The Saxon-Spanglish [SS] notation also looks a little like English written in a Spanish orthography, hence the name Spanglish.  The first application of the notation is presumed to be in the bilingual classroom where Spanglish provides a bridge to traditional English. The child begins with a consistent Latin based spelling system and then around the third grade starts to learn and integrate the other incompatible spelling systems that make up traditional English spelling.  One reason English spelling is inconsistent and irregular is because it borrows from so many traditions: Latin, German, Norse, Norman French, [more]

Sample of text written in Spanglish   remember a="uh" aa="ah" o="awe" see chart above

Inn Spanglish evry lettr izz pronounst according tu tha Saxon alfabet.  An alfabet is a sound-symbol correspondens teybl.  Spanglish izz a traenspaerent orthografy for English.    Azz tha teybl indicaets: tha [a] izz olweyz tha saund in ago and american.  Thiss saund izz asaind tu tha ferst lettr bicoz it iz tha mowst frequent saund inn tha English languaj.  Lettrz aar dubbld aeftr a short vaul.  Theyr aar twu short U's (one lax [ap] and one rounded [hwk]).  In most British dialects, there are also twu short O's. W and Y are olredy semi vaulz.  Spanglish enlists V and R for semi-vaull duty.  The V used to function as a U and the R hazz ofan bin innterprted azz a syllaabic. Thiss minz theyr aar twu weyz tu spell tha short vaulz.  

Aol fonemic noteyshanz for English will rispell 60% of the words.  Truespel, for instance, respells 90% of the words.  Thaet izz tha prais of consistency.  Spanglish daz not tr'y tu bi perfect.  Tha gowl izz tu bi azz consistent azz Espaanyol. 
 

Saxon-Spanglish is one of many ASCII-IPA notations.  IPA does not need to look as alien as it usually does.  Sweet's version below is quite attractive.  Replacing the eth with the Greek delta makes it even better.  Spanglish is supposed to look good in print, please write and tell me if it achieves its aesthetic goal and if it is easy to read without a key.                     sbett@lycos.com

ITA-International Phonetic Alphabet	ASaxon-Spanglish Fonemic Notation
W'ns 'pon ' taim ð' bjutif'l do:t' 'v ' greit m'd3iò'n want'd mo:': p':lz tu: put 'm'h h': tre3ju':z."Luk thru: ð' sent': 'v  ð' mu:n hwen it iz blu:," sed h'r m'th' in æns': tu: h': kwestò'n, "Ju: mait faind j': ha':tz di:zair." ipa	Wans apon a taim dha byutifal daotr av a greyt majishan waantad mor  prlz tu pwt amang hr trezyurz."Lwk thru dha centr 'v dha  mun hwen it iz blu," sed hr mathr in ænsr tu hr kweschan, "Yu mait faind yur haartz dizair." Spanglish

Spanglish as an i.t.a. and pronunciation guide vs. Spanglish as a reform proposal

Speech cannot be fully reduced to graphic representation.  However, a written code can capture enough cues to enable native speakers to reproduce it.  The goal of Spanglish spelling is to code and index important English speech sounds [phonemes] in such a way that non-native speakers can read it aloud and be understood.  This is possible with the orthographies of other languages such as Spanish.  It is nearly impossible with the traditional English writing system. 

While Spanglish can be spelled phonemically according to some base pronunciation such as midland British or general American, this is not the proposed reform.  The reform is to restore the Saxon alphabet and respell only those words that cannot be understood when read aloud using the Saxon correspondence table.  By this standard, most traditional English spellings are only slightly off.  me=meh, to=taw, are=uh-reh, soup=saw-oop, ...
In context, they can be understood and therefore do not have to be respelled.  

Spanglish identifies the words that need respelling such as "through"  This ancient spelling needs to be retired because we can no longer pronounce [gh].  When a word is respelled it is respelled according to the pronounciation guide in the dictionary:  Thus, [through] becomes [thru].  This type of partial reform is called spelling pronunciation.  It moves the writing system toward alphabetical spelling and greater phonemicity, but initially respells only 10% of the words.  

All of the books on spelling improvement mention the importance of proper pronunciation.  "Accurate spelling and accurate pronunciation go hand in hand" [H. Shefter]. The Saxon spelling initiative  adds that it is important to pronounce words as they are spelled an learn this dialect in addition to the regional dialect that the child has already picked up.  We use a historical spelling system so we should learn a historical pronounciation if we want to improve our chances of spelling accurately.  

To master traditional spelling, students have to learn a spelling dialect in addition to their regional dialect. In 90% of the cases, the spelling dialect will be close enough to be understood. There was a great vowel sift around 1400, but the shift was not so great as to completely obscure understanding. Some dialects ignore the shift:  for instance "day" [daa-ee] [rhymes with 'die'] can be understood as referring to the shifted pronunciation [dey]  (more)