Shavian-New

New Shavian
Can Shavian be simplified
and made more analytic?
Can the consonant graphemes be made more romanesque?
The following is the first attempt to do just that. Comments and suggestions welcomed.

unigraf

The first proposal that I advanced was for a more readable Keyboard Shavian.
Y Tot xat xis wcd mAk SWvian EzER for xOz familiR wiT x tradiXanL orTogr@fi.
Y Tot xat xis wcd mAk SWvian EzER for xOz familiR wiT x tradiXanL orTogr@fi.

The second proposal is to revise the shapes of shavian to make them more analytic, combinational,
and in the case of consonants, more like roman letter forms.

Kingsley Read proposed to divergent scripts after Shavian - one was more romanesque but neither was more analytic or combinational. I wanted to start with the 12 pure vowels and then make all blends of sounds blends of shapes. Reads AGE /ei/ can be seen as a combination of EGG plus EEL. There is no reason why all combinations cannot follow this pattern.

An initial attempt to do this is shown below:

Notice that /ae/ consists of a+e shapes. a: and o have been combined into one ah.
/ai/ looks like an eye. ire, not shown would be a 2 shape.
are is an ugly shape as is air. Could use the old air shape.

This draft script is not that pretty. The point was to come up with a way to make the script
where the combined forms actually combine the shapes.

Combinations:

ah/ox o A

ai= ah + ee.
ei = eh + ee
oi=aw + ee

DRAFT 5/99

This is a draft of a new shavian - one that is even more anlaytic the the original and also easier to remember.

/ae/ = combination of a shape and e shape
hook should probably be a mirrored J but the V can also be viewed as a hook.
are and air could be improved.
air could stay the same.
as could ire.
ear is very close to N.
or

The proposed changes to keyboard shavian to make it more intuitive to TO readers:
A new font along the lines of Bernard is really required to make this scheme more readable.
The sprinkling of majuscules among the minuscules doesn't look right with most traditional fonts.
Bernard minimizes the difference between upper and lower case.

twenti fOnEmz wiT Unigr@f @nd SWvian korespondensez (Font: Bernard)

Finding a relationship between shape and sound
to avoid arbitrary grapheme selection

I am trying to revive an old idea. The letters we use today started out as pictures of familiar everyday
objects which started with the appropriate sound. We still employ this kind of mnemonic when trying
to teach the alphabet, e.g., A is for ARCHER, B is for BEE, C is for CAT, D is for DRUM.

is the only letter name that is both acrophonic and pictographic.
ES, JAY, and TEE have had objects and conepts named after them, e.g., T-square. The early alphabets went the other way. They started with the familiar object that incorporated an essential sound.

Think how much easier it would be if the connection was more fundamental, part of the basic design of the alphabet.
This was the case with ancient Egyptian (3500 BC) and early Semitic (1700 BC) scripts.

Since we don't speak either language, it is often difficult to see the connection between shape and sound.
The following table renames the Egyptian phonograms.

Pictographic MonoFon attempts to exploit this shape-sound connection. People do not like to learn new codes so it makes sense to facilitate the learning as much as possible. Relating the shape-sound connection to a picture can improve recall and speed the learning process. You could probably learn the Egyptian phonograms in 10 minutes once you see the connection btween shape and sound.

Notice how long some of these shape sound connections have been around. The (hieratic) abbreviation for the warbler looked like a script W and the W for OO is still with us. The abbreviation for the hill slope (Kant, inCline) looked like a K.

We get most of our letters filtered through the Semitic modifications. The Semites used the same concept, but applied it to their own language. This switched around most of the sound-object correspondences. So today, R refers to a head (resh) not a pair of lips (ro). Today's R is exactly like the abbreviated hieroglyph for head (tep). M refers to water (marine) rather than an owl's head. For those interested in the full story, see the Origin of the Alphabet.

My point is that mnemonics can be part of the selection criteria for a grapheme or shape.

A shape that can be related to a picture of the sound is better than one that can't.

The L shape has two correpondents L and E. Both are found in the word "elbow"

The long A (and short o) can be related to the "ox yoke" or "ox horn" shape. (a mirrored L)

The long and short I can be related to "ink pen or quill"

All we need is 12 correspondents for the 12 pure vowels. The remaining vowels are not pictographic but combinations of the 12 basic or pure vowels. In Unigr@f these would be:

@ e i q c u
q R E o C a

@x, elbo, ink, ox yoke, hook, up sign

ox, her, eenk, aw (hawk), hoop, ado (acute)

p = peep (p)

b = bib (b)

t = tot (t)

d = dead (d)

k = kick (k)

g = gag (g)

f = fee (f)

v = vow (v)

T = thigh (shift-t, T)

H = they (shift-h, H)

s = so (s)

z = zoo (z)

S = sure (shift-s, S)

Z = measure (shift-z, Z)

c = church (c)

J = judge (shift-j, J)

j = yea (j)

w = woe (w)

N = hung (shift-n, N)

h = ha-ha (h)

l = loll (l)

r = roar (r)

m = mime (m)

n = none (n)

i = if (i)

I = eat (shift-i, I)

e = egg (e)

E = age (shift-e, E)

A = ash (shift-a, A)

F = ice (shift-f, F)

a = ado (a)

u = up (u)

o = on (o)

O = oak (shift-o, O)

U = wool (shift-u, U)

M = ooze (shift-m, M)

Q = out (shift-q, Q)

q = oil (q)

y = ah (y)

Y = awe (shift-y, Y)

R = are (shift-r, R)

P = or (shift-p, P)

X = air (shift-x, X)

x = urge (x)

D = array (shift-d, D)

C = ear (shift-c, C)

W = ian (shift-w, W)

V = yew (shift-v, V)