Английская Википедия:Benjamin Franklin's phonetic alphabet
Шаблон:Short description Benjamin Franklin's phonetic alphabet was Benjamin Franklin's proposal for a spelling reform of the English language. The alphabet was based on the Latin alphabet used in English.
The alphabet
Franklin modified the standard English alphabet by omitting the letters c, j, q, w, x, and y, and adding new letters to explicitly represent the open-mid back rounded and unrounded vowels, and the consonants [ʃ], [ŋ], [ð], and [θ]. It was one of the earlier proposed spelling reforms to the English language.
The alphabet consisted of 26 letters in the following order:[1]
Other English phonemes are represented as follows:
- Шаблон:IPAc-en is represented as hu (as in huɥi for why).
- Шаблон:IPAc-en is represented as ɥi (as in ɥiz for eyes).
- Шаблон:IPAc-en is represented Файл:Franklin’s letter ah as in A scheme for a new alphabet.svgu (as in hФайл:Franklin’s letter ah as in A scheme for a new alphabet.svgus for house).
- Шаблон:IPAc-en is represented dФайл:Franklin’s letter sh as in A scheme for a new alphabet.svg (as in edФайл:Franklin’s letter sh as in A scheme for a new alphabet.svg for age).
- Шаблон:IPAc-en, at the time more probably Шаблон:IPA, is represented as ee or e (as in leet for late or kes for case).
- Шаблон:IPAc-en is represented as eer (as in keer for care or Файл:Franklin’s letter dh as in A scheme for a new alphabet.svgeer for their).
- Шаблон:IPAc-en and Шаблон:IPAc-en are represented as ɥr (as lɥrn for learn).
- Шаблон:IPAc-en is represented as ii or i (as in ſtriim for stream).
- Шаблон:IPAc-en is represented Файл:Franklin’s letter ah as in A scheme for a new alphabet.svgɥi (as in distrФайл:Franklin’s letter ah as in A scheme for a new alphabet.svgɥi for destroy).
- Шаблон:IPAc-en is represented Файл:Franklin’s letter ah as in A scheme for a new alphabet.svgr (as in fФайл:Franklin’s letter ah as in A scheme for a new alphabet.svgrget for forget).
- Шаблон:IPAc-en, at the time separate, is represented or (as in kors for course).
- Шаблон:IPAc-en is represented tФайл:Franklin’s letter sh as in A scheme for a new alphabet.svg (as in tФайл:Franklin’s letter sh as in A scheme for a new alphabet.svgit for cheat).
- Шаблон:IPAc-en is represented zФайл:Franklin’s letter sh as in A scheme for a new alphabet.svg (as in mezФайл:Franklin’s letter sh as in A scheme for a new alphabet.svgɥr for measure).
- Unstressed vowels are generally represented by the letters used to represent their stressed equivalents. What today is considered a schwa is mostly represented with ɥ, although whenever spelled in standard English with a, Franklin maintains the symbol α.
Vowels
Franklin's proposed alphabet included seven letters to represent vowels. This set consisted of two new letters, in addition to five letters from the existing English alphabet: α, e, i, o, u. The first new letter was formed as a ligature of the letters o and α – Файл:Franklin’s letter ah as in A scheme for a new alphabet.svg – and used to represent a sound that is roughly Шаблон:IPAblink as transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA). The second new vowel letter, ɥ, was used to represent Шаблон:IPAblink or Шаблон:IPAblink.
Franklin proposed the use of doubled letters to represent what he called long vowels, represented by modern phonemes in IPA thus: long Шаблон:IPAc-en versus short Шаблон:IPAc-en (or, in his notation, Шаблон:Nowrap versus Файл:Franklin’s letter ah as in A scheme for a new alphabet.svg), long Шаблон:IPAc-en versus short Шаблон:IPAc-en (ee versus e), and long Шаблон:IPAc-en for short Шаблон:IPAc-en (ii versus i). In his examples of writing in the proposed alphabet, Franklin contrasts long and short uses of his letter e, with the words "mend" and "remain" which, respectively, he spelled mend and remeen. In this system, ee is used to represent the Шаблон:IPA sound in "late" and "pale". Likewise, ii is used to represent the Шаблон:IPA sound in "degrees", "pleased", and "serene". Sometimes Franklin's correspondences written in the new alphabet represent a long vowel not using a double letter but instead using a letter with a circumflex, ◌̂,[2] as when he represents the Шаблон:IPA sound in "great" and "compared" with ê instead of ee. Franklin's long-short vowel distinctions appear not perfectly identical to the same distinctions in 21st-century English; for example, the only word shown to use Файл:Franklin’s letter ah as in A scheme for a new alphabet.svgФайл:Franklin’s letter ah as in A scheme for a new alphabet.svg is the word all, but not other words that in modern notation would use Шаблон:IPA. This discrepancy may reflect Franklin's own inconsistencies, but, even more likely, it reflects legitimate differences in the English phonology of his particular time and place.Шаблон:Cn
Franklin does not make a distinction between the modern Шаблон:IPAc-en and Шаблон:IPAc-en phonemes (in words like goose versus foot), which likely reveals another difference between 18th-century English pronunciation versus modern pronunciation.
Consonants
Franklin's proposed alphabet included nineteen letters to represent consonants. This set consisted of four new letters, in addition to fifteen letters from the existing English alphabet: b, d, f, g, h, k, l, m, n, p, r, s (including the long s, ʃ, typical of his era) t, v, z. New letters were proposed to replace the English digraphs ng (= ŋ); sh (= Файл:Franklin’s letter sh as in A scheme for a new alphabet.svg); zh (= zФайл:Franklin’s letter sh as in A scheme for a new alphabet.svg, like in measure); voiced th (= Файл:Franklin’s letter dh as in A scheme for a new alphabet.svg), and voiceless th (= Файл:Franklin’s letter th as in A scheme for a new alphabet.svg). New consonant digraphs based on these new letters were used to represent the affricate sounds of ch in cherry (= tФайл:Franklin’s letter sh as in A scheme for a new alphabet.svg), and j in jack (= dФайл:Franklin’s letter sh as in A scheme for a new alphabet.svg).
The most influential of Franklin's six new characters appears to have been the letter "eng", Шаблон:IPA link, for ng. It was later incorporated into the IPA. Alexander Gill the Elder used this letter in 1619.[3]
References
- ↑ Franklin, Benjamin. A Reformed Mode of Spelling. In Political, Miscellaneous, and Philosophical Pieces, pages 467-478. London, 1779.
- ↑ Letter from Benjamin Franklin, dated 28 Sept 1768, reprinted in Franklin, Benjamin. A Reformed Mode of Spelling. In Political, Miscellaneous, and Philosophical Pieces, pages 467-478. London, 1779.
- ↑ The Cambridge Encyclopedia of the English Language, David Crystal.
External links
- Article on Omniglot
- Franklin writing about his alphabet
- Benjamin Franklin’s Phonetic Alphabet at Smithsonian.com, 10 May 2013
