Shawalphabet YahooGroup Archive Browser

Hi Dshep

Let me answer your 3 questions in order.
1. Restrictions on Membership
If the object of the site is informative and to facilitate the
use of the Shaw Alphabet, what am I doing here.
While sometime we inform, and sometimes we just sit back and
let ourselves be informed. Sometimes I try and get answers and
sometimes I answer other peoples questions.

2. Reducing the Shaw Vowel Letters to a reasonable number.
My quest to reduce the number of vowel letters.
Can I learn to love and
accept the short \o\ (as well as unstressed vowels).

Actually,
I don't hear the Short \o\ as a distinct vowel sound, so I have to be
honest and write it as the sound that I do hear (Ah).
That's a Phonemic Alphabet for you. You write'em the way you hear 'em.
As for the other sounds (unstressed vowels)
I can hear a Schwa (Ado) very well, thank you very much.
I can't consistently hear the difference between Schwer (Array) and
Err (Urge), but I restrict my urge to use "Urge" for everything
except Dipthong + r constructs
( "lure", "Boer", "hire", "higher", "tire", "layer", "mayor", "lawyer"
, etc) and follow the guidelines that we discussed a few weeks ago.
My pronunciation is becoming a little more refined in the process.
"con-currrrrr"

3. Ancillary
Is a perfectly valid English word that means subservient or
subordinate to the main person or
purpose. Something secondary.
Auxillary also means something subordinate, but still supportive of
the main person or purpose. Auxillary has the additional meaning of
helping or supporting the main purpose.

Where-as a Ancillary function could be at cross purposes with the
main thing or goal. For example, simplifying the writing of
abbreviations
might be at cross purposes with the object of clearly writing English
speech phonetically.
So I consider Abbreviations to an ancillary function for the Shaw
Alphabet.

Hope, I am not being overly pedantic. (in the confusing sense)

Regards, Paul V.

______________attached_____________________________
--- In shawalphabet@yahoogroups.com, "dshepx" <dshep@g...> wrote:
> > The primary purpose of this site is to explain
> > and encourage the use of the original Shavian
> > Alphabet.
>
> I don't recall any such restriction being a condition
> of membership. However, if use of the "original"
> Shavian is to be mandatory (and "Androcles" of
> necessity the official descriptive guide), then I
> expect you shall have to abandon your quest to
> reduce the number of vowels and learn to love and
> accept the short \o\ (as well as unstressed vowels).
> That's not a lot, what, to ask?
>
>
> > A secondary purpose is to develop and standardize all the
ancillary functions that we would like the Alphabet & Spelling system
to perform.
>
> Did you mean "auxiliary"?
>
> dshep

>> The format of lessons is based on a book called Reading Japanese, which I
>> found very helpful in the way that it introduced letters a few at a time and
>> build on them by using examples with only those letters.

Sounds like a book originally produced to help military personnel stationed
in Japan. I started German on something similar: Bill und Jock in
Deutschland. The military brought about a revolution in practical language
teaching -- they had to get results.

Any other comparisons between Shavian and Japanese are certainly not
comparing like with like.
Japanese does not have letters, it has characters. These correspond to
words, making Japanese in some ways more economical than Shavian (you can
paste in words from Unicode, for example). These characters are originally
Chinese, making written Japanese a dialect of Chinese, although the spoken
languages are not related. Note that we speak a lot of Greek, but the
graphic links to the etymology were coded into the spelling we are to
reform via Shavian. Japanese does have syllabaries, but these are marginal
to the language. They have about 40 symbols and they are phonetic, being
used for proper nouns, foreign words, and modifications to characters --
the things that are difficult to do with Shavian. About 40 of the 1350
essential characters are to be learned in the first school grade and by the
end of elementary school the count is 881. The vocabulary count increases
with study but falls by about 40 ? per month on trips abroad. Japanese
students I have spoken to usually know the size of their personal
vocabulary. Proposal: that Shavian be increased to encompass the number of
words in Basic English (about 800, IIRC). One other point about Japanese
characters is that they are recognisable even when reflected or rotated,
certainly better for teaching literacy. Shavian is no improvement on
English for dyslexics (bdpq dbqp dqbp qdpb -- and that's half a plain
course). Some foreign learners claim they prefer traditional spellings.
Once you've encountered ghoti you know you know it, although it is
untranslatable. Final question: does anybody on this list know how to
enter Japanese from the keyboard? I think one method involves inputting a
phonetic transcription which is then converted by the software. This would
suggest that a wally box between Shavian and English could work in either
direction. Another method I did read about (Scientific American 1984 ?)
was based on the stroke order for writing characters and used anticipatory
software to come up with suggestions. Shavian could perform that task
well. Enter mis in Shavian and it would offer mist, mistery and misis.
(Cf. mist, missed, misses, but not mystery or Mrs.) 'Nuff said -- I'll be
arguing that Shavian is a Japanese dialect, next, or claiming it has a
practical function. That would take all the fun out of speculation.
jb

On Fri, 11 Feb 2005 12:08:32 +0100, John Burrows <burrows@...> wrote:
>
> These characters are originally
> Chinese, making written Japanese a dialect of Chinese, although the spoken
> languages are not related. [...] Japanese does have syllabaries, but
> these are marginal to the language. They have about 40 symbols and they
> are phonetic, being used for proper nouns, foreign words, and modifications
> to characters

Er... I disagree; the two syllabaries are indeed widely used, and I'd
hardly call them marginal -- at least not hiragana.

One major use is to write particles and postpositions, and another
major use is writing endings -- something which Chinese doesn't have.

Imagine if you English you had BIG and had to write BIGger and
BIGgest, or RUN but he RUNs and he is RUNning -- where the endings are
marked by lower-case letters in my examples, Japanese would use
hiragana.

Maybe you were thinking of katakana? That's used for foreign words as
well as animal and plant names except the most common ones, and to
emphasise words (a bit like italics, perhaps).

> Proposal: that Shavian be increased to encompass the number of
> words in Basic English (about 800, IIRC).

Huh? That makes no sense to me. Shavian is about phonemes, not about words.

> Final question: does anybody on this list know how to
> enter Japanese from the keyboard? I think one method involves inputting a
> phonetic transcription which is then converted by the software.

That's the one I use.

I type using Romaji (Roman transliteration) which gets converted into
kana (syllabaries) as soon as I've typed a full syllable; I can then
convert one or more kana into kanji (Chinese-derived characters).
Since many sequences of sounds correspond to more than one kanji or
group of kanji, you usually have to select from a list.

> This would suggest that a wally box between Shavian and English
> could work in either direction.

I'm not quite sure what you mean by "wally box", but I suppose one
could use an IME (input method editor) such as the ones used for
typing Japanese in order to type English in TO and have it convert to
Shavian automatically, popping up a list when the word is ambiguous
(e.g. "perfect" or "invalid" or "read").

> Another method I did read about (Scientific American 1984 ?)
> was based on the stroke order for writing characters

I think that shape-based input methods are common for Chinese. Haven't
come across them for Japanese yet, but they may exist.

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

Hi John
I am little familar with Japenese myself, and while it is difficult
to learn to write it has a number of benefits when reading.

1. it is quite concise. It uses simplified Chinese characters (Kanji)
for most common words. Syllabic characters are concise too. Grreat
for writing Manga Comic books.
2. It is easy to browse or scan through.
And then it has 2 Phonetic Syllabic Alphabets (Katakana & Hiragana )
which have a very distinctive look, to write names, Japanese
gramatical endings and Foreign Load words. They obviously don't need
a Name Dot.
And for the purposes of Browsing the Kanji words, practically jump
right out to you from the text to give the gist the passage.
3. It has the option of dealing with new Japenese words phonetically,
Katakana or Hiragana or by resorting to an almost inexhaustble
Chinese wordstock.

The equivalent benefit might be realized in English by having a
standard set of Abbreviations in Capitals for Basic English, using
Roman Letters for Proper nouns and foreign loanwords and Shavian for
everything else.

Gives a new meaning to blow your mind. But it would be fast.

Regards, Paul V.

P.S. Final question: does anybody on this list know how to
> enter Japanese from the keyboard? I think one method involves
inputting a
> phonetic transcription which is then converted by the software.

I believe they normally just write in Katakana and Hiragana for
normal word processing.
This is not a big problem. Elementary School starts them off doing
everything Hiragana. They only learn Kanji later on.
This is something that is evolving as we speak.
Chinese/Korean/Japenese Computer interphases should shortly reach the
level of transparency for the Oriental Computer User.

_______________attached_________________


--- In shawalphabet@yahoogroups.com, John Burrows <burrows@t...>
wrote:
>
> >> The format of lessons is based on a book called Reading
Japanese, which I
> >> found very helpful in the way that it introduced letters a few
at a time and
> >> build on them by using examples with only those letters.
>
> Sounds like a book originally produced to help military personnel
stationed
> in Japan. I started German on something similar: Bill und Jock in
> Deutschland. The military brought about a revolution in practical
language
> teaching -- they had to get results.
>
> Any other comparisons between Shavian and Japanese are certainly not
> comparing like with like.
> Japanese does not have letters, it has characters. These
correspond to
> words, making Japanese in some ways more economical than Shavian
(you can
> paste in words from Unicode, for example). These characters are
originally
> Chinese, making written Japanese a dialect of Chinese, although the
spoken
> languages are not related. Note that we speak a lot of Greek, but
the
> graphic links to the etymology were coded into the spelling we are
to
> reform via Shavian. Japanese does have syllabaries, but these are
marginal
> to the language. They have about 40 symbols and they are phonetic,
being
> used for proper nouns, foreign words, and modifications to
characters --
> the things that are difficult to do with Shavian. About 40 of the
1350
> essential characters are to be learned in the first school grade
and by the
> end of elementary school the count is 881. The vocabulary count
increases
> with study but falls by about 40 ? per month on trips abroad.
Japanese
> students I have spoken to usually know the size of their personal
> vocabulary. Proposal: that Shavian be increased to encompass the
number of
> words in Basic English (about 800, IIRC). One other point about
Japanese
> characters is that they are recognisable even when reflected or
rotated,
> certainly better for teaching literacy. Another method I did
read about (Scientific American 1984 ?)
> was based on the stroke order for writing characters and used
anticipatory
> software to come up with suggestions. Shavian could perform that
task
> well. Enter mis in Shavian and it would offer mist, mistery and
misis.
> (Cf. mist, missed, misses, but not mystery or Mrs.)

On 2/11/05 6:08 AM, "John Burrows" <burrows@...> wrote:

>
>
>>> The format of lessons is based on a book called Reading Japanese, which I
>>> found very helpful in the way that it introduced letters a few at a time and
>>> build on them by using examples with only those letters.
>
> Sounds like a book originally produced to help military personnel stationed
> in Japan. I started German on something similar: Bill und Jock in
> Deutschland. The military brought about a revolution in practical language
> teaching -- they had to get results.
>
> Any other comparisons between Shavian and Japanese are certainly not
> comparing like with like.
> Japanese does not have letters, it has characters.

That's what I meant. In any case, I liked the method of gradually
introducing new information and building on the previous by adding it to the
examples.

>These correspond to
> words, making Japanese in some ways more economical than Shavian (you can
> paste in words from Unicode, for example). These characters are originally
> Chinese, making written Japanese a dialect of Chinese, although the spoken
> languages are not related. Note that we speak a lot of Greek, but the
> graphic links to the etymology were coded into the spelling we are to
> reform via Shavian. Japanese does have syllabaries, but these are marginal
> to the language. They have about 40 symbols and they are phonetic, being
> used for proper nouns, foreign words, and modifications to characters --
> the things that are difficult to do with Shavian. About 40 of the 1350
> essential characters are to be learned in the first school grade and by the
> end of elementary school the count is 881. The vocabulary count increases
> with study but falls by about 40 ? per month on trips abroad. Japanese
> students I have spoken to usually know the size of their personal
> vocabulary. Proposal: that Shavian be increased to encompass the number of
> words in Basic English (about 800, IIRC).

Not to repeat the other responses, do you mean to suggest adding logographs
like kanji to be used in Shavian? I sometimes use a couple in my personal
notes, specifically one for the plural -(e)s or past tense / past participle
-ed ending, but only where their pronunciation is predictable. Adding signs
for whole words would create, at best, morphemic spelling, which is another
reform proposal altogether. Check out
http://www.zompist.com/yingzi/yingzi.htm for one example.

>One other point about Japanese
> characters is that they are recognisable even when reflected or rotated,
> certainly better for teaching literacy. Shavian is no improvement on
> English for dyslexics (bdpq dbqp dqbp qdpb -- and that's half a plain
> course). Some foreign learners claim they prefer traditional spellings.
> Once you've encountered ghoti you know you know it, although it is
> untranslatable. Final question: does anybody on this list know how to
> enter Japanese from the keyboard? I think one method involves inputting a
> phonetic transcription which is then converted by the software.

This is handled by a software component that converts Romaji to Kana and
then to kanji or katakana. Alternatively, Japanese keyboards can input kana
directly.

>This would
> suggest that a wally box between Shavian and English could work in either
> direction.

I think it would be great if we could come up with such a Shavian converter
that could be used seamlessly in any text area to enter text like Japanese,
Chinese, or Korean, rather than first typing it and then running it through
another application.

>Another method I did read about (Scientific American 1984 ?)
> was based on the stroke order for writing characters and used anticipatory
> software to come up with suggestions.

Typically, the strokes are broadly classified by shape and direction. The
converter then considers stroke order. This is usually enough to identify
common kanji. Most have a distinctive pattern of these stroke types.
Additionally, the placement of the stroke may also be considered. Then
similar kanji are usually given in a list with the closest match first.

In fact, the Japanese IME in Windows can recognize handwritten CJK
characters. I'm not sure how to enable it, though. It's hidden somewhere.
Native Japanese Windows CE devices, however, use it by default since they're
intended to be used with a stylus.

>Shavian could perform that task
> well. Enter mis in Shavian and it would offer mist, mistery and misis.
> (Cf. mist, missed, misses, but not mystery or Mrs.) 'Nuff said -- I'll be
> arguing that Shavian is a Japanese dialect, next, or claiming it has a
> practical function. That would take all the fun out of speculation.
> jb

Certainly Shavian handwriting recognition could work much better than Roman
if you write carefully and don't connect your letters. I¹ve been waiting,
and shall continue to wait, for the day that this technology becomes
available. I¹ve long wanted to use a PDA in pure Shavian. Well, maybe
Roman support would be helpful as well.

Regards,
Joe
/JO

Paul, Philip, John, and others,

I agree with all of Philip Newton's comments about Japanese --
he knows what he's talking about.

Saying that Japanese is a dialect of Chinese, simply because it employs
Chinese
characters (i.e. kanji) is like saying English is a dialect of Latin,
because we write English in the Latin (i.e. Roman) alphabet.

Standard Chinese (i.e. Mandarin) has, for example, a character meaning
'water', that
is pronounced "sui" (as in Feng-sui divination), while the same character,
in Sino-Japanese, can be pronounced "sui" (in compound words, such as
"suido" = 'water line'); while it is pronounced "mizu" in isolation, or in
personal names (e.g. Mizutani). The "mizu" pronunciation is a purely
Japanese word, unrelated to Chinese, but still, the same character is used.
In Korean, the character is never given a "native" pronunciation, but is
consistently pronounced "su", which is a Sino-Korean pronunciation (e.g.
"neng-su" = 'cold water').

Standard Vietnamese also has a related Sino-Vietnamese word for 'water', in
compound words). But since the Vietnamese no longer use Chinese characters,
on a daily basis anyway, such a word would be written in the modified version
of the
Roman alphabet the Vietnamese commonly use nowadays.

Interestingly, in Japanese and Korean, the Chinese-derived word for 'water',
respectively, "sui" and "su" appears in the name of the day of the week (a
compound word), for Wednesday, i.e. "sui-yo-bi" and "su-yo-il", respectively,
and in this case, refers to the
planet, Mercury, because that planet is associated with the element of
water. So Wednesday actually means 'Water-luminous body-day' or
'Mercury-day' in those languages.

The Chinese, by te way, have a completely different word for Wednesday.

Paul wrote:

I am little familar with Japenese myself, and while it is difficult
to learn to write it has a number of benefits when reading.

1. it is quite concise. It uses simplified Chinese characters (Kanji)
for most common words. Syllabic characters are concise too. Grreat
for writing Manga Comic books.
2. It is easy to browse or scan through.
And then it has 2 Phonetic Syllabic Alphabets (Katakana & Hiragana )
which have a very distinctive look, to write names, Japanese
gramatical endings and Foreign Load words. They obviously don't need
a Name Dot.
And for the purposes of Browsing the Kanji words, practically jump
right out to you from the text to give the gist the passage.
3. It has the option of dealing with new Japenese words phonetically,
Katakana or Hiragana or by resorting to an almost inexhaustble
Chinese wordstock.

The equivalent benefit might be realized in English by having a
standard set of Abbreviations in Capitals for Basic English, using
Roman Letters for Proper nouns and foreign loanwords and Shavian for
everything else.



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 have made a backup of the original Shavian Yahoo! Group, which
currently can be found at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/shavian ,
because it is likely to be deleted by Yahoo! once they identify it as
having fallen into disuse.

The archive can be found here:
http://www.saytheword.org.uk/shavian/yahoogrouparchive/index.htm

Please read the notes and caveats on the index page before browsing
the archive.


--
No virus found in this outgoing message.
Checked by AVG Anti-Virus.
Version: 7.0.300 / Virus Database: 265.8.7 - Release Date: 10/02/2005

:O

Excellent work Lionel!

Now we have nothing to worry about. Yahoo can do their worst, now that the
messages are saved and the old vault is copied over.

No thanks to Yahoo for making this any easier.

Hugh B


> -----Original Message-----
> From: Lionel Ghoti [mailto:ghoti@...]
> Sent: 12 February 2005 13:57
> To: shawalphabet@yahoogroups.com
> Subject: [shawalphabet] Shavian Yahoo! Group Archive
>
>
> I have made a backup of the original Shavian Yahoo! Group, which
> currently can be found at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/shavian ,
> because it is likely to be deleted by Yahoo! once they identify it as
> having fallen into disuse.
>
> The archive can be found here:
> http://www.saytheword.org.uk/shavian/yahoogrouparchive/index.htm
>
> Please read the notes and caveats on the index page before browsing
> the archive.
>
>
> --
> No virus found in this outgoing message.
> Checked by AVG Anti-Virus.
> Version: 7.0.300 / Virus Database: 265.8.7 - Release Date: 10/02/2005
>
>
>
>
>
> Yahoo! Groups Links
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> --
> No virus found in this incoming message.
> Checked by AVG Anti-Virus.
> Version: 7.0.300 / Virus Database: 265.8.7 - Release Date: 10/02/2005
>

--
No virus found in this outgoing message.
Checked by AVG Anti-Virus.
Version: 7.0.300 / Virus Database: 265.8.7 - Release Date: 10/02/2005

I agree, Many thanks for all your hard work.

--Star

--- Hugh Birkenhead <mixsynth@...> wrote:

>
> :O
>
> Excellent work Lionel!
>
> Now we have nothing to worry about. Yahoo can do their worst, now
> that the
> messages are saved and the old vault is copied over.
>
> No thanks to Yahoo for making this any easier.
>
> Hugh B
>
>
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: Lionel Ghoti [mailto:ghoti@...]
> > Sent: 12 February 2005 13:57
> > To: shawalphabet@yahoogroups.com
> > Subject: [shawalphabet] Shavian Yahoo! Group Archive
> >
> >
> > I have made a backup of the original Shavian Yahoo! Group, which
> > currently can be found at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/shavian ,
> > because it is likely to be deleted by Yahoo! once they identify it
> as
> > having fallen into disuse.
> >
> > The archive can be found here:
> > http://www.saytheword.org.uk/shavian/yahoogrouparchive/index.htm
> >
> > Please read the notes and caveats on the index page before browsing
> > the archive.
> >
> >
> > --
> > No virus found in this outgoing message.
> > Checked by AVG Anti-Virus.
> > Version: 7.0.300 / Virus Database: 265.8.7 - Release Date:
> 10/02/2005
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > Yahoo! Groups Links
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > --
> > No virus found in this incoming message.
> > Checked by AVG Anti-Virus.
> > Version: 7.0.300 / Virus Database: 265.8.7 - Release Date:
> 10/02/2005
> >
>
> --
> No virus found in this outgoing message.
> Checked by AVG Anti-Virus.
> Version: 7.0.300 / Virus Database: 265.8.7 - Release Date: 10/02/2005
>
>
>
>
> ------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor
> --------------------~-->
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> Support St. Jude Children's Research Hospital's 'Thanks & Giving.'
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====http://www.livejournal.com/users/wodentoad

Numfar! Do the Dance of Joy!



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Thanks, Hugh and Star, for your comments. It's nice to know one's
faffing about is appreciated.

After all the hours I spent assessing group-ripper programs, and then
trying to write a ripper of my own, I finally realised that it would
be easier to do it manually. It took me about half an hour with the
Firefox browser to save all the messages (at 30 per page, using the
Expanded view) to my hard drive. The HTML tinkering using UltraEdit
took two or three hours, but would have been much, much quicker if I'd
been awake enough to learn how to use "regular expressions".

So it's not such a big deal to save a copy of your own average-sized
group to your hard drive. Given that, I don't know why Yahoo! are so
jealously possessive of what they think is their data. You'd think
they'd want to make their advertisement-swallowing customers happy.

LG