Shavian eGroup Archive Browser

At 10:54 AM 9/28/99 -0700, you wrote:
>Greetings, everyone.
Hello

>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. :)
Er, silly question but, where do I find the Vault?

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

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

eGroups.com home: http://www.egroups.com/group/shavian
http://www.egroups.com - Simplifying group communications

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!






------------------------------------------------------------------------
@Backup - The #1 Online Backup Service. Protect your files before
you lose them. Easy, Reliable, Secure online backups. INSTALL
today. http://clickhere.egroups.com/click/938


eGroups.com home: http://www.egroups.com/group/shavian
http://www.egroups.com - Simplifying group communications

Go to www.egroups.com/group/shavian
then select the link that says "Vault".

----- Original Message -----
From: A.M.Callaway <acal@...>
To: <shavian@...>
Sent: 06 October 1999 3:45 pm
Subject: [shavian] Re: The Vault


> At 10:54 AM 9/28/99 -0700, you wrote:
> >Greetings, everyone.
> Hello
>
> >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. :)
> Er, silly question but, where do I find the Vault?



------------------------------------------------------------------------
@Backup - The #1 Online Backup Service. Protect your files before
you lose them. Easy, Reliable, Secure online backups. INSTALL
today. http://clickhere.egroups.com/click/938


eGroups.com home: http://www.egroups.com/group/shavian
http://www.egroups.com - Simplifying group communications

Dear Hugh,
I think you make a very good point about the phonetic value of the
Shavian characters. All most of us in the U.S. ever see is the chart
with the names of the letters under each letter. I, myself, never use
"Ian" because I'm not sure of what it's supposed to sound like. Is it
just a contraction of the two letters of which it is made?
What is the difference between "array" and "err?" I've always assumed
that it was the difference stressed and unstressed "er" sounds. It would
be helpful for someone to flesh out the chart for those learning to
spell their English phonetically.
Why would a person be interested in using Shavian, if what they were
interested in was what they had to say and not how they said it. (This
is a false distinction, I maintain, but each is certainly entitled to
their own opinion.) The goal of Shavian is to make spelling easier for
speakers. As to content, you can already disseminate ideas over a far
broader variety of speech forms calling themselves "English" with the
present chaotic English spelling than you will with Shavian based on
Androcles. Southern Mississippi speakers won't understand that any
better than they will my English or that in the chaotic current
orthography. Indian English speakers, I think, would also fit that
description.
There is a difference between reforming spelling and standardizing
language. I look to Shavian for the former, not for the latter.



------------------------------------------------------------------------
@Backup - The #1 Online Backup Service. Protect your files before
you lose them. Easy, Reliable, Secure online backups. INSTALL
today. http://clickhere.egroups.com/click/938


eGroups.com home: http://www.egroups.com/group/shavian
http://www.egroups.com - Simplifying group communications

Dear Hugh,

I have sat on the sidelines reading the discussions, but not contributing. I
hope no one minds me adding my two coppers worth now.

Your point about the pronounciation of Shavian not being well explained so
that people who speak a non-British dialect can understand how to use the
alphabet is right on the mark. As one who was born seriously hearing impaired
and had to learn to speak the hard way, I can see advantages to Shavian that,
perhaps, others can't. But until an agreement is reached on what exactly each
letter represents, and how it should be used, Shavian will have little
practical value.

Finally, although I understand that people want to write in their own
dialect, isn't that exactly what the critics of spelling reform said would
happen; that spelling reform would have a fragmenting effect on the language?
Such could lead ultimately to the emergence of new languages which is hardly
a desirable goal if your main purpose is to improve communication. Perhaps,
we should not be afraid of developing a world standard for the pronounciation
of English -- a standard which is mid way, as far as possible, between all
the various dialects.



------------------------------------------------------------------------
@Backup - The #1 Online Backup Service. Protect your files before
you lose them. Easy, Reliable, Secure online backups. INSTALL
today. http://clickhere.egroups.com/click/938


eGroups.com home: http://www.egroups.com/group/shavian
http://www.egroups.com - Simplifying group communications

The debate about British Received Pronunciation and spell as you speak
rumbles on. This Norteamericano has made his position clear before.

Hugh Birkenhead (mixsynth.funkymusic.co.uk) as usual displays a wisdom beyond
his years in trying to navigate this quagmire.

There is a distinction, though not a very clear-cut one, between observing
orthographic convention and writing in a dialect not one's own.

The distinction between "err" and "array" is a good example of this problem.
It's been unclear to generations of phoneticists whether the stressed and
unstressed "uh" (mid-central, schwa) vowels are separate phonemes or not. The
behavior of Shavians suggests that they aren't. New writers of Shavian need
to be told that one of the vowels belongs to stressed, the other to
unstressed syllables. A native speaker of English is able to identify
stressed syllables. This is an orthographic convention, not a dialect
problem.

On the other hand, the distinction between/among the two/three unstressed
vowels is a real problem for all of us, because no English speaker is
entirely clear about these vowels, and there isn't even consistency within
dialects. The Androcles orthography for handed/candid/candied is different
from my usage, and I have real trouble conforming to it. This is probably a
dialect difference. It may be possible to explain it to the new writer,
though I'm not sure I could.

For the vowels of "father" and "bother", I have no remedy except to check in
a British Received Pronunciation dictionary every time I have to write a new
word containing one of them. This is a marked dialect difference, and
Traditional Orthography doesn't always guide me (is it "daence" or "daunce"?
"baeth" or "bawth"?) Here it is probably unreasonable to expect the North
American new writer of Shavian to conform to the Androcles orthography.

What we probably need is a Web page about orthographic conventions in
Shavian. (A lot of this should have been in the original Androcles.) I'm not
sure I feel up to writing it by myself!

Bob Richmond
Knoxville, Tennessee USA

------------------------------------------------------------------------
@Backup - The #1 Online Backup Service. Protect your files before
you lose them. Easy, Reliable, Secure online backups. INSTALL
today. http://clickhere.egroups.com/click/938


eGroups.com home: http://www.egroups.com/group/shavian
http://www.egroups.com - Simplifying group communications

Evenin' all...

I've been a bit absent around here, so I'm just getting up to date.

I've been reading some of the other stuff about variations in
pronunciation. I, too have struck this problem. In Australia, the words
'hot' and 'heart' are two very different words, but I get the impression
that in North America they are similar. Am I right? I noticed this when
using the CMU Dictionary, and finding that these two vowel sounds are not
distiguished form one another.

I haven't made a start on "The Project" as yet, as I've been busy. Still,
Rome wasn't built...

I've also made a start on the Windows version of TPT but I think that's an
even bigger project. Particularly if I want to do it properly.

Toodles.

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

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

eGroups.com home: http://www.egroups.com/group/shavian
http://www.egroups.com - Simplifying group communications

In a message dated 10/8/99 7:50:28 AM, you wrote:

<<In Australia, the words
'hot' and 'heart' are two very different words, but I get the impression
that in North America they are similar. Am I right?>>

I can't speak for all Americans, but in my own Southeastern dialect, they are
not the same. There is a simple vowel in "hot" and a dipthong in "heart."
("ah" + "er")

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

eGroups.com home: http://www.egroups.com/group/shavian
http://www.egroups.com - Simplifying group communications

In a message dated 10/8/99 11:50:24 AM, Andy Callaway wrote:

<<I've been reading some of the other stuff about variations in
pronunciation. I, too have struck this problem. In Australia, the words
'hot' and 'heart' are two very different words, but I get the impression
that in North America they are similar. Am I right? I noticed this when
using the CMU Dictionary, and finding that these two vowel sounds are not
distiguished form one another.>>

They may be in the Northeastern US, but in my Central-Western American
English they are entirely distinct. In my dialect the "r" in "heart" is
clearly sounded.

Bob Richmond

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

eGroups.com home: http://www.egroups.com/group/shavian
http://www.egroups.com - Simplifying group communications

Some of you must be accessing this group differently from me.
I access it over the web, and there is a toolbar item that
says "Vault." It's just a little upload/download area. It has
a fairly simple interface for creating directories and such.

The vault is definitely an egroups-specific thing -- no stigma
at all if you haven't heard of it. :)

Cheers,
Hal



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

eGroups.com home: http://www.egroups.com/group/shavian
http://www.egroups.com - Simplifying group communications