Re: Another tongue-in-cheek spelling reform

Gary Shannon wrote:

>Rather than go in the direction of increased calrity
>and phonetic precision, why not move in the direction
>of increased ambiguity and phonetic confusion?
>
Great! I find it really more interesting than the reforms everybody talked
about last days!

>The vowels "e", "i" and "u" are dispensed with
>entirely, and "y" takes their place in many contexts,
>while they simply disappear in other contexts.  "o" is
>usually used to indicate somewhat round sounds (toe,
>dew, book, hoop, etc.) and "a" (usually) for somewhat
>broad sounds (fat, pond, fall, etc.), although it also
>stands for sounds like "oi", "aw", and "ou" in some
>contexts, as explained below.  For the most part, long
>words only retain one vowel at most.  Initial vowels
>are usually kept, subject to the simplification rules,
>but as a general rule most vowels would be left out
>except where absolutely necessary.
>
When a vowel is kept, should I infer it is the stressed one? the one that's
important enough for deserving being kept?

Or maybe not, it would too much regular :-P

>A set of about 1,000 ambiguous, overlapping and often
>contradictory rules (with 1,001 exceptions) would tell
>us, more or less, which vowel was omitted.  For
>example, "ss" would imply that the the preceeding
>vowel was meant to be "a" (or maybe a short "i").  Due
>to this rule "glass" unambiguously becomes "glss", and
>cannot be mistaken for "glass" ("gloss"). ("a" is "aw"
>when followed by a double consonant, as explained
>below.)  Long, initial, or stressed "i" and "e"
>(including "ea", "ee" "ie", etc.) are usually just
>written "y" with the context identifying what sound
>they represent.  The exception is the "-ite" sound
>which is invariably written "ght" (with extensions
>such as "pint" -> "pghnt") as in "Y bght of py ynd y
>pghnt of yl byfor nghtfall." ("A bite of pie and a
>pint of ale before nightfall.")
>
>"a" represents just about any occurance of "oi", "ow",
>"au" or "ou" with "oil" being spelled "al" and "out
>house cow" spelled "at has ca."  The exception is when
>it is followed by a double consonant, in which case it
>represents "aw" ("fall") or the "ah" in "pond"
>(spelled "pannt"). (Note that rather than doubling
>"th" in "father" the required "thth" is spelled "dd"
>as in "faddr".   "Has" (English "house") should not be
>confused with "hzz" (English "has"), and "at" (English
>"out") should not be confused with "att" (English
>"at").  For example: "has" ("house"), "hzz" ("has"),
>"hyz" ("haze"), "hyzz" ("highs"), "hz" ("his").
>
>"gh" represents "f", except in the initial position
>where it is written "ph", or when it is followed by
>"t". Since "lght" could be both "light" and "lift"
>according to that rule, when "f" is followed by "t" it
>must be written "kh" so that "lift" -> "lkhtt". (Note
>that the "kh" is not doubled to indicate a short vowel
>preceeds it, instead the following consonant, "t" is
>doubled.)
>
Would a compound made of a word beggining in |ph| placed after another keep
the |ph| or would it change to |gh| for keeping it confusing and regular?

>Most short words (two, three and four letters) have
>arbitrary spelling that must simply be memorized,
>although they generally follow more of the rules than
>they break, except when they break more rules than
>they follow.
>
LOL "They follow more than they break unless they break more than they
follow"!

What's new in this isn't English like that for a lot of short words? ;)

>When two words are spelled the same it is often the
>case that one of them falls into disuse, being
>replaced by a new word or an existing synonym.  For
>example, in final position the voiced/non-voiced
>distinction is seldom made out so that "pig" becomes
>"pgg", but "pick" also becomes "pgg", resulting in the
>eventual loss of the farm animal meaning of "pgg",
>which is replaced by "hagg" as in "Pgg wn yv td haggz
>t bochr fr td fyzd tmarro." ("Pick one of the hogs to
>butcher for the feast tomorrow.")
>
I thought you wanted ambiguty? ;P

The thing I notice is that you get stuck with a lot a words that are spelled
the same

In your example: "Pgg wn yv td haggz t bochr fr td fyzd tmarro."

"wn" may also be "won", "yv" may be "I've" (that's what I tought of first,
and I'd still do so considering the next rule for contractions), "td" may be
"toad", and "fr" may be "fry" (but it may have a regular spelling and be
spelled "phr" considering it's a less basic word)

You probably can't get rid of all words that are spelled the same

>Voiced "th" followed by a broad vowel is written "d".
>When that vowel is an "a" in conventional spelling the
>following consonant is doubled so "that" becomes
>"dtt".    Contractions are made by attaching the
>contracted word to the following word, without
>apostrophe, rather than the preceeding word so that
>"that's enough" becomes "dtt syngh".
>
>"ng" is always pronounced "ing" when not preceeded by
>a vowel or followed by a consonant.  "sing" -> "sng",
>but "song" would be "*sangng", ("a" followed by
>doubled consonant = "aw") except that the "ng" is not
>doubled.  Instead, it is followed by "h" to indicated
>the equivalent of doubling so that "song" -> "sangh".
>(Note that "sanford" is "snghrt", so care must be
>taken to notice whether an "ngh" combination is parsed
>""ng+h" or "n+gh".)  To differentiate between "sang"
>and "snag" the "n" is doubled to show that it stands
>apart from the "g" as in "snag" -> "snng".  "sang" and
>"sung" are spelled "syng" and "syngh" for no
>particular reason, and must be learned by rote.
>
That's cool! All languages need some spellings that are there "for no
particular reason" ;-P

>(rule book continues for 147 more pages giving
>arbitrary rules and their many, many conflicting
>exceptions.)
Rly ytrstng! (Is that this?)

- Max

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