CONVERTER
www.unifon.org/convert.htmA quick and delightful way to introduce reading
and writing by starting with a dictionary key
Contents:
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nO betc wA tU introdUs alfubetikul rItiN To view downloadfont
There is probably no better way to introduce a group of six year olds to the wonders of alphabetical writing than by teaching them a dictionary key first. One way to do this is to give them the 40 symbol Unifon code. In a dictionary key, words that rhyme are spelled the same. nOz = no's, nose, knows. No books are necessary since kids write their own messages and read the messages written by their peers. Some kids pick up the code in 5 minutes. They are paired with those who have some initial difficulties. By 3 weeks everyone is writing and reading code. By 3 months, everyone has over-learned the code to the point where they can read aloud a newspaper article transcribed in Unifon and encode any word they can pronounce. Code literacy in a simple code is the quickest route to literacy in a complex code. The bicodal route actually accelerates literacy.
*Literacy is reading coded text with the same level of understanding as when that text is read aloud to you.
Unifon
is not a proposed spelling reform. It is just a simple
dictionary
key that can be mastered quickly. If you want to accelerate
the
teaching of literacy, just stick with
something close to a dictionary key. Mastery of the Unifon code
instills a high level of phonemic
awareness . PA makes learning
polyvalent codes easier. Eventually, most children will learn 1000 word-signs and only use their PA to sound out unfamiliar words. It takes over ten times as long to learn 4000 word-signs as it does to learn 40 sound signs in an alphabet. Traditional written English is a mix of largely incompatible alphabets. By learning 4 spelling patterns per sound, however, you can decipher about 85% of the words in the dictionary.
Those who advocate upating English spelling think that inconsistent spelling accounts for these problems:
• A quarter of
English-speaking children cannot read properly by age 11
About 25% are reading at a 3rd grade level or below in the 5th grade.
• Around 7 million adults in the UK and 40 million in the US are functionally illiterate
• Nearly half of all English speakers have spelling problems
Unifon
can get most children reading at a 3rd grade level by the 2nd year of
instruction. The percentage that are reading traditional text
proficiently by the 3rd year of school is not fully documented.
About 25% are reading at a 3rd grade level or below in the 5th grade.
• Around 7 million adults in the UK and 40 million in the US are functionally illiterate
• Nearly half of all English speakers have spelling problems
The only sure way to spell correctly is to memorize the dictionary. Unifon taught children can spell the dictionary key. They cannot do much better than their peers at matching the traditional spelling. Spelling proficiency should probably be defined as using one of the 4 dominant spelling patterns. This much is teachable.
Nearly all Italian children learn to read in a few months and can write and spell well after just 2 years at school. This is the benefit of a shallow orthography and having one consistent system of spelling.
This level of achievement can be duplicated in English with Unifon. Code literacy can and has been achieved by pre-school children in 3 months. Rapid mastery can probably be duplicated with any dictionary key or phonemic spelling but so far the Unifon method has been the only one shown to also accelerate traditional literacy. The Unifon method is to teach the 40 sound-symbol correspondences in a writing to read program.
Click here if you have not installed the Unifonts
Learning to read English is difficult because it has too many contradictory spellings
English has around 4 different spelling patterns associated with each phoneme (see 5. polyvalence)
85% of the words in the dictionary follow one of four dominant spelling patterns. 15% are unique.
The SSS house stile spellings are shown in small print. HS reduces but does not eliminate irregularity.
| go - do go - du gO dU home - come * -cum hOm kum stone - gone * - gaun stOn gon count - country * - cun kqnt kuntrE mouth - youth * - youth mqT yUT condone - anemone bison - prison |
here - there - were eer
are er hir Der wc hero - heron * - herron hErO herun combine - engine * - engin kumbIn enjin five - give * - giv fIv giv earth - hearth * - erth - harth cT harT heave - heaven heev - hevven bomb - tomb - comb |
came - camera * - cammera kAm kamcru cater - caterpillar * - catter... kAter katcpilc later - lateral * - latteral lAtc latcul plane - planet * - plannet plAn planut cloth - both *clauth? - bothe? kloT bOT donkey - monkey daunky-mun treat - great treet grate |
callous - calling kalus kxliN clamber - chamber klamc KAmbc swam - swamp swam swomp herring - erring heriN ciN petty - pretty * - pritty petI pritI limber - climber * -climer plinth - ninth * - nineth? |
Learning to write English is even harder
because almost all English spelling patterns have some exceptions
| ham - salmon ham samun taxi - accent taksI aksent capable - visible sit - system - cistern need - knee |
pause - pawn pxz pxn lotion - ocean lOSun OSun gap - ghastly cart - heart musician - gentian |
due - few dU/dY fU pet - threat pet Tret alms - bombs monetary-cemetery pot - what |
film - photo film fOtO oil - oyster Ql Qstc facial - palatial get - guess care - air |
(more word pairs) better - grammar bag - league ten - gone vicious - luscious
mum - some her - fur bitten - button jet - gem ripe - write cautious - anxious
put - foot for - more essence - balance agent - subject car - are act - debt
mate - wait play - they dual - fuel hand - whole send - centre separate - acrobat
bite - bright dinky - monkey wrestle - vessel carrot - karate face - base revel - revving
bone - loan fly - high decide - divide kept - chemistry mattress - notice willow - whinge
duty - beauty go - slow inspire - enquire rock - trek shop - sure, chute zip - xylophone
seen - lean now - bough dusk - disc passion - ration wise - size
fool - rule too - flew chip - cello rocket - occupy ignition - mission absorb - possess
out - doubt toy - buoy bond - blonde queen - choir mention - pension vision - azure
For a more complete list of heterographs, see Chris Upward's article at www.spellingsociety.org
Some English spelling rules have hundreds of exceptions
1. The -er ending pattern of mother, father, brother, sister has 140 exceptions: actor, grammar, sculptor ...
bruDc-NBC English, aktc gramc skulptc mAjc mInc SOfc
2. The ee pattern of seed is not used in at least 323 words: bead, beak, beam, chief, police, tedious, weird..
sEd bEd bEk bEm KEf pOlFEs tEdEus wEcd/wicd
3. Around 1000 ordinary words obey the basic rule of doubling a consonant after a short and stressed vowel:
cabbage, gallery, stammer, dilemma, sorry ; while another 1000 common words disobey this rule:
cabin, galaxy, camera, lemon, forest, or use doubled consonants for reasons which are
unrelated to keeping a stressed vowel short: abbreviate, allege, ammunition, arrive, correct.
3.
Around 1000 ordinary words obey the basic rule of doubling a consonant
after a short stressed vowel:
cabbage,
gallery, stammer, dilemma, sorry
kabij galcE stamc dilemu sorI
kabij galcE stamc dilemu sorI
Another
1000 common words disobey this rule--cabin,
galaxy, camera, lemon, forest--or
use doubled consonants for reasons which are unrelated to keeping a
stressed vowel short:
kabin galaksE kamcu lemun fxrust
abbreviate,
allege, ammunition, arrive, correct.kabin galaksE kamcu lemun fxrust
ubrEviAt ulej amYnESun urIv kcekt
Phonemicity: English less than 50%, Spanish over 84%, Italian over 86%
There are at least 3500 commonly used English words which are spelt unpredictably
German has only about 800 irregularly spelt words, Spanish 600 and Italian fewer than 400.
That's why Italian spelling can be learnt quickly while learning to spell English takes a long time and is never completely mastered by millions of learners. (Masha Bell, Understanding English Spelling, 2002)
Text to speechUnibot - the robot that only texts in Unifon
At some point in
the future, this will be a working texting robot. Now it's
just an idea.
You must download & install the Uni-fonts to be able to read the following.
Ynibot
- Du
rObot Dat OnlE teXts in YnifonYou must download & install the Uni-fonts to be able to read the following.
A meTud xr kumfctubul bEginiN fxr xl unlcrd werbI DA mA be txt tU rEd in A verI Sxrt tIm..
In 1500, John Hart described his augmented alphabet as . . .
A method or comfortable beginning for all unlearned whereby they may be taught to read in a very short time with pleasure.
(transcribed
below)
I think this sums up the
Unifon objective. Kids love to work
with their own code. They love to write messages and express themselves
in print. Unifon empowers them to do so at a very early age.
Most will be writing using an inventory of more than 4000 words already
in their
speech
vocabulary within three weeks. No other teaching method has
been demonstrated to yield such quick returns on the child's investment
of time and effort. Kids do not see Unifon as a laborsome
task or "drill and
kill". Its
fun. Memorize 40
sound signs & you're ready to go...
What is it that children pick
up from the Unifon experience?
In the literature it is called phonemic awareness. Since the traditional system is so polyvalent and inconsistent, over 30% of the kids do not discover that alphabetical writing is supposed to be a sequence of sound- signs. A word is represented by a series of sound signs and if the order of these sound-signs are changed, the pronunciation of the word will change. By converting the sound-signs in a word to speech sounds, it is possible to match written words with spoken words. After 3 months of practice with a dictionary key, children will be able to read a transcribed newspaper with the same understanding as when the newspaper is read to them. This is one definition of literacy. Whole word advocates stress understanding the meaning of text and think that decoding skills are a very small part of the quest for understanding. The issue is one of significance. Those supporting synthetic (or explicit) phonics instruction think that decoding skills are primary. Whole word advocates think they are incidental and often counterproductive.
| Updated Chart The Unifon Code The best chart to view is the IPA chart below but it requires you to know the International Phonetic Alphabet. This chart associates the letter with a key word;. ADD APE ALL BOW CHICK DO ELF EAT OTHER FOX HOT IN EYES a A x b K d e E c f h i I ad Ap xl bO Kik dU elf Et uDc foks hot in Iz ... in Unifon The large symbol in the chart is Unifon, the small character on the top right is the keyboard entry. The sample word is written in Unifon directly below the letter and then in tradspel (upper case0. |
Unifon symbol-sound
correspondence table. |
This graphic shows the 40
character augmented alphabet above the blackboard. The basic
difference is in the vowel count. There are 14 vowel sounds
or uncombined phonemes in English spoken English so you have to have a
consistent way to represent more than 5. Unifon represents
some of the combinations and/or diphthongs as unigrafs.The 16 Unifon vowels are probably the most difficult feature of the dictionary key. As shown in the chart below, they are not that difficult to master.
On the keyboard, the lower case letters aeiou are assigned to the short vowels. The taller uper case letters AEIOU are assigned to the so called "long vowels" or letter names. As shown in the chart below, two of the long vowels are actually combined vowels or diphthongs. All dipthongs are longer in duration than short vowels. The traditional long-short disction referenced by letter size takes care of all but 6 of the new vowels.
The IPA [A] and [A:] is assigned to [o]. This sound is not the same as the British short o [Q].
In Genereal American based Unifon, *father and *bother rime and are written foDc & boDc. In the special Unifont, foDc looks something like FOÐ3R foDc
*Spot [spAt] and *Spa [spA:] sound almost the same so both words start with spo.
*Are [A@` Ar], *Arson ['Ars@n], and Army ['Armi] are written or, orsun, and ormE.
This takes some getting used to since it conflicts with our over-learned sight word analogies.
*what [hwAt] is written *wot in Unifon. http://www.foolswisdom.com/~sbett/unifon-malone.htm
Read the following Unifon transcription. The two sentences contain all 16 vowels.
.pEtcz big red fAsd kat KAsd crlz otc dqn Du hxl.
.kqbQ mIk hQstud hiz tU mYlz qt uv Du mud.
Convert the following to keyboard Unifon:
Peter's big red faced cat chased Earl's otter down the hall.
Cowboy Mike hoisted his two mules out of the mud.
A sample transcription. Can you write it out in the traditional English code?
| Can you read
this? Unifon augments the familiar 23 character alphabet with 17 new sound-signs. Half of the new soundsigns are marginally familiar. |
 http://24.245.76.208/UFLookup/UFXLate.htm |
| What words
required a pause while you identified the sound spelling? Mail your problems to sbett@foolswisdom.com |
One viewer wrote: The inverted rounded A is proposed as an alternative to U for [V] and [@] U in an open vowel position is associated with [ü] as in zulu. |
In 1570, John Hart described his more phonemic augmeted alphabe as:
A method or comfortable beginning for all unlearned whereby they may be taught to read in a very short time with pleasure. Line 73 Install the font to read in Unifon rather than the keys used to enter the phonemic code. Without the font, you see the keyboard entry system,, not the all uppercase font: Unifon K (comic sans) and Unifon F (Franklin sans serif)
A meTud
xr kumfctubul bEginiN fxr
xl unlcnd werbI DA mA
bE txt tU rEd in A
verE Sxrt
tIm wiD pleZc.
Unifon
is a phonemic
transcription system for NBC broadcast English
DRAFT:
The scheme was developed in the 1950's by economist, John Malone. In the 1960's it was successfully used as an initial teaching alphabet or ILM (Initial Learning Medium). Malone's explicit phonics approach combined with writing to read (WTR), proved to be more effective than the transcribed basal reader used with Pitman's i/t/a.
Unifon was overlearned in 3 months. Pitman's i/t/a was underlearned in 2 years. Unifon actually accelerated traditional literacy. Pitman's i/t/a classes moved twice as fast as those using a traditional reader. It accelerated code literacy but not traditional literacy.
Altho i/t/a students made rapid progress in their transcribed readers, Unifon students achieved code literacy much faster than Pitman's i/t/a students. The difference was the teaching method. Unifon students follow an explicit phonics route learning and using the 40 sound-symbol correspondences first.
Since 2000, the www.unifon.org development group has added digital fonts and a text converter/ The converter or transliterator is based on the CMU Speech Dept. pronouncing dictionary. Unifon was originally keyed to the pronunciation guide found in the Thorndike-Barnhart dictionary. Unlike the TB Dictionary, Unifon does not have a true schwa. It only has a "schwer" or schwa+ r. This symbol represents both the stressed and unstressed <ur> sound: /3^/ and /&^/. *Surfer = /'s3^-f&^/ = scfc = S3RF3R scfc
Can you read this? The story is supposed to contain all the phonemes of spoken English.
Unifon is isomorphic with the IPA character set for English with 2 exceptions. Since there is no unattached schwa in Unifon, the stressed and unstressed <uh> are both mapped to U. The stressed and unstressed <ur/er>, distinct phonemes in IPA, are mapped to a lower case <c> which now produces a ligatured <3R> symbol. Unifon has a single symbol for the two IPA phonemes and two symbols for two IPA phoneme combinations. Unifon has a single symbol for some diphthongs and combinations.
Learning how to type in Unifon
is not that difficult. It is one of the easiest
phonetic
entry system around. Whether or not it is easier to transition from
Unifon to traditional spelling has yet to be determined. K to
ch does not seem to be an easy transition. c to ER or UR does
not seem to be that obvious either. The i/t/a used a
ligatured or connected Ch as the symbol. The connection was so close
that no transition was required. O to toe, tow, toad, etc. is
probably simpler than oe:.toe, toe, toed,
"Show me your shoes" is
in Unifon and "Shoe mee yur shooz" in i/t/a. Alternate: SO mE yc SUz
The book cover for scortched
earth (on the right) has to be redone because of the
modification in the sound- symbol assignments in 2005. The old Unifon-IPA chart is at www.foolswisdom.com/~sbett/uni-ipa-kb-old.gif
This chart assigned c to schwa [3] and used the mirrored E symbol [3] to represent AH0 and IH0 in the CMU Dictionary.
[c] is now a ligatured 3R assigned to c. Previously two keys had to be typed to display this sound sign (cR).
This change makes the Unifon font compatible with the CMU Pronunciation Dictionary (URL). ER0 and ER1 = c.
There are about 5 digital versions of Unifon. Only two have been updated. These two are the official fonts for the Website and the discussion group.
Up until the 2005, when the new fonts became available, the Unifon converter had interpreted the turned E as a schwa. This was necessary in order to make use of the Carnegie Mellon University pronunciation dictionary. When the syllabic R symbol was created and assigned to c, an orthography that was very close to classical Unifon which was also compatible with the CMU phonemes became possible.
Download& install the Uni-fonts: Komic Unifon and Franklin. These are the two official fonts used in the Unifon development group. To read the archive of past discussions, go to http://groups.yahoo.com/group/unifon
What are Vowels?
Pronunciation: 'vau(-&)l Function: noun
Etymology: Middle English, from Middle French vouel, from Latin vocalis -- more at VOCALIC
1 : one of a class of speech sounds in the articulation of which the oral part of the breath channel is not blocked and is not constricted enough to cause audible friction; broadly : the one most prominent sound in a syllable
2 : a letter or other symbol representing a vowel -- usually used in English of a, e, i, o, u, and sometimes y
In the initial position, y is usually a consonant. In other positions, it is usually a vowel.
In
this vowel chart the 14 pure vowels are listed in the first two columns
in the yellow and orange cells. Two of the pedagogical long
vowels are actually diphthongs or combinations. a as in bad bad a as in ape Ap
e and in bed bed e as in eel El
i as in bid bid i as in eye I bought bxt
o as in body bodE o as in bother boDc are or
turned-u as in book bCk o as in oat Ot oat Ql
u as in bud bud u as in use Yz canoe kunU
u as in abode ubOd ubOd ur as in urge cj
As shown on the last two rows, the same symbol is used for the stressed and unstressed
uh and the stressed and unstressed uhr. In Unifon, stressed and unstressed vowels are merged.
In the table, unstressed vowels are shown in white boxes. Unifon does not distingiush them.
The short stressed checked vowels (yellow cells) are always follwed by a consonant.
The short unstressed schwa along with the short unstressed /i/ are the only exception.
Unifon uses u for schwa, the terminal sound in sofa, and E for /i/, the terminal sound in very.
To learn tradtional English, it is necessary to move from one symbol per sound to four symbols per sound. There are only 128 symbols and 4 times 40 = 160 so it is clear that many symbols overlap. On the average each of the 128 symbols represents 2 sounds.
Go to Unifon-Polyvalence for a full set of links
Links
- Polyvalence - Unifon version (continuation of this page)
- Chronology of spelling
- spelling-patterns.htm
- Unifon-Malone.htm
- Unifon-intro.htm
- literacy-strategy.htm
- Hotsuma - (Gettysberg address) http://www.foolswisdom.com/~sbett/hotsuma-gettysbrg80.jpg
- Lunar Mansions
(celestial houses of the 28 day moon cycle)
The theory is that this was the origin of our alphabetical order. - 70 Orton phonograms http://www.foolswisdom.com/~sbett/70phonograms.htm
- 128 THRASS graphophonemes. pictography.
