Re : Deseret Alphabet [was: Re: Regularized Inglish]

Dans un courrier dat=E9 du 29/09/99 21:08:58  , Dirk a =E9crit :

> The Mormon connection is correct; you're talking about the Deseret
>  Alphabet. It was a scheme developed by Orson Pratt (among others) and
>  promoted by Brigham Young to help the growing number of non-English
>  speaking Mormon converts come to grips with English pronunciation (if
>  not orthography). As a Mormon and a linguist, I've been interested in
>  the Deseret Alphabet for a while now. There doesn't seem to be any=20
>  particular logic to the system other than to create something which is
>  definitely *not* derived from the Latin alphabet. The characters are
>  all invented, though some bear accidental similarities to some Latin
>  characters. My first impression of the look of the Deseret Alphabet was
>  that it was Tamil or Malayalam.=20
> =20
>  It is possible to write phonetically accurate English using the Deseret
>  Alphabet. In fact, I once had the idea of looking at journals written in
>  the DA to try and recover the pronunciation of English of the time; I
>  still think it would be an interesting project.
> =20
>  I created a Deseret Alphabet font for Macintosh; if anyone is
>  interested, I can send it along with a key.=20
> =20
well, i consider roman alphabet a difficult stuff (any alphabet is - long li=
ve
syllabaries ;-) but i'm not sure i can handle this one on my computer.
i'm wondering : if deseret handles english fonetik'li, why not examine its
consonants and vowels and attribute a latin sign to each of them ?

my latter mail's (un)ortho(dox)graphy may read awkward to english
native speakers (ENS) but that's how GB english sounds to most
european non-native speakers acquainted with german
or dutch.

so why not tamil- or malayalam-reported vowels and consonants ?
(khmer could design a sign for each of their 63 vowels and that is
fortunate because otherwise no foreigner would get them)

BTW i'm a bit wary of ENS's lines over the specificity of each vowel
executed in each word. so to speak - so they speak -
in any language no vowel is ever pronounced the same in any word.
i'm no phoneticianisticalarianistician specialist but from a foreign
viewpoint and 10 years of carefully listening to that idiom and various
informatrices, i dare say that reasonably - that is pitch, docks, kangaroos,
whiskey and oceans put aside - an efficient english alphabet would need
no more than short or long or combined kind of a, =E4, e, =EB, o, =F6, u, i
vowels however you close or open or blow your mouth.
it's time our anglo-saxon friends remember they are a nifty mix of dutch,=20
danes,
norwegians, pictons and normans none of whose lang is endowed with
2,857 vowels and consonants as is often claimed among alfredian descendance,
especially on this list.
conlanging english list would thrive no doubt.


mathias