Spelling reform idea. | Antimoon Forum

Here are more cases:

<s> (<si>) = /S/ : <mission> /"mISIn/ -> ["mI.SI~n]
<s> (<si>) = /Z/ : <vision> /"vIZIn/-> [" vI:.ZI~n] – <elision> /E"laIZIn/ -> [E."5a:I.ZI~n]

So four different sounds would be represented by one letter?

In the current orthography, yes. In my new one, one grapheme <s> represents two phonemes, /s/ and /z/; /S/ is always represented by <sj> and /Z/ is always represented by <zj> in it, on the other hand.

That kinda makes sense...maybe this is common knowledge, but I'm slow, so is your new orthography written down somewhere that it could be analyzed in whole?

Und auch <sch> für [s] : <schism> = [sIzm=] oder [skIzm=].

Gibt es auch <sc> für [s] : <adolescent> [{d@les@nt] - <acquiesce> [{kwIes] - <coalesce> [k@U@les] - <miscellaneous> [mIs@leInI@s] - <scene> [si:n] - usw.

Totzdem kann <sc> auch [z] realisiert worden : <crescent> = [krez@nt] oder [kres@nt].

Überraschend : <ss> kann [Z] sein wie in <scission> = [sIZn=] (oder [sISn=]).

I have written it down in the past, american nic, but it has changed since then, so I will just re-write it down here.

- VOWELS -

NORMAL

Paired

<e> : /E/ and /e/
 : /I/ and /i/
<o> : /Q/ and /o/
 : /V/ and /u/
<a> : /@/ and /A/

Note that when preceding other vowels, when preceding undoubled consonants followed by other vowels, or when doubled these use the latter vowels, and otherwise they use the former vowels.

Unpaired

<ae> : /{/
<oa> : /O/
<ui> : /U/
<ai> : /aI/
<au> : /aU/
<oi> : /oI/
<ei> : phonemic /@I/
<yl> or <yll> before vowels : /l=/ or /5=/
<yn> or <ynn> before vowels : /n=/
<ym> or <ymm> before vowels : /m=/

RHOTIC OR BEFORE /r\/

In all the groups below, when merging phonemes, orthographically the tense version is always preferred, even if the realized phoneme is actually always lax in an given case. Thus, a dialect that always has [Ir\] and never [ir\] will use <ier>/<ir> rather than <ir>/<irr>; likewise, a dialect which always [O] rather than [o] before /r\/ will use <oor>/<or> rather than <oar>.

<eer> or <er> before vowels : /er\/
<ear> : /Er\/
<aer> : /{r\/
<er> or <err> before vowels : /@`/
<eur> : /3`/

<ier> or <ir> before vowels : /ir\/
<ir> or <irr> before vowels : /Ir\/

<oor> or <or> before vowels : /or\/
<oar> : /Or\/
<or> or <orr> before vowels : /Qr\/

<uur> or <ur> before vowels : /ur\/
<uir> : /Ur\/
<ur> or <urr> before vowels : /Vr\/

<aar> or <ar> before vowels : /Ar\/
<ar> or <arr> before vowels : /@r\/

<air> : /aIr\/
<aur> : /aUr\/
<oir> : /oIr\/
(Note that these three include cases where /r\/ is realized allophonically as [@`])

- CONSONANTS -

Undoubled

Note that all graphemes which are undoubled when written once may be doubled to change what is specified by a preceding paired vowel when followed in turn by another vowel.

 : /p/
<t> : /t/
<k> : /k/
 : /b/
<d> : /d/
<g> : /g/
<f> : /f/
<m> : /m/
<n> : /n/
<r> : /r\/
<l> : /l/ or /5/ depending on the dialect
<j> : /j/
<h> : /h/

Always doubled

<s> : /s/ word-initially and adjacent to unvoiced consonants, /z/ elsewhere
<ss> : /s/ intervocalically, adjacent to voiced consonants non-word-initially, and word-finally after vowels
<z> : /z/ word-initially
<ng> : /N/
<nk> : /Nk/
<v> : /v/
<w> : /w/
<hw> : /W/
<th> : /T/
<dh> : /D/
<sj> : /S/
<zj> : /Z/
<tj> : /tS/
<dj> : /dZ/
<stj> : /StS/
<ch> : /x/

- DIACRITICS -

The only mandatory diacritic is the diaeresis, which is used for disambiguating vowels by breaking up what would otherwise be digraphs or trigraphs; note that the apostrophe is similarly used to semparate consonant characters which would otherwise form such. However, optionally one may use the acute diacritic to mark primary stress and the grave diacritic to mark secondary stress; when using these, place the diacritic on *all* of the vowel characters corresponding to the main vowel in the syllable in question.

- OTHER DETAILS -

Compound words are written as one, rather than separately. For example, the compound word "White House" would be <Hwait'hauss>, but the adjective-noun pair "white house" would be <hwait hauss>.

The only words capitalized are words at the starts of sentences and proper names; in particular, names of languages, months, and like are not capitalized any differently from any other word.

- ERRATA -

Paired vowels always use the latter member of a pair word-finally, except that /@/ is used instead of /A/ word-finally for <a>, where /A/ must be written as <aa>.

<air> : /aIr\/
<aur> : /aUr\/
<oir> : /oIr\/
<<(Note that these three include cases where /r\/ is realized allophonically as [@`])>>

Excuse me Travis, but when is /r\/ realized allophonically as [@`] before the diphthongs /aI/, /aU/ and /oI/. For me, ''hire'' is /haIr\/, ''higher'' is /haI@`/, ''flour'' is /flaUr\/, ''flower'' is /flaU@`/, ''coir'' is /koIr\/ and ''employer'' is /EmploI@`/. How would you spell them, representing your dialect.

<<Compound words are written as one, rather than separately. For example, the compound word "White House" would be <Hwait'hauss>, but the adjective-noun pair "white house" would be <hwait hauss>.>>

Travis, What about triple compound words such as ''hot water heater'' for a device in your garage that heats your water. Would that be written as one too? ''haatwoaterhiter''

Well, the problem here is that some versions are allophonic, some are *not*; you can tell if they are allophonic or not depending on whether they change if followed in turn by another vowel, in the dialect here at least. But anyways, I would write those as:

"hire" : <hair>
"higher" : <haier>
"flour" : <flaur>
"flower" : <flauer>
"coir" : <koir>
"employer" : <imploier>

Note that "hire" and "higher" are actually quite easy to distinguish in the dialect here, simply because they are realized with distinctly different vowel qualities. This is because /aIr\/ is realized when not followed by a vowel as [@I@`] here, but /aI@`/ is realized as [aI@`]; in this case, "hire" normally uses the former, whereas "higher" uses the latter in my dialect.

>>Travis, What about triple compound words such as ''hot water heater'' for a device in your garage that heats your water. Would that be written as one too? ''haatwoaterhiter''<<

If one were to represent merging of /A/ and /Q/ with /A/, then, yes, you would write it as such, at least for the dialect here. However, if you were going to maintain separate /A/ and /Q/, then it would probably be more like "hotwoaterhiter" or "hotwaterhiter", depending on whether "water" uses /O/ or /A/. And yes, writing such things like such is what would probably be done, except in cases where one is including things like abbreviations into a compound or where a compound would get too long, where then hyphenation would probably be used.

More Errata:

 doubles as <ie>, not <ii>

In my dialect, it would be <haatwaterhiter> because I pronounce ''water'' as /wAt@`/ rather than /wOt@`/.

Travis, what about /r=/? It exists in accents like mine that distinction ''metre'' /mitr=/ and ''meter'' /mit@`/ and don't rhyme ''acre'' /ekr=/ with ''braker'' /brek@`/. It looks like your system doesn't have any provisional way to distinguish /r=/ and /@`/? A way to write /r=/ would be needed in order for me to represent my accent.

Travis, thanks for writing out your whole system. My initial take on the complete thing is that although it looks fine and Germanic and dandy and all, it seems quite complicated to me...more complicated than any real world language orthographies I am personally familiar with (excluding English, of course). Although it's an improvement, I still think it could be made quite a bit more simple.

Also, wouldn't 'hot water heater' just be 'water heater', as very few people have any reason to heat already hot water? ; )