Shawalphabet YahooGroup Archive Browser

--- In shawalphabet@yahoogroups.com, "Ph. D." wrote:

> stbetta@a... 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.


That's interesting. I had suspected that because he so readily
abandoned this distinction that it had not been his idea to
begin with and instead had come from one of the other finalists,
but apparently this is not the case. The same letter merely raised
or lowered however would be easily confused, wouldn't it? Or
would there have been a mirror-image reversal? Do you happen
to recall anything of what the committee's criteria were, or did
the article go into that kind of detail? And who might the
other finalists have been?


regards,
dshep

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


> I don't think pronunciation has changed since 1958.
> I doubt if dictionary pronunciation guides have changed. 
> There was always a variety of ways the word could be
> pronounced and understood.



The use of the notation 'i' to designate the slightly stressed
sound (as opposed to the fully stressed long 'i:') at the end
of words such as 'happy' first occurred I believe in the Second
Edition of the Shorter OED some years ago (there is now a
third, both editions in two hefty volumes).

One can say that it is a short version, with the same value,
of the long vowel, and whether or not it akshuli denotes a
newer trend in pronunciation, one with greater emphasis,
or merely a more accurate transcription of the existing
pronunciation was not I don't think made clear. It could be
either one. If the latter, then a similar situation perhaps
arises with the words 'arrival' and 'assemble', as noticed.
Is there a slight semi-stress on the initial sound that could
or should be recognized?

A range of stress can occur with vowels, stressed, half-stressed,
and unstressed, and what do you do about the second category,
if anything? The previous situation was simpler, with only
stressed vowels indicated, whether long or short, plus the
deliberately vague schwa used to accommodate uncertainty.

Another innovation in the Second was the transcription of
the vowel sound of words like 'my' not as [ai] but as inverted
v + dotless i, or up-if in Shavian.


regards,
dshep

dshepx skribis:
>
> --- In shawalphabet@yahoogroups.com, "Ph. D." wrote:
>
> > stbetta@a... 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.
>
>
> That's interesting. I had suspected that because he so readily
> abandoned this distinction that it had not been his idea to
> begin with and instead had come from one of the other finalists,
> but apparently this is not the case. The same letter merely raised
> or lowered however would be easily confused, wouldn't it? Or
> would there have been a mirror-image reversal? Do you happen
> to recall anything of what the committee's criteria were, or did
> the article go into that kind of detail? And who might the
> other finalists have been?

As I recall, Pittman said that the committee wanted each letter to
be recognizable in isolation. Without a baseline, those letters
could not be distinguished. I don't recall any other discussion of
criteria nor mention of the other finalists. The finalists are listed in
_Androcles_ as Pauline Barrett (Canada), J. F. Magrath, S. L.
Pugmire, and Kingsley Read.

I'm very busy right now, but if I get some time, I'll try to get back
to the library and see if I can find that book again.

--Ph. D.

PV: By 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.

SB: Ideally it would be better but remember that the simplified spellers were
a reaction to the lack of success of the Phonemic Spelling Council. The
simplified spellers think that compromise will lead to some popular movement in
the right direction.

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.

That is certainly possible many places but not in all email.

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

The question is can you sell the idea? The simplified spellers don't think
you can.

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

Why?
I do think it is a shame that they did not implement it under optimal
conditions. More recent studies in Minnesota indicate that the i/t/a
implemented in a different way (more akin to a writing to read program than a
basal reader program) is significantly times better than any of the popular
phonics programs.

PV: That's a technique that I use when teaching reading. I circle
the Diagraphs and cross out the silent letters.
__________________attached_________________________________

PV: 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: 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.

ISSUE: Has pronunciation of English changed in the last 45 years?
If it has, it should be reflected in dictionaries and pronunciation guides.
However, telling the difference between a change in a spoken norm and a change
in how speech is transcribed is difficult.

> SB wrote: I don't think pronunciation has changed since 1958.
> I doubt if dictionary pronunciation guides have changed.
> There was always a variety of ways the word could be
> pronounced and understood.


DSCHEP: The use of the notation 'i' to designate the slightly stressed
sound (as opposed to the fully stressed long 'i:') at the end
of words such as 'happy' first occurred I believe in the Second
Edition of the Shorter OED some years ago (there is now a
third, both editions in two hefty volumes).

One can say that it is a short version, with the same value,
of the long vowel, and whether or not it akshuli denotes a
newer trend in pronunciation, one with greater emphasis,
or merely a more accurate transcription of the existing
pronunciation was not I don't think made clear. It could be
either one. If the latter, then a similar situation perhaps
arises with the words 'arrival' and 'assemble', as noticed.
Is there a slight semi-stress on the initial sound that could
or should be recognized?

A range of stress can occur with vowels, stressed, half-stressed,
and unstressed, and what do you do about the second category,
if anything? The previous situation was simpler, with only
stressed vowels indicated, whether long or short, plus the
deliberately vague schwa used to accommodate uncertainty.

Another innovation in the Second was the transcription of
the vowel sound of words like 'my' not as [ai] but as inverted
v + dotless i, or up-if in Shavian.

Phil,

Improving Shavian is just a thread.

It started with the publication of Paul's
new shavian on his web page and on omniglot.

The original posting was that if you change Shavian, then you should call it
something else.

This evolved into different ideas as to what a "better Shavian" would look
like and whether or not QuickScript was better and if so in what respect.

Threads continue until members grow tired of them.
Phil Newton: Possibly it can be improved. Maybe Quikscript, or ANSI or Unifon
or
whatever is even better. Fine. Those who like those can use them. But
please don't try to change Shavian at this point in time. And please stop
campaining for a different way of representing English or a Brilliant New Way to
Improve the Shaw alphabet.
I don't think anyone suggested that Unifon was a better script. Someone did
suggest that keyboard Unifon was probably more intuitive for newbies than
keyboard Shavian.

Changing the keyboard mapping would have not effect on display Shavian at all.

Another suggestion was to have a minimal Shavian that did not include the
symbols for ligatures such as R P and D. This would reduce the number of
arbitrary sound symbol assignments that had to be memorized.

What have you learned about Shavian as a result of the suggestions for
improving it? I learned a couple of things.

--Steve

Star, celestraof12worlds@...

There is no way to blackball a thread on a discussion group.
so you can continue to discuss keyboard mapping.

What questions did you want to ask. What issues did you want to raise?

I think the poll set up by the group administrator indicates that
there is not much support for updating Shavian.

There should probably be another poll on the quesiton of
updating the keyboard map.

I think the keyboard map should be a stand alone phonemic orthography and as
transparent
and intuitive as possible for those adept in traditonal spelling.

The poll also failed to determine if there was any interest in building an
improved
phonemic orthography that eliminated some of the problems with Shavian.
Read himself came up with a new scheme that was related to the original Shaw
alphabet.
Was this the best revision? It depends on what you are trying to do.

Read was trying to adapt the script to the difficulties reported by known
users.

We have the added problem of typesetting Shavian.

Does anyone know how the original the Shaw Alphabet font that was used for
Androcles worked?

--Steve

Can we still discuss keyboards? *eg* As soon as I move, I'm planning to
take shavian out into my community. I will send photographs :) I am
interested in different ways to drive people's interest, such as
posting signs in shavian with famous quotes. Though it won't be too
long before I'm accused of terrorism for it, but hey, what's 20yrs in
prison without familial contacts?

--Star, who is planning her Shavian crusade.

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

> On Thu, 16 Dec 2004 00:56:32 -0000, Hugh Birkenhead
> <mixsynth@...> wrote:
> >
> > The same applies here: if you wish
> > to construct yourself a modified form of Shavian, go modify what
> you want to
> > modify, create yourself a new Yahoo Group
> (http://groups.yahoo.com/start)
> > and let people who agree with you join up.
>
> I second this. Please argue this elsewhere and keep this list for
> "traditional" Shavian.
>
> > I don't think there's any point
> > campaigning here on this topic when your observations will (for the
> most
> > part) fall on deaf ears, because we've been over it so many times
> before.
>
> Yes, and I'm starting to grow sick of it. It's seriously making me
> consider just dropping Shavian altogether since while I don't use it
> much, I do use it a little and I would like to use it the way I
> learned it rather than getting bogged down into arguments about how
> it
> sucks and could be improved.
>
> Possibly it can be improved. Maybe Quikscript, or ANSI or Unifon or
> whatever is even better. Fine. Those who like those can use them. But
> please don't try to change Shavian at this point in time. And please
> (to the general "you") stop campaining for a different way of
> representing English or a Brilliant New Way to Improve the Shaw
> alphabet.
>
> Yours frustratedly,
> --
> Philip Newton <philip.newton@...>
>

stbetta@... skribis:
>
> We have the added problem of typesetting Shavian.
>
> Does anyone know how the original the Shaw Alphabet
> font that was used for Androcles worked?

_Androcles_ was printed letterpress, i.e. from metal type.
The type was composed on the Monotype system. The
Monotype keyboard machine punches a wide paper tape
as the operator enters the text. The Monotype casting
machine reads the paper tape and casts individual pieces
of type for each character. It uses a "die case" of matrices.
This is a 15x15 grid where each cell is 0.2 inches square
and contains a piece of brass with the character cut into it
(this is called a "matrix").

The book was printed by Stephen Austin and Sons. Around
1980, I wrote to them and offered to buy either the die case
or some metal type cast by them for Shavian. They told me
that they still had the matrices and would be happy to print
something, but they refused to sell either the matrices or some
of the cast type.

Around 1988, I learned that Stephen Austin and Sons had
discarded all their metal printing equipment. I was afraid the
Shavian matrices had been scrapped, but later I learned that
they had been saved and had been presented to the National
Printing Trust in London, which is some kind of government
organizarion holding much of England's printing heritage.

Other questions are: How many Shavian typewriters were
made, how many are still in existance, and where are they?

--Ph. D.

The big change I notice in U.S. dictionary pronunciation
transcriptions since 1958 is in the unstressed i-like sound you
mention. It is now shown as a long sound which would
be written with Shavian 'eat', whereas in the past it was written with
a symbol for the short sound equivalent to Shavian 'if'. A U.S.
Shavian in 1958 might have written 'hApi' if he were following these
transcriptions, while now we'd probably write 'hApI'.

In U.K. dictionaries, in 1958 and today, this sound is transcribed as
a short sound, equivalent to 'if'. 'hApi' would have been a normal
uncontroversial transliteration for the editors of Androcles to
choose.

As for 'arrival' and 'assemble', I think these really are errors in
Androcles. MacCarthy was liberal in his use of the letter 'ado' so he
wouldn't have shied away from using it. I can't find a dictionary
transcription of these words with the 'ash' sound in the first
syllable, just the schwa. So I think someone just put in 'ash' when
they meant 'ado'. (Actually to be consistent with usage elsewhere the
first letter of 'arrival' and 'arrive' should be the compound letter
'array'.)

Regards,
Jeff

--- In shawalphabet@yahoogroups.com, "dshepx" <dshep@g...> wrote:
>
> --- In shawalphabet@yahoogroups.com, stbetta@a... wrote:
>
>
> > I don't think pronunciation has changed since 1958.
> > I doubt if dictionary pronunciation guides have changed.
> > There was always a variety of ways the word could be
> > pronounced and understood.
>
>
>
> The use of the notation 'i' to designate the slightly stressed
> sound (as opposed to the fully stressed long 'i:') at the end
> of words such as 'happy' first occurred I believe in the Second
> Edition of the Shorter OED some years ago (there is now a
> third, both editions in two hefty volumes).
>
> One can say that it is a short version, with the same value,
> of the long vowel, and whether or not it akshuli denotes a
> newer trend in pronunciation, one with greater emphasis,
> or merely a more accurate transcription of the existing
> pronunciation was not I don't think made clear. It could be
> either one. If the latter, then a similar situation perhaps
> arises with the words 'arrival' and 'assemble', as noticed.
> Is there a slight semi-stress on the initial sound that could
> or should be recognized?
>
> A range of stress can occur with vowels, stressed, half-stressed,
> and unstressed, and what do you do about the second category,
> if anything? The previous situation was simpler, with only
> stressed vowels indicated, whether long or short, plus the
> deliberately vague schwa used to accommodate uncertainty.
>
> Another innovation in the Second was the transcription of
> the vowel sound of words like 'my' not as [ai] but as inverted
> v + dotless i, or up-if in Shavian.
>
>
> regards,
> dshep

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Ph. D. [mailto:phild@...]

[snip]
> The book was printed by Stephen Austin and Sons. Around
> 1980, I wrote to them and offered to buy either the die case
> or some metal type cast by them for Shavian. They told me
> that they still had the matrices and would be happy to print
> something, but they refused to sell either the matrices or some
> of the cast type.
>
> Around 1988, I learned that Stephen Austin and Sons had
> discarded all their metal printing equipment. I was afraid the
> Shavian matrices had been scrapped, but later I learned that
> they had been saved and had been presented to the National
> Printing Trust in London, which is some kind of government
> organizarion holding much of England's printing heritage.

Hmm... can't find any information at all about this National Printing Trust
- at least, not on the Web. You sure it wasn't a "printing" department of
the National Trust?

> Other questions are: How many Shavian typewriters were
> made, how many are still in existance, and where are they?

That's a great question - one I asked myself a while back. At the time I was
looking to see what their keyboard layout was like so we could design a
better mapping. I would gladly help in the search, if we were to go looking
for them.

Reading University seems as good a place as any to start the search. It
holds plenty of material by and about Kingsley Read, including lots on
Shavian (I'm sure I heard they have a complete Shaw Script magazine archive)
- who knows, maybe they know who has the surviving typewriter(s)...

> --Ph. D.

Hugh B