Shawalphabet YahooGroup Archive Browser

--- In shawalphabet@yahoogroups.com, "paul vandenbrink" wrote:
>
> Hi John
> You are correct that the original Standard pronunciation
> of the Shavian alphabet was modelled after the Rhotic
> accent of His Majesty our late King George the fifth, long
> my he mumble.


The speech of HRH GV was not rhotic; nor was it entirely
non-rhotic, to judge from the few examples of his public,
usually brief pronouncements that one may hear on rare
occasions. About three-quarters non-rhotic, in my
estimation, perhaps a bit more,

You may hear the same treatment of r-final words in a
well-known speaker of a slightly later generation, who may
be heard more frequently. Though his speech otherwise was
highly idiosyncratic, Winston Churchill ended his words, when
applicable, in a similar manner. Listen carefully the next time
you hear that famous declamation, "We shall never surrender..."

It definitely is not neveR surrendeR, But neither is it nevuh
surrenduh. There is a faint relic, an echo, a palimsest, of an \r\
present. Perhap it should be called a soft r, as he would no doubt
have objected to another term sometimes used, the weak r.


dshep

--- In shawalphabet@yahoogroups.com, "paul vandenbrink" wrote:
>
> Hi Jean
>
> Shaw was born and lived in Northern Ireland until he became
> a Author and Playwright.


Dublin.


dshep

schwa
'You don't pronounce it, but you have to think it' -- tip I came across for
French.

alternative spellings
Source: Paddle your own canoe
Rendered: Pas d'elle yeux Rhone que nous
(a monolingual variant: 'Aisle altar hymn' as the bride said.)

BBC English (rhotic)
'Our Rhone correspondent' for 'Our own correspondent'

word division
Wachtraum is German.
Wach/traum = wake/dream = daydream.
Wacht/raum = watch/room = guardroom

The Shaw alphabet adheres faithfully to the word and sentence division of
English. (Note that other systems exist that sometimes impinge on English)
Accordingly such utterances as
Indiaroffice
Londombridge
Sidnee Yarbour
present a "confusion matrix" for Shavian. (useful term -- from a book on
phonetics, too).
I have alsooo
...heard speakers whoooo
...don't want to beee
...interrupted untillll
...they are ready tooo
...cede the floor.
Conference interpreters sometimes leave sentences hanging in this way. It
helps them in their work.
These can of course be rendered in Shavian. Luckily it is only necessary
to insert a single irregularity to mark a whole section stylistically.
('Ahdedo?' 'Not bloody likely.' -- from the same scene in Pygmalion).
That is the way to create a stage Irishman or Welshman -- and has been
since Shakespeare.

Curiously enough there is/was a French convention to render vulgar speech
in literature as a phonetical transcription of cultivated speech. The
implication was that such people would be illiterate. For this reason I
doubt whether anything like Shavian would catch on for French -- it would
be seen as a surrogate language for those who were not up to real French.

I do hope that Shavian is never a success. Imagine it being adopted for
official literacy schemes, being made compulsory in primary schools, being
required for an increasing quota of publications. But then most fiats
about language have usually been at the expense of upsetting linguistically
valid systems. Make an exception for Ataturk, though. Oops!
Sociolinguistics. Sorry.

I've been doing quite a bit of work with Shavian, including transcribing
some foreign words and expressions into it. It seems to work at the Veni,
vidi, vinci or Après moi le déluge level. With a strong English accent,
of course. Certainly better than dialects work. But if it were refined or
abbreviated further Shavian would become incomprehensible. At present,
using the fairly pedantic Androcles model, it has just enough redundance to
make it a language.

Just speculating, thinking aloud, before I go back to work. No intentional
polemics.
jb

> BBC English (rhotic)
> 'Our Rhone correspondent' for 'Our own correspondent'

BBC English isn't Rhotic.

The example you give would be pronounced the same as in a rhotic dialect,
though, because the 'r' in 'our' is followed by a vowel.

Hugh B


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I usually hear this "soft r" in so-called non-rhotic speech, even if the
speaker isn't aware of it. I don't know if this is because there's a real
phonemic distinction (unknown to the speaker), or some allophone, or just a
mistake (albeit a seemingly rather common one).

Or perhaps because I'm so used to hearing these Rs, it may just be that my
mind is playing tricks on me, filling in the rhotics. I also don't here
non-rhotic speech much, except in recordings and bad imitations, and the
latter don't count.

Regards,
Joe
/JO


On 2/26/05 1:41 AM, "dshepx" <dshep@...> wrote:

> The speech of HRH GV was not rhotic; nor was it entirely
> non-rhotic, to judge from the few examples of his public,
> usually brief pronouncements that one may hear on rare
> occasions. About three-quarters non-rhotic, in my
> estimation, perhaps a bit more,
>
> You may hear the same treatment of r-final words in a
> well-known speaker of a slightly later generation, who may
> be heard more frequently. Though his speech otherwise was
> highly idiosyncratic, Winston Churchill ended his words, when
> applicable, in a similar manner. Listen carefully the next time
> you hear that famous declamation, "We shall never surrender..."
>
> It definitely is not neveR surrendeR, But neither is it nevuh
> surrenduh. There is a faint relic, an echo, a palimsest, of an \r\
> present. Perhap it should be called a soft r, as he would no doubt
> have objected to another term sometimes used, the weak r.
>
>
> dshep

Hi Jean

I always thought the Schwa was a recent invention for English Pronunciation.
That people enunciated their words, in the older accents.
Unfortunately, that fallacy came from listening to old accents on the old
Classic Movies and Radio Programs. Repertory actors and vaudevillians can
hardly be
used to provide a baseline measurement for common speech of their time.
Their speech was affected to say the least.

I hope that Shaw does prove to be a success, because English as we know it is
slowly drifting away from the written standard, and eventually Clear
written English will be
the preserve of various elites. (RP squared)

I'd like to see our cultural Heritage preserved a few more centuries.
And while I don't expect.
Après Shoi, le déluge
Without Shaw,
I would be surprised to hear people speaking recognizable English, 2
centuries hence.

As for Redundancy, Shaw provides more than enough, for a faithful vocal
rendering.
I agree the that unfettered abbreviations would sink the redundancy level,
below the level
needed to remain conversant over cultural boundaries, but ...
As for refinement,
I think there is room for a few improvements, especially for the poor
deprived American
and Indian (India has more unlettered English Speakers than anywhere) Cousins.

Nice of you to add your point of view into the mix. Speculate away.

Regards, Paul V.
________________attached________________________-

At 08:41 AM 2/26/05, you wrote:
>schwa
>'You don't pronounce it, but you have to think it' -- tip I came across for
>French.
>
>alternative spellings
>Source: Paddle your own canoe
>Rendered: Pas d'elle yeux Rhone que nous
>(a monolingual variant: 'Aisle altar hymn' as the bride said.)
>
>BBC English (rhotic)
>'Our Rhone correspondent' for 'Our own correspondent'
>
>word division
>Wachtraum is German.
>Wach/traum = wake/dream = daydream.
>Wacht/raum = watch/room = guardroom
>
>The Shaw alphabet adheres faithfully to the word and sentence division of
>English. (Note that other systems exist that sometimes impinge on English)
>Accordingly such utterances as
>Indiaroffice
>Londombridge
>Sidnee Yarbour
>present a "confusion matrix" for Shavian. (useful term -- from a book on
>phonetics, too).
>I have alsooo
>...heard speakers whoooo
>...don't want to beee
>...interrupted untillll
>...they are ready tooo
>...cede the floor.
>Conference interpreters sometimes leave sentences hanging in this way. It
>helps them in their work.
>These can of course be rendered in Shavian. Luckily it is only necessary
>to insert a single irregularity to mark a whole section stylistically.
>('Ahdedo?' 'Not bloody likely.' -- from the same scene in Pygmalion).
>That is the way to create a stage Irishman or Welshman -- and has been
>since Shakespeare.
>
>Curiously enough there is/was a French convention to render vulgar speech
>in literature as a phonetical transcription of cultivated speech. The
>implication was that such people would be illiterate. For this reason I
>doubt whether anything like Shavian would catch on for French -- it would
>be seen as a surrogate language for those who were not up to real French.
>
>I do hope that Shavian is never a success. Imagine it being adopted for
>official literacy schemes, being made compulsory in primary schools, being
>required for an increasing quota of publications. But then most fiats
>about language have usually been at the expense of upsetting linguistically
>valid systems. Make an exception for Ataturk, though. Oops!
>Sociolinguistics. Sorry.
>
>I've been doing quite a bit of work with Shavian, including transcribing
>some foreign words and expressions into it. It seems to work at the Veni,
>vidi, vinci or Après moi le déluge level. With a strong English accent,
>of course. Certainly better than dialects work. But if it were refined or
>abbreviated further Shavian would become incomprehensible. At present,
>using the fairly pedantic Androcles model, it has just enough redundance to
>make it a language.
>
>Just speculating, thinking aloud, before I go back to work. No intentional
>polemics.
>jb

Interesting Thought.
You brought up
Ataturk, who converted Turkey from the Arabic Alphabet to the
Latin Alphabet by fiat, against much advice.

Would you say he was successful in his aim to make Turkey,
a more more modern secular Westernized, less Religious country.
And was the Alphabet change a significant factor.

Obviously it freed the people from the existing religious based Education
system.

Regards, Paul V.


At 08:41 AM 2/26/05, you wrote:
> But then most fiats
>about language have usually been at the expense of upsetting linguistically
>valid systems. Make an exception for Ataturk, though. Oops!
>Sociolinguistics. Sorry.
>
>
>Just speculating, thinking aloud, before I go back to work. No intentional
>polemics.
>jb

>Interesting Thought.
>You brought up
>Ataturk, who converted Turkey from the Arabic Alphabet to the
>Latin Alphabet by fiat, against much advice.
>
>Would you say he was successful in his aim to make Turkey,
>a more more modern secular Westernized, less Religious country.
>And was the Alphabet change a significant factor.
>
>Obviously it freed the people from the existing religious based Education
>system.
---------------------------
Dunno. I'm reading Louis de Bernières' "Birds Without Wings." Sample
exchange between conscript and his CO, Gallipoli 1914 or early 1915:
- Did you write this?
- This is the second letter I have written to my mother.
- Read it.
- My dear Mother, I am sitting once more under a pear tree, and ...
- How do we know that it says this?
- Because it is written.
- The characters are Greek.
- The words are Turk.
- We don't want Greeks among us here, not in the army.
- I am not a Greek, sir.
- You are not a Christian?
- I am Muslim, sir. I am not an infidel.
- The imam of your unit assures me you are a Muslim, but then it is easy to
impersonate a Muslim. Please explain this letter.
- It is a letter to my mother, sir.
- Yes, yes, it is a letter to your mother, but why is it in Greek?
- It is not in Greek, sir, it is in Turk, and only the letters are Greek. I
was taught by my friend because I was anxious to learn.
- How does this come about?

Religion, language, alphabets, war, discipline, culture, people,
nationalism, Gallipoli ... Ataturk, of course, lots of history, lots of
unstated parallels.

All I do know is that three major language families and three major
religions are present in all their diversity in and around Turkey and I
have books at home printed in such scripts/alphabets as Latin, Greek,
Cyrillic, Arabic, Armenian and Hebrew. There seem to be no consistent
themes that link language-religion-alphabet.

When I first mentioned sociolinguistics I was thinking of attempts to force
a language to fit a situation, creating a language for Norway that was
un-Danish, rediscovering Gaelic, Hebrew and Provencale, trying to stamp out
Catalan or Bulgarian, re-naming people and so on. The sort of thinking
that lay behind George Orwell's Newspeak and Webster's tentative reforms.
Redefining Frisian, Corsican, Pictish. Subjective of me. Final quote,
from same book, platoon commander speaking:
'You are the only soldier I have ever had under my command who was able to
read and write. And the odd thing about it is that what you have learned
is almost useless. To write Turkish with Greek letters is like growing a
new fruit that is partly a lemon and partly a fig, which no one will ever
eat.'
Would anyone care to put a spin on that?
jb

Hi Jean

First, a point of clarification.
You said.
There seem to be no consistent
themes that link language-religion-alphabet.

The Arabic, Judaic, Slavic and Greek cultures all have
links to specific insular language-religion-alphabet.
The Jews even wrote German (Yiddish) Right to left using the
Hebrew Alphabet. People hang on to their cultural distinctions agains
all odds.

Secondly, Turkey has switched over into a Hybrid of a Modern Western
Country, as a result of various educational reforms

Until the declaration of republic Turkey was ruled by monarchy. The
republic was founded on October 29th, 1923. Starting from 1925 a set
of crucial reforms took place in the public life instigated by
Ataturk.
1. For the sake of our topic the most important one was the "Alphabet
Reform".
2. When we look at the literacy statistics in Turkey we see that in
1927 the total population was 13,648,000 and only the 11 % of it was
literate.
3. This ratio increased to 40 % in 1960
4. and 77 % in 1985
5. In 1990 the population over 6 years old is 49,163,110. The
literate population is 39.555.483. Number of illiterate people is
9,587,981
6. And the ratio of literates to the total population is 80.46 %. In
Turkey there are more illeterate women than men. According to the
census of 1990 there were 2,779,172 illeterate males and 6.808.809
females. When the economic activity of the population is considered
it is seen that the biggest portion of the illeterates take place
among the population who is engaged in agriculture, forestry, hunting
and fishing (3.894.624)
7. When a listing is made of the world countries according to the
literacy of the popul ation "Turkey comes after Spain, Portugal,
Greece, Yugoslavia, Southern Korea and Thailand but comes before
Indonesia, Tunisia, Egypt, India, Pakistan"

There are many factors that played a serious role in literacy's
increasing from 11 % in 1927 to 80.46 % in 1990. We have to cite here
the three most important ones among them. The first one is "A lphabet
Reform". Alphabet Reform Law was declared on November 3rd, 1928. By
it Latin Alphabet was accepted as the formal alphabet that will be
used in all communications and taught in schools from then onwards.
The reason for this was explained as the Arabian Alphabet's not being
suitable to the Turkish Language, its being very hard to learn and
use, and very expensive to be used by the printers
9. By this reform learning to read and write became much easier and
this factor effected crucially the increase in the number of
literates. The second factor that effected it was primary education's
becoming compulsory. After the declaration of the Turkish Republic,
in 1924 primary education was limited to five years and became
compulsory
10. In 1973 this point is emphasized again by the "Fundamental
National Education Law" 11 and by the "Primary School Law". In 1993
by the "Ministry of National Education Primary Education Regulations"
12 primary education is combined by secondary school education and
increased to eight years. The third thing that promoted the literacy
level in Turkey is the importance that is given to the adult
education. After the declaration of republic literacy courses are
opened under the responsibility of different organizat ions. They can
be listed as such: People's Schools (Halk Mektepleri), Turkish Homes
(Türk Ocaklarý), Public Houses (Halk Evleri) before 1960, Public
Education Centers (Halk Eðitim Merkezleri) and Public Education Rooms
(Halk Eðitim Odalarý) after 1960's 13.

Literacy doesn't mean much when it is not transformed in to
functional literacy. 'Functional Literacy' is using the faculty of
reading and writing all through one's life to get information and
knowledge. One of the indicators that show the functional literacy
level in a country is the amount of the publication activity.
Publications, newspapers and Libraries are available at a level which
allows the people to have functional literacy.

I would think Alphabet reforms in this particular instance changed
History. Apparently, Turkey, will shortly become a full fledged member
of the European Union.

While these changes have had Negitive side effects, overall people in
Modern Turkey are
less regimented, and less influenced by propaganda and "Newspeak",
than their Arabic neighbors.
It would appear that the Arab Countries, have a greater problem with
information control.

Regards, Paul V.

_____________________attached__________________________
> Religion, language, alphabets, war, discipline, culture, people,
> nationalism, Gallipoli ... Ataturk, of course, lots of history,
lots of
> unstated parallels.
>
> All I do know is that three major language families and three major
> religions are present in all their diversity in and around Turkey
and I
> have books at home printed in such scripts/alphabets as Latin,
Greek,
> Cyrillic, Arabic, Armenian and Hebrew. There seem to be no
consistent
> themes that link language-religion-alphabet.
>
> When I first mentioned sociolinguistics I was thinking of attempts
to force
> a language to fit a situation, creating a language for Norway that
was
> un-Danish, rediscovering Gaelic, Hebrew and Provencale, trying to
stamp out
> Catalan or Bulgarian, re-naming people and so on. The sort of
thinking
> that lay behind George Orwell's Newspeak and Webster's tentative
reforms.
> Redefining Frisian, Corsican, Pictish. Subjective of me.

--- In shawalphabet@yahoogroups.com, John Burrows <burrows@t...>
wrote:
Dunno. I'm reading Louis de Bernières' "Birds Without Wings."
Sample
> exchange between conscript and his CO, Gallipoli 1914 or early 1915:
> - Did you write this?
> - This is the second letter I have written to my mother.
> - Read it.
> - My dear Mother, I am sitting once more under a pear tree, and ...
> - How do we know that it says this?
> - Because it is written.
> - The characters are Greek.
> - The words are Turk.
> - We don't want Greeks among us here, not in the army.
> - I am not a Greek, sir.
> - You are not a Christian?
> - I am Muslim, sir. I am not an infidel.
> - The imam of your unit assures me you are a Muslim, but then it is
easy to
> impersonate a Muslim. Please explain this letter.
> - It is a letter to my mother, sir.
> - Yes, yes, it is a letter to your mother, but why is it in Greek?
> - It is not in Greek, sir, it is in Turk, and only the letters are
Greek. I
> was taught by my friend because I was anxious to learn.
> - How does this come about?
> 'You are the only soldier I have ever had under my command who was
able to
> read and write. And the odd thing about it is that what you have
learned
> is almost useless. To write Turkish with Greek letters is like
growing a
> new fruit that is partly a lemon and partly a fig, which no one
will ever
> eat.'
_______________________attached__________________________
> >Interesting Thought.
> >You brought up
> >Ataturk, who converted Turkey from the Arabic Alphabet to the
> >Latin Alphabet by fiat, against much advice.
> >Obviously it freed the people from the existing religious based
Education
> >system, such as it was.
> ---------------------------

Actually there is also the case of Turkish language as written with an
Armenian alphabet. Being an Armenian whose grandparents come from
Turkey (actually Kahramanmarash in Cilicia), my grandmother was more
(predominantly I say) a speaker of Turkish (a turcophone you migtht
say) rather than Armenian (armenophone).

But oddly enough she couldn't read the at-the-time official Ottoman
(Othmani) Turkish in Arabic characters as she was primarily educated
in an Armenian school setting.

She was a devout Christian believer and read dutifully her Bible every
day and also sang hymns and prayed in Turkish. Yet, she read her
Turkish language Bible printed in Armenian alphabet. She barely spoke
any Armenian so she couldn't read the more modern Armenian language
Bible we had though.... Just for fun, I would read to her passages
from this Armeno-Turkish Bible and felt quite proud I was getting so
good in it gaining speed and proficiency practically close to me
reading an all-Armenian text... I still have at home a lot of
religious literature she left when she passed away in Turkish with
Armenian letters including hymn books, Psalms printed at various dates
from 1890s onwards, until the 1930s when the practice of printing
Aremno-Turkish ceased with the decrease in demand. So they are pieces
of treasure and novelty by now as no material has been printed for 70+
years now. Most of what I have is from 1890-1910.

The evangelistic campaign of the Society of the Pious had gained
momentum with the Armenians from missionary campaigns and the
publication of Bibles in classical Armenian (krapar), in modern
Western Armenian (ashkarhapar - based on Constantinople / Istanbul
Dialect of Western Armenian) and in Turkish using Armenian characters
as well targetting the Armenian population of Turkey. Missionary
William Goodell worked on the Turkish Bible with Armenian characters
(the Armeno-Turkish Bible).

There are also strictly literary (non-religious) books written in
Armeno-Turkish (Turkish language with Armenian alphabet) by Armenian
writers. Since their main readership was Armenian, as the level of
education and literacy in late 1800s was much higher in the Ottoman
Empire for the Armenians, the writers prefered to print the books in
with Armenian characters with possibly a smaller circulation for the
books they printed in Arabo-Turkish.

So now I can easily read Turkish in Ottoman (Arabic characters), in
Armenian characters and in Latin characters. Funnily enough I find all
three equally easy, since I know Arabic as well coming from Lebanon.
Arabic was very suited for Turkish specially if the "harakat" (the
shorter vowels) are put as they almost always were, to make it quite
phonetic actually.

Since I read Greek perfectly well also and worked in Cyprus for five
years, I would have been able to read the Greco-Turkish characters
described in Louis de Bernières' "Birds Without Wings" (Turkish
written in a Greek alphabet) after a practice of a few minutes.

Latinizing the Farsi:
Incidentally, an attempt is being also made for a similar treatment
for the Farsi language. Again the culture-religion-language-politics
intersect.

The Farsi language attempt in Latin is called UniPers and is quite
well-formed:

http://unipers.com/

The UniPers alphabet was created based on Latin characters merely
adding 3 diacritical letters and one symbol to the basic Latin
alphabet. The 3 diacritical letters and the symbol are:

1. Â â
2. Š š
3. Ž ž
4. '
(sorry if the characters don't come correctly in the post)

Farsi is presently written in Arabic with the addition of four letters
in the Farsi. In addition to the Arabic 28-letter alphabet set, the
Farsi language has four added consonants not found in the traditional
Arabic alphabet, but very much needed in Farsi:
the p (actually the Arabic b with three dots added instead of one for
the b)
the g (actually the Arabic k with an additional line above the kaf)
the v (actually the f with three dots above instead of just one for f)
the tch (actually the jim with three dots added in the middle of the
jim instead of just one for jim)



--- In shawalphabet@yahoogroups.com, John Burrows <burrows@t...> wrote:
> >Interesting Thought.
> >You brought up
> >Ataturk, who converted Turkey from the Arabic Alphabet to the
> >Latin Alphabet by fiat, against much advice.
> >
> >Would you say he was successful in his aim to make Turkey,
> >a more more modern secular Westernized, less Religious country.
> >And was the Alphabet change a significant factor.
> >
> >Obviously it freed the people from the existing religious based
Education
> >system.
> ---------------------------
> Dunno. I'm reading Louis de Bernières' "Birds Without Wings." Sample
> exchange between conscript and his CO, Gallipoli 1914 or early 1915:
> - Did you write this?
> - This is the second letter I have written to my mother.
> - Read it.
> - My dear Mother, I am sitting once more under a pear tree, and ...
> - How do we know that it says this?
> - Because it is written.
> - The characters are Greek.
> - The words are Turk.
> - We don't want Greeks among us here, not in the army.
> - I am not a Greek, sir.
> - You are not a Christian?
> - I am Muslim, sir. I am not an infidel.
> - The imam of your unit assures me you are a Muslim, but then it is
easy to
> impersonate a Muslim. Please explain this letter.
> - It is a letter to my mother, sir.
> - Yes, yes, it is a letter to your mother, but why is it in Greek?
> - It is not in Greek, sir, it is in Turk, and only the letters are
Greek. I
> was taught by my friend because I was anxious to learn.
> - How does this come about?
>
> Religion, language, alphabets, war, discipline, culture, people,
> nationalism, Gallipoli ... Ataturk, of course, lots of history, lots of
> unstated parallels.
>
> All I do know is that three major language families and three major
> religions are present in all their diversity in and around Turkey and I
> have books at home printed in such scripts/alphabets as Latin, Greek,
> Cyrillic, Arabic, Armenian and Hebrew. There seem to be no consistent
> themes that link language-religion-alphabet.
>
> When I first mentioned sociolinguistics I was thinking of attempts
to force
> a language to fit a situation, creating a language for Norway that was
> un-Danish, rediscovering Gaelic, Hebrew and Provencale, trying to
stamp out
> Catalan or Bulgarian, re-naming people and so on. The sort of thinking
> that lay behind George Orwell's Newspeak and Webster's tentative
reforms.
> Redefining Frisian, Corsican, Pictish. Subjective of me. Final quote,
> from same book, platoon commander speaking:
> 'You are the only soldier I have ever had under my command who was
able to
> read and write. And the odd thing about it is that what you have
learned
> is almost useless. To write Turkish with Greek letters is like
growing a
> new fruit that is partly a lemon and partly a fig, which no one will
ever
> eat.'
> Would anyone care to put a spin on that?
> jb