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Hi Circ
Good, then we are on the same wavelength.
Regards. Paul V.

--- In shawalphabet@yahoogroups.com, "circtf" <circtf@y...> wrote:
>
> Those all sound about right to me.
>
> > Currently tho, some such people such as myself, feel it is necessary
> > to mark the Schwa sound (Minimal vowel sound) in words such as:
> > currently -> kDantlI
> > commonly -> kYmanlI
> > chasm -> kAsam
> > blossom -> blYsam *correction
> > girl -> gDal
> > table -> tEbal
> > spelling bee -> spelaN bI
> > and some people don't consider it necessary to put in an Ado, as
they consider the Vowel
> > sound to be barely present and unnecessary.
>

Hi Albert

> Accent-related spelling disputes can happen when someone's idiolect
> does not distinguish between sounds. For example, some Americans do
> not distinguish between the "on" and "awe" sounds; they would
> presumably pick one or the other, which might jar with people who
> distinguish between the two sounds.
> However, I do agree that using the full 48 characters of the
> Shavian Alphabet should reduce some of spelling differences.


You are correct.
But, Understandability is not the problem with Shavian.
It is the speed of understandability.
It is an effective system. However, even if you differentiate all the
sounds and use every letter, the fact is that the same word
can have 2 or 3
acceptable Shavian spellings. This inevitably requires a little more
work when we are reading.
And it just doesn't lend itself to the same level of elaborate
literary sophistication,
that British English has developed.
There are many words used in Literature, which are very seldom heard
spoken
except at poetry readings creating indetermanacy.
This is more of a British Phenomena, especially in their works of the
19th and early 20th century.

I remember once looking at 3 different translations of "Les
Miserables" in shock
as they were all significantly longer than the book, a classic, that
we had
studied in school.
(It turned out my School had neglected to tell us we were only
reading Volume 1 out of 3.)
Anyway, the older Penguin edition had 850 pages of small print, and
the 2 American editions
had 450 and 600 pages respectively of somewhat larger print.
For a little while, I thought there were more than one book
called, "Les Miserables".
Upon examination, the 450 page Translation was an abridged or
condensed version.
And the 600 page one was an American translation. It suited me fine.

So, Shavian is slighty less literature friendly. But, it is much,
much more accurate
in how it represents normal spoken English. And it doesn't require a
college degree
to develop versatility with the writing.
It is accessible in your face English.
We need to use it in order to communicate.

Regards, Paul V.

P.S. We need to recognize a wider range of words on a Phonetic basis
when we are reading a message written in the Shavian Alphabet.
Then eventually Shavian will evolve beyond these limitations.
But for now, this is what it is.
It is not a complete seamless replacement for the Roman Alphabet.
It is different.
________________________attached____________________________________


Exactly, Albert.
You say Tot-Ado-Mime-Age-Tot-OAk,
I say Tot-Ado-Mime-AH-Tot-OAk.

And we're not just concerned with transatlantic differences here:
I'm English, but when I write in Shavian I'm also imitating a foreign
accent, because I try to type in a sort of modernised Androcles-
standard Received Pronunciation accent, while
my speaking voice is that of a yokel-Midlander. The distribution of
my phonemes
is different from that of Hugh's phonemes, say, because his accent is
closer to RP.

I think this is the greatest weakness of a phonemic alphabet. If
we're to conform to a standard (for formal texts, say, such as books,
or documents available on web
sites -- if not in email discussion), then one accent is implicitly
asserted to
be superior to all others, or at least "more standard". And this
places everyone
else at a slight disadvantage. Having said that, there are at least
two different
standardised spelling systems of English using the Roman alphabet
(American and British), which are fundamentally similar, and which are
quite intelligible
to all English speakers, regardless of their accent. I'd find it hard
to imitate, for
example, an American Mid-Western accent in Shavian, since I might not
be sure of
the distribution of its phonemes, but I don't have any problem
understanding
any American writer's Shavian. As long as we all try to use as many
of the 48 Shavian letters
as is needed
to approximate our own accents, I don't think there should be any
problem with mutual intelligibility, even if our spellings might
differ a
little. As for a
standard, formal paradigm of Shavian spelling, do we really need one?

Lionel

> --- In shawalphabet@yahoogroups.com, "albert" wrote:
> (*snip*)
> Accent-related spelling disputes can happen anytime someone's
> idiolect does not distinguish between different sounds.
> For example, some Americans do not distinguish
> between the "on", "ah" and "awe" sounds.
> So they would presumably pick one or the other based on the old
Roman
> Orthography, which might jar with people who do actually
distinguish
> between the three sounds.
>
> Aksent-rilEtad speliN dispVts kAn hApan enItFm sumunz idiOlekt duz
not
> dustiNgwiS batwIn difDent sQndz.
> fP egzympl, sum amXakanz dM not distiNgwiS batwIn
> H (on), (y) n (Y) sQndz.
> sO HE wUd prazMmablI pik wun P H uHD bEsd on Old /rOmen PTogrAfI,
wic
> mFt JR wiH pIpl
> hM dM AktVlI distiNgwiS batwIn H TrI sQndz.
>
> However, Since I agree that we want to minimize spelling
differences,
> we should encourage these Americans to go at least half way. They
> should as a minimum try to recognize the difference between the
> shorter "on" vowel and the longer more drawn out "awe" vowel.
>
> And I don't mean to suggest that Americans are oblivious to the
> difference. It is just both speakers do not realize the extent to
> which the prononciation of the respective languages have grown
apart. No offense. I am not
> making value judgements as to which idiolect is more advanced.
> (*snip*)
>

Paul and Albert,

Americans distinguish between the two sounds but the list of words with one
pronunciation rather than the other is not the same as in the midland and
southern British dialects. Phonemes are dialect specific and we do not all
speak the same dialect.

For a semi-standardization of English, we should probably use the BBC and
the NBC broadcast dialects. For informal communications, there is nothing wrong
with spelling your ideolect.

Reading is going to be slower when we are reading sequences of sound signs
then whole word meaning signs. If you are reading words as sequences of sound
signs, I am not sure how a spelling could be called jarring. What is
jarring is spelling shoe as shoo and show as shoe as is done in Pitman's i/t/a. It
is jarring when you are reading a word sign and are hit with a homograph
with a different pronunciation.

--Steve

Hi Albert

> Accent-related spelling disputes can happen when someone's idiolect
> does not distinguish between sounds. For example, some Americans do
> not distinguish between the "on" and "awe" sounds; they would
> presumably pick one or the other, which might jar with people who
> distinguish between the two sounds.
> However, I do agree that using the full 48 characters of the
> Shavian Alphabet should reduce some of spelling differences.


You are correct.
But, Understandability is not the problem with Shavian.
It is the speed of understandability.
It is an effective system. However, even if you differentiate all the
sounds and use every letter, the fact is that the same word
can have 2 or 3
acceptable Shavian spellings. This inevitably requires a little more
work when we are reading.
And it just doesn't lend itself to the same level of elaborate
literary sophistication,
that British English has developed.
There are many words used in Literature, which are very seldom heard
spoken
except at poetry readings creating indetermanacy.
This is more of a British Phenomena, especially in their works of the
19th and early 20th century.

I remember once looking at 3 different translations of "Les
Miserables" in shock
as they were all significantly longer than the book, a classic, that
we had
studied in school.
(It turned out my School had neglected to tell us we were only
reading Volume 1 out of 3.)
Anyway, the older Penguin edition had 850 pages of small print, and
the 2 American editions
had 450 and 600 pages respectively of somewhat larger print.
For a little while, I thought there were more than one book
called, "Les Miserables".
Upon examination, the 450 page Translation was an abridged or
condensed version.
And the 600 page one was an American translation. It suited me fine.

So, Shavian is slighty less literature friendly. But, it is much,
much more accurate
in how it represents normal spoken English. And it doesn't require a
college degree
to develop versatility with the writing.
It is accessible in your face English.
We need to use it in order to communicate.

Regards, Paul V.

P.S. We need to recognize a wider range of words on a Phonetic basis
when we are reading a message written in the Shavian Alphabet.
Then eventually Shavian will evolve beyond these limitations.
But for now, this is what it is.
It is not a complete seamless replacement for the Roman Alphabet.
It is different.

In the early 1960's there was a Twilight zone episode where all of the
street signs were written in Unifon. People found it quite odd but compare Unifon
to Shavian. Unifon looks odd but Shavian looks like a foreign language.
LIF = lFf

Is there an apostrophe in Shavian?, see Shaw's below: Sy'z


The above is in ENgliS, a mixed case notation similar to keyboard
Unifon or keyboard Shavian.
_http://www.foolswisdom.com/users/sbett/englis-saundz.html_ (http://www.foolswisdom.com/users/sbett/englis-saundz.html)
(http://www.foolswisdom.com/~sbett/englis-chart.htm)

If you are limited to the ASCII keyboard, using the upper case as a
different sound sign is about the only available option for a unigraphic system.
Another alternative is to use digraphs but that is another can of worms.

On second glance, that is not ENgliS it is EnGLis where the familiar letters
are in upper case and those that do not appear in the alphabet song are in
lower case. EnGLis is harder to type. HqRTtRQB is a little difficult to read
HæRT-thRQB is a little easier.

Notice that Q and q are the same sounds in General American but Q can also
refer to SAMPA /Q/, the British short-o.

I presume that most of you are familiar with the IPA. Here is a
transliteration from IPA to Unifon. Notice that some IPA phones are merged. The
stressed 3^ and unstressed @^
are merged and expressed as a ligatured 3R. Classic Unifon has no unique
schwa so U is used for both /V/ and /@/. america = UMERIKU. I think that
Intercap's &MeRiK& is better.
Shavian: amerika

The basic problem with Shavian is that it cannot be read as a sight word.
Shaw and Twain considered this a plus. There is a slim chance that &MeRiK&
would be recognized and keyboard Shavian or ENgliS with their schwa-a are the
same and easy to recognize: amerika

circtf wrote:

> I notice you skip a lot of vowels. I haven't actually read a lot of
> Shavian, so I'm wondering if this is common, or just how you prefer to
> do it.
>
> F nOtis V skip a lot v vQlz. F hAvint AkcUalI red a lot v /SyvWn, sO
> F'm wUndDiN if His iz koman, P just hQ V prifx it.

F nPmallI Vz a lot v silabik konsanants (/l, /n, /m, /r - sI *nOt bIlO)
n drop H prIsIdiN /a. HX R YlsO wxdz hwic hAv entFD silablz misiN. His
iz hQ F prOnQns it, but F oftan rFt it in a mP stAndDd wE sO Az t mEk it
IzID fP evrIwun t rId.

*nOt: /r - hwen it bIkumz silabik, it gets speld wiT /x, /D, P anuHD
"x-iS" kompQnd vQl.

--
Ethan Lamoreaux - in Shavian, �???? �??????

The LORD bless thee, and keep thee:
The LORD make his face shine upon thee, and be gracious unto thee:
The LORD lift up his countenance upon thee, and give thee peace.

circtf wrote:

>Well, just checking, as some of those pronunciations come out really
>awkwardly (or just plain wrong, in the case of some of the
>misspellings I noticed) the way he spells them, so I just wanted to
>make sure.
>
>And I don't mean any offense, either, sorry if it came out that way.
>
nO afens tEkan.

wel, hAviN gon OvD mF mesaJ, F did fFnd a kupl tFpOz - "HAks" SUd bI
"HAts", n "difrant", "difrantlI" SUd bI "difrnt" n "difrntlI". H rest iz
H wE F sE it.
Fl eksplEn Ic "strEnJ" wxd.

difrnt, dif'-rnt (2 silablz) = difDant, dif'-D-ant (3 silablz)
difrntlI, dif'-rnt-lI (3 s.) = difDantlI, dif'-D-ant-lI (4 s.)
pryblI, pry:'-blI (2 s., loN /y) P prybblI, pry'-b-blI (3 s. - jes, HAt
*iz* a silabik /b!) = probablI, pro'-ba-blI (3 s.)
Jast (unAksentad) - sumtFmz Jist (unAksentad) - hwen Aksentad, Just Just (Advxb - AJektiv iz YlwEz "Just")
/bHw/ = bF H wE
kxntlI, kx'-nt-lI = kxantlI, kx'-ant-lI
az (unAks.) Az (Aks.) = Az
pysabl, py'-sa-bl = posabl, po'-sa-bl P posabal, po'-sa-bal
(/bHw/, /o iz YlwEz prOnQnst lFk /y)
nPmllI, nP'-ml-lI (P nPmlI, nP'-ml-I) = nPmallI, nP'-mal-lI P nPmalI,
nP'-ma-lI

HX, hOpfllI HAk wil bI anuf fP V t grAsp mF rFtiN if F hApan t Vz sumTiN
HAt lUks wCd!

--
Ethan Lamoreaux - in Shavian, �???? �??????

The LORD bless thee, and keep thee:
The LORD make his face shine upon thee, and be gracious unto thee:
The LORD lift up his countenance upon thee, and give thee peace.

> Is there an apostrophe in Shavian?, see Shaw's below: Sy'z





That would be "Shah's", i.e. the Shah of Iran.

Hi Ethan

Thanks, for explaining in Detail to Circ.

I have more or less the same pronunciation,
and so I would write those words pretty much the same,
except I would write out Schwa (ado) sound to explicitly indicate
syllabic vowels.
Also some people would put periods after the individual letters of an
abbreviation (BTW), but the standard Shavian convention is just to
enclose the string of letters inside 2 namer dots. Some people assume
that Namer dots would only be used in that fashion for Abbreviations
of a name like IBM or UNESCO, but in fact the principle has been
extended to any single letter abbreviation or sequence of single
letter abbreviations (i.e., a.m., p.m., k.m., RSVP) . Certain
Multiple letter abbreviations are just not allowed in Shavian
Spelling as of yet because we haven't worked out practical
conventions. For example, appt. apt. st. ave. no. Dr. Mr. Abrev. only
work in the Roman Alphabet.
Abbreviations like those have to be spelled out in full.

As for Apostrophes in Shavian, we had a long discussion about this 6
months ago,
and the concensus was that when the Apostrophe was used to indicate a
contraction in the Roman Alphabet spelling, it would not be used.
Places where an apostrophe was used for a different purpose, such as
to indicate Possession, was left to the discretion of the writer.
Generally speaking Apostrophe use is minimized with Shavian Spelling.

Feel free to look at the old posts.

Regards, Paul V.
__________________attached___________________________
difrnt, dif'-rnt (2 silablz) = difDant, dif'-D-ant (3 silablz)
> difrntlI, dif'-rnt-lI (3 s.) = difDantlI, dif'-D-ant-lI (4 s.)
> pryblI, pry:'-blI (2 s., loN /y) P prybblI, pry'-b-blI (3 s. - jes,
HAt
> *iz* a silabik /b!) = probablI, pro'-ba-blI (3 s.)
> Jast (unAksentad) - sumtFmz Jist (unAksentad) - hwen Aksentad, Just
=
> Just (Advxb - AJektiv iz YlwEz "Just")
> /bHw/ = bF H wE
> kxntlI, kx'-nt-lI = kxantlI, kx'-ant-lI
> az (unAks.) Az (Aks.) = Az
> pysabl, py'-sa-bl = posabl, po'-sa-bl P posabal, po'-sa-bal
> (/bHw/, /o iz YlwEz prOnQnst lFk /y)
> nPmllI, nP'-ml-lI (P nPmlI, nP'-ml-I) = nPmallI, nP'-mal-lI P
nPmalI,
> nP'-ma-lI


--- In shawalphabet@yahoogroups.com, Ethan <ethanl@3...> wrote:
>> nO afens tEkan.
>
> wel, hAviN gon OvD mF mesaJ, F did fFnd a kupl tFpOz - "HAks" SUd
bI
> "HAts", n "difrant", "difrantlI" SUd bI "difrnt" n "difrntlI". H
rest iz
> H wE F sE it.
> Fl eksplEn Ic "strEnJ" wxd.
>
> difrnt, dif'-rnt (2 silablz) = difDant, dif'-D-ant (3 silablz)
> difrntlI, dif'-rnt-lI (3 s.) = difDantlI, dif'-D-ant-lI (4 s.)
> pryblI, pry:'-blI (2 s., loN /y) P prybblI, pry'-b-blI (3 s. - jes,
HAt
> *iz* a silabik /b!) = probablI, pro'-ba-blI (3 s.)
> Jast (unAksentad) - sumtFmz Jist (unAksentad) - hwen Aksentad, Just
=
> Just (Advxb - AJektiv iz YlwEz "Just")
> /bHw/ = bF H wE
> kxntlI, kx'-nt-lI = kxantlI, kx'-ant-lI
> az (unAks.) Az (Aks.) = Az
> pysabl, py'-sa-bl = posabl, po'-sa-bl P posabal, po'-sa-bal
> (/bHw/, /o iz YlwEz prOnQnst lFk /y)
> nPmllI, nP'-ml-lI (P nPmlI, nP'-ml-I) = nPmallI, nP'-mal-lI P
nPmalI,
> nP'-ma-lI
>
> HX, hOpfllI HAk wil bI anuf fP V t grAsp mF rFtiN if F hApan t Vz
sumTiN
> HAt lUks wCd!
>
> --
> Ethan Lamoreaux - in Shavian, ·???? ·??????
>
> The LORD bless thee, and keep thee:
> The LORD make his face shine upon thee, and be gracious unto thee:
> The LORD lift up his countenance upon thee, and give thee peace.
>

Hi Guys
We allow American Pronunciation a lot of Latitude on this site.
But same names are Sacred. Remember that variant Pronunciations
shouldn't necessarily change the spelling when it's a name.
That's why we mark names with Namer Dots!
Oh?
Where is the Namer dot?

Regards, Paul V.
___________________attached_______________________________
--- In shawalphabet@yahoogroups.com, "Hugh Birkenhead" <mixsynth@f...>
wrote:
>
> > Is there an apostrophe in Shavian?, see Shaw's below: Sy'z
>
> That would be "Shah's", i.e. the Shah of Iran.
>

Hi Ethan
Just curious. I noticed your last word.
No offence.
Do you pronounce weird as one syllable (wCd)
or two (wI-Dd).
It's funny when use a letter across a syllable boundary.
Un-Shavian, in fact.

Regards, Paul V.
--- In shawalphabet@yahoogroups.com, Ethan <ethanl@3...> wrote:
> HX, hOpfllI HAk wil bI anuf fP V t grAsp mF rFtiN if F hApan t Vz
sumTiN
> HAt lUks wCd!
>
> --
> Ethan Lamoreaux - in Shavian, ·???? ·??????
>
> The LORD bless thee, and keep thee:
> The LORD make his face shine upon thee, and be gracious unto thee:
> The LORD lift up his countenance upon thee, and give thee peace.
>