[shavian] Teaching children the prestige dialect

[stbetta]

Ze and Tim,   Thanks for your discussions.  I think they explain your interest in RITE. Words that have two or more high frequency pronunciations are indeed a problem. Your solution is a reasonable one, if over 30% of the population of English speakers pronounces the word as spelled, it should not be respelled.   REP takes the view one step further.  If the word can be understood when pronounced as spelled, it should not be changed.  ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) author   Huckvale wrote: The Chaos is hard to read because it is full of words which share spelling patterns but do not share pronunciation patterns. Compare "creature/creation", "corpse/corps", "horse/worse", "head/heat". Such arbitrariness in spelling means that learners have to remember such a large number of rules and special cases that reading and spelling become a real challenge and source of difficulty for many.   Regular English Pronunciation Regular English Pronunciation. Regular English Pronunciation ... What is Regular English Pronunciation? Regular English Pronunciation ... www.phon.ucl.ac.uk/home/mark/regeng/ - 25k - Cached - Similar pages Regular English Pronunciation Regular English Pronunciation Project. Examples of Regular English Pronunciation version 1.00 - October 2002. In these examples, words ... www.phon.ucl.ac.uk/home/mark/regeng/examples.html - 7k   SB: I think you want to try a little of both: Regularize English, Regularize pronunciation.   ZE: exactli.   Only Americans would agree to basing phonemic spelling on broadcast American English.  The fact is that thair is only one sort of peeple who defend the idea of uzing broadcast GA: sum americans. But remember that no non-american agrees with it   SB: Broadcast English is not necessarily NBC English.  Broadcast English can be either NBC or BBC or some combination. BBC English used to be RP but now is a little more general. NBC English has always been about the same as General American.   The problem we have is one that has been ignored by dictionary publishers. Rather than dealing with the issue, they simply print different dictionaries for different regions.  The dictionaries do deal with alternate pronunciations of words within a region.  Thus AUNT = aent, �nt, �nt   See www.m-w.com and other on-line dictionaries.  www.foolswisdom.com/~sbett/q-ref.htm   --Steve SB: The devil is in the details and you haven't provided much. A pronunciation guide spelling as found in a dicitonary has to settle on one broad dialect. Each dialect will have its unique inventory of phonemes.   ZE: ... we invent a broad dialect. It takes the existing english pronunsiation that goes the neerest to the TS-form. Sinse sum peeple in New England say "aunt" to "aunt", we don't change it to "ant" az is the genneral american pronunsiation or to "aant" az is the british one.   The fact is that thair is only one sort of peeple who defend the idea of uzing broadcast GA: sum americans. But remember that no non-american agrees with it, especialy in the Commonwelth, and quite menny americans don't agree with it either.  ... in Brazil u lern the rotic american english, stil u don't lern that father and bother rime. Wy should we hav this non-sense if british dusnt hav it? And of corse they rime few and new. They look alike and they sound alike in british? Wel, lets take that then. Sumhow the teechers of the world agreed on a sort of world english. And it is the group of sounds that hav sum similarity with the forms. You seem to advocate a rhotic british dialect   We could rite a mannual for non-anglos wat to speek: international english. Wich is a mix of british and american english, becauz so menny peeple don't no wich one to uze and so make a mix of it, sutable to themselvs. We could say wat is mor or less standard. I tend to speek a british english, becauz my frends in Germany ar all english, but it has menny americanizms, becauz az i sed in prinsiple we lern american english - exept the rubbish. It would be a kind of oficializing an international english. How dus the world say it?   Would be worth a thought, maybe: if u dont want to speek american or british english, u can lern a new language: international english. It takes the most logic it can from the 2 standard acsents. And it can do it only with a new spelling... just say u speek international english.   Instead of regularizing the spelling of English, you regularize the pronunciation.   I don't know who you'r talking abaut [see reference above], A third alternative is to identify the sound-signs that represent the greatest difference between two dialects and allow them to fluctuate.  They can be pronounced either way and still be understood.  Instead of rewriting path as paath or p�th, we just allow that interpretation.  Yahoo! Groups Sponsor ADVERTISEMENT Yahoo! Groups Links To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/shavian/   To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED]   Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to the Yahoo! Terms of Service.