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Spelling in Esperanto over the phone or in noisy environments

de sudanglo, 2011-julio-14

Mesaĝoj: 20

Lingvo: English

sudanglo (Montri la profilon) 2011-julio-14 11:55:25

At various times there have been proposals for spelling alphabets like Ho for Hotelo, Ko for kilogramo. There have also been suggestions for the use of alternatives to the monotonous traditional letter names using a different vowel after some consonants.

It occurred to me recently that there might be a simpler way of handling this, which imposes little memory load.

We already have 2-letter words in Esperanto, consonant + vowel or vowel+consonant.

For example, en/el, li, mi, fi, ve, ĉe, se etc.

This could be used for consonant differentiation in noisy enviroments.

To distiguish 'bo' from 'vo', we could use 'bo' and 'vi'. To distinguish 'mo' from 'no', we could say 'mi' and 'en'.
To distinguish 'so' from 'fo', we could employ 'se' and 'fo'

Perhaps the whole alphabet could become:

A, BO, CO, ĈE, DE, E, FO, ĜI, GO, HU, ĤO, I, JA, ĴO, KE, EL, MI, EN, O, PO, RO, SE, TO, U, ŬA, VI, ZO

This makes use of the words ĉe, de, ĝi, ja, el, mi, ke, en, se, vi, the interjection hu, and the baby cry ŭa.

Question: does it leave any confusable pairs?

Miland (Montri la profilon) 2011-julio-14 12:22:42

THere is a "spelling alphabet" used by UEA, and cited in PMEG (at the foot of the page).

sudanglo (Montri la profilon) 2011-julio-14 12:59:53

Asfalto, Barbaro, Centimetro, Ĉefo, Doktoro, Elemento, Fabriko, Gumo, Ĝirafo, Hotelo, Ĥaoso, Insekto, Jubileo, Ĵurnalo, Kilogramo, Legendo, Maŝino, Naturo, Oktobro, Papero, Rekordo, Salato, Ŝilingo, Triumfo, Universo, Ŭ Universo-hoko, Vulkano, Zinko.

But how quickly would you learn that?

Se, ke kaj de,
aldonu ĉe,
pluiru ĝi, kun mi kaj vi.

El kaj en belsonigas diron.

Po unu hu kaj ŭa,
la resto kun o,
vi havas jam akiron.

Suzumiya (Montri la profilon) 2011-julio-14 15:30:39

Just for curiosity. In what language S and F are similar? I find them really different. Even in noisy enviroments.

I personally think that spelling the alphabet with whole words is useful sometimes. It helps when spelling is ambiguous. For instance, if you are spelling a foreign name, it's certainly useful to spell in that way.

darkweasel (Montri la profilon) 2011-julio-14 15:37:45

Suzumiya:Just for curiosity. In what language S and F are similar? I find them really different. Even in noisy enviroments.
I disagree, they can easily be misheard. In Austria there are two political parties abbreviated as SPÖ and FPÖ, and when I pronounce these abbreviations I do so extremely clearly so that they are not confused.

henma (Montri la profilon) 2011-julio-14 15:39:02

Suzumiya:Just for curiosity. In what language S and F are similar? I find them really different. Even in noisy enviroments.

I personally think that spelling the alphabet with whole words is useful sometimes. It helps when spelling is ambiguous. For instance, if you are spelling a foreign name, it's certainly useful to spell in that way.
Over the phone they can sound similar... I have had problems sometimes spelling user names or codes... I keep saying '¡eFe, eFe!' (in Spanish) and they say '¿eSe? ¿de Sapo?'... The same can happen in English ... even the letter names have the same form in both languages...

Amike,

Daniel.

ceigered (Montri la profilon) 2011-julio-15 10:36:46

F (pronounced labio-dentally) and S (maybe "th" as well) probably get confused since they both have a similar effect, where as other fricatives like sh, h (depending on whether you call it one or not), the ch in loch, etc, seem much more rough.

Pity Esperanto doesn't use the greek alphabet, then we could just say long words like "ypsilon" and "omega" for each letter okulumo.gif (Or "upsilo" and "omego"? rido.gif).

Miland (Montri la profilon) 2011-julio-15 11:22:30

sudanglo:But how quickly would you learn that?
I just did, as an exercise. To get to the point where I could recite them off without prompting, allowing for revision, took about 20 minutes. You might well do it in the time it takes a pie to cook in the oven!

Now, as an exercise let me write them out without looking..

Asfalto, Barbaro, Centimetro, Ĉefo, Doktoro, Elemento, Fabriko,
Gumo, Ĝirafo, Hotelo, Ĥaoso, Insekto, Jubileo, Ĵurnalo,
Kilogramo, Legendo, Maŝino, Naturo, Oktobro, Papero, Rekordo,
Salato, Ŝilingo, Triumfo, Universo, Universo-hoko, Vulkano, Zinko.

Hura!

EDIT PS: However, as I found soon afterwards, to acquire proficiency in actually spelling out words using this alphabet takes more practice. Possibly an group at an Esperanto congress could run a half-morning session on this. rido.gif

ceigered (Montri la profilon) 2011-julio-15 12:21:28

super-griek:PAG gives the following names for Greek letters:

alfa beta gama delta epsila dzeta eta teta jota kapa lambda mu nu ksi omikra pi ro sigma taŭ upsila fi ĥi psi omega (always with stress on the penultimate, so epsila, omikra, upsila, omega)
Cheers super-griek (perhaps super-greek? okulumo.gif). I find it interesting that all the endings have been changed to -a.

Also, perhaps for regularity "ŭ (kun) ĉapelo" works too, since matadors and vikings and cowboys sort of have those sorts of inverted-brim hats/or just horns in the case of vikings okulumo.gif

(I doubt "samuraja u" would work, but perhaps another fun way of naming it, since the ˘looks like a type of japanese helmet crest to me).

darkweasel (Montri la profilon) 2011-julio-15 13:04:10

Pmeg about greek letters:
La Grekaj literoj nomiĝas: alfa, beta, gama, delta, epsilon°, zeta, eta, teta, jota, kapa, lambda, mu, nu, ksi, omikron°, pi, rota, sigma, taŭ, upsilon°, fi, ĥi, psi, omega (ankaŭ aliaj variantoj ekzistas). Ankaŭ eblas ilin plene Esperantigi kun O-finaĵoj, ekz.: , gamo°, delto, epsilono, zeto°, eto°, teto°, joto, kapo°, lambdo, muo°, nuo°, ksio°, omikrono°, pio°, roto°, sigmo°, taŭo°, upsilono°, fio°, ĥio°, psio°, omego.

(copying and pasting on a smartphone is a nightmare)

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