

>> While talking to a 1st
>> grade teacher recently, (in California), she said that
>> her current methodology was to *not* punish children
>> for mispelling words, but instead, let them explore
>> their creativity by spelling words any way they want
>> to. This horrified my wife, (also a school teacher,
>> but from a British-based system).
>
> This would horrify me too! I can think of nothing uglier than the attempts to
> write English phonetically by using an outdated, inflexible system of 26
> letters
> originally designed to write Latin efficiently. Every attempt I have seen to
> do
> this has resulted in some of the wors t looking junk I have ever seen! And
> when
> students are told to "Just spell it however you think it should be spelled",
> well, the result is confusion and a major mess! That's not education.
> Education must have structure, because if everybody does it however they feel
> like it, things get out of hand very quickly. I have seen some of this stuff
> recently, and it was written by a local elementary student. I don't really
> know
> why we pay teachers to do stuff like that!



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