Unifon - yet another English phonetic alphabet

[trochee]

I just discovered Unifon, which strikes me as Yet Another quixotic attempt at spelling reform.

What I didn't know was that divalea was using Unifon to represent slang in her new Rumble Girls cyberpunk/mechasuits/highschool-drama book. I found that out from Comics Worth Reading, which seems like a good place to find these things.

Comments

[moroveus.livejournal.com]

There have been so many attempts to launch a "new" phonetic-based alphabet, and none of them have succeeded. I think we're stuck with our various imperfect but functional alphabets. It's a cool concept, but the US can't even convert to the metric system...what makes anyone think we'll be able to get anyone to convert to a brand new alphabet?


PS: Which author was it that believed we would eventually convert to a phonetic alphabet and even went so far as to build his own phonetic type writer? Was that Anthony Burgess (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/search-handle-url/index=books&field-author=Burgess%2C%20Anthony/103-8265332-0523825)? I can't remember now...

Re:

[trochee.livejournal.com]

I don't think our spelling system is going to change. We can't even change the President, let alone the metric system. But it's a nice fantasy.

On the other hand, there's something nice about spellings that distinguish between identically pronounced words. In that respect, English orthography is like Chinese.

Regarding your PS: could it have been George
Bernard Shaw?

[moroveus.livejournal.com]

Ah yes! That's who it was!

Re:

[addedentry.livejournal.com]

It was another grate brane, GBS (http://www.omniglot.com/writing/shavian.htm).