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Hi Hugh
You can't have it both ways.
Either we are talking about trying a Phonemic representation, where
the Shavian letter "On" represents both the "On" used by the British
or the "Ah" sound used by the American's or you are not.
And there is a good precedent for such a Phonemic "On".
The R-Sound Vowel Letters were designed to provide a standard
spelling even tho they would be pronounced quite differently by a
Rhotic and and non-Rhotic English Speaker.

Regards, Paul V.
P.S. Star, do you have an opinion on this matter?
___________________attached_______________________________
--- In shawalphabet@yahoogroups.com, "Hugh Birkenhead" <mixsynth@...>
wrote:
>
> > >
> Let's hear from "the Americans" then. :) Americans like Star will
disagree
> with you that it's "obsolete", so it's by no means a 'redundant'
distinction
> over there. Not to mention that us over here need it, and since the
effort
> involved to observe it is so little, I don't see a problem.
>
> > An altogether new letter for the British "Ah" sound would not only
> > not be confusing to Americans and previous users of Shavian, but
> > reinforce the fact that this pronunciation is exceptionl.
> > Let me suggest that the name of this new letter be Ahms, and we
can
> > reuse the old "y" keymapping.
> > If you like I can suggest a distinctive shape for the new letter?
> > Anyone else have a comment?
> > Regards, Paul V.
>
> OK, now you've lost me. We're not talking about new letters. 'Ah'
is already
> the letter for the 'ah' sound.
>
> Here's the bottom line:
>
> *For those not differentiating between 'ah' and 'on', use 'on',
except if
> the word is one of the exceptions in the list.*
>
> This *simple* rule will solve the first issue, and we can then deal
with the
> remaining two -- which will doubtless be more tricky.
>
> Hugh B
>

Hi Hugh
Can you suggest a compromise? I tried and it didn't even make it over
the plate.
Regards, Paul V.
________________attached___________________________

--- In shawalphabet@yahoogroups.com, "paul vandenbrink"
<pvandenbrink11@...> wrote:
>
> Hi Hugh
> You can't have it both ways.
> Either we are talking about trying a Phonemic representation, where
> the Shavian letter "On" represents both the "On" used by the
British
> or the "Ah" sound used by the American's or you are not.
> And there is a good precedent for such a Phonemic "On".
> The R-Sound Vowel Letters were designed to provide a standard
> spelling even tho they would be pronounced quite differently by a
> Rhotic and and non-Rhotic English Speaker.
>
> Regards, Paul V.
> P.S. Star, do you have an opinion on this matter?
> ___________________attached_______________________________
> --- In shawalphabet@yahoogroups.com, "Hugh Birkenhead" <mixsynth@>
> wrote:
> >
> > > >
> > Let's hear from "the Americans" then. :) Americans like Star will
> disagree
> > with you that it's "obsolete", so it's by no means a 'redundant'
> distinction
> > over there. Not to mention that us over here need it, and since
the
> effort
> > involved to observe it is so little, I don't see a problem.
> >
> > > An altogether new letter for the British "Ah" sound would not
only
> > > not be confusing to Americans and previous users of Shavian, but
> > > reinforce the fact that this pronunciation is exceptionl.
> > > Let me suggest that the name of this new letter be Ahms, and we
> can
> > > reuse the old "y" keymapping.
> > > If you like I can suggest a distinctive shape for the new
letter?
> > > Anyone else have a comment?
> > > Regards, Paul V.
> >
> > OK, now you've lost me. We're not talking about new letters. 'Ah'
> is already
> > the letter for the 'ah' sound.
> >
> > Here's the bottom line:
> >
> > *For those not differentiating between 'ah' and 'on', use 'on',
> except if
> > the word is one of the exceptions in the list.*
> >
> > This *simple* rule will solve the first issue, and we can then
deal
> with the
> > remaining two -- which will doubtless be more tricky.
> >
> > Hugh B
> >
>

Hi Dshep
First, John Kenneth Galbraith was born back in 1908 and moved to
California in 1933. His accent would be representative of pre-war
Canada. I don't doubt that it sounded different than a normal
American or British accent. His professors at University of Toronto
were mostly English and American, so it would also be influenced by
the University style of speech.
Margaret Macmillan is not a good representative of Canadian speech as
she spent much of her formative years in England. And she spent much
time at Oxford for her University Education. She is still a Provost
of Trinity College. She is the great-granddaughter of Prime Minister
David Lloyd George of Britain, and her sister is married to British
newscaster Peter Snow.
In 1946, her family moved to England when her father, a doctor in the
navy, went there to study for a year. She would have been 3 at the
time. Still Margaret MacMillan would only return to England at age 15
when she was sent there to complete high school before returning to
her family in Canada. And then back to England for her advanced
degrees. She would also be greatly influenced by the University style
of speech.

Now, I do not know Margaret Atwood's background, but as a writer and
Poet she has a very affected style of speech, the influence of which
I would hesitate to ascribe to anyone or anything save Margaret
Atwood, herself.
There are distinctive accents in Canada. Usually they are regional
and limited to smaller groups of people in isolated areas.
(i.e. Cape Breton, Newfoundland, Prince Edward Island, Montreal,
Victoria) Unfortunately there is no overall pattern or consistency to
that distinctiveness. We are too spread out and too new to have
developed that particular distinction of a national accent.
In Toronto, fewer than 50% of the residents were born in Canada, so
the English they were exposed to growing up would hardly be uniform.
If anything we are coming more and more under the influence of the
American Mid-West Accent.
Sorry to pop your bubble, but you are making generalizations with too
little data.
Regards, Paul V.
_____________________attached______________________________
--- In shawalphabet@yahoogroups.com, dshep <dshep@...> wrote:
>
> another response to message 1593 from paul vandenbrink,
>
> Besides my Nova Scotian friend, I have, to my knowledge, only
> met a handful of people from Canada, the most notable being the
> economist John Kenneth Galbraith, who gave a lecture I attended
> years ago in which he compared the concept of trickle-down
> economics, then in vogue, to a well-known process recognized in
> horse-and-buggy days where, as a saying went, if the horses are
> well fed, so shall be the sparrows (think about it). Another was
> Margaret Macmillan, who gave a talk at a book-signing about her
> interesting work on the Versailles peace negotiations of 1919.
> And I have also listened closely to interviews of Margaret Atwood,
> an author I admire. In their speech, admittedly a small sample,
> but nevertheless a sample, I thought I detected something slightly
> different from any American accent that I am familiar with. I can't
> pin it down, it is, at least to me, too subtle for definition,
perhaps
> an r-undertone different from anything I had ever heard. I attribute
> it, as a guess, to the Scots influence in Canada which I believe is
> significant.

> Hi Hugh
> You can't have it both ways.
> Either we are talking about trying a Phonemic representation, where
> the Shavian letter "On" represents both the "On" used by the British
> or the "Ah" sound used by the American's or you are not.
> And there is a good precedent for such a Phonemic "On".
> The R-Sound Vowel Letters were designed to provide a standard
> spelling even tho they would be pronounced quite differently by a
> Rhotic and and non-Rhotic English Speaker.

From an American point of view, there really will be two letters with
apparently the same sound; just it's no different from us Brits, who get
both 'ah' and 'are' for our single 'ah' sound.

Think about it. Us poor Brit speakers have to include all these rhotic
vowels when we don't pronounce them any differently, for the sake of US
readers. That's our part of the bargain, and from what I've seen, we seem to
do it pretty well.

In exchange, US speakers have a much less difficult option to please Brit
readers: remember a TINY scattering of 'ah' words and just use 'on' in every
other occurrence of that sound (unless it's the 'are' sound).

Is it a deal?

Hugh B

On 3/23/06, Hugh Birkenhead <mixsynth@...> wrote:
> Here's the bottom line:
>
> *For those not differentiating between 'ah' and 'on', use 'on', except if
> the word is one of the exceptions in the list.*

I support this idea.

It removes a distinction that occurs in my speech, but I still think
it's a good idea. Mostly because:

1. the "functional load" (
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Functional_load ) of this phonemic
distinction is rather low; few words are distinguished by this
distinction, so merging them will result in little loss for those who
do distinguish them. (Off-hand I can think of "baht-bot", but "baht"
is not really an English word but an Import from Thai.)
http://www.marlodge.supanet.com/wordlist/TARTTOT.txt lists 172
contrasts for "ah" vs "on", but since it's based on (non-rhotic) RP,
many of the "ah"s are really "are"s.

"Calf-cough" might work, but I think that that's a bit of a red
herring since I'd guess that those words are in lexical sets BATH and
CLOTH, while (I think) you were talking about lexical sets LOT and
PALM. "Balm-bomb" may be valid, though.

2. the list of words in PALM is, as you said, fairly small, so
spelling all of them with "on" (as if they were in LOT) will be
"right" more often than not for those people who make a distinction. I
think "bra" belongs in there, though.

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

On 3/24/06, Philip Newton <philip.newton@...> wrote:
> 2. the list of words in PALM is, as you said, fairly small, so
> spelling all of them with "on" (as if they were in LOT) will be
> "right" more often than not for those people who make a distinction.

Er, I was talking nonsense. Hugh was not arguing for spelling them all
with "on" (though I think that could work) but for mergerists to learn
a short list of words in which to use "ah".

Which I think could also work since the list of words in PALM is small.

Vowel differences is a thorny subject, though, and if you want
something that works for *everyone*, you'll probably end up with five
vowel phonemes or something. (For example, some of the words I have
"ah" in have "ash" for other people, some have "on", and some
apparently have "awe", so if we wanted writers not to make
distinctions they don't have, you'd have to merge those four vowels
into one, for starters. Oh, and "are" and "or" as well while you're at
it, for non-rhotic people.)

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

On 3/16/06, Hugh Birkenhead <mixsynth@...> wrote:
> We either consolidate 'ah' and 'on' into one phoneme as Cut
> Shavian did (which would leave Brits* with one less phoneme), or we simply
> say to those who are uncertain: "use 'on' always and learn the handful of
> odd words that take 'ah'" (from sources such as the AHD). Doing either of
> these will remove the stateside issue with this letter pair.

*nods* I agree. I could live with either of those.

> 3. 'Air'/'egg+roll', 'ear'/'if+roll', 'err'/'up+roll'. This is another
> Atlantic difference -- Brits* observe vowel length differences, while many
> (most?) US speakers do not. Many US speakers say the word pairs
> "merry"/"Mary", "ferry"/"fairy" and "very"/"vary" exactly the same, where
> Brits would say the 1st are short and the 2nd are long. This leads to words
> such as "America" being spelt "Am-air-ica", "mirror" spelt "m-ear-or" and
> "current" spelt "c-err-ant". This might be a little more difficult to solve.
> As with 'ah'/'on', it might involve teaching ones self word lists, but
> short/long vowels occur just as often as each other, and very often too, so
> this would be difficult. Or, the 3 offending compound vowels could be
> dropped altogether, with users required to use "egg/if/up + roll", but as
> with 'ah'/'on' this would leave Brits* without a way of distinguishing
> between them. "I caught the f-e-rry" - does this mean I crossed the channel
> on a boat, or am I claiming to have apprehended a tiny winged person down
> the bottom of my garden?

This may be the better solution (though it's a toss-up whether we say
"use egg/if/up + roll" or "use air/ear/err"; if no distinction is
made, the choices are equivalent).

It'll remove a distinction some people make, but I think that's
unavoidable in a compromise orthography intended to serve more than
one dialect. (Heck, the NORTH/FORCE distinction isn't even in Shavian,
so those who distinguish "or" and "ore" are already left high and
dry.)

Context will probably make clear which word is meant, just as in TO
"invalid" could be either an adjective or a noun, with correspondingly
different pronunciations.

And even in a real phonemic orthography, "F sY H kI" is ambiguous
between "I saw the key" and "I saw the quay", and context will have to
serve. (I don't think anyone seriously proposes to spell those words
differently in Shavian just because they have different meanings and
different spellings in TO.)

If it means that I have to write, in effect "Mary was vary mary
because she managed to catch the fairy to Dover in time", I think I
could live with that.

> These issues are a problem because they lead to excessive spelling
> differences where really there should only be a handful. Kingsley Read
> wanted a standardised alphabet, not a universally inconsistent one. Cut
> Shavian was my attempt at a solution, with my approach there being removal
> of those letters that could be confused with others, namely "up", "err",
> "air", "ear" and "on", leaving non-distinguishers only one way of writing
> each sound. I notice that many people were not keen on the idea, mainly
> people who DO understand the 'offending' letters.

*nods* but I'm biassed because my accent is fairly close to "standard
Shavian" (if such a beast exists); the main difference, as far as I
can see, is that I have "ah" in BATH (master, grass, mask, ...) rather
than "ash" (which I think is the pronunciation in the "Northern
English" that Shavian was supposed to represent). I do note that
_Androcles_ uses "ah" in words such as "chaff" and "clasp", though...

Still, if Shavian is to represent all Englishes, Cut Shavian may be
better, by removing some distinctions that others don't make, at the
expense of those who do.

> We need a consensus here.

Good luck!

On the whole, I tend to be on your side, though.

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

Fellow friends of the Shaw alphabet,

I recently came across two essays that I would like to recommend to you:

- Daniel Jones, "Dhe Fonetik Aspekt ov Speling Reform / The Phonetic
Aspect of Spelling Reform",
http://www.spellingsociety.org/journals/pamflets/p8fonetik.php

- J.C.Wells, "English accents and their implications for spelling
reform", http://www.phon.ucl.ac.uk/home/wells/accents_spellingreform.htm

Jones talks about orthographies or writing systems and why they should
probably not be phonemic if they are to be practical, while Wells
shows some specific problems which the varieties of English present in
the quest for a uniform quasi-phonemic orthography.

I especially recommend the second article; it discusses all sorts of
things such as the "maximalist" (make all the distinctions anyone
anywhere makes) and "minimalist" (merge all sounds that at least one
group of people merges) positions as well as positions in between, and
suggests some mergers that may be feasible and profitable.

He also discusses various vowel contrasts, including our friends
"gather" and "father" (PALM/BATH), CLOTH/LOT/THOUGHT (and why
Americans are inclined to spell "cough" with "awe", for example,
rather than "on" as I would), and PALM/LOT ("ah" or "on"?).

Other distinctions he talks about include NORTH/FORCE, FOOT/GOOSE, and
FOOT/STRUT. He also talks about accents as social labels (e.g. what it
means if someone pronounces "cut" with the same vowel as "put", or
says "good luck" like "good look") and hypercorrection and American
intervocalic T.

And he made me decide to use "if" rather than "eat" in the end of
words such as "city" or "happy", since this appears to me to be the
"standard" pronunciation historically, even if it's no longer
considered an absolute standard today (section 9.1).

I suggest you read both articles and see whether it changes your mind
about having the orthography be as phonemic as possible, and see what
you think of Wells's proposed mergers and his proposed spellings.

I'm not sure what influence, if any, this will have on Shavian, but I
think it's food for thought.

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

On the issue of lexical sets, you may find the following two pages
useful and interesting:

- http://www.ling.upenn.edu/courses/Fall_2003/ling001/English.html
- http://www.ic.arizona.edu/~anth383/lexicalsets.html

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

> On 3/24/06, Philip wrote:
> > Here's the bottom line:
> >
> > *For those not differentiating between 'ah' and 'on', use 'on', except
> if
> > the word is one of the exceptions in the list.*
>
> I support this idea.
>
> It removes a distinction that occurs in my speech, but I still think
> it's a good idea.

Well, using the 'list of ah-words' method, it wouldn't, because you'd be
able to use 'ah' in 'grass'/'bath'/etc. After all, you can hear the
distinction, so there's no need for a list to guide you.

You'd only lose the distinction if you completely merge the two phonemes
into one letter.

> Mostly because:
>
> 1. the "functional load" (
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Functional_load ) of this phonemic
> distinction is rather low; few words are distinguished by this
> distinction, so merging them will result in little loss for those who
> do distinguish them. (Off-hand I can think of "baht-bot", but "baht"
> is not really an English word but an Import from Thai.)
> http://www.marlodge.supanet.com/wordlist/TARTTOT.txt lists 172
> contrasts for "ah" vs "on", but since it's based on (non-rhotic) RP,
> many of the "ah"s are really "are"s.

This is the "Cut Shavian" approach. The fact of the low functional load does
support the concept of dropping the distinction altogether, which is what
the subset does.

> "Calf-cough" might work, but I think that that's a bit of a red
> herring since I'd guess that those words are in lexical sets BATH and
> CLOTH, while (I think) you were talking about lexical sets LOT and
> PALM. "Balm-bomb" may be valid, though.

"Calf-cough" is a good example of the words that could be confused if on/ah
were merged; at least, to southern Brits. Both Americans and northern Brits
would use 'ash' in "calf". The same is true with "bath/cloth".

"Balm/bomb" with a merged ah/on phoneme would definitely cause confusion for
Brits. Merriam-Webster says General American makes no distinction, besides
the possibility of voicing the normally silent 'l': 'bä(l)m/'bäm. There
could also perhaps be trouble with "palm/pom(pom)" and "psalm/Somme",
although incredibly rarely. There is probably no perfect solution to this,
but if Americans can distinguish between the words based on their context, I
imagine Brits can too.

> 2. the list of words in PALM is, as you said, fairly small, so
> spelling all of them with "on" (as if they were in LOT) will be
> "right" more often than not for those people who make a distinction. I
> think "bra" belongs in there, though.

Yes, 'bra' does belong there. And 'spa'. And 'ma', and 'pa'.

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

Hugh B