SoundSpel is an English language spelling reform proposal. Its origins date back to 1910.^[1] The English language is a West Germanic language that originates in England. ... The aim of spelling reform is to make spelling easier for learners and users by removing its difficulties. ... Year 1910 (MCMX) was a common year starting on Saturday (link will display calendar) of the Gregorian calendar (or a common year starting on Friday [1] of the 13-day-slower Julian calendar). ...

SoundSpel has been endorsed by the American Literacy Council because English speakers can easily read it.^[2]

Description

Phonetics

Phonemes are represented as follows:^[3]

Exceptions and other differences

U, meaning you, is always capital.

No change in was, as, of, the, he, she, me, we, be, do, to, thru, off, -ful, and their compounds such as being, together, thruout, offer, helpful.

No change in plural-s (jobs ), possessive-s (man's), and in 3d person present tense singular (he runs), even though the s is pronounced z.

No change in the letter pair 'th'-- which occurs more frequently than any consonant digraph. Similarly the letter 'x' is retained for both voiced (gz) and unvoiced (ks). The unvoiced occurrences outnumber the voiced 5 to 1, and words normally calling for voiced-x are understood even if pronounced with an unvoiced x.

No change in the spelling of short (schwa) vowels in the unstressed syllables of words like organ, novel, pensil, lemon -- unless the spelling clearly misleads in a deliberate overpronunciation of the word, as in "mountain".

Depending on its position in the word or root, the unstressed "½-ee" continues to be spelled e i or y| the unstressed syllables of between, detect, reform, champion, editorial, hapyest, fifty.

rr, as in traditional orthography, indicates that the preceding vowel is short -- carry, merry, sorry.

ll indicates that the preceding 'a' is pronounced 'aw' fall, tall, call.

The long-0 or long-I sound at the end of a word may be written with a single letter -- banjo, go, so, alibi, hi, fli, mi (--but banjoes, alibieing, flies, etc.)

A hyphen following a vowel indicates that that vowel is long: re-enter, co-operaet.

If two vowels -- such as ea -- do not match a digraph on the SoundSpel chart, then the syllable ends with the first vowel: react (ea is not a digraph), jeenius, memorial, creaetiv, etc. In cases of more than 2 vowels the syllable ends with the first digraph: flooid (oo, being the first digraph, ends the syllable -- not flooid), hieest, freeing, inueendo, power, continueing, paeabl, evalueaet.^[4]

Examples

^[5]

The Star

It was on the ferst dae of the nue yeer the anounsment was maed, allmoest siemultaeniusly frum three obzervatorys, that the moeshun of the planet Neptune, the outermoest of all planets that wheel about the Sun, had becum verry erratic. A retardaeshun in its velosity had bin suspected in Desember. Then a faent, remoet spek of liet was discuverd in the reejon of the perterbd planet. At ferst this did not cauz eny verry graet exsietment. Sieentific peepl, however, found the intelijens remarkabl enuf, eeven befor it becaem noen that the nue body was rapidly groeing larjer and brieter, and that its moeshun was qiet different frum the orderly progres of the planets. – Herbert George Wells H. G. Wells at the door of his house at Sandgate Herbert George Wells (September 21, 1866 - August 13, 1946) was an English writer best known for his science fiction novels such as The War of the Worlds and The Time Machine. ...

Britten when yung

We mae nowadaes be chairy about uezing the werd "jeenius", but we stil hav a guud iedeea whut is ment bi it. For exampl, thair ar graet numbers of verry gifted muezishans hoo ar admierd but not calld jeeniuses. But thair ar uthers, manifestly prodijus, performing offen at extraordinerrily erly aejes, a varieety of feets so complex that the muezical laeman cuud hardly imajin, eeven with the moest desperet laebor, acomplishing eny of them, whiel eeven muezishans ar astonisht and we then reech for the guud, handy, vaeg Enlietenment werd and call them jeeniuses. The list incloods Mozart and Mendelssohn; and, despiet all the limiting jujments, it incloods Benjamin Britten. – Frank Kermode Sir John Frank Kermode (born 29 November 1919), is a British literary critic. ...

Oed to a Nietingael

Mi hart aeks, and a drouzy numnes paens Mi sens, as tho of hemlok I had drunk, Or emptyd sum dul oepiaet to the draens Wun minit past, and Lethe-wards had sunk: 'Tis not thru envy of thi hapy lot, But beeing too hapy in thien hapynes, That thow, liet-wingèd Dryad of the trees, In sum meloedius plot Of beechen green, and shadoes numberles Singest of sumer in fuul-throeted eez. – John Keats Keats redirects here. ...

History

In 1910 philologist Alexander John Ellis played a major role in developing a system now known as "Classic New Spelling". Walter Ripman and William Archer wrote the first dictionary of the system, "New Spelling" (NuSpelling), which was republished in 1941 by the Simplified Spelling Society.^[6] Year 1910 (MCMX) was a common year starting on Saturday (link will display calendar) of the Gregorian calendar (or a common year starting on Friday [1] of the 13-day-slower Julian calendar). ... Alexander John Ellis (or Alexander Sharpe) (1814 - 1890) was an English philologist. ... William Archer (September 23, 1856 - December 27, 1924), English critic, was born in Perth, and was educated at Edinburgh University. ... For other uses, see 1941 (disambiguation). ... The Simplified Spelling Society is an organization which promotes English spelling reform. ...

In 1969 Godfrey Dewey improved upon Ripman's and Archer's work, producing "World English Spelling". Dewey and Edward Rondthaler, a prominent typesetter, CEO of International Typeface Corporation, corresponded from 1971. Also: 1969 (number) 1969 (movie) 1969 (Stargate SG-1) episode. ... Dr. Edward Rondthaler (born June 9, 1905 (102 years, 291 days) in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania), is a prominent typographist as well as a simplified spelling champion and chairman of the American Literacy Council. ... The International Typeface Corporation is a company that develops and provides a library of typefaces. ... Year 1971 (MCMLXXI) was a common year starting on Friday (link will display full calendar) of the 1971 Gregorian calendar, known as the year of cyclohexanol. ...

In 1986 the book "Dictionary of Simplified American Spelling" written by Rondthaler and Edward Lias was published by the American Language Academy. Its full title was "Dictionary of American spelling: A simplified alternative spelling for the English language : written as it sounds, pronounced as it's written". This called for improvements to spelling, with clearer rules and better grapheme/ phoneme correspondence. It was slightly less strict than Classic New Spelling, allowing "the" rather than "dhe", for example. Year 1986 (MCMLXXXVI) was a common year starting on Wednesday (link displays 1986 Gregorian calendar). ... In typography, a grapheme is the atomic unit in written language. ... In human language, a phoneme is the theoretical representation of a sound. ...

The system was further reformed from 1987 on and became SoundSpel. This article is about the year 1987. ...

Advantages

• Does not introduce any new symbols, unlike Unifon and the Shavian and Deseret alphabets.
• Relies upon familiar digraphs.
• Does not assign unusual notations for sounds (ex. using q for the ng sound), except for 'uu' and 'zh'.
• Does not introduce diacriticals (accents), which are typically not favored by North Americans.
• Does not dramatically change the appearance of existing words.
• Due to above reasons, is easier to read and to learn, for those who are familiar with traditional English spelling, than other systems, such as those mentioned above.
• Improves consistency of writing. This would reduce learning time and reading difficulties, compared to those of traditional English spelling.
• Also promotes more precise pronunciation in speech.^[7]
• Generally decreases text length by about 4% .^[8]

Unifon is a phonetic alphabet for English developed by John Malone in the 1950s. ... Note: This page contains IPA phonetic symbols in Unicode. ... The Deseret alphabet is a phonetic alphabet developed in the mid-19th century by the board of regents of the University of Deseret (later the University of Utah) under the direction of Brigham Young, second president of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. ... Note: This page or section contains IPA phonetic symbols in Unicode. ... Example of a letter with a diacritic A diacritic or diacritical mark, also called an accent, is a small sign added to a letter to alter pronunciation or to distinguish between similar words. ...

Disadvantages

• The phonetics of SoundSpel 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.
• SoundSpel is only one of many English spelling reform proposals. There is no agreement on what proposal, if any, should be adopted.
• Those already familiar with traditional spelling would need to learn a new system if it became the standard.
• Compromises and rule exceptions make SoundSpel more difficult to learn than a purely phonetic system. Learning to write it directly would especially require effort, unless computer software is used as an aid.
• Either two systems would need to be learned in order to read both old and new literature, or the text of many books and printed materials would need to be translated to the new system, if traditional spelling is discontinued.

Note: This page or section contains IPA phonetic symbols in Unicode. ... Note: This page or section contains IPA phonetic symbols in Unicode. ...

References

See also

• Spelling reform

The aim of spelling reform is to make spelling easier for learners and users by removing its difficulties. ...

External links

• SoundSpel
• "DoubleLine" Translator