WWhen English is transcribed (or hitchhiked) using another writing system, there may be gaps. There may be sounds that cannot be expressed because these phonemes are not used or marked by the foreign language. The English [eth ð] is an example of a phoneme that is generally not found in many other languages.

 WSpanish has only 5 vowels but an extensive set of diphthongs or vowel combinations. It solves the problem of how to consistently represent /ei/ and /ai/ with [ey as in rey] and [ai as in ---]. It does not solve the problem of how to represent /ae/ , /i/ and /dh/.

 WDr. Valerie Yule's story of the Beautiful Princess has been used a extensively to compare alternate notations for English. The story contains at least 40 of the phonemes found in English speech. This exercise is part of the World Orthography initiative. The goal is to find a basis for selecting particular grapheme - phoneme correspondences that work not only in English but in related languages as well.

 WSounds can be represented in any alphabetic orthography including hieroglyphics. Those who know the code can transcribe or spell the English speech sounds. This graphical representation can be decoded or transcribed back into meaningful sounds. With a good code, anyone who knew the code but not the language could read the code aloud and be understood by native speakers.

 WThis is not a translation but a transcription that uses the conventions of the foreign writing system to portray sounds.One point of the exercise is to show that different writing systems split sound segments and represent similar sounds different ways.

 WBelow: the story has been transcribed into the orthographies Dutch and German. The next page includes Portuguese and Spanish. The story has also been transcribed into Danish, Norwegian, and Icelandic.

 WThe title, Hitchhiked Orthography, comes from the title of an article by Zé de Rock in the Simplified Speling Journal (1998)

Transcribed by Dr John M Gledhill
J.Gledhill@coventry.ac.uk
Coventry University

Transcribed by John Reilly
attorney and writer

"Lu.k thru th sentr ov th mun wen it iz blu," sed h'r mu'thr in a.nsr tu h'r kweschn,"Yu m'yt f'ynd yur hartz dizyr."

Th prinses laft dautingli bikoz shi wu.d not aksept thies w'rds. Insted, shi iuzd h'r ima.jineishn, muvd intu th fotografi biznes, and tu.k pikchrs of the lunar s'rfa's in ku'lr.

"aI persiev mo'st sertnli that it olweiz a'pirs ho'li w'yt," shi thot.

Shi olso' faund tha.t shi ku.d me'k inuf mu'ni in eit mu'nths so' tha.t shi ku.d b'y herself tu inorma's hiuj nu juls tu.

"loek THroe THu sentu ov THu moen wen it iz bloe," sed heu muTHu in ansu toe heu kwestsjun, "joe maait faaind jor haartz dizaaiu."

THu prinses laaft daautingli bikors sjie woed not aksept THiez weudz. insted, sjie joezd heu imadzjineisjun, moevd intoe THu fotoGrafie biznis, and toek piktsjuz ov THu loenu seurfis in kulu.

"Aai peursiev moost seurtunli THat it orlweiz upieuz hooli waait," sjie thort.

sjie orlsou faaund THat sjie koed meik inuf muni in eit munTHs soo THat sjie koed baai heurself toe inormus hjoej njoe dzjoeulz toe.

"Luck thru dhe senter ow dhe mun uen itt is blu," sed her modher inn ansser tu her kuesstschon. "Yu meit feind yor harts deseir."

Dhe prinssess laft dautingli bekos schie uudd nott axept dhies uerds. Insstedd, schie yusd her immadschineeschon, muwd intu dhe fotograffi
bisness, end tuck picktschurs ow dhe luner serfiss in koller.

"Ei perssiew moost sertinnli dhat itt olluees appiers hooli ueit," schie thott.

Schie ollsso faund dhatt schie kudd meek enuff munni inn eet munnths so dhatt schie kudd bei hersself tu enormiss hiudsch nu dschuls, tu.

When Mont Follick offered a way to write English that was more regular and consistent than TO, others objected because they said it made English look like German.

There is an element of truth in this allegation. The function words (the most frequent 10%) in English are of germanic origin and should look German.

This is about as compact as you can get in a fully phonemic notation. It contains most of the abbreviations of Cut Spelling including the non-representation of shwa with [the]. In the full CCS notation, [th] is replaced with [x].

<capitals> indicate a sound not present in Dutch. Viz <TH> and <G>. A dutch speaker would pronounce the voiced final consonants wrong in this example, as they are always unvoiced in Dutch.
Some of the "spellings" below actually reflect the way I speak English rather than Dutch, eg "among", "wons". Dutch uses <e> for schwa in unstressed positions, but also <u> which I've used here. <w> is not an exact match, as it is a labiodental in Dutch (but not =/v/ as it isn't a fricative). -John Gledhill

This is about as close as I can come. There are positional spelling problems in German. As far as I know, there is no way to start a German word with an /s/ sound, and no way to end one with a /z/ sound. (In the middle of a word, of course, you can distinguish /s/ and /z/ by using "ss" and "s" respectively.) If there is a convention for presenting these sounds in foreign words, I have not come across it. The rest of the unusual forms I employ here I have seen in German texts, though how common they are I do not know. -John J. Reilly