Unifon alphabet

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Beginning of the Lord's Prayer in two Unifon fonts and in Latin script

The Unifon alphabet , also called Unifon , is a phonetic alphabet for the English language ; the spelling of the English words is strictly based on the actual pronunciation. The font was developed in the 1950s by Chicago economist John R. Malone.

Compared to other phonetic alphabets such as the Deseret alphabet , the Shaw alphabet and Quikscript , the Unifon alphabet is the fastest and easiest to learn because of the characters (identical or modified) that are completely extracted from the Latin script .

System description

Unifon alphabet with example words and transfer of characters according to the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)

The exclusively of capital letters existing Unifon alphabet has 40 characters, of which 24 characters for consonants and 16 characters for vowels are. In terms of shape, the characters consist of 23 characters from the Latin writing system and 17 other forms, all of which are derived from Latin letters. Five characters represent long spoken voices. The punctuation is used as in traditional spelling.

Pronunciation of the Schwa

Almost all signs stand for a sound. Only three characters indicate several sounds: The ligature of ƎR stands for [ɜ ː ], [ɘ ː ] and [ɘ (r)]; U denotes [ʌ] and the Schwa sound [ɘ] and O is used for [ɔ] and [a ː ].

In the above illustration of the Uniphon alphabet, these multiple assignments are not all shown.

Historical development of Unifon

Unifon spellings of the different pronunciations of “ough” in the words “through” [θru ː ], “though” [ðɘʊ], “tough” [tʌf]

John R. Malone worked in the 1950s on the development of a purely phonetic script for the English language , commissioned by the Bendix Corporation , which manufactured a wide variety of devices and instruments for aircraft and also dealt with communication in air traffic. However, the collaboration was broken off when the International Air Transport Association selected the English language and its spelling for international communication in air transport in 1957 .

Malone didn't follow up on his phonetic spelling suggestions until his young son complained of difficulty reading. He then taught him to read with the Unifon alphabet in one afternoon and decided that it should work well for other children as well. The May 29, 1960 Sunday edition of the Chicago Sun-Times had Malone's article “My Fair Language. Do We Need A New Alphabet? ”. From 1974 until his death, the media scientist and educator John M. Culkin, who was also a professor at the New School in New York City , (1928-1993) campaigned for the further spread of Unifon in order to combat illiteracy . Malone handed over the reins of the entire Unifon project to Culkin in 1981 and changed some characters from the original version in the 1980s.

Use of the Unifon alphabet with preschool children and first graders

In the 1960s, about 20 participating schools in Indianapolis in the US -Bundesstaat Indiana at Malones new teaching method. In Hammond (Indiana) , New Orleans in the state of Louisiana and Washington, DC and Chicago in the state of Illinois classroom tests took place in public schools. According to statements

In 1960, Margaret S. Katz taught four preschool children on 17 days each one hour reading according to the Unifon method on the television station ABC Chicago in live broadcasts . None of the children could read before the TV series began. After these 17 hours, all four children were able to read the texts from the 3rd, 4th and 5th grade readers using conventional spelling.

From about 1960 through the 1980s, Margaret S. Ratz taught first graders the Unifon alphabet at Principia College in Elsah, Jersey County , Illinois .

Use for Native American languages

Unifon adaptation to Yurok language

Since the 1960s and into the 1990s, the Unifon alphabet was also used for the phonetic spelling of a number of languages ​​of some Indian tribes in California and southern Oregon . Special Unifon adaptations for the languages ​​of Hupa , Karok , Tolowa and Yurok were developed in a collaboration between representatives of the Humboldt State University under the direction of Tom Parson and native-speaking tribal elders. Numerous Unifon publications in these languages ​​followed. Since these languages ​​had no script before, writing using the Unifon was the first time that texts were written in these Indian languages. Classes in Unifon took place in common classes with four-year-old children and adults, some of whom were very old. Unifon was used both as the official alphabet for these languages ​​and as an introduction to writing and reading the English language. In 1993 the Unifon alphabet for the Tolowa language was replaced by the Practical Alphabet, as there were no fonts for this Unifon adaptation for the increasingly emerging computer. The use of Unifon also finally disappeared in the other Indian languages ​​when the project manager Tom Parson left the university.

Usage today

Sentence examples with an older character for ± [aɪ] in my : 1. Where is my room? 2. Where is the beach? 3. Where is the bar? 4. Don't touch me there!

The Unifon alphabet continues to have its followers and is published by them to this day, mainly through the website that was set up in 2000. A Yahoo group was also founded in the same year . According to the representatives of Unifon, the font should require 14 percent fewer characters per text. In addition, children and adults (especially second-language speakers ) should be able to learn to read English texts at least 80 percent time savings if Unifon is used as a preliminary step.

In 2006 an extensive dictionary was published. Over 129,000 words are listed on over 1,000 A4 pages and transferred to Unifon.

See also

literature

Lewis Carroll : Alice's Adventures in Wonderland - all text in the Unifon alphabet

Web links

Texts in Unifon transmission

References and comments

  1. ↑ Everson, S.V
  2. ^ Everson, p. VI and Unifon page
  3. ↑ Everson, p. VI
  4. ↑ Anderson, p. 2
  5. ↑ Everson, p. VI
  6. ↑ Unifon page
  7. ↑ Unifon page
  8. ^ Science Digest, August 1982 and Anderson, p. 1
  9. ↑ Anderson, p. 1
  10. ↑ Everson, p. VI
  11. ↑ Hinton, p. 58, p. 244 and p. 245
  12. ↑ Tolowa website
  13. ^ Science Digest, August 1982
  14. ↑ Tolowa website
  15. ↑ Unifon site
  16. ↑ side of Unifon-Yahoo Group
  17. ↑ Bookmark, Front - Bookmark, Back
  18. ↑ Reading sample and further information on this Unifon edition