Spelling Reform Thread

a-father
b-book
c-chart, chip = become ''cart'' and ''cip''
d-dog
e-red
f-food
g-good
h-hook
i-is
j-jet
k-cat
l-lip
m-man
n-no
o-top
p-pool
q-[?]-''glottal stop''- ''Hawai'i'' becomes ''Hywieqi'', as the words pronounced in the Hawai'ian language.
r-real
s-street
t-tiger
u-tub
v-vet
w-wet
x-genre, rouge, beige, vision
y-yes
z-zebra
þ-think
ð-then
æ-cat
ø-arrest, about, soda, permit ''the verb''.
œ-home, goat, goer, float, boat
Ð-tied, kneed, allowed, tried, stayed
ï-lenin, cabin, possible, bizarre, visit, wanted, needed, carpet, manage, private, amplifier, horrible. ''Unstressed [i] or [..]'' See below,
ş-ship, shield, fish, wish, chef, machine.

'''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''

The ''Ð'' in ''tied'', ''kneed'' etc. I'm using is the capital of the letter that looks like a lowercase ''t'' and a lowercase ''d'' put together which is different from ''eth''.

'''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''

The letter ''ï'' is used in some words where some people use [..] and some people use the [i] sound in ''kit''. The ''i's'' that are pronounce [..] by most of us are pronounced like the ''i'' sound in ''kit'' by some. So, that ''lennon'' and ''lenin'' and ''bazaar'' and ''bizarre'' are distinguished. Also, for Americans and Britons [i] occurs in past tense ''ed'' endings and plural ''es'' endings and for some people in ''et'', ''age'' and ''ate'' endings. So, in unstressed syllables where either [..] or [i] can be used, the letter ''ï''. ''America'' becomes ''Ømerïkø''. [i] is never used in ''en'' endings so, they become ''øn''.

See - http://www.hi.is/~peturk/KENNSLA/87/VARS/WVMerger.html

Sound sample.

''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''

What would we call the new letters besides the thorn, eth, and ash. What would we call the last five new letters.

What do people þink øbout ðis ekstendïd alføbet?

ð-then

Ð-tied, kneed, allowed, tried, stayed

Loch, Why are you adding eth twice in the alphabet and giving it a second job?

I like Thorn
But Eth and Ash are problematical.
Try Thawn or Thou, and Alef or Alfy.
As for the final five.
You could try
Shwa for ø-arrest, about, soda, along
Oprah for œ-home, goat, goer, float, boat
Tad for Ð-tied, kneed, allowed, tried, stayed
Shwee for ï-lenin, cabin, possible, bizarre, visit, wanted, needed, carpet, manage,
Sheen $-ship, shield, fish, wish, chef, machine.

Regards. Paul V.

But I think there are too many additions for a simple extension.
The Shaw Phonetic Alphabet might be a better, as it is a wholesale replacement. Especially if you remove on, Ian, err, and Yew as being redundant with an American English pronunciation.

I love English the way it is now, with all its quirks and irregularities and all those interesing words imported from other languages over the years. It is almost as if the eccentricities of English reflect the English character. Not the British character ...the English character. LOL. We Scots tend to regard the English that way :-) We love them really..I mean, who else could we hammer at Murrayfield? If English spelling was reformed it would water the language down so that it became bland and standardised and lacking in character. A version of Esperanto maybe. I wud hait that...the languij wud lwk forrin and strainj. I want things to stai as they r plees.

Like I said. Spelling reforms are for people with suspect agendas. Let the language evolve on its own, you worthless tossers.

Revert to the Fuþorc.

Paul,

What's wrong with eth and ash?

Oliver,

Remove Shavian letters which are redundant in American pronunciation? So you're saying that the rest of us can just take a leap?

Damian and David,

I agree that we're better without any reform. Leave it be I say.

Eth sounds too much like Es. Have you never heard a kid with a lisp.
It is nice if names at the very least are pronouncable and easily distinguishable. So. You do accept my other suggestions with out quibbling?

P.S. This is a place for people to learn English, as it is today.
It is improper to give your students a moving target.
At least warn them. Say something like this before each post.

"This is a Mind Bending Topic. And YOU are the Guinea Pig."

Sorry Jim
No disrespect, involved.
Just think that you should present an English Alphabet with all the basic sounds that everybody uses, and then at the end add in some letters and mark them as extra, for the sounds, that you only need to pronounce English with a particular regional accent.
There are a number of sounds which are not used everywhere and so should be marked as secondary.
For example, Wh in Which and whew.
ch in Loch
ll in Welsh
eu in few and new

The idea is to help people hear to learn English. Not overwhelm them with differences between the Rhotic and Non-Rhotic English varieties

Oliver says-''There are a number of sounds which are not used everywhere and so should be marked as secondary.
For example, Wh in Which and whew.
ch in Loch
ll in Welsh
eu in few and new''

Oliver, The ''ew'' [ju:] is not used in ''new'' in American English but it is used in ''few''. Americans say [fu:] not [fju:]. So, I'd say that [ju:] is used everywhere at least initially. I say [nu:] and [fju:]. So, we're not talking about [ju:] but about after certain sounds when it becomes [u:] so, we're talking about [(j)u:] not [ju:]. [ju:] exists in all dialects but in some it does not exist after [t], [d], [s], [z] or [th]. Then the pronunciation of those words becomes [u:].

Oliver says-''There are a number of sounds which are not used everywhere and so should be marked as secondary.
For example The''Wh'' in ''which'' and ''whew''.
ch in Loch
ll in Welsh - ''voiceless ''l''
eu in ''new'' but not ''few''

Here are some more,

o in cot
au in caught
a in , daze, pane, mane, ate= ''A monophthong used by some Northern Irish people that distinguish these words from ''maid'', ''days'', ''pain'', ''main'' and ''eight''. [A].
o in toe, sole, nose, groan=A ''A monophthong used by people from Liverpool people that distinguish these words from ''tow'', ''soul'', ''knows'' and ''grown''. [O].
e in tenner ''used by some Northern Irish people that distinguish this word from ''tenor'' by using a longer vowel.'' [E].
nd-in ''grand prix''.
ny-in ''canyon'' and ''gn'' in ''lasagna'' pronounced by some people with a palatal nasal sound, [J] in Sampa instead of [nj]. Pronounced by them with a sound different to the ''ni'' [nj], in ''opinion'', ''companion'', ''onion'' etc.
ea-in ''meat'', ''sea'', ''leak'' and ''real'-pronounced with [i..] in some part of the British Isles to distinguish them from ''meet'', ''see'', ''leak'' and ''reel''.
a-in ‘’bad’’, ‘’sad’’, ‘’jam’’ meaning ‘fruit conserve’, ‘’can’’ ‘’tin’’ or the verb ‘’can’’, and ‘’halve’’ for some people from Southern England which they pronounce with a longer vowel sound than the ‘’a’’ sound in ‘’cat’’. [@:]. For them, ‘’bad’’ and ‘’lad’’ don’t rhyme. Also, they have minimal pairs between ‘’can’’ meaning ‘’able to’’ and ‘’can’’ – ‘’a metal container’’ or ‘’ to put into a can’’ and ‘’jam’’ ‘’fruit conserve’’ and ‘’jam’’ meaning ‘’crush’’ and also ‘’have’’ vs. ‘’halve’’.
Eu-in rude, rheum, threw, brewed, chews, chute, lute, luce, suit, and flew used by some Welsh people. Where we have ‘’yod dropping’’ they use a different vowel sound in to distinguish them from other words so, for them rude and rood, rheum - room, threw - through, brewed - brood, chews - choose, chute - shoot, lute - loot, luce - loose, suit – soot, flew – flu, and the vowels of glue - gloom, blue – bloom and the vowel in June are distinguished by them.
i-in libel ‘’ For some Scots, ‘’libel’’ and ‘’bible’’ don’t rhyme. The vowel in ‘’bible’’ is like the [ai] in other words and the vowel in ‘’libel’’ is different, the diphthong changes in ‘’libel’’ for them.’’

So, If we replace all of the diagraphs with new letters, Should these sounds be ignored?

A couple of more.

d-in tied, kneed, allowed, stayed etc. ''For some Scots there's a distinction between ''tied and tide'', ''staid and stayed''. The diphthong changes in the past tenses. My spelling reform proposal system uses ''dd'' for past tenses for words that end in a vowel sound, but someone could add the letter that looks like a lowercase ''t'' and a lowercase ''d'' put together for those past tenses, like is shown in my extended alphabet ''which is different to eth.''
[C]-in ''human'', ''huge'', ''humor'', ''humongus'' etc. ''A voiceless ''y'' used by some people in words like ''human'', ''huge'', ''humor'', ''humongus'' etc. instead of ''hy'' [hj]. I'm using [C] from Sampa. Those words start with a different phoneme for them.
Unstressed [i]-in lenin, cabin, possible, bizarre, visit, wanted, needed, carpet, manage, private, amplifier, horrible. Some people make a distinction between ''lennon'' and ''lenin'' and also ''bazaar'' and ''bizarre''.

Here's my post about the letter '''ï'' used in the extended alphabet.

''The letter ''ï'' is used in some words where some people use [..] and some people use the [i] sound in ''kit''. The ''i's'' that are pronounce [..] by most of us are pronounced like the ''i'' sound in ''kit'' by some ''except before ''l'' and ''r'' where the sound is always [..] for everyone. So, that ''lennon'' and ''lenin'' and ''bazaar'' and ''bizarre'' are distinguished. Also, for Americans and Britons [i] occurs in past tense ''ed'' endings and plural ''es'' endings and for some people in ''et'', ''age'' and ''ate'' endings. So, in unstressed syllables where either [..] or [i] can be used, the letter ''ï'' is used. ''America'' becomes ''Ømerïkø''. [i] is never used in ''en'' endings so, they become ''øn''.'' ''ï'' for some people would represent an unstressed [i] and for some people it would represent [..] and for some people it would represent both unstressed [i] and schwa.

See - http://www.hi.is/~peturk/KENNSLA/87/VARS/WVMerger.html

Sound Sample

So once again, If we replace all of the diagraphs with new letters, Should these sounds be ignored? These distinctions?

THE WELSH DISTINCTION

Eu-in rude, rheum, threw, brewed, chews, chute, lute, luce, suit, and flew used by some Welsh people. Where we have ‘’yod dropping’’ they use a different vowel sound in to distinguish them from other words so, for them rude and rood, rheum - room, threw - through, brewed - brood, chews - choose, chute - shoot, lute - loot, luce - loose, suit – soot, flew – flu, and the vowels of glue - gloom, blue – bloom and the vowel in June are distinguished by them. For some Welsh people in words where we have yod-dropping, they use a different sound, Different to both ''oo'' [u:] and ''eu'' [ju:] that I'll use transcribe with [U].

I've changed my extended alphabet a bit. I've taken out the three letters that have no sound of their own ''c'', ''q'' and ''x'' and am putting ''ç'', ''þ'' and ''ð''.


a-father
b-book
ç-chart, church, witch
d-dog
e-elephant
f-food
g-good
h-hook
i-is
j-jet
k-cat
l-lip
m-man
n-no
o-top
p-pool
þ-think
r-red
s-stove
t-tiger
u-under
v-vent
w-wet
ð-them, that, then, this
y-yes
z-zebra
æ-cat
ø-arrest, about, soda, permit ''the verb''.
œ-home, goat, goer, float, boat
š-ship, shield, fish, wish, chef, machine
Ð-tied, kneed, allowed, tried, stayed
ï-lenin, cabin, possible, bizarre, visit, wanted, needed, carpet, manage, private, amplifier, horrible. ''Unstressed [i] or [..]'' This letter would represent an unstressed [i] for some people, [..] for others, and for some it would represent both unstressed [i] and [..].
ž-genre, vision, rouge, beige, measure
é-happy, body, money, tiny, funny, sunny, cookie, cookies
ŋ-sing, thing, ringing, singing, finger = ''the ''eng'' letter used in the IPA to represent this sound that I can't type.

What do you think about this extended alphabet?


I've also named some of the letters. How would it be like to sing this alphabet song? How could anyone sing the alphabet like this? It would totally mess up the alphabet song.

a-ay
b-bee
ç-chee
d-dee
e-eeh
f-ef
g-jee
h-aitch
i-ie
j-jay
k-kay
l-el
m-em
n-en
o-oe
p-pee
þ-thorn
r-ar
s-es
t-tee
u-yoo
v-vee
w-double yoo
ð-eth
y-wye
z-zee
æ-ash
ø-schwa [Swa:]
œ-oash
š-esh
Ð-toad
ï-ish
ž-ezh
é-schwi [Swi:]
ŋ-eng

What do you think about the names I gave some of them? Well, I didn't really give ''eng'' the name ''eng''.

What do you þink øbout ðis ekstendïd ælføbet?

''Ð-tied, kneed, allowed, tried, stayed'', The letter I'm using here is the letter that looks like a lowercase ''d'' and a lowercase ''t'' put together ''which is different from eth''. I'm using the capital letter because I can't type the lowercase one.