.....
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

-
-
IPA
-.-
ae
'
er
aar

.
ei
o:
e
i:
'r
ir
 i
 i:
ai
a
'u
oi
or

u:
ur
au
L
u

21
 

Bett's article on phoneme counts did not settle the issue.  Since [April, 1999] there has been a SSS Journal article that questioned whether or not it was possible to agree on the number of pure phonemes and this discussion between Ron Footer and Tom Zurinskas. 

[RF]  says that 44 is the accepted number.  [TZ] believes that a phoneme list should be a minimal list and claims that Truespel gets by with 40.  [actualy 43 when stress differences are marked].  In the list below, the phonemes in red are considered by Taam [the Truespel transcriptions of Tom] to be duplicates - they are not needed for Truespel. 

Pronunciation dictionaries such as Longman's Dictionary of American English follow the advice of Daniel Jones and Wjik and list 46 phonemes [21 vowels, 25 consonants].  Sweetb-romic

Can there ever be any agreement on the minimum number of sound signs required to fully represent English speech sounds?  Bett believes that agreement is possible on the pure vowels.  Two of his articles discuss this. There seems to be agreement on the 12 uncombined or pure vowels: [long and short aeiou  where the long e is replaced by er plus the sounds in up and ago]. The only disputes are with regard to the short [awe] sound which is not used in GA [General American], the status of the r in herder which is dropped in RP, and the [schwi], the terminal vowel in very.  By showing stress, Truespel is able to drop the unstressed ER, unstressed U [schwa], and unstressed EE [schwi].  It may look like Truespel drops three vowels, but it doesn't. 
 

VOWELS       Truespel    ASCII / LATIN 1     on-line converter

.
 1      a       PAT     1 a    (The original SAXON alphabet added ash [ae] to represent this sound) 
 2      'a       AGO   2 u    (thu saem leter kant repreezzent difrint soundz-TZ) 
 3      air     HAIR   3 air 
 4      ar      ARM    4 aar    r-combinations not alwasy listed as a distinct vowels
                              New Spelling and ALC have to list ar because is not a simple combination as it is in Truespel

 5      ay      DAY    5 ae 
 6      aw     SAW    6 au 
 7      e       PET       7 e 
 8      ee      SEE      8 ee    Truespell merges the vowel in her urban curb and another=unnuther 
 9      er      HER      9 er    (this is a pure vowel /3:/ or /''/ not the same as uther.   hi hit hr ther)
 9/10          EAR          eer
10      i       SIT        10 i 
10/11 y      COSY   ee    (schwi is the same sound as 8 when stress is shown)
11      ie      TIE       11 ie 
12      o       HOT     aa    (saem sound az 4 without the R-TZ) 
13      oe      TOE     12 oe    (the vowel is 'u which is traditionally represented as ow) 
14      oi      OIL       13 oi 
14/15 or      OAR     14 or   (o alone not defined in Truespel) 

15      oo      TOO    15 ue    (you=yue) 
15/16           TOUR      uer
16      ou      OUT    16 ou 
17      'u       BUT     u     (saem sound az 2-TZ) 
18      u.       PUT     17 oo   (az in "foot")  [17 vowel phonograms but TS can mark 21+  phonemes]

Truespel merges the short o and the long a, [the distinction is not needed in GA-general american] 
It also seems to merge [schwa] and the sound in [up]. The stress notation distinguishes the two.
A more compact chart of 21 vowels recognized by Jones and Wjik are include below.

This list is in AEIOU order which is the same as the arrangements in sounds of English. 

The main reason for listing more than the 12 pure vowels is that many of the combinations are abbreviated or ambiguous or unresolvable into the sounds of the letters in the digraph. AIR is clearly ah-ae-uh--ih-ee--r.  No matter what value you choose for A and I, the closest combined sound is IRE.  In fact, /air/ is the way that IPA transcribes 'ire'.  This is so self evident that IPA does not include it in their list of 21 vowels.

Truespel does not include all of the R combinations: [herder, or, air, aa[r]] but not [ear, ire, our, your].  Truespel and most anglocentric notations have to list [er, or, air] because they do not agreee with the individual letter sounds [er=air] or are ambiguous [or-oer][aer-air].

What is important is not agreement on 21 important vowel sounds but an understanding of the rationale behind the lower [or higher] vowel counts.  There seems to be agreement on the 12 uncombined or pure vowels: [long/short aeiou  where ee=er plus up and ago]. The schwi can also be added to this list.  Truespel doesn't need to incloude schwi, schwa, or schwa-r in its alfubet because Truespel indicates stress.  Truespel can get away with including only 10 of the 13 pure vowels, other notations such as ALC and New Spelling cannot.

Longer lists-vowel quad     phoneme inventory   4x6table

CONSONANT SOUNDS

19      b       BED      b 
20      ch      CHIP    ch 
20/21  ch      LOCH          Not in Truespel  - phoneme merged with K
21      d       DOG     d 
22      f       FAT       f 
23      g       GET      g 
24      h       HOT     h 

25      j       JET        j 
26      k       KID      k 
27      l       LEG       l 
28      m      MAN    m 
29      n       NET      n 

30      ng      RING    [not in Truespel] TZ does not recognize it as a distinct phoneme
31      p       PEN     p 
32       r       RED     r 
33      s       SIP       s 
34      sh      SHE     h 

35      sure    MEASURE zh 
36      t       TOP        t 
37      th      THING   thh 
38      th      THIS      th 
39      v       VAT       v 

40      w       WET     w 
41      y       YET       y 
42      z       ZIP         z      Truespel total is 40* 
[24 consonants]  [23 for Truespel]
add ch in loch, ng, schwi, and the short o   to get to 44. 

*Truespel distinguishes [L] and [']  and schwi by showing stress. The stress convention allows truespel to reference 43 sounds with just 40 symbols. 

IPA.21.- .Spanglish.25.-. Truespel.19
  n 6 checked    |   6 unchecked   |    5 - diphthongs   |   4 to 8 with shwa

Chekt - short	Free - long	Difthongs	4 with schwa
æ ae a .	a: aa aa .	'i ai ie .	a' aar | ai' ier
at, ax ask, act cat	alms, want, star  5	eye, ice, bite, high	are, car  |  ire, fire
e e e .	3: r er er	ei ey ae .	e' er air .
edge let elbow  3	her girl surfer  word	ace, ape, vein, day	air, care, there, barely wear
i i. i .	i: i-y ee ee	oi oy oi .	i' ir eer .
it, in, index, ill	eel, ski, sing, very	oil, boy, loyal, oyster	ear, fear, deer, mere, iritate
a o. aa . .turned a	: ao au . turned c	ou ow oe . turned e + u	:' or or oer turned c + schwa
ox, pot, otter	awe, call, cost, law	oh, oat, low, silo	for, four, floor, more, war
u w oo .	u: uu ue .	ju yu yue .	u:' yur yuer .
hook,  put, could	ooze zulu zoo glue	you, few, fuse, utility	your,  tour, sure, cure
L a u . turned v	' a u . turned e [schwa]	au au ou . ae +  u	au' aur our . tripthongs not listed -Jones
upper,  putt,  cut	ago, sofa unit, sufer	out, down, cow, trout	our, flour, flower, power
peach colored phonograms are not part of the minimum phoneme set light blue phonograms have a related stressless variation yellow phonograms have been merged

© 2000BETA Interactive   Ì ò ™™® ©™ Peach colored cells reference phonograms  that are not isolated 
Blue cells reference variations in stress.
With the diacritics æ à  è  ì  ò  ù , Spanglish becomes phonemic.
All notations use the 25 vowels and combinations shown but IPA and TS recognize fewer vowel phonemes.

NOTES
There is a three way ambiguity for most vowel letters and sounds can overlap.
a=ago, aax, aex,   o=aa, awe, owe,   u=up, hook, hoop
The medial value will usually work in all situations: aa, awe, hook
at = aat, active
dotr = daughter, octive
ups=oops, sofa

dotr-daotr   cost-caost   octiv -aactiv-aectiv   cot-caat?
When this is done there is little difference between active and octive.