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From: Richard Wojcik <rickw@eskimo.com>
Subject: Re: Anounsing a nu Ingglish spelling
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Donald Fisk wrote:
> 
> JAPTRANS (japtrans@sprynet.com) wrote:
> : Have you ever noticed how many vowel sounds there are in the English
> : language? I count no less than THIRTEEN (excluding dipthongs!) Spelling 13
> : different vowel sounds with 5 vowel letters is problematic for anybody fool
> : enough to attempt a phonetic system!
> 
> That depends on your accent.   Mine has ten vowels (i I e E a ^ O o u @)
> and four diphthongs (ae @i ^u oe).
                       ^^
True, it does depend on your dialect (or accent), but there has been some
confusion over the diphthong/monophthong distinction.  First of all, [ae]
is not a diphthong but a phonetically pure vowel spelled with a "digraph".
The phoneme represented by /ae/ does become diphthongized (i.e. undergoes
"breaking") in some dialects.  All four "tense" vowels--/i/ /e/ /u/ /o/--
may be regarded as "phonetic" diphthongs, which accounts for some of their
variant pronunciations in different dialects.  The phonemic diphthongs
are more conventionally represented as /aw/, /ay/, and /Oy/.

I think that the least you can get away with for standard English is 14
vowels (indluding diphthongs):  /i I e E ae @ a u U o O ay aw Oy/.  This
is just one of the problems that spelling reformists tend to ignore.
The goal of spelling reform is normally to simplify orthography, especially
for language learners.  Reform becomes far less attractive when you find
out that you need to add some complexity to the system in order to make
it conform to the phonemic pattern of the standard dialect (which, of course,
will be the midwestern version of the Northern dialect spoken in the US :).

But linguists should all strongly support spelling reform.  It would certainly
provide that worthy group of scholars a steady, dependable income for a long,
long time.  :^)

-- 
Rick Wojcik                                       Bellevue, WA
rickw@eskimo.com                                  http://www.eskimo.com/~rickw
