Arbdash is a spelling system designed for use
with both British and American English. The name is derived
from my system Arbdot, with which it shares a few features.
The main design points for Arbdash are as follows:
Usually, when the American and
British pronunciations for a word differ, the differences will only
affect the vowel diacritics, rather than the base letters.
This allows reasonably phonemic spelling that can still be
read across the pond.
Arbdash is imprecise about the
spelling of unstressed vowels. In particular, the schwa sound
may be spelled with any of the five vowel letters. This makes
it more likely that related words will have similar spellings.
Except for its imprecision about unstressed short vowels,
Arbdash is phonemically quite precise.
The diacritics of Arbdash are
systematically arranged so that, even though there are a lot of them,
the
organizing principles are easy to remember.
Though Arbdash uses diacritics not in
the Latin-1 character set, all the characters it uses are in
the Unicode Latin Extension A, and are present in the most popular
modern computer fonts.
Due to legibility issues, Arbdash
avoids using diacritics on the letter 'i' to the extent possible.
I do not expect Arbdash to be a great hit with
spelling reformers, much less with the general public. Here are some
criticisms which I expect to be made of it. Most of
them are true.
Arbdash uses diacritics.
The horror!
Not only does Arbdash use diacritics,
but there is no readily available keyboard map supporting the
characters it uses. Because writing in Arbdash requires
Unicode, it is a problem for E-mail.
Arbdash does not look very much like
today's English. It is ugly.
Because Arbdash is not entirely
phonemic,
correct spelling is not trivial. Some amount of memorization
is required.
Arbdash does not always make the
spellings of words shorter. I do not regard this as a sin,
but many do.
Practically speaking, the biggest problem for
Arbdash is its non-Latin-1 character set. Because of this,
and because opinions differ on what makes an alternative spelling ugly,
there are several alternate forms of Arbhash, which use slightly
different sets of diacritics. If you do not appreciate
Arbdash as presented here, perhaps one of the variants may suit your
taste better.
Consonants
Here are the consonant symbols and digraphs of
Arbdot with examples. The examples show
more diacritics
than absolutely necessary for clarity. The example words have
been chosen to be recognizable to readers new to Arbdash.
Symbol
Sampa
Examples
b
/b/
bábÿ
cħ
/tS/
cħùrcħ
d
/d/
dêdikáted
f
/f/
fîftÿ
g
/g/
Grêgorÿ
h
/h/
hó-hûm,
hôthows
j
/dZ/
jûjment
jħ
/Z/
vîjħon,
plêjħur
k
/k/
körk
kħ
/x/
lôkħ
l
/l/
lábel
m
/m/
mêmó
n
/n/
nûn
nğ
/N/
sînğinğ
ng
/ng/, /Ng/
fînger,
ingrédÿent
nk
/nk/, /Nk/
ûnkel, unklôg
p
/p/
pûpÿ
r
/r/
retùrn,
bärter, bróker
s
/s/
sîster
sħ
/S/
sħêlfîsħ
t
/t/
tärt
tþ
/T/
tþînk,
brêtþ
tħ
/D/
tħât, fätħer
v
/v/
vâlv
w
/w/
wîked, twîcħ
wħ
/W/, /hw/, /w/
wħîsper
y
/j/
yês, kânyon
z
/z/
zêlus,
lázÿ
Note that the letter 'd' is always used for past tenses, and 'z' for
plurals, as in «rîpd» and
«kâtz», even when the pronunciation is
/t/ or /s/.
Vowels
The vowel symbols of Arbdash are arranged into a
number of groups of similar letters, as follows.
Vowels without diacritics are unstressed short vowels, possibly
pronounced as a schwa or indistinct i.
a
/@/, /I/, /{/
alowd, bâgaj
e
/@/, /I/, /E/
rîvet,
selêkt, egzâmin
i
/@/, /I/
dêvil,
sânitÿ
o
/@/, /Q/, /A:/
lêmon,
bombärd
u
/@/, /V/
kâmpus,
prôdukt
Vowels with a circumflex accent are stressed short vowels:
â
/{/
sâd
ê
/E/
tên
î
/I/
bît
ô
/Q/, /A:/
dôt
û
/V/
rûg
A good list of mnemonic words for the stressed short vowels is:
«bâg»,
«bêg»,
«bîg»,
«bôg»,
«bûg».
Vowels with an acute
accent are long vowels, stressed or unstressed:
á
/eI/, /EI/
táken
é
/i:/
rérun
ó
/oU/
spóken
ú
/u:/, /u/, /U/ (before r),
/U@/
rúler, rîcħúal,
júrÿ
(The long i is treated as a diphthong, represented by the symbol 'iy'
due to
legibility issues with the symbol 'í'.
Arbdash allow
the uses of 'ǐ' as a shorter form of 'iy', but this character is not
present in most computer fonts, and so 'iy' tends to work out better.
(Note that the diacritic is a caron, not the breve of ğ and ŭ.) Also, see the "special u" table below for long u as in
<cue> rather than <clue>.)
A good list of mnemonic words for the long vowels is:
«mán»,
«mén», «miyn»,
«món»,
«mún».
Vowels with a grave accent are vowels which only occur before the letter r, and are generally stressed.
à
/e@/, /e/
stàrinğ
è
/I@/, /i/
vôluntèr
ù
/3/
fùr, mùrder
A good list of mnemonic words for these vowels
is: «stàrinğ»,
«stèrinğ»,
«stùrinğ».
Vowels with an umlaut are alternate vowel
forms. ä and ö are generally stressed, while ü and ÿ are never stressed.
ä
/A:/
fätħer,
bär
ö
/O:/
börd,
wöter, ölsó, löndrÿ
ü
/j@/, /jU/
sîmüláted,
mùrkürÿ
ÿ
/i/, /I/
hâpÿ,
vàrÿinğ
Good mnemonics for 'ä' and 'ö' are
«fär» and
«för» or «dräma» and «tröma». (Neither
'ü' nor 'ÿ' fits the pattern of the other two vowels.)
Two special forms of 'u' are defined for additional sounds associated
with this
letter:
ŭ
/U/
pŭsħ
ű
/ju:/, /ju/, /jU/ (before r), /jU@/
pűnÿ,
ânűal, pűritÿ
Finally, the English diphthongs (other than long e and long o) are
represented by an unaccented vowel followed by a semi-vowel.
iy (or ǐ)
/aI/
fliy, diviyd, apliyans, akwiyr,
driyer
ow
/aU/
how, kowntÿ, alowans,
sowr, tower
oy
/OI/
boy, avoyd, toyl, royal, employer
A good list of mnemonics for these vowels is
«pliy», «plow»,
«ploy».
(I should also notes that two vowels with a tilde diacritic,
'ã' and 'õ', can be used for the nasal vowels in
a few words borrowed from French, such as
«kõsÿàrjħ»
and «málãjħ».)
Simplifications
To lessen the number of diacritics
required, Arbdash allows three simplifications.
The simplifications are not required - it is always allowed
to put the extra diacritics in, and may be preferable for tutorials
and the like. The three simplification rules are as follows:
'ÿ' may be replaced by 'y'
at the end of a word, or before a consonant, as in
«hóly» or
«krázynes».
The circumflex can be left off the
vowel in a one-syllable word, or off the first vowel in a
multi-syllable word where the second vowel is guaranteed not to be
stressed (that is, either unaccented, ü or
ÿ). Examples: «man»,
«metal», «regülar»,
«luky».
The breve can be left off 'ğ' at the
end of a word, or in an inflection, as in «bang»,
«ringz» and «hanging».
It is still required in other derived words, such as
«sinğer»
and «kinğdom».
An Example
Here is an extended passage in Arbdash, Bob
Boden's "The Late Arrival" (with a few changes to make sure all the
sounds are represented). You probably will not find it hard
to read. The braces indicate words whose pronunciation is
different in British and American English.
Bob
stróld
up
tħe
{patþ|pätþ}.
Hé woz
lát
and woz
konsîdering
hiz
alibiy.
Hé
lisend
tu tħe
utħer
kärz
in
tħe
strét,
heding
hóm.
Tħe
{dög|dog},
witħ
pö
rázd,
gréted
him
at
tħe
dör. Moly
kŭd ölwáz
tel
wħen
hé
ariyvd.
Sħé woz
a
loyal
krécħur,
and
tħe
sensitîvity
ov
tħat
nóz woz
not
a
mitþ.
Tħe hows woz
kwiyet.
Hé
lŭkd
down
at
tħe
viynil
tiyl.
It
kŭd
stand
sum polisħ
but
hé
wŭd
rezîst
tħe
impuls
tu komplán.
Hé
sö
hiz
fätħer
in
tħe
gärden
nèr
tħe
fens
but
diden't
botħer
tu köl
him.
Hé woz
obvÿusly
prepàring
tu mó
tħe
lön.
Hé
kŭd
sé
tħe
nábor'z
kow
in
tħe
mêdó
and
tħe
dens
wŭdz bÿônd.
It
sémd
a
trivÿal
mater
but
hé ölwáz
lŭkd
tu sé
if
tħàr woz
enytþîng
on
tħe
kicħen
tábel.
Hiz
wiyf
miyt
riyt
a
nót.
Tħàr woz a
{nú|nű}
novel
tħàr,
probably
hùrz.
It
had
a
pekűlÿar
simbol
on
tħe
kuver.
Tħe
tiytel
sed
sumtþing
abowt
{núronz|nűronz}.
Hé
diden't
nó wħot
tħat woz
abowt
but
simply
diden't
kàr.
Hé
desiyded
tu remúv
tħe
lábel
now from
tħe
pakaj
hé woz
karÿing.
Hé hópd
tħat
Mùrtel
wŭd
not
{harâs|haras}
him
abowt
tħe
{köst|kost}
ov
tħe
{nú|nű}
fùr
kót
hé
had
böt
hùr.
Hé
had
a
fàrly
gŭd
repliy.
At
lést
it woz
pád
for.
And
tħe
fùrst
ov
tħe
yèr woz ölmóst
hèr
and
tħe àr woz
kóld.
Hé
fownd
tħe
páper
pärtly
ópen,
óver
a
cħàr.
It
had
ránd
in
tħe
mörning.
Tħe
páper
{öfen|ofen}
got
wet.
Hé
tùrnd
tħe
rádÿó
on
but
diden't
kàr
for
tħe
sinğer.
Hé red
abowt
tħe
siyklón
wħicħ
had ölmóst
hit
tħe
sivik
senter.
Tħe
skiy
had
lŭkd
tþretening.
Hé
gáv
a
siy.
Tħàr
wŭd
hav ben
tħe
devil
tu pá
if
tħe
störm
had ben
wùrs.
Tħe
nolej
mád
him
wins.
Hé
tþöt,
"Wé är
só
helples
in
tħe
fás
ov
bad
wetħer."
Hé
gáv
sum
tþöt
tu sólar
power,
but
klung
tu hiz
űjħúal
rigor,
wħicħ
ment
diskûsing
tħis
witħ
hiz
wiyf
beför
máking
a
desîjħon.
Sħé
ekspêkted
tħis
konsîderásħon.
Hé
had ben
tþinking
abowt
emùrjensy
power
and
had
an
iydéa.
Sum
mejħur
ov
aksħon
miyt
bé
prúdent.
Design Notes
Here are some notes on why Arbdash looks like it
does.
The key problem is that of the vowel u, which has seven different
sounds: those of <circus>, <cut>,
<murder>, <push>, <regular>,
<rude> and <cute>. Unfortunately,
there are only five forms of u in the Latin-1 character set.
This list falls naturally into two related subsets, the first three
vowels, and the last four, but this doesn't help much - there is no
unused letter in the English alphabet suitable for use as a sixth
vowel. (And the independence of the two subsets is not
absolute - there are related words like <produce> and
<production> which cross the boundary.)
I considered using 'w' as a sixth vowel - but then logic would demand
that it represent the set of vowels related to its consonant meaning,
which is to say the
<rude> set. This means you need three extra
forms of w, and while they exist in Uncode, the net effect is far from
familiar. Spellings like «pẅsħ»,
«regwlar», «rẁd» and
«kẃt» have little appeal if one hopes to attract
the already literate.
Another possibility is to use 'ư' from the Vietnamese alphabet for the
first series of sounds. This is surely more readable than the
vowel 'w', but this character, especially in its accented forms, is in
relatively few computer fonts, except for those designed specifically
for Vietnamese. And in many fonts the hook on the u
is hard to make out, as you may have already noticed.
Eventually I was led to 'ŭ'
and 'ű',
from Esperanto and Hungarian respectively. The breve is
familiar
to English speakers due to its use in dictionaries, and 'ű'
seemed a natural for the long form of 'ü'. But this meant that
Arbdash would require Unicode for its representation. Once
this
is accepted, there is no reason not to continue. This led to
the
adoption of 'nğ' and 'sħ'
to solve two other annoying ambiguities of present English spelling.
Another point to note about Arbdash is its use of the circumflex for
stressed short vowels. I haven't previously seen a system
with
this convention: the Bobdot/Arbdot convention of using the dieresis (as
in Arbdot «ofënsiv»,
«abïlitè») for this purpose
seems most common.
The Arbdash arrangement derived from two considerations.
I
wanted 'ü' for the sound in <regular>, to
correspond to 'ű'
for the long u of <cute>. The grave accent was
another
possibility, but its use with i produces some very hard to read words,
such as «benefìt». That left
the circumflex
which, though not ideal, still has decent readability when used with
the 'i' («benefît» is not wonderful, but
it's better than using ì).
Another unusual point about Arbdash is its use of the digraph 'iy' for
long i. I was led to this again by legibility issues with i
and
diacritics: «fiynal» is much more readable than
«fínal». This directly
violates the principle
of having the British «misiyl» and the American
«misil» differ only in the diacritics.
I've attempted
to smooth this over by regarding 'iy' as just a variant of
'í'
to improve readability, in the same way that in German 'ü' and
'ue' are regarded as the same thing. The digraph 'iy' was
chosen,
rather than the perhaps more natural (or at least more common) 'ie' by
analogy with the other diphthongs 'ow' and 'oy'. Using 'iy'
exploits the relationship between 'i' and 'y', and I certainly find the
spelling «piyonèr» to be considerably more
familiar-looking than the alternative
«pieonèr».
After completing the design of Arbdash, I discovered the letter ǐ, which is a reasonably readable potential representation for long i. (Compare "fǐnal" and "fínal" for legibility - in the case of ǐ you can at least be sure there is a diacritic there.) Unfortunately, ǐ is not in the Unicode Latin Extension A, and is present in only a few computer fonts.
The first version of Arbdash used à and ò for the sounds
of <bar> and <bore>, and ä and ë for the sounds
of <wary> and <weary>. I exchanged the grave and
dieresis here, primarily because it is easier to distinguish words like
<slow> and <slaw> when spelled
«sló/slö» rather than
«sló/slò». This also improved the coherence
of the grave-accented vowels, as now they all occur only before the
letter r.
On the Imprecise Schwa
Arbdash specifies that unstressed short vowels, whether
spoken as schwa or not, are represented by unaccented letters. A
move such as this, away from precision, seems undesirable to many, and
it does mean that knowing how to pronounce a word is not necessarily
enough to allow you to spell it. The advantage of this is that it
allows the spellings of related words to be similar. This is
often disparaged as unnecessary and pointless by reformers, but in
fact it aids one in spelling unfamiliar words related to ones you know
- «egzîst» gives you a clue to «egzistênsħal», which the more accurate «igzîst» would not do.
Consider the words <photograph> and <photography>. In
Arbdash, they are «fótogrâf» (or British
«fótogräf») and «fotôgrafy»
- that the words are probably related is obvious. Compare the
phonemic system Bobdot,
in which the words are instead «fótugräf» and
«futögrufè» - the relationship between the
words is lost to phonemic accuracy. Digraph-based systems are
even worse here, as in the Lojikl Inglish
«foeteugraaf» and «f'togreufy». (Note
that I do not contrast with these systems because they are bad systems
- indeed, I consider them "best of breed" phonemic respelling systems.)
Other examples are easy to find: Arbdash
«kompóz/kompozîshon/kompôzit» versus Bobdot
«kumpóz/kompuzïshun/kumpözut» or Lojikl Inglish
«kmpoez/kompeuzishn/kmpozit» is a good 3 word example.
In most cases, Arbdash words are spelled using the same representation
for their unstressed short vowels as traditional spelling, which tends
to produce very good results. But there are some situations where
deviating from TS produces better results.
Sometimes, traditional spelling just uses the wrong
vowel. The word <maintenance> is spelled
«mántanens» in Arbdash, to agree with
«mántán». (For the -ens ending, see
item 3 below.) Similarly, <chlorinate> is spelled
«klörenát» in Arbdash, to agree with
«klörén».
Sampa /@r/ and /3r/ are often paired in related words.
Because /3r/ is ùr in Arbdash, the spelling ur for /@r/
occurs more often in Arbdash than in TS. Examples:
«pùrfekt/purfêkshon»,
«Jùrman/Jurmânik»,
«ölturnát/öltùrnativ».
Certain suffixes are both unstressed and woefully
inconsistent in their usual spelling. The most obvious examples
are -ar/er/or (<liar>, <farmer>, <actor>), -able/ible
(<readable>, <deductible>) and -ance/ence
(<annoyance>, <existence>). One is tempted to declare
a single common form, but one runs into conflicts with related words,
such as <regulatory> (American English) or
<differential>, in which the unstressed vowel becomes stressed.
Also, there are words for which it is not completely clear
whether a suffix is involved or not: <investor> and
<visible> are clear, but what of <doctor>, <motor>,
<plausible> and <eligible>? Arbdash presently takes a
cautious approach here. It uses the forms -er, -abel and -ens
when there is no conflict with related words, and when the suffix is
attached to an English word. Thus, Arbdash spells
«viziter», «revùrsabel» and
«remêmbrens», but «impôstor»,
«fézibel» and «elegans». More
could surely be done in this area, but making the effort to go beyond
the obvious seems unwarranted on a project with so little chance of
success.
The Arbdash Lexicon
Using the CAAPR lists, I have constructed a preliminary Arbdash dictionary, mostly in support of adding Arbdash to the repertoire of the Wyrdplay converter.
The non-Latin-1 character set of Arbdash presents special
problems in formatting of the dictionary, and for this reason I am not
making it available for download at this time. If for some reason
you are interested in a copy, let me know, and I'm sure something can
be worked out.
Arbdash Variants
As noted above, Arbdash has a number of variant
forms, which change its appearance in ways that some may prefer.
Each variant is identified by a letter, and variants may be
combined if they are compatible. For instance, variant hqu
allows one to write Arbdash with only the Latin-1 character set.
Variant c: Drops the 'ħ'
from 'cħ', since after
all the 'c' has no other use in Arbdot. Good for those who
think that a reform is better the more letters it eliminates.
Variant d: Gets rid of the 'ħ'
character by adding consonant diacritics. Replaces 'cħ',
'jħ', 'kħ',
'sħ',
'tħ' and 'wħ'
with 'č', 'ž', 'x', 'š', 'ð' and 'hw'. Also reduces 'tþ' to 'þ'. For
diacritic lovers only!
Variant h: Simply replaces 'ħ'
with 'h'. The only reason to have the separate character is
to avoid the ambiguity of spellings like
«mîshâp» and
«körthows». Most reformers
feel that worrying about this distinction is nitpicking anyway.
Variant i: Uses 'í' instead of 'iy'. This is more
logical and systematic, but makes words like
«fínal» harder to make out.
Variant q: Replaces 'ğ' with 'q'. With this variant, 'nq' is
never simplified to 'ng'. Variant q changes the spellings
of «singing» and «Sħânğhiy»
to «sinqinq» and «Sħânqhiy».
This variant takes advantage of the visual similarity of 'g'
and 'q' - an advantage lost in the more "economical" alternative of
writing «siqiq» in place of
«sinqinq».
Variant u: Gets rid of 'ŭ' and 'ű'. The symbol 'ü'
is used for the 'ŭ'
sound, and 'ü' and 'ű'
are replaced by 'eu' and 'eú'. Thus, we have
the variant u spellings «püsh»,
«regeular» and
«keút». The disadvantage here
is that the connection between 'ú' and 'eú' is
somewhat broken - but it is really no worse than the situation with
'î' and 'iy'.
Variant x: Replaces 'tþ' with 'tx', as in
«txéater» and
«âtxlét».
Recommended only for diacritic haters - the combination
variant hqx
eliminates all special symbols for consonants, at significant cost in
familiarity.
Variant y: Uses 'ý' instead of 'iy', giving you spellings
like «fýnal» and
«mistifý». This breaks the
connection between short i and long i even more than 'iy' does.
To
comment on this page,
e-mail Alan at wyrdplay.org