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The Forum > Article Comments > Can Google Glass help to establish a virtual Universal Alphabet? > Comments

Can Google Glass help to establish a virtual Universal Alphabet? : Comments

By Jaber Jabbour, published 21/5/2013

A phonetic alphabet with 24 characters can make a multilingual world easier to traverse.

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@Londheart: Not sure if you have visited the website. As mentioned in the article, this is a collaborative crowd-sourced project where people who speak different languages can add, comment and vote on the spelling of words on the website. You are more than welcome to login and propose alternative spellings to new or existing words in English or in other languages www.saypyu.com.

By the way, a number of experts in the field have been consulted about this project.

The main aim of the project is simply to make the pronunciation of foreign words easier by those who are not familiar with the international phonetic alphabet. This could help learning foreign languages.
Posted by SaypYu, Friday, 31 May 2013 12:42:59 AM
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Yes, Jaber - I have visited the website, and, was already aware of your claim to invite alternative spellings, but find it bogus, in the sense that there are too many instructions to the visitor for it to qualify as genuinely inviting alternative spellings. It's like saying, "This is how it is/how I like it - are you sure you really want to change it, after I have consulted with unspecified experts?"
I am not in a position to confirm nor deny whether you have consulted with experts. It seems unlikely you would lie about that, but you are less than open about it (and so, presumably, are they?). What I do know is that there are regular discussions about these things at the Yahoo! Group 'Saundspel,' which you are yet to join, and at the Simplified Spelling Society, where, for reasons not yet clear to me, you had the privilege of being invited as a (passing?) guest speaker. I do condone and applaud your basic aim 'simply to make the pronunciation of foreign words easier by those who are not familiar with the international phonetic alphabet.' This is a laudable aim, and your work exposes the failure of academic linguisticians worldwide (presumably the very 'experts' you refer to?) to have done it first. But I do feel that you should have researched, googled and consulted more widely before setting up your (expensive and?) flashy website with its restrictive preconceptions.
Posted by Londheart, Friday, 31 May 2013 6:22:03 AM
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BTW, altho the IPA has signally failed the linguistic communities who largely fund it via public funding for academic instutions, by the clumsy, inflexible, gauche, elitist, obscurantist and pedantic nature of the script the Association has favoured since its inception, and by failing to produce a simplified alphabet for general public consumption and enlightenment, it does nevertheless require capitalisation of its initials: 'International Phonetic Alphabet.'
Posted by Londheart, Monday, 3 June 2013 9:27:27 PM
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...having said that, the capitalisation of the name of the (first?) international phonetic alphabet by the International Phonetic Association (also 'IPA') is arguably, if you'll pardon the pun, the ultimate capitalisation by capitalisation. In other words, it might have been humbler for its learned initiators to call it 'an international phonetic alphabet;' or, with hindsight, we could refer to it as 'IPA1.'
Posted by Londheart, Tuesday, 4 June 2013 2:19:59 AM
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So is SaypYu = IPA2? I think not. The one-man origin is a bad sign, if not a disqualifying factor. SaypYu is Eurocentric, even Anglocentric. Again, these are not disqualifying factors for a workable script - 'IPA1' is also rather Eurocentric. But if we are to have a Eurocentric or Anglocentric script for general use, perhaps the wishes of the speakers of English and other European languages should be taken into account, especially, perhaps, vis-a-vis an innovator of external origins. Jaber tells us 'we don't need C, Q and X.' Even if correct, it seems a bad idea, psychologically, to start by telling people - especially Europeans, perhaps, but Anglos in particular - what we can't do. No, X isn't strictly necessary, but it saves time, a quality otherwise somewhat lacking in European scripts ever since the fall of some of our ancient civilisations. And time is of the essence. 'Virtual' in SaypYu becomes 'vɘɘrtshuɘl;' 'words' become 'wɘɘrdz.' Such examples do not indicate a general failure of SaypYu to compete with traditional spelling in terms of brevity - on the contrary - but they do undermine confidence in the idea that this is 'the next best thing since sliced bread.' SaypYu may well help us to get a grip on the pronunciation of foreign words and names - but it seems a bit premature to call it a 'Univeral Alphabet.'
Posted by Londheart, Wednesday, 5 June 2013 12:45:56 AM
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Since my previous posts on this forum, evidence from the public domain has come to my attention of the key, formative 'discussion with expert(s)' to which Jaber Jabbour refers. What it appears to involve, for example, is the bypassing of open online forum discussion on the subject, and an email dialogue with a well-known American forum moderator on the subject (presumably the modern businessman hasn't got time to waste in discussions with the inferior class of spelling reformer?). While said US forum moderator - Steve Bett - commands wide international respect, both for his tireless list moderation and his self-taught command of the subject, he - along with key members of the London-based Simplified Spelling Society - appears to have been taken advantage of, both by Jaber Jabbour and SaypYu, in the way indicated. I have yet to see or hear of any real evidence of discussion between Jaber Jabbour and any qualified expert(s) in linguistics.
Posted by Londheart, Tuesday, 11 June 2013 3:53:39 AM
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