"Igglix orcâgrïfí" is "English orthography" written in my own invented spelling system.
Inärdàkxän
editThis independent highschool project of mine grew out of efforts to develop an orthography for my own conlang, Mágwos. I'll get around to writing that article some day. I read somewhere around that time that most English dialects have around 40-45 phonemes, some of which are allophonic, and got interested in spelling reform. While I don't advocate spelling reform for English at this point (phonics works just fine for teaching people how to read English...besides, I learned to read English just fine before I came up with this idea), I do think that a standardized orthography for dialect can be useful for when people want to write in dialect, and don't want to rely on the ability of the reader to guess at the sound they're trying to convey. My big constraint was that I wanted to be able to type it using only the readily-available character set using the US-International keyboard layout. The only time I've strayed from that was by the use of ŕ. I also wanted to use only one character for each phoneme. I didn't use þ in my orthography, but I did end up using a few consonant clusters to represent single phonemes (dj, hw, tx), or in the case of g (represents [ŋ] if spelled gh, and if it precedes k or another g), a single character represents two different phonemes. Theoretically, I could have used c for /ð/, þ for /θ/ and q for [ŋ], which would have eliminated the double use of g. The cluster hw for [ʍ] isn't really that problematic, but dj and tx present a minor problem since they're pronounced differently, depending on whether it's [ʤ] and [ʧ] or [dʒ]([d·ʒ]) and [tʃ]([t·ʃ]), which sound quite different. The same applies to aspirated vs. unaspirated voiceless stops following /s/, which really only makes a difference at syllable breaks. [skʰ], [spʰ], and [stʰ] sound quite unnatural, but I haven't bothered to figure out a way to differentiate between them and [s·k], [s·p] and [s·t]. This is only problematic when you really want to point out how horribly many people mispronounce the name of the state of Wisconsin (way too many people in this world think the /s/ is part of the first syllable—it's not; it's part of the 2nd syllable, i.e., [wɨ·ˈskɐⁿn·sn̩] or [wɨ·ˈskaⁿn·sn̩], not the horrible sounding [wəs·ˈkʰɑn·sn̩]. Anyway{s, depending on your preference}, here it is:
| character | IPA | stressed* | for example | normal spelling | stressed example | normal spelling |
| a | ʌ | à | bat | but, butt | änàf | enough |
| á | ɑ,a,ɐ,(§ ɒ) | â | robát | robot | äpân | upon |
| ä | ə | ë | äbàut | about | §° | §° |
| äl | l̩ | ël | bátäl | bottle | - | - |
| äm | m̩ | ëm | bátäm | bottom | - | - |
| än | n̩, ŋ̩ | ën | batän | button | - | - |
| är | ɹ̩,(§ ɚ,ɝ) | ër | batär | butter | infërnäl | infernal |
| e | ɛ | è | bet | bet | äpènd | append |
| é | æ | ê | bét | bat | ïnêcäma | anathema |
| éi | e,eʲ | êi | béit | bait, bate | äbêit | abate |
| i | ɪ | ì | bit | bit | ïklìps | eclipse |
| í | i | î | bít | beat, beat | särîf | serif |
| ï | ɨ | ë | fïtâgrïfí | photography | §° | §° |
| o | o,oʷ | ò | bot | boat | äbòd | abode |
| ó | ɔ,(§ ɒ) | ô | bót | bought | dïstrôt | distraught |
| u | ʊ | ù | put | put | - | - |
| ú | u | û | bút | boot | andû | undo |
| ö § | œ,ɶ | ý | dö ([dœ]) | do | - | - |
| ü § | y | ÿ | yü ([jy]) | you | - | - |
| * primary stress is word-initial by default, and is only indicated by the characters in this column when not in first syllable. secondary and tertiary stress are not indicated. § this isn't used in my pronunciation of English, but I've heard it infrequently in others' ° phoneme is not found in stressed positions - haven't come up with an example just yet... | ||||||
Keep in mind, these examples represent the kind of North Central American English I speak (sometimes called a "Chicago accent", although without the Northern Cities Vowel Shift, which is, IMHO, either an affectation or a northeast US analogue of a Valspeak, albeit w/o the Valley Girls, rather than an actual significant pronunciation shift). The stressed versions are generally lengthened [:], as is pretty standard in English. There is a rather infrequent phonemic lengthening of short vowels, especially [o] that I don't bother to indicate generally, since most people don't distinguish between the lengthened and shorter versions, whether speaking or hearing. (The example that comes to mind offhand is "road" [rod] vs. "rode" [ro:d].) Long vowels (i.e., the ones represented with acute accents) also seem to be lengthened [:] if they come before voiced consonants or are in open syllables, including the primary vowel in rising and closing diphthongs. One notable exception is in my pronunciation of the word "hide", which is [háid] when it's a noun (i.e., a pelt) but [haid] as a verb (i.e., "to conceal"). I never did figure out whether or not /ɒ/ should be represented by á or ó…it doesn't really affect me personally, since I don't have /ɒ/ in my speech. One "problem", pertaining to my "one-on-one" schema has to do with the pronunciation of /e/ before /ɹ/. The sound is closer to /eɹ/ than it is to /ɛɹ/, /eɪɹ/ or /æɹ/. Since /e/ doesn't exist phonemically (i.e., distinct from /eʲ/) in other contexts (except perhaps in such pairs as lair/layer [leɹ]/[leʲ·jɹ̩]—a distinction I'm not sure exists in non-rhotic dialects), and since the representation "er" is phonemically wrong, and "éir" is, if pronounced in full, also phonemically affectatious-sounding, I've opted for "ér", despite the fact that the [æ] in that combination has a decided [ʲ] offglide—[æʲr], rather than simply [ær]. Since [ær] doesn't occur, however, I don't regard this as a particularly worrisome abberation. My purpose, after all, as stated already, isn't to give an accurate phonological representation of dialect, but a phonemic one. Side note, although phonetic transcriptions of English regularly represent the diphthong in "few" as [ju:] regardless of whether it's actually pronounced [ɪʊ] or [ju:], my classy system differentiates between them as íw for [ɪʊ] (which is actually pronounced [i:w] and yú for [ju]. So, while phonetic representations for "few" appear as [fju:], my system has "fíw". Notice that [ɪʊ] is not the correct representation of this diphthong…, which would be spelled as fiu: the [ʊ] has none of its normal vowel quality. If it were spelled fiw, and actually pronounced that way (i.e., [fɪw]), I would assume that the word being represented were "fill", not "few". A sidebar to this side note is that it's this diphthong that is most frequently realized as [ø], [ʏ] or [y].
| character | IPA | for example | normal spelling | name |
| b | b | bái | by | bí |
| c | θ | cin | thin | cí |
| ç | ç,x | baç | Bach ([bɑx]) (these phonemes occur quite frequently, exp. /x/, in Wisconsin at least, especially in idiolects...in such cases, however, my preference for English words is to go with "k"...for example, when people say "khart" for "cards", I would go with "kart", rather than "çart") | éiç ([eʲx]) |
| d | d,ɾ | dóg ([dɔg̚]) lédär([ˈlæ·ɾɹ̩]) | dog ladder | dí |
| dj | ʤ | djadj | judge | djí |
| f | f | fin | fin | ef |
| g | g | got | goat | gí |
| gg | ŋg | haggär | hunger | éigga |
| gh | ŋ | hagh | hung | éigh |
| gk | ŋk | hagk | hunk | éigk |
| h | h | héi | hay | héitx |
| hw | ʍ | hwitx | which | hwéitx |
| j | ʒ | trejär | treasure | jéi |
| k | k | kigh | king | kéi |
| l | l | lógh | long | el |
| m | m | méi | may | em |
| n | n | néi | neigh | en |
| p | p | péi | pay | pí |
| q | ð | aqär | other | qú |
| r | ɹ/ɹʷ/ɻʷ | righ | ring | ár |
| s | s | sái | sigh, scythe | es |
| t | t,ɾ,ʔ | tie ([tʰaɪ]) batär ([ˈbʌ·ɾɹ̩]) batän (['bʌʔ·n̩̚]) | tie butter button | tí |
| tx | ʧ | itx | itch | txéi |
| v | v | vái | vie | ví |
| w | w | wéi | way, weigh, whey (could theoretically be hwéi§) | wá |
| x | ʃ | xär | sure | ex |
| y | j | yú | you (sometimes), yew, ewe | yá |
| z | z | zíbra | zebra | zí |
| used only for foreign words or British/Scottish dialect | ||||
| ç | x,ç | báç | Bach | |
| ŕ | ɾ | - | - | |
| ŕŕ | r | - | - | |
| * when not in first syllable) § this isn't used in my pronunciation of English, but I've heard it infrequently in others' ° phoneme is not found in stressed positions - haven't come up with an example just yet... | ||||
I haven't completely figured out the problem of how to distinguish released from unreleased stops or the glottal stop (and yes, it's a problem...the pronunciation of "something" (sampäm) as [ˈsʌm·pm̩] is phonemically different from (and unrecognizable as) [ˈsʌmʔ·m̩] or [ˈsʌmp̚·m̩]; and "dentist" (denist) is ['dɛ nɪst], not the way I pronounce it: ['dɛ·nɪst̚]. Lengthened consonants are indicated by doubling: "dentists" (['dɛ·nɪs:]), spelled "deniss" (not to be confused with "Dennis", which is ['dɛ·nɪs] and spelled Denis, not to be confused with "Denise" [dɨ·'nis], and spelled Dïnîs). The one solution I've thought of is to use a double t, so something→samttäm, dentist→denistt. Another thing is that d and t are both used based on historical orthography, to represent [ɾ]. If this were ever to be adopted as a replacement orthography for English, my position would be to recommend shucking both d and t in favor of ŕ. In some cases, [ɾ] is voiceless, but afaik, there is no IPA symbol to represent this, and I don't feel particularly inclined to invent one. While [r] is not a normal part of phonology of most English dialects, it does occur somewhat infrequently in rapid speech in my part of the world, such as when two /t/s separated by an unstressed vowel occur, as e.g., in the phrase "put it on" [pʰʊ·ˈran] ("puŕ ŕ ân", although this would normally be spelled "put it án").