I
do not know why people do not understand the important, that our children
graduate without knowing their minimal set of sounds to communicate - their phonemes.
All that need be done is to use the Ig system or something better that teaches
one's phonemes without complicated code so that it can be used as a personal
pronunciation guide, because dictionaries differ. One need only listen to the
new word as spoken by the teacher and sound it without complicated code. Ig or
better is never to take the place of TO. It is to take the place of the many
pronunciation guides we find in our dictionaries. We each have the right to
choose what is best for one's self.
What
better than to begin by teaching children their simple ABC's writing the sounds
of the name of each letter using the letters themselves: A/ey, B/biy, C/siy,
D/diy, E/iy, F/ef, G/jiy, H/eych, I/xy, J/jey, K/key, L/el, M/em, N/en, O/o,
Piy, Q/kiyw, R/xq, S/es, T/tiy, U/iyw, V/viy, W/dubul iyw, X/eks, Y/wxy, Z/ziy.
The sounds of the letters are GA (NBC) as spoken in Los Angeles. Your sounding
of the names of our letters could be different.
These
children then have the tools to be linguists of their own sounds, and can note
how TO differs. They can then build the fuzzy logic needed to spell
instead of sound. Ig or better then becomes a tool of TO. We can use it as
a basis for a path into TO. Ig is never to become a respell system, but a tool
to make children aware of their sounds to build that respell system in or
through the generations of the future. Their simple alphabet can be used two
ways: first, simply for sounding, then for TO. If you are building a respell
system; through the internet, these children will be able to find your
system and vote for it by using it. Children can be different - the
system on Earth depends on this.
The
path into TO should include: 1) A letter alone can be the sounds of its name
when we spell. 2) Double consonants after a vowel can stress that vowel. 3)
Magic e switches to sounds of the letter's name. 4) C is s before i or e,
otherwise k. 5) The voice or quantity of
sound changes for <w and y> depending on position, but the quality of the
sound is the same.
We
can always fall back to the sounds of our phonemes when the spelling of
traditional orthography (TO) escapes us. We do not want to become bicodal in
the sense of two complicated codes: we want no code for sounds and the code for
TO.
If
you are unfamiliar with Ig, use the following to learn more: http://www.lafn.org/~bj957/phonics.htm,
http://www.lafn.org/~bj957/space.htm.
Updates
for this essay will be found at http://www.lafn.org/~bj957/path.htm.
Updated 17 June 2005