A Lojikal Speling

[This is a copy of a mael I sent th laet Edward Rondthaler a number of yeers ago. It contaens a sinopsis of th moest curent rools for th SoundSpel™ sistem of simplified speling. Th chart cums furst, and then th leter to Ed explaening th rashonal behiend th rools. Points in th chart that ar hielieted  indicaet rools that difer from uryler vurzhons of SoundSpel™.]

A Lojikal Speling

"SOUNDSPEL"

 ­EEZY TO LURN, EEZY TO REED

 

CONSONANTS and consonant paers

b as hurd in beg, habit, bib, mob

c/k as hurd in cap, becaem, kit, bak[r1] 

ch as hurd in chin, teecher, church

d as hurd in dog, lader, did, bad

f as hurd in fan, efort, fief, cheef

g as hurd in get, wagon, gag, big

h as hurd in hat, heel, hoem, harm

j as hurd in jam, juj, ajar, ej

m as hurd in me, comon, mom, him

n as hurd in no, maner, nun, tan

ng as hurd in song, fling, ringing

ngg as hurd in fingger, singgl, angger

nk as hurd in drank, flunk, inking

p as hurd in pin, paeper, pep, cap

q as hurd in qeen, qaek, liqid

r as hurd in red, ror, trip, cheer

s as hurd in sit, bus, sets, dogs

ss as hurd in prinsess, larjess, niess[r2] 

sh as hurd in shin, ishoo, moeshon, rush

t as hurd in tap, buter, tot, hit

th as hurd in thin, method, path

th voist,as in  this, muther, smooth

v as hurd in van, river, reviev, gaev

w as hurd in wil, awoek, wether

wh as hurd in wheet, whi, wurthwhiel

x as hurd in extra, fix, box, exam

y as hurd in yes, beyond, lawyer

z as hurd in zeebra, laezy, teez, jaz

zh as hurd in azhuur, plezher, garaazh

SHORT VOWELS...th moest freeqently hurd vowel sound

a as hurd in akt, at, am, bag, can, carry   week a as in organ

e as hurd in eb, end, bed, mend, merry    week e as in novel

i as hurd in it, in, tip, pin, givs, banish     week i as in pensil

o as hurd in od, hot, sobs, boxes, sorry    week o as in lemon

u as hurd in up, but, fun, blud, yung, luv

LONG VOWELS - Sielent e givs a preseeding vowel its 'long' naem-sound

ae as hurd in A, aet, aem, aed,  saem, caep, dae, thae, waes

ee as hurd in E, eel, eet, feet, feeld, teem, seen, skee, kee

Th speling of unstrest ½-e depends on its pozishon in th wurd as shoen bi e in reform, i in memorial, y in needy

ie as hurd in I, iess, tie, ie, ried, gied, fliet, iel, bie

oe as hurd in O, oeld, toe, oenly, hoem, boet, soe, noe

ue as hurd in U, uenit, hue, cuet, uezd, buety, fue

VOWEL PAERS and vowels combiend with r and rr

oo as hurd in ooz, moon, zoo, crooz, troo, floo

uu as hurd in guud, shuud, buush, puut, fuut, buuk

oi /oy as hurd in oil, boil, noiz / loyal, boy

ou /ow as in out, mouth, sounding / how, cows, power

au /aw as in auto, fraud, caucus / saw, sawing, lawyer

ar as hurd in ar, card, far, dolar            ...arr as hurd in carry

er unstrest murderer, pervurt, plezher  ...err as hurd in berry

or[r3]  as hurd in order, for, doenor, culor  ...orr as hurd in sorry

ur strest, as in  murder, purvert, church[r4] 

oor /uur as hurd in toor, moor / juury, ruural, azhuur

ua as hurd in cazhual, akchual      uae as hurd in grajuaeting

aa as hurd in aams, maa, paa, caam, faather

aer as hurd in aer, haer, caer, swaer, whaer, thaer

aul as hurd in taul, maul, faulss, aulso

Th as hurd in fraez leeds U to conekt th leters with yuur oen pronunsiaeshon whether it be Suthern, Nue Ingland, Ierish, Austraelian, British, or uther.  Simplisity in speling— freedom in pronunsiaeshon.

●  Proper naems of living peepl and vieabl institooshons ar never formaly respeld without permishon. Proper naems and foren wurds not respeld in SS mae be indicaeted with ietaliks and pronunsiaeshon indicaeted bi (parenthesys)

●  No chaenj in to, do, no, so, go, of, off, has, as, is, his, her, per, wer, me, we, be, he, she, all, thru, -ful and thaer inflected forms.[r5] 

●  No chaenj in pluural-s (jobs), pozesivs (man's, his), and in 3rd purson prezent singuelar (he sees), eeven when th s is pronounst as z (th gramatikal s).  This is a "prediktabl jenerality".

●  ss distingwishes sinss from sins, peess from pees, ets.

●  rr continues, as now [in TS], to indicaet that th vowel befor it is "short" – carry, merry, sorry.

●  Unstrest "½-ee" continues to be spelt e i or y depending on pozishon.  It is hurd in th ustrest silabls of

 between, detect, reform, editorial, champion, fifty.

●  No chaenj in th speling of short (shwaa) vowels in unstrest silabls – organ, novel, pensil, lemon – unles th leter is misleeding, or duz not help in pronounsing th wurd cleerly, sloely, and verry distinctly.

●  A dubl consonant is jeneraly not uezd to indicaet a short vowel – SS later = TS latter, SS laeter = later. Dubld consonants ar employd in exsepshonal caeses for spesifik, limited reezons, as in carry, iess [TS ice], off, all.

●  A long-O or long-I sound at th end of a wurd mae be riten with a singgl leter – banjo, go, no, so, alibi, hi, whi, fli, cri...but  banjoes, goes, alibieing, flies, cries, ets..

●  In vowel strings th silabl ends after th furst vowel or establisht vowel paer – free ing, cre aetiv, floo id, hie er, pow er, continue ing, evalue aet, re akt, re-enter.

●  A hiefen separaets ajaesent leters that miet utherwiez be mistaken for a diegraf: (th) pent-hous; (nk) man-kiend; (sh) dis-harten; (wh) cow-hand; (rr) for-runer; (ng) masheen-gun.

●  We aksept th flatery of a capital I for ‘me’.  Perhaps we shuud extend th curtesy – a capital U for ‘you’.

(SS vurzhon)

Deer Ed,

This is mi copy of the SS speling chart which U sent me thru snael mael.  I had to re-tiep it sinss U did not send it to me via the internet, and I wonted to hav a purfekt, tiept copy of mi reviezd vurzhon of th chart to send bak to U.

I hav markt all th recomended chaenjes in th text with a yelo hieliet.  I apreeshiaet th need to keep th chart simpl enuf so that all th relevant informaeshon can be fit onto just wun paej, and for that reezon I hav not gon into eny particuelar deetael consurning mi propoezd rool chaenjes and mi justificaeshons for them.

Whot I wuud liek to do riet now is simply to refur bak to th propoezd chaenjes in th hielieted aerias wun at a tiem in th order in which thae apeer in th text just to maek a fue coments about eech of th reviezd rools and mi reezons for fixing them.

Laeter on I can go into mor deetael about mienor rools and “fien points” to SS orthografy which wuud reqier several paejes of text to fuuly explaen, but whot foloes shuud be a guud start, and we can taek it from thaerJ

ngg as hurd in fingger, singgl, angger[RJM6] 

I thaut it wuud be aproepriat[RJM7]  to be mor explisit about this feecher of SS, eeven tho th uther speling rools mae acount for it, sinss it is wun mor feecher which maeks SS supeerior to confuezing TS uesej.

s as hurd in sit, bus, sets, dogs

ss as hurd in prinsess, larjess, niess

I aulterd thees to claerifi th chaenjes which U hav aulredy agreed to consurning th uess of th singgl leter s to stand for boeth voist and unvoist pronunsiaeshons of th pluural marker, as wel as th exsepshonal uess of th dubld ss at th verry end of wurds to aviod ambigueity in surten tieps of fonetik categorys.

oi /oy as hurd in oil, boil, noise / loyal, boy

I maed this sliet chaenj to reflekt th rool chaenj I had cauld for urlyer that wuud alow for th –oy ending at th verry end of wurds and at th end of meeningful silabls, parralel to yuur uess of ou/ ow and au/ aw.

er unstrest,   murderer, purvert, plezher

ur stressed, as in     murder, purvert, church

Thees chaenjes reflekt mi dezier to return to th urlyer convenshon uezd in all precursors to SS of uezing th ‘ur’ for th strest ur in “gurl”, “lurn”, “furn”, “church”, and th ‘er’ for th unstrest er in “baeker”, “murderer”, and so on.  Trieing to get th ‘er’ to do justis to boeth vurzhons of this sound simply oevertaxes[RJM8]  it and cauzes a graet meny wurds to apeer verry straenj, i.e. *erban, *erjent, *perchas, *kerss, *kers, *perss, *pers [= whot a cat duz], when SS spelings with th tradishonal ‘ur’ wuud be mor much palatabl, as in “urban, urjent, purchas, curss, curs, purss, purs”.

oor /uur as hurd in toor, moor / juury, ruural, azhuur

I doen’t liek th iedeea of tampering with oor /uur to shorten it to th artifishal diegraf, ‘ur’:  I think that it shuud sufiess that th oo and th uu sounds ar cleerly defiend in SS, and that eny combinaeshon of thees sounds with an imeediatly[RJM9]  foloeing r sound shuud be riten in a lojikal, straet-forward maner, as in oo + r = oor and uu + r = uur.  I aulso think thaer shuud be mor flexsibility with respekt to employment of th ‘oor’ so that it cuud be uezd mor ofen and thus prezurv a mor familyar apeeranss for wurds (for exampl, I think we reealy aut to luuk into th qeschon of whether it is beter to spel TO ‘your’ as “yuur” or “yoor[RJM10] ”).

aer as hurd in aer, haer, caer, swaer, whaer, thaer

I wuud chaenj th speshal ‘air’ triegraf bak to th urlyer form of ‘aer’ that it had bin all along in for-runer sistems such as Ripman's Nue Speling, Zachrissons's Anglic, and Deweys's WES.

Sinss SS duz not uez ‘ai’ or ‘-ay’ for eny uther purposes I feel that thaer is no guud reezon to alow th ‘ai’ to gaen eny posibl “toehoeld” bi alowing it to sneek in in just this wun caess.  Moroever, children wuud be il survd bi th ‘air’ triegraf becauz th asoeshiaeted sound duz not rezembl that of th ‘ir’ diegraf at all.

aul as hurd in taul, maul, faulss, craul

Th uess of th wurd “all” as a ‘wurd-sien’ bi itself is justifieabl in vue of th hie freqensy of this wurd, but I doen't think that uezing a fixt “-all-” form acros th bord in all wurds has much to recomend it.  For wun thing, tieping dubl consonants within wurds is aulwaes aukward, and th ‘all’ triegraf luuks eeven wurss when puut “bak to bak” with uther ‘asenders’, as in *allter or *balld (having three “taul” leters all together luuks straenj--eeven straenjer in cursiv hand-rieting).  Fienally, U wuud hav th wurd, *fallss, [TS false] which wuud hav to be speld that wae to distingish it from ‘falls’, and a dubl ll foloed bi a dubld ss is surtenly not apetiezing!

Insted, I wuud recomend such spelings as “aulter, bauld, faulss, and fauls”.  Th oenly alowabl exsepshon shuud be for th spesifik wurd-sien “all”, and all uther derievd and inflected forms in which th orijinal meening of th wurd has not bin aulterd.  Thus we wuud hav “oever-alls”, “all-teraen veeikl”, “carry-all”, “free-for-all”, “cach-all turm”, “all waes”, and “all together”, but “aulwaes”, “aultogether”, “aulmoest”, “aulter”, and so on.

uess of “of” and “off” as wurd siens:

I agree that it is nesesaery to uez thees wurd-siens in order to maentaen vizhual compatibility with TS and espeshaly to prevent th bakwurd nok with tradishonal orthografy that wuud hapen if TS “off” wer respeld as ‘of’.  I do not agree, however, with th noeshon of rieting a dubl ff within wurds, as in *offer, *coffy, *offishal, *scroffuela, ets., espeshaly in wurds which hav absolootly nuthing to do etimolojikaly with th wurd “off”.  Th last thing we need in SS is mor dubld leters, and an ‘-of-’ silabl within a wurd is not going to be confuezd with th iesolaeted wurd “of” eny mor than th silabls –to– and –do– in toter and doder ar going to be confuezd with th iesolaeted wurds to and do.

Th wurd-sien speling “off” shuud oenly be uezd in wurds which ar cleerly dirievd from that wurd, as in “cast-off,” “off-hand,” “spin-off”, and th liek, but not in “ofer, ofensiv, cofy, ofishal, scrofuela[RJM11] ,” and so on.

●  Proper naems of living peepl and vieabl institooshons ar never  formaly respeld without permishon.  Proper naems and foren  wurds not respeld in SS mae be indicaeted with italiks and  pronunsiaeshon indicaeted bi (parenthesys).

I desieded to claerifi and limit th polisy which we hav about not respeling proper nouns, in plaess of th vaej referenss to “wurds begining with a capital leter”.  I think thaer ar caeses whaer respeling proper nouns is indeed justifieabl, espeshaly in “instructiv” or pedagojikal contexts when deeling with proper nouns that ar dificult to riet or pronounss, and all th mor so when th wurd in qeschon is so comon that it can be considerd to be “in th publik domaen”.

●    No chaenj in to, do, no, so, go, of, off, has, as[RJM12] , is, his, her,

 per, wer, me, we, be, he, she, all, thru, -ful and thaer inflekted forms.

I’v aded a fue mor wurds to th list for th saek of consistensy, eeven tho sum of thees wurd-siens mae be cuverd bi uther rools.  (This list is hardly compleet or exaustiv, but it shuud contaen just about all th moest comon wurds of this tiep.)

●  No chaenj in pluural-s (jobs), pozesivs (man's, his), and th 3^rd

purson prezent singguelar (he sees), eeven when th s is pronounst as z

(th gramatikal s).  This is a "prediktabl jenerality".

I aded th turm, “gramatikal s”, sinss I think it is aproepriat to gather th three diferent ueses of this leter together under wun colectiv turm.

●    ss distingwishes sinss [TS since] from sins,

  peess [TS peace] from pees [TS peas].

I am being caerful to distingwish between wurds respeld in SS and wurds from TS uezd as exampls.

●  A dubl consonant is jeneraly not uezd to indicaet a short vowel – SS later

 = TS latter, SS laeter =  TS later.  Dubld consonants ar employd in exsepshonal caeses for spesifik, limited reezons, as in carry, iess [TS ice], off, all.

This is not a sugjested chaenj!:  I thaut this wuud be a niess rool to ad sinss thaer was spaess for it, and it is important to menshon this feecher of SS which separaets it from mor compromiezing skeems such as RITE and Cutspelng.

●  A hiefen separaets adjaesent leters that miet utherwiez be mistaeken for a diegraf: (th) pent-hous; (nk) man-kiend; (sh) dis-harten; (wh) cow-hand; (rr) for-runer; (ng) masheen-gun.

Anuther uesful rool:  I copyd this wun directly from yor buuk, “American Spelling” on paej 299, under SYLLABLE SEPARATION

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 [r1]Roendtaaler has TO uesej striktly deturmining th uess of c and k in SS. I, on th uther hand, hav developt a set of rools spesifieing th uess of c and k in SS wurds, which larjly mimiks TO praktis without reqiering preevius nolej of TO. Th praktikal efekts of such a chaenj ar not graet. rjm.

Noet that as of 2007, ‘sc’ is not being automatikaly chaenjd to ‘sk’.

 [r2] Th set of rools for when to uez and when not to uez th “dubld ss” is rather involvd, and wuud reqier at leest a parragraf of explanaeshons. Th justificaeshons for th rools wuud reqier an entier artikl. rjm

 [r3]I recaul wun authority recomended th uess of th expanded ‘oer’ triegraf for th transliteraeshon of wurds such as TO four”, which sum indivijuals pronounss diferently than TO “for”. This posibility is not curently suported bi ALC SoundSpel, but miet be held “in rezurv” if th need ariezes. rjm

 [r4]I am awaer that thaer ar sum hoo do not pronounss  TO “hurry” th saem as TO “furry”. For peepl hoo giv th former th pronunsiaeshon ‘huh-ry’, th verry exsepshonal uess of th “urr” triegraf wuud maek senss (on analojy with arr, err, orr).  As it consurns th pronunsiaeshon of a singgl wurd in a singgl diealect, however, th ishoo is too mienor to bring up heer. rjm

 [r5] Th list of “wurd siens” and of wurds that taek a “turminal e redukshon” is not intended to be compleet, oenly reprezentativ. Aulso noet that forms such as  ‘-off-’ and ‘-all-’ do not “aplie” to silabls in wurds that baer no etimolojikal relaeshonship to such wurds. Thus “pae-off” but “ofis”, “oever-alls” but “aulwaes”. rjm. As of 2007, I am no longger rieting “wuz” as *was.

 [RJM6]Noet that Jak Mlaenek wonted to drop this feecher, eeven tho it has never wunss bin chalenjd duuring th preevius history of SS to mi nolej. To mi eers th sound distinkshon is too important to oeverluuk.

 [RJM7]Roendtaaler employs th speling *aproepryet, but I am not uezing th ‘y’ leter heer. I cuud spel it “aproepri’et”, but then I wuud hav to uez an apostrofy after th ‘i’. I am stil not compleetly desieded about whether to chooz between ‘-et’ or ‘-at’ in this caess. [Noet: as of 2023 th '-at' form has bin choezen]. rjm

 [RJM8]Noet that Roendtaaler wonts to spel TO ‘taxes’ as *taxses in order to indicaet that th x sound heer is not voist. I sae this is ridiculusly aukward! We shuud biepas this rool for pluurals and th gramatikal s jeneraly.

 [RJM9]Noet that Roendtaaler wuud spel this wurd as *imeedyetly. I fiend this too aukward heer and prefur “imeediatly”. I never went oever this ishoo with him.

 [RJM10]I am not planing on “puushing” this ishoo that hard, oenly in th event that uthers flooent in SS mae wont to taek it up.

 [RJM11]This wuz speld “skrofuela” in th orijinal vurzhon of th text, due to an urlyer ‘sk’ diegraf rool that I hav sinss resinded. rjm

 [RJM12]Th wurd “was” wuz inishaly inclooded heer as a “word sign”. I had long had douts about th wurd due to th fakt that th TO speling *was misreprezents boeth th sound of th vowel and th turminal –s. Roberta’s alejed bad expeeri’enss with a stoodent fienaly led me to abandon this wurd sien aultogether. rjm