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I'm just wondering . . . . Why not just add vowel placeholders to the current Shavian
alphabet? What's the need to rework the other letters if you expect children to have
to learn normal Shavian before switching over to the Modified Shaw Abjad?

If these adjustments are so important, perhaps they should be applied to the
alphabet, as well.



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Hello

Do you not think this argument is spurious? How far can one go in
totting up numbers and dividing them into "national dialects"? Will
it ever produce anything either usable or desirable?

First you ignore that in most countries there is no standard over all
the population, and that so-called "national dictionaries" cover only
a blessed and chosen few. The rest of us must make do with the
dubious title "non-standard".

If you divide people into nations and then proclaim upon each a
national spelling for shavian then I dare say that many will tell you
to sit on it.

Next we must understand that shavian is meant to facilitate
communication in English and manifold spellings will not do this. At
the moment there is very little difference between English spelling.
To have any success we need to make sure that gap shrinks and not
grow.

An acceptable spelling for all English speakers must be found, with
differences _only_ where there is a real phonemic difference in
pronunciation. Also it must be made clear to a learner who comes
across an unfamiliar word (that is, spelt how they would not say it)
that all English speakers have made a few concessions to reach a
standard. Otherwise, like above, people will think you are trying to
make them speak British/American/Australian/Indian and tell you to go
play in the road.

I hate to sound like I'm coining a bloody motto, but here is the crux
of my point: without unity there is no point, and without concession
there can be no agreement.

Thanks for listening
Joseph

-- In shavian@..., carl easton <shavintel16@y...> wrote:
> Hi Paul,
>
> You are Right. I responded to Ethan on this. I agree that there
should be a standard of spelling for each English-speaking Nation.
>
> best of regards,
>
> Carl
>
> paul vandenbrink <pvandenbrink@s...> wrote:
> Hi Carl
>
> Don't forget India, Pakistan and Hong Kong. Altogether they have
more
> Second Lnguage English Speakers than America, and their accent is
> closer to the British Accent.
> English is a world language. The majority of countries in the world
> accept English as their preferred second language.
>
> Regards, Paul V.
> ______________attached________________________
>




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Hello

I hate to be a rotten apple, but surely this is a backstep?

You have taken a phonemic alphabet and created from it a phonetic
abjad.

Why?

Thanks
Joseph

--- In shavian@..., carl easton <shavintel16@y...> wrote:
> Hi Paul,
>
> Congratulations, on your Revised Shaw Abjad making it to
www.omniglot.com . I'll do my best to learn it, like I am doing with
Quikscript.
>
> best of regards,
>
> Carl
>
>
> ---------------------------------
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Hello

I hate to be a rotten apple, but surely this is a backstep?

You have taken a phonemic alphabet and created from it a phonetic
abjad.

Why?

Thanks
Joseph

--- In shavian@..., carl easton <shavintel16@y...> wrote:
> Hi Paul,
>
> Congratulations, on your Revised Shaw Abjad making it to
www.omniglot.com . I'll do my best to learn it, like I am doing with
Quikscript.
>
> best of regards,
>
> Carl
>
>
> ---------------------------------
> Do you Yahoo!?
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Hi Joseph

I think Carl in his enthusiasm to spread the word on the benefits the Shaw
Alphabet has jumped in with a naive attempt to correct the Achilles Heel of
the Shavian Alphabet.
The problem with Shaw as an Alphabet for English, is that first, English is
nowadays becoming the pre-eminent World language. But Secondly, that
English is spoken very differently, sometimes so differently that it is not
understandable.
I can correspond exactly with a Newfoundlander or Cockney, but still be at
a total loss over the phone.
Carl, like most American's, has a tendency to want to go with the majority.
If you have to make a decision, why not make the most people happy.

Fortunately, like yourself, I believe there is a better solution to this
problem.
Why not make computers do all the work, eh.
I am not sure what that solution will be, but I agree with you that you
will not convince the majority of the world to use a Phonetic Alphabet
according to some other countries standard of pronunciation. Just not a go.

Still I think there is place in Shavian for dictionaries and a strategy of
writing English words in Shaw that minimizes variation. At least enough so
that the computers can get a handle on it anyway, eh.

Regards, Paul V.

P.S. We used to have a situation in Quebec where the English business
community required French speaker's to speak English if they wanted a job.
Canada is still suffering over that one.


> You are Right. I responded to Ethan on this. I agree that there
should be a standard of spelling for each English-speaking Nation.
>

At 09:14 AM 4/5/04, you wrote:
>Hello
>
>Do you not think this argument is spurious? How far can one go in
>totting up numbers and dividing them into "national dialects"? Will
>it ever produce anything either usable or desirable?
>
>First you ignore that in most countries there is no standard over all
>the population, and that so-called "national dictionaries" cover only
>a blessed and chosen few. The rest of us must make do with the
>dubious title "non-standard".
>
>If you divide people into nations and then proclaim upon each a
>national spelling for shavian then I dare say that many will tell you
>to sit on it.
>
>Next we must understand that shavian is meant to facilitate
>communication in English and manifold spellings will not do this. At
>the moment there is very little difference between English spelling.
>To have any success we need to make sure that gap shrinks and not
>grow.
>
>An acceptable spelling for all English speakers must be found, with
>differences _only_ where there is a real phonemic difference in
>pronunciation. Also it must be made clear to a learner who comes
>across an unfamiliar word (that is, spelt how they would not say it)
>that all English speakers have made a few concessions to reach a
>standard. Otherwise, like above, people will think you are trying to
>make them speak British/American/Australian/Indian and tell you to go
>play in the road.
>
>I hate to sound like I'm coining a bloody motto, but here is the crux
>of my point: without unity there is no point, and without concession
>there can be no agreement.
>
>Thanks for listening
>Joseph





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Hi Joe

You are absolutely correct. Ideally, the Original Shaw Alphabet, should be
totally consistent and upwardly compatible with the Revised Shaw Abjad.

That was simple.

Unfortunately for you, if you want to know why at this point it would be
impractical to proceed to that ideal, you have to wade through my following
description of the ABJAD and my Diatribe against change. Good Luck.

If you look at a character by character comparison between Original and the
Revised Version of the Shaw Alphabet, you will see a few other changes and
some major additions, besides the the Vowel Markers. One of the additions
was an attempt to add some letters to indicate the various Glottal Stop
accentuated Vowels that are used in English to show word boundaries. This
is a useful distinction to make if you are try to show the difference
between crucial and non-crucial Vowels. But, before I go through all these
other additions, let me reinforce what remains the same.

There are 48 Original Shavian Letters and 59 Revised Shaw Letters.
As far as the sound breakdown goes there is an exact equivalent Revised
letter for 44 of the 48 Original Shavian Letters. I dropped a specific
letter for the Shavian Letter "Ian", as there are a couple different Vowel
Markers combinations that replace the same sound. On and Alms were merged
into just one letter called Ahmz in the Revised Shaw.
And Array and Urge(Err) were merged into just Earl in the Revised Shaw
Alphabet.
And as for the sound of the letter Up, it would be written by the letter
Upten, if it were to start a word, but with a vowel marker otherwise.

Now, as for the look of these Original Shaw Letters in the Revised version.
I have minor dyslexia, aggravated by age, so I found Wool and Yea and Loll
and Roar hard to differentiate (Mirror images), so I modified them somewhat.
In particular, I took the matched signs for Ha-Ha and Hung, which contrary
to their name have no connection and exchanged them with Wool and Yea. I
wouldn't mind bringing back the original forms of Share and Measure. Now
that I don't use Loll and Roar in their original form, there would be no
problem of confusion. Also I altered the form of Mem (same name in Revised
Shaw) and Hung so that all the Nasal letters would obviously belong together.

I also made some additions such as the letter Elmo designated to represent
the Syllabic Consonant l-sound found in words like girl, field, table,
bottle and whale.
Now,
It could be indicated by the addition of a Vowel Marker instead of having
to add a separate letter to the Abjad.

Now as to the additional letters, 10 of the new letters were added to give
another set of Vowel Letters, called Primary Vowels, because these vowel
sounds are more fully pronounced and they are also accentuated with a
Glottal Stop to keep them from merging into the previous word.

I made these changes to adapt the Shaw Alphabet for my own convenience and
to deal with my American English Pronunciation. I have already suggested
most these changes over the years, in my pursuit of a Approved American
Subset of the Shaw Alphabet.
But I was firmly dissuaded.
There is a lot of resistance to making any change to the Original Shavian
Alphabet, with quite valid reasons by the way. That's another major
discussion.
Even if these adjustments could be demonstrated to be important and useful,
they would not be applied to the Original Shavian.alphabet.
The Shavian community has strong reasons to maintain the original design.

But thinking about it, most of these pre-existing changes to the letters,
result in the use of fewer pure Vowel sound letters. Instead of having a
small number of simple vowel letters the Revised Shaw Abjad provides more
complex Letters representing a Glottal stop + a vowel, Dipthongs, Syllabic
consonants, Syllables such as Yew, Vowel Glides into the R sound and other
variations that are much easier for the Adult English speaker to recognize
and use.

As for children, I suppose the original Shavian Alphabet is the best choice.
I suspect that even though an Abjad has definate practical advantages in
use, it is easier for a kid to reconcile the differences between Shavian
and the regular English Alphabet. Using an Abjad along with T.O, might be
just too much of an intellectual leap for the kid and especially for his
teachers.

Remember, what happened with New Math back in the 70's where they tried to
teach 10 year olds, Boolean Algerbra and set theory. They got amazingly
good results with picked classes and Graduate Student providing the
instruction, but when they took it out in to the world it was an utter
disaster. The Average teacher couldn't cope with the new material.

Regards, Paul V.

____________attached_________________________________

At 06:24 PM 4/4/04, you wrote:
>I'm just wondering . . . . Why not just add vowel placeholders to the
>current Shavian
>alphabet? What's the need to rework the other letters if you expect
>children to have
>to learn normal Shavian before switching over to the Modified Shaw Abjad?
>
>If these adjustments are so important, perhaps they should be applied to the
>alphabet, as well.






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Hi Joe

Sorry to bow out. I am going to be busy with the holidays for the next 3 days.
Just when things where getting exciting.
I'll Talk later.

Here is my last quibble.
(A quibble less a kwowned
is a dribble less a drowned.)

You said:
> It is true that children learn the language first, but they will
> inevitably encounter
>many words they don't recognize already, when they start reading.

AND

> They do tend to start learning to read and
>write with a fairly small vocabulary of common words.

My understanding is that you can not learn to read (All our
pre-kindergarden schools to the contrary) unless you have a good grasp of
some language.
Exceptions please? (Tarzan doesn't count)
Head start program do not result in earlier reading ages. The have other
real benefits, but that is not one of them.
Precocious Readers are invariably Precocious Speaker first.

Any Linguists or Child Care workers care to comment?

Regards, Paul V.



At 03:04 PM 4/4/04, you wrote:
>--- In shavian@..., "paul vandenbrink" <pvandenbrink@s...> wrote:
>
> > And in reality, our children learn the language first, and then learn
> > to read by recognizing the written form of words in process more like
> > puzzle solving, than actual sounding out all the letters.
>
> It is true that children learn the language first, but they will
> inevitably encounter
>many words they don't recognize already. They do tend to start learning
>to read and
>write with a fairly small vocabulary of common words.
>
> >Sad to say,
> > the T.O. and our Education system have not encouraged the phonetic
> > approach to reading. It requires too much work for the teacher.
> > If only the Shaw Alphabet were already in use, they could attempt it.
>
> I was taught to sound out words I didn't recognize. The phonetic
> approached
>worked about as well as it can for T.O.
>
> > It would be nice if someone actually did a study on the benefits of
> > learning English Phonetically using the Shaw Alphabet.
> > I believe would find learning to read much less tedious and
> > frustrating.
>
>The same kind of study has been done with the Initial Teaching Alphabet,
>and I would
>bet the results would be about the same with Shavian. That is, children
>would learn
>to spell more proficiently and more quickly, and they would tend to do
>better in other
>studies.
>
> > Kids don't really have a choice, they can't effectively rebel or go
> > on strike, because of poor teaching strategies.
>
>Well, they could if their parents/guardians backed them. But that might
>be a stretch.
>
> > Anyway I probably overdid it.
>
>Yes, you did. Shame on you! :D
>
>Best Regards,
>Joe
>
>
>
>
>Yahoo! Groups Links
>
>
>
>





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----- Original Message -----
From: "j_brg" <stetsdigs@...>


> Hello
>
> Do you not think this argument is spurious? How far can one go in
> totting up numbers and dividing them into "national dialects"? Will
> it ever produce anything either usable or desirable?

We've been here before, many times...

While I agree that people should be free to use the alphabet as they wish
amongst themselves, I also think that a politically and nationally
independent standard spelling system should be established for official and
international communication purposes. It's not about nations tailoring the
alphabet for themselves - it's about embracing the *international* status of
English and acknowledging the fact that it is, at the end of the day, ONE
language.

[snip]
> Next we must understand that shavian is meant to facilitate
> communication in English and manifold spellings will not do this. At
> the moment there is very little difference between English spelling.
> To have any success we need to make sure that gap shrinks and not
> grow.

Bang on!

If Shavian adds further spelling differences between nations, it is going to
further increase the divides between English-speaking nations, most notably
the transatlantic divide. It should be BREAKING DOWN such divides. Shavian
was never intended to be a tool by which one displays ones dialectual pride
in writing - it was intended to be a practical, workable, and most
importantly UNIFIED system of communication.

> An acceptable spelling for all English speakers must be found, with
> differences _only_ where there is a real phonemic difference in
> pronunciation. Also it must be made clear to a learner who comes
> across an unfamiliar word (that is, spelt how they would not say it)
> that all English speakers have made a few concessions to reach a
> standard. Otherwise, like above, people will think you are trying to
> make them speak British/American/Australian/Indian and tell you to go
> play in the road.
>
> I hate to sound like I'm coining a bloody motto, but here is the crux
> of my point: without unity there is no point, and without concession
> there can be no agreement.

Reaching a standard isn't difficult, at least between basic British and
American dialects. If the letters are used appropriately, the majority of
words written in Shavian should appear the same if written by either a Brit
or an American.

Many would ask about words where there is a choice between 'ah' and 'ash',
e.g. "grass", "past", "master", etc. There is a simple solution. The great
thing about "Northern English" (as Shaw himself wanted to be used in
Androcles but in fact WASN'T) is that it uses 'ash' for those words - the
same as American English. Using a form of English closer to Northern English
(but not using 'wool' for words like 'but', 'come', 'fun', etc.) would be
acceptable to British speakers, I'm sure, because everybody in the country
will recognise it easily. Also, many people might have to think twice before
writing vowels that should be rhoticised ('are', 'err', etc.).

Most American speakers will have of course to get used to using 'on' most of
the time and remembering where to use 'ah' instead (e.g. 'father', 'calm',
etc.), but this is hardly a challenge. If some don't observe much difference
between 'ah' and 'awe', those speakers will have to get the hang of which is
which. Care will have to be taken over when to use 'air', 'ear', 'err' or
'array', as well as 'up' or 'ado' (correct word stress).

Formulating a standard isn't a problem. It's getting people on all sides to
accept that everybody has made just as much of a compromise as everybody
else.

> Thanks for listening
> Joseph

Likewise
Hugh B




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I like your arguments Hugh, but I think that the best way to make
Shavian internationally viable is to attach the letters to consistent
phonemes. The closer it is to speech, the more level it is,
culturally. Locking spelling into one dialect is bound to put the
majority of English-speakers at a disadvantage to a minority.
Americans and Brits may have some difficulty understanding each other
in conversation, but sound changes are quickly comprehended.

As for creating consistency, I think we need to stop looking at
spelling as something that should be consistent. Languages undergo
sound changes regularly and the alphabet should follow the language,
instead of trailing behind some five centuries or more like our
present (wretchedly inconsistent!) orthography.

My two cents. Back to lurking for another year,thou

--- In shavian@..., "Hugh Birkenhead" <mixsynth@f...>
wrote:
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "j_brg" <stetsdigs@h...>
>
>
> > Hello
> >
> > Do you not think this argument is spurious? How far can one go in
> > totting up numbers and dividing them into "national dialects"?
Will
> > it ever produce anything either usable or desirable?
>
> We've been here before, many times...
>
> While I agree that people should be free to use the alphabet as
they wish
> amongst themselves, I also think that a politically and nationally
> independent standard spelling system should be established for
official and
> international communication purposes. It's not about nations
tailoring the
> alphabet for themselves - it's about embracing the *international*
status of
> English and acknowledging the fact that it is, at the end of the
day, ONE
> language.
>
> [snip]
> > Next we must understand that shavian is meant to facilitate
> > communication in English and manifold spellings will not do this.
At
> > the moment there is very little difference between English
spelling.
> > To have any success we need to make sure that gap shrinks and not
> > grow.
>
> Bang on!
>
> If Shavian adds further spelling differences between nations, it is
going to
> further increase the divides between English-speaking nations, most
notably
> the transatlantic divide. It should be BREAKING DOWN such divides.
Shavian
> was never intended to be a tool by which one displays ones
dialectual pride
> in writing - it was intended to be a practical, workable, and most
> importantly UNIFIED system of communication.
>
> > An acceptable spelling for all English speakers must be found,
with
> > differences _only_ where there is a real phonemic difference in
> > pronunciation. Also it must be made clear to a learner who comes
> > across an unfamiliar word (that is, spelt how they would not say
it)
> > that all English speakers have made a few concessions to reach a
> > standard. Otherwise, like above, people will think you are trying
to
> > make them speak British/American/Australian/Indian and tell you
to go
> > play in the road.
> >
> > I hate to sound like I'm coining a bloody motto, but here is the
crux
> > of my point: without unity there is no point, and without
concession
> > there can be no agreement.
>
> Reaching a standard isn't difficult, at least between basic British
and
> American dialects. If the letters are used appropriately, the
majority of
> words written in Shavian should appear the same if written by
either a Brit
> or an American.
>
> Many would ask about words where there is a choice between 'ah'
and 'ash',
> e.g. "grass", "past", "master", etc. There is a simple solution.
The great
> thing about "Northern English" (as Shaw himself wanted to be used in
> Androcles but in fact WASN'T) is that it uses 'ash' for those
words - the
> same as American English. Using a form of English closer to
Northern English
> (but not using 'wool' for words like 'but', 'come', 'fun', etc.)
would be
> acceptable to British speakers, I'm sure, because everybody in the
country
> will recognise it easily. Also, many people might have to think
twice before
> writing vowels that should be rhoticised ('are', 'err', etc.).
>
> Most American speakers will have of course to get used to
using 'on' most of
> the time and remembering where to use 'ah' instead
(e.g. 'father', 'calm',
> etc.), but this is hardly a challenge. If some don't observe much
difference
> between 'ah' and 'awe', those speakers will have to get the hang of
which is
> which. Care will have to be taken over when to
use 'air', 'ear', 'err' or
> 'array', as well as 'up' or 'ado' (correct word stress).
>
> Formulating a standard isn't a problem. It's getting people on all
sides to
> accept that everybody has made just as much of a compromise as
everybody
> else.
>
> > Thanks for listening
> > Joseph
>
> Likewise
> Hugh B




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Hi Joseph,

Indeed, a common spelling must be attained. I was only speculating when I said "there should be a standard of spelling for each Nation". I'm speculating, again, but hopefully closer to the truth this time. We must find a dictionary pronouncation acceptable to all English-speaking Shavian Users. I vote -- American Heritage Dictionary -- all may vote now. Some points to consider: this dictionary must be widely available and have a pronouncation key compatable with Shavian.

best of regards,

Carl

j_brg <stetsdigs@...> wrote:

Hello

Do you not think this argument is spurious? How far can one go in
totting up numbers and dividing them into "national dialects"? Will
it ever produce anything either usable or desirable?

First you ignore that in most countries there is no standard over all
the population, and that so-called "national dictionaries" cover only
a blessed and chosen few. The rest of us must make do with the
dubious title "non-standard".

If you divide people into nations and then proclaim upon each a
national spelling for shavian then I dare say that many will tell you
to sit on it.

Next we must understand that shavian is meant to facilitate
communication in English and manifold spellings will not do this. At
the moment there is very little difference between English spelling.
To have any success we need to make sure that gap shrinks and not
grow.

An acceptable spelling for all English speakers must be found, with
differences _only_ where there is a real phonemic difference in
pronunciation. Also it must be made clear to a learner who comes
across an unfamiliar word (that is, spelt how they would not say it)
that all English speakers have made a few concessions to reach a
standard. Otherwise, like above, people will think you are trying to
make them speak British/American/Australian/Indian and tell you to go
play in the road.

I hate to sound like I'm coining a bloody motto, but here is the crux
of my point: without unity there is no point, and without concession
there can be no agreement.

Thanks for listening
Joseph

-- In shavian@..., carl easton <shavintel16@y...> wrote:
> Hi Paul,
>
> You are Right. I responded to Ethan on this. I agree that there
should be a standard of spelling for each English-speaking Nation.
>
> best of regards,
>
> Carl
>
> paul vandenbrink <pvandenbrink@s...> wrote:
> Hi Carl
>
> Don't forget India, Pakistan and Hong Kong. Altogether they have
more
> Second Lnguage English Speakers than America, and their accent is
> closer to the British Accent.
> English is a world language. The majority of countries in the world
> accept English as their preferred second language.
>
> Regards, Paul V.
> ______________attached________________________
>



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