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I don't think this is exactly what you're looking for, but Wikipedia
has this article on consonants:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phonological_history_of_English_consonants



There's also a corresponding article for vowels:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phonological_history_of_English_vowels



--

Regards,

Joseph Spicer

JOsaf spFsD



Lionel Ghoti wrote:

Thanks, Philip. I was about to post a message asking if anyone knew
where to find just such a list.

It only covers vowels, though. The second example that I mentioned
before was "wh". RP realises this as /w/, but some accents realise it
as a sort of /hw/ sound. Do you know if/where there's a list of
lexical sets covering consonants, and/or can you think of any other
consonant-related examples?

LG

For that I simply use Eat, since if would not represent the sound that
I hear. Why make a new digraph for this?

--Star

--- Philip Newton <philip.newton@...> wrote:

> On 5/18/06, Star Raven <celestraof12worlds@...> wrote:
> > I'm not sure what you mean by final /i/.
>
> Since I brought that up -- this is what some call "happy tensing".
> Basically, what's the last sound in words such as "really", "happy",
> "city"? Is it the lax "if" sound or the tense "eat" sound?
>
> To me, it sounds more like "eat" but it may be somewhere in between.
> Historically in English RP, the sound was apparently "if".
>
> Cheers,
> --
> Philip Newton <philip.newton@...>
>


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On 5/19/06, Star Raven <celestraof12worlds@...> wrote:
> For that I simply use Eat, since if would not represent the sound that
> I hear. Why make a new digraph for this?

As I proposed it, the new symbol wouldn't be visible to users but
would be stored internally, then transformed either to If or to Eat on
output, depending on the user's preferences.

If was, as I understand it, the prestige pronunciation for quite a
while, at least in the UK, so some people may not wish to see Eat
there (just as I'd be a bit bothered to see "father" written with On,
for example).

However, apparently "happy tensing" is pretty wide-spread, so I'm not
sure how many people would prefer to have If there -- maybe just using
Eat for everyone is sufficient.

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

Yes - I don't think anyone is proposing to add any new symbols to the
Shavian alphabet. We just need to distinguish some sounds from
others, in the database only, because they are realised differently
in different accents. So the final sound in "pity" would be stored in
the database with a special (currently unused) letter, and then when
it came to outputting that into Shavian text for a certain accent, it
would be output using only the traditional Shavian letters. We
couldn't store it in the database as Shavian i or Shavian I because
it behaves differently from those sounds in the way that it is mapped
to phonemes in different accents.

LG

--- In shawalphabet@yahoogroups.com, "Philip Newton"
<philip.newton@...> wrote:
>
> On 5/19/06, Star Raven <celestraof12worlds@...> wrote:
> > For that I simply use Eat, since if would not represent the sound
that
> > I hear. Why make a new digraph for this?
>
> As I proposed it, the new symbol wouldn't be visible to users but
> would be stored internally, then transformed either to If or to Eat
on
> output, depending on the user's preferences.
>
> If was, as I understand it, the prestige pronunciation for quite a
> while, at least in the UK, so some people may not wish to see Eat
> there (just as I'd be a bit bothered to see "father" written with
On,
> for example).
>
> However, apparently "happy tensing" is pretty wide-spread, so I'm
not
> sure how many people would prefer to have If there -- maybe just
using
> Eat for everyone is sufficient.
>
> Cheers,
> --
> Philip Newton <philip.newton@...>
>

Hi Lionel G.
Even as an amorphous, mutating
blob, unfit for public consumption, it is still a great starting point.
I don't know how you want to handle different accents?

In an ideal world, we would note the exact accent of everyone using the
database, and use either the Majority Opinion or the closest variation
to that majority opinion.
If there were more than 2 main opinions, I would also give weight to
any intermediate solution that falls in-between, or at least in the
middle or in the midst of the more extreme or variant English
pronunciations.

As we don't live in a perfect world, I would suggest using a standard
American accent representation in the Western Hemisphere and a standard
British accent representation in the Eastern Hemisphere.

It is a little too soon to say how Global English will eventually be
pronounced. The returns are not yet in.

Regards, Paul V.
___________attached_________________________________________
--- In shawalphabet@yahoogroups.com, "Lionel Ghoti" <Lionel.Ghoti@...>
wrote:
>
> I might consider open-sourcing it in the future, but not now. At the
> moment my plan for phpGhotiFilleter is a bit of an amorphous, mutating
> blob, because I keep having ideas about how to change it. The code
isn't
fit for public consumption yet.

Hi LIonel
Let me Quibble a little.
For an Australian, Canadian, South African and for most East Indian
English speakers,
most of those variations in spelling are either acceptable or at
least recognisable in our Culture.
We have gotten used to the major variations. Maybe we can't handle
English from the Scots or the Cockneys, but the rest of it is all
grist for our mill. Thank G-d, for the British Empire and the
American Hegemony.

So I would just limit it to the British and the American Accents, and
not worry too much about the rest of us.

The simpliest solution would be to mirror the Database and make one
British Territory and the other one American Territory.
You can run a comparision program every once in while to ensure they
match each other in terms of English Vocabulary.

That would provide a useful redundancy. it would also catch a lot of
muistakes (Typos), as well.





-- In shawalphabet@yahoogroups.com, "Lionel Ghoti" <Lionel.Ghoti@...>
wrote:
>
> I have been looking at the additions made to the database by
different
> people and I'm beginning to think that the Filleter in its present
> state is going to become difficult to use if it contains many
> pronunciations of each word in different accents. The homograph-
option
> functionality was intended to allow a user to select the appropriate
> pronunciation for a Roman spelling _within his own accent_, but
> already users are being presented with pronunciation options which
are
> not options within their own accent. When an Australian user does a
> transliteration, for example, he wants to be prompted for input as
> little as possible: if he has to be asked to select, every other
word,
> between a British RP variant and an East Coast US variant and a
> Canadian variant and a South African variant, and so on, then he
will
> very quickly become fed up.
>
> I think there are two possible solutions to this:
>
> 1) phpGhotiFilleter's database should contain Shavian spellings for
> one accent only (perhaps the accent used by our de facto standard,
> Androcles and the Lion); or
>
> 2) It should store pronunciations in different accents, and would
> allow the user to select their target accent. If no pronunciations
> were available for the target accent, it would use the default
accent.
>
> I'm leaning towards the second option. An extra field "accentflag"
> could be added to the database. The first record for any Roman word
> would be the default pronunciation (probably in Androcles-ese). Any
> subsequent records for that Roman word could optionally be marked
with
> an accent flag (e.g., AM for American, CA for Canadian, SA for South
> African, etc.). On the page where the user enters Roman text for
> transliteration, there would be an option to select the target
accent.
>
> Example:
>
> Case 1: An Australian user selects the Australian option on the
> text-entry page and attempts to transliterate the word "sample".
There
> is no Australian-flagged word-pair for "sample", but there is a
> non-flagged (default Androcles-ese) word-pair, so that is used
without
> requiring any further input from the user. However, on the
processing
> page the word is coloured red, say, to let the user know that the
> transliteration has not been taken from their native wordset. This
> would also be an HTML link to the Add a Word page, so that an
> Australian variant could be added if required.
>
> Case 2: The same Australian user again selects the Australian option
> on the text-entry page and attempts to transliterate the word
> "sample". This time there is an Australian-flagged word-pair for the
> word. Only the Australian-flagged Shavian word is offered as a
> transliteration, and it is coloured black to show that it is from
the
> user's native wordset. But the word is also, again, an HTML link to
> the Add a Word page, just in case an Australian homograph needs to
be
> added. (ALL words in the future version of pGF would be HTML links
to
> the Add a Word page.)
>
> Questions:
>
> 1) What do you all think to that?
>
> 2) If we were to go down the many-accents path, what are the
different
> accents that you think should be covered? I would want there to be
as
> few types as possible, but enough to enable any user to produce text
> which they would find easy to read.
>
> One further point: If a new many-accents version is implemented
there
> will be no need to clear down the existing database, but the
existing
> word-pairs will be unflagged, and so will need flagging. I think it
> would be a good idea if people didn't throw themselves too heavily
> into adding words to the database until it has been decided whether
to
> make this change (and the changes have been made), so that we don't
> have to flag lots of existing words manually.
>
> LG
>

Hi Philip
Sounds interesting. It could lead to a technical solution.
Give people a test to find out exactly what phonemes they can
distinguish. They then store the information as a cookie on their
system. (Check off minimal pairs)
Then any time they get a Shavian Message they can preprocess the
message to consolidate any phonemes they don't dfferentiate into
the Shavian Letter of their choice. Or the consolidation could even
be done according to some standard rule for that Shavian letter
deletion group.
British speakers would still use all 47 or 48 Shavian Letters.
Quite workable.
Regards, Paul V.
______________attached___________________________
--- In shawalphabet@yahoogroups.com, "Philip Newton"
<philip.newton@...> wrote:
>
> On 5/17/06, Lionel Ghoti <Lionel.Ghoti@...> wrote:
> > 2) It should store pronunciations in different accents, and would
> > allow the user to select their target accent. If no pronunciations
> > were available for the target accent, it would use the default
accent.
> >
> > I'm leaning towards the second option.
>
> Sounds like a good idea.
>
> > 2) If we were to go down the many-accents path, what are the
different
> > accents that you think should be covered?
>
> I think it's better to approach this in terms of mergers and splits,
> rather than in terms of countries, since Shavian is phonemic, rather
> than phonetic. So if Australian "age" sounds like British "ice", and
> *always* does so, then I think the "age" letter is appropriate, so
> Australian wouldn't need a separate accent just because of that.
>
> Some mergers and splits I can think of:
> - broad-A vs non-broad-A (e.g. Sam-psalm: some have 'ash' for both,
> some have 'ash' vs 'ah', aka the trap-bath split)
> - short-o variants vs those that don't have this (for some, short-o
as
> in 'on' merges into 'awe' or 'ah' or both -- the father/bother
and/or
> cot/caught mergers)
> - distinct vowels before 'r' in addition to rhotics (do "mirror" and
> "nearer" / "furry" and "hurry" / "merry" and "Mary" rhyme?)
> - yod-dropping ("new" = "nM" or "nV"?)
>
> and possibly
>
> - shwi vs shwa ("dasFd" or "disFd" for "decide"?)
> - representation of final -i/y ("siti" or "sitI" for "city"?)
> - NORTH/FORCE (are "or" and "oar" separate?)
> - variants with a "wh" vs those that lack that as a separate phoneme
> (are "which" and "witch" pronounced the same?)
> - flapped intervocalic "t" (do "bitter" and "bidder" / "rated" and
> "raided" sound the same?)
>
> If this kind of approach is taken, though, it might be better to see
> it as a set of features that your accent has or hasn't, rather than
a
> set of accents to choose from (since lacking broad A is independent
of
> whether short-o exists or not, for example).
>
> Cheers,
> Philip
> --
> Philip Newton <philip.newton@...>
>

Hi Lionel
I think a Super accent standard for the Database is a good idea,
as long as we keep it fairly close to standard Rhotic British English.
That variant seems to have the most number of distinguishable
phonemes, and so it would be much easier to convert that form into
the other common English accents, which use only a subset of the 48
Shavian letters.

Regards, Paul V.
_______________________attached____________________________________
--- In shawalphabet@yahoogroups.com, "Lionel Ghoti"
<Lionel.Ghoti@...> wrote:
>
> I had another think about the accents problem this morning in the
> shower (the best place to think), and I think I now agree with
Philip
> and Joseph: it would be best to store word-pairs phonetically for
> one "super-accent", and then to map the super-phonemes into actual
> phonemes for the required accent. I now don't think this would
require
> such a lot of extra processing because most of the work has already
> been done for us by Kingsley Read. We would just need a few extra
> symbols for sounds like word-final /i/ and "wh".
>
> Adding new word-pairs would require a little more skill and
knowledge
> of phonetics than the existing process, but all new database
entries
> could be listed on a special page for peer review.
>
> I intend to look at this at the weekend. So please don't add
anything
> else to the database because everything in it will have to be
reviewed
> in more detail than I had originally thought.
>
> LG
>

On 5/19/06, paul vandenbrink <pvandenbrink11@...> wrote:
> standard Rhotic British English.
> That variant seems to have the most number of distinguishable
> phonemes, and so it would be much easier to convert that form into
> the other common English accents, which use only a subset of the 48
> Shavian letters.

In principle, yes; unfortunately, mapping SRBE to other accents is
not, in general, an n:1 problem but an m:n problem -- you can't
collapse all occurrences of X and Y into phoneme X (for any given X
and Y, at least in general), since there may be cases when some X's
turn into Z instead or stay as X or whatever. Hence my perceived need
for extra symbols which basically identify "this is an X in dialect D1
and a Y in D2", since not all X's in D1 turn into Y in D2.

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

Hi L.G.
The English Consonants are mapped pretty well, onto the 24 Shavian
Consonant letters. Except for the "wh" sound (I would like that one
for transliterating the "u" after a "q");
The only other 2 sounds that I can think of, are so rare it is hardly
worth the bother. You hear the variant "ch" sound in "Bach" and in
some other German and Hebrew Loan words (i.e. Chutzpah, Chanukah)
Also you hear the "ts" sound in a few foriegn loan words (pi-tsa
(pizza), Tse-Tse fly).
I think they are both distinct sounds, but not worth bothering about
for our purposes.
Regards, Paul V.
____________attached_________________________
--- In shawalphabet@yahoogroups.com, "Lionel Ghoti"
<Lionel.Ghoti@...> wrote:
>
> Thanks, Philip. I was about to post a message asking if anyone knew
> where to find just such a list.
>
> It only covers vowels, though. The second example that I mentioned
> before was "wh". RP realises this as /w/, but some accents realise
it
> as a sort of /hw/ sound. Do you know if/where there's a list of
> lexical sets covering consonants, and/or can you think of any other
> consonant-related examples?