Shavian:Shaw Alphabet Shapes with Key Words

This arrangement was suggested by the inventor of the Shaw alphabet, Kingsley Read -
Lionspaw font by Ghoti
Voiced and unvoiced pairs are grouped together and share a common shape.
The Shaw alphabet was intentionally non-roman.  The I, S and O are about the
only shapes that will be familiar.  9 of the 10 tall shapes represent unvoiced consonants.
The deep shapes are all voiced except ha.  The short shapes are semi-vowels or vowels.
Most of the top row of short shapes are shot vowels, The bottom row of short shapes
is often the corresponding long vowel.  eh is paired with ei, aesh is paired with ais [ice],
schwa [ado] is paired with the stressed mid lax vowel.  The short o is paired with oak.
 

 
Tall:
  peep tot kick fee thigh so sure church yea hung
   p  t  k    T  s  S  c  j  N
Deep:
  bib dead gag vow they zoo measure judge woe ha-ha
   b  d  g  v  H  z  Z  J  w  h
Short:
  loll mime if egg ash ado on wool out ah
   l  m  i  e  A  a  o  U  Q  y
 
  roar nun eat age ice up oak ooze oil awe
   r  n  I  E  F  U  O  M  q  Y
Compound:  
    are or air err  her array ear ian yew  
R P x X D C W V
Some of the gif files for letter shapes may be missing.  Source:
Shavian, IPA, and Keyboard:
Shaw Alphabet Shapes with Keyboard locations

numberof phonemes
 
Kingsley Read's Shaw Alphabet .....................
The Shaw alphabet is a 41 symbol non-roman phonemic alphabet for English. The 
 
 
shaw script - 45kb
Shaw sample

    
Shaw asciibet:  ai=F, eir=x   3r=X  au=Q, oi=q
word    work    York    bird    absurd    heard    murder    sir   early   butler   orderly
wxd     wxk     /jPk      bxd     absxd      hxd      mxdD     sx    xlI      butlD   PdDlI

mirror     piano(instrument) piano (softly, subdued) young  news  a  choose    mews
mirD       pjAnO                pjynO    y=aa               juN      nVz    a   cMz       mVz
 

door     day     yes     knives    further    judge    yellow     suit    innovative
dP       dE       jes     nFvz       fxHD     JuJ       jelO         sMt    inavEtiv
 

This chart is incomplete.  Add R combinations

Preferred ASCII-IPA
 short  a   e   i   o   V   J     hook=hJk  up=Vp
 long   q  X   E  c   a    u    herder = hXrdxr   hu qr U
comb Y  A   E  O  U        ice = Ys,  eyes  = Yz

I like the doublets for rare sounds.  oo for aw vs. c.
oi for oil rather than Q.  Q good for xu.  as well as oi

C=aw, c=ch,
oi-Q, au-W  aw-o, aa=q  turned a=o
T-th, D-dh, c=ch, H-wh, when=Hen,
RLMN = xr, xl, xm, xn,
herder=hxRdR or hXrdxr or hXrdR
Y thot Y hRd x litL bRd siGiG in Dx trE.

Can you read this?
Noun marker called a namer dot [replaces caps]
britanz -- U join yor kuntriz armi

other phonemic transcription systems
     

  

Send comments and questions to Steve at sbett@lycos.com