A Tutorial for Traditional Orthography Readers

c	s	t
w	z	h

B	D	F
G	H	J
K	L	M
N	P	R
S	T	V
W	Y	Z

The following explains how the ANJeL Alphabet is organized.

The traditional English alphabet may be written as follows:

A B C D
E F G H
I J K L M N
O P Q R S T
U V W X Y Z

or

A  --  B C D
E  --  F G H
 I  --  J K L M N
O  --  P Q R S T
U  --  V W X Y Z

showing how we arrive at the order of the long vowels, AEIOU, when we recite them by giving them the letter's name.

In the ANJeL alphabet we use X for O, so that the letter will not be confused with a zero. Also we give the U the name and sound of the u in up. Therefore we get:

A  --  the sound like in bay
E  --  the sound like in bee
 I   --  the sound like in pie
X  --  the sound like in go
U  --  the sound like in up

In the ANJeL alphabet we use the lower case letter for the short vowels and write them adjacent to the long vowel arriving at the start of our 39 character alphabet written in the following format.

Note the sound assignment to "m". In ANJeL, some letters are assigned completely different names and sounds than in TO.

A	a	___	a- the sound of a in cat
E	e	___	e- the sound of e in bed
I	i	___	i- the sound of i in sit
X	x	___	x- the sound of o in dog
U	m	___	m- the sound of oo in foot

___	___	___
___	___	___

___	___	___
___	___	___
___	___	___
___	___	___
___	___	___
___	___	___

As you see, this schema is composed of three blocks of letters. The upper block is vowels and the lower blocks are the consonants, the lower of which we shall fill in now.

A	a	___
E	e	___
I	i	___
X	x	___
U	m	___

___	___	___
___	___	___

B	D	F
G	H	J
K	L	M
N	P	R
S	T	V
W	Y	Z

The order of the consonants is the same as in the TO alphabet with simply the TO vowels and the X (and capital letters C, O and Q that ANJeL does not use at all) left out. As you will notice, all the letters in this block are capitals, which is why we call them the large consonant letters.

In the case of the vowels, which we covered a moment ago, the name of the vowel letter and the sound of the vowel letter are identical. A consonant, in the TO alphabet, is accompanied by a vowel (in front or behind) in order to be pronounced. The most commonly used vowel in traditional English is E. Thus in the alphabet of Traditional Orthography we have BE, DE, PE, TE, VE, and ZE ie. B, D, P, T, V and Z (forget the crazy Canadian zed). The names of these letters are the same in the ANJeL alphabet.

However, in ANJeL the other large consonant letter names are pronounced a little differently than in traditional English orthography. One of the main features of the ANJeL TUn is simplification through consistency. The ANJeL TUn large consonants have no exceptions. Therefore the letter F instead of having its vowel placed in front and being pronounced eF is named with the consistent long E afterwards (like FEE). G therefore becomes the mule skinners GEE, ach (H) becomes HE, and jay (J) becomes JE (like in my wife's name Jean).

B  (bee)
D  (dee)
F  (fee)
G  (gee)
H  (hee)
J  (jee)
K  (key)
L  (lee)
M  (me)
N  (knee)
P  (pea)
R  (re)
S  (see)
T  (tea)
V  (vee)
W  (we)
Y  (ye)
Z  (ze)

While all of this is very simple, it still much more simply demonstrated with a video and of course its audio. But to continue, we will now fill in the rest of the vowel sounds.

A	a	___
E	e	___
I	i	___
X	x	___
U	m	___

There are certain symbols on the traditional alphabetic typewriter keyboard that we have not used. We now use these for the sounds in the English language that have no letter.

For example ow, ou, ough which are all pronounced the same as in: owl, out, plough, are written in ANJeL using the d symbol which we have not previously used. Thus cow is written Kd, now Nd, out dT and plough PLd.

The r is somewhat of a special case. It is called a schwa. It is the sound heard very often at the end of words (and elsewhere) as in "mother", MUhr, "baker", BAKr, and at the beginning of "urgent", rJeNT.

The b is used for the oi, or oy sound. Like in oil and boy, which we would spell bL and Bb.

The k is used for the oo sound in tool.

The n is a particularly curious letter. It is NOT a vowel, but we put it at the end of the vowel block because it is the only consonant that cannot be pronounced with an E after it. We use n to represent the ng sound which is the sound we find at the end of the words like ring, rang and rung.

To remain as consistent as possible we pronounce the letter name n with the usual E as the preceding vowel. The sound is ng and therefore the vowel name is Eng (sort of like the ing in going but with a stronger E sound). n can be preceeded by any vowel. That is why in ANJeL "tongue" is TUn. It is a curiosity that English has this exceptional sound as its name.

These five letters now fill into our matrix in the following locations:

A	a	d	d- the sound of ou in out and therefore dT
E	e	r	r- the sound of r in sir and therefore Sr
I	i	b	b- the sound of oy in boy and therefore Bb
X	x	k	k- the sound of oo in tool and therefore TkL
U	m	n	n- the sound of ng in ring and therefore Rin

The remaining set of letters are referred to as small consonants (as distinguished from the block of large consonants which were described earlier). They are called small consonants simply because they use what are lower case letters in traditional English orthography. The set is in the small consonant block.

c	s
w	z

These are named as:

chee    she   thee
whee   zhe   thee

Notice that each of these letters has the appearance of being associated with an h in TO. Like:

ch    sh    th
wh   zh    th

The zhe sound is rare in English but is found in words like garage (GaRxz in ANJeL) but I will dispense of the long orthological discussion of its defense.

Each of these small consonants can be followed by any of the vowels. It is more difficult to put a vowel in front of wh.

You will notice that there are two "thee" sounds in TO English. The first th is like in th in theology or thousand and the second th is like th in the or thou.

th is indiscrminate in traditional English orthography. How is "thou" pronounced?

       Wilt thou loan me a thou (like in thousand)?

But ANJeL discriminates:

       WiLT hd LXN ME A td?

So, now, we have the complete ANJeL alphabet which is read, memorized, recited (and yes sung as a memory device) in rows from left to right.

A	a	d
E	e	r
I	i	b
X	x	k
U	m	n

c	s	t
w	z	h

B	D	F
G	H	J
K	L	M
N	P	R
S	T	V
W	Y	Z

The full reasons for the selection of the letters involves considerable more detail about how descenders are represented in captioning on the video screen but this suffices to show the names of the letters in the Angel alphabet. In the next lesson we will deal further with the sounds of the letters.

Lesson 2

The Sound of the Angel Letters

We will now examine each of the Angel letters in the order that that they are recited and examine the sound associated with each letter. The first examples will show the letter under discussion as a leading letter and the second three examples will show it as a trailing letter. The first row is the TO example, and the second row the Angel example.

A	-	Abe,	able,	aid	-	bay,	day,	may
		AB,	ABUL,	AD	-	BA,	DA,	MA
a	-	act,	apple,	approach	-
		aKT,	aPUL,	aPRXc	-

---------------------------------------------------------------------
There appear to be no words that end in the "a" sound.
They all seem to get converted to U.

d	-	ouch,	out,	owl	-	bough,	cow,	plough
		dc,	dT,	dL,	-	Bd,	Kd,	PLd
E	-	each,	eat,	eek	-	any,	bee,	collie
		Ec,	ET,	EK	-	eNE,	BE,	KxLE
e	-	echo,	edit,	etch	-	bed,	feminine,	get
		eKX	eDiT,	eTc	-	BeD,	FeMiNiN,	GeT

---------------------------------------------------------------------
(e often follows consonants but there do not appear to be any words which it ends)

r	-	early,	earth,	urban	-	acre,	copper,	mother
		rLE	rt,	rBan	-	Akr,	KxPr,	MUhr
I	-	eye,	I,	idol	-	buy,	tie,	why
		I,	I,	IDxL	-	BI,	TI,	wI
i	-	idiot,	ill,	itch	-	dish,	bill,	with
		iDixT,	iL,	iTc	-	Dis,	BiL,	Wit

---------------------------------------------------------------------
(i often follows consonants but there do not appear to be many words which it ends)

b	-	oil,	ointment,	oyster	-	boy,	joy,	toy
		bL,	bNTMeNT,	bSTr	-	Bb,	Jb,	Tb
X	-	obey,	oh,	old	-	ago,	blow,	yellow
		XBA,	X,	XLD	-	aGX,	BLX,	YeLX
x	-	odd,	off,	on	-	bra,	pa,	saw
		xD,	xF,	xN	-	BRx,	Px,	Sx
k	-	oodles,	oof,	oops	-	blue,	shoe,	two
		kDLZ,	kF,	kPS	-	BLk,	Sk,	Tk
U	-	udder,	under,	up	-	the,	bust,	butter
		UDr,	UNDr,	UP	-	hU,	BUST,	BUTr
m	-	____	____	____	-	book,	foot,	soot
		____	____	____	-	BmK,	FmT,	SmT

----------------------------------------------------------------------------
I have thought of no examples where the m begins or ends a word, but I know of no technical reason why it could not.

n	-	____	____	____	-	bang,	bing,	bong
		____	____	____	-	Ban,	Bin,	Bxn

-------------------------------------------------------------------------
n is something of an anomaly in Angel (and TO) in that it never starts a word or syllable. One can't even say it that way. One of the few words in English that even has it near the start of the word is ingot (inGxT), except for the word English (EnLis) itself.

c	-	chair,	check,	church	-	beach,	ouch,	rich
		cAR,	ceK,	crc	-	BEc,	dc,	Ric
s	-	she,	ship,	show	-	ash,	fish,	mush
		sE,	siP,	sX	-	as,	Fis,	MUs
t	-	thank,	theory,	thin	-	bath,	oath,	teeth
		tanK,	tEXRE,	tiN	-	Bat,	Xt,	TEt
w	-	what,	where,	which	-	____,	____,	____
		wxT,	weR,	wic	-	____,	____,	____

-------------------------------------------------------------------------
w  is something of an anomaly in Angel (and TO) in that it never ends a word or syllable.

z	-	genre,	genres,	jabot	-	beige,	garage,	rouge
		zxNRa,	zxNRaS,	zaBX	-	BAz,	GaRxz	Rkz
h	-	that,	the,	then	-	bathe,	lathe,	loath
		haT,	hu,	heN	-	BAh,	Lat,	Loh
B	-	babe,	ball,	bat	-	Abe,	rob,	tube
		BAB,	BxL,	BaT	-	AB,	RxB,	TkB
D	-	dinner,	doubt,	dumb	-	bed,	blood,	dude
		DiNr,	DdT,	DUM	-	BeD,	BLUD,	DkD

-------------------------------------------------------------------------
The D on the end of words is something of a strange letter. Sometimes in TO it is sounded as a T. (See discussion under T). However, other times, TO words that end in ed do have a D sound such as in "We polled the voters or we pulled the wagon". In Angel these become PXLD and PULD).

F	-	fine,	fix,	funny	-	chef,	chief,	half
		FIN,	FiKS,	FUNE	-	seF,	cEF,	HaF
G	-	go,	going,	gone	-	bag,	dog,	pig
		GX,	GXin,	GxN	-	BaG,	DxG,	PiG
H	-	heavy,	how,	hump	-	____,	____,	____
		HeVE,	Hd,	HUMP	-	____,	____,	____

---------------------------------------------------------------------------
The H, W, and Y do not appear to end any words in Angel. This may be because that in TO they are in those positions what we call silent letters.

J	-	jade,	jive,	jump	-	badge,	edge,	ridge
		JAD,	JIV,	JUMP	-	BaJ,	eJ,	RiJ
K	-	cane,	key,	cap	-	ache,	cook,	desk
		KAN,	KE,	KaP	-	AK,	KmK,	DeSK
L	-	lame,	last,	long	-	ball,	pal,	tell
		LAM,	LaST,	Lxn	-	BxL,	PaL,	TeL
M	-	me,	more,	my	-	bomb,	come,	name
		ME,	MXR,	MI	-	BxM,	KUM,	NAM
N	-	know,	never,	no	-	on,	one,	sun
		NX,	NeVr,	NX	-	xN,	WUN,	SUN
P	-	pea,	pod,	please	-	nap,	step,	up
		PE,	PxD,	PLEZ	-	NaP,	STeP,	UP
R	-	read,	read,	red	-	bar,	bear,	boar
		RED,	ReD,	ReD	-	BaR,	BeR,	BXR
S	-	same,	seed,	some	-	guess,	weakness,	horse
		SAM,	SED,	SUM	-	GeS,	WEKNeS,	HXRS

------------------------------------------------------------------------
The S is sometimes used as the sound of a TO plural but most often TO plurals actually end in a Z sound (see Z). Sh combinations, such as shout (sdT), of course have their own representation in ANJeL (see s).

T	-	tag,	top,	two	-	at,	cot,	worked
		TaG,	TxP,	Tk	-	aT,	KxT,	WrKT

--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Curiously, the ed sound at the end of words in TO often has the T sound in Angel. In old English the e in worked would have been sounded as work-ed. But not now.

V	-	van,	vicious,	victory	-	cave,	grieve,	love
		VaN,	VisUS,	ViKTXRE	-	KAV,	GREV,	LUV
W	-	wag,	we,	went	-	____,	____,	____
		WaG,	WE,	WeNT	-	____,	____,	____
Y	-	yam,	year,	yes	-	____,	____,	____
		YaM,	YER,	YeS	-	____,	____,	____
Z	-	zebra,	zip,	zoo	-	buzz,	fez,	fizz
		ZEBRU,	ZiP,	Zk	-	BUZ,	FeZ,	FiZ

-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Z gets extensive other use in Angel as the plural at the end of TO words - WrDZ.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------

In the next lesson we will get into actual practice in reading Angel words.

Lesson 3

Reading Angel Words