--- In shawalphabet@yahoogroups.com, Philip Newton
<philip.newton@g...> wrote:
> On Sun, 20 Feb 2005 09:14:05 -0000, garosalibian <garosalibian@y...>
wrote:
> >
> > Since this is a golden opportunity for naming letters right from the
> > start,
>
> Well, the letters already have names.
>
> Many use the names given in _Androcles_, in the reading key which says
> that "beneath each letter is its full name". These names are "peep,
> tot, kick, ...".
>
> Apparently, there was also a ShawScript newsletter which used names,
> some (all?) of which were different from the ones in _Androcles_.
All I am saying for the Shavian community while discussing naming of
their letters is not to repeat the historical mistakes of other
alphabets. Latin names of letters IMO don't work. Words as
representations of the sounds IMO won't fly. The Unicode names I see,
IMO are hopeless.
I know about Peep, Tot, Kick, Feh, Thigh, So, Sure, Church, Yeh,
Hung, Bib , Dead blah blah blah -- Hung? Dead? Who the hell came out
with Hung (a capital punishment -- I can even imagine the macabre
scene in front of my eyes!) and Dead (decay of the creatures when they
stop breathing -- what a horrible word to utter as name of a letter).
You know? They signed the death warrant of Shavian right there and
then by calling it Hung and Dead... Drop all these "creepy" useless
names. Is there no other word for a Shavian sound other than to pick
Dead names and Hang bodies on ropes? Other useless Unicode names:
Loll, Gag, Ooze, Thigh, Ian, Yew, Ha Ha. Imagine using Church and a
British Muslim is learning the alphabet. Why aren't we more sensitive
to pick neutral names at least. Why should we Gag something and are
our wounds oozing with something disgusting? And what does Yew mean?
You realize the idiocy of these words? And what's a Tot? Drop all
these useless utterings for something crystal clear and neutral.
>
> > The best way
>
> ... um.
>
> According to you, though the "IMO" was too small for me to read in
your email.
>
You have a valid observation that IMO should appear somewhere. But if
I am signing in my name, what I write is "in my opinion" and nothing
is obligatory on anybody. In fact all I say is very biased and is very
involved and very very very subjective to make a point. So I welcome
all people putting holes in it or counter-arguing it. So please do
insert an IMO from me everytime you pass to a new paragraph. I don't
want to repeat the expression all the time.
In answer
Honestly, I would not be a great fan of Shavian "per se" to really
care. IMO, I think Shavian is so huge a departure from tradition. IMO,
it is almost prohibitive for anybody to consider....
Don't understand me wrong. I like its concept. I like the way it
looks. I like the idea of similar letters for p/b or m/n or f/v and
getting the other letter by just reversing. This is very impressive
and a wonderful concept.
In fact I love Shavian for these notions. These are great.
> I doubt that it's possible to measure a "best" way for this objectively.
>
> > to name the letters in Shavian is to give the letters
> > their true sound plus schwa (to make it a syllabic pronunciation).
>
> I thought you were against "confusing names"? This proposal will make,
> say, "buh" and "puh", or "shuh" and "chuh", or many other pairs of
> names, very similar in sound -- all letter names will sound nearly
> exactly the same.
You say: "buh" and "puh", or "shuh" and "chuh", or many other pairs of
names, very similar in sound -- all letter names will sound nearly
exactly the same. If this is so, why did the creators of Shavian pick
similar forms for the letters. If they were "so similar", they should
have gone the extar mile and picked very departing dissimilar letter
forms for the couple, not the same forms, just reversed.
Of course, thankfully this was not so. We have great couplings that I
adore. But in the matter of naming... we sometimes underestimate the
intelligence of the human being. A careful person knows a puh from a
buh and a shuh from a zhuh and a fuh from a veh. These are not
"similar" sounds, even if they have "similar" forms in Shavian and as
you try to say, similar names may confuse us.... I say au contraire,
they make us extra aware that they are NOT the same letter.
It simply means, when we teach Shavian, we should tell the learner,
from now on, be careful. Don't continue the bad habit and what you
were doing all this time in TS. Buh is not a puh. Buh is a buh and puh
is a puh. These are completely two different letters... Don't be
creative and adding values. Shuh is not a chuh. Shuh is a shuh and
chuh is a chuh. We can emphasize to a Chinese learner of English -
luh is not a ruh. A luh is a luh and a ruh is a ruh... They should not
use the excuse that in their language it is the same. Students are
learning an alphabet. They should be loyal to what it is. Once the
student of Shavian realizes this, and now knows each letter stands
"independently" for what it is and without subjective "innovativeness"
and "liberties" on his side, once he realizes this is a solid alphabet
and not "my version of an alphabet I'm given that I can pronounce
whatever way I like", everything will be alright, I assure you. He
doesn't need to learn his Peep is different from his Bib. He knows a
puh is not a buh.
>
> > kar (or car) --
> > By the names I am proposing for Shavian:
> > ke / 'a / re -- kar
>
> "car" is spelled kick-are -- only two letters.
>
> > Proper nouns:
> > Mark -- me 'a re ke - Mark
> > Compare this with - em ey aaar kei -- How can you make Mark out of
THAT?
>
> They're just letter names. They're not that important IMO.
>
> > or as some are suggesting - mem - aleph - --- simply DOESN'T work!
>
> *shrugs*
>
> I wouldn't go calling them Hebrew names, because it feels like
> changing something simply for change's sake, but I think that those
> names would work as well, if someone likes those better.
>
> > Shavian is so special. Shavian is so precious. Shavian is so unique.
>
> Well, there's Quickscript, and Unifon, and sundry other proposals at
> re-spelling English with phonemic alphabets...
Unifon remains very loyal to the Latin alphabet. So it is so different
from the concept of Shavian that is a huge departure from Latin.
Quickscript (Kingsley Read) is very similar to Shavian also done by
Read. So I am not surprised there. Ideally we should have one system.
I don't like for example the Senior Quickscript of attached letters in
Quickscript. He is trying to mimick letters in Latin where we write
differently than the typed materials. Why to do that? Keep the
Shavian letters separate, exactly as they are in type.
>
> > a convention that changes in every language attaching more
> > inconsistent names that make no sense whatsoever.
>
> Irrelevant, since Shavian is only intended or suited for the English
language.
Universality of Shavian
Philip,
But I beg to differ high time. IMO, it is very relevant indeed. You
say Shavian is only intended or suited for the English language. If
this is so, chances for Shavian to succeed IMO are next to nil anyway.
Shavian is still "innocently" and very invitingly available for all to
use. To become language-specific (anglo-specific) is a great
disservice to itself. It is still a creature that can be moulded any
way we like. Let's adapt it accordingly to a multiple usage.
Shavian people have not tried any serious promotion after "Androcles"
anyway even in an English setting. No schools were established
throughout the land. No teachers dedicated themselves to learning it,
let alone teaching it. Nothing to win the hearts of the ordinary
masses, the young. No publishing house to publish tonnes of stuff in
Shavian. We needed great literature done in Shavian for promoting the
system. We needed magazines, even dailies in Shavian. We needed to
make people love the system and its usefulness in everyday life.
Telling them to continue writing their own names in traditional
letters even in an all-Shavian setting is a no starter. It immediately
starts red lights and alienates the masses if they are told the
26-letter Latin will continue to be used to write their names.
As for confining Shavian to only English, another consistent argument
I keep on hearing here, this is a grave mistake on part of English
Shavianists. Either Shavian is a "universal alphabet" or its not. I
believe affiliate bodies of intellectuals and linguists should be
created in all European countries to promote adoption of Shavian in
their languages. If Shavian is uniquely for the English, it is
creating huge confusion and will not fly even in English because of
its "separatist" tendencies.
English is very similar to all European languages. The alphabet is a
good link to tie in all these languages. I believe all languages can
adopt Shavian as THEIR alphabet and the "language communion" between
world languages and nations continues this way. Even languages using
Greek or Cyrillic or Semitc alphabets should be welcome to join in. We
are a world community whether we like it or not. So giving them names
like Church, Thigh, Tot, Loll, Ooze is very short-sighted.
As if, suddenly English seems to want to segregate itself from the
rest! And when the rest become genuinely interested in joining in the
Shavian camp, to consider applying them to their languages, we
alienate them by saying, don't bother... this is just an English
system for us English. You, we tell them, you continue your letters or
create other alternative "shavians" for your own if you like. Just
don't bother with ours.... and just don't call them your Shavians.
Shavian is ours...
And as a result, now we find ourselves under the obligation of
learning tens of Shavian-like alphabets and every language has its own
"version" and has its own names rather than a universal form and a
universal name for each letter.
Such schemes don't fly.... I believe p/b, t/d, k/g, th/dh, f/v, s/z,
s/zh, ch/dj, y/w, ng/h, l/r, m/n are nothing unique. These sounds are
equally applicable to all languages. True, we may need to add a couple
of sounds here and there, but basically all languages have the same
sounds give and take a couple. A great system like Shavian can
contemplate all and be inclusive of all.
So, if Shavian can be used in French, German, Italian, Spanish and
the letters are good enough for THOSE languages, it MAY succeed,
though the inclination of mankind is still to take what they have and
improve on it, rather than to accept an altogether new alphabet. So
there is a huge resistance to a Shavian-like fundamental change
anyway. Just don't make the resistance to change even more profound by
insisting it is just for the English.
>
> > As for the sequence, forget the stupid sequence "abcdefghijklmnopqrst"
> > that makes no sense either. There is no logic in "abcdefg".
>
> True.
>
> Though there isn't really a good way to get a "logical" order into the
> Roman alphabet, since it wasn't drawn up along logical lines.
>
> Things such as Japanese kana can be ordered logically, since they
> follow a logical pattern; and the Shaw alphabet can also be ordered
> logically, since it has voiced-voiceless oppositions for most
> consonant phonemes, and "long"-"short" oppositions for many vowel
> phonemes, for example.
This is something to study. I am not familiar with the logical system
of Japanese kana. All I know is that all writigng systems coming from
Chinese -- Mandarin, Cantonese, Korean and Japanese are all very
complicated systems. But I may be wrong here ab out Japanese kana.
>
> > If I were you, I wouldn't even call Shavian an alphabet.
>
> I would.
>
> > It is not based on Greek "alpha beta".
>
> Which in turn was based on Hebrew, which was based on Phoenician.
>
> But that's irrelevant since "alphabet" refers not to descent but to
> how the writing system represents sounds: in this case, each item
> typically represents a "segment" shorter than a syllable (typically a
> phoneme). By this criterion, the Shaw Alphabet is certainly an
> alphabet.
>
> It's definitely not a syllabary, an abjad, or an abugida, to cite some
> other common types of writing system.
>
> > The name "Shavian Alphabet" IS AN OXIMORON.
>
> Depends on the definition of "alphabet".
Still I would love it is called something that is not Greek or Roman.
This alphabet is so UN-Greek so UN-Latin I hate to give it a
Greek/Latin name. I thought Shavian was 180% in departure with the
classic alphabet conventions of all languages.
I would love calling it something unique, not an "alphabet" or an
"abjad". Incidentally, I don't even like the name "Shaw Alphabet"
either. This is so inaccurate, even some may even say it is dishonest
on our part. Shaw never saw this alphabet. He had altogether another
alphabet in his mind when he was alive. Shavian is a system that rose
many years after he died. Why call it Shaw alphabet? A Shaw alphabet
is an alphabet Shaw suggested himself. Period. This is Shavian, not a
Shaw alphabet, even if some funds were paid from Shaw's inheritance
for its creator.
>
> > In Shavian, I would suggest we go by the consonants, pairing them
> > exactly as they come in the demonstration:
> >
> > p/b, t/d, k/g, th/dh, f/v, s/z, s/zh, ch/dj, y/w, ng/h, l/r, m/n
>
> A good method, and one that I've heard people use. I think this is
> also the order that was used in the ShawScript newsletter.
>
> I use the peep-tot-kick order, which is also the order used for
> Shavian in the Unicode standard.
>
> It doesn't really matter that much which one is chosen, though; I
> don't think either order is inherently better than the other.
>
> > Don't re-invent the wheel and add useless unrelated names to pure
> > letter sounds and values.
>
> The names are already there; I didn't invent them.
>
> You seem to have a particular axe to grind, though, so I doubt that
> arguing or even simply stating my point is going to do much good.
I have no axe to grind. I am not an authority on Shavian as you
notice. And I don't cliam I was or will ever be. I am more of an
enthusiastic bystander who is trying to make a point as an outsider, a
dissenting outsider. Arguing with me may not be very useful (as you
rightly felt). But this is for other reasons. Me, I am not an active
promoter of Shavian to really care. I love traditional letters adapted
phonetically to our uses at the same time remaining attached to
universal sound values in other languages. I want an expanded Latin /
Greek alphabet applicable to all.
But that doesn't mean Shavian is not wonderful. It is far better than
a Latin alphabet by stretches. That's why my extra fear that Shavian
enthusiasts don't mimick it in naming patterns.
I have certain takes on certain Shavian notions and I wanted to share
them with you. Mostly though, I can be ignored if I sound too negative
in the way I think of Shavian.
My admiration of Shavian's non-capitalisation no-diacritics new
letters concepts:
I like so much the fact this great alphabet simply refused to have
capital letters. I was very much impressed with the courage of Shavian
people saying "Out with the capital letter". I found this very
impressive and courageous. Very bold. Other spelling reformers should
learn from this and discard all capitalisation. But they are so afraid
and continue to afflict us with Aa, Bb, Ee Gg etc complicating our
lives uselessly.
I like the fact Shavian never reverted to diacritics, the easy trap so
many spelling reformers easily fall into. Shavian remains truly
impressive in admitting altogether new letters, something many
traditional reformers shy from. So my hat off for the brave
Shavianists. I was trying to make a case for admitting just two simple
letters (alpha and schwa) to the Latin alphabet and you should have
seen the opposition. Confine yourself to the 26 we have, I was told by
a huige number fo reformers. Our QWERTY keyboard doesn't have them
they argued.... I told them, look at Shavian and how they admit loads
of new letters without problems? Why are you so intransigent on just
two new letters?
So Shavian is a darling for someone like me and a system to emulate.
On proper nouns:
Many say here Proper person names need to be written in Latin... I
don't understand this. So what is the "purpose" of a creating a
writing "system" that does not attempt to adapt to thousands of proper
nouns, in fact vocally opposes this -- What is so special about Mike,
Mark and David or Mary, Margaret and Jane so as to be written in Latin
letters? Or Afghanistan or Algeria or Namibia? What is so diffcult in
President "Jeacques Chirac" to be written in Shavian "zh-a-k
sh-i-r-a-k" ... Why insist on keeping Jeacques Chirac in its Latin
form in a Shavian political daily? Does Shavian feel THAT inadequate
so as not to try at all spelling these very common names in Shavian
letters?
On chemical names and abbreviations:
Same arguments against renaming chemical table elements (Calcium
Hydrogen Oxygen, Potasium) and mathematical notions and abreviations
of words (IATA UNICEF, WHO, NAACP NASA CIA or NCAA). I have read so
many posts to keep those in Latin. Why should Shavian be so incapable
of tackling these abbreviations successfully? Are they THAT desperate
as to tell the users, to keep the Latin abbreviations for them? In an
ideal situation, I don't want to see ANY Latin letters in a Shavian
text. I just want to see pages and pages of Shavian without meeting
any discarded Latin character there. I thought Shavian would put an
end to all Latin letters, not remain sub-servient to an inadequate 26
letter alphabet.
On dogmatic limitations put on Shavian by Shavianists:
(versus my take that Shavian is a wonderfully flexible all purpose
alphabet with no need whatsoever for the utilisation of Latin alphabet
anymore)
What I see is that Shavian enthusiasts are so immersed in one certain
phase of Shavian so much, and entrenched in that phase of decades ago
so much they accept dogmatic rulings pronounced very early on the
development of the Shavian alphabet that they don't want to come out
of it and explore further possibilities of the new elegant alphabet in
a multitude of application (math, chemistry, personal and place names)
and in a group of languages (French, German, Italian, Spanish, Greek).
They have become so dogmatic they don't see how adaptable Shavian can
become to anything you want. Just put slight amendments to what you
have and there you have it!!! It is an all-purpose alphabet capable of
anything and everything you like. If there is a system that is hugely
adaptable to all walks of life and to all situations, I would have
thought it would have to be Shavian.
But later on, something happened to put a halt to all forward "leaps
of faith" and they becmme bogged down in the limiting rules they set
out to themselves...
This IS a shame IMO. As Shavian can be much better than what you want
it to be or think it has a potential of becoming.
To be successful, Shavian should be a comprehensive and a flexible
system. And it needs imagination and daring. Or else it's chances of
survival are minimal.
>
> Cheers,
> --
> Philip Newton <philip.newton@g...>
Thanks for all your responses
Garo