Can Google Glass help to establish a virtual Universal Alphabet?

Naturally, the level of accuracy of the pronunciation using the SaypYu alphabet varies from one language to another. It is highest for English and certain Latin-based languages and lowest for some Asian and tonal languages. In addition, because the SaypYu alphabet has a small number of distinct vowels, it is intuitive to transcribe words using SaypYu. By design, the shadow of the English alphabet appears in many aspects of the SaypYu alphabet – this is because English is the most widely spread language and because English is a relatively unphonetic language.

The project is still in its infancy and the spelling of words on the website www.saypyu.com is merely a suggestion. However, thanks to users' contribution, the spelling using SaypYu is improving. This experiment could succeed only if everyone helped in adding, correcting and voting on the spelling of words from their own languages so that other people are able to pronounce these words more easily.

So how does it work?

The spelling of English words using the SaypYu alphabet is derived from the International Phonetic Alphabet's transcription. Therefore, because the following words BOUGH COUGH THOUGH THROUGH are pronounced very differently to each other, they are spelled very differently using SaypYu: BAW KOF DHOW THRUU. In addition, the word SaypYu is pronounced SIPE-YOU as the AY in the SaypYu alphabet is pronounced like the AI in AISLE.

Now, to take an example from a language other than English, in French word for CAT is CHAT. If someone is not familiar with French, he/she would most probably pronounce this word TSHAT (like the English word CHAT). However, if the French word CHAT is written phonetically using a universal alphabet (i.e. SHA), the pronunciation by non-French speakers would be more accurate.

To get an even better idea as to how it might work, click on this link, and you can download a version of this article written in SaypYu and see how it feels.