Alternate Transcriptions altcrnct transkripScnz

This is one of several pages on Alternate Transcriptions on the Fools-wisdom server. The sheer number of possible ways to regularize English is one of the problems. Everyone who has thought about the subject agrees on the need for a phonemic spelling of the language that is easier to write than most existing dictionary guides but that is where agreement ends. Most of the proposals move English the English writing system from 7% phonemic to over 70% phonemic.

Can you read either of these transcriptions? stbett@yahoo.com

Unifon: schwa-c unstressed i [IH 0] is also transcribed as c: the bent i.

AnsiFansi an attempt to improve the typography by replacing the mixed caps with accented letters. This Latin 1 notation restores upper and lower case and has a schwa character that is not oversized.

Unifon - Tobytrans: mOst men, Evcn cn Tis kcmperctcvlE frE kuntrE, DrU mEr/mir igncrcns and mcstAk, or sO okycpId WiT Tc faktiScs kerz and/&nd sUpcrflUcslE kxrs lAbcrz uv lIf Tat its fIncr frUts kanct bE plukt bI Tem.

Altho this is supposed to be based on the same 125,000 word Carnegie-Mellon University dictionary, four words are missing. mir, and, sUpcrflUcslE, and bE. It seems unlikely that the high frequency words and and be would be left out. In the case of sUpcrflUcslE, superfluous and lee are in the dictionary.

Merriam-Webster [m-w.com] voiced th, unvoiced Th added in place of [th] and [th]. æáéíóúý

mOst men, Ev&n in this k&mper&tcvlE frE 'k&ntrE, Thrü mEr/mir ign&r&ns and m&stAk, är sO äky&pId with th& faktiS&s kerz and süperflü&slE kors lAb&rz &v lIf that its fIn&r früts kan&t be pl&kt bI them.

IPA-Unicode [this will not show up correctly until you change your browser encoding] To be accurate, a rotated r should be used at the end of super.
məʊst men, i:vən ən ðɪs kəmpeərətəvli fri: kʌntrɪ:, θru: mir
ɪgnərəns ænd məsteɪk, ɒ:r səʊ ɔkjəpaɪd wɪð ðə fæktɪʃəs keərz ænd su:pərflu:əsli kɔ:s leɪbərz ʌv laɪf ðæt ɪts faɪnər fru:ts kænət bi: plʌkt baɪ ðem.

IPA without the Icelandic crossed d, the Greek theta and turned c. schwa-& æüä

moUst men, i:v&n &n dhis k&mper&tivli fri: k^ntri, Thrü mir ign&r&ns aend m&steIk, a:r soU äkj&paId wid dh& faektiS&s kerz ænd sup&rflü&sli ko:s leIb&rz ^v laIf dhæt its faIn&r fru:ts kæn&t bi: pl^kt baI dhem.

Jolly schwa-script e [represented as &] grammatical d?

Moast men, eev&n in this k&mper&tilee free kuntree, throo mir/meer ign&r&ns and m&staik, ar soa ocy&paid with th& faktsh&s kairz and soop&rfloo&slee kors laib&rz &v lief that its fien&r froots can&t bee plucd bie them.

Logograms such as @ and & tend to be oversized in most variable width fonts. The convention only works with fixed width fonts such as Courier.

Moast men, eev&n in this k&mper&tilee free kuntree, throo mir/meer ign&r&ns and m&staik, ar soa ocy&paid with th& faktsh&s kairz and soop&rfloo&slee kors laib&rz &v lief that its fien&r froots can&t bee plucd bie them.

Merriam-Webster [m-w.com] voiced th, unvoiced Th added in place of [th] and [th].

mOst men, Ev&n in this k&mper&tcvlE frE 'k&ntrE, Thrü mEr/mir ign&r&ns and m&stAk, är sO äky&pId with th& faktiS&s kerz and süp&rflü&slE kors lAb&rz &v lIf that its fIn&r früts kan&t be pl&kt bI them.

About the only thing I would change in the above notation is [th] and the schwi y. Perhaps Y for I if the notation is to be displayed in variable width font. I is fine in Courier. What do you think? For a Latin 1 notation, is it about as good as it gets? Is the accented AEIOU better than the cap diacritic? Móst év&n vs. .mOst Ev&n The advantage of the accented long vowels is the recovery of the initial cap convention.

Tradspel: Most men , even in this comparatively free country , through mere
ignorance and mistake , are so occupied with the factitious cares and
superfluously coarse labors of life that its finer fruits cannot be plucked by them .
[A family of notations from Allan B.]
WLM schwa i, e, u, ... grammatical d or ed for /t/

Most men, eevn in dhis kmpeiritivly free kuntry, thrue mir ignerhns
and mistayk, ar so ahkyipied widh dhi faktixus keirz and sipurfluwusly
kors laybrz uv lief that itz fien'r fruetz kanaht bee plukd bie them.

IRM

Moest men, eevn in dhis kmpairativly free kuntry, thru mir ignerance
and mistaek, ar so okyupied widh dhe faktishus kairs and supurflu'usly
korce laebrs uv lief dhat its fiener fruets kannot be plukd bi dhem.

DRE

Móst men, éven in this comparrativly free côntry, thrù
mêre ignorance and mistáke, àr sò occúpíed with the
factitiôus câres and superflùôusly coarse lábors ôv
lífe that its fíner frùets cannot bé plucked bý them.

More transcriptions welcomed. I think Bob has one that I missed.

IPI: moste men, iven in dis comparali fri land, dru ignorans et eru, is so ocupit wid la factisio keres e superflusli cors laborus da livu dat its faina frutas can no bi pluket bai dem.

Spanglish: Mowst men ieven in this comparativly fri land, thru ignorans and errer, aar so ocupied with the factishas kerrz and superfluuasly cors leibers uv laif that its fainer fruuts cannot bi plukd bai them.

33d) In case the rule “final “er” and “y” ar automatically unstressed”
passes thru, we dont double after a single E if the consonant is followed by
“er” or “y”: ever, beter, energy, eny, bely.

The New York Times has a funny (funny-sad, not funny-haha) story about the impact of people's inability to spell when they try to buy or sell on eBay. Apparently there is a dedicated group of buyers who look for misspellings -- Compact (Compaq) computers or bycicles -- and are able to win auctions with low bids because so few other buyers find these goods for sale. The Times suggests what many teachers and professors already have observed: spell-checkers make people stupid. Jim Griffith, whose official title at eBay is dean of eBay education, teaches 40 to 50 seminars a year around the country. The most common question he gets is, "When will eBay get a spell checker?" His answer: "You go to a store called a bookstore, and you buy something called a dictionary."

I'd submit that this problem is going to get worse, and that online news sites should be addressing it by training their search tools to account for common misspellings.

Spel it Rite

There's a perception that proper English ain't as important as it used to be.

"Everyone's noticing bad spelling, and is it because we've become bad spellers or is it because the Internet's exposing us and we've been bad spellers all along?" asked Paige Kimble, the 1981 winner and director of the Scripps National Spelling Bee. "No one really knows."

Correct spelling was invented in 1755 with the publication of Johnson's Dictionary. The lexical standard was based mostly on the invented spellings of English writers of the previous 100 years and on presumed etymology.

<debt> was selected over OE det and Fr dette because it was mistakenly presumed to have come from Latin debitum.

Dictionary spelling was almost immediately adopted by printers who wanted a standard. By 1800 "correct" spelling was very important in England and the fad spread to the USA.

It is not fair to say that George Washington was a bad speller because he spelled in the free uninhibited way of most of his contemporaries.

Freespeling [see www.freespeling.com] was probably the norm in informal writing all along. English has about five high frequency spelling patterns for the 40 or so sounds of speech and freespelers use all of them.

The so called misspellings typically do not violate any orthographic rules and are analogous to other dictionary spellings for similar sounds. Freespelers are also prone to drop silent letters and double consonants.

Lol! I'm in the south and may speak with an accent and a little
slowly to a northerner, but I certainly say 'wasp' with an /o/ and
'hot' with an /o/! Dawg is the most commonly distorted word!

Reform
Jennifer would change ...

... the British spelling of words such as 'favour', 'humour', 'candour' etc. to the American spelling... pure Latin. I would also change the British 'traveller', 'chiselled', 'panelling' etc. spellings to the American spellings, because this makes the consonant-doubling rule more consistent. I would probably put the 'e' into 'wholly', 'duly', 'truly', 'awful' and 'argument' (wholely', 'duely' etc.) to bring them into line with the guideline about retaining silent 'e' before a suffix beginning with a consonant. I would choose one or other spelling for the 'proceed'/'precede' words so that we didn't have the 'proceed', 'succeed' vs. 'precede', 'recede', 'intercede' anomaly.

I'd agree with all of these changes, and would happily advocate them if
asked to (though I fear that, if I started using Jenny's third change -living in the USA means I already use the first and second - I'd quickly lose my job without a chance to raise any "arguement" in my favor.)

Somebody here (I forget who) made a good case for also re-spelling all
"gh" and "ugh" combinations. Jenny or anyone, what do you think about
that particular possibility?

David wrote: ... that is the possible loss of the visual relationship between words of the same family when stress shifts to another vowel judge justice judicial prejudice family familiar advertise advertisement

Sam wrote: It is good that you said "possible loss". Are port, porter and
portend in the same family? There is limited benefit to retaining visual relationships. Fast swift, rapid speedy, quick have no visual relationship, but they mean the same thing. It is easy to make a wrong assumption based on visual relationships.

A familiar word doesn't always have the same meaning; In 1943 I was
stationed in the New Hebrides Islands, now Vanuatu, where a very
small hospital was staffed by a French doctor and a couple of Italian
nuns, whose patients were natives. One of the nuns was nonplussed
was the doctor told her to give a seven-year-old girl a douch. In
French the word means a shower; in Italian it has its common meaning
in America.

If you don't know, you don't know. With that caveat, I accept that
visual relationship can have value.

> HISTORY OF SPELLING > THE NATURE AND STRUCTURE OF ENGLISH SPELLING > PRONUNCIATION GUIDES > WORLD ENGLISH > TEACHING ENGLISH, ESL > ACCELERATING LITERACY

verses, used for adult literacy teaching purposes, written by Valerie Yule <www.vicnet.net.au/~ozideas> for your amusement and entertainment.

Louis took his fiancée to the theatre Luey tuuk hiz feeansay tu dhuh theeater

and the ballet and a cabaret and a cafe and dhuh bahlay and a cab&ray and a caffay and a restaurant and a chalet and she lounged by the bureau eating éclairs and meringues and drinking champagne and cognac.

Hugh's naughty daughter caught a rough tough cough, so Hugh thought he ought to have brought her some dough, eight weights in a sleigh, and a bright light for the night, but he was taught not to laugh for he caught her cough too.

hUz nxtE dxtcr kxt c ruf tuf cxf sO hU Tot hE xt tU hav brxt hcr sum dO, At wAts in c slA, and c brIt lIt fOr Dc nIt, but hE wuz txt not tU laf fOr hE kxt hur kof tU.

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Alternate Transcriptions

ENgliS schwa-a .amqjan Da hcrtAks ov diplamqtik qtaSAz wen Da wind dEtqCaz Der fols mastqSaz	Soundspel Imajin the haartaeks of diplomatic atashaes when the wind ditaches thair faulse mustashes
Truespel marks stress Immajin thu haartaeks uv diplummatik uttachiz wen thu wind dittachiz thair fauls mustashiz	Lojicl Inglish schwa-eu Imajn th haartaeks ov diplomatik atashaez when th wind ditachiz ther fauls meustashiz
Webster schwa-ì ìmajìn ðì härtáks ûv diplòmatìc atìsház when ðì wind dìtachìz ther fôls mùstashìz	Franklin Fµnetik schwa-µ Imajµn ði hartêks ov diplµmatik atµSêz uen ði wind ditachµz ther fols mµstaShµz
Spanglish schwa-a shows stress Imajjan the haarteiks uv diplomattic aetasheiz wen the wind detatchaz therr fols mastáshaz	Simplified Inglish -g.boeree Imaj'n tha hartaiks ov diplomatic atashaiz when tha wind ditachiz ther fauls mustashiz
WLM schwa i, e, u, ... grammatical d or ed for /t/ Most men, eevn in dhis kmpeiritivly free kuntry, thrue mir ignerhns and mistayk, ar so ahkyipied widh dhi faktixus keirz and sipurfluwusly kors laybrz uv lief that itz fien'r fruetz kanaht bee plukd bie them.	IRM Moest men, eevn in dhis kmpairativly free kuntry, thru mir ignerance and mistaek, ar so okyupied widh dhe faktishus kairs and supurflu'usly korce laebrs uv lief dhat its fiener fruets kannot be plukd bi dhem.
Jolly schwa-script e [represented as &] grammatical d? Moast men, eev&n in this k&mper&tivlee free kuntree, throo mir/meer ign&r&ns and m&staik, ar soa ocy&paid with th& faktsh&s kairz and soop&rfloo&slee kors laib&rz &v lief that its fien&r froots can&t bee plucd bie them.	Jolly Keyboard Map MOst men, Ev&n in Dis k&mper&tivlE frE kuntrE, thrU mir/mEr ign&r&ns and m&stAk, ar sO ocy&pYd with th& faktsh&s kArz and sUp&rflU&slE kors lAb&rz &v lYf that its fYn&r frUts can&t bE plucd bY Dem. order the font