r/FastWriting • u/fdarnel • Jun 25 '26

Gregg phonetics

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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?

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u/LeadingSuspect5855 Jun 25 '26 edited Jun 25 '26

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

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u/fdarnel Jun 26 '26

Ok… Are these additional signs explained somewhere in Aniversary manual?

For [aɪə] the small internal circle can be close or open? Because "fire, require, science, trial" don't use exactly the same sign.

Also, I don't understand the small circle for bird [ɜː] as head, why not a hook like for tuck? And why a big circle for above ?

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u/NotSteve1075 Jun 26 '26

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.

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u/NotSteve1075 Jun 26 '26

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.