Shavian eGroup Archive Browser

yes, that sounds like a likely reason, just one of those quirks,
I guess.

I see you are the webmaster for the www.shavian.org website,
what is your vision for it? Maybe I could be of help?

Lux


--- In shavian@..., "Philip Newton" <philip.newton@g...>
wrote:
> On 19 Nov 00, at 8:30, luxlucre@h... wrote:
>
> > 1. Why is it pronounced "Shavian" rather than "Shaw-vian". He
> > was not George Bernard Shae, after all.
>
> My guess is that it's from a pseudo-Latin form of his name, which
might
> be "Shavius" or something like that. But it might just be one of
those
> "English does weird things to proper names" things, like
"Liverpudlian"
> being the adjective for Liverpool, or "Glaswegian" for Glasgow.
(Then
> there's also "Hants", which is the abbreviation for Hampshire; it
was
> explained to me as coming from the Latin(?) form of the county's
name,
> Hantescire.)
>
> Cheers,
> Philip
> --
> Philip Newton <Philip.Newton@g...>


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On 19 Nov 00, at 18:37, Lux Lucre wrote:

> I see you are the webmaster for the www.shavian.org website,
> what is your vision for it? Maybe I could be of help?

Public service to the Shavian community, or something like that... the
domain was available, so I registered it. I'd like it to be a
repository for information about Shavian, or at least contain links to
the several good places already in existence. However, I don't have
nearly enough time to devote to its upkeep, so if you want to
contribute something, you're more than welcome. Contact me by email
( shavian@... , for example) or in the Shavian
eGroup.

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

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I saw several messages of people looking for this book so I did a
quick search and:

SHAW, GEORGE BERNARD. The Shaw Alphabet Edition of
Androcles and the Lion. An old fable renovated.


Penguin 1962. 151p. near fine condition. No. Q29 in series. With
parallel text in Shaw's Alphabet to be read in conjunction showing
its economies in writing and reading.
Together with reading key card. Book # 15080
Price: £ 15.00 (approx. US$ 21.38) convert currency

Homepage of Kingswood Books, , United Kingdom

Buy directly from the Bookseller

Kingswood Books, 17 Wick Road, Milborne Port, Sherborne, Dorset,
United Kingdom, DT9 5BT.
Phone: 44 (0) 1963 250280. Fax: 44 (0) 1963 250280. Email:
anneandallan@... ... A member of PBFA

Enjoy!
Lux


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I'm new to the group, so forgive me if this thought has been expressed
before.

I observed, while reading some Shavian on the web, that what I was reading
had a distinctly "British" flavor. I could hear the "accent" in my head as
I read, which I found very interesting. It occured to me that one of the
good features of Shavian is that it can capture these regional differences
in the language. When I go to see a Shakespeare play the last thing I want
is to hear Shakespeare performed with an American accent. A large part of
the charm of the performance is the language. On the other hand, to hear
Mark Twain, for example, rendered in any accent other than the 19th century
American of the southern Mississippi Valley doesn't quite ring true.

Along those lines it seems to me (and this is just my own opinion, of
course) that such authors as Twain and Poe should be rendered with their
American accent intact, while H.G. Wells, Lewis Carrol, and Dickens should
be rendered in proper British English. Modern global communication may soon
enough homoginize our language and these nuances of dialect could, at some
future time, become lost. Shavian offers the chance to capture and preserve
these delightful differences for posterity.

--gary


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I've just completed version 0.0 of my English to Shavian translator program
for Windows. If anybody is interested in playing with it can be downloaded
(about 120K) from http://www.teleport.com/~fiziwig/xlate.html (The present
version requires that the "Lionspaw" font be installed, although a future
version will allow any Shavian font to be used.)

It runs from a glossary, and prompts the user when unknown words are found,
or context dependant decisions need to be made by a real human. ("Boil a
MINUTE portion of water for one MINUTE.") Any words added to the glossary
during the translation process become part of the permanent glossary.

The glossary is in simple text format so that any word processor can be used
to add, modify, or delete glossary entries. (Complete instructions are on
the web page and in the ReadMe file.)

Included is the original text of Edgar Allen Poe's The Raven, along with the
Shavian translation produced by the program. You can use the Poe text if
you like to see how it all works. Translating the Poe took less than 10
seconds, but other texts could take longer if they contain many words not
already in the glossary.

If anyone objects to my American English pronunciations in the glossary
provided, one can edit the glossary, or simply delete the whole glossary
file (which isn't very large to begin with) and build a new glossary
interactivley while translating texts.

At any rate, comments and suggestions for future enchancements would be
welcomed.

--gary


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On 11/19/00 at 6:28 PM Philip Newton wrote:

>On 19 Nov 00, at 8:30, luxlucre@... wrote:
>
>> 1. Why is it pronounced "Shavian" rather than "Shaw-vian". He
>> was not George Bernard Shae, after all.
>
>My guess is that it's from a pseudo-Latin form of his name, which might
>be "Shavius" or something like that. But it might just be one of those
>"English does weird things to proper names" things, like "Liverpudlian"
>being the adjective for Liverpool, or "Glaswegian" for Glasgow. (Then
>there's also "Hants", which is the abbreviation for Hampshire; it was
>explained to me as coming from the Latin(?) form of the county's name,
>Hantescire.)

Quite correct- It _is_ from the Latin these derivatives come from....
Unlike American English, British English relies moreso on its heritage as having at one time, the UK were a series of Roman provinces... Shaw would've been Shavius...

D.M.Falk




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Hello,

This email message is a notification to let you know that
a file has been uploaded to the Files area of the shavian
group.

File : /images/s-logo_pepsi.gif
Uploaded by : luxlucre@...
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You can access this file at the URL

http://www.egroups.com/files/shavian/images/s-logo_pepsi%2Egif

To learn more about eGroups file sharing, please visit

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Regards,

luxlucre@...





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[Here's a reposting of something I posted last year, you might agree with
me, you might not, but here it is anyway...]

Hi there again! I knew this would surface again sometime...

> I've been talking to Simon Barne (he in Indonesia), who tells me that
you've spoken to him about the use of
> the "Ian" letter: that in Androcles, it is used only for single, stressed
syllables like "fiat", and not in, say,
> "centurion". I'd never noticed that, but I've checked, and of course
you're absolutely right. I don't quite
> understand it, though. I can't find any mention of a rule about it in the
notes contained in Androcles. Can you
> suggest any justification for it?

I have always taken this for granted. When I was learning Shavian, I found
that just using the table was completely inadequate; I had to use the actual
Androcles text substantially. I noticed that the distinction was made
between 'ian' and 'if'+'ado', and so I picked it up.

I didn't follow the convention blindly - I believe I understand the
difference. It is merely the tip of a large iceberg (and is another thing I
have been meaning to post for discussion in the group for a long time
indeed): the issue of STRESS.

As we all know, in the character table there are two characters for what
might seem to be identical sounds: 'up' and 'ado'. Why are they there, if
they are so similar that one character could suffice to represent them both?
To represent stress. I thought about this for ages, and the way I see it,
the only way to avoid using an 'apostrophe' type character in every single
multi-syllabic word to highlight stress (as dictionaries do) is to have a
'schwa' character that could be used to show where the *unstressed* part of
the word is.

OK, the schwa thing is probably self-evident, that's why we all use it. But
what are not so self-evident are things like 'eat' vs. 'if' (at ends of
words), 'ear' vs. 'if'+'array' and indeed 'ian' vs. 'if'+'ado'. Some writers
say that the distinction should not be made in any of those cases, but I
believe that it should always be made - not just because Androcles agrees
with me, but also because it makes the pronunciation of words much clearer.
In Androcles, the 'if' phoneme is used in preference to 'eat' at the end of
words like 'funny', 'chivalry' and 'family', so as to make the stress clear;
the 'eat' phoneme is almost always fully stressed. Take the words 'beady',
'queenly', 'queasy', 'squeezy' - if the same phoneme were used (as is often
actually the case), the stress would be completely indeterminable, therefore
confusing readers; so, it is understandable that the Androcles
transliterators made the distinction, and also that I do. For exactly the
same reasons, the distinction should be made between 'ian' and 'if'+'ado' -
the stress is unclear if 'ian' is used all the time. 'Ian' is pronounced
'EAR', without the 'r' (in rhotic dialects) - the 'if' sound in it is
strongly pronounced and stressed, the small 'ado' sound at the end is almost
swallowed up. So, bearing this in mind, try *saying* 'centurion' if 'ian' is
used - it comes out (in RP) as 'SEN-CHUR-EARN' (with capitals showing
stress). Exactly my point - all the syllables have stress. If using
'If'+'ado' instead, it comes out as 'SEN-CHUR-i-an', with NO stress on the
final syllable (exactly how is is supposed to be said). You'll notice I have
left the case of 'ear' vs. 'if'+'array' till last, funnily enough because it
is hardly ever observed. Why? Because it's silly - you can't write words
like 'brainier', 'siller' and 'easier' in Shavian using 'ear', they would
sound daft ('BRAYN-EAR', 'SILL-EAR', 'EEZ-EAR'), so writers use 'if'+'array'
to even out the stress. Notice something familiar here? 'Ear' is only the
rhotic equivalent of 'ian', and 'array' the rhotic equivalent of 'ado'! The
'ear' vs. 'if'+'array' issue is, phonetically, EXACTLY the same as the
'ian' vs. 'if'+'ado' issue, except without the rhoticism, so how can one
make the distinction in one but not the other?!?

Oh - I've just noticed another good one - 'familiar'. Try all three
alternative methods (mentioned in that last paragraph of writing) on the
last half of that word in Shavian, and then say the result... Which spelling
reads most like the spoken word?

> The OED lists the "Ian" group of phones as a phoneme, but of course it's
composed of two sounds which
> exist as phonemes in their own right. Whenever I've made IPA
transcriptions, I've never been forced to make
> a distinction between the stressed and unstressed sound represented by
"Ian" (except when marking
> stresses explicitly), since the symbols for the sounds are never joined
up. I've always treated the Shavian
> "Ian" as a simple digraph, which I use for brevity's sake whenever I see
"if" and "ado" together. Why is that
> wrong?

It isn't *wrong*, after all people can understand most things written this
way. But using the characters (or combinations of them) that will best
replicate the sound of the word makes a BIG difference, especially to people
learning the alphabet, and also when reading names.

> Let's say that when I transcribe "ia" in "fiat", I'm transcribing a single
phoneme. When I transcribe "io" in
> "centurion", am I transcribing two phonemes? If so, why? Is it something
to do with keeping the morphemes
> separate?

The 'io' of 'centurion' is not really the same as the 'ia' in 'fiat', even
if the phonemes are the same. Even if there isn't a difference in the number
of phonemes in those two words, my points about stress and the relation of
'ian' to 'ear' are the main reasons why I (and, it appears, Androcles)
believe they should be transcribed differently.

> Sincerely,
>
> Lionel Ghoti

SIN-SEAR-LEE,

Hugh Birkenhead
www.funkymusic.co.uk

[My link is now www.mixsynth.btinternet.co.uk]

[Here's a reposting of something I posted last year, you might agree with
me, you might not, but here it is anyway...]

Hi there again! I knew this would surface again sometime...

> I've been talking to Simon Barne (he in Indonesia), who tells me that
you've spoken to him about the use of
> the "Ian" letter: that in Androcles, it is used only for single, stressed
syllables like "fiat", and not in, say,
> "centurion". I'd never noticed that, but I've checked, and of course
you're absolutely right. I don't quite
> understand it, though. I can't find any mention of a rule about it in the
notes contained in Androcles. Can you
> suggest any justification for it?

I have always taken this for granted. When I was learning Shavian, I found
that just using the table was completely inadequate; I had to use the actual
Androcles text substantially. I noticed that the distinction was made
between 'ian' and 'if'+'ado', and so I picked it up.

I didn't follow the convention blindly - I believe I understand the
difference. It is merely the tip of a large iceberg (and is another thing I
have been meaning to post for discussion in the group for a long time
indeed): the issue of STRESS.

As we all know, in the character table there are two characters for what
might seem to be identical sounds: 'up' and 'ado'. Why are they there, if
they are so similar that one character could suffice to represent them both?
To represent stress. I thought about this for ages, and the way I see it,
the only way to avoid using an 'apostrophe' type character in every single
multi-syllabic word to highlight stress (as dictionaries do) is to have a
'schwa' character that could be used to show where the *unstressed* part of
the word is.

OK, the schwa thing is probably self-evident, that's why we all use it. But
what are not so self-evident are things like 'eat' vs. 'if' (at ends of
words), 'ear' vs. 'if'+'array' and indeed 'ian' vs. 'if'+'ado'. Some writers
say that the distinction should not be made in any of those cases, but I
believe that it should always be made - not just because Androcles agrees
with me, but also because it makes the pronunciation of words much clearer.
In Androcles, the 'if' phoneme is used in preference to 'eat' at the end of
words like 'funny', 'chivalry' and 'family', so as to make the stress clear;
the 'eat' phoneme is almost always fully stressed. Take the words 'beady',
'queenly', 'queasy', 'squeezy' - if the same phoneme were used (as is often
actually the case), the stress would be completely indeterminable, therefore
confusing readers; so, it is understandable that the Androcles
transliterators made the distinction, and also that I do. For exactly the
same reasons, the distinction should be made between 'ian' and 'if'+'ado' -
the stress is unclear if 'ian' is used all the time. 'Ian' is pronounced
'EAR', without the 'r' (in rhotic dialects) - the 'if' sound in it is
strongly pronounced and stressed, the small 'ado' sound at the end is almost
swallowed up. So, bearing this in mind, try *saying* 'centurion' if 'ian' is
used - it comes out (in RP) as 'SEN-CHUR-EARN' (with capitals showing
stress). Exactly my point - all the syllables have stress. If using
'If'+'ado' instead, it comes out as 'SEN-CHUR-i-an', with NO stress on the
final syllable (exactly how is is supposed to be said). You'll notice I have
left the case of 'ear' vs. 'if'+'array' till last, funnily enough because it
is hardly ever observed. Why? Because it's silly - you can't write words
like 'brainier', 'siller' and 'easier' in Shavian using 'ear', they would
sound daft ('BRAYN-EAR', 'SILL-EAR', 'EEZ-EAR'), so writers use 'if'+'array'
to even out the stress. Notice something familiar here? 'Ear' is only the
rhotic equivalent of 'ian', and 'array' the rhotic equivalent of 'ado'! The
'ear' vs. 'if'+'array' issue is, phonetically, EXACTLY the same as the
'ian' vs. 'if'+'ado' issue, except without the rhoticism, so how can one
make the distinction in one but not the other?!?

Oh - I've just noticed another good one - 'familiar'. Try all three
alternative methods (mentioned in that last paragraph of writing) on the
last half of that word in Shavian, and then say the result... Which spelling
reads most like the spoken word?

> The OED lists the "Ian" group of phones as a phoneme, but of course it's
composed of two sounds which
> exist as phonemes in their own right. Whenever I've made IPA
transcriptions, I've never been forced to make
> a distinction between the stressed and unstressed sound represented by
"Ian" (except when marking
> stresses explicitly), since the symbols for the sounds are never joined
up. I've always treated the Shavian
> "Ian" as a simple digraph, which I use for brevity's sake whenever I see
"if" and "ado" together. Why is that
> wrong?

It isn't *wrong*, after all people can understand most things written this
way. But using the characters (or combinations of them) that will best
replicate the sound of the word makes a BIG difference, especially to people
learning the alphabet, and also when reading names.

> Let's say that when I transcribe "ia" in "fiat", I'm transcribing a single
phoneme. When I transcribe "io" in
> "centurion", am I transcribing two phonemes? If so, why? Is it something
to do with keeping the morphemes
> separate?

The 'io' of 'centurion' is not really the same as the 'ia' in 'fiat', even
if the phonemes are the same. Even if there isn't a difference in the number
of phonemes in those two words, my points about stress and the relation of
'ian' to 'ear' are the main reasons why I (and, it appears, Androcles)
believe they should be transcribed differently.

> Sincerely,
>
> Lionel Ghoti

SIN-SEAR-LEE,

Hugh Birkenhead
www.funkymusic.co.uk

[My link is now www.mixsynth.btinternet.co.uk]



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----- Original Message -----
From: "Hugh Birkenhead" <mixsynth@...>
To: <shavian@...>
Sent: Tuesday, November 21, 2000 10:53 AM
Subject: Re: [shavian] "eat" and "if"--institutional mispellings?

<snip>
>
> As we all know, in the character table there are two characters for what
> might seem to be identical sounds: 'up' and 'ado'. Why are they there, if
> they are so similar that one character could suffice to represent them
both?
> To represent stress. I thought about this for ages, and the way I see it,
> the only way to avoid using an 'apostrophe' type character in every single
> multi-syllabic word to highlight stress (as dictionaries do) is to have a
> 'schwa' character that could be used to show where the *unstressed* part
of
> the word is.
>
> OK, the schwa thing is probably self-evident, that's why we all use it.
But
> what are not so self-evident are things like 'eat' vs. 'if' (at ends of
> words),

I have a problem with using "if" at the end of a word like "really". I
supose I could simply adopt this deliberate misspelling and be done with it,
but at the present time I'm using my new translator program to translate
Mark Twain's Huckleberry Finn. (The translation is proceeding at about one
chapter per day.) Now to quote Mr. Twain from the introduction:

==
In this book a number of dialects are used, to wit:
the Missouri negro dialect; the extremest form of the
backwoods Southwestern dialect; the ordinary "Pike
County" dialect; and four modified varieties of this
last. The shadings have not been done in a haphazard
fashion, or by guesswork; but painstakingly,
and with the trustworthy guidance and support of
personal familiarity with these several forms of speech.

I make this explanation for the reason that without
it many readers would suppose that all these characters
were trying to talk alike and not succeeding.
==

I am trying to preserve, as closely as possible, those dialects as recorded
my Mr. Twain.

If I rendered "Missouri" with the "if" sound at the end readers accustomed
to the conventional misuse of the final "if" would believe that it is really
pronounced "ee", and might pronounce the word "MiZOO ree", which is how it
is commonly pronounced everywhere BUT Missouri. There, the "proper"
pronunciation is "MiZOO rih", (The terminal sound is actually between "if"
and "up", leaning more towards "if" in some parts of the state and more
towards "up" in others.) in other words, it quite clearly terminates with
the "if" sound, a nuance that is completely lost if "if" is to be used to
represent two different sounds "ih" and "ee". It seems to me that Mr. Shaw
did not intend for any alphabet created in his name to perpetuate the same
ambiguities as the Roman alphabet.

While the subject of stress has been mentioned, it should also be mentioned
that conventional Roman spelling does quite well without any stress
indicators. We do, after all, know how to pronounce the words we use.
Allowing alternate symbols for a vowel based on whether it is stressed or
not seems redundant.

I understand that Androcles is taken to be the sacred gospel by which such
disputes are resolved, however I find it hard to accept that the
translator(s) of Androcles anticipated every possible problem and objection
that might be raised. Or that Shavian could be used not only to simplify
English spelling, but also to capture and record nuances of dialect more
acurately than the Roman alphabet. Assigning alternate sounds to a single
letter effectively destroys Shavian's ability to record those nuances, since
we can no longer take it as given that a word is always pronounced as
written. That, and given the fact that the copy of Androcles that I read was
checked out of the library 37 years ago, and I haven't seen another copy
since, I have to rely on my own common sense to make such determinations.

Now if it is strongly felt by the Shavian community at large that "ih" is
the proper way to terminate a word like "really" then I will bow to that
convention and adjust my translation program accordingly, even though it
would mean the loss of a certain degree of the unique flavor of many
American authors. I would really appreciate seeing more opinions on the
subject.

BTW: Just how large IS the Shavian community anyway?

--gary



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