IPA for kids

[Tom Zurinskas]

I do dump on the IPA, but I recognize that it has been a very good thing.  It began the sorting of speech sounds and has sorted so many.

Actually, it was designed for children learning to read.  See below from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Phonetic_Association

History
In 1886, in Paris, a small group of language teachers formed an association to encourage the use of phonetic notation in schools to help children acquire realistic pronunciations of foreign languages and also to aid in teaching reading to young children. The group, led by Paul Passy, called itself initially Dhi Fonètik Tîcerz' Asóciécon (the FTA). In January 1889, the name of the Association was changed to L'Association Phonétique des Professeurs de Langues Vivantes (AP), and, in 1897, to L'Association Phonétique Internationale (API)—in English, the International Phonetic Association (IPA).

Basically, it was a French invention, and was published in French until 1972 (I read somewhere).   Apparently, it was the only game in town, and folks went on to spell the sounds of the world based on it.  But it was not computer friendly (and of course not English friendly.)  (It was a standard, but not such a good one.)

So Europe set out to improve it in 1987 with SAMPA (strangely meaning Speech Assessment Methods Phonetic Alphabet).  That's only 22 years ago!  What Europe knew in 1987 was that English was the lingua franca of the world.  But that didn't matter.  SAMPA as created was not English friendly.  In fact the USA was not invited to the design party, which was attended by a few European delegates.  So they kept SAMPA non-English friendly.  Nobody uses it in the USA, not newspapers, not the government, not reading teachers.

So the giant void exists in literacy today, which truespel fills, the lack of an English friendly phonetic notation.  Why should the USA whimpishly use phoney workaround notation inhibiting the needed phonemic awareness of beginning readers?  That needs to stop.  The problem is solved with truespel.  And it's learnable in minutes for reading adepts.  It's quality controlled and mature and free.


Tom Zurinskas, USA - CT20, TN3, NJ33, FL5+
see truespel.com
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