Shawalphabet YahooGroup Archive Browser

Scratch that, I forgot we don't have class today. I'll see if I have the
printout somewhere...

skrAc HAt, F fPgot wI dOn't hAv klAs tdE. F'l sI if F hAv H printQt
sumwX.

4. What is the Roman or Latin Alphabet?

The Roman Alphabet is a set of 26 distinct symbols used to write the
sounds of English and many other modern Languages. The earliest known
inscriptions in the Roman or Latin alphabet date from the 6th century
B.C. It was probably developed from the Etruscan alphabet during the
6th century B.C. to write Latin. The letters "Y" and "Z" were taken
from the Greek alphabet to write Greek loan words. The Letter "G" was
created by Spurius Carvilius Ruga who flourished around 230 B.C. as a
modification of the letter ''C". The Romans used just these 23
letters to write Latin. For Latin, the semi vowels "W" , "Y" and the
vowels "U'', "I" and "EE" were written with the same letters,
namely "V" and "I" respectively. There was no "W", although "V" was
pronounced like the modern English "W". The Roman Alphabet became the
alphabet for written English back in the 7th Century AD, as Latin was
both the common European language of education, and the only widely
written language at the time that the writing of English was
developed. When the Roman alphabet was adapted to write English, the
letters "U", "W" and "J" were added. Other letters have been
added, as the Roman alphabet was adapted for other languages.
Consequently, there is no one overall consistent Roman Alphabet with
a consistent pronunciation.

5. What makes the Shaw alphabet different from the Roman alphabet?

1)Roman alphabet has 26 letters, most with more than one
pronunciation.

2) Shaw Alphabet has 47 letters, 46 with only one pronunciation.

3) Roman Alphabet has 21 consonant letters and 5 vowel letters.

4) Shaw Alphabet has 24 consonant letters and 22 vowel letters.

5) Roman alphabet has a number of extraneous or silent letters in
most English words.

6) Shaw alphabet pronounces all letters and vowel markers and is
completely phonetic.

7) Roman alphabet has capital letters for each of the 26 letters.
The reader must recognize the upper and lower case (52 characters).
As well, some characters are not easily distinguishable. For example,
the lower case "1 resembles the uppercase "I" and the number "I ".
Capital letters are used to indicate the beginning of the sentence,
names and other important things.



6. Why it easier to spell and write words with the Shaw Alphabet?

1) English has a wide number of variations in its spelling using
the Roman alphabet. Multiple spellings for the same word are
considered acceptable. (i.e. Colonel color, gaol, jail, key, quay)
Different English words can even have the same pronunciation, (i.e.
One, won) with little regard to the phonetic value of the Roman
letters.

2) Shaw Alphabet spells each English word phonetically with very
little redundancy. There is only one redundant letter (On) and that
is provided to allow for a common British pronunciation.

3). Written English using the Roman cursive alphabet is falling
into disuse, except to provide signatures for legal documents, due to
the easy availability of computer word processing. The form of each
of the Shaw letters has been simplified to ensure that only 1 or 2
pen strokes are required to write each letter. It is faster to print
in the Shaw Alphabet, than to write in the Roman cursive alphabet.

7. What is the Order of the Shaw Alphabet?

The 46 Shaw Letters are listed in the following order. The
letters "On" is used interchangeably with "Ah" in American
pronunciation. "Ian" is no longer used.
The first 40 letters are the regular Alphabet,
and the last 6 letters are to represent the extra r-sound Vowel
letters.
Ado, Ash, Ah/On, Awe, Ice, Bib, Gag, Dead, Ha-ha, Vow, Zoo, Yea,
Yew,
Kick, Loll, Mime, Nun, Ing/Hung, So, Egg, Age, Peep, Roar, Sure, Tot,
If, Eat, Church, Judge, Genre/Measure, Oak, Oil, Foe, Woe, Wool, Ooze,
Thigh, They, Up and Out.
The Shaw Letters are ordered in a manner consistent with the original
Semitic Alphabets
from which the Roman Alphabet was derived.


8. Why should I learn the Shaw Phonetic Alphabet?

The Shaw Alphabet was designed to reform the English Alphabet, and
resolve a number of teaching issues, but there are personal benefits
to you it as well. The top seven benefits that you will enjoy when
you to learn to read and write the Shaw Alphabet or Abjad are as
follows.
1. To keep your Diaries, Passwords, Transcriptions and other private
information confidential.
2. To learn about phonics and phonetics.
3. To simplify the alphabetical ordering and listing of
English words. 4. To learn a simple reliable
Shorthand for English. (Shaw Abjad) 5. To
learn a method of transcribing sounds of foreign words directly.
6. To learn a method of transcribing sounds of English in
dialect.
7. To minimize the effects of the mental disorder of Dyslexia
on your writing and reading.


9. Is English Spelling Reform on this scale really practical?

A number of modern languages have made limited attempts at major
spelling reform, with great success.
And in one particular case, there was a complete replacement of an
Alphabet.
That was the development and adoption of Hangol in South Korea, which
has shown incredible national benefits.. When a difficult language
such as Korean, without a native Alphabet, switches over to an
effective Alphabet, it shortens the education process and results in
more people to become literate and in a shorter period of time.
Other successes have been the adoption in Turkey of an expanded Roman
alphabet. Also spelling reforms in the Netherlands, Israel, Japan,
Iceland, and the other Scandinavian Countries, although more modest
in scope, have been great successes internally.
Typically, Spelling reform is an evolutionary process which does not
disrupt the existing state of literacy. So even though the Shaw
Alphabet is of a
completely new design and provides a simplified alternative with
many economies, it still co-exists with the Traditional Roman
Alphabet.
And modern Document Processing allows for the instantaneous
transliteration of the Shaw Alphabet into the Traditional Roman
Alphabet, ameliorating any problems of communicating between the two
Alphabets.
_____________________________attached_____________________________
--- In shawalphabet@yahoogroups.com, "paul vandenbrink"
<pvandenbrink11@...> wrote:
>
> 1. What is the Shaw or Shavian alphabet?
>
> The Shavian alphabet is a modern, phonetically accurate replacement
> for the old Roman alphabet for English. The Shavian alphabet has
been
> designed to write modern English more quickly and effectively.
>
> The Roman alphabet was designed specifically for Latin, over 2,600
> years ago, and while it has become the alphabet of choice for
> hundreds of languages, it is less than ideal for the English
> Language..
> The Roman or Latin Alphabet became the customary alphabet for
written
> English, at a time when Latin was the primary language of
education,
> and English was only a collection of vulgar Dialects.
>
> Shavian represents orthography corrected and made an accurate. It
is
> a guide to pronunciation by means of the new alphabet, which has
been
> adapted specifically to fit the English language.
> The new Shavian alphabet for written English allows each word to be
> spelled as it is pronounced and pronounced as it is spelled.
>
> The Shaw alphabet is a non-Roman, nearly 100% phonemic, set of 47
> symbols suitable for writing English, as it is spoken.
>
> Alphabetic systems with one symbol per sound and no silent letters
> are more compact, faster to write, and much easier to learn.
Spelling
> is obvious instead of obtuse.
>
> The streamlined letter shapes are designed to be legible when
rapidly
> written -- They represent a kind of linear shorthand.
>
>
> 2. Who created the Shaw alphabet?
>
> G.B. Shaw specified the linguistic requirements for an alphabet
code
> as early as 1941. He wanted one unequivocal symbol for 42 English
> speech sounds and he did not want any of those new symbols to be
> confused with traditional spelling. He himself used Pitman
shorthand
> and was familiar with the advantages of phonemic writing. However,
> Pitman's writing system was not linear and difficult to print.
Shaw
> was impressed with Sweet's "current" linear shorthand, but objected
> to its focus on abbreviation.
> Kingsley Read, an architect and designer, was impressed with G.B.
> Shaw's essay on an improved English Alphabet, which appeared as the
> preface to the book, "The Miraculous Birth of Language", and
> contacted G.B. Shaw. He showed Shaw his early attempts to build a
> phonemic notation to match Shaw's requirements. Shaw encouraged
> these efforts
> In his will, Shaw left most of his fortune to fund the development
> and implementation of a new alphabet. The exact nature of this
> Alphabet was not specified.
> The will was challenged by lawyers representing the British Museum
> and other Public charities on the grounds that you can't leave
money
> to an idea.
> G.B. Shaw's fortune did not amount to much until the spectacular
> success of
> the musical opera, "My Fair Lady". Sir James Pitman negotiated a
deal
> whereby a small portion of this fortune, about £8000, would be
used
> to fulfill the terms of the will.
> The group that controlled the funds decided that the best they
could
> do with such limited funds was to run a contest.
> Accordingly a contest was announced specifying the linguistic
> requirements, in 1958. Four contestants submitted alphabet schemes
> that met or surpassed the requirements. The Shaw Alphabet was
created
> from an amalgam of these 4 proposals, although Kingsley Read did in
> fact provided the majority of the design.
> The prize of £500 was divided equally between the 4 finalists.
> Later on Kingsley Read would also created another script or
cursive
> version of the Shavian alphabet called Quikscript, where he could
> more fully express his own ideas. Quikscript, which closely
resembles
> the Shavian Alphabet, although some of the letters have been
swapped,
> never gained wide popularity..
> Three minor revisions have been added to Shavian over the years to
> correctly represent American English speech and add a mechanism for
> marking names given that Capitalization does not exist in the
Shavian
> Alphabet. There is no upper and lower case.
>
> 3. What is the biggest single improvement of the Shavian Alphabet
> over the Roman Alphabet?
>
> Vowel Letters make up almost half of the Shavian alphabet. There
are
> enough Shaw Letters (23) to indicate the exact vowel sound for any
> syllable in any English word..
>
> The Roman alphabet uses only 5 vowel letters along with over 30
vowel
> letter combinations made up from "a", "e", "i", "o", "u", "w"
and "y"
> and also adds
> a silent "e" to the end of some words in order to indicate all of
the
> various vowel sounds used by English. Most of these combinations
are
> 2 or 3 letters long.
> Unfortunately, all of those various vowel letters and vowel letter
> combinations are not logical and do not even consistently represent
> the same sound. The Shaw alphabet is a writing system, which can
> handle a wider range of English vowel sounds and represent them
both
> accurately and consistently.
> _____________________attached____________________________________
> --- In shawalphabet@yahoogroups.com, "paul vandenbrink"
> <pvandenbrink11@> wrote:
> >
> > Hi B.J.
> > I was just going to post excerpts from the Manual right here on
the
> > forum.
> > > > 1. Frequently Asked Questions (f.A.k.)
>

10. Why was the Shaw alphabet created?

The Shaw alphabet was developed in the 1959, at the specific bequest
of George Bernard Shaw, the famous playwright. As a writer of spoken
English, he believed that the Roman alphabet was inadequate to
represent spoken English. He believed that a phonetic alphabet
tailored to English would both improve and standardize English
communication around the world, and reduce class distinction based on
accent. As a leading Socialist and the pre-eminent Free-thinker of
his time, he put his personal prestige and reputation into convincing
the British public to support this idea.

11. Why does the Shaw Alphabet look so different from the Roman
Alphabet?

There are multiple reasons for difference in appearance. Four in
particular.

1) The Shaw Alphabet has more letters than the Roman Alphabet, in
order to ensure that every different sound has its own letter. The
Roman Alphabet is ambiguous and it uses multiple letters for some of
the less common sounds. The biggest ambiguity of the Roman Alphabet,
is that there are only 5 vowel letters, for over 20 English vowel
sounds. English Spelling using the Roman Alphabet uses over 30 vowel
letter combinations made up from "a", "e", "i", "o", "u", "w'', "y"
and "h" in order to represent all of the different English vowel
sounds. And it also regularly adds a final silent "e" to the ends of
words to indicate other variations in vowel pronunciations. Phonetic
spelling using the Shaw Alphabet, makes the spelling much more
concise. Most words are shorter by 1 or 2 letters.

2) The Shaw Alphabet also uses 5 simple abbreviations for the five
most common English words (the, to, and, of, for). The word "and" can
also be represented by the Ampersand (&).

3) The Shaw Alphabet doesn't use Capitals. It marks Proper Nouns
and Names with a special Namer sign, which looks like an asterisk.

4) Individual Shaw Alphabet letters were designed to be unique and
easily identifable. Only occasionally do they resemble their Roman
Alphabet equivalent and so looks quite foreign. Letters are grouped
into Tall, Short and Deep forms.

12. Does the Shaw Alphabet have Capitalization?

The Shaw Alphabet has no Capital letters. Instead, the Shaw Alphabet
uses an auxiliary sign called a Namer Dot or Asterisk, for indicating
names.
As well, as indicating a word is a name instead of simple English
word, it also marks words which are not held to the Shavian
English spelling standard.
For example, the word Daisy can be a flower or the name of a person.
March can be a command or a name of a month. Names are explicitly
marked with a Namer Dot.


13. Does the Shaw Alphabet have Abbreviations?

The Shaw Alphabet five standard single letter abbreviations for the 5
most common English words (And, the, of, to, for).
Other abbreviations are discouraged, because they introduce
difficulties for readers unfamiliar with local English conventions.
Still, other obvious single letter abbreviations are allowed when the
meaning is obvious and the letter is followed by a period.
Abbreviations based on Roman Letters are doubly discouraged and if
used, have to be fully transliterated phonetically and followed by a
period, for each Roman letter, so transliterated.
_________________________attached_________________________________
--- In shawalphabet@yahoogroups.com, "paul vandenbrink"
<pvandenbrink11@...> wrote:
>
> 4. What is the Roman or Latin Alphabet?
>
> The Roman Alphabet is a set of 26 distinct symbols used to write
the
> sounds of English and many other modern Languages. The earliest
known
> inscriptions in the Roman or Latin alphabet date from the 6th
century
> B.C. It was probably developed from the Etruscan alphabet during
the
> 6th century B.C. to write Latin. The letters "Y" and "Z" were taken
> from the Greek alphabet to write Greek loan words. The Letter "G"
was
> created by Spurius Carvilius Ruga who flourished around 230 B.C. as
a
> modification of the letter ''C". The Romans used just these 23
> letters to write Latin. For Latin, the semi vowels "W" , "Y" and
the
> vowels "U'', "I" and "EE" were written with the same letters,
> namely "V" and "I" respectively. There was no "W", although "V" was
> pronounced like the modern English "W". The Roman Alphabet became
the
> alphabet for written English back in the 7th Century AD, as Latin
was
> both the common European language of education, and the only widely
> written language at the time that the writing of English was
> developed. When the Roman alphabet was adapted to write English,
the
> letters "U", "W" and "J" were added. Other letters have been
> added, as the Roman alphabet was adapted for other languages.
> Consequently, there is no one overall consistent Roman Alphabet
with
> a consistent pronunciation.
>
> 5. What makes the Shaw alphabet different from the Roman alphabet?
>
> 1)Roman alphabet has 26 letters, most with more than one
> pronunciation.
>
> 2) Shaw Alphabet has 47 letters, 46 with only one pronunciation.
>
> 3) Roman Alphabet has 21 consonant letters and 5 vowel letters.
>
> 4) Shaw Alphabet has 24 consonant letters and 22 vowel letters.
>
> 5) Roman alphabet has a number of extraneous or silent letters in
> most English words.
>
> 6) Shaw alphabet pronounces all letters and vowel markers and is
> completely phonetic.
>
> 7) Roman alphabet has capital letters for each of the 26 letters.
> The reader must recognize the upper and lower case (52 characters).
> As well, some characters are not easily distinguishable. For
example,
> the lower case "1 resembles the uppercase "I" and the number "I ".
> Capital letters are used to indicate the beginning of the sentence,
> names and other important things.
>
>
>
> 6. Why it easier to spell and write words with the Shaw Alphabet?
>
> 1) English has a wide number of variations in its spelling
using
> the Roman alphabet. Multiple spellings for the same word are
> considered acceptable. (i.e. Colonel color, gaol, jail, key, quay)
> Different English words can even have the same pronunciation, (i.e.
> One, won) with little regard to the phonetic value of the Roman
> letters.
>
> 2) Shaw Alphabet spells each English word phonetically with very
> little redundancy. There is only one redundant letter (On) and that
> is provided to allow for a common British pronunciation.
>
> 3). Written English using the Roman cursive alphabet is falling
> into disuse, except to provide signatures for legal documents, due
to
> the easy availability of computer word processing. The form of each
> of the Shaw letters has been simplified to ensure that only 1 or 2
> pen strokes are required to write each letter. It is faster to
print
> in the Shaw Alphabet, than to write in the Roman cursive alphabet.
>
> 7. What is the Order of the Shaw Alphabet?
>
> The 46 Shaw Letters are listed in the following order. The
> letters "On" is used interchangeably with "Ah" in American
> pronunciation. "Ian" is no longer used.
> The first 40 letters are the regular Alphabet,
> and the last 6 letters are to represent the extra r-sound Vowel
> letters.
> Ado, Ash, Ah/On, Awe, Ice, Bib, Gag, Dead, Ha-ha, Vow, Zoo, Yea,
> Yew,
> Kick, Loll, Mime, Nun, Ing/Hung, So, Egg, Age, Peep, Roar, Sure,
Tot,
> If, Eat, Church, Judge, Genre/Measure, Oak, Oil, Foe, Woe, Wool,
Ooze,
> Thigh, They, Up and Out.
> The Shaw Letters are ordered in a manner consistent with the
original
> Semitic Alphabets
> from which the Roman Alphabet was derived.
>
>
> 8. Why should I learn the Shaw Phonetic Alphabet?
>
> The Shaw Alphabet was designed to reform the English Alphabet, and
> resolve a number of teaching issues, but there are personal
benefits
> to you it as well. The top seven benefits that you will enjoy when
> you to learn to read and write the Shaw Alphabet or Abjad are as
> follows.
> 1. To keep your Diaries, Passwords, Transcriptions and other
private
> information confidential.
> 2. To learn about phonics and phonetics.
> 3. To simplify the alphabetical ordering and listing of
> English words. 4. To learn a simple
reliable
> Shorthand for English. (Shaw Abjad) 5. To
> learn a method of transcribing sounds of foreign words directly.
> 6. To learn a method of transcribing sounds of English in
> dialect.
> 7. To minimize the effects of the mental disorder of Dyslexia
> on your writing and reading.
>
>
> 9. Is English Spelling Reform on this scale really practical?
>
> A number of modern languages have made limited attempts at major
> spelling reform, with great success.
> And in one particular case, there was a complete replacement of an
> Alphabet.
> That was the development and adoption of Hangol in South Korea,
which
> has shown incredible national benefits.. When a difficult language
> such as Korean, without a native Alphabet, switches over to an
> effective Alphabet, it shortens the education process and results
in
> more people to become literate and in a shorter period of time.
> Other successes have been the adoption in Turkey of an expanded
Roman
> alphabet. Also spelling reforms in the Netherlands, Israel, Japan,
> Iceland, and the other Scandinavian Countries, although more modest
> in scope, have been great successes internally.
> Typically, Spelling reform is an evolutionary process which does
not
> disrupt the existing state of literacy. So even though the Shaw
> Alphabet is of a
> completely new design and provides a simplified alternative with
> many economies, it still co-exists with the Traditional Roman
> Alphabet.
> And modern Document Processing allows for the instantaneous
> transliteration of the Shaw Alphabet into the Traditional Roman
> Alphabet, ameliorating any problems of communicating between the
two
> Alphabets.
> _____________________________attached_____________________________
> --- In shawalphabet@yahoogroups.com, "paul vandenbrink"
> <pvandenbrink11@> wrote:
> >
> > 1. What is the Shaw or Shavian alphabet?
> >
> > The Shavian alphabet is a modern, phonetically accurate
replacement
> > for the old Roman alphabet for English. The Shavian alphabet has
> been
> > designed to write modern English more quickly and effectively.
> >
> > The Roman alphabet was designed specifically for Latin, over
2,600
> > years ago, and while it has become the alphabet of choice for
> > hundreds of languages, it is less than ideal for the English
> > Language..
> > The Roman or Latin Alphabet became the customary alphabet for
> written
> > English, at a time when Latin was the primary language of
> education,
> > and English was only a collection of vulgar Dialects.
> >
> > Shavian represents orthography corrected and made an accurate. It
> is
> > a guide to pronunciation by means of the new alphabet, which has
> been
> > adapted specifically to fit the English language.
> > The new Shavian alphabet for written English allows each word to
be
> > spelled as it is pronounced and pronounced as it is spelled.
> >
> > The Shaw alphabet is a non-Roman, nearly 100% phonemic, set of 47
> > symbols suitable for writing English, as it is spoken.
> >
> > Alphabetic systems with one symbol per sound and no silent
letters
> > are more compact, faster to write, and much easier to learn.
> Spelling
> > is obvious instead of obtuse.
> >
> > The streamlined letter shapes are designed to be legible when
> rapidly
> > written -- They represent a kind of linear shorthand.
> >
> >
> > 2. Who created the Shaw alphabet?
> >
> > G.B. Shaw specified the linguistic requirements for an alphabet
> code
> > as early as 1941. He wanted one unequivocal symbol for 42
English
> > speech sounds and he did not want any of those new symbols to be
> > confused with traditional spelling. He himself used Pitman
> shorthand
> > and was familiar with the advantages of phonemic writing.
However,
> > Pitman's writing system was not linear and difficult to print.
> Shaw
> > was impressed with Sweet's "current" linear shorthand, but
objected
> > to its focus on abbreviation.
> > Kingsley Read, an architect and designer, was impressed with G.B.
> > Shaw's essay on an improved English Alphabet, which appeared as
the
> > preface to the book, "The Miraculous Birth of Language", and
> > contacted G.B. Shaw. He showed Shaw his early attempts to build
a
> > phonemic notation to match Shaw's requirements. Shaw encouraged
> > these efforts
> > In his will, Shaw left most of his fortune to fund the
development
> > and implementation of a new alphabet. The exact nature of this
> > Alphabet was not specified.
> > The will was challenged by lawyers representing the British
Museum
> > and other Public charities on the grounds that you can't leave
> money
> > to an idea.
> > G.B. Shaw's fortune did not amount to much until the spectacular
> > success of
> > the musical opera, "My Fair Lady". Sir James Pitman negotiated a
> deal
> > whereby a small portion of this fortune, about £8000, would be
> used
> > to fulfill the terms of the will.
> > The group that controlled the funds decided that the best they
> could
> > do with such limited funds was to run a contest.
> > Accordingly a contest was announced specifying the linguistic
> > requirements, in 1958. Four contestants submitted alphabet
schemes
> > that met or surpassed the requirements. The Shaw Alphabet was
> created
> > from an amalgam of these 4 proposals, although Kingsley Read did
in
> > fact provided the majority of the design.
> > The prize of £500 was divided equally between the 4 finalists.
> > Later on Kingsley Read would also created another script or
> cursive
> > version of the Shavian alphabet called Quikscript, where he could
> > more fully express his own ideas. Quikscript, which closely
> resembles
> > the Shavian Alphabet, although some of the letters have been
> swapped,
> > never gained wide popularity..
> > Three minor revisions have been added to Shavian over the years
to
> > correctly represent American English speech and add a mechanism
for
> > marking names given that Capitalization does not exist in the
> Shavian
> > Alphabet. There is no upper and lower case.
> >
> > 3. What is the biggest single improvement of the Shavian Alphabet
> > over the Roman Alphabet?
> >
> > Vowel Letters make up almost half of the Shavian alphabet. There
> are
> > enough Shaw Letters (23) to indicate the exact vowel sound for
any
> > syllable in any English word..
> >
> > The Roman alphabet uses only 5 vowel letters along with over 30
> vowel
> > letter combinations made up from "a", "e", "i", "o", "u", "w"
> and "y"
> > and also adds
> > a silent "e" to the end of some words in order to indicate all of
> the
> > various vowel sounds used by English. Most of these combinations
> are
> > 2 or 3 letters long.
> > Unfortunately, all of those various vowel letters and vowel
letter
> > combinations are not logical and do not even consistently
represent
> > the same sound. The Shaw alphabet is a writing system, which can
> > handle a wider range of English vowel sounds and represent them
> both
> > accurately and consistently.

Did anyone have any more qustions for the F.A.Q. file?
I will post the next Chapter (2) on the
Introduction and History of the Shavian Alphabet
in a day or so.
Corrections and comments are welcomed.
Regards, Paul V.

History of George Bernard Shaw and the Shavian Alphabet

Biography of George Bernard Shaw
--------------------------------
Shaw was born in Dublin in 1856 to Irish Protestant parents. He moved
to London in 1876 and worked as a music and theatre critic. He
married in 1898. At first he was not very successful in London. His
first five novels were rejected by all of the publishers and his
first seven plays flopped, but he became a critical success. In the
1880s he became one of the first members of the Fabian Society, an
organization which advocated non-revolutionary democratic socialism.
He wrote numerous pamphlets for the Society, and theatrical criticism
as well as his plays. He did all his writing in Pitman's Shorthand.
He wrote more than 50 plays. He was the leading playwright of his
time. His Plays were witty and entertaining. And yet, they overflow
with ideas and serious messages. Among the most famous are
"Man and Superman" (1902)
"Androcles and the Lion" (1912)
"Saint Joan" (1923)
"Pygmalion" (1913)
"Pygmalion" (was turned into the successful musical and film)
"My Fair Lady"

In 1925 Shaw received the Nobel Prize for literature.
He died in 1950, aged 94.

As well as being in the vanguard of social progress for England, he
also interested himself, in the blossoming science of Lingustics. He
supported the popular scientific viewpoint that English, as written,
has a unsuitable and inconsistent alphabet, using spellings which
often represent obsolete sounds. Spelling reform of the existing
alphabet, had already been tried unsuccessfully, fifty years before
and had only resulted in more confusion with a proliferation of
multiple valid spellings for the same word.

As a playwright, literary critic, socialist and polymath, George
Bernard Shaw knew all this, and wished to clear away this quagmire.
As he did all his own writing himself in the phonetically-based
Pitman's Shorthand, he recognized the many benefits offered by a
completely phonetic alphabet. With this in mind, he gave instructions
in his will that for the first 21 years after his death, the earnings
from the royalties of all his works should be spent on the creation
and promotion of a phonetic alphabet, using 40 or more letters, each
of which represented one sound, and one sound only, of the English
language. This was the inspiration for the Shaw Alphabet.

History of the Shavian Alphabet
----------------------------
The Shavian alphabet exists as an alternative to the Roman alphabet
in which English is currently written.

The Roman alphabet, in its more-or-less its current state was brought
to England by Latin-speaking monks. With only 26 letters, this
alphabet was used to write Latin very efficiently, but is not suited
for transcribing English, which has around 40 basic speech sounds.

Originally, other letters had been added to the Roman Alphabet, for
some of the additional sounds used in English words. Unfortunately,
with the invention of the printing press, the Font was standardized
to the basic Roman Alphabet, and English spelling was changed to
accommodate those missing letters. See Icelandic Alphabet as an
example of a properly augmented alphabet.

In English, to get around the limitation of 26 letters, some Roman
letters can represent any one of several sounds, and pairs of letters
are used to represent a single sound. In general, alternate consonant
sounds are written in the Roman alphabet by affixing a silent "h" to
an associated letter with a similar consonant sound. For
example, "sh" represents another consonant sound similar to the "s"
sound.

Lets look at one unhappy example of the complexity of English
spelling, to demonstrate the problem.

The word "through", for example, is composed of three basic sounds
(th, r, ough) -- but it has seven letters. The first sound can only
be written with two letters, and the last sound was written with 4
letters.

Alternatively, "through" could have been written as "thru", "thrue"
or "throo", with the same pronunciation of the last sound. Remove the
first two letters of "through", and logically you should end up with
a word that rhymes with "through". Instead you, get the word "rough",
which could have been alternately spelled "ruff".

So as you might expect, it is difficult for even the most intelligent
untutored person to learn the English Spelling and thus the English
language, using the current flawed spelling system and the Roman
Alphabet. English spelling used to be more phonetic than it is today.
That is, its spellings used to correspond more regularly to the
sounds they represented. But further disparities have arisen due to
the tendency of spelling conventions to persist even after the sounds
of a language have changed or been dropped. For example, I suspect
there was originally an audible "gh" sound in English, but it has
been lost.

The Alphabet Trusts

Due to human avarice, the development of the Shaw Alphabet was
delayed. If George Bernard Shaw's will had been executed immediately,
and the Alphabet Trust had been established as envisioned more than
five hundred thousand pounds (worth millions today) would have been
spent to develop and proliferate the Shaw Alphabet . However, the
will was successfully contested by other hopeful beneficiaries, and
an out-of-court settlement awarded the Alphabet Trust a meager 8,300
English pounds.

The British Public Trustee, who had been charged with the
responsibility of arranging the design and promotion of the new
alphabet, offered 500 British Pounds as a prize in a competition for
the design of the new alphabet. By New Year's Day 1959, the closing
date of the competition, 467 entries had been received. Of these,
four were judged to be worthy of reward, and the author of each
received 125 British Pounds. Ostensibly, the four designs would be
merged together to produce one super-alphabet; but the final alphabet
was based largely on the design of one Kingsley Read, an architect
and designer.

The alphabet is named then, not after its creator, but after George
Bernard Shaw, the playwright, who donated the seed money and inspired
this revolution in English writing. He also popularized phonetics and
made the argument for its necessity, in his play "Pygmalion." His
actions made the development and propagation of concise, logically
consistent English alphabet into a reality.

After the prize money had been distributed amongst the winners, 7,800
British Pounds remained of the portion of Shaw's estate that had been
allotted for the Shaw Alphabet. The vast majority of this was used to
produce the only book that has so far been printed in the Shavian
alphabet: a bi-alphabetic version of Shaw's play "Androcles and the
Lion". It was published by Penguin Books on 22d of November, 1962.
Around 47,000 copies were printed in total: 13,000 in hardbacks for
distribution to libraries around the world, and the rest in orange
paperbacks for public sale. A continuing interest developed, but the
book went out of print, and popular interest diminished. With the
development of the internet, special interest group disseminated
copies of the original Shaw Alphabet.

> Table of Contents
> Frequently Asked Questions (f.A.k.)
> * Note that individual Lessons
> are grouped under Chapter Headings
>
> 1. Introduction and History of the Shaw Alphabet
> 2. Overview and Shaw Alphabet Examples
> 3. Writing Consonant Sounds with the Shaw Alphabet (22)
> Lesson 1 - Strong Dull Consonants (Vow, Bib, Dead, Gag)
> Lesson 2 - Strong Sharp Sibulants (Zoo, Measure/Genre, They, Judge)
> Lesson 3 – Plain Dull Consonants (Fee, Peep, Tot, Kick )
> Lesson 4 - Plain Sharp Sibulants (So, Sure, Thigh, Church)
> Lesson 5 - Nasal Consonant Sounds (Mime, Nun, Hung/Ing)
> Lesson 6 – Aspirate and other Weak Consonants (Ha-ha, Woe, Yea)
>
> 4. Writing Liquid Sounds with the Shaw Alphabet (8)
> Lesson 7 - Liquid Consonant Sounds (Loll, Roar)
> Lesson 8 - Liquid Vowel Sounds (Array, Err/Urge, Are, Ear, Or, Air)
>
> 5. Writing Simple Vowel Sounds with the Shaw Alphabet (12)
> Lesson 9 - Minimal Vowels (Ado, Array)
> Lesson 10 - Short Vowels (If, Ah, Wool, On, Up, Ash, Egg)
> Lesson 11 - Long Vowels (Eat, Awe, Ooze, Oat)
>
> 6. Writing Complicated Vowel Sounds with the Shaw Alphabet (5)
> Lesson 12 – Dipthongs (Age, Ice, Out, Oil)
> Lesson 13 - Yew, Semi-Vowel and Dipthong
> Lesson 14 - Dipthongs combined with Liquid Vowel (Array)
>
> 7. Miscellaneous Shavian Writing Conventions
> Lesson 15 – Left-over Shavian Letters with American Pronunciation
> Lesson 16 - Numbers (0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, l0, ...)
> Lesson 17 - Punctuation and lack of Apostrophe and Capitalization
> Lesson 18 - Quotes, Namer Sign and other Word markers
> Lesson 19 – Shavian Abbreviations
>
> 8. Test Yourself and Review
> 9. Shavian Samples
> Sample - Sentences that use every Shavian letter
> Sample - Shavian Proverbs (1-54)
> Sample - Psalm 23 (1-4)
> Sample - Vocabulary (inklMdz 250 mOst kyman /iNgliS wxdz)

> 10. Shaw Alphabet, the Computer, Word Processing and the Internet
>
> Appendixes
> Appendix 1 -- Androcles and the Lion in Shavian (First Act)
> Appendix 2 –- Original Shavian Alphabet Key
> Appendix 3 -- Americanized Shavian Alphabet Key
> Appendix 3 -- Shaw Namer Sign and Abbreviations
> Appendix 4 –- Keyboard Mapping for Shaw Alphabet
> Appendix 5 -- Links for Shavian Fonts
> Appendix 6 –- Glossary of Linguistic and Shavian Terminology

Overview of the Shavian Alphabet Teaching Manual

The Shavian letters are presented here, quickly and simply.
It will provide you with the basics of the Shavian Alphabet, In-depth
information will be provided in the individual Lessons provided later.
Each lesson will discuss a small group of Shavian Letters.

The primary objective of this Teaching Manual is to enable you to read
and write any and all English words quickly and efficiently in the
Shavian Alphabet.

To avoid confusion we will show all examples, first with in the Shavian
Alphabet and then in the Roman Alphabet. Only after the completion of
all the Lessons will there be some sample pages of English text written
in the pure Shavian Alphabet, without a Roman Alphabet key.

When discussing and comparing the various Alphabets, we will refer to
the either the Original Shavian Alphabet or the Shavian Alphabet for
American English Speakers. The traditional English Letters will be
called the Roman Alphabet.

The student can advance quite rapidly because each of the Shaw letters
are quite distinctive and easy to remember. Students begin by learning
the simple Consonant letters and follow up with first the simple and
more common vowels and finally the more complex vowel letters. We will
cover separately the simple Schwa Vowel (Ado) and the simple R-Sound
Vowel (Array) as these vowels are very commonly used in Spoken English,
but are almost totally unrepresented in the Roman Alphabet.
Honestly, even though they are minimal vowel sounds, they are still used
extensively in most of the Multi-syllabic English words.
They will be something distinctly new to the Shavian Student.

But to get started, we first need to know the basic set of Letters used
by the Shavian Alphabet.

As well as introducing the 8 different groups of letters that make up
the 46 letters of the Shavian Alphabet for American speakers, this
introduction will also demonstrate how to use these Shaw letters to make
up simple words, right from the beginning.

The 46 letters in the Shaw Alphabet are broken down into the following 8
categories.
1. Ordinary Consonants (16)
- deep or Voiced Consonants (8)
- matching tall or Unvoiced Consonants (8)
2. Aspirate, Glides and other Weak Consonants (3)
3. Short Nasal Consonants (3)
4. Short Liquid Consonants (2) & Related Liquid Vowels (6)
5. Minimal Vowels (Ado & Array)
6. Soft un-voiced Vowels (9)
7. Voiced Vowels (10)
8. Dipthong Vowels (5)

Shaw Alphabet Description

The Shavian Alphabet for American English speakers consists of 47
letters. Each Shavian letter signifies only one sound with one exception
(On), whereas almost every Roman letter has multiple pronunciations
depending on the letters around it. For example, in the regular
alphabet, a silent "e" changes the pronunciation of earlier vowels, and
an "h" following a letters will usually change how that letter is
pronounced in the Roman Alphabet.

To start with the Shavian student, when reading, may chose to disregard
the difference in sound for the letters On, Ah and Awe. They have a
similar pronunciation and we will learn to right this distinction at a
later point

To use the Shavian Alphabet, you do need to learn to recognise all of
those 47 letters.
That is 21 more letters than you are used to, but as these letters are
pronounced consistently, It is not all that big a hurdle.
In order to get you started quickly, we are going to just do direct
phonetic transliteration
of some of the more common Shavian letters.
In other words, we are going to match as many of these new Shaw letters,
to their sound equivalent in the old Roman Alphabet.


Quick Comparison of the Shaw Alphabet with the Roman Alphabet


Following is a list of 18 English consonant letters from the Roman
Alphabet for which there are matching Shaw letters. Only the consonants
"c", "q" and "x" are excluded. They are all the equivalent of the
Shavian letter "Kick".
These 2 sets of letters represent the same basic English sounds.

b, d, f, g, h, j, k, l, m, n,
p, r, s, t, v, w, y , z.

b, d, f, g, h, J, k, l, m, n,
Bib, Dead, Foe, Gag, Ha-ha, Judge, Kick, Loll, Mime, Nun,
p, r, s, t, v, w, j, z.
Peep, Roar, So, Tot, Vow, Woe, Yea, Zoo


See how all of these Shaw consonant letters are more distinctive than
the Roman Letters, even though there is a resemblance between a few of
the matched up letters, in particular "s" and "So"

HANks /pYl

F hAv ben on vEkESen. wUd v responded sMnx.

regRdz,
/brFAn

helO grMp,

hC iz anaTx pAsAJ in SYvWn.

************

from: /iNgliS fXI n aTx fOlk tElz
bF /edwin sidnI hRtlAnd [1890]

/H prinses v kAntxbXI

im dEz v jP, wen His kuntrI waz gavxnd bF menI kiNz, amaN H rest H
/kiN v kAntxbXI hAd An OnlI dYtx, wFz, fX, n bVtiful. H kiN iSMd a dikrI
HAt hMevx wUd wYc wan nFt wiT hiz dYtx, n nITx slIp nP slumbx,
SUd hAv hx H neks dE in mXAJ; but if hI did ITx hI wUd lMz hiz hed.
menI nFts n skwFxz atempted it but ended in lMsiN HX lFvz.

nQ it hApend, a jaN Sepxd, grEziN hiz flok nC H rOd, sed t hiz mAstx,
"zx, F zI menI Jentalmen rFd t H /kPt At kAntxbXI, but F ne'x sI
'em ritxn agin." "O, Sepxd," sed hiz mAstx, "F nO not hQ V SUd, f HE
atempt t wYc wiT H kiN'z dYtx, akPdiN t H dikrI, n not pxfPmiN it, HE
R Yl biheded." wel," sed H Sepxd, "F'l trF mF vPton; zO nQ vP a
kiN's dYtx P a hedles Sepxd!" n tEkiN hiz botl n bAg, hI trudJd t /kPt
nQ, in his wE hI waz t kros a rivx, Ovx wic lE a plEnk, n dQn hI sits
n pUlz of hiz SMz n stokiNz t wYS hiz fIt. wFl hI waz dOiN His a fiS
kEm bFtiN hiz tOz, n hI kYt it n pUt it in hiz bAg. Aftx His, kEm a
sekand, n a Txd, n a fPT; wic hI pUt in hiz bAg lFkwFz, n Hen pxsMd
hiz JxnI. wen hI kEm t H pAlAs hI nokd At H gEt lQdlI wiT hiz krUk,
n hAviN tOld hiz bisnes, waz kandukted t a hYl, wX H kiN's dYtx sAt
redI t risIv him, wFl H betx t lul hiz sensez, hI waz plEsd in a ric
cX, n wFnz n fFn diSes v frMt n mIt wx set bifP him. v HIz H Sepxd
Et n drEmk plentifUl, sO HAt hI begAn t slumbx bifP midnFt "O Sepxd,"
sed H lEdI, "F hAv kQt V nApiN!" "nOa, swIt AlF, F waz bizI a-feSiN."
"A-fiSiN!" sed H prinses in H utmOst astoniSment. "nE, Sepxd, HX iz nO
fiS-pond in H hYl" "nO mAtx vP HAt, F hAv bin feSiN in mF bAg." "O
mI!" sed SI, "hAv V kYt wan?" HXupon H Sepxd slFlI drM H fiS Qt v
hiz bAg, At sFt v wic SI waz grEtlI plIsd, n prEsd it f a pritI fiS, n
sed, " dC Sepxd, dM V HinNk V kUd kAtc wan in mFn tM?" hI replFd,
"mEhAp F mE, wen F hAv bEted mF hUk." Hen hI did Az bifP, n brYt
Qt anaTx, wic H prinses YlsO ekstOld As ten tFmz fFnx, n gEv him
lIv t gO t slIp, promisiN t ekskMz him t hx fyTx.

in H mPniN H kiN kEm t H hYl, wiT hiz hedzmAn, Az VzMYl, but H
prinses krFd Qt, "hC iz nO wxk f V." "hQ sO," sed H kiN, "hAz hI
nITx slumbxd nP slept?" "nO," sed H prinses, "hI hAz bin fiSiN in
H hYl Yl nFt." wen H kiN hxd His n sY H fiS, hI Askd him t kAtc
wan in hiz On bAg. H Sepxd Hen bEd H kiN lF dQn, n hAviN anaTx
fiS redI, n giviN H kiN a prik wiT a pAkiN nIdl, hI drM Qt H fiS n
SOd it t hiz mAJestI. H kiN sed hI nevx nM suc fiSiN bifP. "hQevx,"
sed hI, "tEk mF dYtx akPdiN t mF rqal dikrI." sO H wediN waz kept
in grEt trFumf, n H pUr Sepxd bekEm a kiN's san.

************

regRdz,
/brFAn /AlJxI
http://shavian.metabright.com/

Query: The monoalphabetical edition of Androcles and the Lion is out
of copyright and is available for download from Project Gutenberg.
Does that mean that the Shavian-Roman bialphabetical edition is also
out of copyright? I do sincerely hope so, because I have just placed
on my site a PDF file containing the full text of the Shaw Alphabet
edition of Androcles and the Lion. You can find it here:

http://www.saytheword.org.uk/shavian/androscans/Androcles_and_the_Lion_Shaw_Alphabet.pdf

This flurry of PDF activity was sparked off by an email I received a
few days ago from a gentleman from Culver City, CA, called Efrem
Violin (it's not a pseudonym -- Google him) requesting Shavian reading
matter. (The software you get bundled with scanners nowadays is
amazing. I scanned the whole thing into a PDF file in about 30 minutes.)

Any experts on copyright law please let me know if I have done a bad
thing.

PS: I haven't forgotten about phpGhotiFilleter. It's just on the back
burner. I am an inveterate dabbler and have been dabbling in other
things recently, like the Google Maps API, kayaking and ant farming.
And the weather is still too nice to spend much time indoors. The
promised changes will probably be made to the filleter the next time I
catch a cold that keeps me in bed for a weekend.