Shavian eGroup Archive Browser

At 06:24 AM 6/6/00 +0000, you wrote:
>Hello everyone.
>
>After that wonderful introduction of myself, I would like to say that
>I am disappointed in the Shavian alphabet. I am impressed by the
>wonderful sites I have found on the internet, and the work that has
>gone into Shavian fonts. I am disappointed because I assumed that
>Shavian would be a form of shorthand that did not confuse different
>pronunciations of words as shorthand does.
There is an updated version of Shavian; see my comments below...

>I have downloaded all of the fonts I can find, including "Shaw
>Script" which I hoped would join things together despite the warnings
That's my effort. Joined writing was not the intention, there.

>from Read that they should not. I read that there was a "Senior
>Script" of a further develpment by Read at
>http://members.aol.com/RSRICHMOND/quickscript.html and that the
Quickscript is the updated version of Shavian (Although some would argue
otherwise) and makes the characters a little more distinct from one
another. It is Quickscript, I think, which has the "Junior" version.


- .+'^'+. A.M.Callaway -------------
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Scott Harrison wrote:
> I actually had a rough time determining which I should
> use. Transliteration would be the correct term if all I were
> doing was switching alphabets. However, there is a little
> more than that involved in the work that I am doing.

Maybe "transcription" is the word to use?

I know that the difference comes up in other places as well, such as in
Russian: You can change Cyrillic to Roman either letter-by-letter, or not in
a one-to-one method. This will determine whether the letter "sha" gets
represented by an 's' with a diacritical mark (such as a caron) or by the
two letters 'sh'.

> First
> of all I am using specific Shavian spellings for specific
> English words based on my pronunciation. People will write
> the same English words with different Shavian spellings
> because those words are pronounced differently by them.

I don't think that this point is so important. Even transliteration /
transcription has to take into account pronunciation, or consciously decide
not to. Is the capital of Russia "Moskva" or "Maskva"? Depends on whether
you transliterate the Cyrillic 'O' by its "normal" value or by how it is
pronounced in that context.

> This
> aspect may not be worthy of the use of translation, but I
> think the next is. I do not use all the abbreviations used
> in English. For example "Mr." is spelled out.

This, too, I think does not make that big a difference (though here you're
obviously not transferring the letters 'M' 'r', but rather the word.)

> Basically
> what I am saying is there are choices that I make when making
> the Shavian documents. These choices are arbitrary and can
> be disputed easily by many. Therefore, I think the work
> warrants the use of translation vice transliteration.

I'd say that the main feature of translation is changing the language of the
source. You are not changing English to another language, just representing
it differently. Perhaps this is more similar to the way in which Serbian can
be written in Cyrillic or Roman letters -- or how any language can be
represented by IPA. That wouldn't make it a translation in my book.

> For those in the Macintosh community, I am
> trying to ensure that MacOS X will be Shavian ready when it
> is released in beta form, and that it will always be Shavian
> capable in the future.

This is laudable indeed.

> And of course I follow the Unicode
> standard and will transform all my documents to the real
> Unicode code points when Unicode officially adopts Shavian.

Do you know what the current status here is?

Wait... <checks Unicode website> Oh! It's been accepted by the Unicode
Technical Committee for inclusion, presumably in Plane 1 (using surrogates).
So maybe it'll eventually appear there.

For now, we have the ConScript Unicode Registry (unofficial) range starting
at U+E700.

Cheers,
Philip

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Philip Newton wrote:
> Wait... <checks Unicode website> Oh! It's been accepted by the Unicode
> Technical Committee for inclusion, presumably in Plane 1
> (using surrogates).

Update: according to the roadmap for the SMP (Secondary Multilingual Plane),
it might end up at U-000104D00 - U-000104FFF, if it read it correctly.

Cheers,
Philip

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In a message from zenem@...
dated Tue, 06 Jun 2000 06:24:02 +0000, my mailer made me see:

<SNIP>
->
-> My question is, is there a script form of Shavian? It must surely be
-> the next step, because all writing systems developed an uppercase and
-> lowercase system in the past. I know, some are not hand-writeable
-> but are just smaller versions of the uppercase, but Shavian is based
-> on the phenomes of English, and English has lowercase and script.
->

Actually, I only know of four writing systems that employ upper- and lowercase letters: Latin, Cyrillic, Greek and Georgian (considering the old form). The others in the world do not. In fact, there are many more that do not than do. One of the goals of Shavian was to get away from using upper- and lowercase letters. The one thing that was done to indicate proper names was to use the 'naming dot,' so that may be considered some sort of uppercase marker if you will.

-> I am asking because I would like to use Shavian. In my "daytimer"
-> (calendar book), I am often holding it in one hand and writing with
-> the other, sometimes in a moving vehicle, sometimes while chatting.
-> I actually write notes to myself in print but find myself using
-> handwriting in my 'things to do' book because I must.
->
-> Where is the fluid version of Shavian, which I believe wholeheartedly
-> that Shaw wanted?
->
-> - Zeno
->
->

I think that Shavian can be used pretty quickly when one gets used to it. There tends to be some forms that blend well together and naturally get used when writing quickly. And of course there are variations between people's writing styles which may make quick notes difficult to decipher. I have never done shorthand so cannot compare it.

--
Scott Harrison

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In a message dated 6/5/00 10:25:02 PM, zenem@... writes:

>all writing systems developed an uppercase and
>lowercase system in the past

Actually, the Roman alphabet (which we use in English), together with Greek,
Armenian, and Russian are oddities in that most writing systems do not have
separate upper and lower forms. :-) Personally, I see little usefulness in
separate form -- it simply means that you must learn twice as many letter
forms and a bunch of rules governing when to use or not use each form.

-- Bill

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Scott Harrison wrote:
> Actually, I only know of four writing systems that employ
> upper- and lowercase letters: Latin, Cyrillic, Greek and
> Georgian (considering the old form). The others in the world
> do not. In fact, there are many more that do not than do.

I think Armenian also has upper- and lowercase letters, but you are right:
many more do not distinguish.

For example: Arabic, Hebrew, Korean hangul, Japanese kana, Hindi and related
scripts, Yi, Pahawh Hmong, Cherokee, Canadian "Aboriginal" Syllabics (e.g.
Cree, Inuit), Thai, Khmer, Tibetan.

And modern Georgian, since you mentioned it, is an example of a script that
used to have a case distinction but abandoned it -- so it's not a _sine qua
non_ to have case distinctions.

Cheers,
Philip

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Dear Sir,
My impression is that handwriting was to develop over time, and that you
are free to handwrite as you wish, as long as your handwriting is
understandable to the others with whom you wish to communicate.
I make bold to differ with you that most alphabets have developed
upper-case and lower-case forms. This development is rather rare among world
alphabets, actually. None of the Semitic or Indic alphabets make such a
difference.
Shavian is a way for writing English as you speak it, a way of writing
English phonetically. It is a spelling reform, not a form of shorthand. In
my personal writing I use a considerable number of abbreviations for the
most common words, but in my public writing I use only the four
abbreviations that were included in the original Script. I recommend a Grade
2 and Grade 3 version of Shavian, in analogy to the number of abbreviations
used in Braille, but realize that most Shavian will be written, as it is
written, in what I call Grade 1.
But Shavian is a reform of English spelling, not a form of shorthand.
Daniel Szczurek

----------
>From: zenem@...
>To: shavian@...
>Subject: [shavian] Where is the handwriting?
>Date: Mon, Jun 5, 2000, 11:24 PM
>

> Hello everyone.
>
> After that wonderful introduction of myself, I would like to say that
> I am disappointed in the Shavian alphabet. I am impressed by the
> wonderful sites I have found on the internet, and the work that has
> gone into Shavian fonts. I am disappointed because I assumed that
> Shavian would be a form of shorthand that did not confuse different
> pronunciations of words as shorthand does.
>
> Since Shaw used shorthand, do you all not believe that this is what
> he wanted? Do you not think that he wanted an alphabet similar to
> shorthand in that one could write fluidly in script for each word?
>
> I have downloaded all of the fonts I can find, including "Shaw
> Script" which I hoped would join things together despite the warnings
> from Read that they should not. I read that there was a "Senior
> Script" of a further develpment by Read at
> http://members.aol.com/RSRICHMOND/quickscript.html and that the
> sample shown was "Junior" and was printed (as opposed to
> handwritten/script).
>
> My question is, is there a script form of Shavian? It must surely be
> the next step, because all writing systems developed an uppercase and
> lowercase system in the past. I know, some are not hand-writeable
> but are just smaller versions of the uppercase, but Shavian is based
> on the phenomes of English, and English has lowercase and script.
>
> I am asking because I would like to use Shavian. In my "daytimer"
> (calendar book), I am often holding it in one hand and writing with
> the other, sometimes in a moving vehicle, sometimes while chatting.
> I actually write notes to myself in print but find myself using
> handwriting in my 'things to do' book because I must.
>
> Where is the fluid version of Shavian, which I believe wholeheartedly
> that Shaw wanted?
>
> - Zeno
>
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> Would you like to save big on your phone bill -- and keep on saving
> more each month? Join beMANY! Our huge buying group gives you Long Distance
> rates which fall monthly, plus an extra $60 in FREE calls!
> http://click.egroups.com/1/2567/9/_/54531/_/960272644/
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>
>

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This group's come alive again! It must have been the Christmas carol in
July. It's woken everybody up.

- .+'^'+. A.M.Callaway -------------
- A N D Y Melbourne, Australia -----
- `+.,.+' www.ozemail.com.au/~acal -

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While it has been mentioned already that only the Greco-Roman alphabets have employed upper- and lower-case, the original question at hand was about a cursive form of Shavian, linked in the style used (ironicly) primarily by the Greco-Roman alphabets... :) (Most languages- except for the Arabic-derived scripts, including Mongolian, as they are scripts themselves- don't have a truly linked handwriting form as we are accustomed to, but rather, they write each character individually...)

In the case of shavian, I don't think it was _ever_ designed for linked cursive, and as one would notice, isn't really necessary, as every letter in Shavian has exactly one stroke, which is itself unique in writing systems. Even the letters that do allow joining can still be done in one stroke... (I believe DeMeyere's site covers the joinability of certain characters...)

D.M.Falk
(Oh, yes- I'm alive... :) Just lurking, mostly...)

(PS: Greco-Roman does, ironicly, include Armenian, Georgian, and Hebrew, though the latter is less associated, and never has had upper- and lower-case letters.....)




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As the handwriting systems that exist mostly developed over time from use,
perhaps we should just let Shavian evolve naturally, and see what happens.
If a person communicates in Shavian, and that person's writing is understood
by others, it will become accepted in time. Perhaps we should just be
evolutionary Shavians. Of course that will mean we have to increase written
communication among Shavian users.
Dan Szczurek
7424 Ruby Drive, SW, #D-12
Lakewood, WA 98498-5062
USA
(You can write me and see what evolves.)

----------
>From: "Dennis Falk" <quozl1@...>
>To: shavian@...
>Subject: Re: [shavian] Where is the handwriting?
>Date: Fri, Jun 9, 2000, 12:22 PM
>

> While it has been mentioned already that only the Greco-Roman alphabets
> have employed upper- and lower-case, the original question at hand was
> about a cursive form of Shavian, linked in the style used (ironicly)
> primarily by the Greco-Roman alphabets... :) (Most languages- except for
> the Arabic-derived scripts, including Mongolian, as they are scripts
> themselves- don't have a truly linked handwriting form as we are accustomed
> to, but rather, they write each character individually...)
>
> In the case of shavian, I don't think it was _ever_ designed for linked
> cursive, and as one would notice, isn't really necessary, as every letter
> in Shavian has exactly one stroke, which is itself unique in writing
> systems. Even the letters that do allow joining can still be done in one
> stroke... (I believe DeMeyere's site covers the joinability of certain
> characters...)
>
> D.M.Falk
> (Oh, yes- I'm alive... :) Just lurking, mostly...)
>
> (PS: Greco-Roman does, ironicly, include Armenian, Georgian, and Hebrew,
> though the latter is less associated, and never has had upper- and
> lower-case letters.....)
>
>
>
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> Accurate impartial advice on everything from laptops to table saws.
> http://click.egroups.com/1/4634/9/_/54531/_/960578548/
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>
>

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