Shawalphabet YahooGroup Archive Browser

So, being a big fan of both Shavian and my favorite terminal/user interface font Fixedsys Excelsior (http://www.fixedsysexcelsior.com), as well as the Shavian alphabet, I decided to go ahead and convert the font to cover all of Unicode instead of just the Basic Multilingual Plane, and in addition to a few other minor fixes (such as copying the Gothic characters into the proper Unicode slots) I made some Shavian characters that match the rest of the font and put them in, all 16x8 monospace like the Latin/Cyrillic/Greek/Hebrew sections, to perfectly match especially the Latin characters already extant in the font.

The file is available here on the group, in the Fonts directory, as fixedsys.ttf. I also posted a demo webpage with the font embedded at http://lolz0rz.com/shav/. A couple of the Shavian letters, especially yew and are/roar, are still slightly subpar IMHO due to the constraint of keeping the characters monospace and due to the faux-bitmap nature of the font, but I’m still quite satisfied with it also. Feel free to let me know what you think or make improvements.

-jhl

--- In shawalphabet@yahoogroups.com, "rubik67" <rubik67@...> wrote:

> I also erred in my estimate of when the anniversary date was.
> Checking back through my notes, it's actually the April 18th that I
> found the book and the 21st when I started my transliteration.

Double oops... that should be found the book on the 16th, got so pissed off with traditional spelling that I decided to do something about it on the 18th, then started the transliteration on the 21st. Third time's the charm. :-)

I have received the following error message when trying to access the Translator function on the Shawalphabet site. Being borderline anemic in the area of healthy computer genes I would appreciate any clues to what I am doing (or not doing) that could cause this problem. Help, help, please
Herb

<class 'sqlite3.OperationalError'> Python 2.6.4rc2: /usr/bin/python
Fri May 13 22:58:48 2011
A problem occurred in a Python script. Here is the sequence of function calls leading up to the error, in the order they occurred.

/var/www/shavian/src/cgi/translate.cgi in ()
33 body += (cgi.escape(shavianise.shavianise(form['t'].value, 'wiki')))
34 else:
35 body += (cgi.escape(shavianise.shavianise(form['t'].value)))
36 body += ('</div>')
37
body = '<div lang="en-latn"><p>This is a translator betw...lass="translated"><h1>In Shavian, that says:</h1>', cgi = <module 'cgi' from '/usr/lib/python2.6/cgi.pyc'>, cgi.escape = <function escape at 0xb72e0064>, shavianise = <module 'shavianise' from '/var/www/shavian/src/cgi/shavianise.py'>, shavianise.shavianise = <function shavianise at 0xb753d79c>, form = FieldStorage(None, None, [MiniFieldStorage('t', ... good men to come to the aid of their country')]), ].value = [MiniFieldStorage('t', 'this is the time for all good men to come to the aid of their country')]
/var/www/shavian/src/cgi/shavianise.py in shavianise(s='this is the time for all good men to come to the aid of their country')
56
57 def shavianise(s):
58 sr = ShavianReplacer()
59
60 return re.sub('\\b([A-Za-z]|[A-Za-z][A-Za-z'']*[A-Za-z])\\b',
sr undefined, global ShavianReplacer = <class shavianise.ShavianReplacer at 0xb753005c>
/var/www/shavian/src/cgi/shavianise.py in __init__(self=<shavianise.ShavianReplacer instance at 0xb72e2aec>)
23 class ShavianReplacer:
24 def __init__(self):
25 self.db = sqlite3.connect('/service/website/shavian.org.uk/htdocs/set/shavian-set.sqlite')
26 self.c = self.db.cursor()
27 self.previous_pos = u'n'
self = <shavianise.ShavianReplacer instance at 0xb72e2aec>, self.db undefined, global sqlite3 = <module 'sqlite3' from '/usr/lib/python2.6/sqlite3/__init__.pyc'>, sqlite3.connect = <built-in function connect>
<class 'sqlite3.OperationalError'>: unable to open database file
args = ('unable to open database file',)
message = 'unable to open database file'



Herbert Moran
herbmoran@...

helO evrIbodI!



F dOnt nO if enIwun hC rimembDz mI; Fm H "AbsantI modDEtD" v His grMp hM set
it up bAk in 2004. Fv bIn YlmOst kamplItlI inAktiv hC f sum jCz nQ, YlHO Fv
bIn kIpiN up t dEt wiH Yl H pOsts Az HE kum t mF inboks n aprMviN nV membDz
from tFm t tFm.



H rIzan f mF rinVd intrest in /SEvWn v lEt iz dQn t mF nId t kIp a prFvat
dFDI At wxk HAt mF kolIgz kUdant posablI rId (unles HE sumhQ wxk Qt wot it
iz, in wic kEs Fm skrMd).



F sI HAt HX R nQ pxmanant /VnikOd pqnts f /SEvWn; H lyst tFm F lUkt HE wx
OnlI tempDerI. F'm stil not SUD wic v H "/VnikOd" fonts in H fFlz ripozitrI
hC Vz H afiSal pqnts n wic stil Vz H Old tempDerI wunz; duz evIwun nO? F wiS
HX wx an IzID wE t mEk Vs v H /VnikOd pqnts, but sins it rikwFDz bOT a
/VnikOd font *n *a mAciN opDEtiN-sistam-spasifik kIbPd lEQt t bI instYld
(wic sO fR duznt sIm t igzist) it sImz its AkSalI IzID t Vz H Old
non-/VnikOd "/lAtin letDz riplEst wiH /SEvWn" fonts. pDhAps His iz sumTiN
HAt nIdz t bI lUkt At.



enIwE, His iz Just t sE 'hF', n t lE dQn H gYntlat f enIwun hM fAnsIz a gO
At /SEvWn konvDsESan (in wicevD Aksent), Just f fun? :)



cCz,

/hV



p.s. Fm VziN H /JImEl web intDfEs t rFt His; sins it Onli alQz V t salekt
stAndDd /windOz fonts, t Vz /SEvWn fonts rikwFDz krIEtiN a /wxd dokjUmant,
rFtiN sumTiN in a /SEvWn font Hen kopIiN n pEstiN it intM H /gImEl mesiJ
boks. not igzAktlI kanvInWnt but it'l dM...

--- In shawalphabet@yahoogroups.com, "David" <dshepx@...> wrote:
>
> What anyone attracted to the Shaw Alphabet must contend with -- amused dismissal:
>
> http://www.historytimes.com/history-books/book-serialisations/this-little-britain/183-shaws-potato
>
> dshep
>
A few months ago I became intrigued with phonetic alphabets and gave a challenge to my sunday-school class to come up with a phonetic alphabet where all the letters were wrong. Here was our best effort.

PASTE ( P as in Psychic, A as in Are, S as in Sea, T as in Tsunami and E as in Ewe)

GHOST ( G as in Gnat, H as in Honor, O as in Opossum, S as in Sea, and T as in Tsunami)
{Opossum is pronounced [POSS-um]}

WICK ( W as in Write, I as in Irk, C as in Cathy, and K as in Kathy)

EXIST (E as in Ewe, X as in Xerox, I as in Irk, S as in Sea, and T as in Tsunami)

HOPES (H as in Honor, O as in Opossum, P as in Psychic, E as in Ewe, and S as in Sea)

JUSTICE (J as in Jalapeño, U as in Urchin, S as in Sea, T as in Tsunami, I as in Irk, C as in Cathy and E as in Ewe)

LOST (L as in Llama, O as in Opossum, S as in Sea, and T as in Tsunami)
{ Llama is pronounced [ YAH – ma ] in Peru, LL in Spanish has a "y" sound }

This is interesting stuff J



F hOp F Am dMiN it rFt



It will certainly take some getting used to. I downloaded a few other
typefaces but all I get are square boxes. This one seems to work well. Is
there something I can do to make the other ones work as well, The Curly
one looks especially nice, and I can get it to work in my Fire Fox browser,
but not in my Google Chrome one.



Any hints?



Van!!

Andagii. If you download a copy of Wesnoth you'll find it in there, about
tiny 8k font.

On Sun, May 22, 2011 at 12:15 AM, Claude Van Horn
<ropebender@...>wrote:

>
>
> This is interesting stuff J
>
>
>
> F hOp F Am dMiN it rFt
>
>
>
> It will certainly take some getting used to. I downloaded a few other
> typefaces but all I get are square boxes. This one seems to work well. Is
> there something I can do to make the other ones work as well, The Curly
> one looks especially nice, and I can get it to work in my Fire Fox browser,
> but not in my Google Chrome one.
>
>
>
> Any hints?
>
>
>
> Van!!
>
>
>

Re: Shaw's Potato

On Sunday 22 May Ropebender wrote:

"A few months ago I became intrigued with phonetic alphabets and gave
a challenge
to my sunday-school class to come up with a phonetic alphabet where
all the
letters were wrong."

Clever kids. Why not give them a try at using the Shaw Alphabet. They
could begin by writing their names—that's always fun in a new or
different alphabet. If keyboard proficient, and everyone seems to be
these days, they may download fonts to use from the shawalphabet
group files.

His is writan in /AndraklFz

His is writan in /lFanzpY

His is writan in /SY synz 2

Have fun, and good luck--
dshep

Re: [shawalphabet] Re: Shaw's Potato

On Wodensday 8 June BR in Tennsee wrote:

"Kids don't need keyboards. Beginners - both kids and grownups -
need to begin by learning to handwrite the Shaw letter forms."

Well, I once would have agreed with you but now am not sure--it may
be more practical to attract interest and get people started in
whichever
way is more convenient for them than to point out a more desirable way
of going about it.

I personally prefer writing by hand however; I enjoy the calligraphic
aspects of the Shaw (or Read's) letters, and also use a modified form
of the alphabet --it's a pleasure to write and I hope and would believe
that anyone interested enough to begin using this alphabet would soon
discover it to be so.

Incidentally, one of our members some time ago discovered that hand-
written text is enhanced by altering slightly the proportions of the
three
levels: instead of a height ratio of /1/1/1/ a more pleasing result
can be
obtained by increasing the height (or would it be depth?) of the
upper level at the expense of the lower; in other words /1+/1/1-/.
Actually he had proposed a more precise measurement but I can't
remember what it was.

Sumer is icumen in,
dshep

> From: Herbert Moran <herbmoran@...>
> Date: June 23, 2011 9:26:26 AM PDT
> To: shawalphabet@yahoogroups.com
> Subject: Help needed with Shawscript, Please
>
> I have enjoyed the posts here but I must confess I am not very computer savvy therefore I probably have only understood about half of the erudite posts.
>
> Nonetheless, can someone point me to a source or explain what I need to do to type using Shaw Script on my iMac or laptop with Windows OS? I know that there is a "unicode" but I know not how to use it for typing in Shavian. I have enjoyed using the "Translate" function on the Shaw pages but that seems to be down for an extended period of time with the "Python script error". ;-(
>
> Thanks for any tips - BTW, is there a market for the old Penguin edition of Androcles and some of the old Shaw newsletters which I have held since the beginning?
>
> Herb Moran
> S. California
>