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Statement found at www.foolswisdom.com/~sbett/shaw.htm

Please critique and comment:


The Spelling Society projects that received the most press were the i/t/a and
the Shaw Alphabet. These were member initiatives rather than projects funded
by the society. The i/t/a was the private initiative of the president of the
society, Sir James Pitman. The Shaw alphabet competition was also a private
initiative by Pitman who secured a little money to do it by settling the legal
dispute with the British Museum and other charities mentioned in Shaw's will.

1st Comment:
Unfortunately, Pitman settled for a lump sum rather than a percentage of
future royalties. 1% of future royalties would have been much more than 10% of the
Shaw's estate in 1950.

The chief problem was that there was no UK charity that could manage the
funds. The money went to Leeds University to offset some of the expenses involved
in staging a Proposed Parallel British Alphabet competiton.

In the UK, the spelling society does not qualify as a charity or an
educational institution. British law does not recognize a non-profit organziation with
educational goals. U.S. law does but this was an option that was never
explored.

I would like to see an alphabet competition run every 25 years. --Steve

stbetta@... skribis:
>
> I know that Read had a script before Shavian and
> showed it to Shaw in the mid-1940's. I do not know
> anything about this notation or whether or not a
> voiced-unvoiced distinction was part of its design.


Some years ago (before the Internet), I was looking
for more information on the Shaw alphabet. I came
across a book at the University of Michigan which
had an article by James Pittman in it. He mentioned
the alphabet competition, and said that Read's
original submission had the voiced-unvoiced distinction,
but the letters were not rotated. They were just raised
or lowered with respect to the baseline. Pittman said
the committee worked quite a bit with Read to make it
fit their criteria. I wish I could remember the name
of that book.

--Ph. D.

From a Dec 14 posting

Here are three isomorphic alphabets
Keyboard Shavian, AF-Webster, and Unifon.
I think they are logically equivalent since moving from one to the other only
involves
a mapping convention.
The last two use AEIOU or AEIOyU, Shavian uses E I F O V or jM
[tables at www.foolswisdom.com/~sbett/shaw.htm]



Historical Spelling Correct Sound Spelling Dicitonary Key Unifon
Keyboard Shavian Ansi-Fansi
------------------- ------------------------ --------------
---------
affectionate afekSanat øfekshønønt
cfekScncnt
afford afPd øford cfxrd
affrightedly afrFtadli afrýtødlé
afrItcdlE
afraid afrEd øfrád cfrAd
afresh afreS øfresh cfreS
after yftD aftr aftcr
afterwards yftDwDdz aftrwørdz
aftcrwcrdz


www.foolswisdom.com/~sbett/readscripts.gif

Thanks for the lead. It does answer one question we had about
the voiced-unvoiced distinction. It was not an add on but part of Read's
original thinking about having similar shapes for similar sounds.

It doesn't explain why he abandoned the idea ten years later.

Pitman wrote Alphabets and Reading (primarily about the i/t/a)
and published many articles.
Hass wrote a book Alphabets for English which incluced articles
on Shavian but I don't recall one by Pitman.

--Steve
stbetta@... skribis:
>
> I know that Read had a script before Shavian and
> showed it to Shaw in the mid-1940's. I do not know
> anything about this notation or whether or not a
> voiced-unvoiced distinction was part of its design.


Some years ago (before the Internet), I was looking
for more information on the Shaw alphabet. I came
across a book at the University of Michigan which
had an article by James Pittman in it. He mentioned
the alphabet competition, and said that Read's
original submission had the voiced-unvoiced distinction,
but the letters were not rotated. They were just raised
or lowered with respect to the baseline. Pittman said
the committee worked quite a bit with Read to make it
fit their criteria. I wish I could remember the name
of that book.

--Ph. D.

There is a book edited by Patricia Smart, entitled "The Kingsley Read Alphabet Connection: A Catalogue", published by the Library of the University of Reading (England) in 1983.

In an introductory article by Read, he states:

"When, around Christmas 1941, I read Shaw's preface [to "The Miraculous Birth of Language", by Richard Albert Wilson, 1941], I was 54, old enough to back keen interest with long perseverance. After a month's preparation I submitted to Shaw (a) a tentative alphabet of 47 letters (b) reasons for choosing them, and (c) their transcription of his test-piece of nonsense. To these I added (d) a sheet of variously styled lettering to show how the alphabet might be adapted in writing, printing or display, to scribble a note or engrave a monument, to print books or make neon signs . . . At his desire, in 1943 I prepared a manual with examples, entitled "Sound-writing: a method and an economy in spelling." Shaw found it 'admirably clear', though he disliked some 'graceless lettering.'"

So this trial preceded the Shaw Alphabet by several years. Unfotunately the book from Reading University is really only a bibliography, without illustrations, so there's no visual image to associate with the text. The only illustration is a card that shows the alphabets of the Shaw Alphabet, Quickscript, and Readspel in parallel columns.

Perhaps someone in GB could visit Reading and hunt up the proto-manuscript, scan it, and make it available.

LM
----- Original Message -----
From: Ph. D.
To: shawalphabet@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Thursday, December 16, 2004 1:58 PM
Subject: [shawalphabet] Proto-Shavian


stbetta@... skribis:
>
> I know that Read had a script before Shavian and
> showed it to Shaw in the mid-1940's. I do not know
> anything about this notation or whether or not a
> voiced-unvoiced distinction was part of its design.


Some years ago (before the Internet), I was looking
for more information on the Shaw alphabet. I came
across a book at the University of Michigan which
had an article by James Pittman in it. He mentioned
the alphabet competition, and said that Read's
original submission had the voiced-unvoiced distinction,
but the letters were not rotated. They were just raised
or lowered with respect to the baseline. Pittman said
the committee worked quite a bit with Read to make it
fit their criteria. I wish I could remember the name
of that book.

--Ph. D.

Hi Steve

While I agree with some of your points, concerning new students,
I want to correct one misapprehension.

Phonemic Spelling in itself is easy. But not with the Roman Alphabet.

Because the Roman Alphabet has only 5 Vowel letters, each letter can
represent 3 or 4 of the 18 possible common English Vowel sounds
(minus 6 Rhotic vowels) represented by the Shavian letters, with
some overlap. Some Vowel letters or vowel letter combinations even
represent the the same sound as other different Vowel Letters or
combinations. (i.e. for American English, the broad a sounds the
same as the soft o)
Consequently it is almost impossible pick out just one vowel letter
to spell out the vowels in an English word, phonemically.

The Dutch system of using the context of open or closed syllables to
determine whether the Vowel is Long or Soft, is a possibility.
But even so it would look foreign to anyone familar with T.O.
English in the T.O. can't have really have a Phonemic spelling,
unless we add more vowel letters, or some systematic method of
determining the precises vowel sound. Dicritics, Perhaps.

Phonemic spelling for English is impossible as it stands, because of
the Restricted number of Vowel Letters in T.O.

Regards, Paul, V.

_______________________attached_____________________________
--- In shawalphabet@yahoogroups.com, stbetta@a... wrote:

This is a response to a response to an article that claimed that
when people mispell words they do not mispell them phonemically.
The misspelling is often
less phonemic than the traditional spelling.
This was taken as an argument
against phonemic spelling whose advocates have always argued that
phonemic spelling is transparent.
> Not all poor spellers spell phonemically.
> In fact, some do not have a clear concept of sound spelling.
>
> Does everyone find phonemic spelling easier?
> Not necessarily, you first have to have mastered sound spelling.
>
> So the answer to "Does everyone find phonemic spelling easier?" is
no.
> However, most people do find phonemic spelling easier.
>
> A phonemic spelling would spell <GIANT> jíønt /'jI&nt/ /jai-@nt/
> <g-ai-nt> is just one letter away from a phonemic spelling so it
may not be
> the best example.
>
> --Steve
> > (The article does raise one question which advocates of simpler
> > spelling must answer, and which I've never heard any simpler-
spelling
> > advocate even try to answer: if spelling phonemically would
reduce or
> > eliminate spelling-errors, why do so many spelling-errors depart
even
> > further from phonemic correctness than tradspel does? If poor
spellers
> > spell phonemically, and if a phonemic spelling-standard would
therefore
> > help them, why do we see poor spellers [e.g.] spelling "giant"
most
> > unphonemically as "gaint"?)

Paul,

Of course you need 14 vowel symbols for a complete representation of spoken
English but there are several ways to achieve this goal short of dumping the
Roman letterforms.

IPA has one symbol per sound and uses an augmented Roman Alphabet.
Webster has one symbol per sound and uses the Roman Alphabet augmented with
diacritics.

Prof. Sweet (1896) said that the problem with the English writing system is
not the shortage of symbols but the lack of consistency and rationality.

http://www.foolswisdom.com/~sbett/14words.htm
A L T E R N A T E T R A N S C R I P T I O N S
The 7 long (free) vowels plus the /aI/ diphthong and the short vowel /U/ as
in hook
TradSpel- urge arm age eel awl alms ode hoop pull pool
canoe aside acid
WEBSTER-&rj ärm áj él ôl ämz ók hüp pul pül k&nü &'síd asid
Unifon urj orm Aj El xl omz Ok hUp pCl pUl kcnU csId asid
IPA 3`j a:m eij i:l Ol ämz oUk hu:p pul pu:l k@'nu: @'saId 'æ-sid
Shavian: xJ yrm Ej Il ol yms od hup pUl pMl kanM asFd Asid
Shavian: xJ Rm EJ Il ol yms Od hup pUl pMl kanM asFd Asid
Spanglish urj aarm eij iel awl aams owd huup pwl puul canu asaid

ANCI-- ûrj ärm áj él ôl ämz ód hüp pul pül kìnü/kànü èsíd
TH -- urj àrm áj él awl àmz ód húp pul púl kenú/kanú asíd
Lojicl euj aam aej eel awl omz oed hoop puul pool keunoo [midland
dialect?]
Sndspel urj arm aej eel aul aams oed hoop puul pool kanu asied
asid
i/t/a urj ärm aej eel aul äms oed huep pwl pool känoo asied
asid
7 short vowels
TS -- ago ax etch in ox up hook-pull surfer

Unifon cgO aks eK in oks up hCk/pCl surfcr
Webster &'gO aks ech in äks &p huk/pul 's&rf&r
Diacritic øgó aks ech in äks ûp huk sûrfør
Steve
Phonemic Spelling in itself is easy. But not with the Roman Alphabet.

Because the Roman Alphabet has only 5 Vowel letters, each letter can
represent 3 or 4 of the 18 possible common English Vowel sounds
(minus 6 Rhotic vowels) represented by the Shavian letters, with
some overlap.
Some Vowel letters or vowel letter combinations even
represent the the same sound as other different Vowel Letters or
combinations. (i.e. for American English, the broad a sounds the
same as the soft o)
Consequently it is almost impossible pick out just one vowel letter
to spell out the vowels in an English word, phonemically.

The Dutch system of using the context of open or closed syllables to
determine whether the Vowel is Long or Soft, is a possibility.
But even so it would look foreign to anyone familar with T.O.
English in the T.O. can't have really have a Phonemic spelling,
unless we add more vowel letters, or some systematic method of
determining the precises vowel sound. Dicritics, Perhaps.

Phonemic spelling for English is impossible as it stands, because of
the Restricted number of Vowel Letters in T.O.

Regards, Paul, V.

Paul wrote:

Did the Spelling Society [www.spellingsociety.org] ever fully support the
i/t/a?
You [Steve] said:
"They [the simplified spellers] all believed that English should be written
closer to the way it is spoken and that moving to a more phonemic
representation of the dominant dialect would reduce the burden on children, accelerate
literacy, and increase the reading and writing abilities of the masses."

PV: Obviously, they also believed in retaining the Roman Alphabet, other
wise they would be using the Shavian Alphabet by now.
Did they ever fully support the Pitman I.T.A., which is the best
other phonemic representation.
SB: The Spelling Society rarely endorses any scheme. In the early 1900's
they endorsed
New Spelling which was the digraphic form of Pitman's i/t/a. In the 1980's
they endorsed
Cut Spelling which was traditional spelling without silent letters other than
letters that were used as markers such as the "magic e"in bite /biet/ /bFt/
/baIt/

Cut Spelling removed the redundant characters in traditional spelling. It
had only a couple of substitutions such as f for /f/, j for /j/, and y for
/igh/. gems=jems, highly = hyly, phone = fone. Spanglish: jemz, haily,
fón/fown. [see www.spellingsociety.org]

Before the society could endorse a notation, they would have to poll the
membership. To my knowledge, this was not done when Pitman was the president of
the society so it is hard to say how much support he had. Given the general
support for New Spelling, I would think it would be rather high. The only
complaint that I have heard was that Pitman's scheme was transitory. It was a
stepping stone to traditional spelling rather than a stepping stone to spelling
reform.

Pitman and Mont Follick were MP's and were instrumental in getting spelling
reform on the ballot. They knew their bill would never pass the House of Lords
so they made a compromise: They would withdraw their bill if the government
would support an experiment.

The i/t/a was chosen as the orthography to be introduced into select schools
to see if just changing the media [or orthography] would have the desired
impact. [The i/t/a/ was not a method]. Since the only change involved
transcribing the basal readers that were commonly used, the results were mixed.

Basal readers use a restricted vocabulary and repetition to get students to
recognize sight words. There is no emphasis on sound spelling. Even without
phonics instruction, students using the i/t/a readers progressed twice as fast
as those using the traditional readers.

The basal reader approach was too effective at promoting sight word
recognition. Whole words became meaning symbols rather than strings of sound-signs.
After two years reading in i/t/a some students had trouble transitioning to
traditional spelling. They associated the spelling SHOE with the meaning <show>
and SHOO with the meaning <shoe>. To transition, they had to unlearn these
associations.

After 2 years with the i/t/a students overlearned the i/t/a spelling of sight
words but many failed to learn how to sound spell. The teaching method did
not emphaise spelling.

If students started by learning Shavian they would progress just as fast and
there would be no conflict with traditional spelling. The i/t/a had an 85%
overlap tradspel and represented one of the common ways to spell a sound.
Shavian has 0% overlap.

Most people think that Shavian would not help people learn to read and write
traditionally. I think it would help, but perhaps not as much as with the
i/t/a or some other Roman based phonemic representation.

---------------------

Follick was once a professor of Spanish and his scheme involved using the
Spanish orthography to represent English. It was therefore close the IPA.

Spanish has 5 vowels and English has 14 uncombined vowels so digraphs were
used for the long vowels. aeiou short, ei ii ai ou iu long.

Spanglish represents about as tradspel like as you can get with a continental
sound system. ei ie ai/ý ow/ó iu The marked vowels refer to shifted
vowels.

[www.foolswisdom.com/~sbett/sp-3d.htm]

PV: I think they have the misconception that simple has to be smaller.
Please rephrase this comment.

--Steve

Hi Steve

You asked about my comment.
> PV: I think they have the misconception that simpler has to be
smaller.

I was making the General Comment, the Simplified Spelling Society
would generally like to do more with less letters, rather than add
in needed letters. For example, their Diagraphic implementation of
I.T.A.
It would have better if they had just added in the additional
symbols,
litigures and all.
The additional letters not only flag to the user that they are using
a new form of Orthography, but also eliminate the additional
decoding and selection needed to process the letter singly or as a
Diagraph.
As an alternate implementation, perhaps if the Diagraphs had been
underscored or circled, it might have worked better.

I also agree that the learning of the Shavian Alphabet would have
benefits for many children, when they switched to Tradspell.

It is a Dammed Shame that they had to mess around with the
implementation of the Original Pitman I.T.A.


Regards, Paul V.

P.S. That's a technique that I use when teaching reading. I circle
the Diagraphs and cross out the silent letters.
__________________attached_________________________________
--- In shawalphabet@yahoogroups.com, stbetta@a... wrote:
> Paul wrote:
>
> Did the Spelling Society [www.spellingsociety.org] ever fully
support the
> i/t/a?
> You [Steve] said:
> "They [the simplified spellers] all believed that English should
be written
> closer to the way it is spoken and that moving to a more phonemic
> representation of the dominant dialect would reduce the burden on
children, accelerate
> literacy, and increase the reading and writing abilities of the
masses."
>
> PV: Obviously, they also believed in retaining the Roman Alphabet,
other
> wise they would be using the Shavian Alphabet by now.
> Did they ever fully support the Pitman I.T.A., which is the best
> other phonemic representation.
> SB: The Spelling Society rarely endorses any scheme. In the early
1900's
> they endorsed
> New Spelling which was the digraphic form of Pitman's i/t/a. In
the 1980's
> they endorsed
> Cut Spelling which was traditional spelling without silent letters
other than
> letters that were used as markers such as the "magic e"in
bite /biet/ /bFt/
> /baIt/
>
> Cut Spelling removed the redundant characters in traditional
spelling. It
> had only a couple of substitutions such as f for /f/, j for /j/,
and y for
> /igh/. gems=jems, highly = hyly, phone = fone. Spanglish:
jemz, haily,
> fón/fown. [see www.spellingsociety.org]
>
> Before the society could endorse a notation, they would have to
poll the
> membership. To my knowledge, this was not done when Pitman was
the president of
> the society so it is hard to say how much support he had. Given
the general
> support for New Spelling, I would think it would be rather high.
The only
> complaint that I have heard was that Pitman's scheme was
transitory. It was a
> stepping stone to traditional spelling rather than a stepping
stone to spelling
> reform.
> After 2 years with the i/t/a students overlearned the i/t/a
spelling of sight
> words but many failed to learn how to sound spell. The teaching
method did
> not emphaise spelling.
>
> If students started by learning Shavian they would progress just
as fast and
> there would be no conflict with traditional spelling. The i/t/a
had an 85%
> overlap tradspel and represented one of the common ways to spell a
sound.
> Shavian has 0% overlap.
>
> Most people think that Shavian would not help people learn to read
and write
> traditionally. I think it would help, but perhaps not as much as
with the
> i/t/a or some other Roman based phonemic representation.

>
> PV: I think they have the misconception that simple has to be
smaller.
> Please rephrase this comment.
>
> --Steve

I vote to keep it the same in value.

best of regards,

Carl

paul vandenbrink <pvandenbrink@...> wrote:

Hi Everybody

I think the poll is missing a couple of potential responses.
I myself would like to have the option of saying.

- I don't think it is practical to change the Shavain Alphabet after
45 years.
- I think that the letter Hung should be a Short letter like the
other nasal letters Mime and Nun.

Regards, Paul V.

--- In shawalphabet@yahoogroups.com, shawalphabet@yahoogroups.com
wrote:
>
>
> Enter your vote today! A new poll has been created for the
> shawalphabet group:
>
> Hung and ha-ha?
>
> o They're fine the way they are.
> o I believe there was a clerical error.
> o I feel Read should have made 'hung' tall to begin with.
> o I think we should switch the letters before we try to spread
the alphabet any further.
>
>
> To vote, please visit the following web page:
> http://groups.yahoo.com/group/shawalphabet/surveys?id1650
>
> Note: Please do not reply to this message. Poll votes are
> not collected via email. To vote, you must go to the Yahoo! Groups
> web site listed above.
>
> Thanks!




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