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As far as I have followed Shavian development, I notice a certain
British "orientation" to the whole process. Is my impression
correct? Or there have been serious attempts to introduce this
scheme in United States or worldwide?

Perhaps that would contradict Shaw's will as he wanted to see the
proposed letter schemes to represent King George's English --
probably English as predominantly spoken in Britain.

I may be a bit picky about the meaning of these words, but here it goes (as
I recall them):

A translation is (usually) specifically a change between languages. Since
we’re all writing English with Shavian, it’s not technically a translation,
though the word may be used more loosely.

Transcriptions are direct from one script to another, in such a way that the
original spelling can be determined. That would be ludicrous with Shavian,
but it’s used to study languages not written with the Roman alphabet, like
Akkadian, which was written in Cuneiform. In fact, in Akkadian
transcriptions, a few diacritics or numbers are used to identify which
glyphs were used to write a sound that had more than one spelling. Thus u
and ú are identical in pronunciation and simply refer to different cuneiform
glyphs. A programmatic conversion may also be considered a transcription.

Transliterations are less direct, losing the original spelling and thus some
distinctions, but tend to spelled more systematically. This is technically
what we’re doing whenever we write English phonemically.

Regards,
Joe
/JO



On 2/7/05 11:11 AM, "Scott Harrison" <nik@mithrandir.com> wrote:

>
> On Feb 4, 2005, at 07:28, Philip Newton wrote:
>>
>> It would have to have a basic understanding of how language (in this
>> case, English) works -- I think the field is called NLP (Natural
>> Language Processing). The sort of thing that's implemented in
>> automatic translation software, which also needs to figure out whether
>> a given word is a noun or a verb in order to produce the correct
>> translation -- or, more generally, what function each word has in a
>> given sentence.
>>
>> It's not trivial.
>>
> This is a major reason why I call my Shavian documents "translations" rather
> than "transliterations." There is some effort involved in actually producing
> the document since the computer has a hard time determining what function a
> word has, and therefore its correct pronunciation.
>
> --
> ·𐑕𐑒𐑪𐑑 ·𐑣𐑺𐑦𐑕𐑩𐑯 Scott Harrison PGP Key ID: 0x0f0b5b86
>

www.foolswisdom.com/~sbett/shaw.htm F.A.Q. Answers to Frequently
Asked Questions
If you have a question that is not addressed below, mail it in.

What do you think of this description of Shavian? The first paragraph was
stolen from a book title by Samuel Boyle written in the late 1800's. Additions
and corrections welcomed. --Steve


What is the Shaw or Shavian alphabet?
Shavian represents orthography corrected and made an accurate guide to
pronunciation by means of a new alphabet, adapted to the English language. The new
alphabet for written English allows each word to be spelled as it is pronounced
and pronounced as it is spelled.

The Shaw alphabet is a non-Roman, near 100% phonemic, set of 48 symbols
suitable for writing English as it is spoken.

Alphabetic systems with one symbol per sound and no silent letters are more
compact, faster to write, and easier to learn.

The Shavian letterforms are mostly a-historical. Some of the shapes may have
historical precedents but the sound correspondent may have been different.
Few Shavian chracters would ever be associated with the 2500 year old Latin
alphabet. Exceptions, o, S, . . .

The streamlined letter shapes are designed to be legible when rapidly written
-- They represent a kind of linear shorthand.




Steve T. Bett, Ph.D.
Austin, Texas
mailto:sbett@... 512-302-3014
www.foolswisdom.com/~sbett
retired professor, volunteer literacy instructor
moderator of Saundspel -the phonology forum
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/saundspel

Quote: When the playwright George Bernard Shaw died in 1950, he left
instructions in his will for the creation of a new, more efficient
alphabet for writing English, with each letter representing one
English sound. Part of his wealth was set aside for its creation, and
a competition was started that invited designers from all over the
world to submit proposals. When the judging was done, the entry of
Kingsley Read was chosen to become what became known as the Shaw
Alphabet (or 'Shavian').
Unquote

My question is: Could we have an idea of exactly how much was left by
Mr. Shaw in his will?

And more importantly, have all the funds left by Mr. Shaw for this
purpose been disbursed fully, or are there certain funds available for
further promotion?

Who was (were) the trustee(s) and how could we get a breakdown of what
was left by Mr. Shaw and how it was spent?

Is there a published source in print or online about this?

It's not that simple. That part of his will was contested by the
institutions which were to receive the rest of Shaw's estate, and
a court found that provision to be invalid. The public trustee
appealed the decision, and a compromise was worked out
whereby those institutions agreed to give a sum of money
to the public trustee to further the alphabet provision.

I don't know how much was finally allocated to this project,
but I suspect it was much less than originally planned by Shaw.
I suspect the funds were completely used up in printing and
distributing _Androcles_.

The prize in the design competition was 500 pounds sterling.
About 450 designs were submitted. Four designs were
chosen as co-winners, and the prize money was divided
among them. The winners were Pauline Barrett, J.F. Magrath,
S.L.Pugmire, and Kingsley Read.

The public trustee's name was C. R. Sopwith.

This is taken from the Foreword in _Androcles_.

--Ph. D.


----- Original Message -----
From: "garosalibian" <garosalibian@...>
To: <shawalphabet@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Tuesday, February 08, 2005 12:32 AM
Subject: [shawalphabet] Financial Matters in Shaw's Will


> Quote: When the playwright George Bernard Shaw died in 1950, he left
> instructions in his will for the creation of a new, more efficient
> alphabet for writing English, with each letter representing one
> English sound. Part of his wealth was set aside for its creation, and
> a competition was started that invited designers from all over the
> world to submit proposals. When the judging was done, the entry of
> Kingsley Read was chosen to become what became known as the Shaw
> Alphabet (or 'Shavian').
> Unquote
>
> My question is: Could we have an idea of exactly how much was left by
> Mr. Shaw in his will?
>
> And more importantly, have all the funds left by Mr. Shaw for this
> purpose been disbursed fully, or are there certain funds available for
> further promotion?
>
> Who was (were) the trustee(s) and how could we get a breakdown of what
> was left by Mr. Shaw and how it was spent?
>
> Is there a published source in print or online about this?

Hi Ross (Alibi?)

While all of the initial Development of the Shavian Alphabet was done
in England, there has always been American and Canadian involvement.
I believe one or more of the 5 winning entries in the original
contest to pick a Shaw Alphabet was from an American.

Obviously, Androcles is written in English with a British flavor
(word choice).
However, the words written are easily understood by an American.
There would be relatively few differences in spelling even if this
Play was written in General American Accent and compared with the
original.

That's an interesting project by the way.

One of my continuing interests, has been to isolate exactly those
differences between General American and the British Accents which
would result in a different Shavian Spelling.
Generally speaking, General American makes a few less vowel
distinctions, and so only uses a subset of the 48 letters in the
Shavian Alphabet.
The size of this American Subset can vary from 43 to 46 of the Shaw
letters, depending on Accent.
There has been a large number of posts on this very subject in the
Shavian Forum.

Now with the Internet, many more international English speakers,
especially Americans are learing the Shavian Alphabet.

Regards, Paul V.

P.S. As a Canadian English Speaker, I pronounce my English with an
almost American accent, yet I am fairly familar with the British RP
accent through a lot of exposure to BBC television.
I was a Thunderbirds, and Avengers addict as a child.
________attached________________________________________

--- In shawalphabet@yahoogroups.com, "garosalibian"
<garosalibian@y...> wrote:
>
> As far as I have followed Shavian development, I notice a certain
> British "orientation" to the whole process. Is my impression
> correct? Or there have been serious attempts to introduce this
> scheme in United States or worldwide?

Hi Joe

I suspect that Transliterations is also technically
what we are doing whenever we write English phonemically with the
Shavian Alphabet, using as a base, text written in the T.O. (Roman
Alphabet)

Regards, Paul V.
________________attached_______________
--- In shawalphabet@yahoogroups.com, Joe <wurdbendur@g...> wrote:
> I may be a bit picky about the meaning of these words, but here it
goes (as
> I recall them):
>
> A translation is (usually) specifically a change between
languages. Since
> we’re all writing English with Shavian, it’s not technically a
translation,
> though the word may be used more loosely.
>
> Transcriptions are direct from one script to another, in such a way
that the
> original spelling can be determined. That would be ludicrous with
Shavian,
> but it’s used to study languages not written with the Roman
alphabet, like
> Akkadian, which was written in Cuneiform. In fact, in Akkadian
> transcriptions, a few diacritics or numbers are used to identify
which
> glyphs were used to write a sound that had more than one spelling.
Thus u
> and ú are identical in pronunciation and simply refer to different
cuneiform
> glyphs. A programmatic conversion may also be considered a
transcription.
>
> Transliterations are less direct, losing the original spelling and
thus some
> distinctions, but tend to spelled more systematically. This is
technically
> what we are doing whenever we write English phonemically.
>
> Regards,
> Joe

Based on this, I can only assume that Shaw didn't have the best legal
advice when he was drafting his own will, so he came up with a shakey
and easily contestable will. Had he known that certain institutions
using Shaw's own money would use it to fight his very wishes, he would
have made special provisions preventing the other beneficiaries from
contesting the will more effectively. Somehow something is rotten in
the behavior of those institutions.

I believe had he known this opposition beforehand, he would have even
seriously considered depriving precisely these said institutions from
any part of his money anyway and devoted more to the Shaw alphabet
project.

By contesting the will, the institutions acted actively AGAINST Mr.
Shaw's agenda, wishes and real concerns. And they used Shaw money to
do this.

What I sense from this is also very worrying fact that all we
"benefitted" from Shaw's money and his books, were 4 monetary prizes
of 500 pounds each, that's a meagre 2000 pounds plus publishing of one
Shaw book that apparently not many people read. That could have cost
another 5000 pounds, not more. Is that all Shaw left for this project?
A pittance of what must have amounted to a huge inheritance?

You know this is such a shame. There is a saying in many languages
that goes something like: They murder the man, and then they walk in
his funeral.

Very sad indeed.

Now a follow-up question. Is there any "International Fund for
Promotion of Shavian" that individuals could contribute to or perhaps
other charitable foundations that agree with the motives of George
Bernard Shaw can contribute to, in order to promote a more widespread
use of the winning Shaw alphabet, the Shavian?

I watch a lot of public television in the States (PBS) and I always
wonder what all these so-called charitable funds are doing promoting
what is basically a food program or a travel program, for me, very
unworthy "charitable" causes, and then deny any money to real causes
like "spelling reform" that will benefit the whole of mankind with
something very vital and essential, like a clear writing system.

If there is such a fund, I for one would love to know about it.

--- In shawalphabet@yahoogroups.com, "Ph. D." <phild@a...> wrote:
> It's not that simple. That part of his will was contested by the
> institutions which were to receive the rest of Shaw's estate, and
> a court found that provision to be invalid. The public trustee
> appealed the decision, and a compromise was worked out
> whereby those institutions agreed to give a sum of money
> to the public trustee to further the alphabet provision.
>
> I don't know how much was finally allocated to this project,
> but I suspect it was much less than originally planned by Shaw.
> I suspect the funds were completely used up in printing and
> distributing _Androcles_.
>
> The prize in the design competition was 500 pounds sterling.
> About 450 designs were submitted. Four designs were
> chosen as co-winners, and the prize money was divided
> among them. The winners were Pauline Barrett, J.F. Magrath,
> S.L.Pugmire, and Kingsley Read.
>
> The public trustee's name was C. R. Sopwith.
>
> This is taken from the Foreword in _Androcles_.
>
> --Ph. D.
>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "garosalibian" <garosalibian@y...>
> To: <shawalphabet@yahoogroups.com>
> Sent: Tuesday, February 08, 2005 12:32 AM
> Subject: [shawalphabet] Financial Matters in Shaw's Will
>
>
> > Quote: When the playwright George Bernard Shaw died in 1950, he left
> > instructions in his will for the creation of a new, more efficient
> > alphabet for writing English, with each letter representing one
> > English sound. Part of his wealth was set aside for its creation, and
> > a competition was started that invited designers from all over the
> > world to submit proposals. When the judging was done, the entry of
> > Kingsley Read was chosen to become what became known as the Shaw
> > Alphabet (or 'Shavian').
> > Unquote
> >
> > My question is: Could we have an idea of exactly how much was left by
> > Mr. Shaw in his will?
> >
> > And more importantly, have all the funds left by Mr. Shaw for this
> > purpose been disbursed fully, or are there certain funds available for
> > further promotion?
> >
> > Who was (were) the trustee(s) and how could we get a breakdown of what
> > was left by Mr. Shaw and how it was spent?
> >
> > Is there a published source in print or online about this?

Garo,

I think you raise an interesting question: "What kind of legal advice did
Shaw receive?"

I don't know. I wish I did.

I do know that he did not want to give the money to the spelling society
because he disagreed with their approach to the alphabet problem. Pitman and
Daniel Jones were the principles of the Spelling Society at the time. Jones was
one of the inspirations for Professor Higgins.

I think that Pitman made a mistake by not placing enough value on future
royalties in his compromise with the British Museam and the Dramatic Society, the
two organizations that challenged the will. He should have gotten his
approximately 8000 £ plus a small percentage of future royalties.

The main problem was not having a way to set up a foundation in the U.K. The
Spelling Society continues to have problems today because they are not a
traditional charity or school. Had Shaw given the money directly to the spelling
society, there would still have been a legal problem and the money would have
been taxed.

The will was challenged on the grounds that in the U.K. you cannot leave
money to an idea.

8000 £ was a significant percentage of Shaw's cash assets at the time Pitman
negotiated the settlement. The fortune was in the future value of Shaw's
plays. My Fair Lady was a windfall for the British Museum.
garosalibian wrote: Based on this, I can only assume that Shaw didn't have
the best legal advice when he was drafting his own will, so he came up with a
shakey
and easily contestable will. Had he known that certain institutions
using Shaw's own money would use it to fight his very wishes, he would
have made special provisions preventing the other beneficiaries from
contesting the will more effectively. Somehow something is rotten in
the behavior of those institutions.

I believe had he known this opposition beforehand, he would have even
seriously considered depriving precisely these said institutions from
any part of his money anyway and devoted more to the Shaw alphabet
project.

By contesting the will, the institutions acted actively AGAINST Mr.
Shaw's agenda, wishes and real concerns. And they used Shaw money to
do this.

What I sense from this is also very worrying fact that all we
"benefitted" from Shaw's money and his books, were 4 monetary prizes
of 500 pounds each, that's a meagre 2000 pounds plus publishing of one
Shaw book that apparently not many people read. That could have cost
another 5000 pounds, not more. Is that all Shaw left for this project?
A pittance of what must have amounted to a huge inheritance?

You know this is such a shame. There is a saying in many languages
that goes something like: They murder the man, and then they walk in
his funeral.

Very sad indeed.

Now a follow-up question. Is there any "International Fund for
Promotion of Shavian" that individuals could contribute to or perhaps
other charitable foundations that agree with the motives of George
Bernard Shaw can contribute to, in order to promote a more widespread
use of the winning Shaw alphabet, the Shavian?

I watch a lot of public television in the States (PBS) and I always
wonder what all these so-called charitable funds are doing promoting
what is basically a food program or a travel program, for me, very
unworthy "charitable" causes, and then deny any money to real causes
like "spelling reform" that will benefit the whole of mankind with
something very vital and essential, like a clear writing system.

If there is such a fund, I for one would love to know about it.


Steve T. Bett, Ph.D.
Austin, Texas
mailto:sbett@... 512-302-3014
www.foolswisdom.com/~sbett
retired professor, volunteer literacy instructor
moderator of Saundspel -the phonology forum
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/saundspel

I am not a legal expert, but it is worth consulting a lawyer as to
what is the safest way to establish a non-profit organization, even an
academy to study and promote spelling reform or Shavian alphabet. I am
sure there are certain provisions in the law about this.

I know there is the Shaw Society. But I would not be interested in
giving money to a society just to study George Bernard Shaw.

But I would probably be very much inclined to give money readily if it
were to promote precisely Shavian as an alphabet for example.

In any case, spelling reform is such a vital cause that any society
promoting spelling reform should be able to attract tens of thousands
of active members involved paying annual membership fees, if not even
hundreds of thousands of members helping the propagation of reformed
literature.

Spelling reform is that much relevant to somebody like me.

--- In shawalphabet@yahoogroups.com, stbetta@a... wrote:
> Garo,
>
> I think you raise an interesting question: "What kind of legal
advice did
> Shaw receive?"
>
> I don't know. I wish I did.
>
> I do know that he did not want to give the money to the spelling
society
> because he disagreed with their approach to the alphabet problem.
Pitman and
> Daniel Jones were the principles of the Spelling Society at the
time. Jones was
> one of the inspirations for Professor Higgins.
>
> I think that Pitman made a mistake by not placing enough value on
future
> royalties in his compromise with the British Museam and the Dramatic
Society, the
> two organizations that challenged the will. He should have gotten his
> approximately 8000 £ plus a small percentage of future royalties.
>
> The main problem was not having a way to set up a foundation in the
U.K. The
> Spelling Society continues to have problems today because they are
not a
> traditional charity or school. Had Shaw given the money directly to
the spelling
> society, there would still have been a legal problem and the money
would have
> been taxed.
>
> The will was challenged on the grounds that in the U.K. you cannot
leave
> money to an idea.
>
> 8000 £ was a significant percentage of Shaw's cash assets at the
time Pitman
> negotiated the settlement. The fortune was in the future value of
Shaw's
> plays. My Fair Lady was a windfall for the British Museum.
> garosalibian wrote: Based on this, I can only assume that Shaw
didn't have
> the best legal advice when he was drafting his own will, so he came
up with a
> shakey
> and easily contestable will. Had he known that certain institutions
> using Shaw's own money would use it to fight his very wishes, he would
> have made special provisions preventing the other beneficiaries from
> contesting the will more effectively. Somehow something is rotten in
> the behavior of those institutions.
>
> I believe had he known this opposition beforehand, he would have even
> seriously considered depriving precisely these said institutions from
> any part of his money anyway and devoted more to the Shaw alphabet
> project.
>
> By contesting the will, the institutions acted actively AGAINST Mr.
> Shaw's agenda, wishes and real concerns. And they used Shaw money to
> do this.
>
> What I sense from this is also very worrying fact that all we
> "benefitted" from Shaw's money and his books, were 4 monetary prizes
> of 500 pounds each, that's a meagre 2000 pounds plus publishing of one
> Shaw book that apparently not many people read. That could have cost
> another 5000 pounds, not more. Is that all Shaw left for this project?
> A pittance of what must have amounted to a huge inheritance?
>
> You know this is such a shame. There is a saying in many languages
> that goes something like: They murder the man, and then they walk in
> his funeral.
>
> Very sad indeed.
>
> Now a follow-up question. Is there any "International Fund for
> Promotion of Shavian" that individuals could contribute to or perhaps
> other charitable foundations that agree with the motives of George
> Bernard Shaw can contribute to, in order to promote a more widespread
> use of the winning Shaw alphabet, the Shavian?
>
> I watch a lot of public television in the States (PBS) and I always
> wonder what all these so-called charitable funds are doing promoting
> what is basically a food program or a travel program, for me, very
> unworthy "charitable" causes, and then deny any money to real causes
> like "spelling reform" that will benefit the whole of mankind with
> something very vital and essential, like a clear writing system.
>
> If there is such a fund, I for one would love to know about it.
>
>
> Steve T. Bett, Ph.D.
> Austin, Texas
> mailto:sbett@l... 512-302-3014
> www.foolswisdom.com/~sbett
> retired professor, volunteer literacy instructor
> moderator of Saundspel -the phonology forum
> http://groups.yahoo.com/group/saundspel