The SSA was formed in the USA and developed a spelling system which was subsequently modified and combined with the system developed by the English SSS (Simplified Spelling Society) to form New Spelling.
After New Spelling was rejected in England, the SSA published details of a "Phonemic Alphabet" in 1971. This alphabet was somewhat similar to the George Bernard Shaw system, in that it used new symbols for long vowels and for other sounds which are traditionally spelt with two letters. However the SSA system retained most of the traditional letters as well, and used 's' consistently to represent the 's' sound, and 'z' consistently to represent the 'z' sound.
The new symbols included ∂ (upside-down e) for the 'obscure' vowel (such as the vowel represented by the 'o' in 'carrot'); ε for the long 'ee' sound as in 'need'; ε| for the long 'a' sound as in 'mate'; ∫ for the 'sh' sound as in 'shed'; and lots of other special symbols to represent voiced and unvoiced 'th', the long 'a' sound as in 'father', the 'ng' sound as in 'sing' etc..
So the sentence "Now we are engaged in a great civil war" is rendered in the SSA system as:
Once again we can admire the brevity of the SSA system, since it spells many sounds traditionally spelt with two letters with single symbols. It is also a very consistent system based on the sound of the words.
But people have not been able to accept the system since it relies on the introduction of a large number
of new symbols, so that the resulting text looks dramatically different from traditional writing.
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