Adults can achieve Truespel literacy in two weeks or less.  In one study,  grad students in linguistics learned the system in less than 10 minutes.  Learning speed was enhanced by truespel's close approximation of the most frequent spellings found in the traditional writing system. 

Most forms of regularized or phonemic English can be read without a key.  The difficulty comes in learning to write.  Truespel simplifies this part of the learning process with [1] a simple correspondence chart [above] and [2] a phonemic converter.  After writing a sentence in Truespel, you can check its accuracy by pasting the original sentence in the converter's window.  Up to 500 words can be converted at one time. 

 

Since the truespel alphabet closely resembles Pitman's i.t.a., its success with children should be comparable.  i.t.a. was extensively studied in the late 1960's. Children could learn i.t.a. over twice as fast as the traditional code.  Since there is only 1/10th as much to learn, the advantage of a phonemic code should be much more. In countries with phonemic writing systems, children can learn 40 phonograms or 40 sound- symbol correspondences  in 40 days. 

One of the problems with the i.t.a was the lack of reading materials in this notation.  Since truespel has an automatic on-line converter, this would not be a problem if truespel were used as the teaching alphabet.  Anything available in the traditional notation can be instantly converted into truespel.  There are already over 10,000 digital books available on line.  Any of these can be readily converted to consistent truespel notation. 

Most alphabetic writing systems provide a guide to pronunciation and spelling: The traditional English writing system doesn't. The advantages of phonemic notations such as truespel are [1] ease of learning and [2] ease of writing - if you can pronounce it you can spell it, and [3] ease of pronunciation. 

Truespel is very simple compared to the traditional writing system which spells each  long vowel over 20 ways.  Truespel spells each longvowel one way by adding an e to the short vowel.

An alphabet represents to the eye the sounds of a language by means of written symbols.   It follows that in the most rational alphabet - 

      1. Every simple sound will be associated with 

        2. a single distinct symbol, and
      2. There will be a consistent relationship 

        3. between each sound and its symbol
The Roman alphabet provides a very legible and distinct set of characters.   It just doesn't provide enough of them:  5 letters for 12 vowels.  While there is a shortage of vowel letters, the difficulty of our present English spelling lies not so much in any of the inherent  defects of the Roman alphabet as in our irrational use of it. -Sweet paraphrased

If we exclude new letters and diacritics as impractical, we are obliged either 

  1. to fall back on digraphs  [two-letter combinations, such as ch, sh and th] or 
  2. to merge phonemes.  . [Let ng = /n/+/g/ and /n-tail/.  Let s = /s/ and /z/]
Truespel does a little of both.  The difference is that truespel avoids code overlaps.  It never uses the same symbol for two or more sounds: a common practice in traditional writing.

At first glance, the Truespel alfubet  looks more complex than the traditional one.  This is because the traditional alphabet misrepresents the complexity of the English sound system.  There are not just one or two [A] sounds but three or more depending on the number of combinations of the pure vowels that are included.  With all the combinations there are as many as 35 vowel sounds in English.  The Truespel alphabet includes 19 of them. The traditional alphabet stops at 5. 

Linguists consider 20 vowels to be the minimum number needed to represent the sounds of American speech [21 for RP]. The Truespel alphabet does not isolate you [yue] and  lists only the problematic R-combinations:  The self evident combinations are left out:  are [aar], ear [eer], our, and your [yuer].  [er] has to be listed because it is not a simple blend of the [e] and [r] sounds. The same is true for [air] and [or]. 

Since Truespel phonograms are based on familiar English spelling patterns, they can be read immediately without using a key. A major difference between the traditional writing system and Truespel is the consistent representation of five long vowels.  The following table lists 20 vowels -22 counting stress variations.  17 are listed in the Truespel alphabet.  With 17 phonograms and a stress marker, Truespel can represent 20 vowel sounds plus combinations with y and r.

 

Grapheme-Phoneme Correspondence Table - 17 Truespel Vowels
short vowels
(short voulz) 		long vowels
(laung voulz) 		combined
(kumbbiend)
 a - at, ax, cat, ash  ae - sundae, aep [ape]  air - hair, stare  aar - are, far, star
 e - edge, elephant, elbow  ee* - eel, tree, street  er* - her, berd [bird]  eer - ear, fear
 i -  it, itch, index, pin  ie -  pie, siet [sight]  or - for, shor [shore]  uer- tour,  ier- ire, fire
 aa - aaks[ox] kaat [cot]  oe - toe, koet [coat]  au - auto, cost, long  oi - oil, boi [boy]
 u* - up, uggoe [ago]  ue - blue, yue [you]  oo - hook, cood [could]  ou - out, our, house

*starred-vowels have two values, blue vowels are not listed in the-alfubet

*u and er can be stressed (hurt [hert]) or unstressed as in other [uther] and sofa [soefu]
The phonograms in blue are vowel-consonant combinations and not included in the Truespel alphabet
or is an abbreviated version of oer/aur and air is an alternate traditional version of aer/er. 
Since or, air, and er  are ambiguous and not obvious combinations, they must be isolated.
or could be oer, air could be aer or er - these combinations require clarification.

Most of the spellings will appear quite familiar, the difference is the absence of code overlap.  If [ou] is to represent the the vowel in [out], it is also used for the vowel in all words that rhyme including 'brown brow' [broun brou] .

These representations of the vowels is not new.  The basic system of English phonograms or sound signs was developed by Pitman and Ellis before 1900.  There are dozens of reform notations based on them.   New Spelling was promoted by the London based Simplified Spelling Society for 50 years.  One version known as i. t. a. was extensively studied in British schools in the  1960's. A variant of New Spelling, called ALC fonetic or American Spelling is currently being promoted by the American Literacy Council in New York. 

There are three key differences between Truespel and all other variants of New Spelling:

  1. Truespel always indicates stress:  above = ubbuv, abut = ubbut

  2. Truespel includes the obscure vowels: IPA ' and 3: herder, ubbuv

  3. Truespel includes schwi - the unstressed /i:/  veree

  4. Truespel marks 43  phonemes instead of 40 as in New Spelling.

  5. Truespel does not sacrifice consistency to look more like traditional spelling

    6. thu is spelled thu [not the], the plurals of dog and boy are [daugz & boiz]

While truespel grapheme-phoneme correspondence table is nearly identical to other brands of New Spelling, there is a significant difference on the printed page.  The difference is due to the greater phonemic accuracy and consistency of Truespel.

Tom Zurinskas, founder 
Truespel Foundation
PO Box 71
Cologne, NJ 08213
www.truespel.com