lern tu wrait alfabeticly in p.2 SAXON - SPANGLIC lern tu wrait in a mor concis  & consistent orthografy For a  version with more grafics - click here> graphics

Instead of retaining the old Saxon alphabet, the English speaking world has retained a mix of archaic M.E. spellings. By doing so, the relationship between spelling and pronunciation has been all but lost. English spelling went from being over 90% phonemic in the 10th Century to being less than 40% phonemic today.

An alphabet represents to the eye the sounds of a language by means of written symbols.   It follows that in the most rational alphabet - 

Every simple sound will be associated with a single distinct symbol

Ther will bi a consistant releishanshipp bitwin ich saund & itz simbal

The immediate practical questions of Spelling or Orthographic Reform are -

• What are the simple vowel sounds in English speech? and 

• By what arrangement of the existing alphabet can the

sounds of the English language be best represented?

1. to fall back on digraphs  [two-letter combinations, such as ch, sh and th] or 
2. to merge phonemes.       [Let ng = n-g or n-tail.  Let z = z or zh]

Digraphs or 2-letter symbols representing diphthongs are another matter.  There is nothing wrong with using two letters to represent a blend of two simple sounds - for example:  [ei, ai, ou, au].  In fact, the use of digraphs for diphthongs probably makes the symols set easier to learn and recall. However, every effort should be made to avoid using unpronounced or silent letters [ such as the silent e  in New Spellings:  ae  ie  oe ]. 

A digraphs with a silent letter used as marker results in ambiguity. Here is one example:

In NS [nu speling] poet is pronounced poat.  In SS, poet would be pronounced /paw-eht/- an understandable pronunciation.  /pou-et/ would be spelled poeet in NS.  The letter string, poeet, would have two different pronunciations in NS depending on the syllable division:  poe-et or po-eet.  Truespel avoids this particular problem by making [po] an impossible or disallowed combination.  An elegant code does not use silent letters and does not have any uninterpretable letter combinations. 

A radical solution to this problem is an augmented alphabet.  Truespel and Spanglish are augmented through the use of digraphs.

As with most northern European languages, English has 12 simple [uncombined] vowel sounds.  Latin had 10 simple vowels [and 5 vowel letters] so those who adopted the Latin alphabet often had to augment it.  The Saxon augmented Latin alphabet is shown below:

The ancient representation of the obscure mid lax vowel or schwa in Saxon was almost as ambiguous as it is today: e could be interpreted as either [eh] or as an unstressed è [uh].  The unstressed à [uh] had the same schwa or mid-lax pronunciation. 

The ash [æ] is the most obvious Saxon addition to the Latin alphabet. Latin had an ae digraph which was pronounced \ah-eh\ as in the word 'eye'.  The German word, Kaiser, captures the original pronunciation of the Latin Caesar.  The sound in the Saxon ash and at is not a blend but rather a pure vowel midway between ah and eh. 

The extended e [listen to sweete] and extended æ  are no longer used in English.  In the chart, the [ee] position is used for the vowel in *her. 

12 Saxon Vowels Old English 700-1060 Midl English 1250-1400 Letter Checked Free A up - ago aa alms Æ ash - ax obs. vowel E elbow eh  hr  *her I ich - *itch ski ring *eel O so - *saw aw holly cost sow *sew oh holy owe U hwk - hook hup - hoop 'a  'e  'er 'ap  *up 'ago *ago The grey cells indicate the default pronunciation of the letter in Spanglish A Middl English yuzd th'e seim vaul taebl b'ut  some spelings wer chaenjd [u->ou]

Maroon type indicates that the passage is written in Saxon-Spanglish-SP.

Saxon-Spanglic (SSA) is won of several world english (winglish) proposals tu restor alfabetic spelling.  SS restors the original Saxon ogmented Latin alfabet tu unshift the vowels found in many English word pronunciations.  This set of grafim-fonim (letter-sound) corespondences is yusd tu pronounce  or sound out each letter in a word \waurd\.  The result is a new dialect of English that is neither GA [general american] nor RP [british].  Saxon is easy to read since so few words are respelled, the phonemic version requires an adjustment.

Only thoz words that cannot be understood when sounded out ar respeld in Spanglish [SP].  The effect of this simpl reform is tu mak English wonce again clos tu 90% fonemic and consistent.  SP alauz twu sounds per spelling so ther is yusually som ambiguity.  Thus f=v / f,  v=v/'a,  s=z / s, -ce=ts/se,  si=si / shi, w=w/u., o=aw/ow,  ow=/ou/ *owld bowt, a= aa / uh / ae.  The 1755 spelling conventnions that SP drops includ the silent e, the majic e, ph for f, g=j, a-=awe.  Doubl consonants ar retained at sillabl boundaries hwer the root voul is short.

English has 12 pure vowles.  There are 30 vowels [counting combinations] and 25 consonants
The alfabet is pronounced ah, beh, seh, chuh, deh, eh, feh, guh .. uhl, um, un .. awe, peh, kweh, ur, us..
ah bi si di... is also OK as long as the syllabics are pronunced as syllabics:  ar-em is ur-um.  [rn=urn r'n=run]
The 8 r-combinations are not included in this chart.  If they were there would be 25 vowels.
are=aar, our=aur, ire=air,  air=er, paragraf=paera, ear=ir, oar=or, mower=mowr. tour=tur
*the R has three sounds which are merged in Spanglish  /r/ /3:/ and /'r/ "hr 'othr rum"
 q and x are clearly redundant but are retained in Saxon-Spanglish

Spanglish is based on the Saxon alphabet so each letter either alone or in combination has a sound and can be interpreted. Any V V or CV combination can be pronounced.  In Truespel, NO cannot be interpreted because the O-alone is not interpreted.   In Spanglish, the letter h and the vowel letters including w and y [when not marked] have more than one sound. no could be naw or an abbreviated version of /nou/. now is /nou/ because w is /u/. The 4x10 table [above] is truncated somewhat.  It does not include ng and dh which are two of the 22 simple consonents in English speech.  The table includes  ch and j, which are not simple consonants. Church could be spelled tsh'rtsh and judge could be spelled dzh'dzh instead of chrch and j'uj or jaj.

As an i.t.a., irregularities such as c/s ambiguity and the q/x redundancies would have to be reintroduced.  They are not eliminated because the goal of Spanglish is not perfection but something close to the consistency of Spanish, Latin, and the original Saxon alphabet.  The goal of Spanglish is a simple set of  sound signs [with no code overlaps] that can be deconstructed to arrive at our current chaotic spelling system.  It is a parallel system of  transcription that makes sense.

1. In a world awash in information of dubious provenance, whom can you trust to tell you the truth? 
2. Inn a wrld awaash inn innformeishan av dubias pravenants, hum caen yu trast tu tel yu tha truth?
3. In a world awash in information of dubias pravenance, hum can yu trust tu tell yu the truth?

Pronunciations change over time
The development of number words illustrates how pronunciation changes over time.  According to the linguists, all of these pronunciations developed from a common pronunciation.  Around 500 A.D., Anglo Saxon, Dutch, Danish, and German number pronunciations were almost identical.  The word for [one] was ahn or ehn (spelled: an, en).  If the word [one] is pronounced as spelled, [aw-nuh], it is still close to the Anglo Saxon word [an]. The French influenced silent e was added around 1200 when the spelling was typically [onne] so the pronunciation probably remained about the same /ahn/until around 1400.  

Indo European Number Words - At one time they were all pronounced the same...

	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8
English	onne-one	two	three	four	five	six	seven	eight
SPanglic	wan	twu	thri	for- fowr	faiv	six	seven	eit
Anglo Sax	an [ahn]	tweene twegan	thri trie	foewer feower	fif fiv	sehs siex	sibun siofan	ocht eahta
Gothic		twa		fidwer	fimf	sehs	sibun ?
German	en-ein	zwei	drei	vier	funf	sechs	sieben	acht
Latin	uno	duo		quatro	quinque	sex	septem	octo
Greek	hen		tri?	tettares?	pente	hex	hepta	okto

*the W does not have the ' oo-WAW ' sound except at the beginning of a word or syllable.  In all other positions it has the short u /u/ sound.  Old English TWEENE/TWIN was probably pronounced /tui:n/  on-line source
Today over 600 million people in the world speak a Latin based language. More than double that number use a Latin based alphabet with Latin letter sound values.  In Latin, a vowel letter has one sound which is also the letter's name.  Except for the vowels the letter names are not all that much different from English.  English speakers have disroted or shifted the original Latin vowel letter soundsThe vowel sounds. 

The Great Vowel Shift  [diagram]
To maintain the alphabet, when the pronunciation of words change, the spelling has to change. 

In English, most of the pronunciation shifts affected the vowels.  Words such as fif /feefv/ began to be pronounced /faiv/.  One of the middle English spellings for /feefv/ or /fi:v/ was FIVE.  After the 14th century vowel shift, this old spelling became associated with the new pronunciation /faiv/. 

In a related example, ice used to be spelled is and pronounced /i:s/  [ees].  After the Battle of Hastings (1066) scribes spent most of their time writing Norman French which unlike Saxon, had a highly illogical spelling system.  These scribes tended to write English in a French way [Scragg, 1974]. is started to be spelled ice around 1200 A.D.  Later, during the great vowel shift the pronunciation of the word changed to /ais/.  Instead of respelling the word again to reflect this change in pronunciation, the spelling remained the same. English became populated with words that were spelled one way an pronounced another. England standardized their word spelling around 1755 with the publication of the first popular dictionary.  No attempt was made to standardize below the word level so FIVE became one of many ways to spell the vowel in /faiv/.  Before this time some people probably spelled it FYV.  This vowel spelling stuck with sky, fly, and my but not with five and ice.

The great vowel shift took place around 1400 when the six long vowels began to change their values in a systematic way.  Chaucer would have pronounced the middle vowel in time like that in modern team.  see would have sounded like say, fame like farm without the R, so like saw, and do like doe, and now like naw-oo.  The great vowel shift resulted in a major barrier to intelligibility between middle and modern English.

As illustrated in the chart of number words, changes in pronunciation over a 200 year period are not unusual.  Other languages have coped with it and retained their alphabet by making corresponding changes in their spelling.  This might have been relatively easy in the early 1800s when Benjamin Franklin and Noah Webster recommended that we follow the reforms that were taking place in the orthographies of other European languages.  Franklin and Webster thought this was the only chance we had of preserving what was left of our alphabet.

SPanglic or Spelling Pronunciation Anglic uses the Saxon alphabet and only respells traditionally spelled words when they cannot be pronounced.  The spelling pronunciation does not have to be perfect, just close enough to be understood. 

Unfamiliar words would be spelled the way they were pronounced rather than historically.  As a result, students would still mispell some words.  The difference is that most students would spell unfamiliar words the same way.  When students use invented spellings, there can be 14 or more different spellings.

SPanglic is systematic but not very phonemic since there are usually two sounds associated with a letter.  To eliminate this ambiguity, diacritics can be added.  This makes it possible to use basically the same notation for a pronunciation guide.

Since 80% of the words are spelled historically and every word can be pronounced, SPanglic is very easy to read aloud.  The dialect may be a little odd, but completely understandable.  Known words can be and probably will be converted to their regional pronunciation as with TES.

Phonemic Saxon, a related notation, is just another analog or isomorph of IPA [the International Phonetic Alphabet]  - there is a one to one correspondence between the two notations.  As a result Phonemic Saxon respells 60% of the words in the dictionary.  Phonemic Saxon would be used as a pronunciation guide and all pronunciation guides respell at least 60% of the words.

Spelling reformers typically want to spell according to the pronounciation guide in the dictionary.  This phonemic approach respells over 60% of the words as shown below.  It can be done but why bother except in the pronunciation guide?  Ambigious Spanglish [2 sounds per letter] is easier to read than accent or diacritic clarified Spanglish [see below, underlined words have been clarified or disambiguated].

Saxon-Spanglish (SP)  ìz.wàn.ov.sevèr'al.w'rld english (wenglish) proposàls.tu.ristor alfàbetic speling.  SP restorz the orìginàl Saxon ogmentèd Latin alfabet tu ùnshift the vaulz faund  ìn meny English prànànsieyshàns. Dhìs set ov grafim-fo'nim (letr-saund) corespondensès  ìz yuzd tu prònauns or saund aut iich letr ìn àwèrd. Dhè result ìz' à nu daiàlect ov English dhat  ìz.nidhèr GA nor RP. O'nly dhowz wèrdz.dhæt.canot.bi.ànderstùd hwen saunded aut ar respeld.  Dhè.èfect.ov.dh ìz simpl riform  ìz.tu.meik English wàns.àgen.clo's.tu 90% fonemic ænd consistent.   [ à  è  ì  ò  ù  æ ]  [more text samples]

The  point of the diacritics is to retain the traditional letters and word shapes. 
a'r=aar, a.t or att=at, a=schwa and ^.  r'estor vs. ristor or rastor
If one is not too concerned about the look of the text and the shape of the word patterns, a phonemic script can be developed by setting a=schwa and using digraphs for aesh and aar.
The best phonemic script will still change 60% of the spellings.  There is no spelling pronunciation here.  The base pronunciation is GA [general american].

World English and Romajii
[see below] This notation achieves phonemic regularity without diacritics. Some of the word patterns are changed in the process.  The main change from Spanglish is to replace [i] with ii when the free vowel is followed by a consonant.  wool=wul  These notations do not show stress: verii abav [above] is ambiguous.

Saexan-Spaenglish iz wan av sevral warld english prapousalz tu ristor alfabetic speling.  SP ristorz tha original Saxon oogmentad Latin aelfabet tuu anshift tha vaulz faund in meny english pranansieyshanz.  This set av graefiim-founiim (letr-saund) corespondensaz iz yuzd tu pranauns or saund aut iich letr in a wrd.  Tha risalt iz a nu daialect of english thaet iz niithr GA nor RP.  Ounly thouz wrdz thaet caenot bii anderstud wen saundad aut aar rispeld.  Tha afect av this  simpl riform iz tu meik english wans agen clous tu 90% founiimic aend consistant.
 

SAXON SPANGLISH Phonemic
Simple Lax Checked Vowels		Simple Lax (AA/A)/Tense Free Vowels		Diphthongs 2 Sound Blends		Diphthongal R-Combinations		Simple (Lax/Tense) R-Combinations
SAN* SAEND  SEND  SIN  SON'ET  SWT ui	sun  sand  send  sin  sonnet  soot	AGO  SAAGA RBAN  SEENii SAO SUN	ago  saga urban  seen  saw  soon	SAIN  SAeUNA  SEYN  SOY SOWN  ShYUR	sign  sauna  seine  soy  sown sure	SAIR SAeUR ST'R SOYR SOWR YUR	sire  sour  stir  sawyer sower your	STAAR PAERA STEYR STIR STOR TUR	star  para-  stair  steer  store  tour
NR	TO	NR	TO	NR	TO	NR	TO	NR	TO
*Any vowel coming after an apostrophe is middled - it becomes a schwa:  s'n = s'an = s'un = s'on In this version A is both schwa and /^/ Y and I are still used for the schwi or unstressed front tense - long i sound.  II = EE  very monky   short medial sound unstressed long A  ah - aa ae aa a unstressed lax mid E   eh - edge e ey 'e  [same]  I    ee - eel, ski i ii / ee i/y  [schwi] O  awe aa / o ao awe o [ow] U  oo rounded zoo ui/w u / uu 'u /v  [lax mid] English assigned 12 sounds to 5 vowel letters which means that each vowel has almost 3 associated sounds.  The weak vowels aei, have two sounds and an unstressed sound [schwa ro schwi].  The rounded vowels have three sounds.  The thought here was that the medial sound could be understood.  oop=up, oonder=under hu iz 'undr th'e r'ug [rag].  hu iz 'ndr th' r'g

Most people using this parallel notation would probably read in SPanglic and write in Saxon.  It is relatively easy to use a phonemic notation to spell a word as you pronounce it

Spanglish  A family of related notations The first is a script merges phonemes - no hook sound, no short i,   - Syllabics always pronounced as syllabics. uhr, uhl.  - Minimal respelling with slightly distorted pronunciation.     maw-thair instead of m'd'r, ah-lawn instead of uh-low-n This approach is also known as spelling pronunciation.  Each letter has two or less associated sounds. Spelling is not changed if the word can be read aloud using the Saxon alphabet and be easily understood. oo is substituted for oo, u, ou below. Informal Spanglish   note:com rhymes with comb. The reading aloud dialect would be a little odd. Jaenet lukd aut the rir dor.  Shi cud si her litl dotr Paem pleying with tu av the neiborhud children.  Shi cold tu her aend sed,  "Cam in Paem.  Wi haev tu gou tu the stour."  Paem waz haeving fan, bat shi nu shi cud not stey houm aloun.  Her oulder brathrz wer in skul. Shi haed tu gou with her mather.  Janet lookd out the rir dor.  Shi cwd si hr litl dotr Pam pleying with tu ov the neiborhood children.  Shi cald tu hr and sed.  "Com in Paem.  Wi hav tu go tu the stor."  Pam waz having fn, bt shi nu shi cd nat sey houm aloun.  Her ouldr br'thrz wr in skul. Shi had tu gou with hr m'thr. Spelling Pronunciation SPanglic is based on SAXON alphabet sound values: o=awe, owe, a=ah, ae, uh.  This kind of spelling is less streamlined and farther away from today's pronunciation than informal Spanglish [above].  It is, however, more familiar and close enough when pronounced to be mistaken for an odd dialect of English.  It is even possible to spell shi as she /sheh/ to tu as to /taw/. ELS teachers indicate that this is the way that many of their students read English - as if the great vowel shift never happened. Janet lookd out the rear door.  Shi coud si her littl doter Pam playing with twu of the neiborhood children.  Shi calld tu her and sed,  "Com in Pam.  Wi hav tu go tu the store."  Paem was having fun, but shi knew shi coud not stey home alone.  Her oldr brothers were in skul. Shi had tu go with her mother.  changes:/respellings:d for ed when the e is silent.  tt for t when before a short vowel.  ay for ey in some words - pronounced dah-ee or "die'. one for own.  "one" woujld be repelled won or pronounced as own-neh.  Spelling pronunciation uses the restored SAXON alphabet to sound out the letters.  Each letter is pronounced creating a kind of Middle English dialect.  If we are going to use historical spelling, it makes sense to use historical pronunciation.  Transcribing into MenuSpel, the alleged intuitive spelling for English speakers, we have... Jaanet lawkt aw-oot the reh-ahr dawr.  Shee caw-ood see hair lit-uhl daw-tair Paam plah-ying with tuu-oo aawf the neh-ee-bor-hood cheel-dren.  Shee caald too hair [heh-r] aand sed, Cawm een Paam.  Wi haev too gaw too theh stor-eh. Saxon-Spanglish:  [an IPA-ASCI solution]  The schwa-apostrophe is the key to this notation, any letter following the ' is pronounced /Uh/ The after letter can be deleted with no change in the reference of the phonogram [']. The after dot is used to shorten a sound, thus i. = the checked i and u. = the checked u. A shortener is better than an extender colon /i:/ because it never shows up at the end of a word. In informal writing, one would just live with the ambiguity.  Diacriticds: æ à  è  ì  ò  ù   would be substituted for the after dotted letters in printed documents. This conversion could easily be automated.  [see on-line converter] Ja.net lu.kt aut the rir dor.  Shi cu.d si hr li.tl dotr Pa.m pleying with tu ov the neyborhu.d chi.ldren.  Shi cold tu hr and sed, " C'om in Pa.m.  Wi hav tu go tu the stor."  Pa.m w'oz ha.ving f'un, b'ut shi nu shi cu.d not stey ho'm 'alo'n.  H'r o'ldr br'thrz wr in skul. Shi ha.d tu go with hr m'othr.  Reducing the punctuation markers by creating more vowel letters and substituting w for u.   v for ^ ,  y for i and  ow for /ou/.  Note that in English, the w is used for the short u sound in tow, show, flow.... Jaenet lwkt aut the rir dor.  Shi cwd si hr litl dotr Paem pleying with twu ov the neyborhwd chyldren.  Shi cold tu hr and sed, " Cvm in Paem.  Wi hav tu go tu the stor."  Paem woz having fvn, bvt shi nu shi cwd not stey howm 'alown.  H'r owldr brvthrz wr in skul. Shi haed tu go with hr mvthr.  World English Romaji Spelling.  a and e = schwa.  want=waant/wont  are=aar ee=e [geet=get] could also be gett.  o and oo = awe,  There is some dissonance with existing traditional english sound associations.  Other than that this and the fact that it is not the most space efficient, this phonemic notation seems to be without flaws. "Yuu caent coum her heer hir." vs. "Yu cant cowm hr her hir." Jaenet lukt aut dhe rir door.  Shii cud si her littl doter Paem pleying with tuu ov dhe neiborhud children. Shi coold tuu her and sed, "Cam in Paem.  Wi hav tuu gou tu dhe stour."  Paem woz having fan, bat shii nuu shii cud not stei houm aloun.  Her oulder bratherz wer in skuul.  Shii haed tuu gou with her mather. Almost IPAæ for ae, barred d or delta d for th,  òfor sh, turned epsilon for schwa, 'u for ow.  Symbol [Greek] font used to augment the script. The dotless i is used to represent the short i sound. Jæn't lwkt aut d' rir dor.  òi cwd si h'r litl dot'r Pæm pleying with twu ov d' neib'rhwd childr'n. òi cold tu h'r and sed.  "C'm in Pæm.  Wi hæv tu g'u tu d' stor."  Pæm w'z hæving f'n, b't òi nu òi cwd not stey h'um 'l'un.  H'r 'uldr br'thrz w'r in skul. Shi hæd tu g'u with h'r m'd'r.  An IPA script patterned after Sweet's broad romic is hard to beat.  It is a fully phonemic isomorph for the more familiar IPA notations.  Missing spl. characters include the turned c.

 

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wordlist
Old English Dictionary  http://www.mun.ca/Ansaxdat/vocab/wordlist.html
hat=hot, hus=house, ham=home, 
 
 

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