ABSTRACT
The Mexicans in Cobden who made up their own hybrid alphabet did so as a means to an end: to produce records of bits of English the way it really sounds. These records were in turn a means to a further end: to improve communication with the local residents by mastering the (local) pronunciation of spoken English in general, or as they put it, by learning the abecedario of English, the (finite) set of English speech-sounds. At first the Mexicans recorded phrases that they had already learned by ear, by heart, or as they put it, líricamente. At the meeting in the Village Hall they took a further step: creating glossaries which absent companions, unable to attend the meetings in Cobden, could read aloud “at sight” and be understood by local monolingual Anglos.
