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Roman Phonetic
Alphabet for English Lyubomir Ivanov ( (Paper published in Contrastive Linguistics, XXXII, 2007, 2, pp. 50-64) Abstract The present work describes the underlying principles of the 2002 Basic
Roman Spelling of English [4] aimed at providing an alternative English
orthography for international usage. This has been developed by Lyubomir Ivanov,
who introduces here a new construction for that system, and proposes a
closely related Roman phonetic alphabet to be used for the pronunciation
respelling of English without special characters or diacritics. A comparison is made with Interspel [11], a system developed by Valerie Yule that
attempts to maximize the advantages and remove the disadvantages of
traditional spelling of English, to benefit learners, users and international
communication. 1. Re-Romanization Re-Romanization is to replace an orthographic system that uses the Roman
(Latin) alphabet for writing the words of a certain language by another
writing system that is different yet based on the same alphabet. Traditional orthographies are often
modified by reform proposals when the spelling of languages is perceived as
reflecting past stages of development rather than actual present day spoken
language. Traditional English
orthography (Traditional Spelling of English, TS) is an obvious such case of outdated spelling, which according
to some research impedes the acquisition of literacy and efficient reading
and spelling [10]. Systems like the 2002 Basic Roman Spelling of English (BR) [4]
seek to re-Romanize the spelling for the purposes of academic research and
education in general, both for native and non-native English speakers. In one such application, BR is adapted in
the present work to serve as a phonetic alphabet for the pronunciation
respelling of English. This new
phonetic alphabet has no diacritics, and unlike the International Phonetic
Alphabet [2] has no additional special characters. The BR orthographic system could be arrived at from various starting
points. One of these is the original
construction [4], which makes use of an intermediary Cyrillic phonetic
transcription of English words (possibly leaving the misleading impression
that BR was somehow associated with or influenced by Bulgarian phonetics or
orthography). Here we shall present
another construction of BR starting from scratch, which provides a better
introduction and explanation of the system. 2. Spelling Principles Our first step is to formulate and substantiate the small number of basic
principles that are inherent to the BR system. 2.1. Strict
Romanization Principle:
Use the basic Latin alphabet, with no additional characters or diacritics. Traditional English orthography essentially adheres to this principle
too, with minor exceptions involving loanwords from other languages. In the case of languages with Latin-based
orthography employing diacritics, the mass practice of modern electronic
communication (e-mail, instant messaging, short message service etc.)
overwhelmingly uses not the true alphabets but their corrupted versions
stripped from all diacritical marks and special characters. Therefore, it is only natural to keep this
felicitous advantage of English spelling, that it is e-communication
friendly. 2.2. Consistency
Principle: Use
single-valued spelling, with no phoneme rendered by two or more graphemes. In the orthodox English orthography one and the same phoneme is often spelled
differently in different words. For
instance, the consistency principle is extensively violated by the
multiple-valued rendering of the English phonemes /æ/, /e/, /eɪ/, /ɪ/, /i:/, /ɒ/, /aɪ/, /aʊ/, /oʊ/, /ə/, /u:/, /ɜ:/ respectively in: have, salmon; red,
jeopardy, says, guess; paper, rain, way, eight, break; big, damage, pretty, women, busy,
myth, build, marriage; feel, beach,
shield, perceive, key, people; tall, walk; nine, try, high, tie, height, buy,
bye, eye, aisle, sign; out, now; no, know, boat, soul, toe; ago, anthem, awesome,
iridium, mountain; mood, soup, jewel, true, lose,
fruit, through; firm, fern,
turn, worst, earth, err. This list can easily be extended, as vowels,
diphthongs, and consonants have multiple-valued grapheme presentation in
numerous other instances. In particular, the above examples demonstrate
that the short vowels /ɪ/ and /ɒ/ are presented in TS by more than one single
letter each, with as much as six single letters representing the former as in
‘big’, ‘damage’, ‘pretty’, ‘women’,
‘busy’, and ‘myth’. 2.3. Proportionality
Principle: Spell short
vowels by single letters; spell long vowels and diphthongs by digraphs. Orthodox English orthography defies the proportionality principle e.g. by
using ‘a’, ‘eigh’ and ‘aigh’
for /eɪ/ as in ‘paper’, ‘eight’ and ‘straight’; ‘e’ for /i:/ as in ‘delete’; ‘i’ for /aɪ/ as in ‘fine’; ‘o’ for /oʊ/ as in ‘no’; ‘u’ for /jʊ/ or /ju:/ as in ‘duty’ and ‘tune’; ‘y’ for /aɪ/ as in ‘by’; ‘ea’, ‘ai’,
‘ie’, ‘eo’, ‘ay’, ‘ue’ for /e/ as in ‘leather’, ‘said’, ‘friend’, ‘jeopardy’, ‘says’, ‘guess’; ‘oo’, ‘ou’ for /ʊ/ as in ‘book’, ‘should’; ‘ou’ and ‘oe’
for /ʌ/ as in ‘touch’, ‘does’; ‘ai’ and ‘ou’ for /ə/ as in ‘mountain’, ‘famous’; etc. It is worth mentioning the uniform
presentation by the same single letters of pairs of ‘short/long values’ of
vowels, such as the pairs /æ/-/eɪ/; /e/-/i:/; /ɪ/-/aɪ/; /ɒ/-/oʊ/; and /ʌ/-/jʊ/ (or -/ju:/) in ‘national/nation’,
‘serenity/serene’, ‘finish/final’, ‘posture/pose’,
and ‘study/student’. These
vowel alternations in stressed syllables have their origins in the Great
Vowel Shift of Early Modern English, “the pivotal process of Modern English
phonology” according to Chomsky and Obviously, there are three possible ways of
dealing with the Great Vowel Shift at orthography level. The first one would be to disregard it and
keep the pre-Shift (now dual) usage of the letters ‘a’, ‘e’, ‘i’, ‘o’, and ‘u’, thereby preserving the spelling
uniformity in relevant word families (such as the word pairs above) at the
expense of phonemicity. That is
precisely what the TS does. A technical advantage of this approach is
that the presentation of ‘long value’ vowels by single letters contributes to
the brevity of TS, i.e. the lower grapheme to phoneme ratio in TS texts. A second tactic – employed by Interspel [11] – would be to maintain the dual
usage for the five single vowel letters, but indicate long vowels when
necessary, especially for learners, with a diacritic, as in Interspel ‘national/nàtion’,
‘repetition/repèt’, ‘finish/fìnal’,
‘impotent/pòtent’, ‘study/stùdent’. This
approach, proposed for investigation by Valerie Yule, is discussed in greater
detail below. The third approach, prescribed by the
proportionality principle and adopted by BR, would be to explicate the vowel
shift by a corresponding spelling shift, to the effect of preserving
phonemicity at the expense of the abovementioned uniformity of word families’
spelling. 2.4. Context
Freeness Principle:
Spell diphthongs in accordance with the spelling of their components; spell
long vowels either as diphthongs or by doubling the letters spelling the
respective short vowels. In other words, ‘xy’ renders /αβ/ if and only if ‘x’ renders /α/, and ‘y’ renders /β/.
That is, whenever some letters ‘x’, ‘y’ represent respectively the
short vowels /α/ and /β/, then the digraph ‘xy’ represents the
diphthong /αβ/; also, ‘xx’ represents the long vowel /α:/.
And conversely, whenever the digraph ‘xy’
represents the diphthong /αβ/, then ‘x’ and ‘y’ should represent the
short vowels /α/ and /β/ respectively; and whenever ‘xx’ represents the long vowel /α:/, then ‘x’ should represent the short
vowel /α/. (We have used here ‘α’, ‘β’ to denote both short vowels and
related diphthong components.
Sometimes the IPA notation uses slightly different shapes for that
purpose, e.g. /ɪ/, /ə/, /ɒ/ but /i:/, /ɜ:/, /oʊ/, not /ɪ:/, /ə:/, /ɒʊ/, indicating that the respective
pairs differ not only in length but also in quality.) The principle stipulates that if we
represent say /ɒ/ by ‘o’ (as in ‘not’) and
/ʊ/ by ‘u’
(as in ‘put’), then we always do that including in the diphthong /oʊ/ which is always represented by ‘ou’ as in BR ‘nou’, ‘bout’,
‘soul’, ‘tou’ (TS ‘no’, ‘boat’, ‘soul’, ‘toe’). Unlike certain other languages or dialects
such as Estonian, Finnish, Dutch, German, Frisian or Lombard, the traditional English orthography does
not normally use double letters for the long vowels. The digraphs ‘ee’
and ‘oo’ are exceptions, and they represent /i:/, /u:/ and /ʊ/ (as in ‘feel’, ‘mood’ and ‘book’), not /e:/
and /ɔ:/ as it would have been the case if the context freeness principle
explained above were applied. In the case of digraphs used for diphthongs, TS violates the context freeness
principle e.g. by the use of ‘ai’, ‘ea’ for /eɪ/ in ‘main’, ‘break’. Indeed, the context freeness principle, and
‘ai’ representing /eɪ/ would have implied that ‘a’ represents
/e/ which is not the case. Besides, ‘ea’ representing /eɪ/ would have implied by the context
freeness principle that ‘a’ represents /ɪ/, which is not the case. Similarly, TS violates that principle by the use of ‘ie’, ‘ei’ for /aɪ/ in ‘tie’, ‘either’,
because ‘i’ and ‘e’ do not represent /æ/ or /ʌ/; or by the use of ‘oa’, ‘oe’ for /oʊ/ in ‘boat’, ‘toe’ since ‘a’ and ‘e’ do not represent /ʊ/. 2.5. Universality
Principle: Spell short
vowels and consonants in a way that is common for the traditional orthography
of most Romanized languages including English. English spells consonants generally in a way
common for the traditional orthography of most Romanized languages, with few
exceptions like /ʃ/, /tʃ/ and /dʒ/.
Whereas most Romanized languages are likely to pronounce ‘a’, ‘e’, ‘i’, ‘o’, and ‘u’ as in ‘pasta’, ‘ballet’,
‘police’, ‘depot’ and ‘tabu’,
the corresponding English short vowels are as in ‘cat’, ‘pet’,
‘big’, ‘fog’ and ‘put’.
The universality principle however refers to spelling not
pronunciation. We shall discuss the
spelling of English vowels in greater detail below, drawing a comparison
between the orthographic systems of BR [4] and Interspel [11]. We apply the above five principles to build from scratch the
re-Romanization system of Basic Roman Spelling of English (BR) [4]. 3. Building BR Orthography from Scratch The Basic Roman Spelling is aiming at a reasonably precise
approximation of Spoken English, for which purpose we use 48 phonemes
comprising the set of 45 English phonemes from [2], plus two rhotic variant phonemes, plus the non-English consonant /ts/. This system is not to serve
some particular standard of English pronunciation, but rather provide the
means that could be used for the spelling of different varieties of English. 3.1. Short
vowels In accordance with the strict Romanization, consistency, proportionality
and universality principles, we represent the short vowels /æ/, /e/,
/ɪ/, /ɒ/, /ʊ/ by a, e, i, o, u as in BR ‘dam’, ‘net’, ‘big’,
‘hot’, ‘put’ (TS ‘dam’, ‘net’, ‘big’, ‘hot’, ‘put’) respectively. The proportionality principle dictates that this same set of letters be used for the representation of the short vowels /ə/ and /ʌ/ as well. In order to facilitate disambiguation we choose ‘a’ for /ə/, for /æ/ is more consistently reduced to /ə/ in unstressed syllables. The vowels /e/, /ɪ/ and /ɒ/ are not reduced to /ə/ e.g. in /en’dʒɔɪ/, /’ɑ:tɪst/, and /ɒ’tɒrɪtɪ/, hence the representation of /ə/ by ‘e’, ‘i’ or ‘o’ would have increased ambiguity. As for the possible representation of /ə/ by ‘u’, in view of the context freeness principle that choice would have created the ambiguity of both the diphthong /ʊə/ and the long vowel /u:/ being represented by ‘uu’, as in ‘tuu’ representing both /tʊə/ and /tu:/ (TS ‘tour’ and ‘too’). No such ambiguity arises with the chosen representation of /ə/ by ‘a’ as there is no /aə/ diphthong in English. Given the intermediate position of /ʌ/ between /æ/ and /ə/, and the
already fixed representation of both /æ/ and /ə/ by ‘a’, this dictates that /ʌ/ be represented by ‘a’ as
well. Therefore, we represent the
three short vowels /æ/, /ʌ/ and /ə/ by a as in BR ‘hav’,
‘dast’, ‘ahed’ (TS ‘have’, ‘dust’, ‘ahead’). Let us stress that while the BR spelling
does not distinguish between these three short vowels, ‘a’ is still
pronounced differently in these three words; namely, BR ‘hav’,
‘dast’, ‘ahed’ are pronounced /hæv/, /dʌst/ and /əhed/ respectively. (The more
precise RPA alphabet in Section 6 below has different presentations for /æ/, /ʌ/ and /ə/.) BR spelling reflects the spoken
language as the latter is, without hinting at, suggesting or advocating any
pronunciation distortions whatsoever.
In the case of homographs like e.g. BR spelling ‘hat’ for both /hæt/ and /hʌt/ (TS ‘hat’ and hut’), the relevant
word and pronunciation would be differentiated from the context of the
sentence. 3.2. Consonants In accordance with the strict Romanization, consistency and
universality principles we represent the consonant sounds /b/, /tʃ/, /d/, /ð/, /dʒ/, /f/, /g/, /h/, /x/, /k/, /l/, /m/, /n/, /ŋ/, /p/, /r/, /s/, /ʃ/, /t/, /θ/, /ts/, /v/, /w/, /j/, /z/, /ʒ/ by b, ch, d, d, dzh, f, g, h, h, k,
l, m, n, ng, p, r, s, sh, t, t, ts, v, u, y, z, zh respectively. The English dental fricative consonants /θ/ and /ð/ (as in ‘think’ and ‘this’)
are somewhat problematic for many non-native English speakers who tend to
pronounce /θ/ as /t/ or /s/, and /ð/ as /d/ or /z/. (A similar merger of /θ/ with /f/, and /ð/ with /v/ occurs in native English
varieties such as Cockney, Newfoundland English, African American English,
and Liberian English, making inroads into Estuary English too.) At the same time, while native English
speakers tend to distinguish /θ/ and /ð/ in their spoken language, they write both
with the same digraph, ‘th’ – and increasingly not
caring about the spoken distinction.
While we have opted to represent them in BR by ‘t’
and ‘d’ respectively, in Section 4 below the system is extended to
differentiate between these consonants. 3.3. Long vowels
and diphthongs The representation of long vowels and
diphthongs is obtained by a straightforward application of the
proportionality and context freeness principles. In the case of long /ɪ/ we take ‘y’ instead of ‘i’ as a second
letter, following the pattern of the diphthongs /aɪ/, /eɪ/ and /ɔɪ/. Namely, we represent /ɑ:/, /i:/, /ɔ:/, /u:/, /ɜ:/ by aa, iy, oo, uu,
aa as in BR ‘faam’,
‘fiyl’, ‘soo’, ‘muud’, ‘baaning’ (TS ‘farm’, ‘feel’, ‘saw’, ‘mood’,
‘burning’), and /aʊ/, /aɪ/, /eə/, /eɪ/, /ɪə/, /oʊ/, /ɔɪ/, /ʊə/ by au, ay, ea, ey, ia, ou,
oy, ua as in BR ‘nau’,
‘tray’, ‘hea’, ‘wey’, ‘dia’,
‘lou’, ‘voys’, ‘pua’
(TS ‘now’, ‘try’, ‘hair’, ‘way’, ‘dear’, ‘low’, ‘voice’, ‘poor’)
respectively. The initial impression of BR spelling may
well be one of ‘inner city talk’, unusual, and in any case un-TS – which of
course it is. BR spellings like ‘fiyl’, ‘soo’, ‘baaning’, ‘tray’, ‘hea’,
‘wey’, ‘dia’, and ‘lou’ (TS ‘feel’, ‘saw’,
‘burning’, ‘try’, ‘hair’, ‘way’, ‘dear’, and ‘low’) may well appear either
too dissimilar to present TS forms or confusing in their similarity to
contradictory TS conventions. This is
the place to remind and stress that BR derives from Spoken English, and from
traditional spelling patterns in the wider family of Romanized languages. Furthermore, BR is self contained; it
neither derives from TS, nor is it designed with a view to a step-by-step
transition from TS to some reformed English spelling. Similarity to TS is sought at the basic level only, when choosing the
representation of consonants and vowels as in the case of ‘sh’, ‘ch’, ‘y’ (and ‘j’, ‘w’ in Section 4 below). Once that representation is fixed, then
because of the inconsistent nature of TS the two orthographies could be
expected to be confusingly contradictory in many cases. We are not concerned about that, for BR is
intended for independent usage rather than in combination with TS; texts in
BR are certainly not supposed to be read as if written in TS. For instance, once we fix ‘o’ for /ɒ/ as in BR ‘boks’ (TS ‘box’), then
we use ‘oo’ for /ɔ:/ as in BR ‘soo’ (TS ‘saw’), not
bothering that TS uses ‘oo’ for /ʊ/ or /u:/ instead, as in ‘book’ and ‘mood’. The obtained BR system uses 22 Roman letters
(the letters ‘j’, ‘q’, ‘w’ and ‘x’ are not used), with no special characters
or diacritical marks. The chosen
representation of short vowels, together with the derivative representation
of long vowels and diphthongs it entails, contributes most to shaping the
characteristic features that distinguish BR from TS, Interspel,
and other orthographic systems such as those discussed in Section 7 below. 4. Extensions and variants 4.1. Rhotic variety Rhotic dialects are accommodated by appending ‘r’ to the relevant non-rhotic graphemes, so that /ɚ/, /ɝ/ are rendered by ‘ar’ and ‘aar’ respectively [4], as in BR ‘tiycha’, ‘paasiyv’ becoming ‘tiychar’, ‘paarsiyv’ (TS ‘teacher’, ‘perceive’). 4.2. Dental
fricatives Traditional English spelling represents both
dental fricative consonants /θ/ and /ð/ by ‘th’ as in ‘think’ and ‘this’,
and dialects may vary in which words are pronounced with what. BR differentiates between the two, but
spells /θ/ same like /t/, and /ð/ same like /d/. Seeking to expand BR as near
to one-to-one phoneme-grapheme correspondence as possible, one may
consider a version of the system using ‘th’ for /θ/, and ‘dh’ for /ð/ [4], as in ‘think’, ‘dhis’ instead of BR ‘tink’,
‘dis’ (TS ‘think’, ‘this’). 4.3. ‘w’
vs. ‘u’ The BR system could also be extended by
spelling the consonant /w/ (as in ‘we’, ‘queen’) by ‘w’ instead of ‘u’ [4]. This extended system provides for a
possible variant using ‘uw’ instead of ‘uu’ for /u:/ as in ‘muwd’ instead of BR ‘muud’ (TS ‘mood’), which however we do not take as standard. 4.4. ‘j’
vs. ‘dzh’ The
BR orthographic system could be further extended by using the grapheme ‘j’
instead of ‘dzh’ for /dʒ/, as in ‘joy’ instead of
BR ‘dzhoy’ (TS ‘joy’) – a compact and
traditional English spelling pattern [4]. We call Extended Basic Roman Spelling of
English (EBR) the 24-letter system (the letters ‘q’ and ‘x’ are not used)
obtained from BR by incorporating all the extensions given in 4.1-4.4. Therefore, we consider two systems here: the
simpler BR, and the more elaborate EBR.
The former is the system originally introduced in [4], while the
options for an extended system were discussed in that work too. The better choice between these two systems
would derive from one’s preference for the precision of the system, or for
its simplicity in using the available Roman letters and letter combinations
instead. 5. Phonemicity While the present approach is essentially
phonemic, the introduced orthography falls short of establishing a one-to-one
correspondence between phonemes and graphemes; hence it could be described as
semi-phonemic at word level. It
indicates the approximate rather than precise pronunciation of individual
words. In addition to the homophones
now receiving identical spelling, more homographs are created by the
presentation of /æ/, /ʌ/ and /ə/ by one and the same letter. At textual level however, readers could
retrieve the relevant word from among several homographs by taking into
account the context of the sentence.
Therefore, writing in BR is context-free, while reading is context-dependent. This property may possibly allow for the
automated conversion of texts from BR into traditional spelling. 6. Roman Phonetic Alphabet for English The BR orthography is close enough to one-to-one phoneme-grapheme correspondence, which makes it possible to engender one by means of a minor adaptation. We start from the full extended system EBR, then add stress marks as appropriate for a transcription system, and use them both to indicate stress and to disambiguate homographs as follows. As shown in the table below, we take the unstressed ‘a’ to represent /ə/, and use two primary stress marks ‘’’ and ‘”’, and two secondary stress marks ‘,’ and ‘,,’, with ‘a’ in syllables stressed by ‘’’ or ‘,’ representing /æ/, and ‘a’ in syllables stressed by ‘”’ or ‘,,’ representing /ʌ/. This convention is extended to the two relevant long vowels /ɑ:/ and /ɜ:/ too, taking into account that the latter may occur in unstressed as well as stressed position. Namely, we take ‘aa’ in syllables stressed by ‘’’ or ‘,’ to represent /ɑ:/, and ‘aa’ in syllables that are either unstressed or stressed by ‘”’ or ‘,,’ to represent /ɜ:/. In short, the set of stress marks ‘’’, ‘,’ is used in the case of /æ/ and /ɑ:/, while the stress marks ‘”’, ‘,,’ are used in the case of /ʌ/ and /ɜ:/. Stress marks are placed before the syllable concerned (i.e. not necessarily next to the relevant vowel as in the table below). For instance, the BR homographs ‘hat’ (IPA /hæt/, TS ‘hat’) and ‘hat’ (IPA /hʌt/, TS ‘hut’) are differentiated now to become RPA /’hat/ and /”hat/ respectively; the BR homographs ‘faam’ (IPA /’fɑ:m/, TS ‘farm’) and ‘faam’ (IPA /’fɜ:m/, TS ‘firm’) become RPA /’faam/ and /”faam/ respectively, etc. While the use of the same letter for distinct sounds differentiated by stress marks may not be very user friendly, the insufficient number of Roman letters leaves few available alternatives: either diacritics (and our use of additional stress marks plays the same role); or additional diphthongs (such as ‘ae’, ‘ao’ in [7]), or special characters (as in IPA). The spelling principles given in Section 2 above would rule out all these options. Indeed, the strict Romanization principle rules out the first and the third one, while the proportionality and context freeness principles rule out the second option (which is uneconomic in terms of text volume too). However, we are dealing now with phonetic transcription rather than spelling, and transcriptions normally allow for some use of stress marks. We add also a distinct digraph, ‘hh’ to represent the Scottish consonant /x/ as in ‘loch’. This way we obtain a phonetic (or more precisely, phonemic) system
for the transcription of English words, the Roman Phonetic Alphabet for English
(RPA). This new system is presented
below in a table based on the standard International Phonetic Alphabet
(IPA) transcription system for English from [2]; we write also BR for ‘Basic
Roman Spelling of English’, EBR for ‘Extended Basic Roman Spelling of
English’, and TS for ‘Traditional Spelling of English’:
7. Illustration and Comparison Some similarities could be observed between RPA and the systems of the NBC Handbook of Pronunciation [1], the Carnegie Mellon version of Arpabet alphabet [7], and the World Book Dictionary [8]. Instead of the widely unfamiliar IPA symbols, these systems provide for the pronunciation respelling of English by means of the plain Roman alphabet with no diacritics or special characters. To make up for the insufficient number of Roman letters, these transcription systems use ‘h’ as a second letter not only in digraphs representing consonants like ‘ch’, ‘sh’, ‘th’, and ‘zh’ as in TS, EBR and RPA, but also to fix or alter the phonetic value of vowels in new digraphs such as ‘ih’, ‘eh’, ‘oh’, ‘uh’ and ‘ah’. Unlike the Roman Phonetic Alphabet which is closely related to Extended Basic Roman Spelling, the systems in question derive from certain traditional spelling patterns, with Arpabet being specifically designed to provide straightforward machine readability. The design of
Interspel [11] on the other hand is an attempt to apply
consistent principles to English spelling for international use, while
retaining the greatest possible similarity to TS. Interspel has
three levels: (1) alphabetic sound-symbol correspondence for initial learning
and pronunciation guide in dictionaries; (2) plus four modifications for
writing: for visual representation of grammar and morphemes; consistent
spelling patterns for final vowels; and retention of irregular TS spellings
for around thirty of the most common English words, so that the hundred most
common words, which make up ‘half the words you read’ in English text, will
be unchanged in appearance; and (3) eight further alternative vowel spellings
are added as options, to produce ‘reading without traps', the level closest
to TS. Machine readability is by
algorithms, except for level (1) where the plain alphabetic principle
applies. In Interspel,
English ‘short’ and ‘long’ vowels are both represented by the primary vowel
letters ‘a’, ‘e’, ‘i’ , ‘o’, ‘u’, but the long
version can be differentiated as needed with a diacritic, as shown in word
pairs with vowel alternations, as in ‘national/nàtion’, ‘repetition/repèt’,
‘finish/fìnal’, ‘impotent/pòtent’,
‘study/stùdent’. While diacritics are increasingly dropped
in modern alphabetic writing systems, their optional use for this particular
purpose could benefit learners and fast visual word recognition of vocabulary
that is similar across many modern languages.
That is, Interspel tries to apply more
consistently what Chomsky sees as an advantage of TS – the common visual
appearance of related words with so-called ‘underlying phonology’, while
seeking to ensure phonemicity by allowing some diacritics (in disregard of
the strict Romanization principle). By
contrast, the BR offers a wider international perspective transcending
Chomsky’s defense of TS. By way of comparison and illustration of these two alternative approaches, we append a brief text in Traditional Spelling, BR, EBR, RPA and Interspel, as well as in World Book Dictionary [8] transcriptions. The reference text used by Valerie Yule to compare various alternative spellings is ‘The Story of the Beautiful Princess’, which contains most of the English phonemes and a number of irregular TS spellings: Once upon a time, the beautiful daughter of a
great magician wanted more pearls to put among her treasures. “Look through the centre of the moon when
it is blue,” said her royal mother in answer to her question. “You might find your heart’s desire.” The fair princess laughed, because she
doubted these words. Instead, she used
her imagination, and moved into the photography business, and took pictures
of the moon in colour. “I perceive most certainly that it is
almost wholly white,” she thought. She
also found that she could make enough money in eight months to buy herself two lovely huge new jewels too. Basic Roman spelling (non-rhotic
version): Uans apon a
taym, da byutiful doota av a greyt madzhishan uontid moo paalz tu put amang
haa trezhaz. “Luk tru da senta av da
muun huen it iz bluu,” sed haa royal mada in ansa tu haa kueschan. “Yu mayt faynd yoo haats dizaya.” Da fea prinses laaft, bikoz shi dautid diyz
waadz. Insted, shi yuzd haa
imadzhineyshan, and muuvd intu da fotografi biznis, and tuk pikchaz av da
muun in kala. “Ay paasiyv moust
saatanli dat it iz olmoust houli wayt,” shi toot. Shi olsou faund dat shi kud meyk inaf mani
in eyt mants tu bay haaself tuu lavli hyudzh nyu juualz tuu. Extended Basic Roman spelling (non-rhotic version): Wans apon a taym, dha byutiful doota av a greyt majishan wontid moo paalz
tu put amang haa trezhaz. “Luk thru
dha senta av dha muun hwen it iz bluu,” sed haa royal madha in ansa tu haa
kweschan. “Yu mayt faynd yoo haats
dizaya.” Dha fea prinses laaft, bikoz
shi dautid dhiyz waadz. Insted, shi
yuzd haa imajineyshan, and muuvd intu dha fotografi biznis, and tuk pikchaz
av dha muun in kala. “Ay paasiyv moust
saatanli dhat it iz olmoust houli wayt,” shi thoot. Shi olsou faund dhat shi kud meyk inaf mani
in eyt manths tu bay haaself tuu lavli hyuj nyu juualz tuu. Roman Phonetic Alphabet transcription (non-rhotic version): ”Wans a’pon a taym, dha ’byutiful ’doota av ”a greyt ma’jishan ’wontid moo ”paalz tu put a”mang ”haa ’trezhaz. “Luk thru dha ’senta av dha muun hwen it iz bluu,” sed ”haa ’royal ’madha in ’ansa tu ”haa ’kweschan.
“Yu mayt faynd yoo ’haats di’zaya.” Dha fea ’prinses ’laaft, bi’koz shi ’dautid dhiyz ”waadz.
Insted, shi yuzd ”haa i,maji’neyshan, and muuvd intu dha fo’tografi biznis, and tuk ’pikchaz av dha muun in ”kala. “Ay paa’siyv moust ”saatanli ’dhat it iz
olmoust houli wayt,” shi thoot. Shi
olsou faund ’dhat shi kud meyk i”naf ”mani in eyt ”manths tu
bay haa’self tuu ”lavli hyuj
nyu ’juualz tuu. World Book Dictionary [8] transcription (rhotic): Wuhns uh’pon uh tym, thuh ’byootihfuhl ’dawtuhr uhv uh grayt muhjihshuhn wontihd mawr
purlz tu put uh’muhng hur ’trehzhuhrs. “Luk throo thuh ’sehntuhr uhv thuh moon hwehn iht ihz bloo,” sehd hur ’royuhl ’muhthuhr ihn ’ansuhr tu
hur ’kwehschuhn.
“Yoo myt fynd yur hahrts dih’zyr.” Thuh fair ’prihnsehs
lafd, bih’kawz shee dowtihd theez wurdz. Ihn’stehd, shee
yoozd hur ih,majuh’nayshuhn,
and moovd ’ihntoo thuh fuh’togruhfee ’bihznihs, and tuk ’pihkchuhrz uhv thuh moon ihn ’kuhluhr. “Y puhr’seev mohst ’surtuhnlee that iht ihz ’awlmohst ’hohlee hwyt,” shee thawt. Shee ’awlsoh fownd
that shee kud mayk ih’nuhf ’muhnee ihn
ayt muhnths tu by hur’sehlf too ’luhvlee
hyooj nyoo ’joouhls too. In
Interspel [11] by Valerie Yule thirty of the most
common English words remain unchanged, and final vowel spelling patterns are
made consistent in order to maintain close resemblance and backward
compatibility to traditional spelling.
Here is its application to ‘Writing without traps’: Once upon a tìm, the bùtiful dauter of a gràt
magisian wonted mor perls tu put amung her tresùrs. “Luuk thru the senter of the moon wen it is
blu,” sed her royal mother in anser to her qestion. “U mìt fìnd yur harts
dezìr.” The fair prinsess lafd,
becaus she douted thès wurds.
Insted, she ùsed her imajinàsion, and mùved intu
the fotografy biznes, and took pictùrs of the moon in culer. “I persèv mòst sertinly that
it is almòst hòly whìt,” she thaut. She also found that she could màk
enuf muny in àt months to bì herself tuw lovly hùj nu
jùels too. With a few alternative spellings admitted,
this becomes ‘ Once upon a time, the bùtiful dauter of a gràt magisian
wonted mor perls tu put amung her tresùres. “Luuk thru the senter of the moon when it
is blue,” sed her royal mother in anser to her question. “U might fìnd yur hart’s
dezire.” The fair prinsess lafd,
becaus she douted these wurds. Insted,
she ùsed her imajinàtion, and mùved intu the fotografy
bizness, and took pictùrs of the moon in culer. “I perseve mòst sertinly that it is
almòst hòly white,” she thaut.
She also found that she could make enuf muny in ait months to bì
herself tuw lovly huje new jùels too. Here then, are two approaches to the problems
of traditional English spelling. The Interspel notation applies a set of
phonemic-morphemic-pragmatic principles to enable learners internationally to
progress from initial sound-symbol correspondence to a consistent English
writing system and ability to read present English spelling ‘without traps’,
so that our present English heritage of print remains accessible. Its details are subject to experimental
research on its usefulness. On the other
hand, the Basic Roman approach is applied to produce both an internationally flavoured alternative English orthography, and a related
pronunciation respelling of English. Thanks to Prof. Christo Stamenov, Department
of English and American Studies at References 1. Eugene
Ehrlich, Raymond Hand Jr. NBC
Handbook of Pronunciation. 2. J.C. Wells. Longman
Pronunciation Dictionary, Second edition, 3. L.L.
Ivanov. Toponymic
Guidelines for Antarctica, Antarctic Place-names Commission of Bulgaria, 4. L.L.
Ivanov. On the Romanization of
Bulgarian and English. – Contrastive Linguistics, XXVIII, 2003, ¹2, 109-118. 5. N. Chomsky &
M. Halle. The
Sound Pattern of English, 6. P.H. Seymour, M. Aro & J.M. Erskine. Foundation literacy acquisition in European orthographies. – British Journal of Psychology, 94, 2003, 143-174. 7. The
Carnegie Mellon Pronouncing Dictionary.
8. The World Book
Dictionary. World Book Inc., 9. Usha Goswami. How to Beat Dyslexia: The Broadbent Lecture
2003. – The Psychologist, 16, 2003, 9, 462-465. 10. Valerie Yule. The Design of Spelling to Meet Needs and
Abilities. – Harvard Educational Review, 56, 1986,
3, 278-297. 11. Valerie Yule. Seven Spelling Reform Principles to Improve Standard Spelling. – http://home.vicnet.net.au/~ozideas/sp7princ.htm 12. Valerie Yule. Spelling and Spelling Reform. – http://home.vicnet.net.au/~ozideas/spelling.htm |