Shawalphabet YahooGroup Archive Browser

2009/4/18 Thomas Thurman <tthurman@...>:
> 7, 8.  Should syllabic -n or -r have "ado" before them?  For example, should "bottle" be "bib on tot loll" or "bib on tot ado loll"?

Also syllabic -l (as in your example "bottle") and syllabic -m (as in
"rhythm" or "organism").

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

re: the wiki at 14000 words

In my opinion,

> We currently have a rule that all spellings in _Androcles_ 
> are canonical, and set precedents. Should this rule be kept?

No--for reasons already stated. Shaw's expressed wishes,
which should one would think be determinative when possible,
were in several instances ignored. The spellings in 'Androcles'
do not always reflect the (or perhaps 'a') broader, more inclusive

variety (of) English that Shaw called for, one that would, or

could, be stretched to be acceptable to greater numbers of

people than is the case with narrow RP.

> Should syllabic -n or -r have "ado" before them? For example,
> should "bottle" be "bib on tot loll" or "bib on tot ado loll"?

Yes--legibility is better when every syllable has a vowel; example:

should 'button' be /butn/ or /butan/? Should 'bottle' be /botl/ or
/botal/? Which is more distinct? Of course, one might argue that

the endings /n/ and /l/ in such situations are not really syllables,
but in that case, what are they? 

> Should we retain apostrophes where they're used in the Latin
> alphabet? _Androcles_ appears to use them for possession
> ("beast's") but not for elision ("don't").

Well, perhaps--Shaw thought apostrophes unnecessary in the
more common contractions, and wrote: 'dont, wont, cant, isnt,
arnt, hadnt, youre, I've, weve, youre', etc. (which is not always
followed in the text of 'Androcles', see page 30/31, line 3, or
page 36/37, 3rd line from the bottom). On the other hand, he
used it's, I'm, he's. If there are consistent rules behind his
choices they evade me. Possession however is (I think) always
marked (e.g., page 40/41). It might be simpler to retain all
normal punctuation marks, at least for now.

dshep

--- In shawalphabet@yahoogroups.com, "Thomas Thurman" <tthurman@...> wrote:
>
> The wiki's lexicon now stands at a very creditable 14,000 words. We now have the whole of _Alice's Adventures in Wonderland_ transliterated, which could also make quite a workable book.

A VERY creditable achievement - great going, guys!


> We are currently considering some thorny policy questions about how words should be spelt both on the wiki and in any works produced from it, and I'd like feedback from anyone interested. (The numbers are from the wiki's policy document at <http://shavian.marnanel.org/wiki/Shavian:Policy>.)
>
> 3. We currently have a rule that all spellings in _Androcles_ are canonical, and set precedents. Should this rule be kept?

I don't see why, except as a piece of historical nostalgia. The focus should be on making it easy for others to *USE* Shavian. No?


> 7, 8. Should syllabic -n or -r have "ado" before them? For example, should "bottle" be "bib on tot loll" or "bib on tot ado loll"?

I think so! What is a "syllabic consonant", but a sequence of "ado"
and consonant? (Phonemically speaking, not phonetically, of course.)


> 10, 11. Should we retain apostrophes where they're used in the Latin alphabet? _Androcles_ appears to use them for possession ("beast's") but not for elision ("don't"). Two editors have suggested removing them for possession too.

I favour retaining apostrophes for elision. Therefore I favour retaining them for possession, which (I believe) came about historically as a contraction of "his", as in "John, his book" -> "John's book". If that's correct, it's a clear case of elision.


> There are other questions, but these seem the most pressing. Making choices about any of these seems a large step, and I'd like to hear feedback from the larger community on the subject before we do anything. What are your thoughts?

Thanks for asking! Hope my contributions may help a little.


> Thomas
>

Congratulations on your very successful venture, Thomas - you're about to reap the whirlwind!

Regards,
Yahya

I have never tried to research this so what follows is conjecture on my
part. I believe that the apostrophe in English possessives does stand
for elision but not as you suggested. The possessive case for German
masculine and neuter nouns is indicated by adding "es" at the end of the
noun. I suspect the same or a similar type suffix was added to some
English possessive nouns at one time. When the "e" ceased to be
pronounced, the apostrophe was added to show its omission.

This got me thinking, and I found the following on Wikipedia: "... the
English possessive did originate in a genitive case. In Old English
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_English_language>, a common singular
genitive ending was /-es/. The apostrophe in the modern possessive
marker is in fact an indicator of the /e/ that is "missing" from the Old
English <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_English_language> morphology
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morphology_%28linguistics%29>.

Paige

Yahya wrote:
>
>
> --- In shawalphabet@yahoogroups.com
> <mailto:shawalphabet%40yahoogroups.com>, "Thomas Thurman"
> <tthurman@...> wrote:
> >
> > The wiki's lexicon now stands at a very creditable 14,000 words. We
> now have the whole of _Alice's Adventures in Wonderland_
> transliterated, which could also make quite a workable book.
>
> A VERY creditable achievement - great going, guys!
>
> > We are currently considering some thorny policy questions about how
> words should be spelt both on the wiki and in any works produced from
> it, and I'd like feedback from anyone interested. (The numbers are
> from the wiki's policy document at
> <http://shavian.marnanel.org/wiki/Shavian:Policy
> <http://shavian.marnanel.org/wiki/Shavian:Policy>>.)
> >
> > 3. We currently have a rule that all spellings in _Androcles_ are
> canonical, and set precedents. Should this rule be kept?
>
> I don't see why, except as a piece of historical nostalgia. The focus
> should be on making it easy for others to *USE* Shavian. No?
>
> > 7, 8. Should syllabic -n or -r have "ado" before them? For example,
> should "bottle" be "bib on tot loll" or "bib on tot ado loll"?
>
> I think so! What is a "syllabic consonant", but a sequence of "ado"
> and consonant? (Phonemically speaking, not phonetically, of course.)
>
> > 10, 11. Should we retain apostrophes where they're used in the Latin
> alphabet? _Androcles_ appears to use them for possession ("beast's")
> but not for elision ("don't"). Two editors have suggested removing
> them for possession too.
>
> I favour retaining apostrophes for elision. Therefore I favour
> retaining them for possession, which (I believe) came about
> historically as a contraction of "his", as in "John, his book" ->
> "John's book". If that's correct, it's a clear case of elision.
>
> > There are other questions, but these seem the most pressing. Making
> choices about any of these seems a large step, and I'd like to hear
> feedback from the larger community on the subject before we do
> anything. What are your thoughts?
>
> Thanks for asking! Hope my contributions may help a little.
>
> > Thomas
> >
>
> Congratulations on your very successful venture, Thomas - you're about
> to reap the whirlwind!
>
> Regards,
> Yahya
>
>

--- In shawalphabet@yahoogroups.com, pgabhart <pgabhart@...> wrote:
>
> I have never tried to research this so what follows is conjecture on
my
> part. I believe that the apostrophe in English possessives does stand
> for elision but not as you suggested. The possessive case for German
> masculine and neuter nouns is indicated by adding "es" at the end of
the
> noun. ...

Unless the noun ends in a vowel, when the suffix is just "s". E.g.
"Yahya's book" in German is "Yahyas Buch". (And Yahya, being a
masculine name, should take masculine gender in German.)


> ... I suspect the same or a similar type suffix was added to some
> English possessive nouns at one time. When the "e" ceased to be
> pronounced, the apostrophe was added to show its omission.

A reasonable conjecture.


> This got me thinking, and I found the following on Wikipedia: "...
the
> English possessive did originate in a genitive case. In Old English
> <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_English_language>, a common singular
> genitive ending was /-es/. The apostrophe in the modern possessive
> marker is in fact an indicator of the /e/ that is "missing" from the
Old
> English <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_English_language> morphology
> <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morphology_%28linguistics%29>.

Where exactly did you find this? I've searched some obvious pages, like
that on morphology, but didn't turn up this quote. (Of course, since it
Wikipedia, I soon got sidetracked!) I'd like to know what evidence
supports this conclusion. Much of Wikipedia Theoretical Linguistics
project lacks adequate citations anyway, which is a real pity, since
it's hard to get people interested in any aspect of linguistics without
good articles at all levels.


Regards,
Yahya

>
> Paige
>
> Yahya wrote:
> >
> >
> > --- In shawalphabet@yahoogroups.com
> > <mailto:shawalphabet%40yahoogroups.com>, "Thomas Thurman"
> > tthurman@ wrote:
> > >
> > > The wiki's lexicon now stands at a very creditable 14,000 words.
We
> > now have the whole of _Alice's Adventures in Wonderland_
> > transliterated, which could also make quite a workable book.
> >
> > A VERY creditable achievement - great going, guys!
> >
> > > We are currently considering some thorny policy questions about
how
> > words should be spelt both on the wiki and in any works produced
from
> > it, and I'd like feedback from anyone interested. (The numbers are
> > from the wiki's policy document at
> > <http://shavian.marnanel.org/wiki/Shavian:Policy
> > <http://shavian.marnanel.org/wiki/Shavian:Policy>>.)
> > >
> > > 3. We currently have a rule that all spellings in _Androcles_ are
> > canonical, and set precedents. Should this rule be kept?
> >
> > I don't see why, except as a piece of historical nostalgia. The
focus
> > should be on making it easy for others to *USE* Shavian. No?
> >
> > > 7, 8. Should syllabic -n or -r have "ado" before them? For
example,
> > should "bottle" be "bib on tot loll" or "bib on tot ado loll"?
> >
> > I think so! What is a "syllabic consonant", but a sequence of "ado"
> > and consonant? (Phonemically speaking, not phonetically, of course.)
> >
> > > 10, 11. Should we retain apostrophes where they're used in the
Latin
> > alphabet? _Androcles_ appears to use them for possession ("beast's")
> > but not for elision ("don't"). Two editors have suggested removing
> > them for possession too.
> >
> > I favour retaining apostrophes for elision. Therefore I favour
> > retaining them for possession, which (I believe) came about
> > historically as a contraction of "his", as in "John, his book" ->
> > "John's book". If that's correct, it's a clear case of elision.
> >
> > > There are other questions, but these seem the most pressing.
Making
> > choices about any of these seems a large step, and I'd like to hear
> > feedback from the larger community on the subject before we do
> > anything. What are your thoughts?
> >
> > Thanks for asking! Hope my contributions may help a little.
> >
> > > Thomas
> > >
> >
> > Congratulations on your very successful venture, Thomas - you're
about
> > to reap the whirlwind!
> >
> > Regards,
> > Yahya

Last month, Yahya wrote:

>  Which reminded me: to say that someone comes from a totally
>  unimportant little backwater (you know, the kind of 'locality'
>  marked on a map with a place name, but only two or three
>  houses to be seen in the vicinity - not even a 'hamlet'), here
>  in Australia we say they 'come from Woop-Woop'. Definitely
>  not 'whoop-whoop'!

Today I was wandering around the local shops in my usual
absent-minded manner when suddenly I found myself staring
at a bottle of Woop-Woop, a 2007 Chardonnay from, well you
know from where. Actually, the label said "From the middle of
nowhere" (I hope that's no-hwere!)

It was described in the following manner:

"Spicy melon and peach aroma complicated by subtle spices,
anise and white flowers, Crisp, sharply focussed melon and
pear flavours show good mineral lift and back-end snap.
Tangy, refreshing, and persistent with lingering lemon and
apple character."

Now I know what those creative writing classes are for.

There was even a nice picture of a sunset on the label.

looking forward to a back-end snap,
dshep

Hi DaShep
Thanks for confirming that Woop-Woop like War Whoop is a real
word with its own distinctive pronunciation and meaning. English
is vast and it is almost impossible to verify the provenance of an English word. Thank Goodness, poets and writer no longer think it funny to so their poetry with all these bits of Gaelic History.
For example, recently,
I found 12 small words, I'd never seen before in English,
all in Rudyard Kipling's poem
The Last Rhyme Of True Thomas
Well, I don't won't want to harpit on it, but you all might avoid
transliterating this poem into Shavian.
Maybe it is the anti-nobility theme, which required some such subtrufuge, to be printed in England, but still, let's be reasonable.
There has to be some minimal English quality to a work,
before it is transliterated.
Apologies in advance to the fair folk of upper Scotland, if I have offended
any relatives of Robbie Burns.
Regards, Paul V.
******************************attached**********************8
--- In shawalphabet@yahoogroups.com, dshep <dshepx@...> wrote:
>
> Last month, Yahya wrote:
>
> >  Which reminded me: to say that someone comes from a totally
> >  unimportant little backwater (you know, the kind of 'locality'
> >  marked on a map with a place name, but only two or three
> >  houses to be seen in the vicinity - not even a 'hamlet'), here
> >  in Australia we say they 'come from Woop-Woop'. Definitely
> >  not 'whoop-whoop'!
>
> Today I was wandering around the local shops in my usual
> absent-minded manner when suddenly I found myself staring
> at a bottle of Woop-Woop, a 2007 Chardonnay from, well you
> know from where. Actually, the label said "From the middle of
> nowhere" (I hope that's no-hwere!)

Recent weeks have been rather slow, summer has other
attractions—so I
shall take the opportunity to pad out the
files with some
background, and a bit of foppery as well.
  

For those of you interested in how Shavian came to be,
and how it almost didn't, there is an extensive account
found in the appendix to Michael Holroyd's biography,
"Bernard Shaw". The edition I have is the one-volume
edition—the original is in four volumes—but as this
account appears to be exhaustive I don't imagine the
original to contain anything additional about this sad
affair.

The problem, as so often in life, was about money.
Thanks to the success of My Fair Lady on the stage
and on film, there was a lot of it. Before the royalties
of these productions began pouring in, Shaw's financial
situation, while comfortable, was not excessively so—
and it is possible that his will would not have been
contested had not there been a great sum at stake; it
would not have
been worth the effort. As it happened,
and this all occurred in that drab time and place
remembered as Austerity Britain, it was discovered
that the will could be challenged, it was worthwhile to
do so, and so it was. Shaw had been warned of this
possibility, even of its likelihood, but for whatever
reason (by this time he was in his nineties) did not
bother to set up something like a Shaw Alphabet
Committee or equivalent that could claim its share of
the inheritance, and it has been suggested that he
thought that the subsequent legal battles that would
surely ensue might stir up some public interest in the
matter—a fond hope that proved to be a delusion.

In fact, according to Holroyd, had it not been for the
efforts of James Pitman, a Member of Parliament,
inventor of the Initial Teaching Alphabet, and grandson
of the inventor of Pitman Shorthand, working together
with an interesting champion of all
worthwhile pursuits
named Barbara Smoker, there would have been no
money at all obtainable and thus there would never
have been a Shavian alphabet. As it happened, Pitman
used his influence and Smoker her persuasive abilities
to extract the small amount used to hold the design
competition and print Androcles. Incidentally, Shaw
had hoped that several of his plays, not just the one,
could be printed in the proposed new alphabet but this
proved to be unrealistic, considering the sum of money
available, and it is not entirely clear why Androcles was
chosen rather than some other. Even Barbara Smoker,
a founding member of the Phonetic Alphabet Association
and avid supporter of Shaw's proposals, commented
that chances for success in court would have been
better had, say, one of Enid Blyton's children's stories
been
selected instead.

In any event, after much wrangling, the design competion
for a new alphabet was held, surprising everyone by the
number of valid entries submitted, some 467 in all, and it
took a year for Pitman, Peter MacCarthy, head of the
department of Phonetics at the University of Leeds, and
Alan Dodson, chief typographer of the (Government)
Stationary Office to select four 'semi-winners', with the
provision that the four would be co-ordinated to produce
a final design. Barbara Smoker however deplored "the
absence of any expert calligrapher or educational
psychologists among the assessors, and pointed out
that any fusion between the four winning designs was
impossible (they being quite different in concept)."

"James Pitman however felt exuberant. The final alfabet
was an improved version of Kingsley Read's aesthetically
pleasing forty-eight character 'sound-writing' system."

One such improvement was due to Pitman himself, who
pointed out Shaw's insistence that every letter be distinct,
even in isolation, and this was the origin of the rotated
letters; Read apparently had merely used a difference in
height to distinguish his voiced and unvoiced pairs. "It
(the final version) contained little reference to the other
three versions but was 'better than most other alphabets',
conceded Barbara Smoker who was to be employed as
specialist editor on the new Androcles."

Another two years were required to prepare Androcles
for publication. "The delay had been largely caused by
contradictory instructions from Pitman, Penguin (the
publisher), the expert Phonetician and the Public
Trustee (who administered the will). Eventually Barbara
Smoker 'walked out in a huff' leaving Hans Schmoller,
the publisher's master typographer, floundering among
the
hieroglyphics of 'the world's strangest type-face'." 
Considering such disarray, it would not have been un-
usual if, as I believe, a few typographical mishaps
occurred. 

I wonder too who this 'expert Phonetician' might have
been; had it been Peter MacCarthy, one of the ap-
pointed assessors, it would have been easy enough
to say so; after all, his 'Notes on the spelling' are in-
cluded in the introduction to Androcles. Whomever it
was, it was he who most probably determined that
Androcles would be rendered in RP, with little or no
regard to Shaw's preference (the ligatured r-vowels
that could be interpreted as a concession in that
respect were I believe part of Read's original concept
and thus, supposedly, inviolate). This is not surprising.
Open any book by any English linguist and most often
the only speech-form considered
worthy of any serious
analysis is RP—this is automatically taken to be the
standard, with all other forms of speech, implicitly,
treated as deviations.  The same is true in America
except that there, GA or General American, is assumed,
with supposedly a greater demographic base than RP,
to be universal. I doubt very much that Shaw—who in
one way or another throughout his adult life always
challenged pretension and railed over the subsequent
strife thus generated—would have approved. Recall
that it was Shaw (or perhaps Oscar Wilde, another
Anglo-Irishman) who quipped that No Englishman
ever opened his mouth but that another Englishman
despised him.

All this is admittedly making a lot out of a little, but if, as
some wish, Androcles is declared to be canonical (are
we to set up a College of Cardinals as well?), then we
shall be saddled with a divisive
restriction, tied to one
particular manner of pronunciation at the expense of
others—one that inevitably will be resisted.


Visitors noticed that Shaw's own 'strong Irish brogue'
reappeared, or became more pronounced, as he grew
older, and aware of this as he must have been, even
earlier, and its contrast with other ways of speaking,
it can not but have influenced him in his desire to find
some sort of happy medium for general usage, one
without cultural baggage—indeed, he was later
appointed to an oversight board of the BBC for that
express purpose, but without much success at the time.
He wished to see, or rather hear, "speaker(s) whose
speech will be accepted in every part of the English
speaking world" (and without rancour, one might add).
Thus, no posh please! To this end, he thought it would
be helpful (thus an idea was born) to promote "A new
phonetic alphabet that would let people spell as they
speak without any
nonsense about bad or good or
right or wrong spelling and speech"—something that
might assist the cause of social reconciliation, one of
the Fabian Society's goals. (Shaw always referred to his
proposed new alphabet as 'phonetic', whereas Read's
result is actually 'phonemic', but I think this is because
the term phonemic is a later and also a more technical
derivation.)

There is, of course, a certain tension between a 'happy
medium' and everyone speaking and spelling as they
wish. Shaw seems to have cared little for logic in its
formal sense, and enjoyed controversy, at least when
younger. He complained, when critics complained that
his plays contained contradictions, that they failed to
understand that one could be 'serious about something
and yet laugh about it at the same time'. A phonetic, or
even phonemic, alphabet by its very nature serves the
interests of diversity; canonical rules sabotage this
effort
if any leeway is discouraged. But of course, an accepted
standard can ease wider comprehension, if it is broad
enough to begin with. What to do?

If there must be a canonical (or wouldn't it be better to say
'suggested standard'?) for a compiled lexicon, then it seems
to me to be appropriate that the most comprehensive choice
of alternative guides available, one that could best embrace
the widest range of speech, is or rather should be the only
realistic option—one that requires the least amount of
sacrifice by the greatest number of speakers, and I suspect
that this is the American Heritage Dictionary, or AHD4, for
fourth (latest) edition. There is a little something for everyone
here, which, after all, is an indication of a true compromise.

ever more wordily,
dshep

krIESon

it tEks a TIf t mOst kwikli rekognFz An Akt v TIveri;

.

inteliJent dezFn iz mOst Izili rekognFzd bF An inteliJent person.

--em Anon

.

213.

''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''

2/213.rtf