#71758
05/30/2002 1:35 PM
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Not the hotel indigo kinda phonetic alphabet.
Many years ago I read an article (Louisville Courier-Journal?) about phonetic alphabets and became enamored with the idea. I tried doing a search on the web, but I can't find anything that looks like what I remember. I think there were about fourty or so symbols, one for each English sound. It's not that I'm a particularly horrible speller, though there are a few words I habitually misspell. I just think it would be easier for people in general if such a thing were the standard. One sound, one letter. You see a word and you know how to pronounce it (barring emphasis). You hear a word and you know how to spell it.
Ignoring the obvious fact that this would almost certainly not work in the US (or anywhere else), is there anything that would be lost by its adoption? Is there really anything to be gained? Maybe it's English grammar and not spelling that's the sticking point for people who have problems with it.
k
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#71759
05/30/2002 2:54 PM
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Joined: Dec 2000
Posts: 13,803
Carpal Tunnel
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It'd certainly give phonics a boost. Make it so clearly preferable to whatever that other thang is called as to make it casual to the most obvious observer. I think the most common is the International Phonetic Alphabet: ( http://www2.arts.gla.ac.uk/IPA/ipachart.html) It has fairly obvious drawbacks for everyday use, not the least of which would be a whole new keyboard. There is a standard font version floating around somewhere that I saw recently. Probably googlable by the persistent searcher.
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#71760
05/30/2002 2:57 PM
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Joined: Jul 2000
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I for one would hate a phonetic alphabet. English is charming in its spelling inconsistencies. And I can't help but believe punsters would be hard put to make a living. Oh, wait. I'm not making a living at it anyway.
TEd
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#71761
05/30/2002 3:10 PM
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Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 1,156
old hand
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one for each English sound
The problem that I see is that there are ambiguities. For example, I say "tot" and "taught" and they sound exactly the same. My British office mate says two different "aw" sounds there. Or, USns tend to say "sorry" so it sounds like "sarry". When I say it, my "o" sounds like an O. My vowel sounds in "white" and "wide" or "lout" and "loud" are different (Canadian raising). But then, USns say the vowels in those word pairs exactly the same. So whose version of English would we standardize to? If we standardized to my version of English, say, then my office mate's spelling wouldn't differentiate the sounds he hears for "tot" and "taught", or you would see two different vowels for "lout" and "loud", though you pronounce them both the same.
That is what I see as the fundamental problem. I think it would be easy to deal with the consonants, but the vowels are "a whole nother story". And it's not just subtle differences in the vowels, but drastic differences in some cases.
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#71762
05/30/2002 3:11 PM
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Dear TEd: you may never make a living as a punster, but you contribute livelyhood to the board.
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#71763
05/30/2002 3:16 PM
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punsters would be hard put to make a living
Oh, I dunno. You'd be able to play on words that were pronounced the same but spelled differently with today's system much more readily plus you should be able to play off regional accents with interesting results.
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#71764
05/30/2002 3:21 PM
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Seems an obvious point now that you mention it.
Come to think of it I recall having exactly that sort of problem once when I was dabbling in Esperanto. This book was using English words to show how to pronounce the Esperanto sounds, but I pronounced the vowel sounds identically in two words. One was the word 'not', can't recall the other. I thought there was an error and I said so to an Indian friend who, having had both English and American teachers, pointed out that other people pronounce the word differently.
k
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#71765
05/30/2002 4:57 PM
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Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 1,156
old hand
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This book was using English words to show how to pronounce the Esperanto sounds
I had the same problem with a Turkish book. They used words to help explain the vowels...most were OK but check out this example:
A a as the a in cat pronounced by a northern English person; or the u in cup pronounced by a Londoner or Australian.
Whaaa? What if you can't think of how any of those people would pronounce any of those words? What then? Luckily, I had a real live Turk for help!
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#71766
05/30/2002 7:36 PM
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Joined: Dec 2001
Posts: 688
addict
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addict
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I think there were about fourty or so symbols, one for each English sound.I was part of an experimental class in first grade. We were not taught to read the regular alphabet. They taught us what they called Initial Teaching Alphabet, or ITA for short. Which is exactly as you described here. The problem was, I learned how to read and write in ITA in first grade, then had to learn how to read and write in English in second grade!  Such progress we made. 
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#71767
05/30/2002 7:40 PM
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It's pretty scary they would use you like a guinea pig.
I was thinking this would only work if there were lots of things already in print using the phonetic alphabet - dr seuss type materials.
k
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#71768
05/30/2002 7:42 PM
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forty symbols ?!
That is a lot of symbols really. If you can go through the trouble of knowing what "ae, squiggly f, squiggly f, o with an x on top" sounds like, you can surely put the same energy into learning English the normal way and come out on top.
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#71769
05/31/2002 12:18 PM
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Well, yea, but the phonetic alphabet I saw was a lot simpler than the international version I've seen doing web searches. I believe this one was specific to English and most of the symbols looked like minor variations of Phonecian alphabet.
k
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