Revised Shaw Alphabet of Kingsley Read
By Jon Zuck

Alphabet key | Letter Names | Ligatures | Alternate Forms | Abbreviations | Mapping | Comparisons to First Shaw

Introduction:

Creating a concise explanation of what exactly is the alphabet which Read created as a revision of the Shaw alphabet became a necessity with the advent of computer fonts for it.  There can exist a happy ambiguity as to its contents when letters are handwritten, but a font either can only include or exclude a character.   Only two widely distributed descriptions of the alphabet were published, Quikscript[sic?]: Its Alphabet and Manual, by Read, (QM), and Cole Turley's extensive article on it in The Surprise Edition of Cole's Funny Picture Book No. 2, (CFPB),  both of which are available from Roger Collin.  Between these sources, there is no agreement as to the name of the letters, nor the exact number of the letters.  We, (Roger Collin, Paige Gabhart, and myself), deferred to QM when there was a doubt.  However, in QM itself there are descriptions of "Junior Quickscript" and "Senior Quickscript"  Except regarding the matter of abbreviations, we gave greater weight to the finished, "Senior" vision of the alphabet. Additional concerns were how to maintain and build upon standards already created by the Internet Shavian community.

Primary Letters:  As with the First Shaw alphabet, the forty primary sounds of the language are denoted by forty primary letters.  There are only two noteworthy changes:

• The distinction between Ado and Up (which was of stress, not sound) has been obliterated.  Therefore, one letter suffices for the sound, the main form of which is known by the name of what was the more common of those two First Shaw letters, Ado
• A singular deficiency in the notation of First Shaw has been corrected by the addition of the new letter Whitewheat. It elegantly indicates its distinction from Win-win with a simple tick at the end, transforming awful spellings such as hwic hwFt hwEl? into `ic `Ft `El?

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Ligatures:

Although not enumerated as letters per se in the QM, all but one seven of the eight "combined letters" from the First Shaw alphabet (the exception is Err, which is consolidated with Array into the form we now call Earth), are discussed as natural connections between letters. Hence, although they're not strictly entities in the Second Shaw alphabet, it's useful to maintain separate entries for them on the keyboard, for several reasons: 

• To maintain the proper shape, which in the cases of W and V is not possible without special kerning support.
• To ensure compatibility with the present First Shaw mapping and transliteration programs.
• To preserve the Shavian spelling principle of always including r, even if one's dialect doesn't pronounce it.

As with First Shaw, these combined letters present greater leeway from being strictly phonemic into a somewhat of the approach of a syllabalary.  Five are used to indicate vowels leading into an r, no matter what its pronunciation (or lack thereof), and another indicates a frontal glide into a schwa ( W).   The final ligature, V, calls attention to the compound nature of the "long U" sound (you), and completes the set of "vowels" which we usually think of.
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"Non-Shaw" letters.

Four letters are present in QM which have no precedent in the First Shaw alphabet: Two letters, æ and ç, are created for accurately indicating accurate Gaelic pronunciations in English.  (This may be helpful to users in the British Isles.)   Also, two "x"-shaped letters è, é   were created to be compact expressions of the ks and gz sounds respectively.  Their use is strongly objected to by some who see them as a turn away from the philosophy of the Shaw alphabets, and a throwback to Roman letters.  However, with their use, no English word in the Second Shaw alphabet can ever require more letters than in the Roman alphabet. (compare tekst egzAm with teèt eéAm     for "text exam")  Nevertheless, these letters remain entirely optional.
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Alternate Forms:

Hence, there are 40 Shaw letters and 4 "non-Shaw" letters as described by Read in the Quickscript Manual.  However, 11 of the primary letters have alternate forms for improving connections. Thus, including the 7 ligatures, there are 62 letter forms in the Second Shaw alphabet.  At the present time, there are no programs which can convert these letters easily into First Shaw or vice versa.  These, like the optional Non-Shaw letters above, are not on what has become the standard Shavian map.  Therefore, although they are indispensable for handwriting, their use in computer typesetting should probably be limited to images, script effects, and correspondence among those comfortable with their use in the Second Shaw alphabet.

Second Shaw, unlike First Shaw, is essentially a cursive alphabet, similar in that regard to the alphabets of Arabic, Aramaic, and Hindi. The cursive nature was reflected in Read's name for the alphabet, Quickscript.  Not all letters connect, but in most words, a majority will. The alternate forms of Nun and Ado, (which can be called Noon, and Up)  make connection at the bottom line possible:  The preceding letter determines to use Nun or Noon. hence: anoG (anon).  Up, an alternative form of Ado, should be used to make smooth connections to the bottom line when the following letter is l, m, N, s, or v. Hence, umuN us (among us).  (Occasionally, using it to avoid a conventional connection clarifies pronunciation, for instance: urF, [awry] is clearer than DF.) An extended Thither, "Other," (K )  joins z and v in connecting to the bottom line from below, as do halved-forms of Win-win and Whitewheat, (Half-Win, Half-Wheat),  giving us continuous lines for words like: aKD (other), @Q! (Wow!) and ~Dligig (whirligig).  The half-Deed and half-Zoo forms are used the ends of syllables and words, and are particularly useful for tenses and plurals. plIzL (pleases) noBB (nodded) fAdL (fads).  (Note that Read recommended omitting the schwa in -es endings after s S c J and z ,  and from -ed endings after t and d..)

The Tall half-letters [ ] ^ \ can be used before vowels that start at from the top left, such as  e E o Y q and U.
In addition, [ and ] make an unmistakable single glyph when combined with r.  Thus: [roBB (trodded), ^es (yes), \elO (hello), and ]rifD (prefer).    (Note that Half-Whitewheat and Half-Yo do not occur in QM, but were created and tested by Paige Gabhart.)
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Name Changes

Names of Second Shaw letters and ligatures were presented somewhat haphazardly in the Quickscript Manual and CFPB,  (with no consistency between those sources) Sometimes numbers are used, sometimes keywords, sometimes Roman equivalents (sh), and sometimes an imitative priniciple "J'ai" "Oot," "Ood,"  rather than an actual naming principle, "Zhivago," "Wool," "Ooze." Ligatures, "X"-forms, and alternate letter-forms were generally described rather than named. I found the original First Shaw names superior in conveying the sound of the letter and avoiding confusion . I've always chosen to keep the original First Shaw name except when it seemed some improvement is possible, as below. 

• Clarity: Awl and Ed are presented over Awe and Egg, to make pronunciation clearer. For instance, I pronounce "egg" like Eg.   Ed suggests the intended sound to me better. Many Americans are unclear on the sound of Y.  I chose the change because this sound is often flagged by an l or a w in roman letters. Presenting it with wl together may be as helpful to others as it has been to me. Array and Err (the latter which even suggested different sounds to Americans and Britons) were First Shaw forms distinguished only by stress.   They are subsumed by the same ligature in Second Shaw, here given the name Earth. suggested before on this list by
• Taste: Hence changes from Dead and Gag (very negative!), and Peep, Tot and Bib (drooling babies?). Imagine a Shavian world where cheerleaders shout: "Give me a Bib! Give me a Gag! Give me a Dead!  Give me a Tot!" I offer Deed, Gig, Pipe, Tut, and Bob as replacements.
• Consistency: The letter names of the First Shaw alphabet suggest the possibility of having all consonant names present their own sound as the first consonant sound in the name, and giving that sound twice. For greater consistency in that regard, I suggest Inkling, Sis, Shush, Thoth, Thither, Valve, Win-win, Whitewheat, Yo-yo, Zoos, and Zhivago, to take the place of Hung, So, Sure, Thigh, They, Vie, Woe, Why, Zoo, and Measure.  Some letter-names even show alternate ways the sound is spelled in Roman. Inkling, for instance, shows that the N sound corresponds N in the first syllable, and NG in the second syllable. Zhivago and the "non-Shaw" letters are now the only ones which don't give their sounds twice; Zsa-Zsa was rejected by some for already heading to obscurity.
• Pairing: The "T" keyboard mapping has an "Egyptian" theme with Tut and Thoth, primordial elements include Earth and Air, and other proper names extend now to Ed, Bob, Ian, and Zhivago..
• Completeness:  The alternate letter-forms for Nun, Ado, and Thither, as well as the eight half-letters have no corresponding forms in First Shaw.   I present Noon as the alternate Nun, Up (already associated in First Shaw to Ado), and Other as the other Thither. (Note also that "other" is the most common word in which it is used.)  Half-letters are concisely referred to by "half" followed by the second syllable of the lettername, if there is more than one, e.g., half-Tut, half-Yo, half-Wheat. 

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^{Abbreviations:}

QM gives numerous abbreviations for shorthand handwriting, but it suggests that abbreviations below have priority and are appropriate for all levels of writing, even formal writing.  In addition to the First Shaw abbreviations H the, t to, n and, v of, there are four new abbreviations f for, b be, z is, and i it. (All of these were also promoted in the prologue to Androcles and the Lion.)
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Mapping:

The mapping of all of the primary letter which are also in First Shaw (that is, all except Whitewheat) are identical to the Standard First Shaw map.  Up is replaced by Ado in this alphabet, so it's spot on the map is for Up as the alternate form of Ado, in the same place (u).  Since ARRAY and ERR are represented by the same letter in Second Shaw (EARTH), for full compatibility, EARTH appears in both the places where ARRAY and ERR were. (x and D).

The alternate letters and non-Shaw letters (and slash) are mapped as follows. By removing some of the lesser-used symbols, I was able to keep all of the alternate Shaw letterforms on the keyboard.  Also, I consider the slash to be an important punctuation mark, so I have restored it to the keyboard. It's mapped onto the ampersand, since Shavians don't use the & symbol. "Non-Shaw" letters are off the keyboard.

Whitewheat on Accent grave(`). 
Half-wheat on Tilde(~). 
Half-win on    @. 
Half Yo on     Circumflex (^).  
Half-Tot on    left bracket,
Half-Pipe on   right bracket. 
Half-Ha on     Backslash (\).
Half-Deed on Cap B,
Other on        Cap K,
Half-Zoo on   Cap L,
Noon on         Cap G. 
Slash (/) on    &, (since the letter n functions as our ampersand.)

Non-Shaw letters:
Llan on     alt+0230, (æ)
Loch on    alt+0231, (ç)
Ax on       alt+0232,  (è)
Exam on   alt+0233   (é)
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Comparison to First Shaw

Notes on the Table: Ha-Ha is now appropriately a Tall consonant, reflecting its unvoiced sound. It pairs with the Deep letter Whitewheat (the lack of which was notable in the First Shaw alphabet), which, although unvoiced, makes a logical pair, at least as sensible as pairing Tall Yo-yo and Deep Win-Win.  Inkling is now properly with its fellow nasals Nun and Mime, placed above them to suggest its generally higher tone.

The order of the vowels, (omitting Ado), was changed somewhat to try to effect a spectrum from front vowels to back.  I've endeavored to order it so that each row has this effect, i e A y o Y U   and I E F Q q O M , as well as both rows alternating together: i I e E A F y Q o q Y O U M.

Advantages: 

• Simplification: While all of the First Shaw alphabet's sounds are retained, the stress distinctions between Ado / Up and Array / Err are eliminated.
• Enhancement: The "wh" sound no longer has to written with the distracting hw.  A new character ` (Whitewheat) indicates the sound concisely and beautifully. Additional minor enhancements include letters æ and ç for the proper sounds in Celtic names (note that ç is useful also for German names and words).
• Clarity.  All short vowels now consist of a simple short line, with only slight curving, if any.  All diphthongs including those "long" vowels which are technically diphthongs have a small loop.  Also, all nasal letters have larger loops.
• Writability: The revised alphabet was created by Read over years of correspondence with Shaw alphabet users all over the world. Many of his changes to the alphabet were devised to make immediate use easier in handwriting.  Most Deep letters now connect to the bottom line. Difficult characters  y and Y, were stretched out for easier writing.  The backward strokes necessary in E F u and f were changed to simple loops. Recognizing that many writers naturally slope letters forward, the awkward "backslash" of j was eliminated and changed to an upright letter.  Most Deep letters connect to the bottom line, either from the left, or from below.
• Speed.  The influence of shorthand on Shaw and Read is well-documented.  The creation of alternate forms for several letters reduces line-length, pen-lifts, and together with the already simple shapes, enables much faster writing than is possible with Roman letters. When using the additional abbreviations, some users achieve speeds comparable to their typing, according to CFPB.
• Legibility:  First Shaw's built-in dyslexia, with all letters being rotations or mirrors of another has been greatly reduced. The only consonants which are still simple rotations of each other are T / H and c / J  Mirrors do persist among vowels, but related vowels have related shapes.
• Attractiveness:  The "Klingon" effect of separate, often angular letters is gone.  Second Shaw is a cursive alphabet and may be considered more attractive by some.

Disadvantages:

• Learning curve:  It takes time.  However, I found it easier to learn in  a few days than in the few weeks I've been trying to learn to read First Shaw.
• Letter shifts: Three letters in the Second Shaw alphabet are bound to cause confusion to those experienced with First Shaw.  Ah and Awl have been straightened out to look like the original Mime and Nun, respectively.  In addition, Fife's loop makes it much like the former Thigh from First Shaw.   In my opinion, these changes are unfortunate, since they pose an unnecessary barrier to those familiar with First Shaw.  Also, the glyph for Air, which now logically resembles Age+Roar, is almost an inversion of First Shaw Air, and resembles First Shaw "Err."
• Legibility:  Connections (especially with half-letters) may be harder to read, especially at first.  Others say that the distinctiveness of shapes for words written in half-letters makes recognition easier.
• Which to use, and when?  I think its advantages in handwriting are obvious. Also, whenever a more cursive script is desired, Second Shaw is the choice. For many images, its connectedness and fluidity are desirable.  Whether or not its enhancements and simplification, ease of reading etc. are merits that make it superior for ordinary printed matter, remain to be seen through usage and experimentation.

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