Basic Roman facts for kids

The Basic Roman spelling of English is a special way to write English words. It was suggested in 2002 to make English spelling more regular and easier to learn.

Think about how many ways we spell the same sound in English! Basic Roman tries to fix that. It's based on five main ideas:

• It uses only the basic Roman alphabet (A, B, C, etc.). No extra letters or special marks are used.
• Each sound (called a phoneme) is spelled in only one way. So, you won't find the same sound spelled differently, like "ea" in "bread" and "ee" in "tree."
• Short vowel sounds (like the 'a' in "cat") are spelled with one letter. Long vowel sounds (like the 'a' in "name") and diphthongs (vowel sounds that glide from one to another, like 'oy' in "boy") are spelled with two letters.
• Diphthongs are spelled by combining the letters for their two parts. Long vowels are either spelled like diphthongs or by doubling the letter of a short vowel.
• Short vowels and consonants are spelled in a way that's common in many other languages that use the Roman alphabet.

The Basic Roman system doesn't try to match one specific way of speaking English. Instead, it offers a single way to spell words that works for different English accents. It uses 22 Roman letters to represent the sounds of English. The letters 'j', 'q', 'w', and 'x' are not used in this basic version.

How Basic Roman Spelling Works

This table shows some English sounds (using the IPA) and how they are spelled in Basic Roman, along with an example word.

To show you how it works, here's a short story written in regular English spelling and then in Basic Roman:

Once upon a time, the beautiful daughter of a great magician wanted more pearls to put among her treasures. “Look through the centre of the moon when it is blue,” said her royal mother in answer to her question. “You might find your heart’s desire.” The fair princess laughed, because she doubted these words. Instead, she used her imagination, and moved into the photography business, and took pictures of the moon in colour. “I perceive most certainly that it is almost wholly white,” she thought. She also found that she could make enough money in eight months to buy herself two lovely huge new jewels too.

Uans apon a taym, da byutiful doota av a greyt madzhishan uontid moo paalz tu put amang haa trezhaz. “Luk tru da senta av da muun huen it iz bluu,” sed haa royal mada in ansa tu haa kueschan. “Yu mayt faynd yoo haats dizaya.” Da fea prinses laaft, bikoz shi dautid diyz waadz. Insted, shi yuzd haa imadzhineyshan, and muuvd intu da fotografi biznis, and tuk pikchaz av da muun in kala. “Ay paasiyv moust saatanli dat it iz olmoust houli wayt,” shi toot. Shi olsou faund dat shi kud meyk inaf mani in eyt mants tu bay haaself tuu lavli hyudzh nyu juualz tuu.

Extended Basic Roman Spelling

There's also an Extended Basic Roman spelling. This version uses the letters 'j' and 'w', which the basic version doesn't. It also has special two-letter combinations for certain 'th' sounds in English.

Here's the same story in Extended Basic Roman:

Wans apon a taym, dha byutiful doota av a greyt majishan wontid moo paalz tu put amang haa trezhaz. “Luk thru dha senta av dha muun hwen it iz bluu,” sed haa royal madha in ansa tu haa kweschan. “Yu mayt faynd yoo haats dizaya.” Dha fea prinses laaft, bikoz shi dautid dhiyz waadz. Insted, shi yuzd haa imajineyshan, and muuvd intu dha fotografi biznis, and tuk pikchaz av dha muun in kala. “Ay paasiyv moust saatanli dhat it iz olmoust houli wayt,” shi thoot. Shi olsou faund dhat shi kud meyk inaf mani in eyt manths tu bay haaself tuu lavli hyuj nyu juualz tuu.

Roman Phonetic Alphabet for English

The Roman Phonetic Alphabet for English is another system that builds on the Extended Basic Roman spelling. Its main goal is to make sure that each sound has only one way of being written, and each written symbol represents only one sound. This is called a one-to-one phoneme (sound)–grapheme (spelling) correspondence.

This system also adds special marks to show which part of a word is stressed (said with more emphasis). This helps when words are spelled the same but have different meanings depending on where the stress is.

Here's the same story again, this time written using the Roman Phonetic Alphabet:

Once upon a time, the beautiful daughter of a great magician wanted more pearls to put among her treasures. “Look through the centre of the moon when it is blue,” said her royal mother in answer to her question. “You might find your heart’s desire.” The fair princess laughed, because she doubted these words. Instead, she used her imagination, and moved into the photography business, and took pictures of the moon in colour. “I perceive most certainly that it is almost wholly white,” she thought. She also found that she could make enough money in eight months to buy herself two lovely huge new jewels too.

”Wans a’pon a taym, dha ’byutiful ’doota av ”a greyt ma’jishan ’wontid moo ”paalz tu put a”mang ”haa ’trezhaz. “Luk thru dha ’senta av dha muun hwen it iz bluu,” sed ”haa ’royal ’madha in ’ansa tu ”haa ’kweschan. “Yu mayt faynd yoo ’haats di’zaya.” Dha fea ’prinses ’laaft, bi’koz shi ’dautid dhiyz ”waadz. Insted, shi yuzd ”haa i,maji’neyshan, and muuvd intu dha fo’tografi biznis, and tuk ’pikchaz av dha muun in ”kala. “Ay paa’siyv moust ”saatanli ’dhat it iz olmoust houli wayt,” shi thoot. Shi olsou faund ’dhat shi kud meyk i”naf ”mani in eyt ”manths tu bay haa’self tuu ”lavli hyuj nyu ’juualz tuu.

Related pages

• Orthography
• English language

• G. Gerych. Transliteration of Cyrillic Alphabets. Ottawa University, April 1965. 126 pp.