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The on-line Merriam Webster disagrees with "refer" = \rafD\
ri-'f&r short unstressed i instead of schwa-a

The Unifon converter uses
rufc refcuns where c = 3R RUF3R REF3RUNS
U = schwa or /V/ ago or up
Check it out at
_http://24.245.76.208/UFLookup/UFXLate.htm_
(http://24.245.76.208/UFLookup/UFXLate.htm)
The converter will display the Unifont
A similar converter for Shavian could display in Shavian.

Unifon was recently upgraded which means that I need to rework my
correspondence chart. The schwa was dropped except when embedded with URGE.
cj = 3RJ = Dj

--Steve




--Steve


> > Syllable boundaries involving "r" are places where I'm also
> > often unsure whether to use the rhotic letter or non-rhotic
> > letter + r, especially since my native 'lect is non-rhotic.
>
> A case in point -- the model supplied by my dictionary for a
> word where this problem arises, say "reference" was this:

> ref-@-rens

> even though reference is an expansion of the word "refer" = \rafD\
SB: Syllable boundaries may be important but they are not always easy to
determine.

ri-'f&r at _www.m-w.com_ (http://www.m-w.com) /ri-'fVr/ SAMPA

're-f&rn(t)s or 're-f(&-)r&n(t)s
(ref-fur'nts?) with syllabic n

Correction:

refer, of course, is not \rafD\ but roar-ago-fief-urge,
second syllable stressed. Haste not only makes waste
but all too often silly error as well.

Allan,

You may want to update your page on Unifon at
_http://www.wyrdplay.org/reform-class.html_
(http://www.wyrdplay.org/reform-class.html)

because the orthography has been modified in two ways. Classic Unifon did
not really have a schwa (accept before R), one was added in order to make it
possible to use the CMU dictionary. With the changes described below, c is no
longer a schwa... it is a schwa+r or /3r/.

Now the font has been updated adding two new characters, a ligatured 3R and
a modified barred I.

The 1st character was assigned to the lower case c. Urge is now written cj
which displays as 3RJ. u is assigned to AH0 and AH1 (CMU notation) so upper
= upc <UP3R>, and ago = ugO <UGÓ>.

Two characters were modified in the new digital font, the I and the c.
The font is available for download at _www.unifon.org_
(http://www.unifon.org) .

The converter at _http://24.245.76.208/UFLookup/UFXLate.htm_
(http://24.245.76.208/UFLookup/UFXLate.htm)
will display in the new font if you have MS Explorer. You do not have to
download the font in order to see it. It will display plain text instead of
the Unifont with Firefox, Netscape, and other html viewers.
-----
from: _http://www.wyrdplay.org/reform-class.html_
(http://www.wyrdplay.org/reform-class.html)
_Unifon_ (http://www.unifon.org/) is an augmented alphabet developed for
the Bendix corporation by John Malone, an economist from Chicago, for writing
English phonemically.
When a change in airline communications in 1950 which made English the
standard for airline communications, the company lost interest in the project.

Malone looked for some other application for the new alphabet and submitted
it in the Shaw Alphabet competition. It did not survive the first cut
because it retained Roman characters for all but 17 sound-signs and used modified
Roman characters for most of these. Only 6 of the characters are really
obscure. Keyboard c q and x were assigned to some of the new shapes.

Because of the similarity of the new Unifon letters to existing Latin
letters, Unifon is easy to read with just a little practice. Here is the example
in Unifon:


Dat kwik bAZ foks jumpt intU Du er Ovc EK Tin wIl tAkiN du lUt. lCk qt, I
shqt fxr hEz fQld Y ugen.

Simulation:
ÐAT KWIK B^Z FOKS JUMPT INTÚ ÐU ER ÓV3R EC TIN WYL TÁKIN ÐU LÚT.
LWK QT, Y SHQT F^R HÉZ FOILD Ú UGEN.



Comparing long vowels



-Steve

In shawalphabet@yahoogroups.com,
Paige Gabhart wrote:


> This leaves me puzzled about the insistence that,
> despite using an improved alphabet, such as Shavian
> or QS, we still will be required to look up words
> in the dictionary on, apparently, a regular basis.
> Can Gen. Amer. and RP be truly that far apart that
> we are unlikely to grasp the meaning intended?
> If one writes "grahss" vs. "grass," do we really
> believe the meaning won't come through. Do the
> majority in this group think that an occasional
> reduction in reading speed would be more onerous
> to the writer than looking words up in the
> dictionary repeatedly? It seems to me that the
> latter choice would involve more loss of time for
> everyone.
>
> Another thought occurs: how is a writer supposed
> to know which words to look up? If he speaks an
> American dialect, is he supposed to memorize which
> words are written differently in the official
> "standard" from his dialect? That sounds like a
> lot of extra effort. I read letters years ago in
> QS written in a New Zealand dialect. Penmanship
> slowed me down more than the dialect did. In fact,
> I enjoyed the dialect coming through the spelling.
> I guess I'll never understand the compulsion and
> fascination with standardization.
>
> Paige


This I think is an excellent argument and I for
one vey much agree.

Neither Americans or Brits are ever likely to
abandon their particular pronunciation of the
'pastmaster' group of words, so there is little
point in pressing the issue. And there are
several other points of distinction not quite
as evident, but which affect pronunciation:
stress is somewhat different, American being
more uniform; the short-'o'/ah merger in GA;
the divergence or disappearance of the 'aw'
sound in some dialects; the Mary/marry/merry
distinction, with some people maintaining three
distinct sounds, some two, and some but a single
sound for all; the for/four distinction which has
merged in the speech of many, but in a different
direction on either side of the Atlantic; and of
course the abiding difference in rhoticity. In
addition, not everyone in America speaks GA,
nor RP in Britain, the two speech-forms preferred
by dictionaries. The only reasonable solution is
for everyone to spell as they speak. It will not
be difficult to read. It will be interesting and
it will be amusing. Consider it a challenge!
Remember that some of the attraction of Shavian
is that it allows us to replace traditional
spelling with one that is more rational; why
then burden ourselves with yet another arbitrary
standard, especially as there does not appear to
be any general agreement as to what that standard
should be?


as ever,
dshep

In shawalphabet@yahoogroups.com,
Carl G. Easton wrote:


> Shavian is not only beautiful by its appearance.
> Once memorized it is the simplest to write down,
> with its single-stroke letters. And even though
> it was intended for the Received Pronounciation
> it is rather versatile at writing down the other
> Dialects of English if one is so adaptive as to
> recognize this...
>
> Best of Regards,
>
> Carl

Yes it is! Without the aesthetic component Shavian
would be yet another weird way to write English.

dshep

Since I discovered the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, I've often
been amused by Douglas Adams' use of language, and I thought I'd try to
render one of my favorite examples in Shavian. This is the Vogon poetry
( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vogon_poetry ) of Prostetnic Vogon
Jeltz, which he used to torture Arthur and Ford:


O fredald gruntbugli,
HF miktarESanz R t mI
Az plxdald gAbalblocits
on a lxJid bI.
/grMp, F implP HI, mF fMntiN txliNdrOmz
n hMpSasli drANgal mI
wiH krinkli bindalwxdalz,
P F wil rend HI in H gobDwPts wiH mF blxgalkruncan
sI if F dOnt.


Oh freddled gruntbuggly,
Thy micturations are to me
As plurdled gabbleblotchits
On a lurgid bee.
Groop, I implore thee, my foonting turlingdromes
And hooptiously drangle me
with crinkly bindlewurdles,
Or I will rend thee in the gobberwarts with my blurglecruncheon
See if I don't.


Regards,
Joseph Spicer
·𐑡𐑴𐑕𐑧𐑓 ·𐑕𐑐𐑲𐑕𐑼

In shawalphabet@yahoogroups.com,
Ethan Lamoreaux wrote:

> tithhmi wrote:
>
> >is there any kind of order to the Shavian alphabet?
> >Is there any possibility of making one?
>
> It's at the bottom of the reading key, where it says,
> right at the end: "Learn the alphabet /in pairs/, as
> listed for Writers overleaf." On the previous page
> (the overleaf) is the familiar vertical key which has
> the letters in pairs, as I've printed them above.
>
> You can find pictures of both keys on this page:
> http://www.spellingsociety.org/journals/j18/shawac.php
>
> The horizontal format key is designed for the
> convenience of the reader in learning, and the
> letters are grouped according to shape to make it
> easier for people to find the letter they are looking
> for. This is not the correct order for learning the
> alphabet. When recited, it should be said "peep bib,
> tot dead, kick gag, fee vow, thigh they, so zoo..."
> etc. Notice how the last of the consonants, lol roar
> mime and nun, are kept together in a logical order
> this way, but in the commonly misunderstood order,
> they are strangely separated: lol mime (if egg
> ash...), roar nun (eat age ice...)
>
> I invite any comments on this. Any reason why it
> should be in any other order than the one given in
> Androcles?
>
> Ethan Lamoreaux

Indeed! This ought to be the definitve comment on
this subject, even if one for personal convenience
substitutes some of the key-words for others more
in accordance with one's own speech pattern.

regards,
dshep

In shawalphabet@yahoogroups.com,
dshepx wrote:

> Goosey goosey gander,
> Whether dost thou wander?

correction:

This old nursery rhyme actually did not query
the gander's deliberative state, but rather his
destination. Sorry!

Goosey goosey gander,
Whither dost thou wander?

dshep

In shawalphabet@yahoogroups.com,
Joseph Spicer wrote:


> > > For some reason I have the triphthong in
> > > "org", which I pronounce ODg. Other words,
> > > like "four" tend to vary depending on how
> > > quickly I'm speaking.
> >
> > Not awrg? like they say on NPR?
>
> On second thought, mine is really not a triphthong.
> I just pronounce a pure o, more or less exactly as
> in IPA [o], but awrg still sounds to me like a noise
> of anguish. It might depend on the context, though.
>
> Regards,
> Joseph Spicer

I think it is more a question of stress, which often
tends to raise vowels (making them more close), as
in the warning: "Do it this way ore you're fired".

regards,
dshep

In shawalphabet@yahoogroups.com,
Ethan Lamoreaux wrote:


(on the subject of an alternative key-word for the
lower-mid-back vowel "awe")

> How about "awl"? Yes, I know, it's pronounced
> the same as "all", but perhaps some people don't
> pronounce "all" with an "awe". Still, "awesome"
> is very distinct!

Some people pronounce this word as "ahsome" Awl
might very well be a good choice as it is nowadays
an unusual word, and unusual words generally stand
a better chance of retaining older pronunciations,
not being swept up in fashion changes.

The diversity of pronunciation for this particular vowel
is actually quite interesting. In America one can hear
ball pronounced as "bahl", but on television the sport
is always "footbawl", while in England it is "footboll".

..........

> > ian yew (few would be a more familiar word)

> "You" is a pretty familiar word.

But is sometimes pronounced "yoo"

..........

> > Good point, and it would settle the issue of the
> > /ew/ being spelled as a diphthong.

> Yet it doesn't begin with its own sound.

There is the word "ewe"

..........


> Best if you can have letter names begin with their
> own sound. Air and Urge are distinct and begin with
> their own sound.

Best yes. unfortunately there is the anomaly of "wool"

> Otherwise, use the same letter for all
> (far, for, fair, fur, fetter, fear, fian[?], few)

That is a possibility, for vowels and diphthongs one
might use:

bit/beat bet/bait bat/bite abut/but box/boat
book/boot bout/boy bah/bought;

And for combinations:

far/for fair/fur feather/fear feel/few


regards,
dshep

In shawalphabet@yahoogroups.com,
Joseph Spicer wrote:

> On Sep 4, 2005, at 8:08 PM, dshepx wrote:

> > Correction:
> >
> > refer, of course, is not \rafD\ but roar-ago-fief-urge,
> > second syllable stressed. Haste not only makes waste
> > but all too often silly error as well.
>
> I'd be tempted to spell it \rifx\ (rifx), which
> seems like it would fit right in with Androcles-
> style spelling. Whether this matches any other
> accent besides mine, I can't say.

I just used the key-word 'urge' instead of 'err',
and whether one uses 'if' or 'ado' as the unstressed
vowel is something that depends upon the extent
of contrast one feels is exhibited in pronunciation.
This isn't always easy to judge, but the problem is
that if one admits the use of \i\ as an alternate
unstressed vowel, then there is a vowel-sign,
\i\, that can be both stressed (as in 'bit') and
unstressed (as in 'indent'). To resolve this I try
to consistently use \a\ as the only unstressed
vowel. This is not a perfect solution as words
often end in a weak \i\, as in 'happy'.

regards,
dshep