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A text converter changes ordinary written English into regularized English.  An on-line or digital dictionary will list the phonemic spelling of a single word.  A converter will do the same thing for blocks of text up to 500 words in length.  The new Unifon converter can handle up to 1000 words at one time.
  CONTENTS


Converters  - Enter plain text get back regularized text
The current crop of converters requires that the submitted words be correctly spelled.
It is possible to create a converter that will accept mildly misspelled words
but it has not been done yet. 

  IPA Converter [draft]  
Manchester - Converter for IPA, Soundspel, Cut Spelling, ...
http://www.ccl.umist.ac.uk/staff/toby/Reformed_Spelling_in_CALL/plaintext.html

Unifon Converter - 125,000 word CMU dictionary
http://www.unifon.org

Truespel i/t/a/ Converter - 60,000 word dictionary
http://www.foreignword.com/dictionary/truespel/transpel.htm

i/t/a/ Converter - under construction

DRE Wordplay Converter- under construction
http://www.wyrdplay.org/AlanBeale/keyboard.html
 

 Interspel    see also ozideas 

Interspel 

Comparison of Interspel with 'how people would like to spell'

My first spelling research began in 1973 when over 400 readers sent in 'how they would like to spell' a short story of 102 words. Its findings have been replicated many times since, although the research itself is somewhere in the garage, following many moves.

The composite spelling reproduced below is made of the most common preferences of 400 adult entries to a newspaper request for 'the spelling you would like' - although the spread of alternatives was wide.

Words and spelling conventions which were not respelt by more than half of the respondents (in italics) are left as they are - and show how common words can be blindly accepted. Words in in capitals are compatible with Speling=No-Traps apart from diacritic acsents. Quite a lot.

Caps match Interspel
Others were not suggested?


wuns apon A TIM THE BUTIFUL dorter OF A GRAT majishon WONTED MOR PERLS
TO poot AMUNG HER treshers. 'LOOK THRU THE SENTER OF THE MOON WEN IT
IS bloo,' SED HER muther IN ANSER TO HER kwestion. 'Yoo MIT FIND yor
hart's DEZIRE.' THE PRINSESS lafed becos shee DOUTED thees werds.
INSTED, shee yoozed HER imajinashun AND MUVED intoo THE FOTOGRAFY
BIZNES AND TUK pikchers OF THE LOONER SFERE IN culor. 'I perseev MOST
SERTANLY THAT IT ALMOST ALWAYS apeers holey WITE,' shee thort. Shee
ALSO FOUND THAT shee cud MAK ENUF MUNY IN eit MUNTHS TO bie HERSELf two ENORMUS hug new jooels TOO.'


This compares quite well with a collage made up of the most popular spellings for the story when two classes of children aged 9-12 took down dictation 'spelled as they would like to spell it'. Spellings and respellings in common are in italics.

Beautiful Princess Story in ten phonemic transcriptions

 

"Wuns UPON A TIM THE BUTIFUL DAUTER OF A GRATE magishan WONTED MOR
PERLS TO PUUT amung HER tresers. "Luk THRU THE SENTER OF THE MOON WEN
IT IS blue", SED HER muther IN ANSER TO HER QESTION. "Yu MITE FIND yor
hart's desier." THE PRINSESS laft becos sHE DOUTED thees werds. INSTED
SHE yoused HER imaginashin AND mooved intoo THE fotograffy BIZNES AND
TUK pichers OF THE loona sfear IN culur. "I PERSEVE MOST SERTENLY THAT
IT ALLMOST ALL WAYS apeers HOLY WITE," SHE thort. SHE allso FOUND THAT
SHE cuud MAKE ENUF MONY IN ate MUNTHS TO by HERSELF Too ENORMUS HUG NU jewls TOO."

Note both lots still leave punctuation, tho possessives are a problem. The children, still having lots of spelling lessons, are closer to conventional spellling, not seeing it may be silly. Children use the morfemic 's' for plurals and tenses, but are stil fonetic when it comes to participls -d/-t. ((check up to biznes))

I still have the entry of Guy, aged 5, to compare with the 'preferred spelling' of more experienced writers:

"Oens a pon a time the byootiFul dort of a grat mjishan wotid mor guls (graphic reversal of p and g. vy) to put umung her treshas. Look throo the sent of the moon wen it is blue sed her mother in asr to her cwesjan. Yoo mit find your hrts disia. The prinses laft becos she dawtid thes wrs. Insded she yoes her imajinashon moovd in to the ftografee bisnes and tooc picchrs of the loonar sfiar in colar. She thort she cod pseever cwit sutlee it Alwas Apiad whit. She arlsoo Fawd lat she Wos Abil to bi her self too inoormas huj ne eyols to."


Guy also uses the morfemic 's' for plurals and tenses. He is notably economical, and also still hears some speech sounds slightly difrently from older children and adults.

Guy also leaves out syllables in addition to the syllabics.  r =ar,er,ur,
i = long and short i.  a= ( @ æ eI ) treshas  [trezh'rz].  u = @ and V amung.


Converters  - Enter plain text get back regularized text
The current crop of converters requires that the submitted words be correctly spelled. It is possible to create a converter that will accept mildly misspelled words but it has not been done yet. 

  IPA Converter [draft]  
Manchester - Converter for IPA, Soundspel, Cut Spelling, ...
http://www.ccl.umist.ac.uk/staff/toby/Reformed_Spelling_in_CALL/plaintext.html

Unifon Converter - 125,000 word CMU dictionary
http://www.unifon.org

Truespel i/t/a/ Converter - 60,000 word dictionary
http://www.foreignword.com/dictionary/truespel/transpel.htm

i/t/a/ Converter - under construction

DRE Wordplay Converter- under construction
http://www.wyrdplay.org/AlanBeale/keyboard.html

  englis-short.htm 
qx for axe is not as good as axc for ah is not as good as q
The rationale for ENgliS is to get close to PMF where ah = c, and an open q = /ai/.  q sei nu boi go aut.

a 
ago
a q
axe qks
e
elefant
i
pin ill
o c
olive
u
up hull
w hVk 
hook
wool
aa ä ar
c ox car
A á ei-ey
ape they
E  é ie
eel very
Y ý ai
eye  isle
O ó ow
oat  old
U iu view
yule 
pure
W ü uu
pool
zuulu
er-er
murder
ow owl 
out cow
Ar eir err
air error
oy
oil boy
aw   or
tawt or
R  ur
urge urj
vr  jvry
tour, poor
b boot d dig D  the J dZ judge g  gag z  zip Z azure
p pedal t  tip T  thug C tS church k corner s  sip S ship
v valley ng  sing uthr m prizm y   yel Ew view ia  via
flag h  horse l   litl prizn wel wh hwer x ks extra

This table lists the 7 short vowels in
the first row.  These are the ENgliS
conventions with a shwa-a and asc-q
(or script a).  caeiouC in Unifon.

aP eL yL oLD vYU pwL
AP EL YL OLD VYU PWL

Should long vowels be sampafied?  Should A and O be both short and long?

i/t/a

Most correspondence tables are in more or less traditional alphabetical order.  The difference is that 10 additional vowels are included along with the missing digraphs [ch, sh, th, ng] and two new ones [th2 and zh].  

Pitman's i/t/a alphabet listed 44 sound-signs with the traditional Roman letters [less q, & x]  first. The 24 traditional letters were augmented with 20 new letterforms.  Pitman called his alphabet "Augmented Roman". These extra symbols were needed to uniquely represent the 40+ phonemes of English speech. 

The first new shapes were for the long vowels.  An e was added to the traditional vowel letters to distinguish the new symbols from the ones used to represent the short vowels.  The e is a common long vowel marker in the traditional alphabet as in eel, pie, toe  or  "fee fie foe fum".  In the traditional orthography,  the <e> is often separated by a consonant as in ape and use.   

The use of the e to distinguish long and short vowels was first suggested by Alexander Ellis, an Anglo-Saxonist who collaborated with Isaac Pitman on the development of the phonetic alphabet for English. He called his new orthography dimenuin.  The spelling society used the same idea for their reformed spelling which was dubbed "New Spelling".  Sir James' contribution was to create unigraphs or uniliterals by connection the e to the vowel letters.  These ligatured symbols simplified the visualization of the symbol as a single sound sign.

Redundant traditional letters q [kw] and x [ks] were dropped.   The ambiguous c was retained along with the k to represent the /k/ phoneme.  Various compromises were made in the new orthography to increase its traditional appearance in print.  This was, after all, a transitional alphabet.  This often resulted in having more than one way to spell a word but this was a great improvement over the traditional orthography which has over 14 ways to spell each speech sound.

42 i.t.a. sound signs

 i/t/a Alphabet
 42 phonograms
a
ad
ae
ape
au
taut
ar
ah-are
b
bee bib
ch
chek
d
did
e
elf
ee
eel
er /r
curb
f
fluf
g
gag
h
ha ha
i
in pin
ie
ies
j
juj
k/c
kaek
l
lul
m
mom
n
nun
ng
ring
o
odd
oe
oet oat
oi
oil boy
ou
out owl
or
or for
p
pop
r
roer
s
sis
sh
ship
t
tot
th
thug
w
wow
u
up hup
w
hook
oo
hoop
ue
hue
v
valve
w
wave
y
yell
z
zip
3
me3er

Missing: zess <mirror z>, and kee <c> which are redundant characters.

air and er are new.  er should include /r
due can be doo or due.  you can be ue or yoo.

I would like to apply for a $100 grant to digitize and distribute the i/t/a font.  How should I do this?
This would be the first step in providing an i/t/a text converter.  Teachers could take any story and cut and paste it into the converter.  They could then print out the text that had been converted or transcribed to i/t/a.



14 words: 

7 (long) Free vowels:  plus diphthong <I> and schwa <&>
alms, ape, urge, eye, awe, ago,   ooze, use
Amz   eIp  3rdZ  aI   O:   &'goU  u:z   ju:z [SAMPA]
ämz   áp   urj   í    aw   agó    úz?   yúz [Intrspl]

7 short (5 checked )vowels (two are free vowels)

Is this Interspel?

Alternative Spelling in Traditional Engish

 Alphabet 

/A:/ f{a}ther  foDcr SSA font
       
à ah
        fàther hûrah hûràh  [hurà]
/A:r/ c{ar}  or
       
àr eàr  eh+aar, or ee+aar?   éàr
        càr heàrt
/aI/ p{ie}  pI  pI
        aí aý eí eý i í Í íe uí uý ý ýe
        Saígon saýonara steín eýe diët fíne píe guíde buý flý dýe
/aIr/ f{ire} Ir Ir
        ír ýr  àir
        fíre pýre
/aU/ {ou}t
        ou ow
        out cow
/aUr/ {our) q
        our owr
        our dowry
/b/ {b}e
        b bb
        bé rubble
/D/ {th}en
        th
        then
/d/ {d}ie
        d dd ed
        díe add grabbed
/dZ/ {j}aw
        dj j
        adjectiv jaw
/E/ p{e}t
        â e ë eh
        âny pet dùët yeh
/Er/ t{err}ace
        air âr ayr èr eir err eyr
        air câre prayr vèry their terrâce sweyr
/eI/ b{ai}t
        á ai ay è èe ei ey
        ápe bait play fòrtè matinèe rein prey
/f/ {f}ee
        f ff ph
        fee buff phótó
/g/ {g}o
        g gg
        gó egg
/gZ/ lu{x}ury
        xj
        luxjury
/gz/ e{x}act
        ggs gs x
        eggs dògs exact
/h/ {h}eat
        h
        heat
/hw/ {wh}y
        wh
        whý
/I/ p{i}t
        a e(1) ê i o u y
        blockaj extréme prêtty pit recogníze minut myth
/Ir/ {irr}igate
        ear eer êr ìr ier irr yr
        ear beer hêre vìril pier irrigáte lyric
/i:/ or /i/ s{ee}
        aé e é ea ee éy ì ï ie y(2)
        antennaé múzeüm bé tea see monkéy rádìó aprécïáte brief silly
/j/ {y}ap
        y
        yap
/(j)u:/ p{u}ny
        éu éw ú úe
        éulojy néw púny cúe
/(j)Ur/ c{ure}
        éur úr
        Éurop cúre
/j@/ reg{u}lar
        ü ya ye yo
        regülar civilyan rezilyent canyon

/j@r/ acc{ur}ate
        ür yar yer yor
        accürat familyar lawyer behávyor
/k/ {k}ey
        c cc(3) ck cq k kh q
        cat occüpý lock lacqer kéy khróme ópáqe
/kS/ an{xi}ous
        xi xj
        anxiôus sexjùal
/ks/ a{x}
        cc(3) cks cs ks qs x xc
        accent tacks pics hawks mosqs ax except
/kw/ {qu}it
        cqu cw kw qu
        acquìesce cwizìne awkward quit
/l/ {l}ow
        l ll
        low pill
/m/ {m}e
        m mm
        mé hammer
/N/ {si}ng
        n(4) ng
        pink sing
/n/ {n}o
        kn(5) n nn
        knee no funny
/O:/ c{o}st
        au aw ò òa
        pauper lawn còst bròad
/OI/ v{oi}d
        oi oy
        void boy
/Or/ c{or}d
        aur òr oar orr òur
        laurel còrd oar horrid còurt
/oU/ s{o}da
        ó oa oe oh óu ów
        sóda goat toe oh sóul lów
/p/ {p}ea
        p pp
        pea apple
/Q/ or /A:/ l{o}ck
        o
        lock
/Qr/ h{orr}id (British English)
        ör orr
        förest horrid
/r/ {r}at
        r rr wr
(5)

        rat narrów wríte
/S/ {sh}ip
        c ci sci sh si sj ssi t ti
        aprécïáte glácier lusciôus ship mansion tisjùe passion negótïáte nátion
/s/ {s}ee
        c(3) ps(5) s sc ss
        city psýcké see scéne grass
/T/ {th}in
        th
        thin
/t/ {t}ie
        ed(6) t tt
        passed tíe button
/tS/ {ch}ip
        ch t tch tj
        chip celestïal match statjùe
/ts/ ra{ts}
        ts tts tz
        rats butts pìtza
/U/ p{u}t
        oo oû û
        hook coûd pût
/Ur/ p{oor}
        ewr oor oùr ùr ûr
        Jewry poor toùr matjùre gûrù
/u:/ fl{u}
        eu ew oó où ù ùe
        sleuth crew loót groùp flù blùe
/V/ c{u}p
        ô u
        wônder cup
/v/ {v}an
        v vv
        van savvy
/w/ {w}ind
        w
        wind
/Z/ colla{ge}
        jh zi zj
        colàjh vizion mezjur
/z/ {z}oo
        s(7) x(8) z zz
        rubs xýlophóne zoó buzz
/{/ p{a}t
        a ae
        pat laef
/{r/ m{arr}y
        är arr
        päradíse marry
/3`/ f{ur}
        er eûr ir ôr ur urr
        term saboteûr stir wôrd fur hurry
/@/ circ{u}s
        a â âi e ê ë i o ô ôu u y
        about furnâce pòrtrâit rivet congrêss quiët limit melody purpôse pòrôus circus anonymôus
/@l/ anim{al}
        al el il le ol ul
        animal camel pupil rattle symbol úseful
/@m/ pris{m}
        am em m om um
        madam system prizm blossom quòrum
/@n/ pard{on}
        âin an en in n on
        certâin húman specimen básin izn't pàrdon
/@r/ butt{er}
        ar er eûr ir or ôr re ur
        fòrward butter grandjeûr aspirin mótor fôrbid ácre Àrthur


Silent letters(5)
        e h k(before n) p(before s) w(before r)
        tíme aníhiláte knock psahm wrap


Rules for Regularized Spelling
 

  1. Unmàrked a, e, o and u àr pronounced az /I/ ónly in unstressed syllables.  Mâny Ênglish speakers àr not conciôusly awâre ov this pronuncìátion.
     
  2. y iz pronounced az /i/ ónly at the end ov a wôrd òr subwôrd.
  3. c iz /s/ befòre e, i òr y, and /k/ ôtherwíze.
  4. n reprezents /N/ ónly in the combinátions /Ng/ and /Nk/.
  5. The sílent-letter combinátions kn, ps and wr ocur ónly at the beginning ov a wôrd òr subwôrd.
  6. ed iz pronounced az /t/ ónly az a past tense màrker.  Quibbles about the pronuncìation ov wôrds lìke latter/ladder àr disregàrded.
  7. s iz pronounced az /z/ ónly at the end ov a wôrd òr subwôrd (az a plùral òr pozessiv màrker).

  8. x iz pronounced az /z/ ónly at the stàrt ov a wôrd òr subwôrd.

  9.  

 

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