Phonetic English in your language/dialect/accent.

I just stumbled on this on another thread in the 'Learning English' section, and it gave me an idea (thank you Travis!).

How would phonetical* English look in your language/dialect/accent?

In Travis' dialect or accent , this text :

>>>> "It's hard for two reasons: first, you probably haven't learned the underlying system, second, when I write using my system I am normally simply writing in formal speech for *my own dialect*, and third, my system is provisional in that it is only designed to accomodate a relatively limited range of English dialects, and is not designed to serve as a single orthography for all of English." <<<<

Looks like this:

>>>> "Its haard foor tu riesins: ferst, ju prababli haevynt lernd dha anderlaiing sistam, sekkind, hwen ai rait juusing mai sistam ai aem noormalli simpli raiting in foormyl spietj foor *mai oon daiallekt*, aend therd, mai sistam is pravizjinnyl in dhaet it is oonli desaind tu akkamaddeet a rellattivli limmittid reendj av ingglisj daiallekts, aend is naat desaind tu serv aes a singgyl oorthaagraffi foor ol av ingglisj." <<<<

In Dutch,my native language, the text would look somewhat like this:

>>>> " Itz haard for toe riesons:furst ,joe probballie hevvent lurnd de undurlaaïng sisstem, sekkont wen aai wrijt joesing *maai owwen daajjalekt* ent fird, maai sisstem is profissional in fdet it iz oownli diezijnt toe akkommodeet u rellatiflie limmietet reenjz ov Ingglies daajjalekts ent is not toe surv es u szingel ortogruffie fvor ol of Ingglies." <<<<

How would the text look in your's?

One little note about the above: the spelling "hwen" is a very significant formalism, as such is primarily only present in the speech of older people here; if I actually was directly representing my own speech, such would be "wen" rather than "hwen", even though I do hear people here, at times, who do use /W/ in such places.

<< the spelling "hwen" is a very significant formalism >>

I wouldn't call it a formalism, but it is more of a form that in the upper midwest is archaicizing. That's a fun new word that I just made up. But it makes sense. Anyway, the only people I can think of who use it are older people, not people speaking formally. At least here, it's dying out.

Yeah, now that I think about it, a formalism would be more something along the lines of "whom", which, while I don't generally use it except occasionally in everyday speech, I can still use productively and consistently in formal speech or writing if I want to in a productive fashion. It is like the use of the *present* subjunctive independently, without any associated subordinating conjunctions, in a productive fashion; while I would rarely use such in purely informal speech, without any elements added for effect or emphasis, I can still use it productively in such places in formal speech or writing in a natural fashion, without it sounding forced or archaic.

You can't seem to use the IPA (International Phonetic Script) on the Internet. I don't know if it's because you need special software as in the case of Cyrillic or if it's because someone has a copyright on the letters.

If the IPA could be used - every English speaker, no matter what accent he spoke with could illustrate his local pronunciation of English. Recently, I saw a list in a linguistics book of 14 different pronunciations of the words "because" and "about" in the United States written in the IPA even though most of them were very trivial differences comparatively speaking.

The text in "Finnish orthography" would be close to this (I have replaced 'dh' and 'th' by 'd' and 't', respectively, as there are no letters we use for these sounds in Finnish though they have existed in our language and still exist in the speech of some old people in Rauma area):
Its haad foo tuu riisns; fööst, juu probäbli häv not löönd di andölaiing sistöm; sekönd, uen ai rait juusing mai sistöm Ai äm noomäli simpli raitting in foomöl spiitsh foo mai oun daialekt, änd tööd, mai sistöm is ounli provisönöl in tät it is ounli disaind tu ökomödeit ö relätivli limitid reinds ov Inglish daialekts änd is not disaind tu sööv äs ö singl ootogräfi foo ool ov Inglish.

Brennus, actually, yes you can, provided you have both the right software to enter the characters in question (or equivalent software on the site end) and site support for properly handling Unicode characters. The thing is, Antimoon doesn't support the use of Unicode, unfortunately, so thus we are stuck with having to use X-SAMPA (which I myself don't really mind that much for this purpose, but such does make writing in some languages rather tricky).

Travis,

Thanks for your reply. The IPA is still my favorite universal script compared to the other systems. Of course, it's not perfect either. For example, it has no official symbols for the double s sound of languages like Persian (ssurat = face) and Korean (ssal = uncooked rice); the soft tj sound in Cantonese (tjum= needle; tjum gow = acupuncture) or the New York r sound as in the New York pronunciation of 'ball park' which a few linguists represent as a barred pitchfork-like symbol. However, these are very minor deficiencies, overall. Take care!

--- Brennus

There seem to be a lot of good candidates here for the discussion thread I started entitled "which languages or dialects look nastiest when written down?" - English written in Dutch orthography is pretty scary looking, although I thought the Finnish was surprisingly nice. Just to be horribly sunjective.

I have seen quite a few short 'English' texts transribed into Polish, the most popular one being some kind of dialogue about 'hi honey I'm home.' I am always struck by how the people doing these things get so much so badly wrong. It seem to be a convention in Polish to write English words containing the sound represented by an upside down "v" (you know, the one that books claim represents the sound of "cut" or "cup") as "a" in Polish. So 'punk' becomes 'pank.' This half-baked solution must be responsible for a lot of the pronunciation errors which Poles have.

That upside down "v" sound in IPA really annoys me, as you can perhaps tell. I think most of the words which contain that sound (found in a few southern English dialects, of which RP is one) is probably better represented by that symbol that looks like a "3" (the short version, without the colon) - or maybe some kind of schwa type sound. It certainly isn't like the sound represented by the funny horseshoe-like symbol found in "put" - although people doing bad impressions of South Yorkshire accents might wish to believe it is.

My accent, if you were wondering is a kind of very watered down North Yorkshire or Teesside type thing with unpredictable Birmingham elements thrown in, but basically just a kind of 'educated Northern' type thing. Northern English, that is...

OK, I will try to write how it would look like in Bosnian/Serbo-Croatian, but since some of the sounds are not the same, it still wouldn't be the right pronunciation.

"It's hard for two reasons: first, you probably haven't learned the underlying system, second, when I write using my system I am normally simply writing in formal speech for *my own dialect*, and third, my system is provisional in that it is only designed to accomodate a relatively limited range of English dialects, and is not designed to serve as a single orthography for all of English."

"Its hard for tu rizns: frst, ju probabli hevnt lrnd d anderlajing sistem, seknd, ven aj rajt juzing maj sistem aj em normali simpli rajting in formal spič for maj oun dajalekt, end frd, maj sistem iz provižnal in det it iz onli dizajnd tu akomodejt a relativli limited rejndž of Ingliš dajalekts, end iz not dizajnd tu serv ez a singl ortografi for ol of Ingliš."

This looks so strange and I have to admit it was a very hard thing to do, because our sounds can't represent all the English sounds very well and if someone spoke like that it would sound awful :) LOL. Besides, I had to constantly remind myself to write phonetically, I always forgot and started typing normal English :))

Finnish.. "th" sound doesn't exist in english, so i'm using d instead.

It's hard for two reasons: first, you probably haven't learned the underlying system, second, when I write using my system I am normally simply writing in formal speech for *my own dialect*, and third, my system is provisional in that it is only designed to accomodate a relatively limited range of English dialects, and is not designed to serve as a single orthography for all of English."

Its haard foor tuu riizns: föörst, juu propabli hävent löörnt dö andörlaijing sistem, sekönd, wen ai rait juuzing mai sistem ai äm noormäli simpli raiting in noormal speech for *mai oun daialekt* and thöörd, mai sistem is provishönäl in dät it is ounli dizaint tu akkomodeit ö relätiveli limitid reindj of inglish daialekts, änd is not dizaint tu söörv äz ö sing-gl oortogräfi foor ooll of inglish

Its haad fo tiuu ryzns: fest joo probabli hevent lend zi andelaing sistem, seknd, uen ai rait juzing mai sistem ai am normali simpli raiting... well, thats sort of thing...

Miami, FL:

Its hard for tuu reezons: ferst, yu probablee havent lernd thu underlii-ing sistem, secund, wen ai riit yusing mii sistem, ai am normalee simplee riiting in formal speech for "mii own diialect*, and therd, mii sistem is provishunal in that it is ownlee desiind tuu acomodaat a relitivelee limited raang uv inglish diialex, and is not desiind tuu serv as a singel orthografee for ol uv inglish.

_______________________________________________
Note: doubled letter are long versions of the single letter.
Ex. a - the a sound in bad, aa - the a sound in bade

Man, I need two different th's for the differnt th sounds, but I'm not sure what to make them... So I left them.

Here it is in Hungarian, as an average Hungarian speaker would pronounce it, with a slight Hungarian accent (therefore the voiceless "th" sound is replaced with "sz", a digraph pronounced as /s/, and the voiced counterpart with /z/). Another digraph is "zs", pronounced as /zh/ (as in French "jour"), and there is one "trigraph", "dzs", pronunced as the starting sound of "John". The supposed variant is non-rhotic.

"Itsz hárd for tú rizönsz; fööszt, jú probabli hevnt löönt ze underlájing szisztöm, szekönd, ven áj rájt júzing máj szisztöm, áj em normalli szimpli rájting in formal szpícs for máj ón dialekt, end szööd, máj szisztem iz provízsönöl in zet it iz onli dizájnd to ekomödéjt a relativli limited réjndzs ov inglish dialektsz, end iz not dizájnd to szööv ez a szingle ortografi for ól inglis."

Scary, huh??? :)

By the way, I'd be glad to see an attempt to transcribe it using French orthography, representing a French accent - just out of curiosity.

Erratum: "pronounced" instead of "pronunced" at the third occurrence.