Post by Little Jack Horner on Jul 29, 2021 20:45:48 GMT
NEWSPEL
First of all, I am not advocating any revision of the spelling of the English language. I think that would be a complete nonstarter. On the other hand, the idea has provided me with some intellectual amusement during the last few weeks. I would like to share my thoughts and, perhaps, generate some reaction from members of this forum.
There are more than 40 phonemes in the English language so, in standardising spelling, the use of digraphs or diacritics is inevitable if one is to avoid letters with more than one pronunciation which is the essential purpose of spelling reform. I have adopted six requirements:
1. All spellings must be reproducible on standard qwerty keyboards including those on manual typewriters.
2. All characters including digraphs must only be pronounced in one way.
3. All phonemes must only be spelled one way.
4. Because of (1) above, diacritics are unacceptable.
5. All phonemes must be either a single letter or a single digraph.
6. Digraphs should be pronounced as in at least one common current usage (I have been unable to avoid one exception).
I take the view that writing, and hence spellings, should serve the spoken language and therefore I have made no attempt to consider regularising grammar or language usage. For example, the plural is sometimes pronounced with an S and sometimes with a Z. I have nothing to say about this.
Foreign words and proper nouns should retain their original spellings.
Pronunciation variation is beyond the scope of this attempt to revise spelling but it is recognised that some accents pronounce the same word in different ways. For example, one can consider the northern long A in date and the southern long AR in bath. Or the way in which some people from the south-east prefer to use an F rather than TH in a word like think. Some speakers would say ambience with a “posh French” pronunciation. I have tried to provide for what I consider to be “standard” (British) English or what some people might call the careful speech of the educated person. I do not intend to adjudicate between local or personal accents so there may well be more than one possible spelling for some particular words [see also note 1]. Without an English Language Academy, which I would abhor, I do not know how that problem can be resolved.
On the rare occasions where pronunciation might be confused by using a proposed digraph because the letters need to be pronounced separately, a hyphen should be inserted (e.g. cat-house, adult-hood) which is better than creating new symbols or recovering old ones like eth or thorn because these are not available on a standard qwerty keyboard.
Although I think that the system I am proposing would provide for all possible words, it has to be admitted that some would produce some rather ugly spellings and many common words would not be obviously intuitive. For example: “I would like to give it to you” becomes “y woud lyc tou giv it tou ioo” which, whilst not, I think difficult to master is at least discouragingly unattractive.
CONSONANTS
There are different 24 consonant sounds in English (including Gaelic CH as in loch) of which 17 are commonly represented by single letters leaving 7 that require digraphs.
b as in bat
c as in cat
d as in dog
f as in fox
g as in give
h as in happy
j as in jam
k (redundant)
l as in love
m as in mother
n as in needle
p as in party
q (redundant)
r as in red
s as in super
t as in top
v as in very
w as In wonderful
(x redundant)
(y redundant)
z as in zoo
Four letters k, q, x and y are redundant
There are seven additional consonants that require a digraph of which at least four are intuitive:
ch as in chip
sh as in ship
ng as in ring
th as TH in mother [note 4]
tk as TH in thin [note 4]
zh as in measure [note 1]
qh as CH in loch [note 3]
VOWELS
There are 14 simple vowel sounds in English of which 5 are:
a as in cap
e as in bed
i as in bit
o as in cot
u as in cup
Nine others can readily be represented digraphs:
ar as in charm, farm
ah as the A in path, bath, castle [note 2]
ee as in feet
ur as in turn, burn (and tern, firm, learn) [note 7]
er as in better, letter [note 7]
oo as in soon, room
or as in form, torn (and tour, dawn)
ou as in could, should (and foot, put)
ai as air in fair (and as ea as in pear) [note 5]
NB: the schwa sound is treated in notes 6 and 7
DIPHTHONGS
Diphthongs are a problem that isn’t easily resolved but the following might be reasonably intuitive:
ay as a in pay, ray, fate, date
y as i in bite, fight [note 8]
oy as in boy, toy
ow as in brown, town
oa as o in boat, stoat
ew as u in few, stew
ea as in fear, near, rear [note 5]
NOTES
1. For leisure, a very careful speaker might say something like leziur (in newspel) but most people would elide this to lezher.
2. This is half way between the flat A of the North country and a fully rounded AR of the south country. It is more slightly rounded than the North country A and a bit less rounded down the south country AR.
3. I think only loch and lochan have been incorporated into English.
4. I have preferred th for the hard TH as in mother because the soft TH is less frequent. Consider, for example: the, that, this, then, another, mother, father, etc. But I can’t think of a satisfactory digraph for the soft TH (tk looks a bit like th).
5. This is a problem: it needs always to followed by R as is normal in present-day orthography)so it could be considered an unacceptable trigraph).
6. The schwa sound is usually said to be one of the most common sounds in the English language and it is surprising there is no letter for it. On the other hand, when it is used in current writing between two consonants it becomes almost redundant; for example, reason easily becomes reas’n. Other times, it is almost, but not quite, like the ER in better and more generally at the end of a word. Moreover, it is usefully intuitive so I keep it for clarity and to retain the comparative adjective usage. In the end, the schwa is scarcely ever needed other than for the definite article and even then only when followed by a consonant. My compromise is to use the apostrophe for schwa except at the end of a word. I think it works well except for the definite article, which is a pity because the is the most common word in the language. It could be abandoned altogether but its retention as proposed is, I think, helpful.
7. The “almost schwa” in better is shorter than the ER sound in burn so I have adopted it for customary clarity (and I think beter is better than betur).
8. The Y in yesterday readily becomes i with a following e — iesturday.
EGZAMP’L
Ower farther wich art in Heaven*,
Haload bee thy naym;
Thy kingd’m cum;
Thy wil bee dun,
On Earth* az it iz in Heaven*.
Giv us this day ower dayli bred
And forgiv uz ower trespasiz
Az wee forgiv them that trespas agenst uz:
And leed uz not intou temptaysh’n,
But diliver uz from eevil;
For thyn iz ther kingd’m,
Ther power and ther glori,
For ever and ever.
Armen.
*proper noun
First of all, I am not advocating any revision of the spelling of the English language. I think that would be a complete nonstarter. On the other hand, the idea has provided me with some intellectual amusement during the last few weeks. I would like to share my thoughts and, perhaps, generate some reaction from members of this forum.
There are more than 40 phonemes in the English language so, in standardising spelling, the use of digraphs or diacritics is inevitable if one is to avoid letters with more than one pronunciation which is the essential purpose of spelling reform. I have adopted six requirements:
1. All spellings must be reproducible on standard qwerty keyboards including those on manual typewriters.
2. All characters including digraphs must only be pronounced in one way.
3. All phonemes must only be spelled one way.
4. Because of (1) above, diacritics are unacceptable.
5. All phonemes must be either a single letter or a single digraph.
6. Digraphs should be pronounced as in at least one common current usage (I have been unable to avoid one exception).
I take the view that writing, and hence spellings, should serve the spoken language and therefore I have made no attempt to consider regularising grammar or language usage. For example, the plural is sometimes pronounced with an S and sometimes with a Z. I have nothing to say about this.
Foreign words and proper nouns should retain their original spellings.
Pronunciation variation is beyond the scope of this attempt to revise spelling but it is recognised that some accents pronounce the same word in different ways. For example, one can consider the northern long A in date and the southern long AR in bath. Or the way in which some people from the south-east prefer to use an F rather than TH in a word like think. Some speakers would say ambience with a “posh French” pronunciation. I have tried to provide for what I consider to be “standard” (British) English or what some people might call the careful speech of the educated person. I do not intend to adjudicate between local or personal accents so there may well be more than one possible spelling for some particular words [see also note 1]. Without an English Language Academy, which I would abhor, I do not know how that problem can be resolved.
On the rare occasions where pronunciation might be confused by using a proposed digraph because the letters need to be pronounced separately, a hyphen should be inserted (e.g. cat-house, adult-hood) which is better than creating new symbols or recovering old ones like eth or thorn because these are not available on a standard qwerty keyboard.
Although I think that the system I am proposing would provide for all possible words, it has to be admitted that some would produce some rather ugly spellings and many common words would not be obviously intuitive. For example: “I would like to give it to you” becomes “y woud lyc tou giv it tou ioo” which, whilst not, I think difficult to master is at least discouragingly unattractive.
CONSONANTS
There are different 24 consonant sounds in English (including Gaelic CH as in loch) of which 17 are commonly represented by single letters leaving 7 that require digraphs.
b as in bat
c as in cat
d as in dog
f as in fox
g as in give
h as in happy
j as in jam
k (redundant)
l as in love
m as in mother
n as in needle
p as in party
q (redundant)
r as in red
s as in super
t as in top
v as in very
w as In wonderful
(x redundant)
(y redundant)
z as in zoo
Four letters k, q, x and y are redundant
There are seven additional consonants that require a digraph of which at least four are intuitive:
ch as in chip
sh as in ship
ng as in ring
th as TH in mother [note 4]
tk as TH in thin [note 4]
zh as in measure [note 1]
qh as CH in loch [note 3]
VOWELS
There are 14 simple vowel sounds in English of which 5 are:
a as in cap
e as in bed
i as in bit
o as in cot
u as in cup
Nine others can readily be represented digraphs:
ar as in charm, farm
ah as the A in path, bath, castle [note 2]
ee as in feet
ur as in turn, burn (and tern, firm, learn) [note 7]
er as in better, letter [note 7]
oo as in soon, room
or as in form, torn (and tour, dawn)
ou as in could, should (and foot, put)
ai as air in fair (and as ea as in pear) [note 5]
NB: the schwa sound is treated in notes 6 and 7
DIPHTHONGS
Diphthongs are a problem that isn’t easily resolved but the following might be reasonably intuitive:
ay as a in pay, ray, fate, date
y as i in bite, fight [note 8]
oy as in boy, toy
ow as in brown, town
oa as o in boat, stoat
ew as u in few, stew
ea as in fear, near, rear [note 5]
NOTES
1. For leisure, a very careful speaker might say something like leziur (in newspel) but most people would elide this to lezher.
2. This is half way between the flat A of the North country and a fully rounded AR of the south country. It is more slightly rounded than the North country A and a bit less rounded down the south country AR.
3. I think only loch and lochan have been incorporated into English.
4. I have preferred th for the hard TH as in mother because the soft TH is less frequent. Consider, for example: the, that, this, then, another, mother, father, etc. But I can’t think of a satisfactory digraph for the soft TH (tk looks a bit like th).
5. This is a problem: it needs always to followed by R as is normal in present-day orthography)so it could be considered an unacceptable trigraph).
6. The schwa sound is usually said to be one of the most common sounds in the English language and it is surprising there is no letter for it. On the other hand, when it is used in current writing between two consonants it becomes almost redundant; for example, reason easily becomes reas’n. Other times, it is almost, but not quite, like the ER in better and more generally at the end of a word. Moreover, it is usefully intuitive so I keep it for clarity and to retain the comparative adjective usage. In the end, the schwa is scarcely ever needed other than for the definite article and even then only when followed by a consonant. My compromise is to use the apostrophe for schwa except at the end of a word. I think it works well except for the definite article, which is a pity because the is the most common word in the language. It could be abandoned altogether but its retention as proposed is, I think, helpful.
7. The “almost schwa” in better is shorter than the ER sound in burn so I have adopted it for customary clarity (and I think beter is better than betur).
8. The Y in yesterday readily becomes i with a following e — iesturday.
EGZAMP’L
Ower farther wich art in Heaven*,
Haload bee thy naym;
Thy kingd’m cum;
Thy wil bee dun,
On Earth* az it iz in Heaven*.
Giv us this day ower dayli bred
And forgiv uz ower trespasiz
Az wee forgiv them that trespas agenst uz:
And leed uz not intou temptaysh’n,
But diliver uz from eevil;
For thyn iz ther kingd’m,
Ther power and ther glori,
For ever and ever.
Armen.
*proper noun
