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Why not set up a non-profit as the Phonemic Spelling Council (to use an old name)

You would need to specify your goals and aims.  Check out www.spellingsociety.org
 
What would be the educational benefit beyond learning
a nifty phonemic shorthand for English?
 
Why would a teacher want to allow a student to write a paper on the Shaw alphabet?
Taking up class time to teach it might be asking too much.
 
Are shorthand classes still being taught?
Is any kind of note-taking skill being taught?
 
--Steve
sbett@lycos.com



Re: [shawalphabet] Fiftieth birthday

I've been thinking about highschools.

The Shaw alphabet is somewhat unique in being both phonetic and shorthand, plus already being in unicode and will have been around for 50 years, and it's connection with a famous English playwright..

With a quick non-profit incorporation (5 signatures, $25, and 15 minutes at the secretary of state's office in NH) and some fund raising, we could distribute free learning materials to schools; some public domain books transliterated to Shavian, copies of Ubuntu Shavian Remix (Ubuntu with the shaw translations and fonts included), curricula which could be incorporated into another class such as English or a vocational class which already teaches various forms of shorthand.

We may only get a few hundred teachers in different schools to request these, but it could effect thousands of students.


You know, in 2011 it'll be fifty years since the competition to design the alphabet.  We should do something quite big to celebrate the anniversary and publicise the alphabet.  What do you think?

Thomas



This is something I tried to post before but did not get thru.

Phonetic shorthand vs. quasi-phonetic texting
 
Phonetic texting is stuck with the existing keypads.
This makes it difficult to augment the alphabet or use a keypad code.
 
One answer is to reduce the phonemicity of the code to what can be readily handled.
 
QicRyt is one proposal for phonetic texting:



Check out Adrocles and the Lion (Penguin Dual Reader)  Probably available on Google Books.
In this book, the Shavian transcription require 2/3's the space required for the traditional notation.
The difference would not have been so clear if a condensed type had been used instead of a book face.

GUS:  Dt dipends on hw wel u cn si smol letrs...
Bt if no problm, y nt us dm tgedr wid QR - den ud sev ivn mor.
 
SB:  Can you recognize these magazine and store names in QR?
It is next to impossible to do so in Shavian until you memoirze the new sound-signs.    
QR does not respell proper nouns but if they did....

     

 Lyf  mag'zin
McDon'lds
Mesis
Sports 'tor'ti
Sacs Fift Avinu
 
Coca Cola there is no difference in QikRyt and even the Shavian can be recognized.
images may not display:
 
 
Ston Henj   

Stit syns  
 
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/shawalphabet/files/shavian.swf
Simple text animation using Shavian spelling. You need a Flash player or Flash-equipped browser to view it.
 
http://www.theage.com.au/national/education/its-offishal--english-iz-darned-hard-to-lurn-20091116-ii9z.html
 
These images probably will not display but I thought I would experiment

 Economy of writing  
 
Gus,
This was the same comment I made in the Shaw alphabet group.      
          http://groups.yahoo.com/group/shawalphabet
By adjusting the size and character width, the space on a page can be reduced 30%
matching the savings of Shavian, or QuickWrite (QicRyt)

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year
Meri Crism's & Hapi Nu Yir

SB: Shavian required only 2/3's the space required by the traditional script in book face.
Check out Adrocles and the Lion (Penguin Dual Reader)  Available on Google Books.
The dual written language version does not appear to be there. . . . yet.
 
There are two ways to save paper and ink:  1. reduce the number or characters or
2. reduce the size and/or width of the characters.  It  would be easier for TS adepts to read TS in a condensed font than an abbreviated script.  (see examples above and below)
 
This has nothing to do with SMS texting since it is based solely on character count.
 
Lonely Code
What good is code that next to no-one knows or uses?

Richard wrote:  I bought a couple of old copies (of Shaw's Androcles and the Lion), thinking they might come in, in some way. They, and the history behind them, are very interesting, when you first hear about it, but what a lonely garden path we sometimes plough, or contemplate ploughing (if you get my meaning?). Worms for company, right?
 
Non Roman Alfabets
Shaw Alfabet-Burns Fonetic Shorthand
 
SB: Shaw and Twain both thought that reform required a new augmented alphabet.  They did not like phonetic alphabets that used Roman letters.  Twain thought that respelling English words with Roman letters conflicted too much with our past understandings and made it impossible to appreciate the new spellings.  Twain could see beauty in written Spanish but not in English written in an augmented spanish orthography.  Twain's examples were the simplified spellings of 1900 not New Spelling or SimFon.
 
Twin used Burns shorthand as an example of a non-Roman phonetic alphabet.  Shaw wrote in Pitman shorthand but didn't think it was suitable for printing.  He wanted a linear shorthand.  In 1941 he provided the full specifications of his Proposed British Alphabet.
 
If the signs around us were rewritten in IPA, we could still read them because 5 vowels and 22 consonants are about the same.  If they were re-written in Shavian or Burnz Shorthand, they could not be deciphered until you learned the new codes since there is no connection between these non-roman codes and the letters we are familiar with.
 
Mein Sti:t  the IPA version
men strit  QicRyt version 
30% shorter than
Main Street  but only if the characters were the same size.
 
Ra:kwud Lein
rocwud len    
rokwud lên   in Franklin Fonetik
 

SB:  Shavian saves about 30% .when compared to a book face. The savings for Shavian would hav evaporated if a condensed font in a slighly smaller point size was used for TS.   
 
Cut spelling saves about ten percent just by dropping the surplus letters and using syllabic vowels RLMN.   QicRyt saves about 30%.   
In addn. tu dropiq s'rpl's letrs & usiq silabics,
QR ridus's d vwls t 7  & drops dygrafs.  
Vwls:  A E I O U Y shwapostrophe '

> RIKD: Too technical for me. Is he saying 'The savings would have evaporated if the print was bigger?' Prolly not(?).
 
SB: Yes the savings would have evaporated if the Shavian text were bigger or the traditional text were smaller and/or more condensed.

SB: All reform orthographies remove surplus letters resulting in 5% savings unless they add additional silent letters as markers or new digraphs.  e.g., verry  enny  oenly auf

> In which case there are still minor savings, which accumulate over time ('dough,' 'through').
 
SB: That depends.  do and thru save several characters.  Overall savings would depend on how many were added back in order to retain the magic-e marking convention.  About 50% of the polysyllable words with a short stressed vowel might require an additional marker letter.
 
> RIKD: Quite. I could spend all day with my NLBD hat on, waxing lyrical about the problems of the disabled, & how they impinge on spelling - might help my career in the union. After all, that's what teachers do.

> But no, I tell myself - stick to the Big Picture.
>
GUS:  Bt if no problm, y nt us dm tgedr wid QR - den ud sev ivn mor.
          But if no problem, why not use them together with QR - then save even more.

> Smart, or what?
 
The point is that you can reduce word signs quite a bit without making the text unreadable.This is not the case with an abbreviated script.  It can be difficult  to read even
when legible and large.  If the word-sign is in a code, then it cannot be as easily recognized. 

> > > SB:  Can you recognize these magazine and store names in QR?
> > > It is next to impossible to do so in Shavian.
 
> > > QR does not respell proper nouns but if they did....
> > >  Lyf  mag'zin

> RIKD: 'Life Magazine.' No problem - apart from the fact that it's a magazine & there seems to be a section missing(?).

> > > McDon'lds

> RIKD: 'Mcdonalds.' No problem, apart, again, from the worry that they've left out the hash brown, or something.

> > > Mesis
>
> ? 'Maces?'    Maces would be written the same way but this is Macey's

> > > Sports 'tor'ti

> RIKD: 'Sports Authority?' With a couple of balls out of court?

> > > Sacs Fift Avinu

> RIKD:  'Sachs, Fifth Avenue?'   SB: Correct - fairly easy except for t = t or th.

> > GUS: As de myt nt lyc wt ur duiq,
*As they might not like what you're doing. 
    
y kenj pipl/orgs nems w/o dm hvq sm se dr.?
Why change people's or organization's names without them having some say there.

> RIKD: To see how they like being called 'Gs' & 'Styv?' :)
 
SB:  You mean G's and Stiv.?
 
I don't think that Gus recommends changing proper names.  These belong to their
owners and are pronounced whatever way they say they are pronounced. 
 
SB: however, I don't think it would bother me.  When I go to Brazil, I am called Estevão
 
> > > House stile removed surplus characters but then added letters to mark short stressed vowels - verry, enny, acommodate, ...

> RIKD:  Two processes => too complicated. Let's have a House Stile which lives one day at a time, sweet Jesus - just one day at a time!
 
SB: I presume you mean that it is OK to cut surplus letters but not add letters to already familiar word-signs such as verry and enny.    rubr rubis r veri rer n dis rijn
*rubber rubies are very rare in this region
 
> > > SB:  If wi r tokiq 'bwt seviq pepr, den us 6 pt. typ or a c'ndensd font.  It wd bi hardr t rid dan a bukfes bt stil izi'r t rid dan QR :-)
 
If we are talking about saving paper, then use 6 pt. type or a condensed font.  It would be harder to read than a bookface but still easier to read than QR.


> RIKD:  Very subjective. Assumes the reader isn't Gus Hasselquist's secret lover - you know, the one who has all day to decifer his screeds. Or that weird, imitative and disruptive follower of his in England.

 I notis d smyli at d end & so u didnt se dt wid a str8 fes...
 
SB: It is an untested claim but not subjective.  The text above is an example of two lines
of text, one with 30% fewer characters and presented in a smaller and more condesned typeface.  Which is a quicker read? 
 
With Valerie's scheme, there would be no surplus characters so the text would not have to be reduced that much to be the same length as QicRyt.
 

 

If people are interested, I'll do the whole film.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LGH5lbnpCYo

Is Shavian a shorthand?

Well--if it would encourage people to try it i would say yes, maybe;
or perhaps, at least, a semi-shorthand. The mark of a true shorthand,
i recall reading somewhere, is--in competent hands--an invention
that allows speech to be accurately recorded verbatim, and as such
was once a vital resource for newspaper reporters and the like.

Shavian is rather an alternative alphabet, one based upon reason,
rational organization (mostly), and visual appeal as opposed to an
alphabet acquired through historical processes and maintained by
tradition. A contest however between reason and tradition usually
ends with tradition triumphant, and this is why i think Shaw, in sheer
desperation, stressed the savings aspect (of time, paper, and ink)
so strenuously in his argument for a new alphabet--his appeal to
reason was generally ignored, but an economic argument might
generate interest and support, or so he thought (or hoped). It didn't
however.

Effort is required to learn to learn to use an alphabet, any alphabet.
A lot of us would still be illiterate if we had not been introduced to the
magic of words and writing when we were too young to question its
purpose and utility. The best hope for Shavian i believe is to make it
fun, to appeal to Homo Ludens, and i applaud the current attempts
to do just that.  

…

Reading some of the sample passages at  www.spellingsociety.org
i noticed that there appeared to be a one-to-one correspondence of
Shavian with the simplified text used. Whether they use a standard
reformed spelling or each contributor writes in his own version i was
unable to determine, but the particular sample i saw could be easily
exchanged, almost letter for letter, for Shavian, and of course vice-versa.  
Shaw refused despite appeals to consider the Simplified Spelling Society
as beneficiary in his will with the view that such a form of writing would
only strike the public as being the effort of an uneducated person, and
therefore insisted upon a completely new, and different, alphabet. This
was perhaps unfair--reading reformed spelling is easy enough, and
makes more and more sense as one continues. But it may be a realistic
view. On the other hand, i have seen Shavian described--the reading of
it, that is--as trying to decipher an oriental carpet. Boo! Unfair!   

…

Incidentally, the domain name http://shavian.com/ is for sale. Asking price
$3,150. I discovered this site by accident and have no idea what they do.

dshep
 

Please do.

This sort of thing is the best hope (i think) for the
future of Shavian.

dshep

On Wed, Dec 30, 2009 at 07:29, dshep <dshepx@...> wrote:
>
> Incidentally, the domain name http://shavian.com/ is for sale. Asking price
> $3,150. I discovered this site by accident and have no idea what they do.

Speaking of which, I'm also looking for a caretaker for shavian.org.

I registered the domain several years ago but never really did anything with it.

For a while I hosted some private materials in a subdirectory but I've
moved those elsewhere (though links will, presumably, still point to
the shavian.org version), so that pretty much removed my involvement.

So I'd be willing to transfer the domain registration into someone
else's loving hands, who would like to develop shavian.org.

There's also a forum on shavian.org that Hugh Birkenhead set up years
ago, but from what I hear, it's pretty much overrun by spammers and
nobody has the admin rights to really take care of it, so that could
stand to be cleaned up or (more likely) replaced.

Any takers?

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

Hi guys,

Arc Riley asked about reviving the Ikonboard back in October, so I made him
an administrator. I'm not sure if the software is just too out of date to be
any use now, though, so it might just be better to start up a new one using
phpBB or similar.

I'll gladly look after shavian.org if nobody else has a registrar's account.

Hugh

2009/12/30 Philip Newton <philip.newton@...>

>
>
> On Wed, Dec 30, 2009 at 07:29, dshep <dshepx@att.net <dshepx%40att.net>>
> wrote:
> >
> > Incidentally, the domain name http://shavian.com/ is for sale. Asking
> price
> > $3,150. I discovered this site by accident and have no idea what they do.
>
> Speaking of which, I'm also looking for a caretaker for shavian.org.
>
> I registered the domain several years ago but never really did anything
> with it.
>
> For a while I hosted some private materials in a subdirectory but I've
> moved those elsewhere (though links will, presumably, still point to
> the shavian.org version), so that pretty much removed my involvement.
>
> So I'd be willing to transfer the domain registration into someone
> else's loving hands, who would like to develop shavian.org.
>
> There's also a forum on shavian.org that Hugh Birkenhead set up years
> ago, but from what I hear, it's pretty much overrun by spammers and
> nobody has the admin rights to really take care of it, so that could
> stand to be cleaned up or (more likely) replaced.
>
> Any takers?
>
> Cheers,
> Philip
> --
> Philip Newton <philip.newton@gmail.com <philip.newton%40gmail.com>>
>
>

2009/12/30 Philip Newton <philip.newton@...>

> On Wed, Dec 30, 2009 at 07:29, dshep <dshepx@...> wrote:
> >
> > Incidentally, the domain name http://shavian.com/ is for sale. Asking
> price
> > $3,150. I discovered this site by accident and have no idea what they do.
>
> Speaking of which, I'm also looking for a caretaker for shavian.org.
>

I have a fair amount of material on shavian.org.uk which could just as
easily (probably better) live on shavian.org. So if you'd be interested,
I'd certainly be.

Thomas

Of which default, complaine we may, in the old A.B.C.
Wherein be letters twentie fower, whereof but six agree,
In perfect use, of name and sound, besides misplacing some,
Other are written unsounded, wherein concord is none.
But he that will Inglishe knowe, divisions in voice,
Shall find therein fortie and fower, without any more choice. 

William Bullokar, from his
Booke at Large, for the Amendment of Orthographie for
English Speech, 1580

I have a self-published children's book called "Not Ordinarily Borrowable"; you can read about it at http://borrowable.net or http://www.amazon.com/Not-Ordinarily-Borrowable/dp/1449517544 .

I'm vaguely considering a Shavian edition, either as a printed book or as a free e-book. It's about 15,000 words; I'll be checking it myself, but does anyone want to volunteer to proofread the transliteration?

Thomas