KoMIKS!

"Learn it all over" is actually a mistaken perception.

Nooalf requires you to learn a single letter for each sound, so starting from skrach, you coud eazily do it in 34 dayz. But since you alredy hav the majority half learned, it goez much quicker. The hard part iz adapting away frum your current reading habit.

Aside frum your objectionz to reform, did you like any uv the komiks?

Gud fer a fu lafs, zoh.

Can you imagine writing a technical paper in this "new language"? You wud defanitly git a "fu lafs"... not charitabl ether.

I think the title: "Difuzhun Studez on the Interaxyun Betwen Bovin Mamary Excreshunz and Puf-Rostid Sereul Sferez; Du Kruhchberez Sta Krunche in Melk", would go over real well!

Actually, pulling off this stunt consistently (which hasn't happened yet), requires high familiarity with conventional English expression. Esperanto has a relatively thriving interest group, and Klingon somewhat less so. This new gig is amusing, though I doubt it will catch on. But I could be wrong--look at textspeak. Do you remember words like thru and thoro? (Alaska has boroughs rather than counties, and the local paper shortens this to "boro." Ugh.)

Probably savez them a few thouzand per yir in ink.

Please do not get me started on that abortion "alright"! (Yes, it is now a Scrabble-recognized word, but it is totally bogus, Gertrude Stein notwithstanding.)

--Editor Crankshaft

You seem to do alrite only bekuz everybody iz working with the same handicap.

Not directly proportional.

People actually reach a platue around 25 - 30 unless they intentionally work on memorizing spelling.

I used to be an above average speller, but purposefully began letting this 'skill' atrofy. I dont need junk crowding my brain.

I'v read hundredz, maybe more than a thouzand books and countless thouzandz uv newspaper and magazine articlez, so your assertion iz false. It duz lead to an important point tho.

Massive repetition iz the only reazon literate adults feel comfortable with our goofy spelling. You dont hav a problem until you encounter a new word; then its back to grammar skool looking up how to pronounce it in the dictionary.

Normally I woudnt bother responding to an ad hominem jab, but I'm taking a lesson frum the democrat's shalacking in the last election and working by the theory that sum people may accept your nonsense if I dont dispell it.

1. Reread the original post.

2. http://www.nooalf.com/aNTiREFORMDEBUNK.html Page 1 iz appropriate for your level uv thought on this subject.

3. Read the KoMIKS. Maybe you need a good laff to loosen up your tite ass attitude.

What?

"Nooalf" is an immature development of this burgeoning concept, because it still contains double letters. It should be "nualf" (new alphabet, for those haven't yet cottoned on to the idea).

Obviously you havent bothered to read much uv the site.

The spelling 'Nooalf' iz actually a visual adaptation uv the true spelling. You will see that the double o iz a single letter in real Nooalf. If you install the font, you can type it with the Q key.

That's a good one. I suspect this parody has been around for quite a while in various forms.

I'v heard that that actually predates the internet.

Dolton Edwards, eh? I wonder what his nickname is.

http://cr4.globalspec.com/comment/680548/Re-wt-2-after-my-b-e

You should read Brave New World.

I find your spelling to be confusing and worthless in the real world.

I may hav read that in grammar skool, but I dont remember anything about it. So, thanks for the reko, I'll do that.

The reazon you find it confuzing iz bekuz its new to you. New thingz are alwayz veiwed with skepticizm, especially wen they seem to threaten the familiar. The weakness uv sumthing seemz to be proportional to how stridently people will defend it.

If you can look at the lojik in this case, you will find that there iz nun on the side uv regular english.

Since almost all Indian languages owe their origin to Sanskrit, they are phonetic. No spelling problems at all. One letter, one sound. Here is a link which will give some insight into Sanskrit : http://sanskritdocuments.org/articles/SpecialitiesofSanskritLanguageLiterature.html

Therefore, i sympathise with English(and other European language) writers who have to contend with this painful process... Spelling.

And no. That is not a superior sort of smirk that i am wearing. er...waring? waering? receive? recieve?....

Thanks for the sympathy.

I hav sympathy for all the foriegn language people who hav to learn english, especially thoze whoze native languagez hav sensible spelling systemz.

If english were just a small backwater language, it woudnt be a big deal, but english iz literally taking over the world, so billionz uv people are forced to squander their time memorizing thouzandz uv semi-random letter stringz if they dont want to be dismissed az illiterate, lazy dummyz.

Engineers may get lucrative jobs anywhere, so it is quite normal to learn several Indian languages. Along with working in the new place. English is learnt at school anyway so no big deal. Due to the British legacy though, "Queen's" English (or is it "Kings"?) is taught, and we have to learn American when we need to interact with Americans. Sometimes two kinds, north and south. Not much of a problem, we generally cope. Some even win Booker prizes.

I'm thinking of V.S. Naipaul, from Trinidad. I'm not sure that's right, or whom you had in mind. Or maybe Salman Rushdie?

The throne is now occupied by a queen, so I think it is presently the "Queen's English." I don't know to what extent any monarch actually influenced the language, so this seems only an expression.

At least in the play, Henry V was pretty good with his use of language.

Rushdie is more an international citizen. Naipaul ? need to check.

Actually i was thinking of the controversial Arundhati Roy, a fiery female and Aravind Adiga, a fellow "Kannadiga" from my state. Frankly though, Arundhati's writing is too heavy for me to comprehend. Adiga is OK. But my favourite Indian author is Chetan Bhagat, an IIT Engineer and an IIM MBA !

I tend to think of Arundhati Roy as largely wrongheaded, but with occasional valuable insights. Sort of like Ralph Nader. (If you think Roy is too "heavy," try reading some Judith Butler.) I haven't yet encountered Aravind Adiga or Chetan Bhagat, so I anticipate some further reading. If you have some recommendations or Web sources, they would be welcome.

Good one! It is fun to kick this idea around for a while, but I would reject school papers and manuscripts that played such games. I wonder how Z man would cope with Chinese!

Chineze at least makes no pretense uv being sumthing it iz not. Interesting that it and other sylibariez can be read faster on average than english.

Another perspective on my campaign iz that english coud concievably looze out to chinese over a long time period if China bekumz the dominant force on Earth. Fixing english's main flaw coud help keep it in the lead.

More likely tho we will end up with an even more disorganized mish mash uv english, chineze and probably spanish.

Great way to destroy communication. (Think Babel)

Language is governed by fixed definitions for specific spellings of words. If you create another spelling of a particular word, then the meaning of the misspelled word is at best ambiguous and at worst completely unknowable and confusing.

While it's really cool and almost funny to create a phonetic 'language', it will really serve to do nothing more than confuse. When you stop and think about it, engineers are the least likely to accept and embrace such silliness.

By that reazoning no established standardz shoud ever be changed.

Do you object to the metric system?

And your reazoning failz frum the start. Our communication iz originally spoken; the ritten version iz based on it.

Great stuff! Thanks.

GA kvsridhar, I wasn't going to comment on this thread, at least you made it worthwhile up to this point, but I think Lyn has the best description of a babbling.... Other than that, I'm out of here.

Around 30 responsez so far, subtracting my own, yet nobody seemz to hav anything to say about the KoMIKS.

Perhaps it's the "If you can't say anything nice, don't say anything at all" effect.

There may be too many old codgers here. A grade school audience might find them funny.

Thanks for a (at least attempted) thoughtful post.

All your objectionz to Nooalf are addressed on the website.

Your opinion that this topic duznt belong on CR4 iz incorrect for 3 reazonz.

First, spelling iz teknology. The fact that our languagez orthography got frozen at a point in history wen it wuz a horrible mess iz unfortunate. Anybody who believez that any teknology can not be improved upon or superceded iz a fool. In this case, a monkey coud create a better system.

Second, I hav found that the longer sumwun haz spent in the educational system, the less likely they are to accept the idea uv spelling reform, ESPECIALLY if they are students uv English or linguistics in general. I woud expect engineerz to hav a greater affinity for lojik, order and efficiency than a typical English Lit major.

Finally, refer to the opening post. Dilbert wuz a popular feature in tek magazinez az well az general audience newzpaperz, so it seemz likely that sum substantial % uv engineerz may hav a sense uv humor.

I suppose that things could change over time, but for right now I find this new spelling mildly irritating to decipher, and quite difficult to write. Even Z_man lapses frequently into conventional spellings.

It might be amusing to give Z_man a test: Type a conventional English passage with a few typos in it into 1) fully correct English, and 2) fully correct "noospel". I suspect that even the "expert" would take longer with the latter.

You're correct that it takes a while to get used to it. I have the advantage of hand writing it for 22 years, plus a less organized semi phonetic spelling for 22 years before that. After I created the fonts, I quickly caught up with and surpassed my regular english typing speed.

YOR KOReKT XaT IT TAKS U WiL TQ GeT YQZ TQ IT. i HaV XE aDVaNTIJ UV HaND RiTING IT FOR 22 YIRZ, PLUS U LeS ORGaNiZD SeMi FONeTIK SPeLING FOR 22 YIRZ BEFOR XaT. aFTR i KREATID XU FoNS, i KWIKLE KoT UP WIx & SRPaST Mi ReGYQLR INGLIs TiPING SPED.

So... 44 years into this, and you have your own language that no one wants to use. You could have learned Spanish, which is very easy to spell, and then you 'd have some people to communicate with.

Spanish iz like a marvel uv precision and efficiency compared to english - and yet, frum a functional perspectiv, its a dizaster. It haz about az many defects az letterz!

An engineer who designes machines uv that caliber woud soon hav a job at Walmart stocking shelvez.

If you suggested, for example, that we add a letter to english thats alwayz silent, people woud think you're making a joke. Spanish haz the letter H, wich iz alwayz silent. Soundz stupid, duznt it? But in english, we take the letter 3 steps further down the road to madness. Its silent sumtimez and iz often employed az haf a digraf to make a sound we dont hav a letter for OR do hav a letter for!

Spanish haz the letter H, wich iz alwayz silent.

What about the name Hector?

On a lighter note:

"You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means"

Interesting. Maybe like english proper nounz are not striktly subject to the rulez in Spanish.

Princes Bride? Wuz that any good?

A great movie. Watching it might take a little pressure off of trying to institute a new language.

Oh, and shouldn't it be rulz, not rulez?

Kool! I alwayz appreciate a good movie reco.

If I wer trying to be more consistent, I'd rite 'roolz'. The Actual Nooalf spelling woud look alot like that also and you woud type RQLZ on a standard keyboard.

Apparently you are only able to mangle the English language. I checked out the other language pages and you didn't apply your theorem to those at all!

Bollocks is right.

But did you like any uv the komiks?

All the foriegn language pagez were written by proffesional tranzlatorz. You can click on the 'English' button there to see wut they say.

Still, Nooalf can be used to spell most soundz in most other languagez and almost alwayz more efficiently than the native system.

_{Still, Nooalf can be used to spell most soundz in most other languagez and almost alwayz more efficiently than the native system.}

i am afraid i have to disagree. As i said, Indian languages are phonetic. Moreover, each letter is given an attribute to create the required sound...(this example is Devanagari, but it is true for most other Indian scripts)

So, a very long sentence can be formed with the minimum of characters. Everyone anywhere in the world will pronounce it the same way.

अस्ति पूर्वापरजलनिधिवेलावलग्ना मध्यदेशावलन्कारभूता मेखलेव भुवह वनकरिकुलमदजलसेकसम्वर्धितैहि... (part of a passage from what is believed to be the first ever novel, Kaadambari by Baanabhatta, 7th century)

Interesting...these Sanskrit characters are in much the same spirit as Korean, which is phonetic (even though Korean looks roughly like Chinese or Japanese).

Is the novel 7th century BCE or 7th century CE? If the latter, Lucius Apuleis's The Golden Ass would be earlier.

But then, "scripture" is pretty novelistic, too.

From Wiki.....

_{Bāṇabhaṭṭa (7th century), also known as Bāṇa, was a Sanskrit scholar and poet of India. He was the Asthana Kavi (Court Poet) in the court of King Harshavardhana, who reigned in the years c. 606-647 CE in north India. Bāna's principal works include a biography of Harsha, the Harṣacarita and one of the world's earliest novels, Kādambari Kādambari is the name of the heroine of the novel). Bāṇa died before finishing the novel and it was completed by his son Bhūṣaṇabhaţţa Uttarabhāga of the novel. The other works attributed to him are the Caṇḍikāśataka and a drama, the Pārvatīpariṇaya.}

Every language has its own beauty. i have enjoyed many beautiful moments when reading English, Kannada, Hindi and Sanskrit books. Unnaturally,but understandably, i read much faster in English than in any other language. Nevertheless, that small part of the description of a forest in the middle of India by Banabhatta has left a lasting impression. i read it as part of my school work in 1956 and can quote it completely even now.

kvsridhar wrote:

"i am afraid i have to disagree. As i said, Indian languages are phonetic."

You cant get any more fonetic than 1 letter per sound, so an efficiency comparison between 2 perfectly fonetic systemz would come down to the letter dezinez. From the sample you showed, thoze letterz have more strokes than the Nooalf letterz, plus dont appear to hav good differentiation.

Uv course, I don't know if all the phonemez are covered by the Nooalf set.

kvsridhar.

Herez the best source for spelling info: http://www.omniglot.com/writing/devanagari.htm

Frum that page:

>>>Origin

The Nāgarī or Devanāgarī alphabet descended from the Brahmi script sometime around the 11th century AD. It was originally developed to write Sanskrit but was later adapted to write many other languages.<<<<

Its classified az an "alphasyllabary / abugida". There are 66 basic letterz. Then therez a system uv diacritics. And then it gets complicated.

So, az to the notion uv competing with Nooalf - no. Its toast. Like a bicycle vs a top fuel dragster.

Well, have it your own way. i am also unsubscribing from this post, it has become like Entropy. In passing...

अग्यः सुखमाराध्यः
सुखतरमाराध्यतॆ विहॆशग्यः
ञानलवदुर्विधग्धम्
ब्रह्मापि नरम् न रन्जयति ||

Are there different designations for "short" and "long" vowel sounds in your proposed "cool new language"?

Is a "long" e denoted by ee, while a "short" e denoted by just an e? What about the rest? There are so many different vowel sounds that makes it impossible to denote them without knowing the words themselves and how they are pronounced.

Are you saying that human beings are too stupid to learn the intracacies of language?

JRR Tolkien was a great philologist, and had a great understanding of several languages beside inventing some of his own. However, he did not demand a universal embracing of what he thought up.

Different languages are beautiful in their own ways. The application of your proposed "alfabet" is cumbersome and ugly.

Do you really thing that by arguing with us you will "win us over", or are you just bored; arguing for argument's sake?

If you are that bored, switch to something else! From your posts here, I think that you are stubborn, but not stupid (even though you look like a monkey).

Physical sciences and engineering are really interesting. While you are pursuing those, _{(even conventional)} communication can be quite interesting as well.

Time for you to move on. For your own sake, dream up something more viable!

Mikerho asked:

"Are there different designations for "short" and "long" vowel sounds in your proposed "cool new language"?"

1 letter for every sound. Simple az that. The vowel and consonant catagoryz and all the divisionz within them are not needed in Nooalf lojik.

You continued with "There are so many different vowel sounds that makes it impossible to denote them without knowing the words themselves and how they are pronounced."

Therez sum truth to that.

Nobodyz going to learn a language only by reading about it, no matter how precise a spelling system iz. Fortunately, its not necessary, since we learn to talk way before we ever learn to read. Speaking and hearing speech are the natural abilityz that a language iz based on. The written word iz an invention to reprezent language visually.

The reazon you think there are too many soundz iz bekuz your teacherz were unable to tell you how many soundz there are. They dont know. Ask anybody. Ask a linguist. The best uv them will say 'over 40' and they are rong.

The entire idea uv trying to classify speech soundz by how we make them iz worthless. Nooalf goez by wut we hear.

Then take the beans out of your ears. For instance, "wut" is really stupid: it should be "whut" (or some other dopey letter, if you want.)

As a prospective linguist, you are just about the most horrifyingly damned incompetent (and offensive) that I have ever encountered. Now get out of here.

Beanz in my earz? Wut are you talking about? I wear earplugz in the machine shop, but they are made uv silicone.

Are you claiming that sum people pronounce it az WHUT?

Try HWUT.

Fine, if thats your dialect.

You have a point of sorts, but why didn't you do it beforehand?

Tornado, I'm assuming you are asking why I don't spell what as HWUT. It's because I and approximately half the country don't start that and other 'wh' words with the H sound.

Just because half the country pronounces them wrong doesn't mean that you need to lead the pack. Are you part of the "wat dat" crowd?

No. I'm always the brainiac at the party. Including this one.

If you want to spell dialectical oddities, there's an easy to use system you can find on the internet. Hmmm. I'll have to dig it up... get back to you later.

If you've been following the GoP election fiasco, i calculate that this should get a snicker or 2 out of you: http://www.nooalf.com/OBoMUTRAD.html

Since there is only one letter for each sound, how would I pronounce Nooalf?

That's a lot of vowels stuck together.

cuba, The spelling 'Nooalf' is actually an adaptation for regular English. It is the spelling most likely to be pronounced correctly and looks like the actual NQaLF spelling of the name.

As an insight to how deeply the chaos is embedded in your heads, many people mistakenly believe it's pronounced Nyooalf (NYQaLF) and that I have violated the 1 sound per letter rule.

This is also related to dialect. Many people, including myself, pronounce the word 'new' as 'nyew' (NYQ). But since it's a proper noun, I can dictate the pronounciation, so prefered the equally common shorter version of 'new'.

I have to hand it to you Z man, that, this is the first thread that I've 'unsubscribe' myself to. See ya, I'm out of here.

The toons would be better if not encumbered with unreadable language.