English in USA (and phonetic notation)

Thu Nov 16 19:54:50 UTC 2006

Thanks Wilson,

Indeed.  And since Britspeak is a bit different in pronunciation (and
spelling) of English we should focus phonetic spelling notation on American
English dialect first.  After all GA has 73% of the world's native English
speakers.  Where else to do it than the American Dialect Society.

English is the lingua franca of the world.  95% of scientific journals are
written in English.  People around the world are learning English for
business as well as academic reasons.  Because English is the most important
language, phonetic notation should be based on English.  It should use
regular letters so that it's easy to write.  That's the big impetus behind
truespel notation.

But there's a bigger reason; our kids.  They are not exposed to phonetic
reading and writing because of unusable phonetic notation in our
dictionaries, and SAMPA, and IPA.  What is needed is a simple notation of
the 40 USA English sounds that kids and adults can use to achieve "phonemic
awareness" the key trait of good readers (National Reading Panel).  They can
read and write stories in first grade, and transition to tradspel is no
problem as demonstrated by IBM's Writing to Read system as tested by ETS.
But that system uses special symbols, not as simple as truespel.

Truespel is mature.  I've written 4 books using it.  It's my life's work
now.  It integrates the dictionary (truesp4el books 2 and 3) with initial
teaching of reading (Writing to Read in the 80's), English phoneme and
letter use analysis (books 1 and 4), and eventually translation guides to
other languages.   No other notation can do this.

This iis a different work than linguists usually do.  I need help.  I
published myself because self-publishing is cheap now, and I needed several
books to show the worth of the application.  These books show the
integration possiblilities, and Book 4 is possibly the only and ultimate
resource for how USA phonemes are spelled in running text (newspapers) and
how often.  That book should be answers lots of questions on phoneme
frequecy.

If you build it they will come.  If anyone would like to use the truespel
database of 63K words for academic research, I would like to make it
available.  I would gladly and freely support any truespel applications or
research.   I have a truespel tutorial/test CD that I can mail out to all
interested.

Tom Zurinskas, USA - CT20, TN3, NJ33, FL4+
See truespel.com and the 4 truespel books at authorhouse.com.

>From: Wilson Gray <hwgray at GMAIL.COM>
>Reply-To: American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
>Subject: Re: English in USA
>Date: Wed, 15 Nov 2006 22:48:07 -0500
>
>---------------------- Information from the mail header
>-----------------------
>Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>Poster:       Wilson Gray <hwgray at GMAIL.COM>
>Subject:      Re: English in USA
>-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>You know, if we could all just get along with respect to the exact
>phonetic representation of each English phoneme in every possible
>environment, I'll bet that we could cut the rate of sound change in
>English in half! :-)
>
>-Wilson
>
>On 11/15/06, FRITZ JUENGLING <juengling_fritz at salkeiz.k12.or.us> wrote:
> > ---------------------- Information from the mail header
>-----------------------
> > Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> > Poster:       FRITZ JUENGLING <juengling_fritz at SALKEIZ.K12.OR.US>
> > Subject:      Re: English in USA
> >
>-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> >
> > The question was really about 'phonemes' vs. 'phones.'
> >
> > >>> wuxxmupp2000 at YAHOO.COM 11/15/2006 12:02 PM >>>
> > If I hadn't "heard" it, the word might just as well have been
> > _Unglish_: "a presumptive stage of development past Inglish."
> >
> >   JL
> >
> > FRITZ JUENGLING <juengling_fritz at SALKEIZ.K12.OR.US> wrote:
> >   ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> > -----------------------
> > Sender: American Dialect Society
> > Poster: FRITZ JUENGLING
> > Subject: Re: English in USA
> >
>-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> >
> > How can you hear a *phoneme*?
> > Fritz J
> >
> > >>> wuxxmupp2000 at YAHOO.COM 11/15/2006 9:42 AM >>>
> >
> > The *phoneme* I hear, however, is unmistakably / I /.
> >
> > If Tom has some form of "barred-i" in the initial syllable -
> > something tending toward
> > / E / - he may hear the tiny [ i ]-glide more prominently.
> >
> > But in terms of phonemes, MW says / I / in both exx.
> >
> > JL
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > Laurence Horn wrote:
> > ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> > -----------------------
> > Sender: American Dialect Society
> > Poster: Laurence Horn
> > Subject: Re: English in USA
> >
>-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> >
> > At 9:05 PM -0500 11/14/06, Alice Faber wrote:
> > >Laurence Horn wrote:
> > >>At 6:32 PM -0500 11/14/06, Joel S. Berson wrote:
> > >>>At 11/14/2006 02:29 PM, Paul Johnston wrote:
> > >>>>It's not W CT either--or, I'd be very surprised if it was.
> > >>>
> > >>>It's not "Eenglish" in NYC, at least not when I was growing up
> > >>>there. So I too would be surprised if it's W CT, that being NY
> > >>>Yankee country. :-)
> > >>>
> > >>It's not "Eenglish" in South Central CT either, or on www.m-w.com,
> > >>where the speaker quite clearly renders [INlIS], rhyming with, well,
> > >>Singlish. Of course, I tested this on a computer in South Central
> > >>CT; maybe it's different on computers in W CT...
> > >>
> > >
> > >Well, my parents still have dialup, so I doubt I'll be able to try it
> > >out when I'm at their house for Thanksgiving. Oh, well.
> >
> > Anyone else hear the www.m-w.com pronunciation as "Eenglish"? Of
> > course maybe all our ears (and our spectrographs) have been
> > corrupted...
> >
> > LH
> >
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>--
>Everybody says, "How hard it is that we have to die"---a strange
>complaint to come from the mouths of people who have had to live.
>-----
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