Shawalphabet YahooGroup Archive Browser

F supOz F rIli nId t klErifF mF jMs v H wOrd 'sili'.


( rI: 2:48...)

wun person waz mEkiN a spekjMlativ asumpSon HAt wen /Jezus sed 'it iz
finiSd' it ment HAt nO mOr rFtiN kud bI Aded t H bFbel.

if her asumpSon waz kOrekt Her never wUd hAv ben a nM testament, sins
/krFst mEd HAt stEtment in H jIr E.d. 30 n H rFtiN v H nM testament did
not Iven begin until AnoHer 38 jIrz lEter.

His iz wF F kYld her loJik 'sili'--nQ wUdnt jM agrI?

dshep wrote:

>For myself i just use the [a] no matter what as that avoids that
problem.

Actually I don't. In the contest between philosophical standpoints
and pragmatic execution I generally allow pragmatics to prevail,
without thinking about it overly much. So I notice that when writing
anything I use [i] to end such words as happy, silly, funny etc. Not
quite the /ee/ sound of [I] but close enough as far as my speech is
concerned. Moreover this choice also avoids what might be perceived
as stress distortion in simple words.

generally philosophically impaired,
dshep

--- In shawalphabet@yahoogroups.com, "Philip Newton" wrote:
>
> On Fri, Apr 11, 2008 at 8:10 AM, dshep <dshep@...> wrote:
[...]
> > >I'd like shwi, to match my 'lect as well.

So would I, but is it really such a good idea? I can readily foresee
the endless proliferation of letters for alternative realisations of
the same phoneme.

For a universally readable English script, we need to have an agreed
and _known_ set of letters that kids in school can learn and master
by the end of, say, second grade. If we need 53 letters to cover the
phoneme sets of all speakers of English as a first langauage, then by
all means, let's have them. OTOH, if 38 suffice, let's make do with
that many.

I believe the consensus of linguists is that stress is phonemic in
English, but that "quantity", that is, vowel length, isn't. Again, I
believe that linguists mostly recognise three stress levels in
English: primary stress, secondary stress and weak stress
(or "unstress", that is, non-stressedness). Please do correct me if
I'm wrong in either of these descriptions.

Based on the above, I'd like to see *separate* letters available -
but not mandatory! - for primary and secondary stress. Poets,
playwrights (and transcribers) would find them useful to specify the
exact sound they intend (or heard); and everyone would be able to use
them to distinguish between, say, repair (re0pair1) and re-pair (re2-
pair1, to form pairs again).

Perhaps any script for English without distinct signs ("letters") for
suprasegmentals such as stress is condemned to leave some
transcriptions underspecified. If so, are we justified in thinking
such a script inadequate? I would say, for some purposes, yes, if
not for all.


> > >However, "standard" Shavian doesn't match my 'lect in all
matters, anyway (mostly the use of "short a" in words such
as "master" rather than the "ah" sound I use there), and it's even
further removed for many speakers of American varieties, so I'm not
sure whether this is a necessity.
> >
> > Well, you could write mystD. Why not? Wasn't there a character in
one of those Mad Max films called mystD blystD? We must accept
spelling differences that reflect pronunciation differences, as there
is yet no "correct" standard, is there?

Nor can there be!


> Well, I was going by _Androcles_ and Shaw's request to
represent "Northern English" as the basis of the written standard; as
I understand it, that variety of English doesn't use the so-
called "broad A", so the vowel sounds in "pass" and "mass" are the
same, also in "class" and "classic", whereas I have "broad A" in the
first word of each pair and "flat A" in the second.

Ditto.


> > Unless of course we all agree to accept the AH as our guide,
which would be fine with me.

It still puzzles me why *anybody* would expect all speakers of
English to accept a dictionary that specifically describes the speech
of one nation, class or group, as a prescription for the *non-
phonemic* spelling of their own different speech group. If your
dialect doesn't have "broad a", then you don't need it to write down
your own speech or thoughts; but if it does, you do. How can there
then be one single standard for all?


> IIRC the AHD also uses "flat A" for such words - making it a fairly
useful guide to (what I think was intended to be) standard Shavian
spelling.

Whilst recognising that Shaw was not a prophet delivering holy writ,
I do believe the man had a genius for language, which included
understanding that not all people speak the same variety of their
first language. "Pygmalion", I think, demonstrates this pretty
well. From this, I think it unlikely that he ever intended there to
be a single standard Shavian spelling. What he wanted was a script
that provided one distinct letter for each class of sounds (whether
phoneme or allophone is of lesser importance), so that at one stroke,
trying to figure out how to spell a word need never again waste the
time of any English speaker. That means that each speaker would be
able to write down his own words unambiguously, so that any English
reader could reconstruct the original utterance without error. It
doesn't follow that your words and mine would be spelt
(or "spelled"!) the same; since they probably differ in sound (ie the
string of phonemes used), they would, ipso facto, probably be spelt
differently.


> On the third hand, the foreword to _Androcles_ does suggest that
everyone should write the way they speak, and leave standardisation
to printers and editors.

And whether standardisation is (a) possiible, (b) necessary or (c)
desirable is moot anyway.


> > >Also, I'd worry that "an i with a diminutive tail" would be
easily confused with "egg".
> >
> > Yes, one would have to be careful about that. It would have to be
kept vertical, and could be given a little fishhook tail that turn
upwards a bit--that should be enough to distinguish the two. Or
perhaps a little tick-mark.

Shaw was right to make his bequest for the _design_ of a new script!
Each letter needs to be readily differentiated from each other, in
particular, no two forms should be mirror-images, as this causes
endless trouble for the high proportion of dyslexics in the
population; the script needs to be ergonomic ie energy-efficient to
write; and aesthetics are also important - it should be as beautiful
as possible. The suggestions given above show one common approach
for adding a variant letter, by slight alterations; another possible
approach is to make the variant completely dissimilar to the existing
form, to reduce the possibility of confusing the two.


> I'm not against such an extra letter in principle.
>
> However, I can imagine that it could start a slippery slope for
adding new letters required for phonemes that other groups
distinguish, for example "wait" and "weight" (vowel), "horse"
and "hoarse" (vowel), or "which" and "witch" (consonant).

Agreed.


> It's pretty much impossible to produce a phonemic writing system
that will represent all varieties of spoken English; it'll invariably
have to make more distinctions than some do (so they have to learn
how to spell words) and/or fewer distinctions than others do.

Don't agree with these conclusions. Can you imagine a class of kids
in school writing their essays on "How I spent the holidays", each
one passing in their own spelling of "Christmas"? Joe from Sydney
will have "k-r-i1-s-m-u0-s", whilst Ravi from Kolkata will write: "k-
r-ee1-s-m-ah2-s". (0, 1 and 2 represent stress signs.) Hey, this
sort of thing happens even now, and apparently teachers don't even
correct, except in English class work!


> Making the maximum number of distinctions possible seems
undesirable to me, since then you'd have to learn the spelling of
lots and lots of words (since your own pronunciation is not a good
guide as to which of two or three or four possible letters is the
correct spelling), so a good compromise requires underdifferentiation
in some cases.

Only distinct phonemes need to be distinguished; there is no one "the
correct spelling", but there are several perfectly good ways of
spelling what we now think of as the same word. A word is only a
sequence of phonemes from a linguist's (strictly, a phonemicist's)
point of view; in terms of meaning, a word is rather a set of
denotations or connotations, which different speakers will and do
realise as different utterances; yet it's the meaning we seem
to "hear", and not the sounds.


> > I know this was a radical and probably unwelcome suggestion, but
how else does one deal with words like happy, hurry, silly, merry,
jolly, etc which when written with a final [I] appear to put the
stress on the wrong vowel, as the long vowel is usually expected to
be the stressed vowel if there are but two?

Separate the stress (and maybe, pitch) phonemes from the segmental
ones for consonants, vowels, and semivowels. Agree on an acceptable
way (or set of ways) of positioning the stress letter, eg (1)
straight after the vowel or (2) at the beginning of the syllable or
(3) at the end of the syllable. Methods (2) and (3), however,
require agreement on syllabification, which is not universal amongst
scholars, let alone amongst school students.


> As for that, I think that in RP it was considered proper to
pronounce it with a final short [i], which I think you can hear in
the "posh" speech of people some years ago (I think it's getting
less).

Rah-li? ;-)

Regards,
Yahya

re: on more shavian refinement

Philip writes:

>It's a bit like how half the Proto-Indo-European vowels seem to have
>turned into /a/ in Sanskrit, I suppose.

Could be the least-effort principle at work here too: /a/ is an easy
sound to make as well. I'm reading an interesting book at the moment
entitled "The Horse, The Wheel, and Language" about the Indo-
Europeans. Because of advances made in the field of genetics
scholarly opinion has been obliged to alter the traditional view of a
mass migration out of the southern Russian steppes (or alternatively
Anatolia) and embrace instead the fact that most of us of European
descent, that is to say our ancestors, were there before the ancestor
of most of our languages appeared. The model now appears to be
something similar to what happened to South America, where a small
group of technologically advanced adventurers were able to not only
subdue but to impose their language and culture upon a much larger
indigenous population. In the case of the Indo-European steppe people
their technological superiority lay in the fact that they arrived on
horseback (as did the Conquistedores), enabling them to establish
dominance both over the farming population (who did emanate from
Anatolia) and the original foragers still living beyond the fringes
of the agricultural settlements. The latter group however, apparently
still represents the largest genetic group in Europe. If all this is
more or less accurate, then the Basque people may be correct in
maintaining that they are the only ones who speak a "European" language.

>Well, I was going by _Androcles_ and Shaw's request to represent
>"Northern English" as the basis of the written standard; as I
>understand it, that variety of English doesn't use the so-called
>"broad A", so the vowel sounds in "pass" and "mass" are the same, ...

Ah yes, I'd forgotten about that. The language of the touring
theatre, if I'm not mistaken--which is a reasonable choice to reach
the largest possible audience. Shaw himself frequently derided what
he called the "Oxford" accent, by which I guess he meant RP, or the
more posh varieties of such. By designating George V as the model to
follow he may have been reacting to the rather affected speech of his
successor Edward, subsequently Duke of Windsor.

>IIRC the AHD also uses "flat A" for such words - making it a fairly
>useful guide to (what I think was intended to be) standard Shavian
>spelling.

Yes it does. It also retains /o/ for the /got/pot/lot/ series of
words rather
than use the /ä/ of Webster's, allowing anyone to supply their
preferred pronunciation (hence avoiding the short-o dispute) which is
an advantage. The AHD does seem to represent the closest match to the
Shaw Alphabet.

>On the third hand, the foreword to _Androcles_ does suggest that
>everyone should write the way they speak, and leave standardisation
>to printers and editors.

Yes, there is that too. I guess everyone shall have to decide for
themselves what to do.

>However, I can imagine that it could start a slippery slope for adding
>new letters required for phonemes that other groups distinguish, for
>example "wait" and "weight" (vowel), "horse" and "hoarse" (vowel),
>or "which" and "witch" (consonant).

Well, as someone who does distinguish horse and hoarse as well as
which and witch I would prefer to have some way of marking such
pronunciation, especially as I believe Shaw himself distinguished
such sounds--after all, he was Anglo-Irish (Incidentally the AHD
allows for these distinctions). I don't myself differentiate between
wait and weight but I delight in hearing it in the speech of others.
If Shavian is going to be adjusted to accommodate American speech it
ought to embrace Scots and Irish-English as well. But, as you say...

>It's pretty much impossible to produce a phonemic writing system
>that will represent all varieties of spoken English; it'll
invariably >have to make more distinctions than some do (so they have
to learn >how to spell words) and/or fewer distinctions than others do.

>Making the maximum number of distinctions possible seems
>undesirable to me, since then you'd have to learn the spelling of
lots >and lots of words (since your own pronunciation is not a good
guide >as to which of two or three or four possible letters is the
correct >spelling), so a good compromise requires
underdifferentiation in >some cases.

I would settle for the AHD (and the variety it acknowledges). The new
OED is not going to be a very good guide I fear.

ever fearful,
dshep

Philip writes:

It did originally have redundant letters (e.g. two or three ways to
write /s/ IIRC)

I believe the two forms of /s/ were simply a graphic convenience,
which incidentally, was something found in English back when an /f/
without crossbar was used as the intermediate /s/ up until about 200
years ago. I've always wondered why Read didn't jump on this
opportunity to resuscitate this easily written letter for his /s/.

>-- comes from the fact that they inherited their alphabet from
other >people.

Yes they did, but the clever part was to convert the redundant
letters into vowels, which Greek needed. There was one other truly
redundant letter which apparently represented /w/, a sound lost by
classical times (or so say the experts) but retained because it had
been given a numerical value, and was thus essential for mathematics.

>(Similarly, the Romans, who inherited the
>Greek alphabet, initially had three letters -- C, K, Q -- for much the
>same sound; eventually, they tossed K and used Q only before
>semi-vowel V and C in other places.)

The version I have read (somewhere) is that the Romans actually
inherited their alphabet from the Etruscans (who inherited it in turn
from the Greek colonists in southern Italy, whose alphabet was
slightly different from those of their fellow Greeks farther east,
thus explaining the ultimate difference between Roman letters and
Greek). The interesting part here is that the Etruscans, whose
language is not very well understood, maintained a distinction
between, and used different letters for, several differing forms of k-
sounds depending upon following vowel, thus: /ke/, /ka/, /kw/, for
example, which appears to give credence to their belief that they had
emigrated from Anatolia. Although these sounds can be broken down
into consonant plus vowel, the Romans for whatever reason kept /kw/,
and moreover bequeathed it to us and that is why our teachers had to
point out that Q is always followed by U.

>But yes. Imagining that Greeks spoke the way they do today seems
>unlikely. (I've also heard a Frenchman claim that they pronounced it
>like French -- such as epsilon-upsilon being pronounced like --,
>which seems even more unlikely to me.)

Actually, some of the "Teach Yourself Ancient Greek" type primers do
say that upsilon was pronounced as /ø/, a rounded front-vowel. I have
no idea how anyone can know this, but through the centuries Greek has
attracted the attention of a great many minds and their efforts
apparently have led to results of this sort. I have seen articles
that described not only how Ancient Greek was pronounced but how it
changed over the course of the classical age, for example, the sound
that omega represented was (so the learnéd say) originally pronounced
awe (thus awe-mega), but gradually rose to be pronounced oh (oh-
mega), a development that closely parallels a similar change in the
English open-o of words such as fault, vault, law, fall, etc that
have increasingly come in my lifetime to sound like French /au/ as in
"chaud".

excessively,
dshep

Hi Jeff
First, I wish to apologise to anyone, if I slighted their religous
beliefs. I believe the Bible is a message from G-d, and is due all
possible respect. My religous group is a bit odd by most Christian
standards, so I do not push my views on to anyone. Who am I as a
Linguist, to try and explain G-d's works.

Anyway, I believe it would be useful to present a system to map
Traditional Roman spelling on to the Shavian letters. I have already
made up such a system for and an Expanded Shaw Alphabet.
Personally, I don't like going back and forth between differnt fonts.

The Letters C, Q, and X were the main Roman letters without Shavian
Equivalents.
But I think we should also come up with a Roman or Latin Sign/Symbol
that we can use like the Namer Dot to mark each of the words written
this way as being not written according to the normal Shavian
Pronunciation standard.
This will prevent Chaos.

Any Suggestions for what the Latin Symbol might look like.
Comments?

Regards, Paul V.
_________________attached________________________________
--- In shawalphabet@yahoogroups.com, jeff <akousw@...> wrote:
>
> OkE, fxst, F TiNk it impPtint HAt wI fFnd sum wE t trAnskrFb
TradiSunal PTografI.
>
> Az t not nOiN muc v H histPrikal /JIzaz, Hat klEm is Just plEn
silI: wI kAn bI sxtin v H /rezxekSan espesalI bF H vXI egzistAns v H
kriscin fET. if /krFst iz not rizen frum H ded, Hen HX wUd bI nO
kriscan fET Az "Hen iz Qr prIciN in vEn, n jP fET iz ylsO in vEn" (1
Cor 15:14), sO if /krFst did not apWr t ovD 500 pIpl AftD /hiz
rezDekSan, Hen H disFplz wUd not bI wiliN t sufD n dF fP H vXI lF
HAt H sentxIanz wx pEd t tel.
>
> n F wUd aprISIEt not hAviN mF fET n /lPd'z validitI n/P trMT JuJd
bF sum fikSinal novel: it's Just plEn stupid! espeSalI wen kumpXd t
H umEziN histPisitI v H /bFbl.
>
>
> On Sunday 2008 April 06 03:40:23 paul vandenbrink wrote:
> > --- In shawalphabet@yahoogroups.com, "paul vandenbrink"
> >
> > <vandenbrinkg@> wrote:
> > > hF /rFan
> > >
> > > Y rEz a lyt v gUd pqnts.
> > > wI kAnt nO Yl H dItEalz abQt histPakal /JIzus
> > > n evrI HiN els in H /bFbal.
> > > HE R just H impPtant stPIz n pXabalz HAt
> > > /g-d wAnts us t nO.
> > >
> > > stil, F kAn fFnd a lot v YsfUl infPmESun
> > > n AdvFs in HX.
> > > mOstlI H stPIz tel Y wut nyt t dV.
> > > F lUk At pEpal lFk /kEn n /lAvAn n /JEkyb n /lyt
> > > n hiz dytxz n /kPak n /bAlAm n /fXO n Ic wun iz
> > > a wPniN v mistEks HAt F kUd mEk.
> > >
> > > F dV nyt wDrI abQt /bFbal kOdz.
> > > HX iz plentI v VsfUl stuf t kynsidD wiT Qt
> > > digiN sO dIp.
> > > duz H fAkt /jIzus wuz prYbAblI mXId mEk enI difDens t
> > > hiz meseJ v tYlDans n cXatI?
> > > hE, hI RgVd wiT hiz muHd, but nO budI hOldz HAt
> > > agEnst him.
> > >
> > > regRdz, /pYl /vI.
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > > --- In shawalphabet@...m, "rian teklund"
<r.teklund@>
> > >
> > > wrote:
> > > > spiritjMal lFt in H dork stilnes v nFt.
> > > >
> > > > F awOk TiNkiN v a konversESon H dE befOr n TYt, 'jes, Her or
> >
> > mAni
> >
> > > mOral
> > >
> > > > n Iven spiritjMal konsepts in H bFbel.'
> > > >
> > > > but todE, TQzandz v jIrz lEter,
> > > >
> > > > som v H sivil lYz, lFk mEraJ hAv evolvd veri diferent sOSial
> > >
> > > kustomz. n
> > >
> > > > sO wI hAv novelz, lFk "H /davinci kOd" HAt dQt H lFklihUd
HAt Ani
> > > > 30-jIr-Old JMiS mAn bAk Hen wud stil bI siNgel.
> > > >
> > > > His got mI TiNkiN abQt H diferens betwIn spekjMlESon n
> >
> > revelESon.
> >
> > > n H
> > >
> > > > diferens betwIn gesiN n nOiN.
> > > >
> > > > H bFbel kontEnz frAgments v prIvius--rIli EnSient
revelESonz, but
> > > > frAgments bF Her veri nEcur lIv gAps HAt hjMmAnz (n mOst
> > >
> > > klerJimen) or
> > >
> > > > kontinjMali trFiN t eksplEn. wFl oHer histOrik rIserc mE
help,
> > >
> > > dIper
> > >
> > > > eksplAnESonz jMZMali rekwFr pjUr spekjMlESon [lFk H /nOdFt
wUmAn
> >
> > hM
> >
> > > > mErId /kEn--Or wF non v hiz broHerz n sisterz, nIsez n
nefjMz,
> > >
> > > grAnd
> > >
> > > > nIsez n nefjMz v H prIvius senturi befOr hiz birT yr not Iven
> > >
> > > menSond in
> > >
> > > > H /hIbrM histOri ?]
> > > >
> > > > AniwE, His lEdi lIviN a bFbel-studi klAs tOld mI HAt /JIzus'
> >
> > lAst
> >
> > > wOrdz,
> > >
> > > > "it iz finiSd" waz prUf-pozitiv HAt nO oHer rFtiNz kUd bI
Aded t
> >
> > H
> >
> > > bFbel
> > >
> > > > from HAt tFm on!
> > > >
> > > > duz HAt stEtment sIm Az sili t jM Az it duz t mI?
> > > >
> > > > _________________r.t.
>

nO-el: wF H selebrESon v krismAs redMsez H 26-leter Alfabet t a mIr 25
leterz.


````````````````````````````````````````````````````--meN

/pYl, jM or wun v H mOst polFt n respektful pIpel F hAv koresponded wiH.


F wUd aprISiEt jUr koments on Ani subJekt--espeSiali reliJon.

F hAv fQnd jUr AtitMd t YlwEz bI won v "mFld temper n dIp respekt." (1
/pIter 3)

On Sunday 2008 April 13 09:00:02 paul vandenbrink wrote:
> Hi Jeff
> First, I wish to apologise to anyone, if I slighted their religous
> beliefs. I believe the Bible is a message from G-d, and is due all
> possible respect. My religous group is a bit odd by most Christian
> standards, so I do not push my views on to anyone. Who am I as a
> Linguist, to try and explain G-d's works.
>
> Anyway, I believe it would be useful to present a system to map
> Traditional Roman spelling on to the Shavian letters. I have already
> made up such a system for and an Expanded Shaw Alphabet.
> Personally, I don't like going back and forth between differnt fonts.
>
> The Letters C, Q, and X were the main Roman letters without Shavian
> Equivalents.
> But I think we should also come up with a Roman or Latin Sign/Symbol
> that we can use like the Namer Dot to mark each of the words written
> this way as being not written according to the normal Shavian
> Pronunciation standard.
> This will prevent Chaos.
>
> Any Suggestions for what the Latin Symbol might look like.
> Comments?
>
> Regards, Paul V.> _________________attached________________________________

F wUd bI vXI intrested in sIiN jP ekstindid SYvWn Alfabet. ylHO F kwescun H nId v Q. C iz sumTiN F kud OnlI sI a nId fP wiH kumpVtD lEngwiJez lFk C++. Q iz, imhO, OnlI Vsfal fP semitik lEngwiJez lFk /hIbrM n /Xabik, wXin H 2 sQndz AkcVlI mEk a difrens. in IngliS, HE R lRglI H sEm. in fAkt, Iven X iz lRJlI unesisXI Az wel: it iz FHD 'gz' P 'ks,' Az /rId nOts win intrOdMsiN HOz letDz in hiz /kwikskript. F Am not tOtalI aginst cEnJIN P rIvFzIN /SYvWn, but F fIl vXI stroNlI (Az mE bI gest) HAt H kIpIN Ha Alfabet H sEm sO HAt AnI nM vxZin is stil esinSalI H sEm Az H PiJinal. if H Alfabet iz t bI updEted wiHQt substAnSil cEnJiz (lFk F kAn rId H nM vxZin Az HO it bI H Old vxZin.)

F Am not Sx HAt An ekspAnded /SY iz H best wE t gO. F Am TINkIN mP v trAnskripSun, wic bF definiSan duzn't intrOdMs nM kXiktDz, but rAHD Vziz letDz Amd dFgrAfs (mEbI) in H Alfabet t reprIzent H fPmz in H trAnzkrFbd Alfabet. lFk, H wUd bI reprezentid bF 'ks' evrI tFm it akxz: ekselent, ksFlophone, ...

Hi Jeff & Daniel
Unfortunately, in Canada, Egg is pronounced with the same vowel sound
as Age. I think many Americans have that pronunciation.
It is better to use Echo or Extra as sample words for the Shaw
Egg-sound.
Regards, Paul V.
___________attached_____________________

--- In shawalphabet@yahoogroups.com, jeff <akousw@...> wrote:
>
> On Tuesday 2008 April 08 23:01:13 Daniel wrote:
> > Hello, I'm Daniel. I first read about Shavian several months ago
but
> > never really got around to learning until recently. So I have a
> > question: how are "egg" and "age" pronounced? I pronounce the vowel
> > sounds the same (like hey, day, lay, may, fey, bay, and so on), so
I'm
> > sure I'm spelling some of my words wrong.
>
> egg is the "short e", and age is "long a"
>
> actually, the sounds are just as the vowels of their respective
names, egg
> like the 'e' in egg, and age like the 'a' in age.
>