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This is a very nice, well thought out response, and the crux, I believe
of the continual disagreements in shavian. Speaking, as we say here in
the south, out of my rear-end, I thing that ha-ha seems to meld and
flow more easily at the beginning of the word. Consider for a moment my
suggested whitewheat symbol, taken from Read's own design in QS. I took
his checked woe and, as he most likely did, added a hung at the bottom.
The difference is that his is in shorthand, and thus more easily
written as a checkmark.

As for the voiced/voiceless/liquid/combo tiered design. This does
facilitate learning, especially since there is such internal
consistancy. This is an alphabet that, when viewed by an outsider looks
like something one would see in an alien spacecraft before one would
see it in a book, but then again, does anyone remember Alien Nation?
Talk about internal consistancy! But Tenktanese is rather difficult to
read. Shavian, on the other hand, is less dependant on handwritten
skill or even the clarity of print. An /on/ will not look like an /egg/
or an /ash/ because of the original brilliant design.

Read saw fit to create QS, why? We may not know for sure, but I can
guess that it might be because of the compromises that had to be
reached with Shavian. It might have been hard not being able to produce
his full design, some letters had to be dropped, ect ect, and thus for
him, creating QS might have been the best option rather than rehash
arguments he most likely had with the other designers. For instance,
consider Read's /x/ sound. If I recall correctly, is it not just for
use when x would appear in TO? you could not, for instance, use it in
the words socks because it is an /s/ following a /k/ but you could use
it in the word text. How many words actually contain the letter /x/?
And is it enough to warrant a return to the complex rules of TO? You
see? Just like us, Read is (was?) human, and makes (made) mistakes. I
tend to follow the notion that QS is his unadulterated, uncompromising
verion of shaw.

Coming up with revisions that all members of this "Modern Council of
Shaw" can agree on is surely just as difficult as the compromises and
settlements made when Shavian was first created.

Happy Christmas from rainy and snowy Tennessee,
--Star

--- dshepx <dshep@...> wrote:
> --- In shavian@..., "Hugh Birkenhead" <mixsynth@f...>
> wrote:
>
>
> >Forgive me... but why "must" it have been a typographical error?<
>
> What else could it posssibly be? Why would Read go out of his
> way to place a voiced consonant at the end of a string of voiceless
> consonants (I assume he designed the reading key as well) and
> the voiceless consonant at the end of a string of voiced? Or, if the
> reading key is incidental, why make a point of having one, just one,
> voiceless consonant grouped among the voiced?
>
> p(op), t(ot), k(ick), f(ief), th(in), s(auce), sh(op), ch(op), plus
> (h)ang?
> b(ob), d(ad), g(ag), v(alve), th(en), z(oos), (a)z(ure), j(udge),
> plus h(igh)?
>
> It makes no sense. Reverse them and it does. The Shaw alphabet
> has an internal beauty that makes sense. Defending the nonsensical
> is a curious thing to do.
>
> >It's nothing to do with 'voiced'/'unvoiced' <
>
> How can you say that? The whole point of going to the trouble of
> devising the three-tiered structure was to have it mean something.
>
> Voiceless tall; voiced deep; vowels (and odd letters) short.
>
> This is a device to facilitate instruction and understanding,
> especially I would think for the benefit of children as it groups
> letters into related sets and thus imparts structure. Did you
> think it was mere aesthetics?
>
> > why did he (Read) not make the QS 'hung' letter a deep letter ?
>
> After abandoning the tiered structure in QuickScript, there was
> no need to reverse ha/hang as their relative positions no longer
> mattered, nor did it matter what the letters looked like. Read also
> appears to have swapped around several letters, so continuity
> was apparently not a concern either. QuickScript is a kind of
> shorthand and may well be easier and quicker to write by hand,
> but the internal consistency was lost (though some of you oddly
> don't think that especially important anyway). Read could not
> have foreseen however that everyone in the future would be
> armed with laptops and thus equipped to easily work with a
> visually distinct and structured set of letters.
>
> >Until such evidence (of an error) is produced, reversal of
> 'hung' and 'haha' would be nothing short of a revision.<
>
> Some evidence at least was produced; you chose to regard
> it as irrelevant.
>
> > (then) a reversal of 'hung' and 'haha' would be nothing short
> > of a revision.<
>
> Well so what. I can understand that no one wishes to
> contemplate change. It is inconvenient and tiresome, as
> can be the person urging it. But I really do not understand
> this insistence upon maintaining that no error could possibly
> have been involved or Read would have corrected it, that
> there is surely some unknown but unclear reason why one
> voiceless consonant was placed among the voiced because,
> well, there just must be a reason because, well, structure
> doesn't really matter all that much, nor does some pedantic
> concept such as logical consistency, or, it just looks nice the
> way it is. This latter objection mystifies me — as they are
> reflected images of each other, if one way of writing them
> looks nice the reversal would look equally nice.
>
> Nor do I understand this regard for the sanctity of the Shaw
> alphabet. After all, Kingsley Read, its creator, had little
> compunction about moving on and recommending the use
> of QuickScript instead. I've always thought this strange.
> Had I put together something as intriguing as the Shaw
> alphabet I would have been loathe to give it up. However,
> I recall reading somewhere that Read was not the sole winner
> of Shaw's contest, but had to share this distinction with three
> others, and that they were all instructed to produce a final
> version (involving compromise?), although on the basis of Read's
> design. Perhaps QuickScript was a return to his ur-original
> conception, one less structured but easier to use.
>
> I also remember reading (again, somewhere) that there was
> both money problems and a great deal of confusion and even
> animosity in getting Androcles in print, just the right conditions
> for allowing mistakes to slip through. So I see no reason, in order
> to better fulfil its promise, why the Shaw alphabet should not be
> made as rational as it was I believe intended to be, as Read and
> Shaw would have wanted (why wouldn't they have?) which to me
> is a return to its pre-error state. If this use of terminolgy
> horrifies everyone then call it something else, what does it matter?
>
>
>
>
>


=====
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This is a very nice, well thought out response, and the crux, I believe
of the continual disagreements in shavian. Speaking, as we say here in
the south, out of my rear-end, I thing that ha-ha seems to meld and
flow more easily at the beginning of the word. Consider for a moment my
suggested whitewheat symbol, taken from Read's own design in QS. I took
his checked woe and, as he most likely did, added a hung at the bottom.
The difference is that his is in shorthand, and thus more easily
written as a checkmark.

As for the voiced/voiceless/liquid/combo tiered design. This does
facilitate learning, especially since there is such internal
consistancy. This is an alphabet that, when viewed by an outsider looks
like something one would see in an alien spacecraft before one would
see it in a book, but then again, does anyone remember Alien Nation?
Talk about internal consistancy! But Tenktanese is rather difficult to
read. Shavian, on the other hand, is less dependant on handwritten
skill or even the clarity of print. An /on/ will not look like an /egg/
or an /ash/ because of the original brilliant design.

Read saw fit to create QS, why? We may not know for sure, but I can
guess that it might be because of the compromises that had to be
reached with Shavian. It might have been hard not being able to produce
his full design, some letters had to be dropped, ect ect, and thus for
him, creating QS might have been the best option rather than rehash
arguments he most likely had with the other designers. For instance,
consider Read's /x/ sound. If I recall correctly, is it not just for
use when x would appear in TO? you could not, for instance, use it in
the words socks because it is an /s/ following a /k/ but you could use
it in the word text. How many words actually contain the letter /x/?
And is it enough to warrant a return to the complex rules of TO? You
see? Just like us, Read is (was?) human, and makes (made) mistakes. I
tend to follow the notion that QS is his unadulterated, uncompromising
verion of shaw.

Coming up with revisions that all members of this "Modern Council of
Shaw" can agree on is surely just as difficult as the compromises and
settlements made when Shavian was first created.

Happy Christmas from rainy and snowy Tennessee,
--Star

--- dshepx <dshep@...> wrote:
> --- In shavian@..., "Hugh Birkenhead" <mixsynth@f...>
> wrote:
>
>
> >Forgive me... but why "must" it have been a typographical error?<
>
> What else could it posssibly be? Why would Read go out of his
> way to place a voiced consonant at the end of a string of voiceless
> consonants (I assume he designed the reading key as well) and
> the voiceless consonant at the end of a string of voiced? Or, if the
> reading key is incidental, why make a point of having one, just one,
> voiceless consonant grouped among the voiced?
>
> p(op), t(ot), k(ick), f(ief), th(in), s(auce), sh(op), ch(op), plus
> (h)ang?
> b(ob), d(ad), g(ag), v(alve), th(en), z(oos), (a)z(ure), j(udge),
> plus h(igh)?
>
> It makes no sense. Reverse them and it does. The Shaw alphabet
> has an internal beauty that makes sense. Defending the nonsensical
> is a curious thing to do.
>
> >It's nothing to do with 'voiced'/'unvoiced' <
>
> How can you say that? The whole point of going to the trouble of
> devising the three-tiered structure was to have it mean something.
>
> Voiceless tall; voiced deep; vowels (and odd letters) short.
>
> This is a device to facilitate instruction and understanding,
> especially I would think for the benefit of children as it groups
> letters into related sets and thus imparts structure. Did you
> think it was mere aesthetics?
>
> > why did he (Read) not make the QS 'hung' letter a deep letter ?
>
> After abandoning the tiered structure in QuickScript, there was
> no need to reverse ha/hang as their relative positions no longer
> mattered, nor did it matter what the letters looked like. Read also
> appears to have swapped around several letters, so continuity
> was apparently not a concern either. QuickScript is a kind of
> shorthand and may well be easier and quicker to write by hand,
> but the internal consistency was lost (though some of you oddly
> don't think that especially important anyway). Read could not
> have foreseen however that everyone in the future would be
> armed with laptops and thus equipped to easily work with a
> visually distinct and structured set of letters.
>
> >Until such evidence (of an error) is produced, reversal of
> 'hung' and 'haha' would be nothing short of a revision.<
>
> Some evidence at least was produced; you chose to regard
> it as irrelevant.
>
> > (then) a reversal of 'hung' and 'haha' would be nothing short
> > of a revision.<
>
> Well so what. I can understand that no one wishes to
> contemplate change. It is inconvenient and tiresome, as
> can be the person urging it. But I really do not understand
> this insistence upon maintaining that no error could possibly
> have been involved or Read would have corrected it, that
> there is surely some unknown but unclear reason why one
> voiceless consonant was placed among the voiced because,
> well, there just must be a reason because, well, structure
> doesn't really matter all that much, nor does some pedantic
> concept such as logical consistency, or, it just looks nice the
> way it is. This latter objection mystifies me  as they are
> reflected images of each other, if one way of writing them
> looks nice the reversal would look equally nice.
>
> Nor do I understand this regard for the sanctity of the Shaw
> alphabet. After all, Kingsley Read, its creator, had little
> compunction about moving on and recommending the use
> of QuickScript instead. I've always thought this strange.
> Had I put together something as intriguing as the Shaw
> alphabet I would have been loathe to give it up. However,
> I recall reading somewhere that Read was not the sole winner
> of Shaw's contest, but had to share this distinction with three
> others, and that they were all instructed to produce a final
> version (involving compromise?), although on the basis of Read's
> design. Perhaps QuickScript was a return to his ur-original
> conception, one less structured but easier to use.
>
> I also remember reading (again, somewhere) that there was
> both money problems and a great deal of confusion and even
> animosity in getting Androcles in print, just the right conditions
> for allowing mistakes to slip through. So I see no reason, in order
> to better fulfil its promise, why the Shaw alphabet should not be
> made as rational as it was I believe intended to be, as Read and
> Shaw would have wanted (why wouldn't they have?) which to me
> is a return to its pre-error state. If this use of terminolgy
> horrifies everyone then call it something else, what does it matter?
>
>
>
>
>


=====
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--- In shavian@..., "j_brg" <stetsdigs@h...> wrote:


> but I do not see shavian as an RP device.
>
> Thanks
> Joseph


Neither do I, nor did Shaw, as he specifically requested
his alphabet to be based upon 'Northern English', not as
well-defined as RP perhaps, but perhaps better as a
compromise between all comers.

regards,
david s




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--- In shavian@..., "j_brg" <stetsdigs@h...> wrote:
> Well done all!!
>
> This month has seen 150 messages (I am hopeful this is #150), the
> greatest number so far reckoned.
>
> Keep it up, and who knows...
>
> Thanks
> Joseph


Partly I'm to blame for stirring up a controversy, which elicits
annoyed replies. Though why reform should be a controversy is
beyond me.

david s




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To blame? I'd say to thank! This has brought up points that need to be
settled, and it has urged us to work on solving these problems for well
and all.

--Star

--- dshepx <dshep@...> wrote:
> --- In shavian@..., "j_brg" <stetsdigs@h...> wrote:
> > Well done all!!
> >
> > This month has seen 150 messages (I am hopeful this is #150), the
> > greatest number so far reckoned.
> >
> > Keep it up, and who knows...
> >
> > Thanks
> > Joseph
>
>
> Partly I'm to blame for stirring up a controversy, which elicits
> annoyed replies. Though why reform should be a controversy is
> beyond me.
>
> david s
>
>


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----- Original Message -----




OnlI JOkiN! ;)
Just wiSiN evrIwun in H grMp a verI merI /krismas n a hApI nV jC! :)

/hV

p.s. F Just kopId His I-mEl from H wun F sent in 2000 - but F dQt enIwun wUd rimembD HAt loN agO...

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As a poor substitute for a holiday greeting, here
is an excerpt that might help to clarify a basic
concept, with a few introductory remarks, from a
lovely, large-format book entitled

The Cambridge Encyclopedia of Language
by David Crystal

To see this book, written for laymen (well-illustrated)
is to want it under the Christmas tree.


page 202:

With alphabetic writing, there is a direct correspondence
between graphemes and phonemes, which makes it the
most economic and adaptable of all the writing systems.

In a perfectly regular system, as in some of the alphabets
that have been devised by linguists to record previously
unwritten languages, there is one grapheme for each
phoneme. However, most alpahabets in present-day use
fail to meet this criterion to some degree, either because
the writing system has not kept pace with changes in
pronunciation, or because the language is using an
alphabet not originally designed for it. Languages vary
greatly in their graphemic/phonemic regularity. At one
extreme we find such languages as Spanish and Finnish,
which have a very regular system; at the other, we find
such cases as English and Gaelic, where there is a marked
degree of irregularity. The extent to which there is a lack
of correspondence between graphemes and phonemes is
inevitably reflected in the number of arbitrary `spelling
rules' that children have to learn.


page 160

Phonemes

Phonological analysis relies on the principle that certain
sounds cause changes in the meaning of a word or phrase,
whereas other sounds do not. An early approach to the
subject used a simple methodology to demonstrate this.
It would take a word, replace one sound by another, and
see whether a different meaning resulted. For example, we
hear `pig' in English as consisting of three separate sounds,
each of which can be given a symbol in a phonetic
transcription, [p, i, g]. If we replace [p] by, say, [b], a
different word results: `big.' [p] and [b] are thus important
sounds in English, because they enable us to distinguish
between `pig' and `big', `pan' and `ban', and many more
word pairs.

In a similar way, [i] and [e] can be shown to be important
units, because they distinguish between `pig' and `peg',
`pin' and `pen', and many other pairs. And so we could
continue, using this technique — the `minimal pairs' test
— to find out which sound substitutions cause difference
of meaning. The technique has its limitations (it is not
always possible to find pairs of words illustrating a
particular distinction in a language), but it works well for
English, where it leads to the identification of over 40
important units, In the earliest approach to phonological
analysis, these `important units' are called phonemes.

Phonemes are transcribed using the normal set of phonetic
symbols, but within slant lines, not square brackets — /p/,
/b/, /i/, /ei, etc. This shows that the units are being seen
as part of a language, and not just as physical sounds.

Some minimal pairs for English phonemes, not everyone will
use all of them.

vowels:

vowels:
beat-bit, bit-bait, bait-bet, bet-bat;
bat-bite, bite-bout, bout-but;
cut-cot, cot-caught, caught-coat;
pole-pull, pull-pool; boo-bah, bah-boy.

compounds:
pier-pare, fair-fire, flier-flour, our-are,
far-for, for-four, pore-poor, poor-pure.

consonants:
pit-bit, beam-team, ton-done, deep-keep, cap-gap,
gate-hate, hut-hung, hang-fang, fail-vale, heave-heath,
wreath-wreathe, though-so, bus-buzz, zip-yip, yell-well,
wait-late, lair-rare, rate-mate, might-night, nudge-judge,
gin-chin, chew-shoe, Confucian-confusion.

That last one was pretty good, wasn't it?

ds





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Hi David

Thanks for digging up a clear description of a Phoneme.
I guess our fellow poster and lurkers can now make the conceptual
leap to understand the benefits of a Phonemic Alphabet over a
Phonetic Alphabet. Effectively, it is a just a lot more concise.
You don't need as many letters.
For example. The Eu Dipthong or vowel sound we discussed last week,
can be lumped together with "Yew", and we can skip adding a new
letter, because there are no minimal pairs, where this sound
difference would differentuate two spoken English words.
And as a counter-example, we should have different letters for the
voiced and unvoiced w sound (w/wh), because there are minimal pairs
where the difference between these 2 sounds makes 2 different words
(witch/which)
But realize this principle is far from consistantly applied in
Shavian alphabet.
The voiced and unvoiced "th" sound is considered a single phoneme in
T.O. because there are no minimal pairs where the difference between
these 2 sounds makes 2 different words. But the Shaw Alphabet, does
differentiate this sound. Why?
IMHO, I think the creators of the Shaw Alphabet realized that
the voiced / unvoiced distinction was generally/generically easily
recognizable and very useful over-all to distinguish letter sounds,
and so whenever possible organised letters into voiced /unvoiced
pairs. These paired letters were designed to resemble each other.
Note that one letter of the pair resembles the other after being
flipped over on both a vertical and horizontal axis.
This works quite nicely inside Paint. Draw a Shaw Letter and use the
Flip option on the Pull Down Image menu, to see what I mean.

I think Hung/Ha-Ha tho, represents the putting together of some left-
over sounds, that didn't have any good matching pair. This could be
corrected, I suppose, by giving them more individual looking
characters.

Regards, Paul V.

P.S. I am curious about your interest in trying to fix the Shaw
Alphabet. Obviously some things could work better.
But I must warn you there is a tremendous amount of inertia that must
be overcome. Still you very welcome to try.

________________attached_____________________________

--- In shavian@..., "dshepx" <dshep@g...> wrote:
> As a poor substitute for a holiday greeting, here
> is an excerpt that might help to clarify a basic
> concept, with a few introductory remarks, from a
> lovely, large-format book entitled
>
> The Cambridge Encyclopedia of Language
> by David Crystal
>
> To see this book, written for laymen (well-illustrated)
> is to want it under the Christmas tree.
>
>
> page 202:
>
> With alphabetic writing, there is a direct correspondence
> between graphemes and phonemes, which makes it the
> most economic and adaptable of all the writing systems.
>
> In a perfectly regular system, as in some of the alphabets
> that have been devised by linguists to record previously
> unwritten languages, there is one grapheme for each
> phoneme. However, most alpahabets in present-day use
> fail to meet this criterion to some degree, either because
> the writing system has not kept pace with changes in
> pronunciation, or because the language is using an
> alphabet not originally designed for it. Languages vary
> greatly in their graphemic/phonemic regularity. At one
> extreme we find such languages as Spanish and Finnish,
> which have a very regular system; at the other, we find
> such cases as English and Gaelic, where there is a marked
> degree of irregularity. The extent to which there is a lack
> of correspondence between graphemes and phonemes is
> inevitably reflected in the number of arbitrary `spelling
> rules' that children have to learn.
>
>
> page 160
>
> Phonemes
>
> Phonological analysis relies on the principle that certain
> sounds cause changes in the meaning of a word or phrase,
> whereas other sounds do not. An early approach to the
> subject used a simple methodology to demonstrate this.
> It would take a word, replace one sound by another, and
> see whether a different meaning resulted. For example, we
> hear `pig' in English as consisting of three separate sounds,
> each of which can be given a symbol in a phonetic
> transcription, [p, i, g]. If we replace [p] by, say, [b], a
> different word results: `big.' [p] and [b] are thus important
> sounds in English, because they enable us to distinguish
> between `pig' and `big', `pan' and `ban', and many more
> word pairs.
>
> In a similar way, [i] and [e] can be shown to be important
> units, because they distinguish between `pig' and `peg',
> `pin' and `pen', and many other pairs. And so we could
> continue, using this technique — the `minimal pairs' test
> — to find out which sound substitutions cause difference
> of meaning. The technique has its limitations (it is not
> always possible to find pairs of words illustrating a
> particular distinction in a language), but it works well for
> English, where it leads to the identification of over 40
> important units, In the earliest approach to phonological
> analysis, these `important units' are called phonemes.
>
> Phonemes are transcribed using the normal set of phonetic
> symbols, but within slant lines, not square brackets — /p/,
> /b/, /i/, /ei, etc. This shows that the units are being seen
> as part of a language, and not just as physical sounds.
>
> Some minimal pairs for English phonemes, not everyone will
> use all of them.
>
> vowels:
>
> vowels:
> beat-bit, bit-bait, bait-bet, bet-bat;
> bat-bite, bite-bout, bout-but;
> cut-cot, cot-caught, caught-coat;
> pole-pull, pull-pool; boo-bah, bah-boy.
>
> compounds:
> pier-pare, fair-fire, flier-flour, our-are,
> far-for, for-four, pore-poor, poor-pure.
>
> consonants:
> pit-bit, beam-team, ton-done, deep-keep, cap-gap,
> gate-hate, hut-hung, hang-fang, fail-vale, heave-heath,
> wreath-wreathe, though-so, bus-buzz, zip-yip, yell-well,
> wait-late, lair-rare, rate-mate, might-night, nudge-judge,
> gin-chin, chew-shoe, Confucian-confusion.
>
> That last one was pretty good, wasn't it?
>
> ds




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12/26/03 1:17:09 PM, "paul vandenbrink" <pvandenbrink@...> wrote:


>The voiced and unvoiced "th" sound is considered a single phoneme in
>T.O. because there are no minimal pairs where the difference between
>these 2 sounds makes 2 different words. But the Shaw Alphabet, does
>differentiate this sound. Why?

ether-either

thistle dew-this'll do

:P

Ethan






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On 26 Dec 2003 at 15:31, Ethan wrote:

> 12/26/03 1:17:09 PM, "paul vandenbrink" <pvandenbrink@...> wrote:
>
> >The voiced and unvoiced "th" sound is considered a single phoneme in
> >T.O. because there are no minimal pairs where the difference between
> >these 2 sounds makes 2 different words. But the Shaw Alphabet, does
> >differentiate this sound. Why?
>
> ether-either
>
> thistle dew-this'll do

Those two don't work for me (since I have "ITD" / "FHD" and "Tisal dV"
/ "Hisal dM"), but thigh-thy is a minimal pair for me (TF / HF), as is
wreath-wreathe (rIT / rIH).

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




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