Quikscript
Encyclopedia
Alphabet
An alphabet is a standard set of letters—basic written symbols or graphemes—each of which represents a phoneme in a spoken language, either as it exists now or as it was in the past. There are other systems, such as logographies, in which each character represents a word, morpheme, or semantic...
(and phonemic orthography
Phonemic orthography
A phonemic orthography is a writing system where the written graphemes correspond to phonemes, the spoken sounds of the language. In terms of orthographic depth, these are termed shallow orthographies, contrasting with deep orthographies...
) specifically designed for the English language
English language
English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
. Quikscript replaces traditional English orthography, which uses the Latin alphabet
Latin alphabet
The Latin alphabet, also called the Roman alphabet, is the most recognized alphabet used in the world today. It evolved from a western variety of the Greek alphabet called the Cumaean alphabet, which was adopted and modified by the Etruscans who ruled early Rome...
, with completely new letters. It is phonemically regular, compact, and comfortably and quickly written. There are also adapted Quikscript alphabets for other languages, using the same letters for sounds which do not exist in English.
Origins and History
George Bernard ShawGeorge Bernard Shaw
George Bernard Shaw was an Irish playwright and a co-founder of the London School of Economics. Although his first profitable writing was music and literary criticism, in which capacity he wrote many highly articulate pieces of journalism, his main talent was for drama, and he wrote more than 60...
, famous writer, critic and playwright, was a highly vocal critic of English spelling because it lacked a coherent system for representing the phonemes of English accurately. As a result, for years he wrote his literary works using Pitman shorthand
Pitman Shorthand
Pitman shorthand is a system of shorthand for the English language developed by Englishman Sir Isaac Pitman , who first presented it in 1837. Like most systems of shorthand, it is a phonetic system; the symbols do not represent letters, but rather sounds, and words are, for the most part, written...
. However, he found its limitations frustrating as well and realized that it was not a suitable replacement for the Latin alphabet, being difficult to use to produce printed material and impossible to type. A shorthand is, by definition, more specialized than an alphabet, which represents the standard written form of a language. Shaw desired and advocated a phonetic reworking of written English, and this called for a new alphabet.
To that end, Shaw placed in his will provisions instructing his executor to organize a world-wide competition to design an improved English alphabet. A British designer, Ronald Kingsley Read
Ronald Kingsley Read
Ronald Kingsley Read was one of four contestants chosen to share the prize money for the design of the Shavian alphabet, a completely new alphabet intended for writing English...
, who had corresponded extensively with Shaw for several years regarding just such an alphabet, was selected along with three other finalists as the winners of the competition. Read was chosen to design the final form of the alphabet. The "Shaw Alphabet" or "Shavian," as it is now generally known, was the result.
To provide field testing of the new alphabet, Read organized a lengthy public testing phase of Shavian by some 500 users from around the world who spoke different dialects of English. Once he had analyzed the results of those tests, Read decided to revise Shavian to incorporate a number of changes to improve the alphabet and make it both easier and faster to write. He called the revised alphabet "Quikscript". In 1966 he published the Quikscript manual which set out the alphabet's rationale, and briefly discussed different possible methods of alphabet reform. The heart of the manual provided comprehensive instructions regarding the use of the alphabet along with reading samples. The manual is sufficient by itself to teach a neophyte how to read and write in Quikscript.
Description
- Just as in the Roman alphabet, there are short letters, e.g. a, c, e, m, and n, written between the base writing line and the "upper parallel" (as Read calls it), tall letters, e.g. b, d, f, k, and t, which ascend above the top of the short letters, and deep letters, e.g. g, j, and y, which descend below the base writing line. Quikscript, however, makes better use of these possibilities by using 11 tall, 11 deep, and 18 short letters. All vowels are short letters, just as they are in the Roman alphabet.
- The most common phonemes have the simplest letter shapes.
- Similar sounding phonemes have similar letter shapes. Examples:
- Long vowels and glides are written with a larger bend or loop, while short vowels have a simpler shape.
- Every voiced consonant is written with a deep letter similar in shape to the corresponding voiceless consonant which in turn is written with a tall letter.
- While the Roman alphabet has two distinct forms in common use, which are designated as lower and upper case, this concept does not exist in the Quikscript alphabet. There is only one form for the majority of the letters. Names and proper nouns are preceded with a mid-line dot (called a name-dot) which is sufficient to distinguish them from ordinary words.
- Beginners learn Junior Quikscript first. Each word is spelled "as it is spoken." Each letter is written separately from the next so that it is equivalent to what is termed "printing" in the Roman alphabet. Some people may prefer Junior Quikscript for printed texts as readers are used to the Roman alphabet being printed in that manner.
- Senior Quikscript introduces a number of advanced techniques which save time in writing. The most obvious difference between the two is that Senior encourages the connection of one letter to the next as long as the shapes of the letters are not altered. The design of the alphabet fosters these natural connections, as each Quikscript letter either begins or ends on the base line or the upper parallel. This structure permits letters to connect easily yet maintains the shapes of the individual letters because there are no connecting strokes between letters as there are in cursive Roman alphabet writing. It is common that Senior writing will have several letters in a row which are connected to each other, but when such a connection is not possible, the letters are simply left unconnected. Read added a very small number of alternative letter forms, which permit even more letters to connect easily. It is the writer's choice whether to use them or not.
- Senior Quikscript also introduces the concept of half-letters, which permit several tall and deep letters to be used in "half-letter" versions, which facilitates connections between letters, but keeps the varied part of of the character above the parallel or below the base-line and so preserve the "word-shapes." This characteristic is important as fluent readers recognize word-shapes or word-outlines and do not sound out individual letters to figure out a word for the overwhelming majority of words they read. This increased connectivity increases the speed of handwriting significantly.
- Senior Quikscript also introduces a number of abbreviations for the most common English words, which writers may choose to use. These further reduce the space requirement for printed material and hence the costs.
Modern day use
Quikscript computer fonts have been developed so that the alphabet can be used with computers and the Internet. There is also a computer program which will transliterate Latin alphabet text into Quikscript text.External links
- Official Quikscript Manual
- Quikscript Outpost
- Read Alphabet Yahoo group (Registration required)
- Quikscript page at Omniglot.com
- Ewout Stam's Quikscript/Shavian page at Internet ArchiveInternet ArchiveThe Internet Archive is a non-profit digital library with the stated mission of "universal access to all knowledge". It offers permanent storage and access to collections of digitized materials, including websites, music, moving images, and nearly 3 million public domain books. The Internet Archive...