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Phil,

You raise some interesting points.

The easy solution is to introduce another type of namer-dot for abbreviations.

Scientific terms are a major problem for spelling reformers.

These are essentially logograms or word-signs or semagrams that have multiple
interpretations in terms of how they are pronounced.

Steve
From: Philip Newton <philip.newton@d...>
Date: Wed Mar 31, 1999 2:58 pm
Subject: [shavian] Abbreviations

hF evDIwun

hQ R abrIviESanz t bI rendDd in /SEvWn? Az H /SEvWn letDz kPaspondiN
t H /iNliS letDz, P Az H iniSal letDz v H wxdz speld in /SEvWn? fP
agzympl, asVm "UHM" iz H abrIviESan fP H "/unwoSt /hVman /mAsiz". iz
H /SEvWn abrIviESan "/uhm" (P "/u/h/m") fP "/unwoSt /hVman /mAsiz"
P "/V/h/m" fP "UHM"?

wot abQt Akranimz HAt R prOnQnst Az wxdz? iz CMOS "/k/m/o/s"
fP "/komplimentDi /metal /oksFd on /Silikon" or "/sImos" fP "see-
moss"? (n hQ meni nEmD dots?)

jUDz /SEvWnli,
/filip

How are abbreviations to be rendered in Shavian? As the Shavian
letters corresponding to the English letters, or as the initial
letters of the words spelled in Shavian? For example, assume "UHM"
is the abbreviation for the "Unwashed Human Masses". Is the Shavian
abbreviation "up-haha-mime" for "Unwashed Human Masses" or "yew-haha-
mime" for "UHM"?

What about acronyms that are pronounced as words? Is CMOS "kick-mime-
on-so" for "Complementary Metal Oxide on Silicon" or "so-eat-mime-on-
so" for "see-moss"? (And how many namer dots?)

From: "Lionel Ghoti" <ghoti@d...>
Date: Wed May 19, 1999 4:23 pm
Subject: [shavian] Re: Keyboard Shavian

The keyboard mapping pattern for the Shavian fonts was devised, as
far I know, by Ross DeMeyere
(http://www.demeyere.com/Shavian/info.html), and was first used
in his Shaw Rough and Shaw Gothic fonts. These were the first
Shavian fonts to be widely used, and the first Shavian content on
the web used these fonts. For
compatibility's sake, all subsequently created fonts have used the
same mapping
pattern. When I made my Lionspaw font, I considered using a
different mapping
pattern, and I came up with a new pattern which I think featured a
few improvements over the old one; but I still couldn't find a way
to avoid having some arbitrary phoneme-grapheme correspondences, and
I didn't feel that the few improvements the new pattern could make
would justify making the change and causing all the biliteral
problems that would follow.

I think your Unigraf mapping pattern is the best I've seen, and I
found that I
could read your sample text very quickly. I find that its Roman text
can be read
much more intuitively than the current "keyboard Shavian"; and I
think it would
be much easier to learn to type using your system.

However, I fear that some of the new correspondences which appear
intuitive to me (since I'm familiar with the International Phonetic
Alphabet) might seem overly arbitrary (perhaps more arbitrary than
their values in current keyboard Shavian)
to someone who doesn't know the IPA. For example, you use an X for
the /dh/ phoneme.
I find this easy to remember because it looks like the top half of
the IPA symbol for that phoneme (like a lower-case d, but with its
ascender curling over to the left and crossed with a small diagaonal
line). But someone who has never come across the IPA would probably
find it somewhat easier to remember the current key combination, H,
since an h is always present when the /dh/ phoneme is represented in
the Roman alphabet.

I think we should keep in mind that the Shavian alphabet is about
alphabet reform, not mere spelling reform: Shavian text is meant to
be read using its own letters, not those of the Roman alphabet.
Most -- if not all -- of us on this
mailing list can send and receive HTML-formatted email messages,
meaning that we don't have to decipher things like "sxc" or "sRK"
("search"). The only real difficulty I have in communicating in
Shavian is _typing_ it using my QWERTY
keyboard, trying to remember which key corresponds to which Shavian
letter. I put this down to lack of practice, however -- and when
I've sat down to type in Shavian for any length of time, I've found
even the current key-mapping surprisingly easy to learn.

If there didn't already exist on the Internet a fair amount of
Shavian text using the current key-mapping, I'd readily change the
mapping of my font to use your Unigraf system, and I'd urge all the
other Shavian font designers to do likewise. At this point in time,
however, as the Shavian alphabet is only just beginning to set down
its electronic roots on the Internet, I think it would be dangerous
to cause confusion to any new Shavian acolytes by introducing a
second mapping pattern. If someone unwittingly tried to read some
pattern-x text in a pattern-y font, the experience might put them
off Shavian for life.

I don't think all of the Shavian content providers would agree by
consensus to change the ASCII-coding of their Shavian text. Only a
few months ago, it was suggested that the "huNG" and "Ha-ha" glyphs
had mistakenly been switched in the production of the alphabet table
of _Androcles and the Lion_, and that they should be switched back
immediately in all of the current Shavian fonts before anyone else
noticed. The online Shavian community rebelled, and a terrible rift
threatened. Tears were shed, catty things were said, and a punch-up
was avoided only by the fact that none of us knows where anyone else
lives. The general consensus was that the alphabet should be left as
it has been since the Sixties.
Granted, you're not talking about changing the alphabet itself, but
I would guess that the general consensus would be opposed to any
sort of change which would affect the readability of the existing
Shavian content on the web.

Anyone else?

Lionel Ghoti


----- Original Message -----
From: <sbett@m...>
To: <shavian@...>
Sent: 12 May 1999 12:41 am
Subject: [shavian] Keyboard Shavian


> Where does keyboard Shavian come from? It is used on all of the
Shavian fonts
that I am aware of.
>
> I think that keyboard Shavian, the ascii text that appears on the
screen before the font is applied, can be improved.
>
> The question is whether or not the improvement is significant
enough to be worth the problem of chancing existing font development
conventions.
>
> 90% of keyboard Shavian is intelligible. The other 10% appears to
be rather arbirary phoneme-grapheme correspondences.
>
> An improvement in the rationality and readability of keyboard
Shavian is probably limited to about 5%. The R-combinations will
always remain arbitrary.
>
> I would also like to add ligatures in Shavian for syllabic LMN in
addition to
R as in "hR litL colM cAm fRst."
>
> The Unigraf system: 25 vowels (12 pure vowels) aa and o are
usually merged
>
> Vowel Phonemes - with IPA identifiers
> checkt | free | difthongs | R-combinations
>
> a q /aa/ I,Y/ai/ qr Ir (are [R], ire)
> e R /3:/ A /ei/ er (air) [x,X]
> i E /i:/ Q /oi/ ir (ear) (D)
> q /o/ o /o:/ O /ou/ or (P) (aura)
> c /u/ C /u:/ U /ju/ Ur (your) [turned or lazy U's used for
hook and hoop]
> u /^/ @ shwa V[au] Vr (our)
>
> Unigraf depends on the intuitive grasp of rotated (lazy) letters
c=u (as in
hook/hck), C=u: (as in hoop/hCp), X=dh, T=th, N=schwa+n, @=schwa.
>
> The result of this experiment was that while English usually uses
single letters to represent long vowels, a system that does this
consistently isn't that easy to read. No phonemic notation will
match TO dictionary spelling more
than 40% of the time. Thus 60% (or more) of the phonemic word
spellings will initially look odd. (of course some notations are
more odd than others)
>
> Unigrafic notations such as Shavian have the added problem of
totally unfamiliar diphthongs and R-combinations. There is not much
that can be done here beyond finding suitable memory hooks. E.G.,
the [ear] phonogram looks like an ear /ir/. The [oar] phonogram
looks like a raised oar /o:r/.
>
> Unigraf is not set in stone. The idea was to have something that
would be intuitive to the T.O. reader. Thus the long vowels are
AEIOU rather than EIYOU. I
prefer the latter as would anyone who is familiar with IPA. I could
also adopt
a=schwa and use @ for at.
>
> Not all of the T.O. inspired corresondences are equally bad: A can
be
interpreted (or visualized) as an EI ligature.
>
> X@ pQnt iz Xat Xis nOtASN iz rEd@bl or at lEst mor rEd@bL Tan
>
> (Keyboard Shavian - kEbPd Sqvi@n)
> /kristafD /kalumbas, an /itAlian-bPn nAvigEtD hM sEld in H sxvis
v /spEn, iz
komanli diskrFbd
> Az H diskuvDD v H /nV /wxld - /amerika. YlHO kalumbas woz in sxc v
a westwDd
rMt t /EZa bF sI,
> H diskuvDiz hI did mEk wx mP impPtant n vAljUabal HAn H rMt hI
fEld t fFnd.
>
> (Unigraf)
> /krist@fR k@lumb@s, an /itali@n-born navigAtR hC sAld in X sRvis
v /spAn, iz
kqm@nli diskrYbd
> az X diskuvRR v X /nU /wRld - /@merik@. ----- k@lumbus woz in sRK
v @ westwRd
rVt t /AZ@ bY sE, X diskuvREz hE did mAk w mor important n valyU@b@l
Xan X rVt
hE fAld t fYnd.
>
> Comments and critiques welcomed.
>
> Regards, Steve Bett

From: "Simon Barne" <simonbarne@e...>
Date: Sat May 15, 1999 10:40 am
Subject: [shavian] Hello from a new member

gUd dE
F SUd lFk t intradVs mFself Az a nV membD f H grMp. (iz His H dun
TiN?)

F hAv bIn fAsinEtid bF /SEvWn sins lxniN v it wFl liviN in /tAnzanW.
not hAviN muc Akses t bUks, let alOn H intDnet - F didant hAv a
telafOn P Ivan ilektrisiti - F kUd not fFnd Qt veri muc abQt it.
lyst jC F ritxnd t /britan, but hAv jet t mIt eniwun hM hAz Ivan hxd
v /SEvWn. evribodi TiNks Fm a krANk. sO F Am rilIvd t diskuvD F Am
not alOn...

bikoz v lAk v prAktis, F Am stil a novis. mF mEn problam iz kanfVziN
H vXWs pXz (r-l; m-n; x-X; E-F; y-Y) n in pDtikVlD a-o-e-A. YlHO H
Alfabet hAz sum namonik fIcDz, F sumtFmz wundD if sxtan letDz R Just
tM similD. F nevD hAv eni difikalti ramembriN I, fP instans.

eniwE, His iz Just t sE helO. apolaJiz fP eni mistEks.

/sFman /bRn

Hi Phil & Steve

There are at least 3 types of Acronyms and Abbreviations used in T.O.

There is only far we can go in using these Shorthand forms of
writing unless we wish to retain the vestiges of the Roman Alphabet
embedded inside words written in the Shavian Alphabet.
Decoding this "Shorthand" is based on an intimate knowledge of the
Roman Alphabet.
Let's look at each of these 3 types.
1. Acronyms and Abbreviations that have been absorbed completely
into regular English and are pronounced as spelt.
(i.e. Ad, Auto, scuba, radar, snafu, NATO, Okay)
No problem. They can be written phonetically.
2. Acronyms that are pronounced as a string of Roman Alphabet letter
names. (i.e. USA, FBI, CIA, SOS, OK, TV, IBM, Washington D.C., U.K.,
U.S.S.R.) More of a problem, but still might be written
phonetically.
3. Ad-hoc Abbreviations using string of Roman Alphabet letter names.
created to avoid repeating a common phrase in an article.
This is a big problem. It is not possible to transliterate without
that special new marker sign, you are talking about.

There is no one solution to this issue.

Regards, Paul V.
________________attached____________________________________________

--- In shawalphabet@yahoogroups.com, stbetta@a... wrote:
> Phil,
>
> You raise some interesting points.
>
> The easy solution is to introduce another type of namer-dot for
abbreviations.
>
> Scientific terms are a major problem for spelling reformers.
>
> These are essentially logograms or word-signs or semagrams that
have multiple
> interpretations in terms of how they are pronounced.
>
> Steve
> From: Philip Newton <philip.newton@d...>
> Date: Wed Mar 31, 1999 2:58 pm
> Subject: [shavian] Abbreviations
>
> hF evDIwun
>
> hQ R abrIviESanz t bI rendDd in /SEvWn? Az H /SEvWn letDz
kPaspondiN
> t H /iNliS letDz, P Az H iniSal letDz v H wxdz speld in /SEvWn? fP
> agzympl, asVm "UHM" iz H abrIviESan fP H "/unwoSt /hVman /mAsiz".
iz
> H /SEvWn abrIviESan "/uhm" (P "/u/h/m") fP "/unwoSt /hVman /mAsiz"
> P "/V/h/m" fP "UHM"?
>
> wot abQt Akranimz HAt R prOnQnst Az wxdz? iz CMOS "/k/m/o/s"
> fP "/komplimentDi /metal /oksFd on /Silikon" or "/sImos" fP "see-
> moss"? (n hQ meni nEmD dots?)
>
> jUDz /SEvWnli,
> /filip
>
> How are abbreviations to be rendered in Shavian? As the Shavian
> letters corresponding to the English letters, or as the initial
> letters of the words spelled in Shavian? For example, assume "UHM"
> is the abbreviation for the "Unwashed Human Masses". Is the
Shavian
> abbreviation "up-haha-mime" for "Unwashed Human Masses" or "yew-
haha-
> mime" for "UHM"?
>
> What about acronyms that are pronounced as words? Is CMOS "kick-
mime-
> on-so" for "Complementary Metal Oxide on Silicon" or "so-eat-mime-
on-
> so" for "see-moss"? (And how many namer dots?)

Hi Phil & Steve

I thought about it and their a couple other categories of English
Acronyms and Abbreviations used in T.O.

These are even less ameniable to being tranliterated into the Shavian
Alphabet, than the 3 other kinds of Abbreviations that we looked at
in the last posting.

1. Business and Postal Address Abbreviations. These seem designed to
business and the acts of Letter and Cheque writing less strenuous.
It is impossible to translate them into Shavian with out expanding
the abbreviation into its full form and then tranliterating it out
phonetically. (i.e. Apt. Appt. St. Ave. Mr. Dr. Mrs. No. (Number)
Sun, Mon, Tue, Wed, Thur, Fri, Sat, Jan, A.M., P.M., A.D., B.C., AC,
DC, B.Sc., Ph.D., anon., Co., Ltd., Inc., GMT, EST, ed. BLT, R.S.V.P,
R.I.P., Abbr. Alt. Assoc., cc:, etc. )

2. And last but not least, Abbreviations that are pronounced, without
any rhyme or reason. (i.e. CMOS, ASCII, Attn) A lot of them are
Computer industry related. GIGO or more appropriately MGHMOTS -> May
G-d have mercy on theirs Souls.

Regards, Paul V.

P.S. In T.O. you might write St. James St. and everybody would expand
it to Saint James Street. This kind of letter magic does not exist in
the Shavian Alphabet.

--- In shawalphabet@yahoogroups.com, "paul vandenbrink"
<pvandenbrink@s...> wrote:
>
> Hi Phil & Steve
>
> There are at least 3 types of Acronyms and Abbreviations used in
T.O.
>
> There is only far we can go in using these Shorthand forms of
> writing unless we wish to retain the vestiges of the Roman Alphabet
> embedded inside words written in the Shavian Alphabet.
> Decoding this "Shorthand" is based on an intimate knowledge of the
> Roman Alphabet.
> Let's look at each of these 3 types.
> 1. Acronyms and Abbreviations that have been absorbed completely
> into regular English and are pronounced as spelt.
> (i.e. Ad, Auto, scuba, radar, snafu, NATO, Okay)
> No problem. They can be written phonetically.
> 2. Acronyms that are pronounced as a string of Roman Alphabet
letter
> names. (i.e. HQ, USA, FBI, CIA, SOS, OK, TV, IBM, E.T.A, E.R.),
Washington D.C., U.K. IV, HIV, U.S.S.R., CEO, IOU, MGM )
These are more of a problem, but still might be written
> phonetically.
> 3. Ad-hoc Abbreviations using string of Roman Alphabet letter
names.
> created to avoid repeating a common phrase in an article.
> This is a big problem.
It is not possible to transliterate without
that special new marker sign, you were talking about.
>
> There is no one solution to this issue.
>
> Regards, Paul V.
> ________________attached____________________________________________
>
> --- In shawalphabet@yahoogroups.com, stbetta@a... wrote:
> > Phil,
> >
> > You raise some interesting points.
> >
> > The easy solution is to introduce another type of namer-dot for
> abbreviations.
> >
> > Scientific terms are a major problem for spelling reformers.
> >
> > These are essentially logograms or word-signs or semagrams that
> have multiple
> > interpretations in terms of how they are pronounced.
> >
> > Steve
> > From: Philip Newton <philip.newton@d...>
> > Date: Wed Mar 31, 1999 2:58 pm
> > Subject: [shavian] Abbreviations
> >
> > hF evDIwun
> >
> > hQ R abrIviESanz t bI rendDd in /SEvWn? Az H /SEvWn letDz
> kPaspondiN
> > t H /iNliS letDz, P Az H iniSal letDz v H wxdz speld in /SEvWn?
fP
> > agzympl, asVm "UHM" iz H abrIviESan fP H "/unwoSt /hVman /mAsiz".
> iz
> > H /SEvWn abrIviESan "/uhm" (P "/u/h/m")
fP "/unwoSt /hVman /mAsiz"
> > P "/V/h/m" fP "UHM"?
> >
> > wot abQt Akranimz HAt R prOnQnst Az wxdz? iz CMOS "/k/m/o/s"
> > fP "/komplimentDi /metal /oksFd on /Silikon" or "/sImos" fP "see-
> > moss"? (n hQ meni nEmD dots?)
> >
> > jUDz /SEvWnli,
> > /filip
> >
> > How are abbreviations to be rendered in Shavian? As the Shavian
> > letters corresponding to the English letters, or as the initial
> > letters of the words spelled in Shavian? For example,
assume "UHM"
> > is the abbreviation for the "Unwashed Human Masses". Is the
> Shavian
> > abbreviation "up-haha-mime" for "Unwashed Human Masses" or "yew-
> haha-
> > mime" for "UHM"?
> >
> > What about acronyms that are pronounced as words? Is CMOS "kick-
> mime-
> > on-so" for "Complementary Metal Oxide on Silicon" or "so-eat-mime-
> on-
> > so" for "see-moss"? (And how many namer dots?)

I figure acronyms will develop from the first letter/sylable of each
word. CMOS becomes Co-MOS K-On-M-On-S as for namer dots, I'm not sure.

--Star

--- paul vandenbrink <pvandenbrink@...> wrote:

>
> From: Philip Newton <philip.newton@d...>
> Date: Wed Mar 31, 1999 2:58 pm
> Subject: [shavian] Abbreviations
>
> hF evDIwun
>
> hQ R abrIviESanz t bI rendDd in /SEvWn? Az H /SEvWn letDz kPaspondiN
> t H /iNliS letDz, P Az H iniSal letDz v H wxdz speld in /SEvWn? fP
> agzympl, asVm "UHM" iz H abrIviESan fP H "/unwoSt /hVman /mAsiz". iz
> H /SEvWn abrIviESan "/uhm" (P "/u/h/m") fP "/unwoSt /hVman /mAsiz"
> P "/V/h/m" fP "UHM"?
>
> wot abQt Akranimz HAt R prOnQnst Az wxdz? iz CMOS "/k/m/o/s"
> fP "/komplimentDi /metal /oksFd on /Silikon" or "/sImos" fP "see-
> moss"? (n hQ meni nEmD dots?)
>
> jUDz /SEvWnli,
> /filip
>
> How are abbreviations to be rendered in Shavian? As the Shavian
> letters corresponding to the English letters, or as the initial
> letters of the words spelled in Shavian? For example, assume "UHM"
> is the abbreviation for the "Unwashed Human Masses". Is the Shavian
> abbreviation "up-haha-mime" for "Unwashed Human Masses" or "yew-haha-
> mime" for "UHM"?
>
> What about acronyms that are pronounced as words? Is CMOS "kick-mime-
> on-so" for "Complementary Metal Oxide on Silicon" or "so-eat-mime-on-
> so" for "see-moss"? (And how many namer dots?)
>
> Yours Shavianly,
>
> Philip
>
>
>
>
>
>


====http://www.livejournal.com/users/wodentoad

Numfar! Do the Dance of Joy!



__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Check out the new Yahoo! Front Page.
www.yahoo.com

One of our members is making an all new font for my mapping. I'm going
to put stickers on my keys I think. After all, I've been touch typing
long enough that I think I know where the Roman keys are. :)

Hey, they do it to us in typing class.
--Star

--- paul vandenbrink <pvandenbrink@...> wrote:

>
> From: "Lionel Ghoti" <ghoti@d...>
> Date: Wed May 19, 1999 4:23 pm
> Subject: [shavian] Re: Keyboard Shavian
>
> The keyboard mapping pattern for the Shavian fonts was devised, as
> far I know, by Ross DeMeyere
> (http://www.demeyere.com/Shavian/info.html), and was first used
> in his Shaw Rough and Shaw Gothic fonts. These were the first
> Shavian fonts to be widely used, and the first Shavian content on
> the web used these fonts. For
> compatibility's sake, all subsequently created fonts have used the
> same mapping
> pattern. When I made my Lionspaw font, I considered using a
> different mapping
> pattern, and I came up with a new pattern which I think featured a
> few improvements over the old one; but I still couldn't find a way
> to avoid having some arbitrary phoneme-grapheme correspondences, and
> I didn't feel that the few improvements the new pattern could make
> would justify making the change and causing all the biliteral
> problems that would follow.
>
> I think your Unigraf mapping pattern is the best I've seen, and I
> found that I
> could read your sample text very quickly. I find that its Roman text
> can be read
> much more intuitively than the current "keyboard Shavian"; and I
> think it would
> be much easier to learn to type using your system.
>
> However, I fear that some of the new correspondences which appear
> intuitive to me (since I'm familiar with the International Phonetic
> Alphabet) might seem overly arbitrary (perhaps more arbitrary than
> their values in current keyboard Shavian)
> to someone who doesn't know the IPA. For example, you use an X for
> the /dh/ phoneme.
> I find this easy to remember because it looks like the top half of
> the IPA symbol for that phoneme (like a lower-case d, but with its
> ascender curling over to the left and crossed with a small diagaonal
> line). But someone who has never come across the IPA would probably
> find it somewhat easier to remember the current key combination, H,
> since an h is always present when the /dh/ phoneme is represented in
> the Roman alphabet.
>
> I think we should keep in mind that the Shavian alphabet is about
> alphabet reform, not mere spelling reform: Shavian text is meant to
> be read using its own letters, not those of the Roman alphabet.
> Most -- if not all -- of us on this
> mailing list can send and receive HTML-formatted email messages,
> meaning that we don't have to decipher things like "sxc" or "sRK"
> ("search"). The only real difficulty I have in communicating in
> Shavian is _typing_ it using my QWERTY
> keyboard, trying to remember which key corresponds to which Shavian
> letter. I put this down to lack of practice, however -- and when
> I've sat down to type in Shavian for any length of time, I've found
> even the current key-mapping surprisingly easy to learn.
>
> If there didn't already exist on the Internet a fair amount of
> Shavian text using the current key-mapping, I'd readily change the
> mapping of my font to use your Unigraf system, and I'd urge all the
> other Shavian font designers to do likewise. At this point in time,
> however, as the Shavian alphabet is only just beginning to set down
> its electronic roots on the Internet, I think it would be dangerous
> to cause confusion to any new Shavian acolytes by introducing a
> second mapping pattern. If someone unwittingly tried to read some
> pattern-x text in a pattern-y font, the experience might put them
> off Shavian for life.
>
> I don't think all of the Shavian content providers would agree by
> consensus to change the ASCII-coding of their Shavian text. Only a
> few months ago, it was suggested that the "huNG" and "Ha-ha" glyphs
> had mistakenly been switched in the production of the alphabet table
> of _Androcles and the Lion_, and that they should be switched back
> immediately in all of the current Shavian fonts before anyone else
> noticed. The online Shavian community rebelled, and a terrible rift
> threatened. Tears were shed, catty things were said, and a punch-up
> was avoided only by the fact that none of us knows where anyone else
> lives. The general consensus was that the alphabet should be left as
> it has been since the Sixties.
> Granted, you're not talking about changing the alphabet itself, but
> I would guess that the general consensus would be opposed to any
> sort of change which would affect the readability of the existing
> Shavian content on the web.
>
> Anyone else?
>
> Lionel Ghoti
>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: <sbett@m...>
> To: <shavian@...>
> Sent: 12 May 1999 12:41 am
> Subject: [shavian] Keyboard Shavian
>
>
> > Where does keyboard Shavian come from? It is used on all of the
> Shavian fonts
> that I am aware of.
> >
> > I think that keyboard Shavian, the ascii text that appears on the
> screen before the font is applied, can be improved.
> >
> > The question is whether or not the improvement is significant
> enough to be worth the problem of chancing existing font development
> conventions.
> >
> > 90% of keyboard Shavian is intelligible. The other 10% appears to
> be rather arbirary phoneme-grapheme correspondences.
> >
> > An improvement in the rationality and readability of keyboard
> Shavian is probably limited to about 5%. The R-combinations will
> always remain arbitrary.
> >
> > I would also like to add ligatures in Shavian for syllabic LMN in
> addition to
> R as in "hR litL colM cAm fRst."
> >
> > The Unigraf system: 25 vowels (12 pure vowels) aa and o are
> usually merged
> >
> > Vowel Phonemes - with IPA identifiers
> > checkt | free | difthongs | R-combinations
> >
> > a q /aa/ I,Y/ai/ qr Ir (are [R], ire)
> > e R /3:/ A /ei/ er (air) [x,X]
> > i E /i:/ Q /oi/ ir (ear) (D)
> > q /o/ o /o:/ O /ou/ or (P) (aura)
> > c /u/ C /u:/ U /ju/ Ur (your) [turned or lazy U's used for
> hook and hoop]
> > u /^/ @ shwa V[au] Vr (our)
> >
> > Unigraf depends on the intuitive grasp of rotated (lazy) letters
> c=u (as in
> hook/hck), C=u: (as in hoop/hCp), X=dh, T=th, N=schwa+n, @=schwa.
> >
> > The result of this experiment was that while English usually uses
> single letters to represent long vowels, a system that does this
> consistently isn't that easy to read. No phonemic notation will
> match TO dictionary spelling more
> than 40% of the time. Thus 60% (or more) of the phonemic word
> spellings will initially look odd. (of course some notations are
> more odd than others)
> >
> > Unigrafic notations such as Shavian have the added problem of
> totally unfamiliar diphthongs and R-combinations. There is not much
> that can be done here beyond finding suitable memory hooks. E.G.,
> the [ear] phonogram looks like an ear /ir/. The [oar] phonogram
> looks like a raised oar /o:r/.
> >
> > Unigraf is not set in stone. The idea was to have something that
> would be intuitive to the T.O. reader. Thus the long vowels are
> AEIOU rather than EIYOU. I
> prefer the latter as would anyone who is familiar with IPA. I could
> also adopt
> a=schwa and use @ for at.
> >
> > Not all of the T.O. inspired corresondences are equally bad: A can
> be
> interpreted (or visualized) as an EI ligature.
> >
> > X@ pQnt iz Xat Xis nOtASN iz rEd@bl or at lEst mor rEd@bL Tan
> >
> > (Keyboard Shavian - kEbPd Sqvi@n)
> > /kristafD /kalumbas, an /itAlian-bPn nAvigEtD hM sEld in H sxvis
> v /spEn, iz
> komanli diskrFbd
> > Az H diskuvDD v H /nV /wxld - /amerika. YlHO kalumbas woz in sxc v
> a westwDd
> rMt t /EZa bF sI,
> > H diskuvDiz hI did mEk wx mP impPtant n vAljUabal HAn H rMt hI
> fEld t fFnd.
> >
> > (Unigraf)
> > /krist@fR k@lumb@s, an /itali@n-born navigAtR hC sAld in X sRvis
> v /spAn, iz
> kqm@nli diskrYbd
> > az X diskuvRR v X /nU /wRld - /@merik@. ----- k@lumbus woz in sRK
> v @ westwRd
> rVt t /AZ@ bY sE, X diskuvREz hE did mAk w mor important n valyU@b@l
> Xan X rVt
> hE fAld t fYnd.
> >
> > Comments and critiques welcomed.
> >
> > Regards, Steve Bett
>
>
>
>
>
>


====http://www.livejournal.com/users/wodentoad

Numfar! Do the Dance of Joy!



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> From: paul vandenbrink [mailto:pvandenbrink@...]

> An older person of hard working British extraction intimately familar
> with the Shavian Alphabet, Kingsley Read and George Bernard Shaw.
> Apparently a Computer Hacker of the old school. Technically competent
> on the Internet.

Almost. He wasn't quite 'an older person' - I believe he was only about as
old as I am now (mid twenties). He also wasn't necessarily a computer
hacker, just knew his way around Microsoft Visual Studio (which he used to
make Ghoti Fingers).

> He seems to have created this forum and rallied a number of like
> minded souls to support and nuture the Shaw Alphabet on the Internet.
> Gone, but not departed.
> Hats off, to Mister Fish.
> Regards, Paul V.
> P.S. I suspect Dr Richmond, knows more. Care to chip in a facts, sir.

Nobody knows where he's gone, not even Bob I'm sure. The last message he
ever posted was on the 13th February, 2000, in the middle of a conversation.
He had been posting more or less every other day up until then. His fabulous
website (which can still be found through the internet archive at
http://web.archive.org/web/*/http://www.shavian.f9.co.uk/) was never even
finished; even just before it expired, the home page still told visitors:
"This web site is fairly youthful. Some of the links on the left are dead,
and many of the pages that exist so far are underweight. They should be
fattened up considerably in the future."

Hugh B

Paul

There is no need to resubmit the old postings here. The solution I'm looking
for is copying the messages over from the old list via Yahoo. Doing it via
copy+paste easily confuses people into thinking they're new postings.

Hugh B

> -----Original Message-----
> From: paul vandenbrink [mailto:pvandenbrink@...]
> Sent: 14 November 2004 17:56
> To: shawalphabet@yahoogroups.com
> Subject: [shawalphabet] Shavian Abbreviations from the Archive
>
>
>
> From: Philip Newton <philip.newton@d...>
> Date: Wed Mar 31, 1999 2:58 pm
> Subject: [shavian] Abbreviations
>
> hF evDIwun
>
> hQ R abrIviESanz t bI rendDd in /SEvWn? Az H /SEvWn letDz kPaspondiN
> t H /iNliS letDz, P Az H iniSal letDz v H wxdz speld in /SEvWn? fP
> agzympl, asVm "UHM" iz H abrIviESan fP H "/unwoSt /hVman /mAsiz". iz
> H /SEvWn abrIviESan "/uhm" (P "/u/h/m") fP "/unwoSt /hVman /mAsiz"
> P "/V/h/m" fP "UHM"?
>
> wot abQt Akranimz HAt R prOnQnst Az wxdz? iz CMOS "/k/m/o/s"
> fP "/komplimentDi /metal /oksFd on /Silikon" or "/sImos" fP "see-
> moss"? (n hQ meni nEmD dots?)
>
> jUDz /SEvWnli,
> /filip
>
> How are abbreviations to be rendered in Shavian? As the Shavian
> letters corresponding to the English letters, or as the initial
> letters of the words spelled in Shavian? For example, assume "UHM"
> is the abbreviation for the "Unwashed Human Masses". Is the Shavian
> abbreviation "up-haha-mime" for "Unwashed Human Masses" or "yew-haha-
> mime" for "UHM"?
>
> What about acronyms that are pronounced as words? Is CMOS "kick-mime-
> on-so" for "Complementary Metal Oxide on Silicon" or "so-eat-mime-on-
> so" for "see-moss"? (And how many namer dots?)
>
> Yours Shavianly,
>
> Philip
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> Yahoo! Groups Links
>
>
>
>
>

Hi Jerry

Glad you found us. We are just having a bit of heated discussion as
to why the Shavian Alphabet didn't take off in the late sixties. It
was a time of inter-generation change. A lot of the old ways were
being examined critically and re-evaluated. I would have thought that
a better way to read English, would create a lot more interest.

I was thinking that the British Accent would make things more
difficult for a Mid-Western American English Speaker to learn to
write Shavian. Especially on their own. British English, especially
Non-Rhotic British English such as RP makes a lot more vowel
distinctions, than we do over here in America.
I am originally from Calgary in Alberta Canada, myself.

Perhaps, you can us your impression of the difficulty level of
learning the Shavian Alphabet from your point of view.

Regards, Paul V.

________________attached_______________________

--- In shawalphabet@yahoogroups.com, gerald baker <glbaker50613@y...>
wrote:
> Hello,
>
> I'm Jerry Baker, a resident of Cedar Falls, Iowa, USA. I first
learned of the Shaw Alphabet in 1964, when I ran across a copy of
Androcles And The Lion in the public library of my home town. It had
an introduction by James Pitman, the grandson or the great-grandson
of Isaac Pitman, who invented the first "phonographic" shorthand.
>
> After I contacted Mr. Pitman, he put me in touch with Shavian
writers all over the world: Peter Oliver, in Rhodesia; Bob Dick, in
Australia; Evan Todd, in New Zealand, A Mr. Porteus, in Durham,
England, Bob McIvor, of Ottawa, Canada; Mike Udy, of the Yukon; and
of course Kingsley Read. In the US, he put me in touch with Henry
Kirchner, of Dallas, Texas, Mark Mandel, of New York City; and
someone in Alabama whose name I've forgotten.
>
> I corresponded with these people over the years of the Sixties, but
eventually lost touch with all of them, except Henry Kirchner, who
died in 1975. Henry told me that he found out about Shavian from an
something in the New Yorker magazine, and I suppose that must have
been in either 1963 or 1964.
>
> I wonder whether or not the New Yorker might be interested in
mentioning Shavian again some time. Maybe I'll try to find the place
where it was mentioned before.
>
> Jerry
>
>
> ---------------------------------
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