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Hi Steve
As someone who teaches literacy in the Roman Alphabet, this might
make sense to you, although most readers, find it contradictory.
English is chock full of redundant letter combinations.
That's why writing in Shavian, takes only about 75% of number of
characters needed by the Roman Alphabet.
If you look at the silent e, ck, tt, ss, and other consonant
doubling, they are all redundant from a phonetic representaional
point of view.
In fact, as far as all these strange vowel diagraphs are concerned
one of them is usually effectively a silent letter.
"i" in receive, "y" in play, "a" in coat, soap, goat, "e" in sheep,
"u" in brought, etc.
It is easier to just accept that one of the letters in the Vowel
Diagraph is significant and the other is silent.
The Significant Roman vowel has 1 of 2 or 3 possible pronunciations
for that Vowel letter.
a (ash) a(ah) a (age)
e (egg) e (eat)
i (if) i (ice)
o (on) o (oat) o (wool)
u (up) u (ooze) u (yew)
y (yea) y (it in gym) y (eat in carry) y (ice in spy)

I don't think English was designed with all these redundant letters
deliberately to make it easier to recognise similar sounding words.
But I think that if these excess letters had not proved so useful for
the discriminating writer, they would have mostly disappeared by now.

Nowadays, we are changing our lives at a faster and faster pace, and
we do not have the willingness to give up 12 years of our life to
become fully literate in English, the old way.
Spelling checkers are not enough. Multiple choice test don't do the
job. A dependance on Information Workers or programs to prompt you
on how to fill in all the blanks is not enough.
The young people of today need a Shorthand or a Quickscript to get
their message across fast and in writing.
The Shavian Alphabet is the best replacement around.

It does need Software support, but I suspect that would not be much
of a challenge, if there was a demand for it.

Regards, Paul V.
P.S. The people whose position is enhanced by their written fluency
are not all that concerned about the illiterates. Ignorance makes
them dependant upon the more literate who have the information access.
Information is power.
________________________attached_______________________
--- In shawalphabet@yahoogroups.com, stbetta@a... wrote:
> Written English in Roman Letters has more phonological cues than
Chinese. This probably makes it a little easier to learn in one
sense.
However, it does take a much longer time to acquire 4000 meaning
signs than it does to acquire 40 or so sound-signs. This adds a lot
a overhead to getting started learning.
>
> I know of no living spelling scholar that supports much in the way
of spelling reform. They agree that skill in spelling is difficult
to learn but not a major problem. They don't think that adopting a
more phonemic alphabet
> would improve reading levels or correct the current problem where
50% of the
> students read below grade level.
>
> I think they are dead wrong but that is their position and they are
not
> swayed by any of the existing arguments or research.

Paige,

Philip Seymour reported on a study 3 years ago that clearly showed that the
level of written langauge proficiency achieved after one year in Spanish,
Italian, etc;, was higher than the proficiency achieved by native English
speakers after 3 years of schooling.

This would suggest a structural problem.

The study has never been published but it was delivered at a conference.
Much of its conclusions are published at _www.spellingsociety.org_
(http://www.spellingsociety.org)

The scholars are quick to point out that by age 15, those still in English
schools catch up with those speaking other languages.

--Steve

Steve:

Does your reference to living scholars and their view of the utility of
spelling reform refer to Engish? I assume that it does. If so, what is
the situation regarding the percentage of students reading below grade
level in Italian, German or Spanish? If the situation in one or more of
those languages is significantly better from the situation in English,
isn't that a sign there is a structural problem with English? Perhaps,
the scholars think English students (around the world) are just dumber
than their European counterparts?

One other thought: 50% being below grade level sounds like a bell curve
where, by definition, half the students fall below average. If grade
level refers to something other than a bell curve, then when and how was
it set? Does that mean at some point in the past "grade levels" were
established in some abitrary fashion and now students don't read as well
as they did in the past?

Paige

stbetta@... wrote:------------------------------------------

> Ethan,
>
> Written English has more phonological cues than Chinese. This
> probably makes it a little easier to learn. However, it does take a
> much longer time to acquire 4000 meaning signs than it does to acquire
> 40 or so sound-signs.
>
> I know of no living spelling scholar that supports much in the way of
> spelling reform. They agree that skill in spelling is difficult to
> learn but not a major problem. They don't think that adopting a more
> phonemic alphabet would improve reading levels or correct the current
> problem where 50% of the students read below grade level.
>
> I think they are dead wrong but that is their position and they are
> not swayed by any of the existing arguments or research.
>
> They say that the i/t/a experiments did not accelerate literacy...and
> they are correct with respect to traditional literacy. The i/t/a was
> taught using a method designed to acquire word-signs.
>
> --Steve

> > THE CONCEPT OF AN ALPHABET

> > Stange as it may seem, there are many scholars who dispute this
> view. Some even dispute that highly phonemic orthographies acceleate
> literacy.

> > -Steve

> Well, it's true, ideographic/logographic writing systems can be very
> accurate, as they can have a separate symbol for each word. But that
> doesn't mean they are easy to learn! Try learning a few thousand Han
> characters, for instance.

Hi Steve
As someone who teaches literacy in the Roman Alphabet, this might
make sense to you, although most readers, find it contradictory.
English is chock full of redundant letter combinations.

Paul,
Check out
_www.foolswisdom.com/~sbett/polyvalence.htm_
(http://www.foolswisdom.com/~sbett/polyvalence.htm)
There is also a page on silent letters in English.
Almost every letter in the alphabet is silent in one or more words.
There are many code overlaps in written English.
I am not sure what you mean by contradictions.

That's why writing in Shavian, takes only about 75% of number of
characters needed by the Roman Alphabet.
If you look at the silent e, ck, tt, ss, and other consonant
doubling, they are all redundant from a phonetic representaional
point of view.

In fact, as far as all these strange vowel diagraphs are concerned
one of them is usually effectively a silent letter.
"i" in receive, "y" in play, "a" in coat, soap, goat, "e" in sheep,
"u" in brought, etc.
It is easier to just accept that one of the letters in the Vowel
Diagraph is significant and the other is silent.

The Significant Roman vowel has 1 of 2 or 3 possible pronunciations
for that Vowel letter.
a (ash) a(ah) a (age)
e (egg) e (eat)
i (if) i (ice)
o (on) o (oat) o (wool)
u (up) u (ooze) u (yew)
y (yea) y (it in gym) y (eat in carry) y (ice in spy)

I don't think English was designed with all these redundant letters
deliberately to make it easier to recognise similar sounding words.
But I think that if these excess letters had not proved so useful for
the discriminating writer, they would have mostly disappeared by now.

Nowadays, we are changing our lives at a faster and faster pace, and
we do not have the willingness to give up 12 years of our life to
become fully literate in English, the old way.
Spelling checkers are not enough. Multiple choice test don't do the
job. A dependance on Information Workers or programs to prompt you
on how to fill in all the blanks is not enough.
The young people of today need a Shorthand or a Quickscript to get
their message across fast and in writing.
The Shavian Alphabet is the best replacement around.

It does need Software support, but I suspect that would not be much
of a challenge, if there was a demand for it.

Regards, Paul V.
P.S. The people whose position is enhanced by their written fluency
are not all that concerned about the illiterates. Ignorance makes
them dependant upon the more literate who have the information access.
Information is power.

----------

_stbetta@a_ (mailto:stbetta@a) ... wrote:
> Written English in Roman Letters has more phonological cues than
Chinese. This probably makes it a little easier to learn in one
sense. However, it does take a much longer time to acquire 4000 meaning
signs than it does to acquire 40 or so sound-signs. This adds a lot
a overhead to getting started learning.


> I know of no living spelling scholar that supports much in the way
of spelling reform. They agree that skill in spelling is difficult
to learn but not a major problem. They don't think that adopting a
more phonemic alphabet would improve reading levels or correct the current
problem where 50% of the students read below grade level.

> I think they are dead wrong but that is their position and they are not
> swayed by any of the existing arguments or research.

hF gFz
F trAnslitDEtad a bit mP v H pOam
rigRdz, /pYl /vI.

--- In shawalphabet@yahoogroups.com, "paul vandenbrink" > > > >
hC iz a fV mP lFnz of sum dYgDal abQt sitiN on a gEt
bF /lMas /kXal. (hI didant balIv in tFtalz, Az suc.)

> > > > Fal tel V evrI TiN F cAn.
> > > >
> > > > HXz lital t rIlEt.
> > > >
> > > > F sY an EJad EJad mAn.
> > > >
> > > > a sitiN yn a gEt.
> > > >
> > > > hM R V O EJad mAn. F sed
> > > >
> > > > n hQ iz it V liv?
> > > >
> > > > n hiz AnsD trikald TrM mF hed,
> > > >
> > > > lFk wytD TrM a siv.
> > > >
hI sed
F lUk fP butDflFz
HAt slIp amuN H wIt
F mEk Hem in t /mutan pFz
n sel Hem yn H strIt
F sel Hem untM men
hI sed
HAt sEEal H stPmI sIz
n HAtz H wE F get mF bred
a trifal?
if V plIz

but F wuz TiNkiN v a plAn
t dF wunz wiskxz grIn
n YlwEz vz sO lRj a fAn
HAt HE kUd nyt bI sIn
sO hAviN nO raplF t giv
t wut H Old mAn sed
F krFd
kum tel mI hQ V liv?
n Tumpt him yn H hed

hiz Aksent mFald tUk up H tEal
hI sed,
F gO mF wEz
n wen F find a mqten ril
F mEk it go a blEz
n Hen H mEk sum stuf HE kYl
/rOlAndz /makAsR ql.
jet 2 pens hAf penI iz Yl
HE giv mI fP mF tql

Hi Steve
The contradiction that I wished to point out was that
English Spelling asserts that English uses Diagraphs to indicate
many of the extra Vowel sounds in English.
In most cases, there is not enough consistency to support this
assertion.
Instead in most cases one of the letters in the Vowel
Diagraph is significant and the other is silent.
Each Roman vowel Letter has 2 or 3 possible pronunciations.
Regards, Paul V.
_____________attached_________________________
> Check out
> _www.foolswisdom.com/~sbett/polyvalence.htm_
> (http://www.foolswisdom.com/~sbett/polyvalence.htm)
> There is also a page on silent letters in English.
> Almost every letter in the alphabet is silent in one or more words.
> There are many code overlaps in written English.
> I am not sure what you mean by contradictions.


>
> That's why writing in Shavian, takes only about 75% of number of
> characters needed by the Roman Alphabet.
> If you look at the silent e, ck, tt, ss, and other consonant
> doubling, they are all redundant from a phonetic representaional
> point of view.
>
> In fact, as far as all these strange vowel diagraphs are
concerned
> one of them is usually effectively a silent letter.
> "i" in receive, "y" in play, "a" in coat, soap, goat, "e" in
sheep,
> "u" in brought, etc.
> It is easier to just accept that one of the letters in the Vowel
> Diagraph is significant and the other is silent.
>
> The Significant Roman vowel has 1 of 2 or 3 possible
pronunciations
> for that Vowel letter.
> a (ash) a(ah) a (age)
> e (egg) e (eat)
> i (if) i (ice)
> o (on) o (oat) o (wool)
> u (up) u (ooze) u (yew)
> y (yea) y (it in gym) y (eat in carry) y (ice in spy)
>
> I don't think English was designed with all these redundant
letters
> deliberately to make it easier to recognise similar sounding
words.
> But I think that if these excess letters had not proved so useful
for
> the discriminating writer, they would have mostly disappeared by
now.
>
> Nowadays, we are changing our lives at a faster and faster pace,
and
> we do not have the willingness to give up 12 years of our life to
> become fully literate in English, the old way.
> Spelling checkers are not enough. Multiple choice test don't do
the
> job. A dependance on Information Workers or programs to prompt
you
> on how to fill in all the blanks is not enough.
> The young people of today need a Shorthand or a Quickscript to
get
> their message across fast and in writing.
> The Shavian Alphabet is the best replacement around.
>
> It does need Software support, but I suspect that would not be
much
> of a challenge, if there was a demand for it.
>
> Regards, Paul V.
> P.S. The people whose position is enhanced by their written
fluency
> are not all that concerned about the illiterates. Ignorance makes
> them dependant upon the more literate who have the information
access.
> Information is power.
>
> ----------
>
> _stbetta@a_ (mailto:stbetta@a) ... wrote:
> > Written English in Roman Letters has more phonological cues
than
> Chinese. This probably makes it a little easier to learn in one
> sense. However, it does take a much longer time to acquire 4000
meaning
> signs than it does to acquire 40 or so sound-signs. This adds a
lot
> a overhead to getting started learning.
>
>
> > I know of no living spelling scholar that supports much in the
way
> of spelling reform. They agree that skill in spelling is
difficult
> to learn but not a major problem. They don't think that
adopting a
> more phonemic alphabet would improve reading levels or correct
the current
> problem where 50% of the students read below grade level.
>
> > I think they are dead wrong but that is their position and they
are not
> > swayed by any of the existing arguments or research.
>

Paul,

Digraphs could be used consistently and this is the proposal from the SSS
House Stile Comittee.

Half the time double consonants follow a short stressed vowel.
Half the time they don't.

English vowels can be represented 20 different ways (on the average)
English phonemes can be represented 14 different ways (on the average)
Consonants are relatively consistent except for a few such as <s> for /s/.
English consoannts can be represented 7 different ways (on the average)

Statistics from G. Dewey's book on spelling frequencies.

Here is what is taught in the better phonics classes:

_http://www.foolswisdom.com/~sbett/70phonograms.htm_
(http://www.foolswisdom.com/~sbett/70phonograms.htm)


_-------------------pvandenbrink11@..._
(mailto:-------------------pvandenbrink11@...) writes:
Hi Steve
The contradiction that I wished to point out was that
English Spelling uses Diagraphs to indicate
many of the extra Vowel sounds in English.
There is not enough consistency to support this assertion.
Instead in most cases one of the letters in the Vowel
Diagraph is significant and the other is silent.
Each Roman vowel Letter has 2 or 3 possible pronunciations.
Regards, Paul V.

> Check out
> _www.foolswisdom.com/~sbett/polyvalence.htm_
(http://www.foolswisdom.com/~sbett/polyvalence.htm)

Hi Steve
I looked at the 70 phonograms you presented, as they represent the
reality of English Spelling and the majority of them still had
multiple possible pronunciations. Although Vowel Diagraphs could be
used consistently to represent single English Vowel sounds, currently
they do not even come close.
I'd rather just say that one of diagraph letters usually hints at the
actually pronounced Vowel sound.
Most English speakers do not even recognise more than 10 of the 17 or
so common English simple Vowels and Dipthongs. They don't have even
have a name for them.

How many do people know?

1. Schwa (Minimal Vowel sound)
Short or Soft Vowels
2. Short a
3. short e
4. short i
5. short o or British O
6. short u
7. Broad a (ah) or American o
8. short oo (good)

Long or Hard Vowels
9. long e (ey)
10. long i (ee)
11. long O (oa)
12. long u/oo
13. long Broad a (aw)

Dipthongs
14. ow (out)
15. ay (eye/I)
16. ew (few)
17. oi (oil)

Regards, Paul V.
___________attached____________________________
--- In shawalphabet@yahoogroups.com, stbetta@a... wrote:
> Digraphs could be used consistently and this is the proposal from
the SSS House Stile Comittee.
>
> Half the time double consonants follow a short stressed vowel.
> Half the time they don't.
>
> English vowels can be represented 20 different ways (on the average)
>
> Here is what is taught in the better phonics classes:
>
> _http://www.foolswisdom.com/~sbett/70phonograms.htm_
> (http://www.foolswisdom.com/~sbett/70phonograms.htm)
>
>
> _-------------------pvandenbrink11@h..._
> (mailto:-------------------pvandenbrink11@h...) writes:
> Hi Steve
> The contradiction that I wished to point out was that
> English Spelling uses Diagraphs to indicate
> many of the extra Vowel sounds in English.
> There is not enough consistency to support this assertion.
> Instead in most cases one of the letters in the Vowel
> Diagraph is significant and the other is silent.
> Each Roman vowel Letter has 2 or 3 possible pronunciations.
> Regards, Paul V.
>
> > Check out
> > _www.foolswisdom.com/~sbett/polyvalence.htm_
> (http://www.foolswisdom.com/~sbett/polyvalence.htm)
>

I was playing around with the idea of modernizing spelling.
If Shavian had a converter, the robot could speak Shavian.

Shaw and Twain, who were both familiar with phonemic spelling in tradspel,
thought that you had to abandon the Roman alphabet to avoid being labeled as
uneducated. I think that Unifon is sufficiently foreign to be seen as
something new rather than misspelled English.
I would think a distinctive font is all that is required.

-Steve



Hi Steve
I looked at the 70 phonograms you presented, as they represent the
reality of English Spelling and the majority of them still had
multiple possible pronunciations. Although Vowel Diagraphs could be
used consistently to represent single English Vowel sounds, currently
they do not even come close.
I'd rather just say that one of diagraph letters usually hints at the
actually pronounced Vowel sound.
Most English speakers do not even recognise more than 10 of the 17 or
so common English simple Vowels and Dipthongs. They don't have even
have a name for them.
There was a study of how much primary school teachers knew about phonics
and phonology. The results indicated that they didn't know very much. Few
had any idea as to how many phonemes there were in spoken English. They
usually guessed 26. Very few had any idea what a schwa was.

They knew the short and long vowels but not the obscure vowels
They did not know how to deal with vowel letter combinations and usually
just avoided talking about them.

A remedial reading teacher once remarked that less than 5% of the children
that were sent to her who had been taught phonics had any knowledge of
double vowels other than ee.

Paul wrote:

How many do people know?

1. Schwa (Minimal Vowel sound)
Short or Soft Vowels
2. Short a
3. short e
4. short i
5. short o or British O
6. short u
7. Broad a (ah) or American o
8. short oo (good)

Long or Hard Vowels
9. long e (ey)
10. long i (ee)
11. long O (oa)
12. long u/oo
13. long Broad a (aw)

Dipthongs
14. ow (out)
15. ay (eye/I)
16. ew (few)
17. oi (oil)

---------------
> Digraphs could be used consistently and this is the proposal from
the SSS House Stile Comittee.
>
> Half the time double consonants follow a short stressed vowel.
> Half the time they don't.
>
> English vowels can be represented 20 different ways (on the average)
>
> Here is what is taught in the better phonics classes:
>
_http://www.foolswisdom.com/~sbett/70phonograms.htm_
(http://www.foolswisdom.com/~sbett/70phonograms.htm)

Hi Steve
You are quite correct. With a distinctive font, and a Mamer Dot
convention, the new Unifon would serve almost as well as Shavian
as an alternate Alphabet for English. I would say a lot of it does look
like Roman Capitals, but there are a few distinctive letters that make
your case.
However, I see UNIFON as little bit more of a work in progress, whereas
in the case of Shavian a lot of the issues have been worked out over
the last 50 years.
For example, Shavian is a system that has successfully combined the
printed and the cursive forms.
That issue has yet to be dealt with in UNIFON. It apparently was set up
as only a printed form without a lower case.
Regards, Paul V.
____________________________attached___________________
--- In shawalphabet@yahoogroups.com, stbetta@a... wrote:
G.B. Shaw and Twain, who were both familiar with phonemic spelling in
tradspel,thought that you had to abandon the Roman alphabet to avoid
being labeled as uneducated.
I think that Unifon is sufficiently foreign to be seen as
something new rather than misspelled English.
I would think a distinctive font is all that is required.

What is the Broad A?
The Broad A is a name given to the pronunciation of the vowel sound
of words that underwent the lengthening, such as laugh, can't, and
dance, grass in the accents that were affected by the trap-bath
split. Phonetically, the sound is the open back unrounded vowel in
some older accents (such as Received Pronunciation (RP). The common
Modern English phoneme /æ/ is referred to as the Flat A.

The trap-bath split is a vowel split that occurs mainly in southern
England varieties of English, in the Boston accent, and in the
Southern Hemisphere accents (Australian English, New Zealand English,
South African English), by which the Early Modern English phoneme /æ/
was lengthened in certain environments and ultimately merged with the
long /a/ of father. It happened circa 17th century.

Morever, broad As in the words such as half, calf, rather, aunt,
can't, father and vase is more widespread, and has spread to Northern
England. It is more rarer in General American English pronunciation.
Regards, Paul V.
_______________attached______________________________________
--- In shawalphabet@yahoogroups.com, "paul vandenbrink"
<pvandenbrink11@h...> wrote:
> Most English speakers do not even recognise more than 10 of the 17
or so common English simple Vowels and Dipthongs.
They don't have even have a name for them.
>
> How many do your people know?
>
> 1. Schwa (Minimal Vowel sound)
> Short or Soft Vowels
> 2. Short/Flat a
> 3. short e
> 4. short i
> 5. short o or British O
> 6. short u
> 7. Broad a (ah) or American o
> 8. short oo (good)
>
> Long or Hard Vowels
> 9. long e (ey)
> 10. long i (ee)
> 11. long O (oa)
> 12. long u/oo
> 13. long Broad a (aw)
>
> Dipthongs
> 14. ow (out)
> 15. ay (eye/I)
> 16. ew (few)
> 17. oi (oil)
>