in a nutshell

Any phonemic notation can be reduced to a simple sound - symbol correspondence table

	The Saxon alphabet or grapheme phoneme  correspondence table reconstructs the last  consistent writing system for English. Vowels  are shown in yellow, semi vowels in a gradient

Teach Yourself Phonetics
What would the English writing system look like if all the devices used to distinguish long and short vowels and different diphthongs were applied rationally.  That is, applied in such a way to avoid code overlaps and polyvalence or multiple sound values for symbols? The result would be a phonemic transcription system similar to the one described here - Saxon Spanglish.

Although the Saxon alphabet looks familiar except for the additional vowels, Spanglish does not look like traditional spelling. It does look like pronunciation guide spelling which is what it is.  A word in Spanglish can be pronounced in only one or two ways.  A word in the traditional system can usually be pronounced a dozen different ways. 

Spanglish provides pronunciation guide spelling with no special characters and no diacritics. It is completely ascii and keyboard compatible.  Hir iz an exampl av Spannglish spelling.  Spanglish will double consonants after short stressed vowels in order to show primary stress.  Long vowel are doubled before a consonant to show stress.  They are not doubled at the end of a syllable or word since no short vowel is ever found there in an English word. Aar wi havving suup for supper?  They can be doubled to show stress. billo bilow. [billow below] 

There is nothing particularly difficult about Spanglish.  It uses the same devices as the traditional system but applies them consistently.  The one problem with phonemic [or sound] spelling is that it requires the writer to make a choice when a word is pronounced two different ways. poteito, potaato.
As is often the case, neither pronunciation matches the traditional spelling. 

Notice that only the stressed vowel is without some ambiguity.  po could be pa, paa, pao, or poa.  The best guess is that since the O it is at the end of a syllable, it is probably rhymes with owe.  For communication, all that matters is that the stressed vowel is pronounced correctly.  puh-taa-tuh will be understood as readily as poa -taa - tow. 
 

All you need to comprehend any phonemic alphabet is a vowel chart and a G-P table such as those above.  Saxon is more complicated than the perfect phonemic code because it tries to approximate the traditional orthography.  The old Saxon alphabet had V as a vowel and it is reintroduced here as a semi-vowel.  vp is the same as upp with one less letter. up without the double consonant would be pronounced as in oops.    Here is an example of a simple vowel chart.

Saxon Spanglish reveals the basic or underlying consistent code in the English writing system. Once this is known, it is not that difficult to see how it transforms to the current structure of English spelling. English spelling is derived from Middle English conventions which spelled a different dialect of English. Learning Spanglish will not improve one's spelling of half of the words in English. This is because English spelling is a mix of several systems.  TIME was once pronounced as it is spelled - "team or tiem" the e ending was later rationalized as a marker for the long i sound.  That sound was not the original /i:/ but rather a shifted sound, /ai/.  To get from Spanglish spelling of TAIM to the traditional spelling of TIME requires a deconstruction of the Saxon system.  TAIM is not that far from a southern usa  pronunciation  of the word: TAAM. 

The writing system is called Spanglish because it uses the Spanish - Latin sound-symbol correspondences found in the 10th Century West Saxon standard.  Spanish, however, does not need to distinguish between the long and short vowels.  In English and other germanic languages, this difference is phonemic.  It changes the meaning of a word:  bit-biet [beet],  edj-eij [age],  otter-oat,  cot-caot-coat [cot-caught-coat].
 

is a phonemic transcription system based on the Saxon alphabet which makes the writing of English as consistent as Spanish or German.  The Saxon alphabet is a true alphabet:  It has a phonogram or graphic symbol for each important speech sound and no code overlaps.[ If ow is used for LOW it is not used for COW. ]  The Saxon alphabet is not perfect.  Most but not all of the letters in a two letter symbol [digraph] can be pronounced.  ei combines eh + ee but ie sould be ii.  The stressed and unstressed "schwer' is urr and er which means that one syllable words can be written two ways:  herfurr.  Only two syllable words have a fully predictable spelling: surrfer.  The alphabet uses er instead of the default schwa letter ar. If sur were used instead of surr the pronunciation would not be stressed and would tend to rhyme with sewer and tour. The pronunciation would be close enough but not as accurate as it coulr be. Saxon Spanglish is not a perfectly phonetic system because it uses positional spelling.  It does so because it is designed as a transitional or initial teaching alphabet for those primarily interested learning the traditional writing system. 

An alphabet is a set or collection of sound signs or phonograms -- An alphabet is a correspondence table between graphemes and phonemes. If there is no consistent set of correspondences, there is no alphabet. Alphabets typically have a conventional order, a vestige of the time when the alphabet doubled as a number system. 

ALPHABET: A type of writing system in which a set of symbols [letters] represents the important sounds [phonemes] of a language. 
DICTIONARY OF LANGUAGE & LANGUAGES BY DAVID CRYSTAL 

Pronunciation guide spelling How Spanglish shows stress notation / stress pattern> initial /1st syl. stress 2nd syllable stress Traditional Spelling abut abbot abutt    abvt abbot    abbat Traditional Spelling differ differ differ    disagree difurr   postpone Traditional Spelling a vowel  avow a voul    vaul avou    avau Traditional Spelling object       verb object     noun  objeckt obbject Traditional Spelling rebel        verb rebel      noun rebell     rabell rebbal Traditional Spelling refuse     verb refuse    noun reffyuus refyuuz Traditional Spelling minute minute minnat   minnit mainuut

The Spanglish ASCII IPA with digraphs
EK's ASCII IPA uses caps and @ for schwa.
It is the same as Unifon in most respects
German audio files

Traditional	Truespel	Spanglish	RITE	Surplus Cut	Unifon II
bull bullet bulletin bulrush bulwark bushes butcher butyl  could cushy  full  fool guru  juridical kaput kibbutz kudzu pudding pull push puss pus put schuss sugar talmud umlaut usufruct uzbek wampum wunderkind	bool  boolit boolitin boolrush  boolwerk  booshiz  boocher  byuetool  kood kooshee  fool  fuel  goorue jerridikool   kuppoot  kibboots  koodzue  poodeeng  pool poosh poos pus poot shoos shooger taalmood oomlout  yoozifrukt oozbbek waampoom voonderkind	bwl  bul bwlet bwlatin bwlrush bwlwark bushaz bwcher byuutal cwd, cud cwshy fwl ful fuul guuru jeriddical kaput -wt kibbwtz kwdzu pwding puul pwsh pws puss pwt  put shws shwger taalmwd umlaut ywzifruct uzbeck waampam wunderkind	bull bullet bulletin bullrush bulwark bushes butcher butyl cood cooshy full fool	bul bulet buletn bulrush bulwark bushes butchr butyl cud? cushy ful fool	bul bulct bulctin bulrcS bulwcrk buScz butCcr butcl, biutcl kud kuS ful fUl guru juridikcl kcput kibuts kudzu pudiN pul puS pus pxs put Sus Sugcr talmud umlaut Uscfrxkt uzbek wampcm wundcrkind

LINKS 

• See HETEROGRAPHS and HOMOPHONES
• Rhymes  www.lycos-rhyme.com
• Saxon Alphabet
• Saxon Spanglish
• Polyvalence
• Map IPA
• Map-pronunciation
• 36 Phonemes
• Lettermatrix
• Alternota - Alt. Notations