Shawalphabet YahooGroup Archive Browser

GBS and the ABC
Based on an article by Barbara Smoker
Spelling Progress Bulletin
www.spellingsociety.org

General thesis: Shaw was a mouthpiece or propagandist more than an
original thinker.

Shaw's interest in phonetics started in 1879 when he was introduced
to Henry Sweet, an Oxford don. Also at around age 23, Shaw met
Alexander Ellis. Ellis was an eminent philologist and Anglo-Saxon
scholar who had collaborated with Isaac Pitman on the development of
Phonotypy, one of the first expanded 40+ character phonemic alphabets.

Before Ellis there had been an unbroken line of alphabet reformers
going back to the 16th Century including John Hart, Sir John Cheke,
John Milton, James Howell, Herbert Spencer, Charles Dickens, Mark
Twain, Nicholas Murray Butler, to name a few. The idea of alphabet
reform certainly did not originate with Shaw. Shaw never claimed this
but Newspapers often sneered that alphabet reform was a tom-fool idea
that only Shaw would have put forward" .

Among other popular fallacies is the view that profits from My Fair
Lady, Shaw's only play with a phonetic theme, are available to fund
the alphabet revolution.

Sadly, it is not so. Estate duties took £524,000, and Shaw's estate
did not get out of debt until 1957. It would still be in debt had it
not been for the Royalties from the play. The royalties accruing
since 1950 should have gone into the Alphabet trust, if Shaw's wishes
had been carried out (except that Shaw would not have allowed My Fair
Lady to have been born--but that is another story).

Under English law, no one may make a bequest to an abstract cause,
without an organizational beneficiary - unless the bequest is
charitable.

In 1957, after 6 days of argument, the Chancery court decided that
the alphabet trust could not be categorized as either educational or
for public benefit (the only two options available under British
law).

The Public Trustee lodged an appeal that although he could not by law
be forced to administer the alphabet trust he should be allowed to do
so.

Before this could be heard, an settlement was reached out of court
between the Public Trustee and the three residuary legatees: The
British Museum, The Royal Academy of the Arts, and the National
Gallery of Ireland. An amount of £8,300 was allocated from the estate
for the alphabet project outlined in Shaw's will.

Immediately after this settlement, the Public Trustee announced a 500
p rize for a suitable alphabet of 40+ letters enabling English to be
written without indicating single sounds with more than one letter.

The closing date for the competition was Jan 1, 1959. Over 1000
applications for details were received. About 450 entered the
competition and 250 survived the first sifting. Schemes that used
Roman letters were rejected.

Shaw knew there was likely to be a court case and that this would
draw attention to the project. He fully expected that the alphabet
trust would be upheld. Seven years before his death, he wrote to all
the government departments, learned societies, colleges, committees,
and councils whose functions seemed remotely relevant. None of them
would accept Shaw's conditions.

There are many mistaken ideas about Shaw's ultimate aim. What he
wanted was a one sound per symbol system where the symbols were
shorthand like but linear so they could be easily typeset. It would
be a parallel writing system that would compete with the traditional
system. The fitter would ultimately survive.

Shaw felt that a new alphabet was the only hope of orthographic
reform. Tampering with traditional spelling would stir up emotional
hostility and lead to confusion. We all tend to defend habitual
mental processes. A new alphabet could exist side by side with the
traditional one. It would be like parallel number systems such as
Roman numerals and Hindu-Arabic numbers.

Without an augmented alphabet, only a partial spelling reform would
be possible. As long as there are digraphs, we get problems such as
mishap and bishop /mishAp - biSap/

Shaw hated the inefficiency of using silent letters and digraphs. "As
to spelling the very frequent word THROUGH with 6 letters instead of
2.

Traditional letterforms could be greatly improved. Similar shapes
could reflect similar sounds. As it is similar shapes (e.g., E & F)
are unrelated in sound. The shape of some letters are unnecessarily
complex requiring up to 3 pen strokes instead of one.

Hi Garosa?

Quite a family history. Don't often meet a true Bi-lingual in 2 such
varied languages. It would give me a split personality, or more of
one than I already have.

Is Armenian is a variation on the Cyrillic alphabet?

Since you can read Turkish in all 3 Alphabets, equally well, would
you have any opinion on which would be easiest for a newcomer,
unfamilar with any of the Alphabets to learn? Could you skew the
results a little and consider writing Turkish in Arabic Script without
harakat.
Modern Hebrew eliminates the Dots but has contrived to pronounce the
longer Vowels, using extra yoods and vavs. But in Hebrew, the vowels
are pronounced very systematically according to the Gramatical
category of the word. I don't believe there is as much Vowel
redundancy in Turkish.

Interesting proposal for Farsi. It would change a thousand years
of culture, in one fell swoop.

Regards, Paul V.
______________________attached________________________
--- In shawalphabet@yahoogroups.com, "garosalibian"
<garosalibian@y...> wrote:
>
> 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)

On Mon, 28 Feb 2005 19:42:17 -0000, paul vandenbrink
<pvandenbrink@sprint.ca> wrote:
>
> Is Armenian is a variation on the Cyrillic alphabet?

It's got its own separate alphabet, but I don't know where it came
from (for example, whether it was based on the Cyrillic or Greek or
another alphabet).

http://www.omniglot.com/writing/armenian.htm says that "a cleric at
the Armenian royal court by the name of Mesrop Mashtots (361-440 AD)
invented the Armenian alphabet. He modelled the Armenian alphabet very
losely on the Greek alphabet and was also possibly influenced by the
Assyrian script."

> consider writing Turkish in Arabic Script without harakat.
> Modern Hebrew eliminates the Dots but has contrived to pronounce the
> longer Vowels, using extra yoods and vavs. But in Hebrew, the vowels
> are pronounced very systematically according to the Gramatical
> category of the word. I don't believe there is as much Vowel
> redundancy in Turkish.

Well, Turkish has vowel harmony, so that in native words only back
vowels (a o u I) or only front vowels (e ö ü i) are found (there are
pairs and quadruplets of suffixes for this, so that e.g. -lar or -ler
is used for the plural depending on the vowels in the stem of the
word, or -mI -mi -mu -mü is used for questions, again depending on the
vowels). So in general only half the possible vowels can occur in any
given word anyway, which helps make vowelless writing readable from
what I've heard.

Another "trick" that was used when writing Turkish in the Arabic
alphabet, so I've heard, is to make use of the Arabic "emphatic"
consonants to mark an adjacent back vowel; since those consonants are
not pronounced differently in Turkish, one can use e.g. qaf vs ka or
Ta vs ta or Dad vs dal etc. to mark back vs front vowels,
respectively. So this "hint" of back vs front vowel along with vowel
harmony already gets you a long way, even though the letters only
represent the consonant skeleton of a word.

I think there are also some words which are written with a historical
spelling, and those you simply have to learn - silent letters or
unwritten but pronounced letters, for example.

If you're patient, have a look at a Usenet thread where I asked years
ago how Turkish used to be written in Arabic:
http://groups-beta.google.com/group/soc.culture.turkish/browse_frm/thread/5058c8e9eb947cde/a93ec4400d1fa127?tvc=1&q=Turkish+Arabic+group:sci.lang+author:Philip+author:Newton&_done=%2Fgroups%3Fas_q%3DTurkish+Arabic%26num%3D30%26scoring%3Dr%26hl%3Den%26ie%3DUTF-8%26as_epq%3D%26as_oq%3D%26as_eq%3D%26as_ugroup%3Dsci.lang%26as_usubject%3D%26as_uauthors%3DPhilip+Newton%26lr%3D%26as_drrb%3Dq%26as_qdr%3D%26as_mind%3D1%26as_minm%3D1%26as_miny%3D1981%26as_maxd%3D28%26as_maxm%3D2%26as_maxy%3D2005%26safe%3Doff%26&_doneTitle=Back+to+Search&scrollSave=&&d#a93ec4400d1fa127
(or http://xrl.us/fakj for short); there are some useful answers and
resources in there (especially by "Cluster User"), amidst much
discussion and some bickering about unrelated things. In particular,
http://groups-beta.google.com/group/soc.culture.turkish/msg/625a6fe2c655f792
is interesting, and
http://groups-beta.google.com/group/soc.culture.turkish/msg/fc312bd7d1bc797f
links to some samples of Turkish in Arabic orthography. Also,
http://groups-beta.google.com/group/soc.culture.turkish/msg/cc38fdd42942e9df
gives some examples but transcribed into Latin, showing things such as
d-k-z for "deniz", where the ka represents /n/ in modern Turkish (but
probably /N/, i.e. Shavian "hung" sound, in earlier stages), or
S-k-r-' for "sonra", which simply has a special spelling. "Cluster
User" replies at
http://groups-beta.google.com/group/soc.culture.turkish/msg/f0e824f4634fa42f
and http://groups-beta.google.com/group/soc.culture.turkish/msg/e58ef686aa856c3d
and http://groups-beta.google.com/group/soc.culture.turkish/msg/6aac7c6cdcd3b4fc.

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

Hi Scott

Interesting argument.
Her description of Shaw's interest in a phonetic alphabet,
and his anticipation of the controversy arising from his bequest
seem quite plausible, and quite in keeping with the foremost
polemicist of our time.

Still I would not call him a propagandist or a mere mouthpiece for
someone elses ideas.
The actual description that she gives engenders of a picture of a
visionary who argues against the status quo. He continually proded
people to do better.
He may not know what he likes, but he certain did wish to rid himself
of that Hodgepodge, that sinkhole of accumulated misspellings
that serve us a T.O.

Regards, Paul V.

P.S. Has anyone new information the invalidates or ameliorates GBS
opinion of the English T.O.?
______________________________attached_________________________
--- In shawalphabet@yahoogroups.com, "Steve Bett" <stbetta@a...>
wrote:
>
> by Barbara Smoker
>
> General thesis: Shaw was a mouthpiece or propagandist more than an
> original thinker.
>
> Shaw's interest in phonetics started in 1879 when he was introduced
> to Henry Sweet, an Oxford don. Also at around age 23, Shaw met
> Alexander Ellis. Ellis was an eminent philologist and Anglo-Saxon
> scholar who had collaborated with Isaac Pitman on the development
of
> Phonotypy, one of the first expanded 40+ character phonemic
alphabets.
>
> Before Ellis there had been an unbroken line of alphabet reformers
> going back to the 16th Century including John Hart, Sir John Cheke,
> John Milton, James Howell, Herbert Spencer, Charles Dickens, Mark
> Twain, Nicholas Murray Butler, to name a few. The idea of alphabet
> reform certainly did not originate with Shaw. Shaw never claimed
this
> but Newspapers often sneered that alphabet reform was a tom-fool
idea
> that only Shaw would have put forward" .
>
> Among other popular fallacies is the view that profits from My Fair
> Lady, Shaw's only play with a phonetic theme, are available to fund
> the alphabet revolution.
>
> Sadly, it is not so. Estate duties took £524,000, and Shaw's estate
> did not get out of debt until 1957. It would still be in debt had
it
> not been for the Royalties from the play. The royalties accruing
> since 1950 should have gone into the Alphabet trust, if Shaw's
wishes
> had been carried out (except that Shaw would not have allowed My
Fair
> Lady to have been born--but that is another story).
>
> Under English law, no one may make a bequest to an abstract cause,
> without an organizational beneficiary - unless the bequest is
> charitable.
>
> In 1957, after 6 days of argument, the Chancery court decided that
> the alphabet trust could not be categorized as either educational
or
> for public benefit (the only two options available under British
> law).
>
> The Public Trustee lodged an appeal that although he could not by
law
> be forced to administer the alphabet trust he should be allowed to
do
> so.
>
> Before this could be heard, an settlement was reached out of court
> between the Public Trustee and the three residuary legatees: The
> British Museum, The Royal Academy of the Arts, and the National
> Gallery of Ireland. An amount of £8,300 was allocated from the
estate
> for the alphabet project outlined in Shaw's will.
>
> Immediately after this settlement, the Public Trustee announced a
500
> p rize for a suitable alphabet of 40+ letters enabling English to
be
> written without indicating single sounds with more than one letter.
>
> The closing date for the competition was Jan 1, 1959. Over 1000
> applications for details were received. About 450 entered the
> competition and 250 survived the first sifting. Schemes that used
> Roman letters were rejected.
>
> Shaw knew there was likely to be a court case and that this would
> draw attention to the project. He fully expected that the alphabet
> trust would be upheld. Seven years before his death, he wrote to
all
> the government departments, learned societies, colleges,
committees,
> and councils whose functions seemed remotely relevant. None of them
> would accept Shaw's conditions.
>
> There are many mistaken ideas about Shaw's ultimate aim. What he
> wanted was a one sound per symbol system where the symbols were
> shorthand like but linear so they could be easily typeset. It would
> be a parallel writing system that would compete with the
traditional
> system. The fitter would ultimately survive.
>
> Shaw felt that a new alphabet was the only hope of orthographic
> reform. Tampering with traditional spelling would stir up emotional
> hostility and lead to confusion. We all tend to defend habitual
> mental processes. A new alphabet could exist side by side with the
> traditional one. It would be like parallel number systems such as
> Roman numerals and Hindu-Arabic numbers.
>
> Without an augmented alphabet, only a partial spelling reform would
> be possible. As long as there are digraphs, we get problems such as
> mishap and bishop /mishAp - biSap/
>
> Shaw hated the inefficiency of using silent letters and
digraphs. "As
> to spelling the very frequent word THROUGH with 6 letters instead
of
> 2.
>
> Traditional letterforms could be greatly improved. Similar shapes
> could reflect similar sounds. As it is similar shapes (e.g., E & F)
> are unrelated in sound. The shape of some letters are unnecessarily
> complex requiring up to 3 pen strokes instead of one.

Again the culture-religion-language-politics
>intersect.
-----------------
That is a very neat and useful formula, for which thanks!
Don't forget that the languages of the region include examples of three
superfamilies.
Semitic (Maltese already uses Latin script, making it the beginner's choice)
IE (Kurdish still undecided about script -- books I've seen juxtapose
Arabic and Latin but were printed for the immigrant community here)
Turkic (most similar languages have Cyrillic scripts -- Stalin and all that)
Scripts are more often off-the-peg (legacy wear?) than tailor-made.
Shavian fits English sounds, phonetics at the expense of semantics. The
spelling system it replaces does have a lot of historical information coded
in.
It would be fun to speculate on which system is best suited to render or
record vowel harmony, roots, agglutinative languages, sound changes, stress
and tone... (Musical notation?) Quite useless, but fun.
(Not quite useless, perhaps. I've just realised why I am unhappy with the
voiced/unvoiced contrasting pairs in Shavian -- useful for learning, but a
feature less relevant to English than to other languages.)
jb

Hi Jean
Again I have the dubious pleasure of being disagreeable.
Or more precisely, disagreeing with one of your last points.
Concerning usefulness of clarifying Voiced/Unvoiced Distinction for
English.
I like it. It clarifies a lot of puzzling English pronunciations
which are quite enigmatic in the T.O.

The pronunciation of
1. of
2. wolf/wolves wife/wives
3. why X can be pronouced either "ks" or "gz"
4. how s can be pronounced as "z" at the end of the word.
5. why consonant clusters retain the voicing of the inital element
throughout the entire cluster.
6. How the affix "ed" can be reduced to a "t" at the end of a word in
words such as
jumpt, slept, walkt, talkt.

T.O. hides these distinctions to our disservice.
Unless you have a perverse desire for the memorizations of
exceptions.

Alternate pronunciations of consonants frequently result in a
flipping the sound into the opposite form.
voiced to un-voiced or vice versa.

Regards, Paul V.
P.S. It is hardly useless to point out the limitations and
inconsistency of the T.O.
And obviously there is an alternate choice.
As for the historical information, I am sure the Etymologists
can peruse it their leizure, but it doesn't help me, or 99.9%
of the English readers who are trying to under stand the message.
Under stand doesn't help me to understand. May be if someone wiser
stand over me and points it out.

Did you realize that Shep, the dog name is short for Shepherd.
And Shepherd is short for Sheep-herder. But if you call Shep a Sheep,
he will be rightly insulted.
These etymological relationships are not transferable, derivable or
obvious.
_____________attached______________________________
--- In shawalphabet@yahoogroups.com, John Burrows <burrows@t...>
wrote:
> Don't forget that the languages of the Turkish region include
examples of three
> superfamilies.
> Semitic (Maltese already uses Latin script, making it the
beginner's choice)
> IE (Kurdish still undecided about script -- books I've seen
juxtapose
> Arabic and Latin but were printed for the immigrant community here)
> Turkic (most similar languages have Cyrillic scripts -- Stalin and
all that)
> Scripts are more often off-the-peg (legacy wear?) than tailor-made.
> Shavian fits English sounds, phonetics at the expense of
semantics. The
> spelling system it replaces does have a lot of historical
information coded
> in.
> It would be fun to speculate on which system is best suited to
render or
> record vowel harmony, roots, agglutinative languages, sound
changes, stress
> and tone... (Musical notation?) Quite useless, but fun.
> (Not quite useless, perhaps. I've just realised why I am unhappy
with the
> voiced/unvoiced contrasting pairs in Shavian -- useful for
learning, but a
> feature less relevant to English than to other languages.)
> jb

This is just an additional point on the benefits of a Voiced/Unvoiced
Distinction in the Shaw Alphabet.
How does an English Student learn when to pronounce the TH sound.
How does he know when it is voiced and when it is not other than
memorizing every occurrence of this sound in English.
I used to Think if it was at the beginning of a word, specifically
one of the Definate Pronouns (The, This, That, Those, Thee, Thou,
than, then, there, though) then it was voiced and in all other
instances not. Then I found some exceptions, mostly in old English or
Germanic
Loan words where it was also voiced (Mother, Father, Brother, other,
lathe, bathe). But bath was unvoiced.
The exceptions mounted. It is much better to have it spelled out, as
in Shavian.

Regards, Paul V.
___________________attached_______________________
--- In shawalphabet@yahoogroups.com, "paul vandenbrink"
<pvandenbrink@s...> wrote:
>
> Hi Jean
> Again I have the dubious pleasure of being disagreeable.
> Or more precisely, disagreeing with one of your last points.
> Concerning usefulness of clarifying Voiced/Unvoiced Distinction for
> English.
> I like it. It clarifies a lot of puzzling English pronunciations
> which are quite enigmatic in the T.O.
>
> The pronunciation of
> 1. of
> 2. wolf/wolves wife/wives
> 3. why X can be pronouced either "ks" or "gz"
> 4. how s can be pronounced as "z" at the end of the word.
> 5. why consonant clusters retain the voicing of the inital element
> throughout the entire cluster.
> 6. How the affix "ed" can be reduced to a "t" at the end of a word
in
> words such as
> jumpt, slept, walkt, talkt.
>
> T.O. hides these distinctions to our disservice.
> Unless you have a perverse desire for the memorizations of
> exceptions.
>
> Alternate pronunciations of consonants frequently result in a
> flipping the sound into the opposite form.
> voiced to un-voiced or vice versa.
>
> Regards, Paul V.
> P.S. It is hardly useless to point out the limitations and
> inconsistency of the T.O.
> And obviously there is an alternate choice.
> As for the historical information, I am sure the Etymologists
> can peruse it their leizure, but it doesn't help me, or 99.9%
> of the English readers who are trying to under stand the message.
> Under stand doesn't help me to understand. May be if someone wiser
> stand over me and points it out.
>
> Did you realize that Shep, the dog name is short for Shepherd.
> And Shepherd is short for Sheep-herder. But if you call Shep a
Sheep,
> he will be rightly insulted.
> These etymological relationships are not transferable, derivable or
> obvious.

grMp.



wuns agen, nOwun hC iz tYkiN in /SEvWn. wI’D Yl nAtDiN on abQt
sOSOliNgwistiks, fanetiks, Yltxnativ speliN sistamz n Yl HAt, n in H mIntFm,
pUD Old /SEvWn iz getiN nO atenSan wotsOevD. it’s nO wundD wI’D not getiN
enI nV membDz.



hQ R wI evD gOiN t kanvins H wxld v /SEvIan’z benafits if QD Alfabet v cqs
in His grMp iz not /SEvWn?



wI mFt Az wel rInEm His grMp “JenDal fanetiks|speliN rifPm diskuSan grMp”.



enI riplFz t His mesiJ not ritan in /SEvWn wil bI dalItad. :-)



/hV


--
No virus found in this outgoing message.
Checked by AVG Anti-Virus.
Version: 7.0.300 / Virus Database: 266.5.7 - Release Date: 01/03/2005

Hi Paul,

For the word "interesting" I say "in-tresting" when it is not stressed. I say in-ter-esting when stress the word.

best of regards,

Carl

paul vandenbrink <pvandenbrink@...> wrote:

Hi Star
We seem to be saying the same thing.
Ado = "minimal vowel sound"
= "sound used to denote where a vowel has been all but dropped"

Maybe it's my Canadian accent.
I notice I still use Ado (Schwa) in the middle of the word "inte-
resting", whereas you guys down there skip the Ado sound and just
say, "int-resting".
Is that true across all of the U.S. of A..

Regards, Paul V.
_______________________attached__________________________

--- In shawalphabet@yahoogroups.com, Star Raven
<celestraof12worlds@y...> wrote:
> I still think you boys are crazy with your "half the length" and
> millisecond measurments. The difference is not in length but in
weight.
> The up sound is a stressed sound as in Under, Upwards, and Buddy,
while
> the schwa is an unstressed sound used to denote where a vowel has
been
> all but dropped.
>
> Love ya!
> --Star
>
> --- paul vandenbrink <pvandenbrink@s...> wrote:
>
> >
> > Hi Dean
> > While I agree completely with Joe on his response to your 3
questions
> > let me add 2 points.
> > First, about Ado. It is a minimal vowel sound about 1/2 the length
> > of the "up" sound. It is very common in casual American English
> > conversation, but if you ask someone to sound out a word, they
> > usually accentuate the vowel sound, and so the Ado tends to
disappear
> >
> > and you hear a longer vowel.
> > The simple "a" and "an" words are pronounced with an Ado sound.
> > Also an initial "a" in a word where it is pronounced like that
> > simple "a" word. (i.e. alert, around, along, ability, abolish,
above,
> >
> > acquaint (sounds like "a quaint" )) is pronounced with the Ado
sound.
> >
> > Second, about X.
> > Remember "X" is not always pronounced "ks". At the beginning of
word,
> > it is usually pronounced and written as a Shaw "Zoo" letter.
> > (i.e. Xerox, xylophone, Xenon, xenophobia)
> > Many times it is only pronounced only as a "k". (i.e. excercise,
> > excited) or "gz" in exact.
> > Since it doesn't have a consistent pronunciation, it really
doesn't
> > make sense to create an equivalent Shaw Letter for "X". Shaw
Letter
> > have only one pronunciation.
> >
> > Regards, Paul V.
> >
> > _____________attached________________________________
> >
> > --- In shawalphabet@yahoogroups.com, Joe <wurdbendur@g...> wrote:
> > > > 1. I'm having trouble distinguishing between the two vowles
a
> > (as in
> > > > ash) and a (as in ado). Could someone give me exaples of
each?
> > >
> > > Ado represents the indistinct sound found in unstressed
syllables.
> >
> > This
> > > name can be confusing since some people pronounce it
differently.
> > It's also
> > > in the following words (shown with CAPS:
> > >
> > > Ago
> > > Away
> > > fountAIn
> > > BAnanA (or just the first A)
> > >
> > > Most people confuse this with the letter Up. The biggest
> > difference is that
> > > Up can only be in stressed syllables, while Ado can only be in
> > stressed
> > > ones. Ado is the one on the lower-case A in standard Shavian
> > fonts.
> > >
> > > These words have Ash:
> > > After
> > > bAt
> > > pAt
> > > mAn
> > >
> > > The last one ("man") can be confusing since many people
pronounce
> > this as a
> > > diphthong, but it's usually treated as the same sound, or
phoneme.
> >
> > The
> > > letter Ash is the one in the place of capital A.
> > >
> > > > 2. Is there no single letter to represent 'ks' (as in roman
we
> > would
> > > > use X)?
> > >
> > > Shavian always breaks this down into it's parts. Where you'd
write
> >
> > X in
> > > Roman, you use "ks" or "gz" in Shavian. Quikscript does have a
> > letter for
> > > both, though.
> > >
> > > > 3. How would you write the word 'capable' - it's just
the 'ble'
> > that
> > > > I'm not sure of.
> > >
> > > If you have the font �Shaw Sans No. 2�, it should look up like
> > this:
> > > kEpabal
> > > That syllabic L confuses everybody at some point. Some people
will
> >
> > just
> > > spell it like �bl�, but I suggest adding an Ado before a
syllabic
> > letter.
> >
> > These are minimal vowel sounds. See examples, where a consonant
is
> > pronounced as a syllable. We indicate this with the Ado letter.
> > (i.e. girl, isle, blossom, chasm, often, able, jail, prism}
> >
> >
> > > Joe Spicer
> > > /JO spFsD
> >
> >
> >
> >
>
>
> ====> http://www.livejournal.com/users/wodentoad
>
> Numfar! Do the Dance of Joy!
>
>
>
> __________________________________
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hF GhV,

F wil rFt in GSyvWn font kOd fP H grMp. in H GSyvWn fPum in H GSyvWn sekSan F v kPs rFt in font kOd. sO GhV Fl ekstend mF GSyvWn VsiJ t His grMp tM.

best v rIgRdz,

GkRal

Hugh Birkenhead <mixsynth@...> wrote:

grMp.



wuns agen, nOwun hC iz tYkiN in /SEvWn. wI�D Yl nAtDiN on abQt sOSOliNgwistiks, fanetiks, Yltxnativ speliN sistamz n Yl HAt, n in H mIntFm, pUD Old /SEvWn iz getiN nO atenSan wotsOevD. it�s nO wundD wI�D not getiN enI nV membDz.



hQ R wI evD gOiN t kanvins H wxld v /SEvIan�z benafits if QD Alfabet v cqs in His grMp iz not /SEvWn?



wI mFt Az wel rInEm His grMp �JenDal fanetiks|speliN rifPm diskuSan grMp�.



enI riplFz t His mesiJ not ritan in /SEvWn wil bI dalItad. :-)



/hV


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