Is there something like Syllable Dictionary?

Fyneemik Transcripshyn   Monday, June 21, 2004, 03:18 GMT
Jim, How wood it be if Tom's chart incluudid aul uv dha foeneems on Ingglish Silybylz' chart incluuding dha wun menchynd bi pylees ofyser.

Have I gotten your system right?
Jim   Monday, June 21, 2004, 03:38 GMT
Yes, dhat loox riet (for an Ymerrykyn acsent*). How wood it be? Moer kympleet but not so eusfyl for Tom's perpysyz. Hiz chart iz dyziend for learnerz. Dhay'd be oeverwhelmd bi aul dhat deetail.

* In mi acsent "of" bycumz "ov" and "included" bycumz "incluudyd". Dhis iz wun ov dha problemz with fonemik speling.
Fyneemik Transcription   Monday, June 21, 2004, 04:14 GMT
Yeh, dhat iz wun uv dha problemz with fyneemik speling. Ynuther problym with fyneemik speling iz uv distinkshynz maid in sum diylekts but not in udherz. For exampyl, ''wh'' vs. ''w'' and also there's Ingglish speling's fyneemik chart plus wun uther foaneem givyn bi pylees ofyser. For a speling ryform too incluud aul uv dhoaz foaneemz and distincshynz it wood probybly be a good iedeea too ad sum mor leterz tu dha alfabet bykuz tu tri tu ad dhoaz foaneemz euzing oanly twunty-six leterz iz difycult. Uv, cors, doan't yu think I shood say, aul uv dhoaz foaneemz ecsept for [C] which duzyn't need to be incluudid and can eezyly be rityn ''heu'' or ''hew''.

Oh, and are [.], [n:] and [j:] listed on English syllable's chart phonemes or do they just show phonemic distinctions?

I think I still have your system right except for a few typos probably.
Fyneemik Transcripshyn   Monday, June 21, 2004, 04:49 GMT
Jim, Which foaneemz on Ingglish sylybylz' list ''incluuding the one that police officer menchyned'' and ''excluding [C], since it's very unimportant'', du yu incluud in yor sistym and which uv dha foaneemz du yu not incluud in yor sistym?

Aulso, duz yor sistym riet [e:{r}] and [..{r}] dha saim? Yu respel ''purpose'' as ''perpys''. Also, duz yor sistym incluud dha [e:] sound found in ''hors doeuvre'' and duz yor sistym riet ''meat'' and ''meet'' dha saim way or difryntly.

''Meat'' and ''meet'' are distinguished in some parts of Scotland and the British Isles. Some people say [mi..t] for ''meat'' and [mi:t] for ''meet'' and similar pronunciation for other ''ea'' worda.
Jim   Monday, June 21, 2004, 06:42 GMT
There are far far more than 300 syllables in the English language.
Paul V   Monday, June 21, 2004, 15:30 GMT
How many different Initial Consonant clusters altogether?
Jim   Tuesday, June 22, 2004, 06:49 GMT
How many initial clusters are there in English? Well, here are the common ones that everyone would agree on.

01 /p/
02 /sp/
03 /b/
04 /f/
05 /v/
06 /t/
07 /st/
08 /d/
09 /th/
10 /TH/
11 /k/
12 /sk/
13 /g/
14 /s/
15 /z/
16 /S/
17 /tS/
18 /dZ/
19 /n/
20 /sn/
21 /m/
22 /sm/
23 /h/
24 /r/
25 /pr/
26 /spr/
27 /br/
28 /fr/
29 /tr/
30 /str/
31 /dr/
32 /thr/
33 /kr/
34 /skr/
35 /gr/
36 /Sr/
37 /l/
38 /pl/
39 /spl/
40 /bl/
41 /fl/
42 /kl/
43 /gl/
44 /sl/
45 /w/
46 /tw/
47 /dw/
48 /kw/
49 /skw/
50 /gw/
51 /sw/
52 /j/

Here are some of the ones that include a /j/. They're the clusters that you could ignore if you were designing a syllablic writing system by including the /j/ as part of the vowel.

53 /pj/
54 /spj/
55 /bj/
56 /fj/
57 /vj/
58 /kj/
59 /skj/
60 /nj/
61 /mj/
62 /hj/

Some of them tend to get merged together

63 /tj/ can become /tS/
64 /stj/ can become /stS/
65 /dj/ can become /dZ/
67 /sj/ can become /S/

So do you consider them as distinct? Do you count both /stj/ and /stS/?

68 /stS/

This is where you start talking about accent. There may be some who drop many of these /j/s then there may be others who use the following.

69 /ly/
70 /ry/

And maybe even others like /thj/ and /prj/. Then some distinguish "w" and "wh".

71 /W/ what, where, when

Then there are the more uncommon ones like

72 /skl/ sclerosis, sclerotic
73 /Z/ genre
74 /thw/ thwart
75 /vr/ vroom

And others that have come from other languages.

76 /pw/ pueblo
77 /bw/ Buenos Aires
78 /Sl/ schlock schlep
79 /Sm/ schmuck, schmooze
80 /Sn/ schnapps, schnitzel
81 /Sw/ schwa
82 /sr/ Sri Lanka
83 /sv/ Svalbard
84 /vl/ Vladimir
85 /ts/ czar, tsunami
86 /hr/ hrolf

I guess might Scots use /K/ (the "ch" in "loch") at the beginning of a word.

87 /K/

I suppose they'd pronounce "Christmas" as /Kristm..s/ ... maybe

88 /Kr/

And, of course, the ones that we havent thought of yet ... who knows how many of those there may be ...
Jim   Tuesday, June 22, 2004, 23:40 GMT
I forgot one:

89 /sf/ sphere, spherical
wr   Tuesday, June 22, 2004, 23:42 GMT
87 /K/

I suppose they'd pronounce "Christmas" as /Kristm..s/ ... maybe

88 /Kr/

What about ''chlorine''? Do they pronounce ''chlorine'' as [Klo:ri:n] if so then there's also,

89 /Kl/

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

Pronunciation Guide for some Scottish Dialects that I got off this link http://www.uni-mainz.de/FB/Philologie-II/fb1413/roesel/seminar0203/regional_varieties/Scotland.htm

''/x/ in night, daughter
/kn-/ in knock, knee
/vr-/ in write, wrought

the convergence of // and /t/ to /t/ and of // and /d/ to /d/ Island Scots (Shetlands)
/:/ in house, out, now
// or /y/ in moon, good, stool
/e:/ in home, go, bone
/hw-/ in what, when, etc.;


''In urban Scots many of the features listed are recessive, for example:

/x/, /kn-/ or /vr-/.

''However, /hw/ is generally retained.''

So, do [kn], [vr] and [Kt] count as clusters? If so then,

90 [kn]

91 [vr]

92 [Kt]
Bill   Tuesday, June 22, 2004, 23:45 GMT
Who the heck pronounces ''wr'' as [vr]? ''wr'' is pronounced [r].
Joe   Wednesday, June 23, 2004, 00:23 GMT
Bill, I know. That's just stupid.
Jim   Wednesday, June 23, 2004, 02:14 GMT
Joe & Bill,

Click on the link and see. It seems that it's common in Scots. You're fond, Joe, of calling things stupid; do you call all Scottish people stupid? Is Scots a dialect of English or a different language? I tend towards the former. In any case I've already counted /vr/ as the initial cluster in "vroom" which we all pronounce with a /vr/.

wr,

As I've just mentioned I'd already counted /vr/: it's number 75. Now there is a space at number 91. I was thinking that perhaps we could fill it with /sf/, which I'd forgotten to mention, but if they pronounce "knock", and "knee" with a /kn/ I guess they'd pronounce "gnu" and "gnome" with a /gn/ so we might as well list the two together.

87 /K/ Chasm?
88 /Kr/ Christmas?
89 /Kl/ chlorine?
90 /kn/ knock, knee?
91 /gn/ gnome, gnu?
92 /Kt/ ...?
93 /sf/ sphere, spherical

I'm not so sure about /Kt/. This is meant to be a list of initial consonant clusters for English syllables. I can't think of any syllable that could possibly start with /Kt/ no matter what the dialect ... we might have to give 92 to poor old /sf/.
Jim   Wednesday, June 23, 2004, 02:38 GMT
A correction:

69 /lj/ lute
70 /rj/ rule

It's /j/ not /y/ in Antimoon's alphabet.

Also I called /gw/ common. Come to think about it, it's not all that common. I could only think of five examples of syllables begining with /gw/ (only counting words not names like "Gwen"):

50 /gw/ language, linguist, linguists, anguish, anguished

They're all the second syllables of these words.
wr   Wednesday, June 23, 2004, 03:51 GMT
Jim, Then there's [hw] in ''Huang River'' [hwa:N riv..r]. The ''wh'' words don't count. I say [w] for ''wh''.

94.[hw]
Wr   Wednesday, June 23, 2004, 04:09 GMT
Wales

''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''

Many Welsh people distinguish these words so, they have [lj] and [rj] and also [thj] too. Perhaps [trj] also.