[End] [c. 10,000 words]

[This is the original, AOL site for what is now the website FANETIK.ORG. Altho I will endeavor to keep both sites up-to-date, in the event of a difference, the Fanetik.org site controls.]

[Simpler Spelling Word of the Day] [Index] [Introduction] [Table that explains the system] ["Correct Pronunciation" wordlist] [Links to Other Websites Concerned with Spelling]

FANETIK

Reformed (Phonetic) English Spelling —
At Least for Teaching

A Project of L. Craig Schoonmaker (Chairman, Expansionist Party of the United States)
295 Smith Street, Newark, New Jersey 07106, United States
Phone: (973) 416-6151
E-mail: Fanetiks@aol.com

Welkam tu a nu wae uv rieting Ingglish — a raashanal wae. Witth tha taebool givan beelo (imeedeeyatle aafter "What's New" aand the Intradukshan), eneewun kaan riet ene werd in the Ingglish laanggwaj so thaat eneewun els hu aulso noez tha sistam kaan reed it witthout ene kweschan about hou ene uv tha werdz iz pranounst. He wil eevan noe hwut aaksent yu speek, Amairikan aur British, bi hou yu riet werds liek "skejool" aur "shejool", "kaan't" aur "kon't", "eether" aur "iether", "tamaeto" aur "tamoto", etc. But I'm geting ahed uv mieself. Let us reetern tu staanderd speling tu eksplaen this projekt. (If, houwever, yu'd ferst liek tu se maur Fanetik tu test yaur abilite tu reed Fanetik witthout beeying toeld tha ruelz, klik heer. Tu go direktle tu tha taebool thaat givz tha ruelz, klik heer.)

Index

(Dates are when the page was first added to the site, not the latest revision.)

4/24/05: Links to Other Websites Concerned with Spelling. Listed here are websites that provide a reciprocal link to our website. Any webmaster interested in a link exchange should send an email to Fanetiks@aol.com.

4/7/99: Leaves of Grass, Part I. I have phoneticized (Fanétisìezd) the beginning of the single most famous book of poetry in the English language, from start thru "Song of Myself". It appears in two-column Éeze Réeder format (standard spelling on the left, Fanetik with accents for syllabic stress on the right). There is some proofreading to be done, and maybe some illustrations to be added, but this 43,000-word file shows the utility of Fanetik in conveying the sounds of poetic language.

3/3/99: Place Names Phoneticized. Spelling reform must include geographic names if it is to be successful and maximally useful. This section phoneticizes the names of all the countries of the world and their capitals; major world cities; main subdivisions and well-known localities in the major English-speaking countries; and major geographical features, such as the continents, oceans and well-known seas, lakes, rivers, and mountains.

12/28/98: The Gospel According to Saint Matthew, in Éeze Réeder format (traditional spelling on the left, Augméntad Fanétik (Fanetik with accents to show syllabic stress) on the right. The entire Gospel appears, in both spellings, for a total of about 50,000 words. People uncertain whether Fanetik is a good system can see at this site enough of it to judge. They should find personal and place names much easier to deal with in Fanetik than in standard spelling.

11/15/98: "BASIC" English (British American Scientific International Commercial) in Fanetik — a transliteration into Fanetik and Augméntad Fanétik of all 850 words of the simplified-English system created by C.K. Ogden in 1928 and endorsed by Winston Churchill, Franklin Roosevelt and others as an auxiliary international language.

11/1/98: Phoneticizing Names, two tables of personal names (first and last) showing how almost 1,300 common names in English-speaking countries (but especially the United States) are spelled in Fanetik and Augméntad Fanétik. Look up your name(s) and those of friends and relatives.

6/14/98: Correct Pronunciation: A Prescriptive Dictionary that employs the Fanetik spelling system to cue readers to preferred pronunciations of commonly mispronounced English words. That area comprises a table of over 1,700 words and more than 120 usage notes, plus an introduction with discussion of guiding principles to correctness in speech.

5/19/98: Spanish version of the Fanetik table, to give approximate Spanish equivalents to the sounds of English. This will also be useful to speakers of other Continental European languages whose sounds are similar to those of Spanish, and to students of yet other languages who understand the sound system of Spanish but not that of English.

(4/23/98):Federalist Paper No. 5, which warned the people of the newly independent 'United' States of the danger of forming more than one country from the former Thirteen Colonies, in Éeze Réeder form. This is a sample of the kinds of things I should like to publish in an Éeze Réeder volume, tentatively titled "Réedingz in Damókrasè", that would make important primary sources on the development of the democratic mindset more readily accessible to students of English as a Second Language across the slowly democratizing Third World.

[Introductory remarks to sample texts are formatted in a single column and written in standard Fanetik (without accents for syllabic stress). Éeze Réeder text is formatted in two columns and written in Augméntad Fanétik, which provides accents to cue syllabic stress.]

Introduction

English is by far the most important international language in the history of the world, used by more people, across a larger area, and in more fields, than any other, ever.

Unfortunately, the spelling of English is preposterous, and makes the task of learning to read and write it very hard, not just for people born into other language communities, but even for people born into English-speaking countries. If English spelling were simplified, many more people would be able to learn the language much more quickly and thus gain quick access to the astounding variety of materials available in this language but in no other. That would hugely improve international communication, reduce misunderstandings that result from faulty translations, and speed the transfer of knowhow from rich countries to poor.

The sound system of English is not hard, and comprises only 42 phonemes in the center of the English-speaking world, the United States — more specifically, in the Tristate Metropolitan Area around New York City, where most major American broadcasters and publishers are headquartered. In southern England there are 43 phonemes, the extra one being a sound midway between short-O as in "on" and AU as in "naught".

The grammar of English is simpler than that of almost any other natural language. For instance, there are in most regular verbs only two inflected forms in each tense, as against four to six in French and Spanish and even more in Russian.

But English spelling is so far from either phonetic or consistent that even people who were born and raised in English and use it extensively every day have to resort to wordlists, dictionaries, and spellchecking programs to see how to spell something they want to say or pronounce something they see written. None of that is necessary.

It is possible to reform the spelling of English, either (a) to simplify it by regularizing all words of similar sound into similar patterns (e.g., using "led" as the pattern, write "insted" and "hed" rather than "instead" and "head"; or using "bite" as the pattern, write "lite", "site", "rite", "blite", "tite", and "fite" instead of "light", "sight", "write" or "wright", "blight", "tight", and "fight") or (b) to radically phoneticize English rather than take halfway measures that would merely reduce the confusion, not end it. This website is dedicated to promoting radical phoneticization of English, at least for teaching children and students of English as a Second Language how to read.

In about 1970 I devised a straightforward phonetic system for English, as an intellectual exercise. I took as starting points the positions that any spelling reform would (a) have to keep the Roman alphabet, which is in place in all Western countries, on every typewriter and computer keyboard in the West, and is even used in some non-Western languages, like Turkish;(b) have to use ways of spelling that derive from and thus retain some tie to the existing vast literature in English; but (c) be completely consistent and pass both the see-say and say-spell tests. That is, if you see a word written, you should know how to say it — always. If you hear a word said, you should know how to write it — always. This may seem an unreachably high standard for any orthography, but Spanish passes both tests beautifully (with the exception of a few relatively recent loanwords, like psicología).

I accepted most of the simplest familiar spellings for the sounds of English, but chose only one spelling for each sound: that is, OU for the sound in the word "sound", not ever OW; OI for the sound in "join", not ever OY; E for the sound in "get", EE for the sound in "see"; etc. To distinguish between long vowels and short, I accepted the silent-E convention, except I placed the silent-E immediately after the vowel it made long: AE, EE, IE, OE, UE — always (except that a silent-E is not really necessary at the end of a word, except for AE; this point is discussed at greater length below). And I settled on a single character for "schwa", the most common vowel sound in English — the sound of the second E in "telephone", A in "about", U in "circus", etc.

Initially, I thought C would be a good choice, because it has no sound of its own so could be reassigned; and it's round, like most of the other vowels (little-a and -e, and both capital and lower-case O and U). But that caused complications, especially with the CH sound, which then also had to be reassigned. I chose X for that. That made for too drastic a departure from Traditional Orthography ("T.O.", the spelling found, with variations, in English books and periodicals of the past several hundred years). The word "children" had to be written xildrcn, which, tho logical, is initially puzzling and startling in appearance.

So I switched to a single A for schwa — always. That left C available for the CH sound and made "children" very close to what it has long been: childran. I kept SH, ZH, and NG for the sounds they have traditionally been used for, but decided it was crucial to distinguish between the two TH sounds, voiced (as in "this") and unvoiced (as in "thing"). Voiced seemed more frequent, so I applied the simpler spelling, TH, to that. For the voiceless spelling, I used the familiar pattern from the Biblical name "Matthew": TTH. The two NG sounds I distinguish as NG as in "thing" and NGG as in "finger", because that sound is really two sounds usually perceived as one: NG followed by G.

I then used the resulting system for personal note-taking, in my diary, etc., and when I discovered a problem or shortcoming, fixed it.

One day I had some people over, and when I went to the store to buy refreshments, a friend I had explained my system to found my diary and read chunks of it aloud to my other guests! Plainly he understood the principles very well.

Sometime later, my next-door neighbor at the time, a young black man who was raised and went to public schools in the South Bronx (a depressed area of New York City) dropped by, saw a presentation I had written in Fanetik, and started to read it, aloud. Although he stumbled a bit, especially at first, I was surprised how easily he picked it up, and realized I had something that might be valuable in the wider world, not just my own intellectual life.

Some years later, I decided that, for dictionary pronunciation keys and for special texts for teaching good speech, the familiar accent marks of French (acute, grave, and circumflex) could be used for primary, secondary, and tertiary syllabic stress, respectively.

The accent is written over the vowel in handwriting and in sophisticated word-processing programs and HTML code, or immediately after the vowel in ordinary typing. If the vowel is represented by a digraph (two-letter combination), the accent goes over the first letter only, as not to make readers think that the second letter is a different vowel. Thus, in handwriting, in WordPerfect or Word documents, and in websites, one would write háandrieting, safístikàetad, nòndiskrîminatáurilê for "handwriting", "sophisticated", and "nondiscriminatorily". In typing, one would type haa'ndrieting, safi'stikae`tad, no`ndiscri^minatau'rile. (On standard English computer keyboards, the apostrophe would suffice for the acute accent. The other accents are found, in North America, above the Tab key and over the 6, respectively. A person using a typewriter that does not have accents would have to improvise for secondary and tertiary stress, perhaps a (double) quotation mark (") for secondary stress and some announced convention for tertiary. A quotation mark for secondary stress might be confusing in actual quotations, but one does not usually start or end a quotation mid-word, where most secondarily stressed syllables lie. Tertiary stress is heard only in very long words, and on most such words one could probably dispense with marking it.)

Fanetik with accents is "Augméntad Fanétik".

Now, some 32 years later, I am pretty happy with this spelling system, and haven't found any more problems in several years.

I present, below, (1) a table with its explanatory notes that outlines the system, gives the spellings for all 43 sounds of the fullest phonemic form of English (Britain's "Received Pronunciation"), and offers some foreign sounds too, so authors might write dialect in a standardized way and educators might teach the sounds of foreign languages more easily; and (2) various materials in Fanetik and Augméntad Fanétik to show its utility.

FANETIK — A ROMANIC SYSTEM FOR PHONETICIZING ENGLISH 

Copyright © L. Craig Schoonmaker 1997, 2004 (All Rights Reserved) (Note: "Fanetik" is the name of my system. This site is called "Fanetiks" only because the screenname "Fanetik" on AOL was already taken.)

Vowels

Spelling	Examples
Vowels
A
aa	aat, faat, kaat, baarister (at, fat, cat, barrister)
ae	aet, baek, sundae (ate or eight, bake, sundae) (As for "aet", see discussion of how to distinguish "eight" from "ate" at table entry for Q, below, Note 8.)
ai1	airmail [See Note 1.]
ao	(See O/AO, below.)
au	aufool, taut, lau (awful, taught or taut, law)
E
e	end, erer [See Note 2.]
ee	eet, beest, be(e) (eat, beast, be or be)  [See Note 3.]
I
i	it, in, if
ie	tried, ie, tri(e) (tried, eye, try) [See Note 4.]
O
o/ao5	General American: not, bother, fother (not, bother, father) English Received: naot, baotha; fotha   [See Note 5.]
oe	oek, oekae, bloek, to(e) (oak, okay, bloke, toe)
oi	joi, joint, foiyer, boi, boiyal (joy, joint, foyer, boy, boil)
oo	good, book, poosh, byuetifool (the short-OO sound: good, book, push, beautiful)
ou	ou!, out, hou, wou! (ow!, out, how, wow!)
U
u	up, gluv, ruf (up, glove, rough)
ue	buez, nuez, vyuez; puer, muet (poor, moot); pyuer, myuet (pure, mute)
SCHWA
a	about, serkas, Aezha, Amairika6 [See Note 6.]
Consonants
b	baeb, bib, bob, bub, bueb
c	(Used only in CH; see below. SILENT alone.)
ch	cherch, maach, woch (church, match, watch) cf. kemistre, Mok 1, aek, shagrin,                 shaame (chemistry, Mach 1, ache, chagrin, chamois)
d	dad, Daed Kounte, ded, deed, did, died, dodering, dud, dued (dad, Dade County, dead, deed, did, died, doddering, dud, dude)
f	feef, fief, fluf, foen, foto(e), laaf (fief, fifth, fife, fluff, phone, photo, laugh)
g	gag, Greg, gig, agog, grog, glug
h	haape, hae!, hed, he, hid, hi!, hot, ho(e), hug, hu(e) (happy, hey!, head, he, hid, hi!, hot, hoe, hug, who) (H never ends a syllable; it has a sound only before a vowel)
j	juj, jugernaut, raej, jentool (judge, juggernaut, rage, gentle)
k	klaak, kaek, kauk, kik, klok, Koek, kook, kluk, kuek (claque, cake, caulk, kick, clock, Coke, cook, cluck, kook)
l	laebool, leval, Lil (as in Lillian), lol, lul; koeld, wunderfool (label, level, Lil, loll, lull; cold, wonderful)  [See Note 7.]
m	maam, maem, meem, mimik, miem, mom, mum (maám, maim, meme, mimic, mime, mom, mum)
n	Naan(se ), inaen, nien, non-, noen, noun, nun, nuen (Nan(cy), inane, nine, non-, known, noun, nun or none, noon)
ng	pingpong, singsaung, flinging (pingpong, singsong, flinging)
ngg	fingger, funggas (finger, fungus) [See Note 11.]
p	pap, pep, peep, pip, piep, pop, poep, pup, puep, prep, prop, plop (pap, pep, peep, pip, pipe, pop, pope, pup, poop, prep, prop, plop)
q	(SILENT) [See Note 8.]
r	rair, raur, reer, Ruer (rare, roar, rear, Ruhr)
rr	(tapped-R) verre(e) — "very" as some Britons say it: 'veddy' (this spelling is used mainly for conveying dialect and teaching foreign languages)
s	saas (sass), saus, sees (sauce, cease; not saws, seas, which are spelled sauz, seez), stres, sis, slies, spies, splies (stress, sis, slice, spice, splice)
sh	sheesh!, shush
t	taaterz, traet, treet, twit, tiet, triet, tot, trot, toet, tut-tut, tuet (tatters, trait, treat, twit, tight, trite, tot, trot, tote, tut-tut, toot)
th	thaat, thae, then, theez, this, thien, thou; breeth, loeth, beetroethd (the voiced TH-sound: that, they, then, these, this, thine, thou, breathe, loathe, betrothed)
tth	Maatthyu, tthin, tthing, bretth (the unvoiced/voiceless TH-sound: Matthew, thin, thing, breath)
v	vaalv, verv, Viv(eeyan) (valve, verve, Viv)
w	waag, waej, wet, we, wee, win, wien, wich (wag, wage, wet, we, wee, win, wine), won ("wan"), woen't, wun, wuns, wuend; wonder, wunder (won't, one, once, wound, wander, wonder), houwever, huewever (however, whoever), wich, wether (witch, weather; see HW, below. Like H, W cannot end a syllable or word.)
hw	hwut, hwich, hwether (what, which, whether) [See Note 10.]
x	(SILENT)9 [See Note 9.]
y	yaak, yae, yai, yet, ye, yipe, yot, yonder, yo!, yoek, yung, yup, yu/e (yak or yack, yea or yay, yeah, yet, ye, yippie, yacht, yonder, yo!, yoke or yolk (as some people say it), yup, you or yew) (Like H and W, Y does not end a syllable or word.)
z	zuez, zielafoenz (zoos, xylophones)
zh	telavizhan, baezh, garozh, muezheek (television, beige, garage, muzhik)
Non-English Sounds (for conveying dialect, teaching foreign languages)
kh	German "ach"; Scottish "loch"; Spanish J; Arabic, Hebrew and Russian (transliterated) KH or CH: a harsh, throat-clearing, guttural H or a sound like a cat's hiss
hh	German "ich": a softer, palatal H
nn	boenn veevonn (French bon vivant): signals nasalization of preceding vowel
rrr	Scottish burr, Spanish RR: trilled R
rhr	French (uvular) R: sounds like a gargled English R
uu	French "plume", German Ü (U-umlaut) UE, or Y ("typisch") (Of all the sounds of major Western languages, this is the one that most native speakers of English will never master. It is described in some language-instructional materials as the sound of EE said with the lips rounded as tho to say "burn".)
oa	German Ö (O-umlaut) or OE: "koenig" (This sounds very much like the vowel part of the -ER ending in words like "maker". The German surname "Koenig" is often anglicized as tho written Kaynig, tho "Kernig" would be closer.)
ssh	The Russian sound usually transliterated as SHCH, as in "Khrushchev". It is NOT really a quick sequence of the English sounds SH and CH. Rather, it is a very-forward and very harsh SH. If you haven't studied Russian, this description won't be very helpful. But if you have, it should open up worlds of comprehension.

NOTES  [Skip notes if you already read them as you came to them in the table.]

1. Cultivated speakers generally use this sound (AI), "flat-A", only before R and L, though some also use it before M and N. Some speakers, especially in Britain, use AE before R and L, never flat-A. [Return to table.]

2. A following-R in the same syllable modifies many vowels in English, so the vowel in ER is not identical to the E in "end". But (a) the R, when pronounced, forces the appropriate change in pronunciation and (b) ER is the way traditional orthography (T.O.) most frequently represents this sound, to no one's confusion, so it seems best to retain that spelling to minimize change and maximize continuity. [Return to table.]

3. Since, in English, vowels in final position are almost always long or pronounced as schwa, silent-E at the end of a word may but need not be dropped, except in the case of AE, which must retain the silent-E to avoid confusion with schwa: I, me, no, and yu, but mae. In hyphenated phrases, the silent-E must appear before the hyphen to avoid confusion with a word that is hyphened merely to break it between lines: "a subsidiary wholly owned by" (a subsideeyere hoele oend bi) as against "a wholly-owned subsidiary of" (a hoelee-oend subsideeyere uv).

A short-E, -I, -O or -U at the end of a word (which is quite rare), is followed by a silent-Q: Moq, Poq (Ma, Pa), uq (uh). A silent-Q is not necessary for short-A, written AA, because its spelling is unambiguous ("Aa, goewon, gedaadaheeya!" ("Aah, go on, get out of here", in Brooklynese). For the same reason, a silent-Q is not needed for AO, AU, OI, OO, or OU: their sound is also conveyed by an unambiguous two-letter form (a digraph: diegraaf). [Return to table.]

4. A spelling difference consistent with sound can be used to distinguish homophonic homonyms (words spelled differently in traditional spelling but pronounced the same) that contain a long vowel at the end of the word: I/ie (I/eye); we/wee, be/bee (same as now); se/see (see/sea), di/die (die/dye), no/noe (no/know), hyu/Hyue (hue/Hugh), etc. The more common word would take the shorter form. If remembering which word takes which spelling should prove too hard for most people, especially in that some of these words might be used before hyphen in phrases and so have to use the silent-E (bee-aul aand end-aul), this feature can be abandoned and homophones spelled the same. Context (and, sometimes, capitalization: as with Hyu and I above) would suggest which homophone is meant. Only actual use of Fanetik by large numbers of ordinary people, not language professionals, will determine what people can and cannot cope with and what they do and do not have patience for.

An alternative way of distinguishing homophones is utilizing a silent-Q ("cue"). See the discussion at the consonant Q later in this table.

Naturally, there are no homographs (words spelled the same but pronounced differently) in Fanetik. That would eliminate many homonyms from the language: ambiguous "bow" becomes unambiguous bo or bou; "row" becomes either ro or rou; "estimate" becomes estimat or estimaet; "merchandise" becomes merchandies or merchandiez; "patent" becomes paatant or paetant; and many words in which a syllabic-stress shift changes the pronunciation would be plainly different in spelling: aadult versus adult, kontent versus kantent, freekwant / frikwent, prezant / preezent, proedues / pradues, projekt / prajekt, rebal (or rebool) / reebel. [Return to table.]

5. In General American speech (G.A., the standard of North American broadcasting and of the great majority of native speakers of English), the O in "not" and "bother" and A in "father" are identical: "broad-A". In English Received Pronunciation (E.R.P. or RP, the standard of the BBC and the upper classes of southern England), they differ, "father" having the broad-A sound but "not" and "bother" having a sound midway between broad-A and AU that does not exist in G.A. Thus, RP has 43 phonemes; G.A., 42. Speakers of E.R.P. find this medial and indeterminate sound (a shortened AU) important; speakers of G.A. see no need for a short-AU sound. Most of the words where the sound AO is used in RP are pronounced with short-O in G.A.: not, pot, bother, solve, resolve, etc. "Not" and "naught" are clearly distinguishable in G.A. but nearly the same in RP. Speakers who mean to convey RP's short-AU should write AO where most people would just write O. [Return to table.]

6. This short, neutral vowel, schwa (shwoq), is heard in a great many words. T.O. spells it with various vowels (Alaska, telegraph, onion, upon), but it does not really have the sound of any of those vowels. It is usually closest to a very brief short-U, but can approach short-I (cherchaz), short-E (sematere), OO (laebal), or other vowel. In general, if you're not sure what full vowel a sound is, it's a schwa. In T.O., one has to look the word up to find which vowel to assign. In Fanetik, one just plugs in A for schwa.

Schwa is never stressed, so serves as a sort of "reverse accent", in that many words can be stressed on only one syllable because the vowel of every other syllable is schwa: kamitmant, kantent, amaezmant. Thus, even without a written accent, Fanetik can cue syllabic stress in many words, which can be a great help, especially for non-native speakers trying to learn a language that has such irregular stress. (The stress of English is not as erratic as might at first seem. In general, once prefixes and suffixes are removed, nouns and adjectives are stressed toward the beginning of the word; verbs, adverbs, prepositions, and interjections are stressed toward the end of the word. There are many exceptions to this general rule, so the fact that Fanetik often signals syllabic stress without requiring a written accent is both convenient and efficient.)

People who wish to convey syllabic stress without ambiguity can use a written acute accent on the (first) vowel of the stressed syllable: díschorj (the noun) as against dischórj (the verb); dískount (noun) / diskóunt (verb).

For longer words, secondary and even tertiary stress can be shown with the grave accent for secondary stress ("disoriented": disáureeyèntad) and the circumflex accent for tertiary stress ("nondiscriminatory": nòndiskríminatâuree). Text written systematically with accents, as for new readers of English (children or students of English as a Second Language) would be Augméntad Fanétik text. Tho not strictly necessary, given that schwa is never stressed, writers of Augméntad Fanétik text might wish to use a written accent even in words where every syllable but the one stressed contains a schwa: kamítmant, kantént, amáezmant. [Return to table.]

7. There are two L sounds in English, one forward in the mouth ("light", for being closer to outside light), one toward the back ("dark"). The light-L, which has a crisper sound for being formed by firm contact of the tongue with the gum ridge, is used at the beginning of a syllable always, and in final position often. The dark-L, which has a hollow sound because the main body of the tongue is pulled back and up toward the roof of the mouth well behind the gum ridge as to form a little cave, is used before a consonant (e.g., "cold") and sometimes, by some speakers, in final position ("full", "cool"). Dark-L is never properly used at the beginning of a syllable, for it would produce a sound like gargling. (In the U.S., television newscaster Tom Brokaw has a slight speech defect, in that he does use a dark-L where he should use a light-L, and so his L's do sound gargled. Robert Bazell, a medical correspondent, also for NBC Television, has the same defect.)

Sometimes a dark-L slides into a light-L, as when a word ending in L gets an -ly ending: "coolly". This word is distinct in sound from "coolie" (or the word "kuhli" as in "kuhli loach", an eel-like tropical fish kept in many aquariums), which has only the light-L. Phonetic spelling ideally should distinguish between the two L sounds, at least in dictionary pronunciation keys. But it is questionable whether most people would be willing to draw this distinction in writing.

If a distinction is regarded as important, light-L (by far the more common) can be expressed by L, dark-L by LL. What, then, to do with words like "coolly", where a light-L follows a dark-L? We could of course write LLL. Though this is "un-English" and "looks funny", there is no rational reason one can't have a triple letter for special situations. (Literary convention employs multiples of a letter to show a prolonged utterance, like a cartoon character's scream: "Eeeeeek!") But LL might suffice as long as people know that the dark-L must yield to a light-L before the following vowel is sounded. If an L/LL distinction proves cumbersome, the use of one L alone for both sounds might suffice, as long as a distinction in use is taught.

Like R, an L following a vowel in the same syllable may alter the sound of the vowel. For instance, you can't join OI to L in the same syllable but must change the OI to something like AUYA or OIYA (bauyal / boiyal). Where L does not alter a preceding vowel because it belongs to the following syllable, a silent-Q might be placed in front of the L: kueqle ("coolie"), as distinct from kuele ("coolly"). Dictionary pronunciation keys (which would, in a phonetic orthography, be largely unnecessary save for syllabic stress and things like this) would write "kuell×le" for "coolly" and "kue×le" for either "coolie" or "kuhli". [Return to table.]

8. Q's traditional sound is expressed by K. Thus Q, as a silent letter, is free to assume different functions, for instance, (a) to signal a short vowel at the end of a word (boq humbug!); (b) to separate consonants that would otherwise combine confusingly ("elsewhere", "hothead", "ungainly": elsqhwair, hotqhed, unqgaenle). It might also (c) "cue" the reader to the less or least common of homonyms: aet/aetq (eight/ate), maask, maaskq (mask, masque), hi/hie/hieq (hi!, high, hie), tu/tue/tueq (to/too/two), du/due/dueq (do/due/dew) — or, in Britain, du/dyu/dyue (some speakers practically say du/ju/ju). It might even (d) mark grammatical endings that might otherwise confuse: hieqyer ("higher") as against hieyer ("hire"); pleeqz ("pleas") as against pleez ("please"); staeqd ("stayed") as against staed ("staid").

While a silent-Q will seem "silly" to many people, it is the only silent character in Fanetik, whereas in T.O. almost every letter is silent in at least one word: e.g., head, debt, Connecticut, acquaint (or acquaint — silent-Q!), handkerchief, give, gnat, honor, business, knife, walk, mnemonic, condemn,  courier, psychology, couturier, corps, depot, build, catalogue, wrap, grand prix, pince-nez — even halfpenny, Wednesday, knight and phthisic (pronounced tízik)! And of course many Britons don't pronounce R at the end of a word or before a consonant.

Those silent letters serve no purpose whatsoever, clutter the language, confuse many learners of English, and add to the cost in paper and ink of publishing in English, so perhaps a silent-"cue" that does serve a purpose, or even several purposes, isn't silly after all but a useful innovation. [Return to table.]

9. X, like Q, has no sound of its own but is expressed in Fanetik by KS, GZ, Z, or GZH ("express", "exist", "xylophone" and "luxuriate" become ekspres, egzist, zielafoen, lugzhuereeyaet). However, X is on every typewriter and computer keyboard in the Western world, so can be reassigned by common agreement to grammatical or other functions. For instance, it might (a) take the place of overused period ("dot") to form the ellipsis ("x x x" instead of ". . ."), which would have the great advantage of clarifying where, if anywhere in the quote, a period lies. Presently many people don't know when to use three dots and when four. With X, not dot, as the character that forms an ellipsis, it would be clear that an ellipsis is always three X's ("x x x" or "xxx" — spaces wouldn't matter). Any dot would be a period.

X might also be used to close up the more closely related words in a multiply linked phrase: e.g., "AangloxAmairikan-LaatinxAmairikan dieyalog" rather than "Anglo-American-Latin-American dialogue". There may be other functions X could assume, either to relieve overburdened marks of punctuation of some of their present uses or to take on a task not now performed by any punctuation but which might be useful. [Return to table.]

10. Weather/whether, witch/which, wail/whale are pairs that some speakers do not distinguish. People should write what they want to be held accountable for saying. If they would be embarrassed to be known to say wail when they mean hwail, they should write hwail — and conform their speech to their spelling.

Perhaps the best thing about a phonetic orthography is that it makes clear how people should speak with every word they read, so that common "spelling pronunciations" (mispronunciations induced by ambiguous spellings) will in time vanish: vejtabal will replace the affected vejetabal; evre and eevning will replace the misreadings evere and eevaning (where "evening" refers to nighttime; eevaning will remain for "evening up the score", but the two very different words will be distinct, as they should be, not confused). [Return to table.]

11. While NGG is simply NG and G adjoining, it is worth pointing out that this clear distinction in Fanetik will guide many people, especially but not only foreign learners of English, who do not know for sure whether there is a hard-G in words like "jangle" (janggool — a distinct hard-G); "singer" (singer — no hard-G), "longer" (the adjective) (laungger — hard-G); "anger" (aangger — hard-G), "hanger" (haanger — no hard-G); even "English" (Ingglish — hard-G). [Return to table.]

OTHER RULES (written in Fanetik)

Eksept aaz abuv, konsanants or never duboold. Uther thaan laung vouwalz in fienal pazishan ("be" or "bee") eech sound iz speld oenle wun wae. If tueq ajoining spelingz miet utherwiez be kanfyuezd, thae or separaetad bi a glied, in tha kaes uv vouwalz (Y — plaeyer; W — huewever), aur bi a sielant-Q in tha kaes uv konsanants (faatqhed, witthqhoeld).

Werdz or speld aaz thae wood be sed in iesalaeshan, sloele. In flueant speech, pranunseeyaeshan nacharale chaenjaz but speling shood not, eksept faur literere aur instrukshanal perpasaz. Thaat kaazhueal speech sez "guna" faur "goewing tu" and dieyalekt mae sae "Jeetyet?" for "Did yu eet yet?" duz not ekskyuez tha jeneral rieter frum rieting out aul tha soundz uv tha separat werdz, tho it shood be obveeyas frum theez egzaampalz thaat Fanetik lendz itself vere eefishantle tu kanvaeying dieyalekt, boetth Ingglish aand foran-langgwaj.

Witth this wun taebool eneewun kaan spel evre werd in the Ingglish laanggwaj so thaat eneewun uv naurmal intelijans kaan reed it. Hwiel tha reezultant spelingz wil look straenj aat ferst, thae wil be eekwale understaandabool bi slum childran aand kolaj prafeserz, aand wil saev much tiem aand efert nou taekan in reemembering orbitrere aand inkansistant "ruelz" uv speling hwich mene good peepool kaanot deel witth. But perhaaps tha graetast vaalyu uv Fanetik iz thaat it permits hiele safistikaetad, aand thairfaur maur interesting, tekst tu be red eevan bi nu reederz uv Ingglish, sins tha moest komplikaetad voekaabyoolere, understood hwen spoekan, kaan be understood eekwale eezile hwen ritan.

Fanetik is kampyueteriezabool aand masheen-reedabool, in beeying toetale kansistant. Much uv tha tiem, it kyuez silaabik stres eevan witthout a ritan aaksent, bi proses uv eliminaeshan, in that uther silaboolz kantaen shwoq, hwich iz never strest, so iz a saurt of revers-aaksent. Faur instans, "amendmant" kaan be strest oenle on -mend-. Fanetik reetaenz obveeyas tiez tu tradishanal speling but iz a ttheragoeing, sistamaatik reefaurm. It iz thus, dispiet its unkanvenshanal apeeraeens, a komansens reefaurm wertth enaakting.

Saampool Teksts

Let's stort out witth sum teksts in mi "Eeze Reeder" faurmat:  staanderd Ingglish apeerz on tha left, aand a lien-faur-lien traanzliteraeshan uv tha tekst intu Augméntad Fanétik on tha riet — unles sumtthing goez ari ("awry") witth tha faurmaating sumhwair beetween mi kampyueter aand this netsiet. Sins brouzerz vaare, teksts mae not alien egzaaktle, but ene werd about hwich wun haaz a kweschan aaz tu pranunseeyaeshan wil be in tha saem werd aurder witthin tha sentans on boetth riet aand left, so shood be eeze tu fiend. Tha Fanétik tekst kyuez tha reeder not just tu tha speech soundz in eech aand evre werd but aulso tu silaabik stres, hwich in Ingglish kaan vaare eenaurmasle frum werd tu werd. This sied-bi-sied kampaarisan givz reederz the eekwivalant uv a "pranounsing dikshanere", spisifik tu tha relavant tekst, imeedeeyatle aat haand. Thair iz no need tu go tu a dikshanere tu look up ene pranunseeyaeshan, beekauz thae or aul riet thair, in tha saem relativ pazishan on tha lien aaz tha werd aat ishu. Maur, Eeze Reeder teksts aulso spel out numberz and daets, so non-naetiv speekerz uv Ingglish kaan noe hou such tthingz or tu be red, hwich mae be vere difrant frum kanvenshanz in thair oen laanggwaj. Ferther, silaabik stres in Eeze Reeder teksts iz kantekschuewal, shoewing hou aan ejookaetad naetiv speeker uv Ingglish wood reed tha werd in tha kerant kontekst.

I aam preepairing, bit bi bit, an Eeze Reeder werk, tentativle tietoold "Reedingz in Damokrase", thaat wil traanzliteraet dokyoomants thaat haav plaed a signifikant roel in kreeyaeting demakraatik guvernmental institueshanz aand tha kulcharal miendset thaat underliez damokrase. Tha ferst saampool tekst, beelo, iz tha tueq wiedle separaetad paasajaz from tha sévantth aanyoowal mesaj uv Y.S. [Yoonietad Staets] Prezidant Jaemz Manro tu Konggras, Deesember 2, 1823, hwich estaablisht a prinsipool that kantroeld Y.S. foran polise faur maur thaan 160 yeerz, until reenounst bi Prezidant Raegan in tha 1980z: tha "Manro Doktrin". Thaat Doktrin held thaat ene atemt bi Yuerapeeyan impeereeyal pouwerz tu reekongker naeshanz uv the Amairikaz thaat haad estaablisht thair indeependens wood be reegordad prite much aaz aan ataak apon the Yoonietad Staets. Tho Yuerapeeyan impeereeyalists reezentad the "aaragans" uv a Y.S. thaat wuz not eevan neerle a sueperpouwer in thoez daez, tha risk uv waur witth tha Y.S. wuz stil a pouwerfool deeterant tu tha reekolanizaeshan uv tha Western Hemisfeer. Thus, aat a tiem hwen Yuerap wuz korving up Aafrika aand Aezha intu kampeeting kaloeneeyal empieyerz, the Amairikaz wer lorjle fre tu persue thair oen destineez.

The sekand saampool tekst beelo iz the entieyer (breef) Federalist Paeper Number 5, hwich erjd Amairikanz in 1787 tu maek shuer thaat the 13 nuele indeependant staets beekaem oenle wun kuntre raather thaan several.

Peepool not interestad in histare aur politiks miet not fiend this mateereeyal vere interesting, but it duz maek plaen thaat eevan vere safistikaetad aand faurmal rieting kaan be renderd eezile pranounst bi Fanetik.

AMERICAN HISTORICAL DOCUMENTS  THE MONROE DOCTRINE December 2, 1823 At the proposal of the Russian imperial government made through the minister of the Emperor residing here, a full power and instructions have been transmitted to the Minister of the United States at St. Petersburg, to arrange, by amicable negotiation, the respective rights and interests of the two nations on the northwest coast of this continent. A similar proposal has been made by his Imperial Majesty to the government of Great Britain, which has likewise been acceded to. The government of the United States has been desirous, by this friendly proceeding, of manifesting the great value which they have invariably attached to the friendship of the emperor, and their solicitude to cultivate the best understanding with his government. In the discussions to which this interest has given rise, and in the arrangements by which they may terminate, the occasion has been judged proper for asserting, as a principle in which the rights and interests of the United States are involved, that the American continents, by the free and independent condition which they have assumed and maintain, are henceforth not to be considered as subjects for future colonization by any European powers.	AMÁIRIKAN HISTÁURIKOOL DÓKYOOMANTS  THE MANRÓE DÓKTRIN Deesémber sekand, Áeteen Twèntee-Tthré Aat tha prapóezool uv tha Rúshan impéereeyal gúvernmant maed tthru tha mínister uv the Émperer reezíeding heer, a fool póuwer aand instrúkshanz haav bin traanzmítad tu tha Mínister uv the Yooníetad Staets aat Saent Péeterzberg, tu aráenj, bi áamikabool nigòesheeyáeshan, tha reespéktiv riets aand ínterests uv tha tueq náeshanz on tha náurtthwèst koest uv this kóntinant. A símiler prapóezool haaz bin maed bi hiz Impéereeyal Máajaste tu tha gúvernmant uv Graet Brítan, hwich haaz líekwiez bin aakséedad tu. Tha gúvernmant uv the Yooníetad Staets haaz bin dizíeras, bi this fréndle proeséeding, uv máanifesting tha graet váalyue hwich thae haav inváareeyable atáacht tu tha fréndship uv the émperer, aand thair salísitued tu kúltivaet tha best understáanding witth hiz gúvernmant. In tha diskúshanz tu hwich this ínterest haaz gívan riez, aand in the aráenjmants bi hwich thae mae términaet, the akáezhan haaz bin jujd próper faur asérting, aaz a prínsipool in hwich tha riets aand ínterests uv the Yooníetad Staets or invólvd, thaat the Amáirikan kóntinants, bi tha fre aand indeepéndant kandíshan hwich thae haav asúemd aand maentáen, or hénsfaurtth not tu be kansíderd aaz súbjekts faur fyúecher kòlanizáeshan bi éne Yuerapéeyan póuwerz.
It was stated at the commencement of the last session, that a great effort was then making in Spain and Portugal, to improve the condition of the people of those countries, and that it appeared to be conducted with extraordinary moderation. It need scarcely be remarked, that the result has been, so far, very different from what was then anticipated. Of events in that quarter of the globe, with which we have so much intercourse, and from which we derive our origin, we have always been anxious and interested spectators. The citizens of the United States cherish sentiments the most friendly, in favor of the liberty and happiness of their fellow men on that side of the Atlantic. In the wars of the European powers, in matters relating to themselves, we have never taken any part, nor does it comport with our policy, so to do. It is only when our rights are invaded, or seriously menaced, that we resent injuries, or make preparation for our defence.	It wuz stáetad aat tha kaménsmant uv tha laast séshan, thaat a graet éfert wuz then máeking in Spaen aand Páurchagool, tu imprúev tha kandíshan uv tha péepool uv thoez kúntreez, aand thaat it apéerd tu be kandúktad witth ekstráurdinere moderáeshan. It need skáirsle be reemórkt, thaat tha reezúlt haaz bin, so for, vére dífrant frum hwut wuz then aantísipaetad. Uv eevénts in thaat kwáurter uv tha gloeb, witth hwich we haav so much ínterkaus, aand frum hwich we diríev óuwer áurijin, we haav áulwaez bin ánngkshas aand ínterestad spéktaeterz. Tha sítizanz uv the Yooníetad Staets chérish séntimants tha moest fréndle, in fáever uv tha líberte aand háapeenas uv thair félo men on thaat sied uv the Aatláantik. In tha waurz uv tha Yùerapéeyan póuwerz, in máaterz reeláeting tu themsélvz, we haav néver táekan éne port, naur duz it kampáurt witth óuwer pólise, so tu du. It iz óenle hwen óuwer riets or inváedad, aur séereeyasle ménast, thaat we reezént ínjareez, aur maek preparáeshan faur óuwer deeféns.
With the movements in this hemisphere, we are, of necessity, more immediately connected, and by causes which must be obvious to all enlightened and impartial observers. The political system of the allied powers is essentially different in this respect from that of America. This difference proceeds from that which exists in their respective governments. And to the defence of our own, which has been achieved by the loss of so much blood and treasure, and matured by the wisdom of their most enlightened citizens, and under which we have enjoyed unexampled felicity, this whole nation is devoted. We owe it, therefore, to candor, and to the amicable relations existing between the United States and those powers, to declare, that we should consider any attempt on their part to extend their system to any portion of this hemisphere, as dangerous to our peace and safety. With the existing colonies or dependencies of any European power, we have not interfered, and shall not interfere. But with the governments who have declared their independence, and maintained it, and whose independence we have, on great consideration, and on just principles, acknowledged, we could not view any interposition for the purpose of oppressing them, or controlling, in any other manner, their destiny, by any European power, in any other light than as the manifestation of an unfriendly disposition towards the United States. In the war between those new governments and Spain, we declared our neutrality at the time of their recognition, and to this we have adhered, and shall continue to adhere, provided no change shall occur, which, in the judgment of the competent authorities of this government, shall make a corresponding change, on the part of the United States, indispensable to their security.	Witth tha múevmants in this hémisfeer, we or, uv nisésiste, maur iméedeeyatle kanéktad, aand bi káuzaz hwich must be óbveeyas tu aul enlíetand aand impórshal abzérverz. Tha palítikal sístam uv the alíed póuwerz iz isénshale dífrant in this reespékt frum thaat uv Amáirika. This dífrans proeséedz frum thaat hwich egzísts in thair reespéktiv gúvernmants. And tu tha deeféns uv óuwer oen, hwich haaz bin achéevd bi tha laus uv so much blud aand trézher, aand machúerd bi tha wízdam uv thair moest enlíetand sítizanz, aand únder hwich we haav enjóid unegzáampoold filísite, this hoel náeshan iz deevóetad. We oe it, tháirfaur, tu káander, aand tu the áamikabool reeláeshanz egzísting beetwéen the Yooníetad Staets aand thoez póuwerz, tu deekláir, thaat we shood kansíder éne atémt on thair port tu eksténd thair sístam tu éne páurshan uv this hémisfeer, aaz dáenjeras tu óuwer pees aand sáefte. Witth the egzísting kólaneez aur deepéndanseez uv éne Yuerapéeyan póuwer, we haav not interféerd, aand shaal not interféer. But witth tha gúvernmants hu haav deekláird thair indeepéndans, aand maentáend it, aand huez indeepéndans we haav, on graet kansideráeshan, aand on just prínsipoolz, aaknólajd, we kood not vyu éne ìnterpazíshan faur tha pérpas uv aprésing them, aur kantróeling, in éne úther máaner, thair déstine, bi éne Yuerapéeyan póuwer, in éne úther liet thaan aaz tha màanifastáeshan uv aan unfréndle dispazíshan taurdz the Yooníetad Staets. In tha waur beetwéen thoez nu gúvernmants aand Spaen, we deekláird óuwer nuetráalite aat the tiem uv thair rekagníshan, aand tu this we haav aadhéerd, aand shaal kantínyue tu aadhéer, pravíedad no chaenj shaal akér, hwich, in tha jújmant uv tha kómpatant autthóriteez uv this gúvernmant, shaal maek a koraspónding chaenj, on tha port uv the Yooníetad Staets, indispénsabool tu thair sikyúerite.
The late events in Spain and Portugal, shew that Europe is still unsettled. Of this important fact, no stronger proof can be adduced than that the allied powers should have thought it proper, on any principle satisfactory to themselves, to have interposed, by force, in the internal concerns of Spain. To what extent such interposition may be carried, on the same principle, is a question, to which all independent powers, whose governments differ from theirs, are interested; even those most remote, and surely none more so than the United States. Our policy, in regard to Europe, which was adopted at an early stage of the wars which have so long agitated that quarter of the globe, nevertheless remains the same, which is, not to interfere in the internal concerns of any of its powers; to consider the government de facto as the legitimate government for us; to cultivate friendly relations with it, and to preserve those relations by a frank, firm, and manly policy; meeting, in all instances, the just claims of every power; submitting to injuries from none. But, in regard to these continents, circumstances are eminently and conspicuously different. It is impossible that the allied powers should extend their political system to any portion of either continent, without endangering our peace and happiness: nor can any one believe that our Southern Brethren, if left to themselves, would adopt it of their own accord. It is equally impossible, therefore, that we should behold such interposition, in any form, with indifference. If we look to the comparative strength and resources of Spain and those new governments, and their distance from each other, it must be obvious that she can never subdue them. It is still the true policy of the United States to leave the parties to themselves, in the hope that other powers will pursue the same course.	Tha laet eevénts in Spaen aand Púarchagool, sho thaat Yúerap iz stil unsétoold. Uv this impáurtant faakt, no stráungger pruef kaan be adúest thaan thaat the alíed póuwerz shood haav tthaut it próper, on éne prínsipool saatisfáaktare tu themsélvz, tu haav ìnterpóezd, bi faurs, in the intérnool kansérnz uv Spaen. Tu hwut ekstént such ìnterpazíshan mae be káareed, on tha saem prínsipool, iz a kwéschan, tu hwich aul indeepéndant póuwerz, huez gúvernmants dífer frum thairz, or ínterestad; éevan thoez moest reemóet, aand shúerle nun maur so thaan the Yooníetad Staets. Óuwer pólise, in reegórd tu Yúerap, hwich wuz adóptad aat aan érle staej uv tha waurz hwich haav so laung áajitaetad thaat kwáurter uv tha gloeb, nèverthalés reemáenz tha saem, hwich iz, not tu interféer in the intérnool kansérnz uv éne uv its póuwerz; tu kansíder tha gúvernmant dae fáaktoe aaz tha lijítimat gúvernmant faur us; tu kúltivaet fréndle reeláeshanz witth it, aand tu preezérv thoez reeláeshanz bi a fraangk, ferm, aand máanle pólise; méeting, in aul ínstansaz, tha just klaemz uv évre póuwer; sabmíting tu ínjareez frum nun. But, in reegórd tu theez kóntinents, sérkamstàansaz or éminantle aand kanspíkyuewasle díferant. It iz impósibool thaat the alíed póuwerz shood eksténd thair palítikal sístam tu éne páurshan uv éether kóntinent, witthóut endáenjering óuwer pees aand háapeenas: naur kaan éneewun biléev thaat óuwer Súthern Bréthran, if left tu themsélvz, wood adópt it uv thair oen akáurd. It iz éekwale impósibool, tháirfaur, thaat we shood beehóeld such ìnterpazíshan, in éne faurm, witth indífrans. If we look tu tha kampáarativ strengktth aand réesaursaz uv Spaen aand thoez nu gúvernmants, aand thair dístans frum eech úther, it must be óbveeyas thaat she kaan néver sabdúe them. It iz stil tha tru pólise uv the Yooníetad Staets tu leev tha pórteez tu themsélvz, in tha hoep thaat úther póuwerz wil persúe tha saem kaurs.

I nou preezent Federalist Paeper Number 5, hwich adrest the daenjerz uv faurming maur thaan wun kuntre out uv the 13 nuele-indeependent "staets" uv tha (skairsle) Yoonietad Staets. In thaat this paeper haad tu be ritan, it iz kleer thaat thair wuz a point aat hwich faurming sumtthing uther thaan a singgool Naeshan wuz beeying kansiderd bi a lot uv Amairikanz in tha 13 nue kuntreez uv Naurtth Amairika.

[Maur tu kum — L. Kreg Skúenmaeker,  Nu Yaurk, April 23, 1998]

For more information about the author, see http://members.aol.com/Schoonmakr.

Comments? Questions? Contact Fanetiks@aol.com.

This is the end of this section.

[Go to the top of this page.] [Go to the start of the Fanetik table.] [Index.] ["Correct Pronunciation" wordlist] [Links]

visits since February 15, 2006
(The counter was somehow deleted/reset by AOL sometime
after December 25, 2005. It had shown 27,943 visits since
 October 14, 1998 as at Christmas 2005,
up from 15,551 at September 5, 2004.)
[The counter that was in use from June 1998
stopped working at some unknown point!]