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Spelling Reform Thread
Inglish Spelling looks good.
It would be better to to have a few more letters to replace the Diagraphs.
Will comment later.
Mac
Any change that looks like a misspelling, won't go over either.
Addding a few more letters is hardly too drastic.
This a too complex a revision to a have a seamless revision.
I think you can adapt to any reasonable change as long as it is logical and consistentl applied. As for everyone else we will have to see.
Regards, Paul V.
Paul, Are you talking about this proposal?
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Okay, my proposal has changed a bit. Here's my new proposal.
a-apple, acronym
b-boat
ç-chip
d-door
e-egg
f-fire
g-goat
h-hook
i-internet
j-janitor
k-cat, kitchen
l-long
m-microphone
n-need
o-open
p-pet
þ-think, thing, thin, thought, through
r-rat
s-stuff
t-television
u-up, under
v-vehicle
w-wet, when, with
ð-that, this, there, then, though, the
y-year
z-zebra
Consonant Diagrams
ng-sing
nk-sink
sh-shine
zh-genre, beige
Vowel Diagrams
ae-day, play
ee-bee, meat
ie-lie, fly
oe-doe, throw, grow
ue-cue, few, mute
These all go together.
Others
oi-toy
oo-moo
ou-plow, now
uu-wood
R-vowel sounds
ar-car, starry
er-care, carry, hairy, berry, hair, fair
ir-beer, hear, mirror
or-corn, core, torn
ur-fern, bird, word, better, hertz
''er'' and ''ir'' are how ''air'' and ''ear'' are actually pronounced in rhotic accents [er] and [ir] so what's wrong with them.
Jim, isn't this system much better than your complicated ''simplified'' spelling system. Unlike your complicated system my system only uses one way to write each sound. That prevents unnecessary and messed up spellings like these for example, Spellings that unnecessarily change because something is done to the word.
body-body
bodies-bodeyz
soda-soada
sodas-soadyz
fix-fix
fixing-ficsing
bank-bank
banks-banx
cook-cook
cookbook-coocbook
easy-eezy
easier-eezeyer
heavy-hevy
heavyweight-heveywait
day-day
days-daiz
toy-toy
toys-toiz
pew-pew
pews-peuz
awkward-auquerd
Don't these seem really illogical.
Here's them in my system,
body-bodee
bodies-bodeez
soda-soedu
sodas-soeduz
fix-fiks
fixing-fiksing
bank-bank
banks-banks
cook-kuuk
cookbook-kuukbook
easy-eezee
easier-eezeeyer
heavy-hevee
heavyweight-heveewait
day-dae
days-daez
toy-toi
toys-toiz
pew-pue
pews-puez
awkward-okwurd
More logical aren't they.
What do you think about my proposal?
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Jim, here's these words respelled in my system.
layer-laeyur
saying-saeing
higher-hieyur
lying-lieing
lawyer-loiyur
annoying-unnoiying
flower-flouwur
ploughing-plouwing
lower-loewur
knowing-noeing
poet-poewit
A ''w'' or ''y'' is used to seperate vowels from other vowels.
I don't think Inglish spelling's proposal is very good because it uses ''uu'' instead of ''wau''. ''wau'' is better because that's how it's actually pronounced and ''uu'' looks like it should rhyme with ''mood''.
Jim, don't you think Inglish speling's proposal is a mess and not a good idea? Isn't ''wau'' better than ''uu'' for ''book''? Jim, listen to the pronunciation in Webster's dictionary and you will hear ''bwauk''. ''Book'' is pronounced ''bwauk'' and that's how it should be spelled. My dictionary listed the pronunciation ''bwauk'' for ''book'' before someone stole it out of my room.
Would the alphabet song still work if we added the letters ''thorn'', ''eth'', ''ash'', ''schwa'', ''š'', and ''ž'' to the alphabet?
'''That makes sense. But, another question would be,
''If we extended the alphabet and included a letter for each phoneme in the English language should we include a letter for /hj/ ''be it [C] or [hj]'' because some people pronounce it with a single sound [C], instead of [hj]?''
No, because [C] and [hj] and also [W] and [hw] are the same in everyway. They're no more different than are 2+2 and 2x2. [W] is just another way to write [hw] and [hw] is just another way to write [w]. We all say [C] and [hj] ''except the cockneys'' because they are the exact same sound. Most of us say [w] for ''wh'' but some people say [hw] and [W] for ''wh'' because they are really the same sound. If the alphabet is extended to include a letter for each sound it should not include a letter for [W] and [hj]. just use ''w'' for ''wh'' and for ''hu-'', use ''h'' plus the letter that's being used for [ju:].
Here's a sample of [W] I heard from Wikipedia. It sounds a lot like [hw].
Sample of [W].
http://en.wikipedia.org/upload/0/08/Con-72b.wav
Therefore, is there really any difference between [W] and [hw] or are they really the same? They sure do sound the same.
If you're extending the alphabet, I think that the best solution would be to add letters/diacritics for /W/ and /ju:/.
Spelling /W/ (whether you pronounce it [W], [hw] or [w]) as "hw" is just too auquerd considering that most of us pronouce it as [w]. Keeping the distinction between /w/ and /W/ is a good idea because it reduces the number of homographs and for those of us who make the distinction in pronunciation it's only logical.
Spelling /hju:/ (whether you pronounce it [hju:], [Cu:] or [ju:]) as [h] plus [ju:] would be fine too. I don't know of any other instance in which /hj/ occurs but even if there exists some I say we don't need a new letter for it.
As justification for this approach there is traditional orthography. /W/ is always written as a digraph and /hju:/ is always written with an "h" followed by something which spells /ju:/.
Joe,
You read too much into one recording. I've listened to it but it didn't sound much like a [W], [hw] or [w] to me. Anyway, as I've explained on the other thread* [W] and [hw] are different phonetically but /W/ and /hw/ are equivalent phonemically.
Besides I don't need a sound file to tell me how [W] should sound. I know how it sounds: I can pronounce it. Sure, I don't usually use it in speech but the point is that I could if for some reason I wanted to. I also could use [hw] and it would sound different to my [W].
There are seperate symbols on the IPA chart for [h], [w] and [W] (see the other thread*). If there were no such phone as [W] it wouldn't need inclusion in the IPA.
* http://www.antimoon.com/forum/2004/4888.htm
Sorry if I said that you said something that you didn't over on the last page. I must have misunderstood you.
How about adding the letter that looks like an upside down ''w'' for ''wh''? If we added it should we call it ''whiskey''?
We could do that but the problem is that it would look too much like an "m". Think of the trouble that might be caused if you get your "m"s and "wh"s mixed up.
What I think would work better is an upside down "m". An upside down "m" looks a bit like a "w" and /W/ sounds a bit or exactly (depending on your accent) like a /w/. If you get your "w"s and "wh"s mixed up things aren't going to be so troublesome.
As for what to call it, yeah, "whiskey" or "whisky" would do (depending on whether you prefer Scotch or Irish: of course the word "whiskey"/"whisky" would be respelt anyway so it wouldn't matter).
You could also change the name of "w" to "double vee" and use the name "double yu" for the new letter: this would match the shapes of them.
Inglish Reespeling,
There aren't enough graphemes to represent my accent. In fact there aren't enough to represent most accents. This is to say nothing of all those more obscure distinctions we've been mentioning. By your suggestion I guess that you live in the western part of the USA. I'm sure I could come up with a really simple system if I ignored every accent by my own. Here are some of the missing sounds:
/o/ on, stop, salon, cough, often, long
/o:/ or, more, adore, door, awe, awful, trauma, hawk
/a:/ father, ah, alms, drama, spa, lager, espionage
It seems that you're merging these three and spelling them with "o". I don't pronounce "awkward" as I would pronounce "okwurd": it's /o:kw..(r)d/ not /okwe:(r)d/. "Auquerd" is much more logical than "okwurd" to me. I keep these three sounds seperate.
/../ ado, along, awake, alert
I saw no mention of this.
/e../ air, fare, spare, err
/e:(r)/ turn, err, urge, urban
/..(r)/ better, mother, other
/i../ here, beer, fear, near
You merge /e:(r)/ and /..(r)/ when they are different.
/e../ yeah
/e:/ hors doeuvre
/i../ idea
You've got no way of spelling these.
/i:/ easy, eat, Ian, East, keep, eel, even
/i(:)/ happy, merry, create, sloppy
You merge /i:/ and /i(:)/ when they are different.
/u../ tour, cure, pure
I'm not sure what you're going to do about these.
/w/ woe, warm, wait, wing
/W/ whale, whirl, whew, whoosh
You merge these. I merge them in speach but not everybody does.
/th/ thorn, thigh, thin, with,
/TH/ there, thy, eth, they
Using þorn and eð is a good idea but you can't compare my system to yours if you're adding letters. My system sticks to the 26 letters we've got. I could easily come up with an extended alphabet to hugely simplify my system.
"'er' and 'ir' are how 'air' and 'ear' are actually pronounced in rhotic accents [er] and [ir] so what's wrong with them." I don't believe that this is true for all rhotic accents, North American ones maybe, but not all British ones. Another thing wrong with them is that they look as if they should be pronounced as /..(r)/ or /e:(r)/ and /e:(r)/ (but to a Scotsman perhaps /er/ and /ir/).
I don't know why so many are insisting on "ae" for /ei/ is very uncommon and so harder to read than "ai", "ei", "ay" or "ey". Why choose "ae" over "ai"? I can't fathom it. What's more logical "vain" and "rain" for "vain" and "rain" or "vaen" and "raen". Obviously the former.
Hi Inglish speling
I have to agree with most of what Jim says in this matter, as you seem to have left out the
soft o, in all its incarnations.
/o/ on, stop, salon, cough, often, long
/o:/ awe, awful, hawk, walk, long, dawg
/a:/ father, ah, alms, drama, spa, lager, espionage, trauma
For myself, I do combine /o/ into /a:/ to go along with the normal american pronunciation.
o for open,
oe for grow both seem to represent the long hard o.
You don't have a letter for the small Schwa sound
/../ ado, along, awake, alert
Now as for the 2 vocalic r-sounds described in ASCII
/e:(r)/ turn, err, urge, urban
/..(r)/ better, mother, other
I think the sound difference is minimal
and I would agree that to merge /e:(r)/ and /..(r)/
is the best solution. I can't think of any minimal pairs for
these 2 r-sounds.
I think you do have a spelling for i: --> (ee)
I don't like compunds that refer to essentially one sound.
For example
And you should have another letter for the ng sound of ing-glish
And a another letter for the voiced pure j sound
j -> Jacque, Jock, genre, measure, vision, pleasure, espionage, beige
and for the sh sound.
Anyway, that would make a pretty complete alphabet.
Regards, Paul V.
''/e../ yeah
/e:/ hors doeuvre
/i../ idea''
''You've got no way of spelling these.''
There's also [u..] in ''skua'' according to something I saw that was talking about non-rhotic accent diphthongs. [skju..].
So, also, Inglish speling has no way of spelling this sound,
/u../ skua
'''er' and 'ir' are how 'air' and 'ear' are actually pronounced in rhotic accents [er] and [ir] so what's wrong with them." I don't believe that this is true for all rhotic accents, North American ones maybe, but not all British ones. Another thing wrong with them is that they look as if they should be pronounced as /..(r)/ or /e:(r)/ and /e:(r)/ (but to a Scotsman perhaps /er/ and /ir/).''
Some Scotsmen use [eir], [i:r] and [u:r] instead of [e..(r)], [i..(r)] and [u..(r)]. For them, ''fir'' and ''fear'' are easily distinguishable, [fir] and [fi:r].
Personally I would combine these two letters. A context based letter to provide a representation of multiple valid pronunciations or a complex phoneme is hard to keep consistent.
/i:/ easy, eat, Ian, East, keep, eel, even
/i(:)/ happy, merry, create, sloppy
You might as well make a list Vowel + r letters in Shavian, that represent both all valid Rhotic and Nonrhotic pronunciations of vowel+r.
I think that is what they do in the Shavian Phonetic Alphabet. They use just 48 letters.
Regards, Paul V.
''/th/ thorn, thigh, thin, with,
/TH/ there, thy, eth, they
''Using þorn and eð is a good idea but you can't compare my system to yours if you're adding letters. My system sticks to the 26 letters we've got. I could easily come up with an extended alphabet to hugely simplify my system''
Jim, I haven't really added any letters to the alphabet. I've just removed ''c'', ''q'' and ''x'' and replaced them with ''ç'', ''þ'', and ''ð'' for [tS], [th] and [TH]. ''church'' becomes ''çurç'' and also ''thigh'' and ''thy'' become ''þie'' and ''ðie''. My spelling reform proposal still uses a 26 letter alphabet, it just uses ''ç'', ''þ'', and ''ð'' instead of the letters that don't have their own sound ''c'', ''q'' and ''x''.
''By your suggestion I guess that you live in the western part of the USA.''
Well, you guess wrong. I'm from and live in the Eastern United States. Which of my suggestions sounds western? Do westerners favor ''ae'' for [ei] or something. It would seem weird to think the suggestion ''ae'' is a western U.S. thing. It's not a western thing but a global thing I'd say.
''/u../ tour, cure, pure''
''I'm not sure what you're going to do about these.''
''tor'', ''kyur'', ''pyur'' are how they're spelled in my system. They're pronounced [to:r], [kje:r] and [pje:r].
''/e../ yeah
/e:/ hors doeuvre
/i../ idea
/u../ skua''
''Yeah'' is pronounce [je] and so is spelled ''ye'' in my system. About ''hors doeuvre'', I'm spelling it how English speakers actually pronounce it, not it's native foreign pronunciation and the same goes for ''karate'', In French ''hors doeuvre'' is pronounced [o:r de:vR], using Foneme's chart, with a [R] sound at the end of a syllable
see- http://p081.ezboard.com/feuropa2frm40.showMessage?topicID=45.topic but most English speakers pronounce it [o:r de:(r)v] so it's spelled ''or durv'' in my system and similarly in Japanese ''karate'' is pronounce [k^r^te] but most English speakers pronounce it [k..ra:ti(:)] so it's spelled ''kurotee'' in my system.
So, this is how these words are respelled in my system.
hors doevre-ordurv
yeah-ye
Yeah, okay, for ''idea'', ''ea''
idea-iedea
Jim, how does your system represent [e..], [e:], [i..] and [u..]? I've seem some people use ''ai'', [e..] and ''ea'', [i..] and ''ua'' [e:] and ''uo'' [u..] on proposals.
''/w/ woe, warm, wait, wing
/W/ whale, whirl, whew, whoosh''
''You merge these. I merge them in speach but not everybody does.''
Most people don't so I don't distinguish them in my proposal,
wh-whale, whirl, whew, whirled, world become - ''wael'', ''wurul'', ''woo'', ''wuruld'', ''wuruld''. [weil], [we:r..l], [wu:], [we:r..ld], [we:r..ld].
'''/o/ on, stop, salon, cough, often, long
/o:/ or, more, adore, door, awe, awful, trauma, hawk
/a:/ father, ah, alms, drama, spa, lager, espionage''
My system,
[a:] on, stop, salon, cough, often, long, awe, awful, trauma, hawk, father, ah, alms, drama, spa, lager, espionage- become - on, stop, sulon, kof, ofun, long, o, oful, tromu, hok, fothur, o, omz, dromu, spo, logur, espeeyunozh.
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[o:r] or, more, adore, door, become- or, mor, udor, dor.
My system is much better than yours because unlike yours, my proposal uses only one grapheme per sound. Using more than one grapheme leads to unnecessary and awkward looking spellings that look like they don't go together,
backward-baquerd
forward-forwerd
day-day
days-daiz
soda-soada
sodas-soadyz
body-body
bodies-bodeyz
cook-cook
cooks-coox
cookbook-coocbook
Three different looking spellings. How many people would want that? How many people would accept respelling ''backwards'' as ''baquerdz''?
''is is to say nothing of all those more obscure distinctions we've been mentioning.'' What more obscure distinctions are you talking about?
Jim, I heard somewhere some thread that you use ''dd'' and ''ddd'' for [TH] and you didn't know of any word that needed ''ddd''. Also, does your system use ''ear'' for [e:r] and ''earr'' for [i..{r}] like I heard somewhere in this thread?
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