Color coding deals with the problem of identifying the sound to be associated with a vowel letter in English.  There are 5 vowel letters for 14 pure vowel sounds.  Each vowel letter has to represent over 3 different sounds: a short sound [black], a long sound [green], an unstressed sound [blue].  On paper, accent marks or diacritics can be used in place of the color codes: e.g., short [breve], long [macron].

There have been many color coding systems for teaching.  Most of them were too complicated for the classroom.  This system is simple but lacks precision in identifying the sound to be associated with green vowel letters.  Five different high frequency long vowel representations are coded green.  The long  [u], for example,  can be represented [oo], [u], [ue], [u-e], [ew].[see polyvalence]. 

There are over 20 ways to spell a vowel sound in English.  The most common code color would be orange to indicate that the spelling does not conform to the alphabet. There is only one way to spell a short vowel.  Each of the long vowels can be spelled five different ways and still be coded green.  Only very rare [<3%] long vowel spellings are coded orange. [see the base code for vowels]

A red letter is a silent marker.  The letter does not have any sound but it modifies or changes the sound of another letter.  Red and orange are flag colors: They indicate a letter that is not behaving according to the alphabet.  The orange O has a shifted sound.  If it were a normal black O the word would be pronounced the same as "caller" or "collar".  If it were a green O it would be pronounced the same as "coaler".  The sound or the orange O is the same as the blue O except for being stressed. This sound would normally be spelled "culler".

See the key below: 
wOnceupon a time, the beautiful daughter ofa great myusician
wanted more pearls to put among her treasures.  "Look through the
center of the moon when it is blue." said her mother in answer
to her question, "you might find your hearts desire."

Color coding provides a very revealing visual metaphor for the problems with English spelling.  All of the gray, purple, and orange letters represent problems.
Color coding has been used in literacy instruction but I think that it may be easier to start with a phonemic i.t.a. notation such as Spanglish below:

Wans apon a taim, the byutiful doter av a greit myuusishan
waanted mor perlz tu put amung her trezherz.  Luk thru the 
center av the muun wen it iz blu," sed her muther in annser 
tu her queschan, "yu mait faind yur haartz dezair.

Rules can be added to deconstruct Spanglish and arrive at traditional spelling.

wans + s can be represented by ce - wance, a can be represented by any vowel, in this case o, wonce.  The number one aquired a w pronunciation but this was never added to the spelling.  This is how [wans] devolves into [once].

[apon] does not devolve easily because the initial vowel is unstressed as in [ago]. Perhaps there was a time when the prepositioin was pronounced differently with stress on the first syllable.  If so, uppon becomes the spelling.
 
 

TABLE OF CONTENTS AND INDEX

phonemic-awaneness 36 phonemes spell-improvement spell-better better-spelling syllabic rules logical consonants  sssweb ita-debate.htmlita-eval.html how-pepl-speld.html1600 spl	spelling-tests m-w-guide stress-fonemic polyvalence vowels glossary-spelling slurvian.html SSScut-spl.html splbib.htm
Key to the codes Black - logical consonants lojikon Cut spelling

http://pages.prodigy.net/aesir/ring.htm


Black = short sounds and consonants, spelled as they sound.
Orange = Shifted sound, not the sound normally associated with the letter.
Blue = unstressed sound:  a in sofa, o in minor, i in unit, e in ...
Green = long vowel sound, acrophonic letter name sounds: O = owe I= eye
Any free vowel or terminal letter vowel or diphthong is a long vowel.
Red = silent letter which serves some purpose, modifies the sound of another letter.  e is used to mark long vowels and to soften the sound of g to [j].
Gray = useless or redundant silent letter.  Historical clutter. give are
Purple = missing letter, usually a w or y

Red and Orange are both flags.  They say "watch out!"  They do not indicate a particular sound but they alert you to the fact that the flagged letter is not the sound commonly associated with the letter.  Common sounds are coded BLACK, GREEN, or BLUE corresponding to short, long, and unstressed sounds. 

Sounds that are regular including short vowels  - [black]
Sounds not normally associated with the letter - [orange]
Sounds that are free and long, includes the six most common representations - [green]
Diphthongs or two vowel blends are also green
Unstressed vowels similar to the a in ago, e in the, i in unit, o in tenor, u in undone - [blue]
Function letters that have no sound are coded red, e.g., the final e in edge - [red]
Redundant silent letters are coded [gray].

Color Coded words - Five Vowel Letters
A:  at/batter, art/ah, ago/sofa, [kraut/out, aisle] [ray]
E:  edge/effigy, the, her, vein/they/rey
I:  it/ill, eel/frito/ski/field,  penncil, [ice/silo]
O:  odd/otter, cost/law, awe/or, ode/owed/o  [oil/boy]
U:  upp/ap/putt, hook/put, zulu/flu/ooze, yew/yute/unit
short [checked] long [free] unstressed [free] compounds

There are other ways to code sounds [see Bophon] [beautiful princess]

This color coding system is a variation on a common teaching approach where the long vowels are marked by a macron, the short vowels with a breve, and the silent letters with a slash. The unstressed [blue] sounds were generally left out. Such a system is fine for hand marking but tedious on the keyboard.  The SIL font has most of the special characters that are needed.

Bophon Sample

Color Coded Version
Once upon a time, the beautiful daughter of a great musician
wanted more pearls to put among her treasures.  "Look through the
center of the moon when it is blue." said her mother in answer
to her question, "you might find your hearts desire."

The text below is color coded turning it into a pronunciation guide spelling
One disadvantage of the non-alphabetic or logographic spelling used in English is that it is next to useless to someone trying to use it as a guide for pronunciation.

Color Coding
 
 

Each vowel letter is associated with a short, unstressed, and  long sound ltr Alternatives A  ask, ago, ah/are, out E  el, the, her, vein/ they I  it, unit, eel, aisle/ eye O  pot, son, awe, owe,oil U   hook, hup, hoop, use The a in ago is the default unstressed mid lax vowel vowel. [gray]  The vowels in Black  letters are short or checked, Green letters  are free or long. Some greens are diphthongs.

The problem with most color code systems has been the same as with most diacritic systems,
They are too complicated and difficult to remember. 

black- short vowels and consonants that match the sounds in the alphabet.
green - long or free vowels that match the sounds in the Saxon alphabet
blue - unstressed vowels
orange - shifted vowels [a =e, e=i, i = ai, o=u].   cat = catt, kate=keit, to=tu
orange - shifted voice [ge=j] [gi=j] [gui=g]
 
 
 

This system flags the modifiers - the letters that do not have a sound themselves but mark the sound of the talking letter. Talking letters are either black [short], green [long], or blue [free-] u
 

unstressed]  Notice that black letters are always followed by a consonant, they are never found at the end of a word or syllable.  The ambiguous letters are the free vowels that are followed by a consonant.  [silo, cost] The letter [o] has two short sounds corresponding to  [aa and aw] and two long sounds corresponding to [awe and owe]. 

Each of the 5 vowel letter [plus y and w] has three pronunciations: checked [short], free [long] and unstressed.  Sometimes there are two short pronunciations as with o and u.  Sometimes there are two long pronunciations as with o.

Color Codes 
A:  at/batter, art/ah, ago/sofa, [kraut/out, aisle] [ray]
E:  edge/effigy, the, her, vein/they/rey
I:   it/ill, eel/frito/ski/field,  penncil, [ice/silo]
O:  odd/otter, cost/law, awe/or, ode/owed/o  [oil/boy]
U:  upp/ap/putt, hook/put, zulu/flu/ooze, yew/yute/unit
short [checked] long [free]unstressed [free] compounds

We need at least 39 unique shapes for the 36 pure sounds [14 v/22con] and 3 diphthongs.  The Cyrillic alphabets have the additional shapes which is why Russian can be highly phonemic without resorting to potentially confusing digraphs.  In color coded Russian, there would be hardly any of the flagging color codes [red or orange] and no [gray] silent redundant letters.  Digraphs are not the main problem with English.  The problem is polyvalence.

Color codes: 
black=short, green=free, [free but shifted/raised letter], blue=unstressed,
gray=silent redundant  red=functional silent letter.  incorrect letter [orange]

BASE CODE The chart on the left represents an updated version of the 1st Century Saxon alphabet, the last consistent alphabet used for the English language.  It was an augmented Latin alphabet. Originally a few Runic letters were added for aesh [ae] and up [an inverted v]. There were also a couple of Runic consonants [thorn] and [eth].  The Saxon alphabet is a good place to start.  It provides a historical perspective and a consistent guide to pronunciation.  It can be used as an i.t.a.

The short vowels are bit bet bat but book and body. The pure long vowels are beat, bait, boot, boat, bought, about, and bird [herder]

This chart shows six short vowels [black], and six long vowels bead, bayed, bawd, bode, booed [green] and three diphthongs bide, bowed, Boyd [green]. 

14 Pure Vowels [first two columns below]

Gray Code:  Cut Spelling throws out irrelevant letters
Color Code paints them gray - Here are a few examples:

       A in head>hed,  B in doubt>dout,  C in except>exept, D in adjust>ajust, E in are>ar,  have, give, GH in caught>caut, H in when>wen, I in friend>frend, K in knife>nife,  O-L in would>wud, N in condemn>condem, O in people>peple, P in receipt>receit, S in island>iland, T in fetch>fech, U in build>bild, guild  W in write>rite, Y in key>ke, 
 

               There would seem to be various contrived test that could be undertaken to make a point.  Can i.t.a. or Spanglish compensate for this?  Can those who know the  system read non-words easier and pronounce words quicker.

          Prof Frith believes, because of such differences, Italians use the left superior  temporal region to read both words and experimental "nonwords", English speakers use the same hemisphere but slightly different areas. The difference may be to do with how the language is learned, she said. "Children learning to  read and write in English do take a long time. I was involved in some  earlier work comparing German-speaking and English-speaking children and  the difference is very marked in the speed with which they can acquire their  code for their language. "The second phenomenon has to do with dyslexia: this  is quite a noticeable phenomenon in English-speaking countries but it is hardly thought of as a handicap in Italy." Worldwide drift to American.  [see dyslexia]

One of the closest to the ideal of representing onset clusters is the Indic devangari script.  Maranzana 1993 61ff collects a large amount of modern research which affirms that it is easier for children initially to learn a logographic script than a phonemic script.  Explicit segmental awareness, if it develops at all, is a function of the maturational process. 

Elisa Maranzana 1993 The Cognitive Consequences of Literacy: A linguistic mythology.  Univ. of Fl. Gainsvile, FL.  [summary of a dozen studies]

According to Miller [1994], "The most advantageous non-picto non logographic script would be a syllabary without the disadvantages of a syllabary.  It should be able to represent consonant clusters such as [stra] better than satara." 

Readers learn associations between visual forms of words and their semantic referents easily.  In sight reading the words are stored in memory as visual gestalts. p. 64.

Different scripts have different advantages.  The evidence suggests that a script must contain lexical information.  The ideal appears to be one based on the syllable principle [arrangement of segments according to onset and coda position]. 

One problem with the alphabet is that there is more phonological information than is needed and it appears to inhibit the speed of gestalt recognition.  It attempts to represent segments in strictly linear plane in violation of our knowledge of their organization in to syllables.

Writing Systems:

A writing system is usually a way to code speech.  The code sometimes looks like a foreign  language [foren langwaj]  such as the compact and legible Hotsuma code on the right.  Logically this is a superior code to the one we currently use for English.  However, logical superiority is not enough to gain adherents.  Reformed codes also need to be backward and forward compatible.

All speech is 100% phonemic.  Writing systems tend to be about 90% phonemic. Very few get beyond this level and periodical reforms are required to keep it at this level.  Because pronunciation changes over time at a faster pace than writing conventions are revised, the relation between a sound of a word and its visualization will be less than perfect.  When the pronunciation of a word changes, its spelling should also be changed.  This is the way that most languages are able to retain consistency with their writing systems.   About every 50 years, there is a small spelling reform.  [from fasterspel]
 

Logical Consonants [logicons]

COMMENTS ON COLOR CODES
 
>> >[1] I want a transcription system that is good
>> enough for a person who knew the code but not the
>> language could read aloud a coded paragraph and be
>> understood by a native
>> >speaker. YES MY CODE DOES THIS.
>> >
>> >[2] I want this code to be easy to reproduce - e.g,
>> keyboard compatible, email compatible.  YES THE COLORS ARE EASY
       colors would be difficult for some.
 
>> >[3] I want to code to be easy to teach and learn
>> [no more than 10
>> >exception rules] WHAT IS AN EXCEPTION RULE?  SURE
>> THE COLOR CODE HAS SOME IRREGULARS BUT MOST OF THEM
>> CAN BE PRESENTED WITH A SLIGHT SPELLING CHANGE AND
>> BE COMPREHENSIBLE TO ANYONE OF ENGLISH BACK GROUND.
>> >
>> >[4] I want the code to be readable by those
>> literate in English [without a key].
>> >     This means that words have to be recognizable  in context.
>> >     Over 50% of the words would have to be good  "eye rhymes"  
       THE COLOR CODE REQUIRES NO PRACTICE
>> FOR ENGLISH SPEAKERS.  nONE THEY CAN READ IT
>> COMPLETLELY FROM THE GET GO.
>> >
>> >[5] It should be possible for 80% of the [english
>> speaking] learners to speed read this code after 3 weeks of practice.  NO
>> PRACTICE REQUIRED.  JUST IGNORE THE COLORS AND IT
>> MAY EVEN SPEED UP THE READING FOR MOST ADULTS AFTER
>> A SHORT TIME.
>> >
>> >[6] I want for 80% of the learners to be able to
>> spell over 90% of the
>> >words they hear with 95% accuracy after 3 weeks of
>> practice. WHY THESE NUMBERS?  THE COLOR CODE DOES
>> MOST WORDS.  IT ALL DEPENDS ON THE WORDS SELECTED. 
>> AND IF THEY SPELL SOME WRONG THE WORD WILL STILL BE
>> READABLE TO ANYONE WITH THE LANGUAGE, WITH OR
>> WITHOUT CONTEXT.  SOME SHORT VOWELS WILL BE WRONG
>> MOSTLY.

>> >Has [5] ever been studied?  Beach reported that
>> most of his subjects could speed read
>> >his regularized English after 2 weeks but they
>> could not spell it. WHY STUDY IT?  jUST READ THE
>> COLOR CODE AND YOU WILL SEE THAT IT DOES NOT SLOW
>> YOU DOWN.  THERE ARE NO STRUCTURAL CHANGES TO GET IN
>> THE WAY.  
>> >
>> >[6] is probably the hardest requirement for most
>> transcription systems. I HAVE NOT COUNTED WORDS BUT
>> I THINK THAT THE COLOR CODE DOES THIS JUST FINE. 
>> JUST SOME PERCENT OF WORDS ARE PROBLEMATIC FOR
>> SPELLING.  AND INSTRUCTIONALLY, SUCH A PROBLEM IS
>> EASILY SOLVED FOR SOME ONE LEARNING.
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