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--- In shawalphabet@yahoogroups.com, "paul vandenbrink"
<pvandenbrink@s...> wrote:

> Which letter will we sacrifice up
> to the G-d of petty consistency today?

Whichever one it take to encourage wider interest
and acceptance of a more rational way of writing.
Are you really happy with maintaining a dialogue with
a half-dozen people, when the Shaw alphabet could be
a medium for mass communication?

Strange to see consistency belittled by a computer
programmer.

dshep

--- In shawalphabet@yahoogroups.com, "paul vandenbrink"
<pvandenbrink@s...> wrote:


> Which letter will we sacrifice up
> to the G-d of petty consistency today?


Whichever letter it would take to encourage wider interest
and acceptance. Are you really happy with maintaining a
dialogue with a half-dozen people when an alphabet of such
promise as the Shaw alphabet could be a medium of mass
communication?

Strange to see a computer programmer belittle consistency.


dshep

Reference with Tricodal chart:
http://www.foolswisdom.com/~sbett/shavian-short.html

Paul,

I don't claim any originality in the IPA scheme that I presented.
It is basically the one used in the Longman pronunciation guides.

2 symbol digraphs for combined phonemes does make sense and is the common
practice.
Minimizing symbols is one of the goals of a scheme. It is not a kludge.

The obscure phoneme for which there is not TO equivalent is /3/ the sound in
her and urge.
The non-rhotic version is /3/ and the rhotic version is /3`/ or /3r/.
The /3/ can be thought of as a stressed schwa and is sometimes so represented.

ur or ûr could be defined as a substitute for /3r/. What this means is that
the
digraph is a unique symbol not a combination of U + r. This would be a kind
of kludge.
It would be justified on the grounds that this is the familiar way the sound
is represented in the traditional writing system. It is found in keyboard
shavian and in Unifon.

When you have questions, you can go to the IPA transcription site referenced
at
www.foolswisdom.com/~sbett/converters.htm
Install the Lionspaw font to view Shavian - or apply your Shaw font to the
keyboard version.

TO Latin 1 Webster IPA keyboard
Shavian
Boer [S. Afr Dutch] Bör 'bOr boUr bor bP bP
bore [drill a whole] bö`r 'bOr boUr bor
barrier barièr 'bar-E-&r bEri&r beriar beriD
harrier harièr 'har-E`&r hæri&r hAriar hArC
bluer blu:èr 'blü-&r blü&r blMar blMD
newer nu:èr 'nü-&r nü&r nMar UK: nVar nVD
sewer su:èr 'sü-&r sur sü&er sMar sMar sVD
sure shu:r 'shür shUr shür SUar
whore hor 'hOr hoUr or h&Ur hOr hOP
wore wôr 'wOr wÖr wP
horrible hôrìbl 'hor&b&l hÖr&b&l horabal
hPabal
murder murdèr 'm&rd&r m3`d&` mxdD mxdC

My recommendation was to not introduce the ligatures until basic Shavian is
mastered.
bYr before bP, hyrd before hRd,
--- In shawalphabet@...m, stbetta@a... wrote:
> Paul,
>
> You say that the IPA is four symbols short.
> Here is the IPA Shavian correspondence chart
> What is missing?

Hi Steve
In your display, some of the representative letters seem to vary
from the actual IPA symbol. Also
There are a lot of apparently IPA vowels in your display
that are represented by Diagraphs.

Using Diagraphs to represent a Phoneme doesn't
make any sense. You can not read a diagraph and know for sure, how
it is pronounced. It is kludge and it doesn't count as symbol.

for example, there is "ur" and "schwa+r" (an upside down e)
ur is pronounced as in "er" not "oor" as I might of expected.
(i.e. Boer, sure, whore, Coors, bluer, moo-er)
up as in up
ur as in urge xJ or murder murdar mmxdD
PJRPXxX
since x and X are reversed, one type of improved Shavian would
use the correct rather than the classic option. urge = XJ XJ

Or for example the word career. Is it pronounced caw-reer or
car-ear. You can not tell with a Diagraph. How about "barrier"
Is it beir-ree-er or be-rear or even bare-rear.

In trying to make the SHaw Alphabet more managable in this way you
are throwing out the baby with the bathwater.

Regards, Paul V.


Here are some more problem words with soundspelling in Unifon

Qatar = 'kutcr, kc'tor, 'kotxr, .. all would be consistent with the
Arabic pronunciation
Anguish = ANgwiS where N = <ng> siNcr vs. fiNgcr
Suade = swAd or sUAd [w is a semivowel in the trad. English writing
system]
Exit = eksit [ <x> can be ks or gz ]
Example = egzampl or egzampcl egzompl [The L can be syllabic]
Apple = apcl or apL [a pill = c pil] c = a lazy u, not "see"
Hurry = hurE [Malone prefers hcrE but this requires an additional
stress marker.]
Hairy = herE [Unifon is about the same as the notation at
www.m-w.com]
Here = hEr / hir were E can be written <ee> <ea> <eCe> etc.
Her other = hur uthcr
Thourough = TurO in Gen. Amer. or NBC English, Turc or Txrc in BBC English
Granite = granct [MW: 'gran&t]
Thistle = Tiscl or TisL [MW: [th]is'l]
of offers uv xfcrz [function words are often unstressed but in a
phonemic
notation one can stick with the citation pronunciation and
ignore
relative stress in a sentence.

dshep,

hung ha-ha
huN hy-hy

I thought the issue was with respect to the voiced-unvoiced consistency.
There is a voiced h but it is not the sound we use in English.

If we borrow Read's consonant layout we get...


hung, however is not exactly unvoiced relative to ha.
yea is not unvoiced relative to a voiced woe either.
In my chart, I do not include Y W Ng H in the list of voiced-unvoiced pairs.
So the sound-symbol assignments do not bother me at all.

--- In shawalphabet@yahoogroups.com, "Joe" <allegrox_2000@y...> wrote:

> I associate the tall letter "ha-ha" with the Roman letter h and
> "hung" with the letter eng. Read may not have made this
> association himself, though similar associations with other
> letters would seem to support it.
That seems like a good mnemonic.
However, there are plenty of examples in Read's scripts of reversing the more
intuitive sound-symbol assignments. One reason for this would be to distance
the symbol from its Roman counterpart. Shaw thought that if the new
sound-sign looked like an old one, readers might find it to be uneducated or ugly.

Altho there is usually a Roman model, I don't think that people would
mistake a PMF spelling with a traditional one.

aultho ðer iz uzualii a *rOman mödl,.....

I see no basis for distancing. PMF tries to retain the historical shape in a
streamlined character or letter-form.
www.foolswisdom.com/~sbett/43pmf-cap.gif

Read's 'ha' and 'hung' letters (as I believe they were meant to be)
appear to me to reflect the closed upward, respectively downward,
loops of the lower-case `h' and `g' in the
curvilinear handstyle once
generally taught before the (re)introduction of the straight-line,
semi-italic style. This method of writing with its sinuous loops, and
all letters joined, would have been familiar to Read and his
generation, and may still be seen today. I would think it
inconceivable that he would have deliberately refuted tradition
in such a way (by reversing them), as this would have only confused
anyone at the time who might have been attracted to his new
alphabet. It certainly would have been a curious thing to do.

regards,
dshep
--Steve

We live in a world that is produced by design.
Most of what we encounter are human artifacts.
It is all artificial in that sense.
book: Massive Change - Bruce Mau
Institute without boundaries
sustainable mobility
human well being as an objective.... this is new.

Hi Steve

I took a look at your proposed new Alphabet, PMF, and I like it.
It seems to have all of the same Vowel phonemes as the Shavian
Alphabet with the single exception of "Ian". I don't use "Ian" myself
either.
The idea of stacking vowels into a new character to represent
Dipthongs is very neat.
I also like the idea of having two forms of Ado, however instead of
saying that one form begins a syllable or word, I would prefer to say
that the first form of Ado represents a stand-alone Schwa syllable,
usually but not always at the beginning of the word. (i.e. ado,
apart, analysis, oppose, alligator, deity, idea, policy)
The other form is almost always at the end of a word or syllable,
usually bound together with a Consonant. (i.e. banana, suppose,
construct, before, alphabet, argument, data, telephone, decision
(x2), tuba, table, verandah, zebra) The words "Construct" and "Table"
are unusual because the Schwa sound is in the middle between 2
Consonants. Usually in the second type of Schwa, the sound of the
Schwa is only bound to one Consonant.
By the way, I would pronounce "herder" as in "her-der".
My personal bias is to have only one letter of "er" and "ur".
I would guess from your pronunciation of "herder",
that in the "der" at the end of the word the "R" sound is dropped
and "der" is pronounced like an Dead+Ado. (Bound form)

However, I have a counterproposal to PMF. I do so hate working at
cross purposes to everybody else. Rather than create an Alternate
Shavian Alphabet, where the same Shaw letters represent different
sounds.
Why don't we just add a few alternate letters in a new form to the
Original Shaw Alphabet, for example an alternate letter for Ha-Ha,
that is in a Tall format, so people know it is unvoiced. We could
call it "Hah" or "Haw-Haw". Either "Ha-Ha" or "Haw-Haw" could be used
to write the h sound and would have a different Keybord mapping.
We already have an alternate Key Mapping for the Namer Dot.
Both "G" and "/" show up as a Namer Dot.
People then would just use a their own subset of the Shaw Alphabet.
Have to put a few limits on it, tho. Maybe a maximum of 2 variants
from the standard Shavian Alphabet allowed to a customer. And it
would have to be totally consistent and aboveboard.
A small variation would be easy to decode and actually would provide
a style signature or identification mark of who wrote the note.

Regards, Paul

P.S. I don't think it is necessary to provide a alternate letter for
hung as the other Nasal Letters are not Deep letters, even tho they
do represent Voiced sounds. Nasals are usually Short letters, like
the Vowels.

P.P.S. As for other alternate letters, that I think would be good,
especially for Americans.
Star would like an alternate letter for the unvoiced "wh" sound.
It would have to be a Tall letter.
I'd like to see a separate letter for the Stand-alone Schwa sound
(Alternate Ado), that is such a nice feature from the PMF Alphabet.
Some people would need another Dipthong Vowel Letter for the "eu"
sound also apparently in the PMF alphabet. See above.

____________________attached_________________________

--- In shawalphabet@yahoogroups.com, stbetta@a... wrote:
As for the hung ha-ha Pair
huN hy-hy
>
> I thought the issue was with respect to the voiced-unvoiced
consistency.
> There is a voiced h but it is not the sound we use in English.

hung, however is not exactly unvoiced relative to ha.
> yea is not unvoiced relative to a voiced woe either.
> In my chart, I do not include Y W Ng H in the list of voiced-
unvoiced pairs.
> So the sound-symbol assignments do not bother me at all.
>
> We live in a world that is produced by design.
> Most of what we encounter are human artifacts.
> It is all artificial in that sense.
> book: Massive Change - Bruce Mau
> Institute without boundaries
> sustainable mobility
> human well being as an objective.... this is new.

Hi Dshep

I am not totally against change, and I would never belittle someone
striving for more consistency, and the problem is not the difficulty
in mastering some relatively minor variations in how the letters are
used.

I am a both a programmer and a Technical Anaylst who programmed and
worked with programmers for many years, implementing their code.
Most of the problems, that we had with their code was where the
changes were made haphazardly with inadequate testing and
insufficient training for the end user.

The problem with changing the Shaw letters is that for almost 50 years
people have used the Shaw Alphabet quite adequately. It is very
functional as it is.
The biggest difficulty is for people to learn how to use it.
It needs to more accessible, especially to American English Speakers.

Shuffling the letters around will not encourage wider interest and
acceptance of the Shavian Alphabet, because then it would be
marginally more rational way of writing Shavian with the change.
It is already increadibly Rational compared to the Roman Alphabet.
Maybe for Linguistic professors it would have some significance.
Average person can not even distinguish the difference between a
voiced and an unvoiced consonant.

Regards, Paul V.
__________attached_____________________

--- In shawalphabet@yahoogroups.com, "dshepx" <dshep@g...> wrote:
>>
> Strange to see consistency belittled by a computer
> programmer.
>
> dshep

Seb, Carl, and other Shavians,

Shavian is a dicitonary key spelling of English.
If you want to know the correct spelling, find and transcribe the dictionary
key spelling.

Most dictionary keys recognize schwa - an unstressed mid lax vowel.

Schwa spelling may be a little difficult for novices to pick up. It takes a
some practice.

It is based on the fact that one of the key features of English speech is
relative stress.
In many languages, length or duration is critical, in English the important
feature is stress.

In English, almost every multisyllable word will have relative stress. All
unstressed vowels can be represented with a schwa. This means that there can
be radical changes in the root: fótó, fót&graf, f&tägr&fy, f&tägr&f&r, etc.
A spelling system that maintains the spelling of the root no matter how the
word is pronounced is called morphemic.

A schwa is very short. At 50 ms in length it is shorter than other short
vowels which are usually over 100 ms in duration.

For example, penance at www.m-w.com is transcribed as 'pen-&n(t)s
Some speakers do not distinguish penance and pennants.
This means that <ce> may reference /ts/.

REF: www.foolswisdom.com/~sbett
check out schwa.htm and related topics
Hi Seb,

I would write "penance" as "penans" in Shavian. --Carl

Seb <sebii@...> wrote:
How does one write this in shavian? For example, how does one write "penance"?

The closest I could get is "penens".

That doesn't sound right to me...forgive me beacaue I just began learning
something like half an hour ago.

Cheers, Seb

I'm not sure that's really accurate. In this case, at least, <ce> should be pronounced
/s/. I believe the /ts/ here is due to context. I personally have difficulty pronouncing
/ns/ or /nz/, which I usually resolve as /nts/ and /ndz/, respectively. So, I normally
say /penants/ rather than /penans/. I don't know if this is normal, but I sometimes
try to avoid it by nasalizing the previous vowel and leaving out the N altogether,
which is equally well understood since most people I talk to don't know the
difference. So, in my own deviation from everybody else's English, I may say /penãs/.
But maybe I'm just strange.

--- In shawalphabet@yahoogroups.com, stbetta@a... wrote:
> For example, penance at www.m-w.com is transcribed as 'pen-&n(t)s
> Some speakers do not distinguish penance and pennants.
> This means that <ce> may reference /ts/.

On Thu, 02 Dec 2004 02:06:11 -0000, Joe <allegrox_2000@...> wrote:
>
> I'm not sure that's really accurate. In this case, at least, <ce> should be pronounced
> /s/. I believe the /ts/ here is due to context.

*nods*

> I personally have difficulty pronouncing
> /ns/ or /nz/, which I usually resolve as /nts/ and /ndz/, respectively.

I think a better notation is "/ns/ and /nz/ are realised as [nts] and
[ndz], respectively" -- the underlying phonemes are, say, /ns/, and
[nts] is a phonetic notation (hence the square brackets).

I view Shavian as a phonemic, not a phonetic, representation of
English, and so I'd write only "ns".

(Similar, I'd write "hAmstD" and not "hAmpstD" even though /ms/ may
turn into [mps] due to the context.)

> So, I normally say /penants/ rather than /penans/.

I'd write "[penants] rather than [penans]" here, again.

I think differentiation phonetic and phonemic representations is
moderately important, especially when discussing a phone_m_ic writing
system such as Shavian.

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

You've made a good point, and I'll try to remember that in the
future. I originally marked these as phonemic since examples like
[ns] and [nts] are phonemically different, even though the
underlying phonemes that produced them are the same.
Still, phonemes// yield phones[], so I'll write them that way in the
future. And thanks for pointing that out.

--- In shawalphabet@yahoogroups.com, Philip Newton
<philip.newton@g...> wrote:
> I think differentiation phonetic and phonemic representations is
> moderately important, especially when discussing a phone_m_ic
writing
> system such as Shavian.
>
> Cheers,
> --
> Philip Newton <philip.newton@g...>