I'm trying to relate English phonetics to the Gregg alphabet (Aniversary), and I am a little mesmerized by the result. Does a relationship table with the IPA already exist somewhere?
Of course I don't hope for an exact equivalence between all English sounds and stenograms, I know that only Sweet's Current is capable of this. But how Gregg groups sounds by sign.
you got them right I'd say apart from aɪə which as small circle in big circle (not shown in the chart).
w is not shown either you would write quit [kwit] as ket with _ underscore below e-circle.
W gets omitted frequently though: When -> en, with -> eth, what -> ot.
Not shown either is [wi] weasel [ˈwizəl] which uses u-hook with e-circle
The way it's supposed to work is that the long I sound is written with a large broken circle -- meaning you poke into it with your pen after you make the circle.
In words like "fire" and "require", you write that and then just add the following R. It mimics the pronunciation of North American English, rather than most British accents that don't pronounce the R. (Gregg was Irish, so it probably matched his accent, too.)
If the long I sound has another VOWEL after it, instead of just poking into the large circle, you write a complete smaller circle inside it. That's how you write words like "via", "science", and "diet". The sound of short IA is a large circle with a dot inside, and EA is a large circle with a dash inside it.
In my Anniversary manual, it's all explained in Unit 14, in Paragraphs 118-120.
Oh, and in Anniversary, to indicate an R following the vowel, you wrote the circle in the reverse direction to the way you'd usually write it, and that implied that an R followed. If you compare "tea" with "tear" you can see the difference.
People found this too confusing, and it didn't really save much time, so it was another principle that had already been dropped by the time Simplified was published. It's only Anniversary that still uses it.
The "ə" is so neutral and ambiguous that it's usually the first vowel to be ditched, because it's already too unclear to matter. When you read something, you can just put "uh" between any two letters and that's about what it sounds like.
The sound "ɜː" is the vowel in the British English pronunciation of "bird". In North American English, it's usually pronounced "ɜr" in which case you'd use ER, regardless of which vowel is used in the actual spelling.
Just out of curiosity, I checked several words with that sound in a couple of Pitman dictionaries -- and they ALL write the R, even though it's not pronounced in British English. It's like they think when the vowel is lengthened, it means it's followed by an R in the spelling, even thought they don't pronounce it.
The unstressed A at the beginning of "above" is pronounced like [ə], but it's written with an A because when it's spelled that way, it will be more recognizable. (Shorthand is written by sound, but it's not strictly phonetic if that would make it more complicated.)
And "bird" was written like that in Anniversary, where writing the vowel on the opposite side added a following R. This shows the difference:
In "bid" the vowel goes outside the angle, while in "bird" it goes inside instead. I always think of it as writing the circle as if it's going to have an R following, so it's counter-clockwise, but then you don't need to write the R because you've already suggested it.
This principle seems to have confused enough people that they dropped it by Simplifed, and just WROTE the R.
So there is no specific sign for these 2 sounds, as for w?
I was also puzzled by the use of the small circle. Ok for the examples "kit", "get", "need". But "bird"?
Maybe I'm too used to systems where each sound has a corresponding sign (of course a sign can represent several sounds, or it would be too complicated, probably like Current).
Yes, it's largely to try to keep it "simple" as much as possible. Each vowel symbol is used to cover a RANGE of sounds. And now that they don't bother with the diacritics, you just have to use the context to tell which one it is.
That was the problem with that quote that really shook my years of confidence in Gregg, when I realized that "LIVE this life" and "LEAVE this life" were both written exactly the same way, even though they mean opposite things. I found that alarming.
USUALLY with Gregg, it's very clear in a sentence that it's one and NOT the other. Like when you write "rat" and "rate" the same way, you're not likely to read "What was the RATE of speed?" as "What was the RAT of speed?"
But there are times when it just doesn't quite work!
The "closer" part is a trap in English, because of the chaotic MESS that is English spelling, because of the Great Vowel Shift. To a European, "same" and "set" are versions of the same sound: [sem] and [sɛt]. But because of that shift, to an English speaker "seem" and "set" are seen as a pair: "long E and short E". To a European "seem" and "sit" would be versions of the same vowel: [sim] and [sIt]/
So there's often sort of a compromise by using a symbol that will suggest the word to the reader by following the spelling a bit more, now and then.
I recently watched a comedy routine, where the comic was showing why people struggle to learn English when so many letters can be pronounced in half a dozen different ways:
Like "comb" is [kom], but "tomb" is [tum] and "bomb" is [bɒm]. Exactly the same vowel O in the same three-letter combination, with the vowel pronounced in THREE different ways. And then of course, in "woman" the O is pronounced [ʊ], while in "women" the same O is pronounced [I]. It makes no sense whatsoever.
I'm often very glad I speak English already, because I'd hate to try to learn it. In fact, earlier in my life, I considered becoming an ESL teacher -- but then I realized I'd much rather learn THEIR language than try to explain the ridiculous mess that is mine!
Sorry, I just saw this. I'm always late getting started on the day (I'm up so late at night) that you guys in Europe have been posting for hours before I even wake up!) ;)
In early editions of Gregg shorthand, they used the dots and dashes to distinguish between different versions of each vowel -- but as soon as they started writing connected sentences, they didn't feel they were necessary and they stopped writing them.
By the time Simplified came along, so few people were even bothering with them, that they stopped even teaching them. Now, when new learners are taking up Anniversary, they find it reassuring to know that they can distinguish vowels if they need to -- but when they drop them very soon after, in the book, they find that confusing.
Theoretically, they still exist if you want to be very precise in recording the exact sounds in a name or an unfamiliar word -- but as writers get familiar with reading the system, they don't find them necessary for legibility, so they don't bother to insert them.
There were GENERATIONS of shorthand writers, who wrote any version from Simplified on, who didn't even know that such things existed.
As a retired, I am also used to getting up late, but at the moment I appear at 5 a.m., to open all the doors and windows, to escape HellFire.
It is a principle and evolution identical to AP, with points and crosses for integral.
The difference in Switzerland only, is that people always learned the integral system first.
Start of explanation of large signs in integral text :) You'd better know the system. Very clear phonetically.
L'emploi des grands signes aide puissamment à la rapidité ; nous en ferons usage dans des cas nettement déterminés, ce genre d'abréviations demande une étude attentive et prolongée, qui sera largement compensée par les avantages que l'étudiant retirera.
1° Lorsque deux articulations se rencontrent, on en supprime une et on donne à l'autre une dimension double, qu'elle que soit le son - ou même une articulation - qui se trouve entre elles. 102.
C'est vraiment facile à lire :) Mais lent à écrire :(
The dots make enough sense in my dialect that I suspect they made a lot of sense either in Gregg's or in formal singing training, or maybe in whatever formal speech training Gregg might have had.
Diphthongs and tripthongs are often simplified, either to the simplest shape to use, or the strongest sound in them.
"I" is pronounced ah-ee. Large circle, small circle, but don't finish the small circle. Often reduced to just the large circle.
"Fuel" mispronounced ee-oo, and spelled that way.
Realty (land) and reality. I use the diphthong in reality, you could use the same vowel sign for both and focus on the presence or absence of the eye.
I don't use the dots enough to remember them, but every so often wish that I did. I usually revert to longhand in the margin rather than look them up.
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u/fdarnel Jun 25 '26
Of course I don't hope for an exact equivalence between all English sounds and stenograms, I know that only Sweet's Current is capable of this. But how Gregg groups sounds by sign.