This system was proposed by Mr. K.R. Mackenzie of Sydney in 1979.
Mr. Mackenzie introduced two new symbols - (upside-down 'e') for the "neutral" sound such as that represented by 'o' in 'carrot'; and . (upside-down 'v') for the short 'u' sound as in 'but'.
The names of the letters (for example, 'ay', 'bee', see') were changed so that they became more related to the sounds they represent - for example the letter 'c' was called 'co' instead of 'see'.
Homonyms (words that have the same sound but different meanings) are always spelt differently in Niu Spelling. This meant that each long vowel sound, for example, had as many as four ways of spelling it. And the trick of using double consonants, while no longer used to show that a vowel sound was short, was employed to differentiate some homonyms. So there was:
right (not left): rait
right (not wrong): rayt
write: raet
wright: raitt
The spelling of 'rite' was not given in Mr. Mackenzie's book, nor the spelling of 'right' meaning 'privilege' (as in 'the right of free speech'), or the spelling of 'right' as in 'right angle', or 'to right a boat', or 'the right reverend', or 'right away'.
Other ways of distinguishing homonyms included:
fan (the implement to make a wind)
phan (a fan of music)
hyr: hear
hy r: here
iu: ewe
iw: yew
yu: you
The idea of having different spellings for homonyms is of interest because traditional spelling does this to a limited extent (for example, 'right', 'write', 'wright', 'rite'). Niu Spelling demonstrates the very great difficulties that this practice involves - namely, the problem that a single sound can be represented by a large number of spellings. How would a child be able to remember how to spell the word 'right' if the spelling depended on which meaning (out of about twelve possible meanings) is intended ?
Here is an example of Niu Spelling:
Long go in pryhistoric taimz, dh caaniv r s an m ls held a greet congres in dh sent r v Eesh . b t z dhe r w r land brij z dhen, dhee cud oal raiv nd r t n t dheir neetiv le rz in dh r contin nts nd c ntryz.
How much better it seems to be to spell homonyms the same - just as they sound the same in spoken
English - and to derive the meaning from the context. Distinct spellings of homonyms is a practice that is
unnecessary and confusing - and it introduces inconsistencies between the spoken and written
representations of the language. The spoken word-sound 'right' has just one sound representation, with
many meanings. The written representation should have just one form as well.
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