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Easiest as compared to shorthand systems I know, such as Pitman's,
Boyds, and one whose name I don't remember, but which is based on
truncated shapes of longhand letters.

Easiest also as compared to Quikscript, which Read put forward as an
improvement and evolution from Shaw Alphabet.

The logical shapes of Shaw alphabet (such as p-b, t-d, k-g, etc.) make
the whole alphabet easier to remember. (Quikscript has variations
between p and b, t and d, k and g, etc., which are intended to make them
easier to distinguish, but they add a slight memory load, and also the
voiced consonants take slightly longer to write. This adds a little to
learning time, and also to writing and reading time. At least, that's so
in my own experience.)

I learned Shavian after learning Quikscript pretty well and even getting
to the Senior QS stage, but the multitude of contractions and shortcuts
put a considerable load on the memory.

When I took up Shavian as an experiment, I learned all the characters in
an hour, took another hour (spread over minutes a day in the next four
days) to learn to not get confused between Shavian and QS, and now I can
write Shavian fast enough to take notes of books, lectures and for
minutes of meetings. And the notes are neat, and stay legible for days.

I'm still not decided as between the QS and Shavian, but I find it easy
to switch (like a bilingual person finds it easy to switch between or
among languages). Or dialects. (An Italian born and brought up in
Milano, can switch easily between Italian and the Milanese dialect.)

At present Shavian is easiest because I can write neater, and faster,
and read it after longer periods. If I find that I can read it
comfortably, clearly and fast after a sufficiently long time (like a
month or a year), I may decide on Shavian for my personal journal, like
Samuel Pepys used a shorthand for his.

Next project: learn to associate Shavian characters with their
corresponding computer keys for typing up notes.

On Aug 30, 2011, at 10:37 PM, cossyrosario wrote:
> What are "... the corresponding computer keys for typing up notes" ?

Herb


> Next project: learn to associate Shavian characters with their corresponding computer keys for typing up notes.
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"Regard man as a mine rich in gems of inestimable value. Education can, alone, cause it to reveal its treasures, and enable mankind to benefit therefrom."
~Bahá’u’lláh (As quoted in "Are You Happy?" http://happyspirit.info/are_you_happy.pdf)

On Wed, Aug 31, 2011 at 07:45, AJT <ajt91910@...> wrote:
>
> What are "... the corresponding computer keys for typing up notes" ?

The de facto keyboard layout, as far as I know, is the one I mentioned
here: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/shawalphabet/message/3111 .

Cheers,
Philip
--
Philip Newton <philip.newton@...>

Unless I've missed something, there doesn't seem to be a single
character for WH, like there is in QS.

Since I'm using Shaw Alphabet now for my note-taking, I'm thinking of
importing the WH character from QS.

Some people pronounce What, Which, Where, etc., as Hwat, Hwich, Hwere,
etc., and in Drama class I had to unlearn my former habit of sounding
the W before the H. But I know there are lots of people who do sound the
W first. So if I were to write two characters for W and H in "where" in
Shaw Alphabet, which one should I write first?

Here's one place where QS scores over Shaw Alphabet. Using the WH
character lets readers clearly know that the word written is (e.g.)
"where" and not "ware", or "wear", while leaving them free to pronounce
the way they're used to.

Any views or comments?

On Fri, Sep 2, 2011 at 07:30, cossyrosario <cossyrosario@...> wrote:
> Here's one place where QS scores over Shaw Alphabet. Using the WH
> character lets readers clearly know that the word written is (e.g.)
> "where" and not "ware", or "wear", while leaving them free to pronounce
> the way they're used to.

Well, that's only important if you make the distinction in your speech.

Otherwise you'd have the same problem when speaking. (Remember, Shaw
Alphabet represents pronunciation, not spelling, so marking
distinctions that aren't pronounced isn't its job.)

Similarly, the Shaw Alphabet could distinguish between "meet" and
"meat", but it doesn't. Or "weight" and "wait", though I think there
are still dialects with the distinction (I think meet/meat is merged
everywhere).

Or "horse/hoarse", which are still kept distinct in some parts: you
could write them OAK+ROAR vs OR, but there's no single character for
the OAK+ROAR combination.

It all boils down to which accent you take as your basis - or,
alternatively, which accents you want to be able to represent
unambiguously.

Cheers,
Philip
--
Philip Newton <philip.newton@...>

Hi,

It's true that Shavian is missing a character for 'wh', but a user of
Shavian would argue that, because the sound is only present in certain
regional dialects (mainly American) and not in more mainstream varieties, it
is it necessary.

There is certainly no confusion caused by the lack of such a distinction in
the majority of English dialects around the world. Where ambiguity in
isolation exists, e.g. 'where/wear', use in context establishes its meaning,
exactly the same as 'red/read', etc.

Kind regards,
Hugh
(Sent from my HTC Desire)
On 2 Sep 2011 06:30, "cossyrosario" <cossyrosario@...> wrote:
> Unless I've missed something, there doesn't seem to be a single
> character for WH, like there is in QS.
>
> Since I'm using Shaw Alphabet now for my note-taking, I'm thinking of
> importing the WH character from QS.
>
> Some people pronounce What, Which, Where, etc., as Hwat, Hwich, Hwere,
> etc., and in Drama class I had to unlearn my former habit of sounding
> the W before the H. But I know there are lots of people who do sound the
> W first. So if I were to write two characters for W and H in "where" in
> Shaw Alphabet, which one should I write first?
>
> Here's one place where QS scores over Shaw Alphabet. Using the WH
> character lets readers clearly know that the word written is (e.g.)
> "where" and not "ware", or "wear", while leaving them free to pronounce
> the way they're used to.
>
> Any views or comments?
>
>

On 2 Sep 2011, at 07:57, Hugh Birkenhead wrote:

> It's true that Shavian is missing a character for 'wh', but a user of Shavian would argue that, because the sound is only present in certain regional dialects (mainly American) and not in more mainstream varieties, it is it necessary.

Are you speaking for all users of Shavian?

Unifon writes HW for [ʍ] even though the phoneme is not much present in the US. (Unifon defaults to US pronunciation, pretty much.)

Michael Everson * http://www.evertype.com/

> > It's true that Shavian is missing a character for 'wh', but a user of
Shavian would argue that, because the sound is only present in certain
regional dialects (mainly American) and not in more mainstream varieties, it
is [not] necessary.
>
> Are you speaking for all users of Shavian?

Well, yes, or at least the majority, because the majority of English
speakers worldwide do not make the distinction.

Hugh

The people who do make the distinction find it annoying that it was left
out of Shavian. Apparently, Read responded to this since he provided a
symbol for it in Quikscript.

Paige

On 9/2/2011 8:50 AM, Hugh Birkenhead wrote:
>
> > > It's true that Shavian is missing a character for 'wh', but a user
> of Shavian would argue that, because the sound is only present in
> certain regional dialects (mainly American) and not in more mainstream
> varieties, it is [not] necessary.
> >
> > Are you speaking for all users of Shavian?
>
> Well, yes, or at least the majority, because the majority of English
> speakers worldwide do not make the distinction.
>
> Hugh
>
>

Thank you, Paige.

In my circles, here and in the UK, it isn't clear to me whether WH or HW
is preferred in pronunciation, but the H is always there. And, yes, we
do find it's substitution by a simple W for WH annoying.

Therefore, I will accept what Read realized when he fashioned
Quikscript. I'll use the Quikscript character for WH in Shavian and that
settles the matter for me.

I've tried writing the two characters W and H (or H and W) as one
character, and it works quite nicely, but the QS single-character
solution seems perfect for my needs.

Thanks, all, for your inputs and perspectives.

--- In shawalphabet@yahoogroups.com, "C. Paige Gabhart" <pgabhart@...>
wrote:
>
> The people who do make the distinction find it annoying that it was
left
> out of Shavian. Apparently, Read responded to this since he provided
a
> symbol for it in Quikscript.
>
> Paige
>
> On 9/2/2011 8:50 AM, Hugh Birkenhead wrote:
> >
> > > > It's true that Shavian is missing a character for 'wh', but a
user
> > of Shavian would argue that, because the sound is only present in
> > certain regional dialects (mainly American) and not in more
mainstream
> > varieties, it is [not] necessary.
> > >
> > > Are you speaking for all users of Shavian?
> >
> > Well, yes, or at least the majority, because the majority of English
> > speakers worldwide do not make the distinction.
> >
> > Hugh
> >
> >
>