Shawalphabet YahooGroup Archive Browser

As an Irishman, Shaw is most likely to have had /ʍ/ in his own pronunciation.

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

--- In shawalphabet@yahoogroups.com, Michael Everson <everson@...> wrote:
>
> As an Irishman, Shaw is most likely to have had /ʍ/ in his own pronunciation.
>
> Michael Everson * http://www.evertype.com/
>

I think so too, and if there were a character for /ʍ/ then we could welcome the Scots as well.

dshep

Thanks, Michael.
Good to know that Shaw likely pronounced the WH same as I do! ;)

--- In shawalphabet@yahoogroups.com, Michael Everson <everson@...>
wrote:
>
> As an Irishman, Shaw is most likely to have had /ʍ/ in his own
pronunciation.
>
> Michael Everson * http://www.evertype.com/
>

Thank you for your very thorough reply.

I love Shaw's enthusiasm for a new alfabet (following Shaw's spelling).

And I WHOOPIED with joy and wild exultation at your confirmation that
indeed Shaw included WH in his list of proposed single characters.


--- In shawalphabet@yahoogroups.com, David Sheppard <david@...> wrote:
>
> "cossyrosario" asked on Wed Sep 7, 2011:
>
> "But I forgot to ask you WHERE did Shaw say this? Don't want to put a
> burden on you to find the quote if you were quoting from memory. But
I'd
> be delighted and grateful if you do find it and send it to me."
>
> Shaw became a famous man in his lifetime and as can happen someone in
> that position was deluged with a large amount of correspondence. To
> deal with this he had printed up a postcard upon which he would jot
> down whatever reply he chose to make. One side of this postcard
> included a brief plea outlining the need as he saw it for a new
> alphabet.
>
> I thought that I had submitted a copy of this postcard to the group
> files but apparently not. I shall try to find a scanner and do so
> next week. In the meantime however, the card begins with this
statement:
>
>
------------------------------------------------------------------------
> From Bernard Shaw
> A Forty Letter British Alphabet
>
> The number of letters in our Johnsonese alfabet, minus x, c, and q
> (unnecessary) is 23
> The following consonants are missing: sh, zh, wh, ch, th, dh, and
> ng . . 7
> Also missing are the vowels and dipthongs ah, aw, at, et, it, ot, ut,
> oot, yoot, and
> the neutral second vowel in colour, labour, honor, &c. . . . . .
10
> ---- 40
> (more...)
>
------------------------------------------------------------------------
> -------------------------------------------------
>
> (Italics in the original, spellings as printed)
>
> Printed in a collection of Shaw's letters to the press, entitled
> George Bernard Shaw on Language, edited by Abraham Tauber;
> Published by Peter Owen, London, 1965
>
> i think this is interesting in several respects. First of all, you
> can see that he includes wh. The dh, if you are unfamiliar with that
> combination, is for the voiced th of then, to contrast with the
> unvoiced th of thin. Johnsonese refers to Samuel Johnson's dictionary
> of 1755.
>
> The rendering, or transliteration, of Androcles and the Lion into
> Kingsley Read's new alphabet was done by Peter MacCarthy, a Professor
> of Linguistics at Leeds University, who, as a probable speaker of RP,
> perhaps saw no need for wh or any version of hw. Either that or it
> was James Pitman, more than anyone else responsible for the fact that
> the dual-alphabet version of Androcles was printed at all, who chose
> to overlook or didn't notice Shaw's intention (Pitman was a very busy
> man)--though earlier he had insisted that Shaw's directive (that each
> new letter be distinct even in isolation) be followed, and thus is
> responsible for the rotated pairing of voiced-unvoiced consonants:
> Read had simply used a difference of height in his initial
> submission, something he reverted to in part later. Or perhaps
> because Read had not included a wh letter (but was apparently obliged
> to in Quikscript) and therefore one was not there to be used. It is
> an intriguing mystery.
>
> Missing however from Shaw's list are the diphthongs (note the
> misspelling above) of the common words out and oil. Perhaps he
> thought that these two sounds could be represented, as some
> dictionaries do, by some combination such as ow, ou, or au, (all
> unfortunately ambiguous), and oi or oy. On the other hand, at other
> times, he rejected such two-letter combinations so it is unclear if
> this omission is intentional or just an oversight; the spelling of
> honor without a u was however intentional and defended elsewhere.
> Moreover, at other times he recommended a new alphabet of 42 letters
> (which could then encompass the missing diphthongs). But, on even
> other occasions he suggested a 44 letter alphabet (note Shaw's
> spelling above). Finally, his will stated that a new alphabet should
> contain "at least 40 letters".
>
> Shaw was an enthusiast about life and its possibilities, enjoyed
> stirring things up if that would encourage thought, and taught us to
> laugh at human foolishness. He
> could be somewhat cavalier about details--something that he meant
> could always be cleared up afterwards, while trusting us, perhaps
> vainly, perhaps hopefully, with the capacity to work things out. Or
> so it seems to me.
>
> Keep at it,
> dshep
>

I've tried every version of Unicode available in my Mozilla Firefox browser, from UTF-8 to UTF-16LE, UTF-16BE, UTF-32, UTF-32LE, UTF-32BE, and none of these makes the text legible in the entire welkum bAK series.

What's going on? What am I missing?

I was so helped recently to read the WH characters, using UTF-8, that I naively expected to be able to read all the rest of the characters that my browser displayed as weird combinations of upper and lower case letters in the series I'm looking at. But the weirdness has not been dispelled!

I would guess that I'm going to have the same difficulty often enough that I need a bit more education in how to read unusual fonts, specially Shaw Alphabet fonts, on the internet!

--- In shawalphabet@yahoogroups.com, "paul" <vandenbrinkg@...> wrote:
>
> hF /hY
> it hAz bIn a lYN tFm. unfPcanitlI, F dOnt nO muc abQt /VnakOd.
> hOp sum wun els kAn help. F hAv just fFnalI got a trM tFp font t wxk, fP mF /SY AbJad Alfabet.
> it tEks awFal t get TiNz wxkiN.
> ragMdz, /pYl /vI
> _________________atAct_________________________
>
> --- In shawalphabet@yahoogroups.com, Hugh Birkenhead <mixsynth@> wrote:
> >
> > 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...
> >
>

On Mon, Sep 12, 2011 at 16:27, cossyrosario <cossyrosario@...> wrote:
> I've tried every version of Unicode available in my Mozilla Firefox browser, from UTF-8 to UTF-16LE, UTF-16BE, UTF-32, UTF-32LE, UTF-32BE, and none of these makes the text legible in the entire welkum bAK series.
>
> What's going on? What am I missing?

It's us old dinosaurs doing Shavian the old skool (and rong) way
rather than the proper Unicode way.

At the beginning, there were a couple of fonts that mapped Shavian to
ASCII letters. That made it really easy to type using a normal
keyboard. The recipient needed an appropriate font, of course, or
they'd just see "miksd upD n lOD kEs letDz".

Some of us sometimes type that way even in plain text, where we can't
specify the font - some have gotten used to reading Shavian written
like that.

Don't pick up bad influences from us, though :) Use the proper Shavian
Unicode codepoints and a font that supports Unicode Shavian, now that
we do have Shavian in Unicode and wide support for UTF-8 in browsers
and email clients.

(And if you do find a font that maps ASCII to Shavian, don't use it,
even to read dinosaur hieroglyphics - settle for nothing less than a
proper Unicode font.)

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

--- In shawalphabet@yahoogroups.com, Philip Newton wrote:

> On Mon, Sep 12, 2011 at 16:27, cossyrosario wrote:
> > I've tried every version of Unicode available in my Mozilla
> > Firefox browser, ...
> > What's going on? What am I missing?
>
> It's us old dinosaurs doing Shavian the old skool (and rong)
> way rather than the proper Unicode way.....

Do as Philip suggests--he can be relied upon to have a solution for
every such problem that arises. However, if you wish to read older
postings written in the older, dinosaur way, then you must go about it
in the old dinosaur fashion by copying the entire text to whatever
text-processing application you use and switching the font to one of
the Shaw-alphabet fonts available. This may not actually be the best way
to do things, but it works.
dshep

WHew! Thanks, Philip!


--- In shawalphabet@yahoogroups.com, Philip Newton <philip.newton@...> wrote:
>
> On Mon, Sep 12, 2011 at 16:27, cossyrosario <cossyrosario@...> wrote:
> > I've tried every version of Unicode available in my Mozilla Firefox browser, from UTF-8 to UTF-16LE, UTF-16BE, UTF-32, UTF-32LE, UTF-32BE, and none of these makes the text legible in the entire welkum bAK series.
> >
> > What's going on? What am I missing?
>
> It's us old dinosaurs doing Shavian the old skool (and rong) way
> rather than the proper Unicode way.
>
> At the beginning, there were a couple of fonts that mapped Shavian to
> ASCII letters. That made it really easy to type using a normal
> keyboard. The recipient needed an appropriate font, of course, or
> they'd just see "miksd upD n lOD kEs letDz".
>
> Some of us sometimes type that way even in plain text, where we can't
> specify the font - some have gotten used to reading Shavian written
> like that.
>
> Don't pick up bad influences from us, though :) Use the proper Shavian
> Unicode codepoints and a font that supports Unicode Shavian, now that
> we do have Shavian in Unicode and wide support for UTF-8 in browsers
> and email clients.
>
> (And if you do find a font that maps ASCII to Shavian, don't use it,
> even to read dinosaur hieroglyphics - settle for nothing less than a
> proper Unicode font.)
>
> Cheers,
> Philip
> --
> Philip Newton <philip.newton@...>
>

On Tue, Sep 13, 2011 at 00:45, dshepx <david@...> wrote:
>
> copying the entire text
> to whatever text-processing application you use and switching
> the font to one of the Shaw-alphabet fonts available.

Specificially, it would have to be one of the old-style fonts that map
ASCII to Shavian. (Some popular ones back in my day were "Lionspaw"
and "Androcles"; you might be able to find one or the other. I think
one was more Arial-like, with constant-width lines, and one more like
the font in the printed _Androcles_, with slight tapers in places.)

> This may
> not actually be the best way to do things, but it works.

Or you could learn to read the "bumpycaps" version :)

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

Thanks, David. WHat a save!

--- In shawalphabet@yahoogroups.com, "dshepx" <david@...> wrote:
>
>
> --- In shawalphabet@yahoogroups.com, Philip Newton wrote:
>
> > On Mon, Sep 12, 2011 at 16:27, cossyrosario wrote:
> > > I've tried every version of Unicode available in my Mozilla
> > > Firefox browser, ...
> > > What's going on? What am I missing?
> >
> > It's us old dinosaurs doing Shavian the old skool (and rong)
> > way rather than the proper Unicode way.....
>
> Do as Philip suggests--he can be relied upon to have a solution for
> every such problem that arises. However, if you wish to read older
> postings written in the older, dinosaur way, then you must go about it
> in the old dinosaur fashion by copying the entire text to whatever
> text-processing application you use and switching the font to one of
> the Shaw-alphabet fonts available. This may not actually be the best way
> to do things, but it works.
> dshep
>