Copyright 2023 Daniel Kalak
Licensed under CC-BY-ND-4.0

The mnemonic major system
=========================

The so-called major system is a mnemonic
system that helps you remember numbers. It
maps words (i.e. strings of sounds) to
numbers (i.e. strings of digits). Every
word maps to its unique number, but a
number can have multiple words that map to
it. The goal is to remember words instead
of numbers because it's easier.

f("nice enemy")    = 2023
f("Anna's name")   = 2023
f("deep shell")    = 1965
f("to be shallow") = 1965

I've seen many awkward and
language-specific descriptions of the
mapping. Here is my attempt at an exact
and language-independent description, with
English graphemes as examples. (My
linguistics degree finally pays off.)

0   s, z        alveolar sibilants
1   t, d, th    coronal obstruents*
2   n           non-labial nasals
3   m           labial nasals
4   r           rhotics
5   l           laterals
6   sh          post-alveolar sibilants
7   k, hard g   dorsal obstruents
8   f, v        labial fricatives
9   p, b        labial plosives

*minus the sibilants (those map to 1 or 6)

All other sounds -- vowels, semivowels,
the glottal stop and [h] -- are ignored.

Every consonant sound of a language should
now fall unambigiously into one of these
disjoint subsets:

consonants
|-- obstruents
|   |-- non-sibilants
|   |   |-- labial
|   |   |   |-- plosives ..... 9
|   |   |   '-- fricatives ... 8
|   |   '-- non-labial
|   |       |-- coronal ...... 1
|   |       '-- dorsal ....... 7
|   '-- sibilants
|       |-- alveolar ......... 0
|       '-- post-alveolar .... 6
'-- sonorants
    |-- nasals
    |   |-- labial ........... 3
    |   '-- non-labial ....... 2
    '-- liquids
        |-- laterals ......... 5
        '-- rhotics .......... 4

The only danger of ambiguity comes with
affricates and sounds produced by phonetic
rules (like the "ng" sound).

1. I split all affricates into plosives
   and fricatives (so English <ch> and <j>
   are 16, German <z> = /ts/ is 10). But
   I've seen people treat sibilant
   affricates like the fricative only (so
   English <ch> and <j> are 6 and German
   <z> is 0), even though you wouldn't do
   that for non-sibilant affricates, e.g.
   the German /pf/ (98). A /kx/ affricate
   might be the exception: 7 would perhaps
   make more sense than 77, but so far I
   haven't encountered any when using this
   system.

2. I map <ng> to 27 in English and German,
   even though the <g> is technically
   silent (it just changes the <n>'s
   sound).

But as long as you decide for one solution
and stick to it, you will be fine.