Talk:SoundSpel

"Disadvantges"

Those so-called disadvantages don't sound bad to me.

1.The phonetics is primarily based upon "General American" and differs slightly from the British "Received Pronunciation." There may be other small differences from Australian, Indian, South African, Canadian and other regional accents.

Well at least it's based on a modern accent and not Old English.

This is the same dialect (NBC English) found in dictionaries published for the U.S.

Most people are familiar with broadcast English even if they don't speak it.Steve bett 19:24, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

This is a more accurate and helpful explanation than the current one, which is the only disadvantage listed. One example of something that does not favor the General American accent is that -arr is retained. This is because of the fact that while Americans pronounce 'merry' and 'marry' the same, the British pronounce the 'a' in 'marry' about the same as the 'a' in 'cat'. I'm going to put this one back in. SpellcheckW7 (talk) 06:26, 17 February 2008 (UTC)

2.Approximately half of the words in common use are respelled.

Isn't that the point of a spelling reform, to make stuff easier to spell?

That is the advantage for learners. The disadvantage is that for those who already know traditional English spelling well, it would require them to learn a new system and re-learn half of the words in their language if it became the standard. Another thing this would mean is that if traditional spelling is discontinued, many books would need to be republished with the new spelling system. (However, books in digital form would make it easy to translate them automatically using software.) Either we keep two systems on board, or we need to make a transition. The disadvantages for both scenarios need to be considered. Let me know if you disagree with a couple of changes along these lines. SpellcheckW7 (talk) 02:39, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

SR is supposed to accelerate literacy and to save 2 years of primary school.

After 12 years of practice, most people can spell high frequency words as logograms or word-signs.

Steve bett 19:24, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

3.It is easy to read, but significant effort is required to learn to write it directly. Computer software is currently available to perform the respelling.

It'l probably take less time to learn this than our current system, and the technology part is an advantage.

Yes, but this is also part of the disadvantage for those who already know traditional spelling well. SpellcheckW7 (talk) 23:19, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

If you teach the correspondence chart first, kids could over-learn SoundSpel in 4 months or less.

The converter (listed under links) serves as a spell checker for learners. Just as 2nd year students of Spanish, German, Italian, etc. can spell in a foreign language better than they can in English, you would probably spell better in SoundSpel that traditional spelling after 30 minutes of study. Take the 16 word spelling test Steve bett 19:24, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

4.It is one of many proposals. There is no common agreement upon which proposal should be adopted.

There is common agreement on some respell proposals (e.g., thru for through) but not on total schemes. Members of the spelling society agree that superfluous letters should be dropped and over 50% agree that high frequency :spelling patterns are preferred over low frequency spelling patterns.

A serious concern, nonetheless. SpellcheckW7 (talk) 23:19, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

Between 1910 and 1930, over 50% of the members of the spelling societies endorsed NuSpelling. However, less than 10% endorse it today. This is because spelling reformers have different spelling preferences. As you suggest, members would probably go along with what ever a quasi-official English spelling commission decided. Steve bett 19:24, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

So, who cares? It would be great if we had any spelling reform.

Cameron Nedland 00:14, 31 January 2006 (UTC)

The issue with #1 is that it essentially makes spelling incredibly harder for anyone outside of the General American dialect. English is spoken and written around the world in hundreds of regional dialects and accents, and a glance at the talk pages for General American and other related pages will tell you how much people fail to agree on what it is. Also, GA is always undergoing changes in pronunciation - chain shifts and mergers. How does one SoundSpel "cot" vs. "caught", for example? Is "marry" spelled 'mairy' or 'mary' or 'marry' and is "merry" spelled 'mairy' or "merry"? I consider what I speak quite close to GA and I hear no distinction between SoundSpel's notations "air", "err" and "arr".

Soundspel simply retains the traditional spellings with respect to /eIr/-/Er/-/ær/

as in airy, Mary, merry, marry. In cases where differences in pronunciation are recognized by ::some and not by others, Soundspel does not try to spell by sound. Steve bett 19:24, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

While it is probably a poor argument, another reason non GA speakers will dislike this and other spelling reform attempts that are based on a specific dialect is that spelling and reading words written more phonetically as they are heard in GA could be likely to slowly wither away the different regional accents. Non-rhotic dialects may disappear if they begin reading everything phonetically and "over" is spelled "oever" and not "oevu" or however one would phonetically spell using this standard if a non-rhotic dialect were used. Matches10 05:47, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

Wow! - this sounds ace. I really like the idea, and completely agree with what the user above says about the "disadvantages" not really being disadvantages.
--Just The Q 01:25, 18 November 2006 (UTC)

I'm removing the mention of how SoundSpel is based on General American. To state this as a disadvantage is POV. Any reform that attempted to bring phonemic consistency to English would have to base its phonemes on a particular accent. I realize it may seem offensive to some people, but it's not about cultural superiority. It wouldn't necessarily matter on which accent a given reform is based, as long as the end result unified English pronunciation into *some* consistent model. 70.153.125.99 (talk) 03:31, 30 June 2011 (UTC)

Unbalanced article

Apparently, a number of perceived disadvantages - which were not sourced - were removed from the article, while perceived advantages - also not sourced - were kept. The "advantages" should be provided with a source or removed, because as it is they are just an opinion. And if they are sourced and kept, disadvantages should also be listed with sources. --Bonadea (talk) 13:41, 28 December 2007 (UTC)

I just added more disadvantages, trying to make them specific and objective. I don't know if everyone can agree with these changes or if they can allow the tag to be removed. I hope to add sources later. SpellcheckW7 (talk) 03:22, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

After careful consideration of the disadvantages, I removed the unbalanced tag. SpellcheckW7 (talk) 23:50, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

Disadvantage

The system does not represent phonetic spelling of words and it will not eliminate all of the problems that the current english spelling system has. People will still be confused when they read other languages such as spanish which has a very regular phonetic spelling sytem.

I agree. SoundSpel is easier to learn than our present system, but not as easy as a purely phonemic system. I think it has too many compromises (as in "Exceptions and other differences"), and the only compromises needed are the ones that maintain the connection between dialects, especially between General American and British Received pronunciation. The most phonetic pronunciation or spelling should win. For example, Americans prounounce the 'er ' at the end of words, while the British do not. Therefore, the 'er ' endings should be retained, to reflect the more distinct pronunciation. The British pronounce "missile" more like it is spelled than Americans do. So the spelling should be "misiel", not "misul." SpellcheckW7 (talk) 02:55, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

Seems to me, any item on a list of advantages or disadvantages should say, compared to what? Compared to other proposals? Compared to existing British orthography? American? Jim.henderson (talk) 16:01, 17 February 2008 (UTC)

I have addressed the relative advantages and disadvantages in my contributions. I don't think anyone who has read the article or knows about SoundSpel could argue with these, although there is only one source given (on the last advantage). -SpellcheckW7 (talk) 03:36, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

ER and OI

I've looked at many spelling systems, and SoundSpel is definitely the best one. It's easy to learn and the end product looks good. This page has left me with two uncertainties about it, however, which I hope can be cleared up.

Firstly, is it correct that "er" can vary in length? It's described as the sound in "per", /3:/, but in the texts I find "larjer and brieter", where it's the schwa, /@/.

Secondly, can "oi" also be written as "oy" (cf. "ou/ow" and "au/aw")? If it can't, then it should, for the sake of classes of word like "boy" and "enjoyable", because "boi" and "enjoiabl" look silly.

Custardslice7 (talk) 10:53, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

I reckon the first must be one of them thar dialectical differences. As a New Yorker of Wisconsin origin, when I purchase one perch per snapper, I purr with proper ardor at having pronounced "pee, schwa, are" eight times identically in one sentence. Jim.henderson (talk) 03:46, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

It's the existence of different dialects that makes this game so tricky... Do you have any "long schwa" /3:/ sounds at all in your dialect? In any case, many dialects do, so SoundSpel must be seen to support it. I myself don't distinguish between the pairs "u/uu" and "or/ur" in my dialect, so I'm living with ambiguity as it is!

And "oy"?

Custardslice7 (talk) 17:17, 27 March 2008 (UTC)

In per, "er" is stressed, while in larjer and brieter, it's unstressed. Whether a vowel is stressed or not does already have an effect on both it's length and sound, in both normal English spelling, and Sound Spel, so "er" is no exception here.

—Preceding unsigned comment added by 194.120.140.121 (talk) 13:34, 4 June 2009 (UTC)

References, Changes

Looking for a reference for the statement, "SoundSpel has been endorsed by the American Literacy Council because English speakers can easily read it", I found http://www.spiritus-temporis.com/soundspel/ . This site mostly just copied what the Wikipedia article said at the time.

I found a good reference for the above statement from an article written by Rondthaler, who is the Chairman of the American Literacy Council (see http://americanliteracy.com/alc-board.htm). He uses the words "the American Literacy Council's 'SoundSpel'." -SpellcheckW7 (talk) 21:19, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

For the Advantages, I found exceptions to the "no unusual notations" rule, looking through the Phonetics section. 'ae' and 'aa' are rather obscure, but they are used in "formulae" and "aardvark". I know of no words that use "uu" for the sound in "book" or zh for the sound in "azure."

The "ae" in formulae is pronounced "ee" in several dialects, so I've replaced the word with "sundae". Custardslice7 (talk) 14:01, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

The references I have added show where most of the information comes from. I have removed the "Unreferenced" tag.

I removed the following, which has weasel words, being my own speculation.

"it could be difficult to reach an agreement on a new system that is more phonemic, especially if it will still represent multiple dialects."

-SpellcheckW7 (talk) 23:12, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

I wish I could provide a better diversity of references, but reliable sources are hard to find. I haven't been able to get the "Dictionary of American Simplified Spelling". Maybe I could have some help exctracting advantages and disadvantages from http://www.spellingsociety.org/news/pvs/pv8rondthaler.php#anser? Sorry I'm slow with it. -SpellcheckW7 (talk) 22:26, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

Pro & con lists

Seems to me, the majority of items in the "disadvantages" list, and some in the "advantages" list, apply to all or most proposed reforms. Should the lists be edited to reflect this, or those items replaced by links to appropriate sections of English spelling reform? Jim.henderson (talk) 20:55, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

I'm still working on improvements on these lists, but the main thing is getting them referenced. SpellcheckW7 (talk) 22:16, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

You did it. Thanks, Jim. -SpellcheckW7 (talk) 05:09, 8 June 2008 (UTC)

SS and YOR

I'm back, with two more questions. Firstly, because there are numerous words that differ only in a final [s] or [z] after a vowel -- examples include "gross/grows", "dice/dies", "horse/whores" -- can we use the digraph SS to represent a final [s] that's not a plural or verbal suffix? The examples I listed then become: groess/groes, diess/dies, horss/hors. I know there were already and continue to be many pairs or groups of different words that are spelt the same, but having a bit of extra distinguishability cheaply can't be a bad thing; and it would be a shame if someone wanted to write "I don't like orange juice" and was misunderstood :-)

My second question is: how is the "yor" phoneme represented (as in Europe, mural, fury, pure)? Is it "yor/yur" or something prettier, e.g. "eur"? Custardslice7 (talk) 10:47, 15 July 2010 (UTC)

Guys, I think I know the answer to my second question. Based on the fact that "eer" corresponds to the BE phoneme /I@/, I deduce that "uer" will correspond to /jO:/. If this is so, the article should perhaps be edited, for the benefit of BE speakers if not of AE ones et al as well. Custardslice7 (talk) 09:13, 20 July 2010 (UTC)

I've just read at [[1]] that the above is correct, so have edited the article accordingly. Custardslice7 (talk) 09:13, 30 July 2010 (UTC)

Possible Typo concerning <eer>

I think I discovered a slight typo. The table documents that /iːr/ = <eer> as in "beer". I believe it is supposed to be /ɪɹ/ = <eer>.

The SoundSpel Converter turns "beer" into <beer> as the table indicates. But it also turns "ear" into <eer>, "near" into <neer>, and "here" into <heer>, and "weird" into <weerd>. You might think this is because "beer" and "weird" and "ear" all contain the long-e sound /i/ or /iː/. If they did, then Soundspel orthography might be being derived by combining long-e sound /iː/ <ee> with the /ɹ/ sound <r>. This would make /iːɹ/ = <ee + r> = <eer>.

But that isn't exactly how it works. You see "beer" and "ear" and "weird" are not pronounced that way.

pronunciation table for select /ɪə(ɹ)/, /ɪɚ/, & /ɪ(ɹ)/ words

word	IPA dialect-neutral English pronunciation	RP pronunciation	GA pronunciation	other pronunciations	American Heritage Dictionary	SoundSpel
ear	/ɪəɹ/	/ɪə̯/	/ɪɹ/, /iɹ/		îr	eer
beer	/bɪəɹ/	/bɪə/, /bɪː/	/bɪɹ/	near–square merger: /bɛə/	bîr	beer
near	/nɪəɹ/	/nɪə/	/nɪɹ/	near–square merger: /nɛə/	nîr	neer
here	/hɪəɹ/	/hɪə/	/hɪɹ/		hîr	heer
seer	/sɪəɹ/	/sɪə/, / 'siː . ə/	/sɪəɹ/, / 'si . əɹ/		sîr	seeer
weird	/wɪəɹd/	/ ˈwɪəd/, / 'wiːəd/	/ 'wiɚd/, / 'wɪɚd/		wîrd	weerd
Note that in RP the /ɹ/ sound is not pronounced at the end of a syllable or reduced to the /ə/ schwa sound. Also, note that /ɚ/ in "weird" = /əɹ/.

From this table we can see that all six of these words are generally pronounced with the /-ɪə(ɹ)/ sound: /ɪə/ or /ɪː/ in the RP and /ɪɹ/ or /ɪəɹ/ in GA. /ɪə/ is a diphthong in Received Pronunciation. The first five words all show up in the wiktionary page for words that rhyme with /-ɪə(r)/. "Weird" also contains /-ɪə(r)/ with the addition of /d/.

According to the Pronunciation Respelling for English Table, (îr) is the AHD respelling for /ɪəɹ/ (in IPA for dialect-neutral English pronunciation) and /ɪɹ/ (in IPA for General American pronunciation according to "A Pronouncing Dictionary of American English" (1944 [1953]), John S. Kenyon, Thomas A. Knott).

That means the /ɪəɹ/ = RP:/ɪə/ = GA:/ɪɹ/ or /ɪɚ/ = AHD:((îr)) = SoundSpel:<eer>. The only word in our table that does not follow this pattern in SoundSpel is "seer" which is rendered as <seeer> with three e's. We will come back to this in a minute.

The only pronunciations in the previous table that corresponds to something like /iːɹ/ are a US variant "ear" pronounced /iɹ/, variants of "seer" pronounced according to dialect-neutral notation as / siːə(ɹ)/, and variants of "weird" pronounced according to dialect-neutral notation as / 'wiːə(ɹ)d/. We can see that in Received Pronunciation (RP) when the /ɹ/ sound follows the /iː/ sound they cannot simply drop the /ɹ/ sound other wise the word would be indistinguishable from words that are identical except for the final /ɹ/ sound. So "seer" would sound identical to "see" unless they add the final /ə/ schwa sound. So "seer" sounds something like (see-uh). This means that /iːɹ/ is roughly equivalent to RP:/iːə/ and GA:/iɹ/ and could be written as /iːə(ɹ)/ in dialect-neutral notation.

According to the Pronunciation Respelling for English Table and the Phonetic notation of the American Heritage Dictionary, /iːr/, /iːə/, /iɹ/, and /iːə(ɹ)/ do not even have official phonemic respellings.

The only words I can find that rhyme with /-iːə(ɹ)/ or /-iə(ɹ)/ are "freer," "skier," and "seer." However, the pronunciation and phonetic notation of these words are not always given in dictionaries because they are listed under their lemma or dictionary forms: "free," "ski," and "see."

These words -- which are pronounced /fɹiː/, /skiː/, and /siː/ -- all contain the so-called long-e sound /iː/ as in the FLEECE lexical set which is respelled ((ē)) by the AHD system. Therefore, these words are respelled as ((frē)), ((skē)), and ((sē)). When adding the /ər/ sound to these words you might combine the /iː/ sound with the /ər/ sound, which is respelled ((er)) as in butter.

Therefore:

root word			word + agent suffix /ər/
	IPA	AHD		dialect-neutral English pronunciation					AHD					SoundSpel
			-eer	iː	+	əɹ	=	-iː . əɹ	ē	+	ər	=	-ē-ər	ee	+	er	=	-eeer
free	fɹiː	frē	freer	fɹiː	+	əɹ	=	'fɹiː . əɹ	frē	+	ər	=	frē-ər	free	+	er	=	freeer
ski	skiː	skē	skier	skiː	+	ər	=	'skiː . əɹ	skē	+	ər	=	skē-ər	skee	+	er	=	skeeer
see	siː	sē	seer	siː	+	ər	=	'siː . er	sē	+	ər	=	sē-ər	see	+	er	=	seeer

The only word that does not actually fit this pattern is "skier." The SoundSpel Converter does not transform "skier" at all, rendering it as "skier." Leaving "skier" unchanged is either a bug in the converter software or an inconsistency in the SoundSpel system.

Therefore, we would get the following table:

pronunciation table of /iːə(ɹ)/ & /iː(ɹ)/ words

word	IPA dialect-neutral English pronunciation	RP pronunciation	GA pronunciation	other pronunciations	American Heritage Dictionary	SoundSpel
freer	/ 'fɹiː . əɹ/	/ 'fiː . ə/	/ 'fri . əɹ/	??	frē-ər	freeer
skier	/ 'skiː . əɹ/	/ 'skiː . ə/	/ 'ski . əɹ/	?? /skɪə̯/	skē-ər	skier, skeeer
seer	/ 'siː . eɹ/	/ 'siː . ə/	/ 'si . əɹ/	/sɪəɹ/ (sîr)	sē-ər	seeer

There are two different pronunciations of "seer" depending, in part on definition, / 'siː . eɹ/ meaning a person who sees, and /sɪəɹ/ meaning a person who prophesies or known to have powers of divination. The first ought to be respelled AHD:((sē-er)) SoundSpel:<seeer> and the second AHD:((sîr)) SoundSpel:<seer>.

word	IPA	AHD	SoundSpel
seer	/sɪəɹ/	(sîr)	<seer>
	/ 'siː . eɹ/	(sē-ər)	<seeer>

It seems to me that SoundSpel simply choose one of the two morphologies since the two pronunciations and meanings are so close anyway. This explains why "seer" was spelled wrong in the first table under the SoundSpel column.

To conclude, it seems that SoundSpel intends to translate /ɪə(ɹ)/, /ɪɚ/, & /ɪ(ɹ)/ into <eer> not /iːə(ɹ)/ & /iː(ɹ)/. The /iːə(ɹ)/ sound is a combination of the /iː/ sound respelled as <ee> and the /ə(ɹ)/ sound respelled as <er> to form <eeer>. The following table explains this.

IPA	AHD	SoundSpel	Example
/ɪə(ɹ)/	(îr)	<eer>	beer
/iːə(ɹ)/ = /iː + ə(ɹ)/	(ē + ər) = (ē-ər)	<ee + er> = <eeer>	freer becomes freeer

Is there any official documentation I can check my hypothesis against?

Ryan Close (talk) 23:22, 21 December 2020 (UTC)