Shawalphabet YahooGroup Archive Browser

re: the change we need?

in posting 2601, pgabhart wrote:

> To those of us who continue to make the /hw/ distinction, not doing
> so seems unimaginable…

Applause!

> I have four brothers who all grew up in the same house with the
> same parents.  I am the eldest.  The second child and I both use /hw/,
> whereas the three younger children do not.  That seems odd, does it
> not?  It suggests the hypothesis that despite the family being the child's
> first linguistic environment, it is not always the most influential in the
> development of his idiolect.

I had a similar experience (I have mentioned this earlier) some years ago
with a family I know, where the parents and the oldest child, a boy, all
used the /hw/ pronunciation, whereas a daughter, younger by some three
years or so, did not. When this was pointed out, all expressed surprise –
this was something no one had noticed it, or so they said. I suspect the
daughter was aware of the difference but did not wish to call attention to
her divergent pronunciation – after all, it is certainly not an unusual
occurrence for adolescents to mark subtle differences between themselves
and their parents in a variety of ways, but they may not wish it to be
overly obvious. Though I could be mistaken about that, there was another
feature of her pronunciation that I thought at the time to be merely a
personal peculiarity but since then have noticed in the speech of others
who drop the /hw/, and that is that the syllable in question then receives
slightly more emphasis, so that wheeler, wheel, wheat etc do not become
weeler, weel, weet, but rather WEEler, WEEL (actually, WEEul), and WEET.
It's almost as if there is a compensatory adjustment made to restore some
inner balance, some internal harmony. One could perhaps say this was a
musical adjustment. Moreover, to my (biased) ear such an adjustment is
necessary because without it the pronunciation of the words in question
is less distinct. This observation does not I think apply to the inquiry
words what, where, when, and why because these words are usually emphatic
anyway.

> Until three or four years ago, my middle brother had no idea there was
> such a distinction.  In fact, he viewed the /h/ in the /hw/ phoneme as a
> silent letter and claimed he had never noticed that anyone pronounced it. 
> At first blush, that struck me as curiously myopic.   It seems we hear what
> we expect to hear, not what sounds people actually produce.  On second
> thought, however, it makes sense, I suppose, since we are busy discerning
> meaning rather than tracking the linear flow of phonemes per se.

I believe that to be true, that we hear what we expect to hear, and sometimes
we even supply our own meaning rather than what may have been intended. To
take a recent example, in the recent presidential debates, each side was
confident that their candidate was not only the winner, but the clear winner.
Also, investigations into just how such divergent views are formed revealed
that apart from journalists, who take notes and are on the lookout for killer
quotes, few listeners actually remember anything said, only how it was said –
that their candidate's speech was forceful, deliberative, confident, or
projected whatever positive characteristic the listener wished to be assured
of. In the rallies the candidates don't even have to finish a sentence before
the cheering starts, just a word or two is often enough to create instant
jubilation.

positively,
dshep

pgabhart wrote:
> To those of us who continue to make the /hw/ distinction, not doing so
> seems unimaginable. I believe Star said she had modified Shavian to add
> that very distinction. It is one of the things I find appealing in
> Quikscript. Apparently Read decided while working on QS that leaving
> /hw/ out of Shavian had been a mistake even if the phoneme had become an
> anachronism in England by that time.

I could never figure out why we should need a special letter to
represent two sounds which already have letters. h + w, 𐑣𐑢 should be
sufficient, just as we use k + s, 𐑒𐑕 to represent the sound of x.
There are already 48 letters, do we really need more compound letters?

>
> I have four brothers who all grew up in the same house with the same
> parents. I am the eldest. The second child and I both use /hw/,
> whereas the three younger children do not. That seems odd, does it
> not? It suggests the hypothesis that despite the family being the
> child's first linguistic environment, it is not always the most
> influential in the development of his idiolect.

I came to realize a few years ago that my father uses hw but my mother
does not, and I use hw inconsistently, often only when I'm thinking
about my pronunciation. Yet I always know when to use it if I think
about it.


--
Éthan Lamoureux
Il te couvrira de ses plumes,
Et tu trouveras un refuge sous ses ailes
Psaume 91

Ethan, That's a logical enough argument, really. My modification could be seen as nothing more than combining two letters as in cursive. Read himself says that where logical, two letters can and should be combined to reduce pen lifts and therefore, a microsecond of time. In the primer that I'm working on, I'm going to maintain the /hw/ phoneme, but I am going to write it out and attempt to explain the difference. I'm going to attempt to base it off of American RP, which is to say, if Tom Brokaw says it that way, that's how I'll say it. Hey, he's one of few national news personalities that can pronounce the name of my home town.

--Star, from "Maruhvul"

==========
"By Grabthar's hammer, by the sons of Worvan, you shall be avenged!"
--Dr. Lazarus, Galaxy Quest


My LJ: http://www.livejournal.com/users/wodentoad
Andre Norton Forum: http://forums.delphiforums.com/colorado16/




________________________________
From: Ethan <ethan@...t>
To: shawalphabet@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Friday, October 24, 2008 4:13:08 AM
Subject: Re: [shawalphabet] the change we need?


pgabhart wrote:
> To those of us who continue to make the /hw/ distinction, not doing so
> seems unimaginable. I believe Star said she had modified Shavian to add
> that very distinction. It is one of the things I find appealing in
> Quikscript. Apparently Read decided while working on QS that leaving
> /hw/ out of Shavian had been a mistake even if the phoneme had become an
> anachronism in England by that time.

I could never figure out why we should need a special letter to
represent two sounds which already have letters. h + w, 𐑣𐑢 should be
sufficient, just as we use k + s, 𐑒𐑕 to represent the sound of x.
There are already 48 letters, do we really need more compound letters?

>
> I have four brothers who all grew up in the same house with the same
> parents. I am the eldest. The second child and I both use /hw/,
> whereas the three younger children do not. That seems odd, does it
> not? It suggests the hypothesis that despite the family being the
> child's first linguistic environment, it is not always the most
> influential in the development of his idiolect.

I came to realize a few years ago that my father uses hw but my mother
does not, and I use hw inconsistently, often only when I'm thinking
about my pronunciation. Yet I always know when to use it if I think
about it.

--
Éthan Lamoureux
Il te couvrira de ses plumes,
Et tu trouveras un refuge sous ses ailes
Psaume 91

Hi Star and all!

I thought it was pronounced Murvle - a half hour or so south of Knoxville.

Make sure we all have an opportunity to buy your book! Perhaps you can
do something to propose an orthographic standard for North American
Shavians.

My daughter has been spending this month leaning on doorbells in
Asheville, North Carolina on behalf of Barack Obama. I don't actually
know hwether my daughter has a phonemic /hw/.

Bob Richmond
Knoxville, Tennessee
**********************************************************
On Fri, Oct 24, 2008 at 8:45 AM, Star Raven
<celestraof12worlds@yahoo.com> wrote:
> Ethan, That's a logical enough argument, really. My modification could be
> seen as nothing more than combining two letters as in cursive. Read himself
> says that where logical, two letters can and should be combined to reduce
> pen lifts and therefore, a microsecond of time. In the primer that I'm
> working on, I'm going to maintain the /hw/ phoneme, but I am going to write
> it out and attempt to explain the difference. I'm going to attempt to base
> it off of American RP, which is to say, if Tom Brokaw says it that way,
> that's how I'll say it. Hey, he's one of few national news personalities
> that can pronounce the name of my home town.
>
> --Star, from "Maruhvul"
>
> =========> "By Grabthar's hammer, by the sons of Worvan, you shall be avenged!"
> --Dr. Lazarus, Galaxy Quest
>
> My LJ: http://www.livejournal.com/users/wodentoad
> Andre Norton Forum: http://forums.delphiforums.com/colorado16/
>
> ________________________________
> From: Ethan <ethan@ravenscall.net>
> To: shawalphabet@yahoogroups.com
> Sent: Friday, October 24, 2008 4:13:08 AM
> Subject: Re: [shawalphabet] the change we need?
>
> pgabhart wrote:
>> To those of us who continue to make the /hw/ distinction, not doing so
>> seems unimaginable. I believe Star said she had modified Shavian to add
>> that very distinction. It is one of the things I find appealing in
>> Quikscript. Apparently Read decided while working on QS that leaving
>> /hw/ out of Shavian had been a mistake even if the phoneme had become an
>> anachronism in England by that time.
>
> I could never figure out why we should need a special letter to
> represent two sounds which already have letters. h + w, 𐑣𐑢 should be
> sufficient, just as we use k + s, 𐑒𐑕 to represent the sound of x.
> There are already 48 letters, do we really need more compound letters?
>
>>
>> I have four brothers who all grew up in the same house with the same
>> parents. I am the eldest. The second child and I both use /hw/,
>> whereas the three younger children do not. That seems odd, does it
>> not? It suggests the hypothesis that despite the family being the
>> child's first linguistic environment, it is not always the most
>> influential in the development of his idiolect.
>
> I came to realize a few years ago that my father uses hw but my mother
> does not, and I use hw inconsistently, often only when I'm thinking
> about my pronunciation. Yet I always know when to use it if I think
> about it.
>
> --
> Éthan Lamoureux
> Il te couvrira de ses plumes,
> Et tu trouveras un refuge sous ses ailes
> Psaume 91
>
>
>

Yes, murvul, in the heart of AppaLAYcheeah. Ya Yankee! *grin*

Being my favorite season, I've chosen to use Bram Stoker's _Dracula_ as my base book. It has 27 moderately sized chapters, so introducing two letters at a time starting with consonants, that leaves the final chapters entirely in Shavian. The hard part will be the actual replacement. Your average word processor makes this a chore, and I am not the macro queen.

The funniest part of this was that the idea had insinuated itself into my brain years ago during research for a novel, and only recently returned to the forefront of my memory. My husband reminded me that this was used as a brainwashing technique. I suppose that means that this will either work very well and increase fluency, or else result in the destruction of the ability to read TO. I wonder if that would be such a bad thing?

I'm working on my introduction today. I tried to write it last night but it sounded as if I had pulled the idea out of a dream, so I'm rewriting it to sound moderately sane. I would like to ask if anyone in the group could write a quick history I could outright plagiarize (j/k) that would help. I'd also credit our shaw group for keeping the dream alive.

Anyway, I'll post what I have as I have it.

It's early yet, and I need more coffee.
--Star

==========
"By Grabthar's hammer, by the sons of Worvan, you shall be avenged!"
--Dr. Lazarus, Galaxy Quest


My LJ: http://www.livejournal.com/users/wodentoad
Andre Norton Forum: http://forums.delphiforums.com/colorado16/




________________________________
From: Robert Richmond <RSRICHMOND@...>
To: shawalphabet@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Friday, October 24, 2008 9:02:47 AM
Subject: Re: [shawalphabet] the change we need?


Hi Star and all!

I thought it was pronounced Murvle - a half hour or so south of Knoxville.

Make sure we all have an opportunity to buy your book! Perhaps you can
do something to propose an orthographic standard for North American
Shavians.

My daughter has been spending this month leaning on doorbells in
Asheville, North Carolina on behalf of Barack Obama. I don't actually
know hwether my daughter has a phonemic /hw/.

Bob Richmond
Knoxville, Tennessee
************ ********* ********* ********* ********* ********* *
On Fri, Oct 24, 2008 at 8:45 AM, Star Raven
<celestraof12worlds@ yahoo.com> wrote:
> Ethan, That's a logical enough argument, really. My modification could be
> seen as nothing more than combining two letters as in cursive. Read himself
> says that where logical, two letters can and should be combined to reduce
> pen lifts and therefore, a microsecond of time. In the primer that I'm
> working on, I'm going to maintain the /hw/ phoneme, but I am going to write
> it out and attempt to explain the difference. I'm going to attempt to base
> it off of American RP, which is to say, if Tom Brokaw says it that way,
> that's how I'll say it. Hey, he's one of few national news personalities
> that can pronounce the name of my home town.
>
> --Star, from "Maruhvul"
>
> ==========
> "By Grabthar's hammer, by the sons of Worvan, you shall be avenged!"
> --Dr. Lazarus, Galaxy Quest
>
> My LJ: http://www.livejour nal.com/users/ wodentoad
> Andre Norton Forum: http://forums. delphiforums. com/colorado16/
>
> ____________ _________ _________ __
> From: Ethan <ethan@ravenscall. net>
> To: shawalphabet@ yahoogroups. com
> Sent: Friday, October 24, 2008 4:13:08 AM
> Subject: Re: [shawalphabet] the change we need?
>
> pgabhart wrote:
>> To those of us who continue to make the /hw/ distinction, not doing so
>> seems unimaginable. I believe Star said she had modified Shavian to add
>> that very distinction. It is one of the things I find appealing in
>> Quikscript. Apparently Read decided while working on QS that leaving
>> /hw/ out of Shavian had been a mistake even if the phoneme had become an
>> anachronism in England by that time.
>
> I could never figure out why we should need a special letter to
> represent two sounds which already have letters. h + w, 𐑣𐑢 should be
> sufficient, just as we use k + s, 𐑒𐑕 to represent the sound of x.
> There are already 48 letters, do we really need more compound letters?
>
>>
>> I have four brothers who all grew up in the same house with the same
>> parents. I am the eldest. The second child and I both use /hw/,
>> whereas the three younger children do not. That seems odd, does it
>> not? It suggests the hypothesis that despite the family being the
>> child's first linguistic environment, it is not always the most
>> influential in the development of his idiolect.
>
> I came to realize a few years ago that my father uses hw but my mother
> does not, and I use hw inconsistently, often only when I'm thinking
> about my pronunciation. Yet I always know when to use it if I think
> about it.
>
> --
> Éthan Lamoureux
> Il te couvrira de ses plumes,
> Et tu trouveras un refuge sous ses ailes
> Psaume 91
>
>
>

PS. There is one question I have, has there been a consensus on conjunctions?

--Star

==========
"By Grabthar's hammer, by the sons of Worvan, you shall be avenged!"
--Dr. Lazarus, Galaxy Quest


My LJ: http://www.livejournal.com/users/wodentoad
Andre Norton Forum: http://forums.delphiforums.com/colorado16/




________________________________
From: Star Raven <celestraof12worlds@...>
To: shawalphabet@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Friday, October 24, 2008 10:29:14 AM
Subject: Re: [shawalphabet] the change we need?


Yes, murvul, in the heart of AppaLAYcheeah. Ya Yankee! *grin*

Being my favorite season, I've chosen to use Bram Stoker's _Dracula_ as my base book. It has 27 moderately sized chapters, so introducing two letters at a time starting with consonants, that leaves the final chapters entirely in Shavian. The hard part will be the actual replacement. Your average word processor makes this a chore, and I am not the macro queen.

The funniest part of this was that the idea had insinuated itself into my brain years ago during research for a novel, and only recently returned to the forefront of my memory. My husband reminded me that this was used as a brainwashing technique. I suppose that means that this will either work very well and increase fluency, or else result in the destruction of the ability to read TO. I wonder if that would be such a bad thing?

I'm working on my introduction today. I tried to write it last night but it sounded as if I had pulled the idea out of a dream, so I'm rewriting it to sound moderately sane. I would like to ask if anyone in the group could write a quick history I could outright plagiarize (j/k) that would help. I'd also credit our shaw group for keeping the dream alive.

Anyway, I'll post what I have as I have it.

It's early yet, and I need more coffee.
--Star

==========
"By Grabthar's hammer, by the sons of Worvan, you shall be avenged!"
--Dr. Lazarus, Galaxy Quest


My LJ: http://www.livejour nal.com/users/ wodentoad
Andre Norton Forum: http://forums. delphiforums. com/colorado16/




________________________________
From: Robert Richmond <RSRICHMOND@aol. com>
To: shawalphabet@ yahoogroups. com
Sent: Friday, October 24, 2008 9:02:47 AM
Subject: Re: [shawalphabet] the change we need?


Hi Star and all!

I thought it was pronounced Murvle - a half hour or so south of Knoxville.

Make sure we all have an opportunity to buy your book! Perhaps you can
do something to propose an orthographic standard for North American
Shavians.

My daughter has been spending this month leaning on doorbells in
Asheville, North Carolina on behalf of Barack Obama. I don't actually
know hwether my daughter has a phonemic /hw/.

Bob Richmond
Knoxville, Tennessee
************ ********* ********* ********* ********* ********* *
On Fri, Oct 24, 2008 at 8:45 AM, Star Raven
<celestraof12worlds@ yahoo.com> wrote:
> Ethan, That's a logical enough argument, really. My modification could be
> seen as nothing more than combining two letters as in cursive. Read himself
> says that where logical, two letters can and should be combined to reduce
> pen lifts and therefore, a microsecond of time. In the primer that I'm
> working on, I'm going to maintain the /hw/ phoneme, but I am going to write
> it out and attempt to explain the difference. I'm going to attempt to base
> it off of American RP, which is to say, if Tom Brokaw says it that way,
> that's how I'll say it. Hey, he's one of few national news personalities
> that can pronounce the name of my home town.
>
> --Star, from "Maruhvul"
>
> ==========
> "By Grabthar's hammer, by the sons of Worvan, you shall be avenged!"
> --Dr. Lazarus, Galaxy Quest
>
> My LJ: http://www.livejour nal.com/users/ wodentoad
> Andre Norton Forum: http://forums. delphiforums. com/colorado16/
>
> ____________ _________ _________ __
> From: Ethan <ethan@ravenscall. net>
> To: shawalphabet@ yahoogroups. com
> Sent: Friday, October 24, 2008 4:13:08 AM
> Subject: Re: [shawalphabet] the change we need?
>
> pgabhart wrote:
>> To those of us who continue to make the /hw/ distinction, not doing so
>> seems unimaginable. I believe Star said she had modified Shavian to add
>> that very distinction. It is one of the things I find appealing in
>> Quikscript. Apparently Read decided while working on QS that leaving
>> /hw/ out of Shavian had been a mistake even if the phoneme had become an
>> anachronism in England by that time.
>
> I could never figure out why we should need a special letter to
> represent two sounds which already have letters. h + w, 𐑣𐑢 should be
> sufficient, just as we use k + s, 𐑒𐑕 to represent the sound of x.
> There are already 48 letters, do we really need more compound letters?
>
>>
>> I have four brothers who all grew up in the same house with the same
>> parents. I am the eldest. The second child and I both use /hw/,
>> whereas the three younger children do not. That seems odd, does it
>> not? It suggests the hypothesis that despite the family being the
>> child's first linguistic environment, it is not always the most
>> influential in the development of his idiolect.
>
> I came to realize a few years ago that my father uses hw but my mother
> does not, and I use hw inconsistently, often only when I'm thinking
> about my pronunciation. Yet I always know when to use it if I think
> about it.
>
> --
> Éthan Lamoureux
> Il te couvrira de ses plumes,
> Et tu trouveras un refuge sous ses ailes
> Psaume 91
>
>
>

On Fri, Oct 24, 2008 at 10:13, Ethan <ethan@ravenscall.net> wrote:
> I could never figure out why we should need a special letter to
> represent two sounds which already have letters. h + w, 𐑣𐑢 should be
> sufficient, just as we use k + s, 𐑒𐑕 to represent the sound of x.
> There are already 48 letters, do we really need more compound letters?

One advantage is that using a separate letter would make the writing
system phonemic for more people.

Like rhotic letters: I, for example, can pretend that OR and AWE are
simply two different ways to write the same sound, while others can
use them to represent what are, to them, different sounds (one with an
"r" in it and the other not). If we had written OR as AWE + ROAR, then
the spelling wouldn't match my pronunciation so well since I have no
"r" sound there (in most cases - "linking R" aside).

Similarly, if there were a letter hw, then I could pretend that it's
just another way to write the /w/ sound for me; writing it as h + w
notates a pronunciation with /h/ explicitly, which doesn't work as
well for me.

So I'm saying that certain compound letters help the Shaw Alphabet to
be more cross-dialectal.

I wouldn't be against a compound one for OAK + ROAR, for those who
differentiate between "horse, hoarse" (Wells's NORTH/FORCE); I could
treat it as equivalent to OR and AWE while others can make
distinctions.

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

Another curiosity I have noticed is the pronunciation by some of
contractions such as "didn't" as "di-dunt" (that's what it sounds like
to me). I believe this is a pronunciation common to the northeast U.S.
In my pronunciation, the second "d" seems to be subsumed by the "nt,"
and there seems to be just one syllable, not two.

Regarding the political campaign: I have been aware of the phenomenon
you wrote about that people are more likely to remember the tone rather
than the content of these so-called debates. In the second presidential
debate, I actually had my laptop out and made notes of each candidate's
responses to the questions to enable me to better evaluate their
respective performances. Thinking about that now, I fear I may have
fallen over the edge into the netherworld of political junkie.

Paige Gabhart

> I believe that to be true, that we hear what we expect to hear, and
> sometimes
> we even supply our own meaning rather than what may have been
> intended. To
> take a recent example, in the recent presidential debates, each side was
> confident that their candidate was not only the winner, but the clear
> winner.
> Also, investigations into just how such divergent views are formed
> revealed
> that apart from journalists, who take notes and are on the lookout for
> killer
> quotes, few listeners actually remember anything said, only how it was
> said –
> that their candidate's speech was forceful, deliberative, confident, or
> projected whatever positive characteristic the listener wished to be
> assured
> of. In the rallies the candidates don't even have to finish a sentence
> before
> the cheering starts, just a word or two is often enough to create instant
> jubilation.
>
> positively,
> dshep
>
>

--- In shawalphabet@yahoogroups.com,
--- "Philip Newton" <philip.newton@...> wrote:
>
> On Fri, Oct 24, 2008 at 10:13, Ethan <ethan@...> wrote:
> > I could never figure out why we should need a special letter to
> > represent two sounds which already have letters. h + w, ð`£ð`¢ should be
> > sufficient, just as we use k + s, ð`'ð`• to represent the sound of x.
> > There are already 48 letters, do we really need more compound letters?
>
> One advantage is that using a separate letter would make the writing
> system phonemic for more people.
>
> Like rhotic letters: I, for example, can pretend that OR and AWE are
> simply two different ways to write the same sound, while others can
> use them to represent what are, to them, different sounds (one with an
> "r" in it and the other not). If we had written OR as AWE + ROAR, then
> the spelling wouldn't match my pronunciation so well since I have no
> "r" sound there (in most cases - "linking R" aside).
>
> Similarly, if there were a letter hw, then I could pretend that it's
> just another way to write the /w/ sound for me; writing it as h + w
> notates a pronunciation with /h/ explicitly, which doesn't work as
> well for me.
>
> So I'm saying that certain compound letters help the Shaw Alphabet to
> be more cross-dialectal.
>
> I wouldn't be against a compound one for OAK + ROAR, for those who
> differentiate between "horse, hoarse" (Wells's NORTH/FORCE); I could
> treat it as equivalent to OR and AWE while others can make
> distinctions.
>
> Cheers,
> Philip

I attempted to devise such a letter some time back. If interested please see "the oar is in
the air' in the photo section of the group's archives.

airily,
dshep

On Sat, Oct 25, 2008 at 04:37, dshepx <dshepx@...> wrote:
> --- In shawalphabet@yahoogroups.com,
> --- "Philip Newton" <philip.newton@...> wrote:
>>
>> I wouldn't be against a compound one for OAK + ROAR
>
> I attempted to devise such a letter some time back. If interested please see "the oar is in
> the air' in the photo section of the group's archives.

I was thinking about something along the line of Burmese "t" (see
http://www.omniglot.com/writing/burmese.htm).

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