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Linguists recognize schwa as the most or second most English speech sound.* It is called the obscure vowel because it has no consistent representation. In TO (the traditional orthography) is it represented in over 40 different ways (Dewey, 1971). In IPA, the schwa is symbolized with a turned e. In an ASCII notation, some other symbol has to be used. The candidates are @, ^, and '.

There is much to be said for using ^ as the symbol for /^/ (u in TO) and ^ for schwa. Both schwa and u are central vowels which sound about the same. The basic difference is that schwa is not stressed. The other advantage for the circumflex is that it looks like a slightly turned r (a lazy r?) and the most frequent location of schwa is in er endings.

In RP, father (cs fathr) would be spelled phonetically as faadh^.

*The issue seems to be how to classify a word such as [the].  7% of the words in a sample of English text is spelled THE.  One of every 14 words - on the average.

The schwa spelling column was mostly provided by Ron Footer. It gives several possible spellings. The first spelling is close to Cut Spelling.

The idea of this kind of representation came from Ron Footer who said: Ie ^gree sumthing liek dhis kan bee weurkt out But how doo wee tel leurn^rz wich inish^l let^r too uez ?
Faur igzaamp^l UPON and OPOEZ The inish^l let^rz hav igzakli the saem sound

(Steve) a'pon - a'po'z normally up is u'p
but in this case the stress is on the second syllable so u' cannot be used.
^pon - ^poz would look OK if we wever got used to ^p.

Aulsoe, kuud ue pleez giv igzaamp^lz ov yaur 4 graedi^nts and sae hou ue wuud spel GRADIENT GRAEDI^NT

Allan wrote

Ie ^gree sumthing liek dhis kan bee weurkt out But how doo wee tel leurn^rz wich inish^l let^r too uez ?
Faur igzaamp^l UPON and OPOEZ The inish^l let^rz hav igzakli the saem sound

Aulsoe, kuud ue pleez giv igzaamp^lz ov yaur 4 graedi^nts and sae hou ue wuud spel GRADIENT GRAEDI^NT

Just wat is th point of tryng to hav spelng exactly reflect pronunciation?
Just wat is th point of tryng to hav pronunciation exactly reflect spelng?
Th formr is a pipedream, and we can se from our own histry we'r not havng much success in making it hapn.

Th latr is even mor of a pipedream. Pronunciation chanjes - somtimes as a fad - from time to time, from place to place, from class to class. It canot be chaind, or even prescribed. (We thot we'd brot up our childrn propr like, but they aint speakng quite th same as us.) Spelng is a tool of riting and readng, not of speakng. It may or may not (eg, chinese) reflect pronunciation. It is desirebl, in an alfabeticl systm desynd for such a purpose, that ther be som link between speakng and riting, and hence between speakng and spelng.

But it is not necesary for it to be precise or absolute. Wat is necesary is that spelng becoms fairly consistnt and predictbl, and that Taam, Ian, Ron, John, Val, I, and al of us shud be able to read each othrs riting without our varius accents getng in th way. In th process th riting wil giv som idea of pronunciation, even tho this difrs from place to place, time to time, class to class.

I'm sory, but I find Taam, Ian, and Ron's posts · tryng to reflect pronunciation - DIFICLT TO READ (repeat: DIFICLT TO READ), and I somtimes giv up befor th end. (Maybe they find my CS riting also dificlt to read.) WE'R AL INTRESTD in simplifyng spelng. If we find it dificlt wat wud it al be like to those without such an intrest?

I wud sujest our time and enrjy cud be betr spent in devising ways of propagating SOM FORM OF MODRAT CHANJE rathr than pursuing pipedreams. Discussng and formulating pipedreams (in this case, spelng and pronunciation being tytly related) is fine as a mentl exercise (such as playng chess or solvng a cryptic crossword) but lets not se it as doing much for th cause, othr than perhaps as being a distnt but not criticl refrnce point. We'r in th busness of promoting chanje, and we shud be getng on with it!

I shal now retreat to th stokades to prepare for th onslaut. Cheers, anyway,

Allan

Although I agree in principle with the Allan's position, I don't think there would be much agreement in practice. I don't think that cut spelling is the end of the line.

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stages

Removing their socks without removing their shoes
 
 If writers of English widely accepted any symbol for schwa,
 and it became seen as literate (or even superior) usage,
 while the 'respectable' members of the old guard continued to use TO
 (as many surely would),
 we would have
 alternative "correct" spellings, which would,
       -> without anything more <-
 (and particularly, without talking about undermining "correct spelling",
 which would needlessly arouse many opponents),
 discredit proponents of "correct spelling,"
 and by doing so, speed reforming.

Ie a'gree dhat meni grafeemz kuud bee uezd faur the shwaa

Houev'r ie think dhat it wuud bee best if wee a'greed on wun
raadh'r dhan just uezing our oen

---

SCHWAA

(Ron) Am dq (doing) a bit ov testiq with umlauts re their use in indikeitiq loq vouels:
Ädväks  ä  fëli  ïzili  köt  in  büts.
Aardvarks are fairly easily caught in boots.

1     We tel lernrs the initial letrs for a wurrd by making sure they know
the forml pronunciation of a wurd, and practis public speaking in class so
they are quite clear about this.

Yes but dhis konflikts widh our raison d’tre. The inish^l let^r shuud indikaet hou it iz pr^nounst
Acompani,  endevr, inturnl, oportuniti, unexpectd.

     TO                NES             CCS
  accompany         ^kump^ni         a'kumpa'ni
  endeavor          indev^r          indevr
  internal          inteeur^l        int'rnl
  opportunity       op^tueniti       opa'tuniti
  unexpected        unekspektid      u.nekspekt'd
 

In actue^l fakt,   az ue kan see,  oenli wun ov dheez weurdz staarts widh shwaa
If all these wurds begin with schwa - what hapns to alfabeticl listngs in dictionnaris?

(Steve)There would have to be a listing from mid central vowels
a'go, a'bout, (almost always a' at the beginning of a word)
'rn or u'rn (this is more of a problem)

Dhae cud aul bee listid t^geth^r at the bigining aur at the end
 
2.    Exampls of 4 vairia5ns in schwa from extended to miniml.
 
perturb (2 examples there), difrens,  portr, miniml