Finding symbols for phonemes
source: www.unifon.org/symbols-for-phonemes.html

Edward Carney, who attempted to provide a systematic description of the regularities of English spelling, wrote

Perhaps the greatest practical problem in dealing with spelling is that people do not have a familiar and generally accepted way of tackling the phonetic side of correspondences.  [Carney, 94].
 

Each vowel letter is associated with a short, unstressed, and  long sound ltr Alternatives A  ask, ago, aah/are, out E  el, the, her, vein, they I  it, eel, aisle/ eye O  pot, awe, owe, oil U  up, hook, hoop, use The a in ago is the default unstressed mid lax vowel vowel. [gray]  The vowels in Red words are short or checked, Blue words are free or long. Green words are diphthongs.

Native English speakers are not as  aware of the phonemes in their language as literate speakers of other languages with more phonemic writing systems.  Illiterates are vaguely aware of the phonemes.  It is the process of learning to read and write that usually brings them into focus. 

In many languages, the writing system is over 90% phonemic.  Thus, they are not forced to deal with phonemes as distinct from letters, or spelling as distinct from spelling a pronunciation.  Carney noted that in English, there is no way in English of dealing with phonemes as distinct from letters.

Before we can talk about old time spelling and pronunciation, we need to have an agreed on set of conventions for describing speech. 

Rondthaler disagrees.  He thinks that we already have a set of symbols - the ones used in pronunciation guides.

All this English vs American pronunciation voting business surprises me when there's a highly authoritative source already available.    The Oxford University Press (in Oxford UK and New York) publishes the "Oxford American Dictionary" with an excellent pronunciation scheme satisfactory for both countries. 

The Oxford American pronunciation scheme is the thoughtful product of four scholars: Stuart Flexner, Eugene Ehrlich, Gorton Carruth and Joyce Hawkins. We could not in all cases use their notation per se, partly because it involves diacritics and in some cases may be slightly more meticulous than necessary.  But insofar as representing a pronunciation that is clearly recognizable to both British and American speakers it is probably as ideal as we'll ever get -- and it's available in dictionary form now.. .

The OA system is a diacritic system and therefore not keyboard compatible.  It could be the form of the font altered extended alphabet.  We are searching for a fast way to type any phonemic system.  Short of building a new keyboard and teaching a new touch typing system, what can be done?

There are no real problems with the traditional letter sound corresondences other than they are not 100%.  Few would complain about jin or dgin for <gin>. or gilty for <guilty>. "kats and dogz" for may cause some problems because c is used more frequently for /k/ than k and s is used more frequenlty than <z> for /z/.

Gimson's Pronunciation of English [Cruttenden, 1994] 
Prof. Gimson distinguishes the following vowels. [more] [m-w]

14 Pure Vowels [first two columns]
6 short vowels, 8 long vowels,  4 combinations, 8 r- combinations, 
Four  notations:  traditional spelling - [SS] - {U2} -  /ipa/

6 short, tense	8 long, free, lax	3 diphthongs	8 r-combinations
bat  [batter] /baet/ bet  [better] /bet/ bit   [bitter] [bit] bottle [bottl] {bqtcl}  * boss [bos] {bQs} put [pwt] {pvt} /put/    * book [pwt bwk]  putt [bvt] {bxt} /bLt/	balm [baam] {bqm} /ba:m/ bait [beit] {bAt}  /beit/ burn  [bern] {bRn}  /b3n/ beet  [biet]  {bEt} /bi:t/ bought [baot] {bQt}/bo:t/ boat [boat] {bOt} /bout/ booty [buuty]  /bu:ty/ bogas {bOgcs} /boug's/	bite   [bait] {bIt}  /bait/ beauty  {bUty} /bju:ti/ boil  [boil] {boil} /boil/ bout  [bout] {baut}/baut/ bough, [bou]  / bau / pure vowels that are sometimes pronounced as two sounds * bait  {bAt}  /beit/ boat {bOt}/b@ut,bout/	ire [air] {Ir}   bqrbc barber [baarber] /ba@b@/ arrow  [arro]  {ar} /ae@/ bear [beir]  {ber} /be@/ bird  [berd]  /b@rd/ beer [bir] {bir}  /bi@/ bore  [bor]   /bo@/ tour  [tur]   /tu@/ tower  [taur] /tau@/

fonemes-u2Kelly's chart of tense and lax vowels [find] 
Pronunciation Guide http://esl.about.com/cs/pronunciation/

resource:  http://esl.about.com/cs/pronunciation/
http://esl.about.com/library/graphics/EXAMPLE.jpg   ipa-example.jpg

Help with Spelling

If English speakers adopted pronunciation guide or phonemic spelling for their writing system, no one would need help with spelling. You would simply spell as you speak.  With the traditional English writing system, you can often spell as English speakers spoke 600 years ago.  Spelling corresponds to today's speech only 40% of the time.  We pay a price for our overly complicated spelling system.  The price is that 50% of the English speakers never learn how to spell properly and 15% suffer needlessly from the symptoms of dyslexia.  English speaking countries have the highest rates of illiteracy among industrialized countries.  It is not that other countries have better teaching methods or smarter students, they just have writing systems that are more transparent and esier to teach and learn. 

The Simplified Spelling Society believes that the most rational long term solution to the literacy crisis is a simpler writing system.  Why spend an extra five years learning an inconsistent code? The decoding/encoding task is quite simple:  There are 36 pure speech sounds plus a few important combinations.  That is all there is to it: about 40 or so paired associates or symbol sound correspondences.
Instead we learn 106 symbols [letters and letter combinations] that are used an average of four different ways.  Insted of 40 symbol-sound correspondences we have to learn over 400. 

It can be done but it represents a waste of teaching resources and student time. Quite often there are not sufficient teaching resources for those at the bottom of the class.  It is not that unusual for 50% of high school graduates in the U.S. to read at below 5th grade level or below. 

Much of the debate in the U.S. has been between those who advocate phonics and those who advocate the whole word method of teaching.  Phonemic awareness will help with about 50% of the words in the dictionary.  Spelling, however, remains a linguistic guessing game until one memorizes the dictionary. 

With pronunciation guide spelling you do not have to memorize 40,000 or more words. You simple memorize a simple set of relationships between symbols and sounds.  A phonics program will help students learn half of the words in the dictionary, we recommend respelling the other half so it corresponds to what the child learns in a phonics program. 

Reading failure is not that related to which of these approaches is used.  Reading failure is related to not using a mastery learning model to insure that each student has mastered the basics before being advanced.  Remedial reading programs represent a kind of an afterthought.  It would be better to catch the problems early. The mastery model of learning has been resisted because  1. it is administratively inconvenient and 2. it requires more in the way of teaching resources: e.g. a large library of interesting books written [or rewritten] at each reading level and a more complicated testing and learning management system.

This meens we keep the rule: cian for persons, ssion after short voul and tion in uther cases. 
Does that apply to shun and ocean?

Color Coding
 
 

Each vowel letter is associated with a short, unstressed, and  long sound ltr Alternatives A  ask, ago, ah/are, out E  el, the, her, vein/ they I  it, unit, eel, aisle/ eye O  pot, son, awe, owe,oil U   hook, hup, hoop, use The a in ago is the default unstressed mid lax vowel vowel. [gray]  The vowels in Red words are short or checked, Blue words are free or long. Green words are diphthongs.

The problem with most color code systems has been the same as with most diacritic systems,
They are too complicated and difficult to remember. 

black- short vowels and consonants that match the sounds in the alphbet.
green - long or free vowels that match the sounds in the Saxon alphabet
blue - unstressed vowels
orange - shifted vowels [a =e, e=i, i = ai, o=u].   cat = catt, kate=keit, to=tu
orange - shifted voice [ge=j] [gi=j] [gui=g]

This system flags the modifiers - the letters that do not have a sound themselves but mark the sound of the talking letter. Talking letters are either black [short], green [long], or blue [free-unstressed]
Notice that black letters are always followed by a consonant, they are never found at the end of a word or syllable.  The ambiguous letters are the free vowels that are followed by a consonant.  [silo, cost]
The letter [o] has two short sounds corresponding to  [aa and aw] and two long sounds corresponding to [awe and owe]. 

Each of the 5 vowel letter [plus y and w] has three pronounciaitions: checked [short], free [long] and unstressed.  Sometimes there are two short pronunciations as with o and u.  Sometimes there are two long pronunciations as with o.

Color Codes 
A:  at/batter, art/ah, ago/sofa, [kraut/out, aisle] [ray]
E:  edge/effigy, the, her, vein/they/rey
I:  it/ill, eel/frito/si/field,  penncil, [ice/silo]
O:  odd/otter, cost/law, awe/or, ode/owed/o  [oil/boy]
U:  upp/ap/putt, hook/put, zulu/flu/ooze, yew/yute/unit
short [checked] long [free] unstressed [free] compounds

We need at least 39 unique shapes for the 36 pure sounds [14 v/22con] and 3 diphthongs.
The Cyrillic alphabets have the additional shapes which is why Russian can be highly phonemic without resorting to potentially confusing digraphs.  In color coded Russian, there would be hardly any of the flagging color codes [red or orange] and no [gray] silent redundant letters. 

Color codes:  black=short, green=free, [free but shifted/raised letter], blue=unstressed,
gray=silent redundant  red=functional silent letter.  incorrect letter [orange]

Chris and ECMs:

To add to my NZ rep report:

This morning I had an inquiry for from an Auckland journalism student
for an article she was writing.
She asked what effects I thought text messaging and email spelling
might have on the language. 

I separated spelling from the language, 
and said I didn't think they would have any effect on the language,
but I hoped they lessened the deference people paid to TS.

cheers
Allan

[1] The first is a real ipa transcription of british speech.  [2] To its right is a conversion to Unifon 2, not a significant improvement.  I prefer many of the IPA symbols to the ascii symbols [particularly eth and schwa].

[4] This  transcription in citation form is quite easy to interpret.  This is not as pronounced but as they would be pronounced if each word were over pronounced.  Below that [6] I have substituted some Latin 1 characters for some of the upper case letters to improve the typography.  It probably fails to improve readability but it looks a little better.  Namer dots have also been added to replace the capitalization convention.

ALC fonetic would take another step and try to substituted one of 5 vowel letters for each schwa.
One way this might be done is to use the grave accented character.  Any vowel letter with a grave accent would tend to be an unstressed mid lax vowel. 

PUZZLE:  Interpreting a narrow transcription

Spelling exactly the same way we speak may not be such a great idea.  See if you can make out the
first two transcriptions of a British speaker.  The 1st  was done by a linguist.  The 2nd is just a U2 transcription.
Try you had first at transcribing the first example back into written English, the try #2 and #4 before reading
the key #3.  [example below from about.com]

1.	2.  DA cz cpclEs mescj fcr mOtcrists cn Dc bonet c cv lcndcn.  c lory hc Sed cts lOd ct Dc Apeks kRncr aundcbec on Dc A wcn.  U c askt tc evoid Dc eric cz mxC cz poscbl sauT bcnd trafik wil bE devRtcd fc Dc nekst tu qz.  Dat cz Dc end cv Dc mescj.
3. Citation form [highlight to read] There is a police message for motorists in the Barnet area of London. A lorry has shed its load at the Apex Corner roundabout on the A1. You are asked to avoid the area as much as possible. South-bound traffic will be diverted for the next two hours. That is the end of the message.	4. Der iz c pclEs mescj fcr mOtcrists in the bqrnet eria cv lcndcn.  c lory haz Sed its lOd at Dc ApeX korncr raundcbaut on Dc A wcn. U qr askt tu cvoid Dc eric az mcC az posibl sauT baund trafik wil bE dcvRtcd for Dc next tu aurz. Dat iz Dc end cv Dc mescj.
5.  The transcription on the right has been partially downsized by substituting Latin 1 characters for some of the capital letters. Downsizing improves the typographic integrity of the passage. It remains to be determined if it is any easier to read.   The mid-dot is a namer dot that replaces the traditional capitalization convention.	6. ·ðer iz ø pølEs mesøj før mOtcrists in the·bqrnet erià øv·løndøn.·ø lory haz Sed its lOd at ðø·ApeX·kornør raundøbaut on ðø·A wøn.·U qr askt tu øvoid ðø eriø az møC az posibl ·sauT baund trafik wil bE divRtød for ðà next tu aurz.·ðat iz ðø end øv ðø mesøj.
5. ALC Fonetic Thair is a polees mesej for moetorists  in the Barnet airia of London. A lory  has shed  its loed at the Aepex Corner roundabout on  the A1. You ar askt  to avoid the airia as  much as posibl. South-bound trafic wil  be diverted  for the next too ours. That is  the end  of the mesej.	6. ·ðer iz à pòlEs mesàj fòr mOtcrists in the·bqrnet erià øv·lòndòn.·à lory haz Sed its lOd at ðè·ApeX·kornèr raundàbaut on ðè·A wøn.·U är askt tu àvoid ðè erià az mùC az posibl ·sauT baund trafik wil bE divRtèd  for ðè next tu aurz.·ðat iz ðè end  òv ðè mesàj.

Transcriptions are of limited use in teaching.  Transcribing from IPA to Unifon does not help that much, there are just too many mid lax vowels and dropped consonants.   æ  à  è  ì  ò  ù  øð  ç  ñ  š
 
 

14 vowels 10 transcriptions, 1600 spelling,  alfa
resource:  http://esl.about.com/library/lessons/blphontranscript.htm
http://esl.about.com/library/lessons/frust.jpg

	frcstrAScnz c bcrst hctwctc bcdl
Citation form Frustration is a burst hot-water bottle, or loathing every moment of a holiday you're paying a fortune for. It's using the wrong side of the Sellotape, forgetting what you were going to say, or locking yourself out. Frustration is other people parking in front of your garage, or a stranger reading a riveting letter on the bus and turning over before you get to the bottom of the page.	frcstrAScn iz c bcrst hot-wqtcr botl, or lODiN evry mOment cv c holidA ycr pAiN a fortUn for.  its UziN Dc rong sId cv dc selotAp, forgetiN Wqt U wcr goiN tu sA, or lokiN ycrself aut.
This version has been partially downsized by substituting Latin 1 characters for some of the capital letters. Downsizing improves the typographic integrity of the passage. It remains to be determined if it is any easier to read.   The mid-dot is a namer dot that replaces the traditional capitalization convention.	·frcstrAScn iz ø bRst hot-wqtør botl, or lODiN evry mOment cv c holidA ycr pAiN a fortUn for.  its UziN Dc rong sId cv dc selotAp, forgetiN Wqt U wcr goiN tu sA, or lokiN ycrself aut. ·ðer øv ðøiz ø

Dialect written on a T-shirt du Dc rIt TiN Phonetic GA in Unifon Phonetic Jamaican Dialect du de rIt tiN The Jamaican phrase in Unifon 2 would be du de rIt tiN not du Dc rIt TiN The writing on the t-shirt is an attempt to write dialect using traditional English.  This is very hard because the letters rarely have fix sound values.  U2 is designed to transcribe standard or general American speech.  Dc TiN is an ascii representation of IPA:  ð' qIh T=/q/, D=/ð/ ipa For more on Unifon go to http://www.unifon.org/unifon-intro.html The writing on the T-shirt represents an attempt to write Jamaican dialect using traditional English sound values.  This is generally quite difficult but in this case it is quite good.  The Jamaican dialect written in Unifon would be du de rIt tiN.  The same phrase in the GA [General American] dialect would be du Dc rIt TiN.  The difference may be hard to detect because we are not used to treating capital letters as distinct phonograms.  d t is not the same as D T.  The capital letters refer to different phonemes.  In IPA symbols they would be written as D=/ð/, T=/q/ .  The T-shirt caught my eye because it looked a little like something written in Unifon.  The first letters in de ting represent simplified pronunciations of the initial phonemes in the thing that many people find difficult to pronounce.  Dc TiN on the other hand, is a more accurate representation of the American dialect than "the thing" which suggest that [th] has the same pronunciaiton in the two words and that [e] is the same as in the alphabet: [ee or eh] instead of a mid lax vowel ['].

This is an example of what U2 looks like when the Unifont is installed. Before being morphed, it would look as follows: nau iz Dc taim for ol gvd men tu kcm tu Di Ad cv Der kcntry. U2 is a downsized notation which means that the awkward capital letters will be changed into more typographically pleasing lower case symbols.  The ASCII version of U2 is the working caterpillar, with the font installed, it is tranformed into the butterfly. Express your opinion:  Write to the discussion group [below] or to Steve at sbett@lycos.com There are many varieties of pronunciation guide spelling for English.  See the one below: Since Spanglish is digraphic and closer to the familiar traditional writing system, it is easer to see the difference between the two dialects of English

Du de rait ting / Du the rait thing

The group of short vowels are sometimes called checked vowels because of thier distribution.  They do not occur in final open syllables.  This is an important feature of the English language which makes vowel sounds in  it at up ot quite different from ti ta pu and  to.  Descriptive terms such as checked/free and lax/tense are generally prefered by linguists to terms such as short and long in English.  English used to have short and long vowels but the terms are no longer reliable descriptions of the qualities of present day english vowels. 
 
 

This simplified version of the Jones quadralateral includes the commonly used IPA symbols.  The asci equivalents are shown in very small letters in the corder of the cells.  Counting the three diphthongs ai au and oi there were 17 vowels.  Remove the r/schwa combinations in the third row below and you have the 17 ascii equivalents. Jones played down one of the schwa combinations because they are not distinct in non-rhotic speechn- [aa'= aa],  Triphthongs such as air and our were also dropped from the list of 21.

I believe we should start with the phonemes for English speech that linguist first isolated in the 19th Century.  This chart shows 24 vowels, Jones and Wijk used only 21 since they did not include triphthongs or aar in their minnimum list of phonograms.  The phonograms used by any new writing system can be mapped to this chart of phonemes.  This will clearly show what phonemes have been merged.
 
 

SS adds one new v-phonogram, ao for awe. w and v can be used to make a clear distinction between the two short u's.  [bwk bvk  wps vps]. w, v and y can be vowels when not followed by a vowel.	EZENGLISH - ascii ver. of the Nyoo Alfubet a o or b p r  R e A Ar d t l  L i E Er x ? m  M o o Or g k n  N uo oo oor v f ng u u ur  R j f h Oi O Ir z s w ow I owR Z S y  yoo Options: Use W for the sound in hook rather than uo since it can be reused in oW for out.  aW would be closer to the sound of the difthong but ow is a better eye rhyme with the traditional system. EZ merges ah & awe sounds and the stressed and unstressed uh sounds. Syllabics are distinguished by capitalizing.
Truespel Alfubet - a diegrafik saalueshin a aa aar b p r  er e ae air d t l    l i ee eer th tth m  m aa au or g k n  in oo ue uer v f ng u u i oo er j f h Oi oe ier z s w ou ie our zh sh y  yue The schwa ambiguity is resolved by stress marking. Aar yue thu roewer for thu skuling klub. Aar yu the rower for the skulling club.  [SS] Thu herder wuz uslleep wen thu woolf ferst uppeerd. The hurrder waz asliep wen the wulf ferst apird.[SS]	Unifon  /YnifOn alfcbet/ a o xr b p r  cr e A Ar d t l  cl i E Er D T m  cm o x Or g k n  cn C U Ur v f ng u c cr j K h Q O Ir z s w q I qR Z S y  Y I like Unifons lazy U solution for schwa and hook. pot is spelled pot rather than pxt.  The ambiguity could be resolved by using X for aa and x for awe and o for the short X.  I see no need to abbreviate true difthongs such as aU and oi. see XENGLIK
xENGLIK alfxbet a aa q aar qr b p r  R e A Ar d t l  L i E Er D T m  M q  o oo or g k n  N u uu ur v f G v x xR xr j c h oi O Yr z s w au ai Y aur Z S y  U schwa is the most common sound in English speech. This transcriptions system recognizes the preeminance of this sound with its own letter x qr U Dx rOR for Dx skuliG klvb?  Dx hRdxr wxz xslEp wen the wulf fRst xpErd.	Sweet's Broad Romic æ aa aa' b p r  'r e ei ei' d t l  'l i ii ii' d q m  'm o ao o' g k n  'n u uu u' v f q L ' '' 'r j c h oi oa ai' z s w au ai au' 3 S y  yu schwa is represented with a turned epsilon from the Greek [symbol] font where it replaces the apostrophe.  It is hard to improve on the transcripiton system that Sweet devised in 1890. Sample transcription
Bophon Alfubet - a digrafic solu-tion a aa aar b p r  er e ae air d t l    l i ee eer th tth m  m aa au or g k n  in oo ue uer v f ng u u i oo er j f h Oi oe ier z s w ou ie our zh sh y  yue Bophon marks traditionally spelled words.	U2  Unifon II  /UnifOn alfcbet/ a q qr b p r  cr e A er d t l  cl i E [y] ir D T m  cm q oQ o or g k n  cn v u [U] ur V f ng u c cr R j C h oi O Ir z s w au I aur Z S  Y y  U2 is a lowercase version of U1.  To be fully consistent aur would have to be changed to awr.as in U3 below.  au however is defined as a phonogram and can therefore have a sound slightly different from the sounds of the individual letters. The v [hook] is phonemic only in words such as gvd fud and pvt pul.
Saxon-Spanglish  /UnifOn alfcbet/ ae aa q qr b p r  cr e A er d t l  cl i E ir D T m  cm o q o oa or g k n  cn w u ur v f ng u c R cr j f h oi O Ir z s w au I aur Z S y  Y Check the chart at the top of the page for key words	U3  Unifon II alt.  /yUnifOn alfcbet/ a o xr b p r  cr e A er d t l  cl i E ir D T m  cm o x or g k n  cn u U yU ur v f ng w c cr j C h oi O Ir z s W aw I awr Z S y  yu order=Ordcr, harbor=horbcr, army=ormE

 
 

	Unifon  /YnifOn alfcbet/ a o xr b p r  cr e A Ar d t l  cl i E Er D T m  cm o x Or g k n  cn C U Ur v f ng u c cr j K h Q O Ir z s w q I qR Z S y  Y I like Unifon's lazy U solution for schwa and hook. The use of o for [aa] is less satisfactory. pot is spelled pot but army is spelled ormy.  I see no need to abbreviate true difthongs such as aU and oi. see U2 below.  Below: pot is spelled pqt in GA and pot in Southern British.  army would be qrmy.
U2  Unifon II alt.  /yUnifOn alfcbet/ a o xr b p r  cr e A er d t l  cl i E ir D T m  cm o x or g k n  cn u U yU ur v f ng w c cr j C h oi O Ir z s W au I awr Z S y  yu This is the matrix for U2 suggested by Paul Stought See folkscrit and shortrit. pxt xrmy	U2  Unifon II  /UnifOn alfcbet/ a q qr b p r  cr e A er d t l  cl i E [y] ir D T m  cm q oQ o or g k n  cn v u [U] ur V f ng u c cr R j C h oi O Ir z s w au I aur Z S  Y y  U2 is a lowercase version of U1.  To be fully consistent aur would have to be changed to awr. au however is defined as a phonogram and can therefore have a sound slightly different from the sounds of the individual letters.
ANJeL tuN  /yUnifOn alfcbet/ a x xr b p r  cr e A er d t l  cl i E Er D T m  cm x X Xr g k n  cn U U yU kr v f ng m k Ur j C h b X Ir z s W d I dr Z S y  yk	Mapping of ANJeL onto IPA Sample Text 8 The ANJel notation has been optimized for video captions on television screens. Notice that there are no characters with descenders [gqpy] because the descenders are short, only one pixel wide, and almost invisible in video captions. The system represents 9 of the 12 pure vowels with unique characters. [aa, o, and o:] are merged into a single phoneme which is represented with an x. [Shwa and 3:] are both rerpresented with [r]. U is used for /^/ and shwa: [apple/ aPUL]. The diphthongs or vowel blends are all represented with a single letter. The most frequently used letters are displayed in upper case. The small u is not used. Instead m and k are used for the other U vowels. not used C

ANJeL - an upper case notation.

Chekt	Free	Difthongs	w.schwa	Short-chkt	Extended	Difthongs	R-endings
a	x	I	xr, Ir	aT	xLMZ (alms)	IZ (eyes)	xr (are) Ir (ire)
e	r	A	er	eLBX	HR (her)	AS (ace)	er (air)
i	E	b	ir, Er	iT (it)	EST (east)	bL (oil)	Er (ear)
x	x	X	Xr	xKS (ox)	CxT (caught)	XT (oat)	MXr (more)
m	k	Yk	kr	HmK (hook)	LkT (lute)	Yk (you)	PYkr (pure)
U	U	d	dr	UP (up)	UGX (ago)	dT (out)	dr (our)

apple/aPUL, church/crc, boil/BbL, vicious/VisUS, show her around/ sX Hr URdnD
ANJeL drops the two sizes of U on the basis that they can be confused.  However two sizes of X are used.

ANJeL Sample 8: SPeLn REFXRMrZ TiPiKLE WxNT Tk RIT Wih U DiKsUNerE PRUNUNSIAsUN GID Rahr haN TRUDisUNUL EnGLis SPeLin. hA WxNT U SPeLin SiSTUM Tk BE NiRLE 100% aLFUBeTiK iNSTeD UV 40%. EnGLis SPeLin iZ HarD BEKxZ her xR Tk MeNE XRhXGRaFiK xPsUNZ. 

à  è  ì  ò ù

ALC Fonetic  /fònetik alfàbet/ a aa ar b p r  er e ae air d t l i ee [i] eer th th m  m o au-aw or g k n uu oo-u oor v f ng u aeiou er er j ch h ie-i oe ier z s w ou-ow oi our zh sh yoo ue [i] used in unstressed medial positions he* taut the tot how to* sing yeers* ago*

uu looks like a long vowel.  It is short.  to and the two of a dozen word signs to be learned by rote.
[s - es] is a morphemic ending.  ice [ies] and eyes [ies] would be spelled the same.
Exception rules are required to make spelling predictable.  dual is spelled dueal.  evenchooal is evenchual.
pateeoe is spelled patio. justifie is spelled justifi.
 

U2  AmbigU2   /UnifOn alfcbet/ a q qr b p r  cr e A er d t l  cl i E ir x D T m  cm o o: Q or g k n  cn v U: ur v f ng c' x c Rr cr j C h I O Ir z s w au oi aur Z S y  U U3 ambiguiscript rit,  Ambigu2 o = awe or ah [Q or q] hI tQt Dc tot [tqt] hau to siN.

 
 

Rye/Kirshenbaum Spel /f@netik &lf@bet/ & ae a: a@ b p r  'r E ei E@ d t l  'l I i: ir ð D q T m  'm A O: o@ g k n  'n U u: u@ v f N V @ V": j ch h ai @U ai@ z s w au OI au@ zh sh y  yu Poolz sist@m iz olmoust aidentic@l tu Sp@nglish Paolz sistam iz olmoast aidentical tu Spanglish.

 
 

Pawl Duer's Interglish a ah ahr b p r  er e a; a:r d t l i e; ir th tz m o aw or g k n oo ou tour v f ng u aa, e er j ch h i; O i;r z s w ow oi aur zh sh y  u; o is amgibuous: ah or aw, aw in ow and or Interglish looks a little like digraphic version of U2. U2's  AEIOU = a; e; i; o; u; in Interglish hE tQt Dc tot [tqt] hau to siN. he; tawt thaa taht/tot how tou sing. how coud he; pout hiz trust in the krouk. she; waaz aabowt to sit awn the sOfaa.

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/saundspel/files/Kelley%20Files/1st_alphabets.gif

à  è  ì  ò ù

Inglish  /fònetik alfàbet/ a aa ar b p r  -r e ai ay air d t l i ee [i] eer th th m -m o au-aw or g k n  -n uu oo-u oor v f ng u u | a ur er j ch h oi oy oa o ier z s w ou-ow ie-i our zh sh yoo u [i] used in unstressed medial positions he* taut the tot how to* sing yeers* ago*

uu looks like a long vowel.  It is short.  to and the two of a dozen word signs to be learned by rote.
[s - es] is a morphemic ending.  ice [ies] and eyes [ies] would be spelled the same.
Exception rules are required to make spelling predictable.  dual is spelled dueal.  evenchooal is evenchual.
pateeoe is spelled patio. justifie is spelled justifi.
 
 

As long as there is a value in each phoneme cell, the notation is sufficient.
About all one can do is point out the spellings that look odd or which are at odds with some other spelling standard. sThere may be some rules associated with interglish to convert thaa into the.

 er (also     er         inner   (iner),   color   (kuler),   church
 ar, ir, or,             (cherch),  dollar  (doler),   girl  (gerl),
 our, ur, yr)            martyr  (mahrter),  murder  (merder),  turn (tern) 

aa in about [aabowt], 

The graphic above is a very compact version of the chart below.
The color codes are gray=unstressfned vowels [a & y]
teal - 7 long vowels and syllabics
beige - 6 short vowels
yellow - 8 voiced consonants
green - 3 diphthongs 
green - 8 unvoiced consonants
gray - ng [always after a vowel]  h [always before a vowel]

urr and er are merged , urr is a primary long vowel, should merge er and schwa.

Purpose of this 8x6 chart.  These are the sounds of English. 
Any new orthography should have a letter that goes into each cell.
Some orthographyes will have the same letter in two or more cells to indicate a merger.
Here is EZ English
 

ipa - vowel diagram [Jones]

www.unifon.org/uni-suspend-belief.html

www.unifon.org/uni-suspend2-belief.html

singer-shadows

dual reader

british to american transcription

british culture link page

 

http://www.unifon.org/ar-red-w.gif

14-vowels-10notations.html

16 ipa vowels-gif  tense-lax listing

ipa-vowels-k.gif alt. notations

syllabics & semivowels

 

symbols for phonemes

unifont [download now]

unifon tables 

48 vowels and consonants in SS and IPA

48sax-fonograms.gif

Danny Review

DIALECT

A comparison of the southern and northern dialects 
of British English -  w = short u sound as in put and hook

Northern Pronunciation	w	w  as in put	u: as in hoop
word list	The words could, courier, and cushion are pronounced the same in both regions	different pronunciations mwd pwt rwsh thwding twch wwnder	different  pronunciations huuk buuk cuuk ruuk shuk tuuk
Southern Pronunciation	short u or w as in hook	L as in up	w
bush  bwsh butcher  bwt-	could courier cushion pudding put     pwt wolf   wulf	mud  putt rush thudding touch wonder	hook book cook rook shook took

Those speaking the northern dialect would pronounce put and putt the same.
If people wrote the way they spoke, I wwnder hau yu cuuk mwd paiz would 
be the northern pronunciation of ai wunnder hau yu cwk mudd paiz.
Dialect written in Spanglish pronunciation guide spelling.
 

SBS [southern british standard] compared to GA [General American] or AmE

ae	a:	a:[r]	aa	o	o
cat man lamp traffic	after path past dance	card farm far spar	balm calm father spa	bomb drop wad holly	across coffee moral dog
ae	ae	a:r	aa	aa	awe

D I A L E C T  D I F F E R E N C E S

Contrasting British & American English Pronunciation            TO     SAMPA/IPA        U2     TRUE    SS   [Spanglish] Q   Q     pot     pQt    (Br.)   pQt    paut    pQt  usually amb. [pot] q   A     pot     pAt    (Am.)   pqt    paat    pott or paat E   i:    easy    i:zi   (Br.)   Ezy    eezee   iezy E   i     ease    iz     (Am.)   Ez     eez     iez ei  eI    raise   reIz   (Br.)   reiz   ---     reiz  [diphthongal] A   e     raise   rez    (Am.)   rAz    raez    reiz  [monothongal] u:  u:    lose    lu:z   (Br.)   luz    ---     luuz u   u     lose    luz    (Am.)   luz    luez    luuz cu  @U    nose    n@Uz   (Br.)   ncuz   nu-ooz  na-uz O   o     nose    noz    (Am.)   nOz    noez    noaz  O   o     rows    roz            rOz    roez    rowz*  sing. ro O   o     rose    roz            rOz    roez    roaz o:  O:    cause   kO:z   (Br.)   ko:z   ---     cawz o   O     cause   kOz    (Am.)   koz    kauz    coz Combinations @ and @r R   3:    furs    f3:z   (Br.)   fRz    ---     faaz Rr  3`    furs    f3`z   (Am.)   fRrz   ferz    furrz c   @     corner  "kO:n@ (Br.)   kornc  kaunu   caona cr  @`    corner  "kOrn@`(Am.)   korncr korner  corner q:  A:    stars   stA:z  (Br.)   stq:z  staaz   staaz q   A`    stars   stA`z  (Am.)   stqrz  staarz  staarz ic  I@    fears   fI@z   (Br.)   ficz   fi-uz   fiaz ir  I@`   fears   fI@`z  (Am.)   firz   firz    firz ec  e@    stairs  ste@z  (Br.)   stecz  ste-uz  steaz er  e@`   stairs  ste@`z (Am.)   sterz  stairz  steirz Uc  jU@   cures   kjU@z  (Br.)   kUcz   kyoowuz cyuaz Ur  jU@`  cures   kjU@`z (Am.)   kUr    kyoorz  cyurz

 
Dialect defined:  One of the varieties of a langauge arising from local or regional speech peculiarities such as pronunciation, stress, grammar, vocabulary, and ideom. The word was first used in 1577 and was derived from the Latin dialectus [way of speaking].  Dialects can become languages:  Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, French, and Rumanian began life as regional dialects of Latin.
 

Dialect Differences SBS [southern british standard] [green] compared to GA [General American] or AmE [red]                   paath vs. paeth,  daans vs. daens,  caad vs. caard,  drawp vs. draap,    RP ae         a:        a:[r]       aa         o [Q]         o   cat         after      card        balm        bomb        across   man         path       farm        calm        drop        coffee   lamp        past       far         father      wad         moral   traffic     dance      spar        spa         holly       dog  GA ae         ae         a:r         aa          aa          awe [o:] The first column has words that are pronounced the same in the two dialects of English.  Words in the second column are pronounced [ah] by speakers in mid and southern Britain and [ae as in at] by Americans. Words in the 4th column are pronounced the same.  Those in the 5th and 6th columns are not.  o refers to a short awe sound. Turned c in IPA.  In the U.S., Texans will pronounced daag as dawg. The British pronunciation is between these two and shorter.

 
 

48 Saxon phonograms at saundspel

    MINIMUM PHONEME SET FOR ENGLISH - after Daniel Jones and Grimson, UC, L

SAMPA K  SS      KEYWORD   SAMPA     ENGLIK     SPANGLISH     TRUESPEL UNIFON
                                               stres  unstr             U2

  I   I   i.      pit       pIt       pit       pitt   pit     pit      pit 
  E   E   e.      pet       pEt       pet       pett   pet     pet      pet
  {   &   a. ae   pat       p{t p&t   paet      patt  paet    pat      pat
  A   A.  o. aa   pot       pAt       pot       pott   pat     paat     pqt
  Q   Q   o       pot       pQt       poot      pott   pot     paut     pQt 
  V   V   u.      cut       kVt       cat       cutt   cat     cut      cxt
  U   w   u       put       pUt       put       put    pwt     poot     pvt
 6 short

  i   i   i       easy      izI       iizi      iezy   y       eezee    Ezy
  e   e   e       raise     rez       reiz      reyz   e       raez     rAz
      A:  aa      alms      A:mz      aams      aams   a       aams     qms 
  u   u:  uu      lose      luz       luuz      luuz   luz     luez     lUz
  3`  V"  uur     furs      f3`z      fxrz      furrz  ferz    ferz   fcrz fR`z
  O   O:  o       cause     kOz       kooz      caoz   coz     cauz     coz cQz
12 pure

  @   @   a       allow     @"laU     alau      alau   lou    ullou     clau
  @`      er      corner   "kOrn@`    kornxr    corner cornr  korner    korncr
                  herder   "h3`d@`    hxxrdxr   hurrder her   herder    hxrdcr

  o   @U  oa      nose      noz       nouz      noaz   noz    noez      nOz

14 pure

  aI  AI  ai      rise      raIz      raiz      raiz   ..     riez      rIz
  OI  oi  oi      noise     nOIz      noiz      noiz   ..     noiz      nQz
  {U  &U  au aew  rouse     raUz      rauz      rauz [raewz]  rouz      rqz

18 with important compounds

  A@  A@  aar     are       A@        aar       aar           aar        xr
  I@  I@  ir      ear       I@         ir        ir           eer        Er
  E@  E@  err     air       E@         er        err   eir    air        er
  O@  O@  or      ore       O@         or        or           or         Or
21 with @ combinations

  {r  &r  arr     arrow     {rou       aerou     arro         airoe     ArO erO
cf. 43rye.gif
 

28 SEPTEMBER 2001
By TARA ROSS

Christchurch electronics pioneer Sir Angus Tait says New Zealand's economic
future is jeopardised by abysmal standards of literacy displayed by students
and university graduates.

At his insistence, the University of Canterbury Council, of which Sir Angus
is a member, passed a motion on Wednesday night directed to the Education
Minister, voicing concern at the accumulating evidence of the inadequate
literacy level of graduating high school students, and calling on the
Government for remedial action.

The founder of Tait Electronics, Sir Angus said he was dismayed at the poor
literacy level of his university-trained employees, who had a "black hole"
when it came to matters of grammar.

"I've squirmed at the things I've seen written under the company
letterhead," he said. Punctuation, grammar, spelling, and sentence
construction were all skills that seemed to be falling by the wayside.

It was time to speak up and say that something was obviously amiss in New
Zealand's education system, he said.

Expanding on his comments yesterday, Sir Angus said he had long railed
against falling literacy standards and his strong stand was sparked in part
by a recent damning select committee report.

"If we're ever going to climb out of the mess, we'd better fix some of the
fundamentals, and I think the educational standard as established in the
early years of education is one of the prime targets," he said.

University of Canterbury Students Association head Jarrod Gilbert agreed
that standards of literacy attained by students coming to university were
poor.

"It is bad," he said. "I've tutored and the point is well made but
nevertheless I would question just how important these skills are now in a
computer age. Look at text messaging. Look at emails. As long as you can
communicate, arguably does it matter how you do that?"

Mr Gilbert said it was easy to criticise but people had to keep in mind the
"vast breadth of knowledge that students now get as compared to 20 years ago
when literacy was the standard test".

Sir Angus' distress struck a chord with other employers in the region.

Speaking yesterday from a meeting at which 100 Canterbury manufacturers
thrashed out their concerns about skill shortages, Canterbury Employers'
Chamber of Commerce chief executive Peter Townsend said the lack of basic
communication skills had to be addressed for the sake of business
productivity.

Invensys South Island manager Bruce Grant said the spelling of technicians
in his industry was "dreadful".

"I've had job sheets coming through today with leak spelt leek," he said.

"I see that constantly. They can't write letters and they can't write
reports."

Mr Grant said such poor literacy skills meant those employees could never be
promoted into administrative roles.

Cameron Moore, president of the Canterbury Manufacturers Association, said
today's graduates brought additional technological skills, which were
valuable, but were falling short in their basic arithmetic and writing.

"I shouldn't have to correct or vet the letters my university graduates
write, but when it's going out in my business name I can't trust what
they're doing," Mr Moore said. Manufacturers' concerns were not just with
graduates but with all employees, whose lack of basic skills was
"staggering".

"In a maths test of my workers we had an 80 per cent failure rate," Mr Moore
said.

At the Knowledge Wave conference last month, Reserve Bank Governor Don Brash
quoted a study that showed nearly half of the work-force in New Zealand
could not read well enough to work effectively in the modern economy.

Dean of Undergraduate Studies at Canterbury University John Freeman-Moir
cautioned that the claim that students were not up to it was made in every
generation but no-one had any way of knowing whether it was well-founded.

"There's no systematic evidence that has been gathered over time to
demonstrate it," he said.

Allan's response
 
 

Face, but preface, not efface. Phlegm, phlegmatic, ass, glass, bass. Large, but target, gin, give, verging, Ought, out, joust and scour, scourging. Ear, but earn and wear and tear Do not rhyme with here but ere. Seven is right, but so is even, Hyphen, roughen, nephew Stephen, Monkey, donkey, Turk and jerk, Ask, grasp, wasp, and cork and work. Pronunciation -- think of Psyche! Is a paling stout and spikey? Won't it make you lose your wits, Writing groats and saying grits? It's a dark abyss or tunnel: Strewn with stones, stowed, solace, gunwale, Islington and Isle of Wight, Housewife, verdict and indict. Finally, which rhymes with enough -- Though, through, plough, or dough, or cough? Hiccough has the sound of cup. My advice is to give up!!!

face preffas eface flem flegmatic ass large target jin giv awt, joust, scour ear ern ware tare

feis preffas efais flem flegmatic ass/aes larj taarget jin giv verj awt, out, scour, scerj ir, ern/urrn, wear/weir/werr

 

Rules and Regularity in the Traditional Writing System
 
 

Each vowel letter is associated with a short, unstressed, and  long sound ltr Alternatives A  ask, ago, ah/are, out E  el, the, her, vein/ they I  it, unit, eel, aisle/ eye O  pot, son, awe, owe,oil U   hook, hup, hoop, use The a in ago is the default unstressed mid lax vowel vowel. [gray]  The vowels in Red words are short or checked, Blue words are free or long. Green words are diphthongs.

[image of a soft [melted] G] similar to a painting by Dali.  Gee, your going soft on me.
 Don't go soft on me!
Anytime I am next to a i I get soft and mushy.  Why don't U sit between me and E.
e.g. 'u' as a wall to stop 'g' from going soft:
guess, guide, guilt, guy, vague, rogue.
                    gin/gild         rage   ridge  gauge?

We don't need this any more because since 1500 we have had the J.
raje  rij  gaje  gaze

'd' as a wall to keep the vowel short:
badge, edge, bridge, lodge, judge.

't' as a wall for no reason at all:
catch, fetch, switch, Scotch, hutch.
exceptions: such, much, rich, which.

T also keeps the vowel short
catsh , the exceptions need it just as much
m
mach rich swich

This meens we keep the rule: cian for persons, ssion after short voul and tion in uther cases. 

Can captioning be used for literacy education?

• Adult Literacy: Captioned Videotapes And Word Recognition

(PhD Dissertation by Dr. Benjamin Rogner) 
• Abstract of dissertation, HTML document
• Full dissertation, ASCII text - "rogner.txt," 228,053 bytes
• Full dissertation, pkzipped - "rogner.zip," 56,182 bytes
• Closed Captions: An Untapped Resource in Combating Illiteracy, by Andrea Shettle of Gallaudet University

A Review of Research on the Educational Use of English Captioned Materials in Japan (by Toshikazu Kikuchi)

Most languages have 20 to 46 basic speech sounds, or phonemes, and  English  has 44 [24c+20v]. 

44 symbols are used in the traditional writing system to represent 25 consonants:  21 single letters + 23 digraphs and trigraphs.  The 23 combined symbol