johno@tekchips.UUCP (John Ollis) (03/21/85)
Can anyone tell me about work that has been done to rationalize
English?
The first area that I am particularly interested in is a phonetic
alphabet based on the present 26 letter alphabet. With all the existing
typewriters, printers and all the other equipment, it would seem nearly
impossible to convert to a different set of symbols, but we might be
able to rationalize their use to prevent the grade school spelling
torture I'm watching my kids go through.
The other real drawback of English is it's irregularity, a heritage
from its multi-lingual origins. Has anyone worked on "regularizing"
English?
Please respond by e-mail. I am willing to post and/or forward
responses as appropriate.
Thanks!
John Ollis
tektronix!tekchips!johnogh@utai.UUCP (Graeme Hirst) (03/26/85)
> Can anyone tell me about work that has been done to rationalize > English? The first area that I am particularly interested in is a phonetic > alphabet based on the present 26 letter alphabet. > John Ollis You seem to mean English spelling rather than English as a whole (and certainly English syntax is already very "rational" compared to most other Western languages). While English spelling could undoubtedly be "improved", a fully phonetic spelling is impossible. The great advantage of English spelling as it presently is is that it is the same all over the "English-speaking" world. If Americans (from the northern and southern states), the English, the Australians, and all the others all started spelling phonetically according to their local pronunciations, the result would be a big mess. If you a fairly standard North American English, you probably pronounce the words `don' and `dawn' essentially the same. If you spell them the same, you will confuse the Australian to whom the vowels are completely distinct. If the Australian spells `draw' and `drawer' the same (since to him/her they are homophones), how will you react? What about the Bostonian `park' and `pack'? The point is that since there is no standard English pronunciation, there can be no standard phonetic spelling. Any compromise would simply result in a different set of irrationalities. Graeme Hirst -- \\\\ Graeme Hirst University of Toronto Computer Science Department //// utcsri!utai!gh / gh.toronto@csnet-relay / 416-978-8747
nather@utastro.UUCP (Ed Nather) (03/29/85)
> The great advantage of English spelling as it presently is is that it is the > same all over the "English-speaking" world. > > Graeme Hirst > Just as the colour of aluminium is the same everywhere? -- Ed Nather Astronony Dept, U of Texas @ Austin {allegra,ihnp4}!{noao,ut-sally}!utastro!nather
jc@mit-athena.UUCP (John Chambers) (03/29/85)
[Ohboy, another spelling flame session, lemme at it...]
What's this about a phonetic spelling for English being
impossible? I saw several in assorted linguistics courses.
Of course, they do get a bit hard to read....
Oh, he didn't mean "phonetic"; he's one of those [adjective
deleted]s that doesn't distiguish "phonetic" from "phonemic".
Well, you see, phonetic writing systems are only of interest
to linguists trying to notate exactly the way a particular
speaker of a particular dialect spoke (on a particular day,
when in a particular frame of mind, and so on). They tend
to be very cluttered with funny little marks indicating the
exact way a phoneme was pronounced in each case. I mean,
phonetic English would have to have explicit marks for the
aspiration of all stops, although this is not a phonemically
significant feature of the utterance.
Ok, what we are really talking about is a phonemic system like
Spanish and Italian have, or maybe a morpho-phonemic system like
German, Russian and most other sensible language communities use.
Is there any problem with coming up with one in English? Yeah,
lots of them, and they're all political. There's no technical
problem at all. I've come up with several as class exercises.
I even did one using classical Hebrew symbols. (It worked quite
well.)
To start the ball rolling, I'll propose one that could be based
on ASCII characters. There is a problem, of course, in that we
have only 26 letters, and roughly three dozen phonemes, depending
on dialect. So obviously we use digraphs. It would be better if
we could use superposed diacriticals, but what can you do?
I'm going to use two marks (for reasons that may be obvious after
a little thought), '^' and '~'. Feel free to use any other marks
that you like. Using 'h' for '~' might be a good idea. I put them
after the letters, so things will come out right is sorted lists.
(The Esperantists like to put them before, but who am I to criticise?)
First, the consonants. English consonants can be organized roughly
as follows:
lab dnt alv ret vel phr
vd.stop b d g
vl.stop p t k
vd.affr c c~
vl.affr j~
vd.spir v d~ z z~
vl.spir f t~ s s~ h
vd.nas m n n~
vd.smiv w y l r
Note some funny things, like 'c' meaning 'ts', with 'c~' for 'tsh'.
Now for the vowels. They're a bit more confusing, because most
English-speaking people can't even define "vowel", and think that
many things are consonants when they're vowels. But here goes:
front mid back
st.high i^ u^ ["Strong" high vowels]
wk.high i u ["Weak" high vowels]
st.mid e^ o^
wk.mid e u~ o
low a^ a
Note that with one exception, I've used '~ to mark consonants
and '^' to mark vowels. This pattern will continue with the
"special" vowels that double as consonant sounds:
m^ n^ l^ r^
Dialect difference are to be handled in a straightforward manner,
by using the "superset" of phonemes that are distinguished in the
standard "generic" English, plus pronunciation rules that say how
each dialect maps the phonemic symbols into sounds. Thus, in my
native dialect (West Coast North American), the 'o' and 'a' sounds
are merged into one intermediate sound. But this doesn't change
the fact that the spelling system distinguishes them. I just have
to learn the spelling of the words that are homophones.
Some samples using this spelling system:
Su~m sa^mpl^z yu^zin~ d~is spelin~ sistm^:
Old Nu^
--- ---
cat ka^t
cot kat
caught kot
coat ko^t
curt kr^t
coot ku^t
word wr^d
weird wird
ward ward
warred ward [Du~z eni^wu~n pronawns d^i^z difrentli^?]
they d~e^ [or d~ey]
them d~em
this d~is
these d~i^z
think t~in~k [or t~ink]
button bu~tn^
bottom batm^
throttle t~ratl^
thirsty t~r^sti^
prince princ
prints prints [print + s]
grep grep
Isn't this fun? See how easy it is? Come on, let's hear some more
ideas from other linguists (amateurs or prose) on the network.
--
John Chambers [...!decvax!mit-athena]
If you're not part of the solution, then you're part of the precipitate.allen@osu-eddie.UUCP (John Allen) (04/02/85)
> > lab dnt alv ret vel phr > vd.stop b d g > vl.stop p t k > vd.affr c c~ > vl.affr j~ > vd.spir v d~ z z~ > vl.spir f t~ s s~ h > vd.nas m n n~ > vd.smiv w y l r The vast majority of English dialects have alveolar 'd', 't', and 'n', not dental. In any case 'y' is never a dental. It is a palatal. I am surprised to find that there is an English dialect that does have dental stops. Alveo-palatal or palato-alveolar are better terms for the consonants listed than retroflex (except for the 'r' of course.) > Note some funny things, like 'c' meaning 'ts', with 'c~' for 'tsh'. > prince princ Most dialects of English do not have this as a phoneme. The only places where the sequence 'ts' occurs are a) with a syllable boundary between them b) with a morpheme boundary between them c) after a nasal (because the cluster 'ns' is moderately difficult to say) In none of these cases is the 'c' a phoneme. However, the dialects that do have these as phonemes (possibly Liverpool English or Scots English) use it where other dialects use 't'. (Often 'c' alternates with 't' or 'c~'. I am not sure which one is considered basic.) tip cip (As in 'tipping a waitress') John Allen allen@osu-cisvax