The WLM Spelling System

WLM (Weird-Looking Minglish) is a system for transcribing English.  It is nearly phonemic, and has been designed to be reasonably understood by English readers once a few conventions have been mastered.  This document describes version 2.1 of WLM, current as of 11/29/2003.

This document is in five parts.  The first is an informal overview of WLM, the second is an algorithmic description of how to transform a text into WLM, and the third is several samples of transcribed text.  There is an Appendix describing how to handle foreign and dialectal sounds not covered by the main body of the text, and one discussing the history and possible evolution of WLM.

Part 1 - Informal Overview

WLM is an almost phonemic notation, where each English letter represents an English sound.  Some sounds are represented by digraphs.  The main way in which this notation fails to be phonemic is that it may not be possible to tell whether a letter i represents a schwa or a short i sound without knowing how the word is stressed.

Basic spelling

Most of the consonants of English are represented exactly as you would expect.  Here is a table of the consonant sounds that might need explanation:

Here is a table of the vowels, diphthongs and other combinations of WLM.  For reasons to be explained shortly, no spelling is shown for the schwa sound.

Notes:

1. These spellings are used only at the end of a word.
2. These spellings are used when preceding a vowel or syllabic liquid.
3. This spelling is used only at the beginning of a word.
4. This spelling is used only in inflections of or words derived from words ending in y.
   

See Appendix 1 for information on foreign sounds, and sounds which are often not distinguished in American English.

Additional conventions

In order to increase readability, decrease the size of words, and make distinctions in pronunciation more visible, WLM sometimes modifies the spellings that would be obtained from just substituting the letters and sequences above for their sounds.  Here is an informal description of the modifications.  In this description, we use the term "syllabic liquid" to include any liquid (l, m, n or r) preceded by a schwa, except at the start of a word.

1. An h occurring anywhere but the start of a word is preceded by a period.  For example: Bo.heemiya.  This is necessary because of the frequent use of "h" in letter combinations.  The period is always required, whether there is any ambiguity or not.
2. Period must be used to separate letters which would otherwise be interpreted as a digraph, e.g, liet.hows.  It is also used to separate parts of compound words when omitting the period would imply an incorrect pronunciation, as in sofa.bed or bayby.sit.
3. A schwa is replaced by a at the end of a word, by e at the start of a word or before r, and by i elsewhere.  There are a few exceptions.  Except at the start of a word and a few other unusual cases, a schwa preceding an r is removed by rule 8.
   
4. An unstressed long e sound at the end of a word (usually traditionally spelled "y") is spelled with an ending y.  In inflections of such words, the y is doubled.  For example: wury, wuryyd, wuryyz, wuryynq, bizyyr, bizyyst.
5. There are alternate spellings for the long vowels ay, ee, ie, o and ue when followed by another vowel, or by a syllabic liquid:  ae, iy, ih, oh and uw respectively.  For example: kaeahs, piyano, kihotee, kohed, duwet.  When one of these is followed by a schwa, the schwa is removed, except at the end of a word.  (Similarly, when the long vowel is followed by a syllabic liquid, the liquid is written without a vowel.)  For example: stael, miyl, tihr, pohm, fuwl, kwiht, idiyt, baenet, fluwd, kohnsied.  Note that when one of these vowels other than o is followed by l or r, the alternate spelling is used whether or not the English spelling indicates the presence of a schwa.  (In the case of o, the sounds of ol and or use a slightly different vowel from o, at least in my own speech; the oh form is used before l and r only when the sound is that of the full o.)
6. Schwa is not shown when it follows a y or w, except at the end of a word. For instance: eikwty, igzekytiv.
7. WLM indicates the presence of syllabic liquids in one of three ways.  At the start of a word, the e- spelling is not changed.
8. In other positions, WLM either omits the vowel before the liquid, or uses a silent h as a marker.  It uses the h when simply leaving out a vowel would be ambiguous or misleading as to the pronunciation.  For instance, the spelling "form" for the traditionally-spelled <forum> would be incorrect, and so the spelling forhm is used instead.  I believe the results to be extremely readable, but I have not found an easy way to describe how to write them yet.  So for right now, I will just list some words in WLM illustrating the possibilities.  In Part 2, I'll describe the exact technique, which my fingers have learned even if I can't explain it very well.  Words where the vowel can just be omitted:  katl, ridhm, eimbr, norml, knsidr, prseev, ahpxn.  Other more subtle words:  kworhm, agnhy, ahprha, difrhns, prifexnhl, poyznhr, flhmingo, veterhneiriyn.
   
9. A special case is that of words containing the sequence *3*, with * representing a single liquid, and 3 representing a schwa.  This case is handled by using the letter u in place of the schwa, except before r, where an e is used instead, as in: linun, maksmhum, halulueya, murdrher.
10. The plural marker is always -z, and the past tense marker is always -d.  If a schwa is inserted before either of these, or before the -r or -st of an adjectival inflection, the schwa is replaced by an apostrophe.  Thus: dix'z, wawnt'd, nies'r, kleen'st.  An apostrophe is used before the inflection -inq if it follows a vowel or a syllabic liquid for which it is not considered acceptable to drop the schwa.  Examples: go'inq, catr'inq, but kindlinq, lisninq.  The possessive marker is always 'z.
11. Prefixes and suffixes are normally just combined with a root word's spelling.  For a few suffixes, listed in Part 2, the spelling is fixed.  For others, the spelling may vary depending on the actual pronunciation.  A period is inserted between an affix and the rest of the word if necessary to indicate the correct pronunciation, as in un.efekt'd.
12. There are special spellings for a few very common words, listed in Part 2.

Part 2 - A Formal Description

The following is an algorithmic description of how to spell a word in WLM, based on its pronunciation (as encoded in loose MCM).  I realize that the level of formality and detail may make this somewhat hard to read, but this is the best way I know to be precise.  Besides, in my work persona I'm a software guy: I tend to think in algorithms.

See my MCM reference if you need information on MCM.

For regularly inflected words, the transformations are first applied to the root word, and then the inflections are handled as described in step 13.  This applies to plural-like words (<jeans>, <scissors>, but not <rabies>), and to -ed words derived from nouns (e.g., <muscled>, <freckled>, <spirited>, but not <crooked>).  Similarly, for words including common affixes, the transformations are first applied to the root word, and then the affixes are applied as described in steps 12 and 13.  Affixes are transformed in a consistent manner, but the remainder of a word with an affix will be modified if necessary to reflect its actual pronunciation.

The parts of compound words are expected to be spelled the same combined as individually.  If simply combining the parts implies an incorrect pronunciation, the parts must be separated by a period.

Double letters arising via affixes or compounding are acceptable without separation by a period. 

MCM encodes capitalization by an initial period.  The process described below ignores this period.  When the process is complete, if an initial period is present, it is removed and the WLM word is capitalized.

Step 1:  A period is inserted before each occurence of h except at the start of a word.

Step 2:  Make the following replacements in the MCM transcription:

Notes:

1. This replacement only occurs at the end of a word.
   
2. See Appendix 1.
3. This replacement occurs only at the start of a word.

Step 3:  nqk and nqg are replaced by nk and ng respectively.  This step introduces phonetic ambiguity, but the difference between the two possible pronunciations (MCM nk/Gk or ng/Gg) is never significant.

Step 4:  When a long vowel (ay, ee, ie, o, ue) is followed by another vowel or a syllabic liquid, the long vowel is respelled as ae, iy, ih, oh or uw, respectively.  If the following vowel is a schwa, the schwa is removed, except at the end of a word.  If the following letter is a syllabic liquid, it is replaced by the corresponding consonant.  i or oo followed by a vowel are considered the same as ee or ue for this transformation.  The sequences 3y and 3w are similarly replaced by iy and uw respectively.

Step 5:  The unstressed vowel ee is replaced by yy at the end of a word after a consonant other than y, as well as after the vowels oh, ow and uw.  Note that the yy will be contracted to a single y by Step 14.

Step 6:  The 3 is removed from the sequences y3 and w3, except at the end of a word, or when the w/y is part of a digraph.

Step 7:  Anywhere a digraph appears that is not pronounced as indicated in the previous steps, a period is inserted between the letters.  This is not necessary for ng and nk (as no one really needs to distinguish between nietngael and nietn.gael).

Step 8:  Wherever a syllabic liquid appears, it is replaced by the corresponding lower-case letter unless one of the following is true:

     a.  The consonant is followed by a vowel (or another syllabic liquid). 
     b.  The consonant is a nasal following a liquid. 
     c.  The liquid is preceded by itself (either syllabic or consonantal). 
     d.  The liquid is R, used as a regular adjectival comparative inflection. 
     e.  The liquid is a nasal, following the diphthong oy or ow.

Note that since syllabic liquids are not marked in loose MCM at the start of a word, this transformation does not apply to that case.

Step 9:  Any remaining MCM schwa (3) symbols are replaced by e at the start of a word, i within a word, or a at the end of a word (or before a period inserted in Step 1).  Note that words traditionally ending with the suffix -ous are a special case, using the spelling -us.  This step introduces some ambiguity into the pronunciation of certain spellings.

Step 10:  If a syllabic liquid follows itself, it is replaced by ul, um, un or er.  This step also introduces ambiguity in pronunciation.

Step 11:  Perform any of the following transformations as necessary in turn, proceeding from right to left in the word:

• Replace M or N with hm or hn when following a liquid.  Examples:  kworhm, kalhny, flhmingo, anhml
• Replace M or N by im or in following ow or oy.  Examples: elowins, enoyins.  This step can introduce ambiguity in pronunciation.
• Replace L, M, N or R with lh, mh, nh or rh, unless it is already followed by h.  Examples:  ahprha, kmhit, prisexnhl
• Replace Lh, Mh, Nh or Rh by ilh, imh, inh or erh.  Examples: zepilhn, veterhneiriyn, parlimhnt.  This step can introduce ambiguity in pronunciation.
  

Step 12:  If the pronunciation of a root word is not affected by an affix, but a spelling change would result from applying the above rules, the spelling is not changed, and a period is inserted between the affix and the remainder of the word.  Similarly, a period (or a hyphen, but period is preferred) is used to separate parts of a compound word if spelling the word as a unit would change the spelling of one of its parts.  A compound word beginning with a word ending in yy is spelled with a "y." in place of the yy, except for compounds of einyy and eivryy.

Step 13:  Certain suffixes are spelled with an explicit vowel, even when pronounced as a schwa:

Notes: 

The -ious table entry assumes the "i" is not pronounced.  <envious>, in which the "i" is pronounced, would be spelled einvyyus.

When the -lyy (standard "-ly") suffix is applied to a word ending in -y, the result is spelled to end in -ilyy, not -lhyy or -yylyy.  (Note that the yy in this suffix and others is reduced to a single y by Step 14.)  This step may misrepresent pronunciation.  Similarly, when the addition of a suffix to a word ending in -y causes the pronunciation to change to a schwa, the vowel is changed to i.  Contrast byuetiful and hapyynes.

Step 13:  The plural marker is always spelled z.  Similarly, 'z is used for possessives.  The past tense marker is always spelled d.  Whenever the past tense or plural causes a schwa to be inserted, the resulting i is replaced by an apostrophe: eind'd, fays'z.  Similarly, an apostrophe is inserted before inq after a vowel, as well as after a syllabic liquid which must remain syllabic.  Likewise, an apostrophe replaces the vowel in the adjectival inflections -3r and -3st.  When a word ending in yy is inflected, any leading vowel in the inflection is dropped: wuryynq, dizyyst.  This step may misrepresent pronunciation.

Step 14:  The spelling yy is reduced to y at the end of a word.  This step is applied only after compounding and affixation have been completed.

The spellings of some very common words in WLM are as follows.  (Some of these words are exceptions to the rules.)

 Notes:

1. Traditional "due"/"dew" is spelled due.  "duh", which would be legitimately spelled du, is instead spelled da.
2. Similarly, "into", "onto", "today", "together" etc. are spelled intu, ahntu, tuday, and tugedhr respectively.  "too"/"two" is spelled tue.
3. "yew" is spelled yue.

Part 3 - Examples

Here are two samples of WLM, the first the traditional first paragraph of H.G. Wells' "The Star" (see here), and the second a transcription of a pop song by Dire Straits.  (Truth to tell, song lyrics are my usual transcription material.)

Dhi Star

It wuz ahn dhi furst day ev dhi nue yir dhat dhi enownsmhnt wuz mayd, awlmost siemltayniysly frum three ebzurvitoryyz, dhat dhi moxn ev dhi planit Neptuen, dhi owtrmost ev awl dhi planitz dhat wiyl ebowt dhi sun, had bikum veiry iratik.  A ritardayxn in itz vlhahsity had bin sispekt'd in Disembr.  Dhen a faynt, rimot spek ev liet wuz diskuvrd in dhi reejn ev dhi prturbd planit.  At furst dhis did naht kawz einy veiry grayt iksietmhnt.  Sihntifik peepl, howevr, fownd dhi nue intelijns rimarkibl inuf, eevn bifor it bikaym non dhat dhi nue bahdy wuz rapidly gro'inq larj'r and briet'r, and dhat itz moxn wuz kwiet difrhnt frum dhi ordrly prahgris ev dhi planitz.

Industriyl Dizeez

Because this example is a pop song, I've left out most of the punctuation, in the style of rock lyrics everywhere.


Worninq lietz ar flaxinq down at Kwahlity Kntrol
Sumbahdy thrue a spanr and dhay thrue him in dhi hol
Dheir'z ruemrz in dhi lodinq bay and angr in dhi town
Sumbahdy blue a wisl and dhi wawlz kaym down
Dheir'z a meetinq in dhi bordruem, dhay'r trie'inq tu trays dhi smel
Dheir'z leekinq in dhi wahxruem, dher'z a sneek in Pursnhel
Sumweir in dhi koridr, sumwun wuz hurd tu sneez
"Goodnes mee, kood dhis bee Industriyl Dizeez?"

Dhi keirtaykr wuz kruesified for sleepinq at hiz post
Rifyuezinq tu bee pasified, it'z him dhay blaym dhi most
Dhi wahcdawg gaht raybeez, dhi forman'z gaht dhi fleez
Eivryywun'z knsurnd ebowt Industriyl Dizeez
Dheir'z panik ahn dhi swicbord, tunqz ar tied in nahtz
Sum kum owt in simpithy, sum kum owt in spahtz
Sum blaym dhi manijmnt, sum dhi imployeez
And eivryybahdy noz it'z dhi Industriyl Dizeez

Dhi wurk fors iz disgust'd, downz tuwlz, wawkz
Inisns iz injrd, ikspiriyns just tawkz
Eivryywun seekz damij'z, eivryywun egreez
"Dheez ar klasik simptmz ev a mahniteiry skweez"
Ahn ITV and BBC dhay tawk ebowt dhi kurs
Filahsify iz yuesles, thiyahlijy iz wurs
Histrhy boylz ovr, dheir'z n eiknhahmiks freez
Sosiyahlijistz invent wurdz dhat meen Industriyl Dizeez

Dahktr Parknsn dikleird "Ie'm naht srpriezd tu see yu hir
Yu'v gaht smokr'z kawf frum smokinq, bruwr'z druep frum drinkinq bir
Ie don't no how yu kaym tu get dhi Bety Dayvis neez
But wurst ev awl, yunq man, yu'v gaht Industriyl Dizeez"
Hee rot mee a priskripxn, hee sed "Yu ar dipresd
Ie'm glad yu kaym tu see mee tu get dhis awf yur cest
Kum bak and see mee layt'r, nekst payxnt pleez
Send in enudhr viktm ev Industriyl Dizeez"

Ie go down tu Speekr'z Kornr, Ie'm thundrstruk
Dhay gaht free speec, tooristz, plhees in trukz
Tue men say dhay'r Jeezis, wun ev dhem must bee rawnq
Dhay gaht a protest sinqr, hee'z sinqinq a protest sawnq
Hee sez "Dhay wahnt tu hav a wor so dhay kan keep us ahn owr neez
Dhay wahnt tu hav a wor so dhay kan keep dheir faktrhyyz
Dhay wahnt tu hav a wor tu stahp us bie'inq Japnheez
Dhay wahnt tu hav a wor tu stahp Industriyl Dizeez
Dhay'r poyntinq owt dhi einhmy tu keep yu def and bliend
Dhay wawnt tu sap yur einrjy, inkarsrhayt yur miend
Giv yu Ruwl Britanya, gasy bir, payj three
Tue weekz in Eispanya and Sunday strip teez"
Meenwihl, dhi furst Jeezis sez, "Ie'l kyoor it suen
Ebahlix Munday morninq and Frieday aftr.nuen"
Dhi udhr wun'z owt ahn hungr striek, heez die'inq bie digreez
How kum Jeezis getz Industriyl Dizeez?

Appendix 1

My dialect of English does not distinguish <marry> from <merry>, nor <which> from <witch>.  The sequence aar may be used to represent the "arr" sound of <marry>, and wh may be used to represent the initial consonants of <which>, if desired.  Note that if wh is used, <what> is spelled as whut.

A few English words are pronounced with non-English sounds.  The most common of these sounds may be represented as follows:

(The tilde and umlauts are best used as diacritical marks: kahntritãh, Göta, Kleir da Lün, but may also be used as separate marks within a word, as shown above, if more convenient.)

Appendix 2

Previous Changes

Version 2.1 of WLM introduced the following changes.

• The e is now used in place of a for an initial schwa sound.  This removed the need for aa and arr spellings initially, but added the use of initial ei and of eir.  The word <of> is now spelled ev.
• The ending y now replaces ee except when stressed.  yy is used in inflections.
• Support was added for dialects which distinguish the "arr" sound and/or the "wh" sound.  Support was added for spelling some foreign sounds.
• A rule was added for syllabic nasals following oy or ow.

The evolution of WLM

I'm now considering a significant revision of WLM, based on using both the letter i and the letter o to represent the schwa, and with a somewhat different resolution to some of the problems of syllabic liquids.  For detailed information on this revision, tentatively called WLM2s, see this page.

Here is "The Star" in WLM2s:

It wuz awn dhi furst day ev dhi nue yir dhat dhi enownsment wuz mayd, awlmoast siemltayniysly frum three ebzurvotoryyz, dhat dhi moaxn ev dhi planit Neptuen, dhi owtrmoast ev awl dhi planitz dhat wiyl ebowt dhi sun, had bikum veiry iratik.  A ritardayxn in itz vl'ahsity had bin sospekt'd in Disembr.  Dhen a faynt, rimoat spek ev liet wuz diskuvrd in dhi reejn ev dhi prturbd planit.  At furst dhis did naht kawz einy veiry grayt iksietment.  Sihntifik peepl, howevr, fownd dhi nue intelijns rimarkebl inuf, eevn bifor it bikaym noan dhat dhi nue bahdy wuz rapidly gro'inq larj'r and briet'r, and dhat itz moaxn wuz kwiet difr'ont frum dhi ordrly prahgris ev dhi planitz.

Other than the possibility of this major revision, WLM seems to be pretty stable right now.  The following list of uncertainties was written last year and, as no action has yet been taken on them, they are unlikely to ever matter.

I've never been completly happy about the use of yy in inflecting, affixing and compounding words ending in -y.  But the yy solution is the best I've been able to think of so far.  (The y cannot be preserved in these contexts, because "yC", for C a consonant, is always pronounced as "y3C".  This is an established feature of WLM I am dead set against changing.)

Nor am I entirely happy with the diacritic solution to foreign vowels.  But the diacritics are probably better than introducing new unnatural digraphs that would be rarely used.  I considered "kahntritahmq", "Geota" and "Kleir de Leun", but these spellings don't appeal.

WLM is incompatible with British English (RP), mostly due to use of the spelling ah for the short "o" sound.  The first step towards a RP-compatible version of WLM would be to spell long o as oa, and short o as o.  (Spelling short o in this way conflicts with WLM2s, of course.)  Possibly other adjustments would be required.  Probably no significant change in the use of r would be needed; the traditional handling of this issue seems to work well enough.

Perhaps additional function words should be spelled with e, such as <as> and <at>.  Because <of> is almost never stressed, it seemed right to spell it as ev.  <as> and <at> are less clear-cut.  Other possibilities like <and> and <in> seem to me to require a stressed spelling.

I'm now reasonably comfortable about the decision that the adjective endings -er and -ist should be spelled with an apostrophe.  It took a while.

Even if I forgo a major reform of the syllabic liquid handling of WLM, it is still possible I may adopt some minor improvements.  The present solution is the result of a huge amount of experimentation, and I'm now quite happy with it.  The present method sometimes requires an h when there is no ambiguity, for words like woomhn and venhm.  But allowing these spellings to be h-less made the rules even more complex, and I don't feel the revised spellings are all that natural.  Nevertheless, it's another thing I could still change my mind about (and did, in WLM2s).

There is no reason that WLM wouldn't work if ch, sh and zh were used in place of c, x and jh.  This would make some words more recognizable, but would also make some long words longer.  I have no intention of making this change, since the c and x give WLM much of its flavor, but I won't anathematize anyone who wishes to experiment with this "improvement".

It is tempting to abbreviate -ibility to -iblty or -ibilty.  All the "i"s in a word like prahbibility seem excessive.  I tried the spelling -ibilety, which I like, but which is hard to justify.  I rejected spelling all -ity words with -ety, as in many cases such as <humility> the -ity is not a true suffix, but only the ghost of a suffix.  WLM2s spells this suffix -ebility.

I've considered adding a rule that requires the use of period rather than hyphen if a separator is used in compound words.  I would make an exception for compounded phrases, like jak-in-dhi-bahks or owt-ev-dayt.

Should the possessive of <it> be spelled its or itz?  I'm spelling it itz for now.

An issue that came up as I was preparing this reference for version 2.0 was the spelling of the word <duh>.  There were a number of unpleasant options:  Stop spelling <do> as du, introduce a new uh ending sequence, misrepresent the sound of <duh> as daw.  My final solution (spelling it as da) was based on the realization that if  you regard "uh" as the same sound as the schwa (which many do), the spelling da would be legitimate by the WLM rules.  Of course, a schwa is never stressed, and an unstressed <duh> is an oxymoron, but somehow spelling the word in a way that is technically incorrect seems fitting.  Still, a decision made an hour before publication has strong potential for needing reassessment.

WLM does not presently indicate stress.  This has not proved to be an issue, as I believe a reader familiar with English speech patterns is unlikely to get the stress wrong.  I have found one exceptional word, <Popsicle>, which one presumes should be spelled Pahpsikl in WLM.  Alas, this ought to have exactly the same rhythm as ahptikl and trahpikl, but it doesn't.  I've resolved this issue for the moment by spelling <Popsicle> as Pahp.sikl.  But a casual writer of WLM would not think to do so.  If other, similar exceptions to the expected patterns show up, it may be necessary for me to find a better solution.

To comment on this page, e-mail Alan at wyrdplay.org