Shavian alphabet shorts: Don't worry, be happy (tensing)

[@DedYefremiy]

Genuinely, I think creating additional unneeded rules to memorize denies the whole point in the design of Shavian, that being phonemicity, which can easily be avoided simply by using the "Eat" vowel for "Happy". The problem about all the examples you have presented is the fact that Shavian doesn't mark stress, rather than some esoteric phonetic features of the "Happy" vowel. By that logic, other examples of English's phonemic stress, like "insight" and "incite", are also obliged to sacrifice phonemicity in their spellings in favour of having a way to graphically distinguish among the two. Stress marking (optional, at least) would be a much more logical solution.

[@shavianalphabet4307]

Thanks. Possibly, but my aim was to explain the approach taken in Androcles and the Lion using the Shavian alphabet, not a hypothetical different approach.

[@JamesZheyuXu]

@@shavianalphabet4307 Where can I download the Shavian alphabet on my Mac? Thanks!

[@TheDankBoi69]

i decided to use the accute accent to mark the stress in various words with antepenultimate stress (because some english vowels already mark stress) and various homophonic words. This thing has worked in my native language (Spanish, "tilde diacrítica" because few are the words that are pronounced the same. However, in my usage of shavian this will be more tedious as there are far more homophonic words and it extends beyond monosyllabic words unlike spanish. 𐑲́ = I (pronoun), 𐑲 = eye Also, in situations like "right, rite, write, wright", inserting 𐑦 between the 𐑲 and the 𐑑 has been my approach so far. I also use apostrophes. This is to avoid confusion between "who's" and "whose".

[@jocago]

𐑨𐑟 𐑨𐑯 ·𐑩𐑥𐑺𐑩𐑒𐑩𐑯 𐑕𐑐𐑰𐑒𐑼, 𐑲 𐑯𐑧𐑝𐑼 𐑤𐑻𐑯𐑛 𐑑 𐑧𐑯𐑛 𐑣𐑨𐑐𐑰 𐑢𐑦𐑞 𐑧𐑯𐑰𐑔𐑦𐑙 𐑳𐑞𐑼 𐑞𐑨𐑯 ·𐑰. 𐑲 𐑰𐑝𐑦𐑯 𐑮𐑴𐑑 𐑦𐑑 𐑦𐑯𐑑𐑵 𐑥𐑲 𐑑𐑮𐑨𐑯𐑟𐑤𐑱𐑖𐑩𐑯 𐑨𐑐. 𐑯𐑬 𐑲 𐑯𐑰𐑛 𐑑 𐑮𐑰𐑒𐑩𐑯𐑕𐑦𐑛𐑼. 𐑔𐑨𐑙𐑒 𐑿. As an American speaker, I never learned to end happy with anything other than E. I even wrote it into my translation app. Now I need to reconsider. Thank you.

[@Nowiknowhowjoanofarcfelt]

@xXNaruto_UzumakiXxspeaking Shavian would just be speaking English

[@elliottsampson1454]

this really highlights a problem with shavian (and most spelling reforms), there's no way to write stress. insight and incite, despite being pronounced differently, would be written as "𐑦𐑯𐑕𐑲𐑑"

[@shavianalphabet4307]

How much of a problem is this, though? Writing English perfectly phonetically (as opposed to a phonemic approximation) would require us to convey more information than is needed to understand the meaning. It would also exacerbate differences between accents. Context makes clear when ‘incite’ or ‘insight’ is intended.

[@elliottsampson1454]

@@shavianalphabet4307 i know it's not really a problem, but if you're trying to be phonemic, you might as well go all in and not just be mostly phonemic.

[@tjenadonn6158]

It also reinforces my notion that trying to force any sort of phonemic writing system onto a language with as much phonemic variation between dialects as English is a fools errand. Who decides once and for all which pronunciation, and therefore spelling, of words is correct? The whole one-letter-per-phoneme paradigm can only really work in languages that are constructed from the ground up with that in mind: an English speaker from Perth, an English speaker from Portsmouth, an English speaker from Peoria, and an English speaker from Port-au-Prince might all pronounce "aunt" differently and thus would be inclined to write it differently in Shavian if they were to write it according to how they personally pronounce it, but an Australian Esperantist, an English Esperantist, an American Esperantist, and a Haitian Esperantist will all likely pronounce "onklino" close to identically and write it identically in line with that pronunciation. This also explains why Shavian, to the extent that it has been successful, has been far more successful via its adaptation to Esperanto than in the language it was designed for.

[@tjenadonn6158]

@@shavianalphabet4307 I don't think a bit of linguistic precision is too much to ask. We don't have to go full Lojban or Ithkuil, but we need something. What's the point of reforming English spelling if you just wind up with even more homographs than before? People knock constructed languages, but at least Esperanto and other planned languages manage to be phonemically consistent while also not making sentences like "Li volis instigi la tumulton" and "Li volis komprenon pri la tumulto" harder to read, or to use a similar example confusing "Li estis vera enuo de viro," "Li estis vera malbonulo de viro" and "Li estis vera apro de viro," with the changed word being "bore," "boor," and "boar" in each sentence respectively. All three sentences ("He was a real bore/boor/boar of a man") make perfect grammatical sense and would be written exactly the same in Shavian, and yet convey entirely different meanings. It's places like this where Shavian shows how poorly thought out it is, with it being a novelty at best and in many cases it being a demonstrably worse system for writing English than the alphabet it was intended to replace and compounding many of its problems by adding the problems of spoken English to the problems of written English. Really the only ways around this are to design the spoken and written forms of a language simultaneously, as happens with planned/constructed languages like Esperanto, Toki Pona, and Lojban, or to just make the new alphabet map one to one with the original alphabet while allowing for contractions, as is the case in Braille and its also-rans like New York Point and Moon Type.

[@strider_hiryu850]

𐑐𐑻𐑣𐑨𐑐𐑕 𐑱 𐑥𐑪𐑛𐑦𐑓𐑲𐑛 𐑖𐑱𐑝𐑾𐑯 𐑢𐑦𐑔 𐑕𐑑𐑮𐑧𐑕𐑹𐑕 𐑱𐑛𐑦𐑛 𐑒𐑫𐑛 𐑚𐑰 𐑒𐑪𐑯𐑕𐑦𐑛𐑻𐑛? 𓅱 perhaps a modified Shavian with stressors added could be considered?

[@chanyy6838]

I have an idea: making a Shavian Alphabet song

[@shavianalphabet4307]

There is a very nice one. It’s not in a form I can share on KZbin but maybe one day.

[@UpleenSandhu]

Yeah þere should be one

[@VictorMatthieu]

I always wrote this sound as /iʲ/ in IPA when transcribing my accent, rather than /i/ or /ɪ/. I never even realized I’ve been doing this until now.

[@Rotanagol]

So pleasant to watch! Thanks for making these.

[@Dracopol]

Pitman Shorthand does the same thing! A light vowel in the third position (end of a stroke) gives the vowel-sound "i" as in "it". A heavy dot in the third position would be "ee" as in "meet" but the effort to make a light dot is smaller, so at the end of the words this is acceptable. So "happy" is written with a light dot at the end, not a heavy dot as one would expect. Maybe it's because the Received Pronunciation was not actually "ee" at the time.

[@kathryncollings9421]

These videos are great! Please make more! Merry Christmas!

[@paviewer]

This is excellent linguistic analysis and information. Thank you!

[@fyaerwe]

I feel a better solution to the "trusty" vs "trustee" would be to add stress marks to Shavian instead of using a potentially confusing spelling theme.

[@Big3Taxi]

Perhaps, but Shaw's will specifically required that a Shavian alphabet can not have diacritical marks, which would next to certainly be the form that a "stress mark" would take. Although, perhaps we could treat the bar that denotes the longer version of several vowels could be treated as a sort of psuedo-diacritic i.e. 𐑩 and 𐑳, 𐑨 and 𐑲, etc. Perhaps in handwriting etc you could add a similar bar to 𐑦 (although that wouldn't make too much sense as it's the short version of 𐑰 more than the long version of 𐑦).

[@leftwardglobe1643]

​@@Big3Taxi You could also just add a new character entirely. Probably vaguely z shaped so as to play on the letter "eat." Though this doesn't really help with the fact that Shavian doesn't handle homophones very well.

[@tfan2222]

@@leftwardglobe1643Why does it matter though? Context makes almost all of these a non issue. Seriously, the homophones don’t matter because you *say* them the *same*, yet have no problem differentiating in speech. (This is referring to true homophones; but even the few cases where stress makes a difference, context still eliminates confusion.)

[@leftwardglobe1643]

@@tfan2222 Isolated words matter, there are instances where it can cause genuine confusion and again, it negatively impacts the speed at which a sentence can be clearly read. It's a minor issue, but it's an issue latin text simply doesn't have, and its one that, unlike spelling in latin, can't really go away with practice as there is no textual distinction between words. It's the same reason punctuation and capitalization matter. Homonyms do occur in latin spelling, but they are much less common.

[@koksiroj]

Thank you for this video! Very calming to listen to as it was informative

[@torhbert]

𐑲 𐑤𐑳𐑝 𐑢𐑹 𐑝𐑦𐑛𐑟 :)

[@illogical1421]

Make more videos.

[@shavianalphabet4307]

My efforts over the last few months have been focused on producing the Shavian dictionary at www.shavian.info/dictionary/, but I should be able to make a few more videos shortly.

[@conanbarbarian9719]

A very well made video, but I must confess that it leaves me somewhat confused. It sounds as if we're saying that this usage of the letter 'if' is pure convention intended to deal with the phonemic limitations of Shavian, but the examples suggest to me that the opposite usage makes more sense. I am still learning, so perhaps someone can make clear if I have misunderstood. Your case for contextually clarified spellings is inconsistently applied. Why should we accept different spellings for "trusty" and "trustee", which differ mostly in emphasis, but not "candid" and "candied", differing clearly in phonemes, when one is just as unlikely to come across a "trustee dog" as a "candied conversation"? Further, the example of "candied", and the french work "Candide", doesn't hold up. Why are we advocating the strength of context clues regarding two words clearly represented by different phonemes(candid/candied) but not applying that logic to a word from a different language? Surely context clues are quite clear when reading about Voltaire; I've never heard of the famous french work, "Candied". The SETI example is simply incorrect as the word is an abbreviation. The spelling is not phonemic in latin script not because of how we fail to pronounce it consistently with our script, but as a result of the words SETI represents (Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence). Thus, we should use the letter 'if' in that case because it is consistent in the Shavian spelling of "intelligence", not because of the common pronunciation. Are there different rules for abbreviations in Shavian? Besides, your contextual argument is applicable here as well. Whoever heard of a couch searching for alien life? ("settee") The case of words like "lily"seems to simply contradict the purpose of Shavian. Why confuse the spelling of words with multiple phonemes by using the same letter? Is Shavian supposed to represent phonemes or different stress/emphasis? Again, perhaps I have misunderstood something, but all that we seem to achieve through this spelling choice is the promotion of a conventional ambiguity based on British Received pronunciation over other branches of English. edited for spelling, clarity, and to include point about "lily"

[@shavianalphabet4307]

Thanks. In all honesty, it’s probably one of the more awkward features of the usual Shavian spelling to explain. My aim was not to justify the choice of the designers but to help people understand it. In practice people usually come to prefer to approach of using 𐑦 for unstressed /i/, so I’m not sure there will be a consensus to change any time soon.

[@conanbarbarian9719]

@@shavianalphabet4307 Helping to improve understanding is a laudable goal, and you have done a good job of explaining the convention as it commonly stands. I'm quite 𐑣𐑨𐑐𐑰 to remain one of the minority who favor this different usage :)

[@GustawStudios23]

Im working on a script/writing system. im Using Latin Shavian And Armenian For inspiration

[@servantofaeie1569]

In my dialect, vowel length is not phonemic whatsoever, and it relies purely on vowel quality. That's not to say my dialect doesn't have phonetic vowel length. Vowels are elongated before voiced consonants. sit [ˈsɪtˀ] 𐑕𐑦𐑑 Sid [ˈsɪːd] ·𐑕𐑦𐑛 seat [ˈsitˀ] 𐑕𐑰𐑑 seed [ˈsiːd] 𐑕𐑰𐑛 So yes, I do actually say [ˈiːzʟ̩ɫi], but the first [i] is long for a different reason. "Easterly" is still [ˈistɚɫi], with two short [i]s.

[@shavianalphabet4307]

Whether vowel length is phonemic or not depends on your dialect. It my dialect the difference between “dead” and “dared” (to take one of a huge number of possible examples) is purely down to vowel length.

[@servantofaeie1569]

@@shavianalphabet4307 yes and I want to write my own dialect with Shavian, not any "standard".

[@servantofaeie1569]

@@shavianalphabet4307 do you really say "dead" and "dared" with the exact same vowel quality? i say [ˈdɛːd] and [ˈde̞ɚd].

[@shavianalphabet4307]

Yes, in Australian English the DRESS and SQUARE vowels are often only distinguished by length.

[@aislingoda6026]

@@servantofaeie1569 i can confirm as another australian english speaker, the way i say dared is a lengthened dead (𐑛𐑧𐑧𐑛 𐑯 𐑛𐑧𐑛). similarly, though this isn't the case for all speakers, beard is a lengthened bid (𐑚𐑦𐑦𐑛 𐑯 𐑚𐑦𐑛) with no other distinction

[@LinguaPhiliax]

In my opinion, there isn't really any better way to capture suprasegmental features in language through a phonemic writing system without using a diacritic. Maybe just one diacritic, like a dot or an acute, and only used for non-primary syllables, since most English words have primary stress. (Additionally, many English words without primary stress come from non-Germanic origins, not that it matters much but I still felt it interesting how etymology could be hinted at through stress patterns.)

[@maxcheston9115]

when are you gonna make the follow up to your first video?

[@Scaw]

A well-made video. I have had the pleasure of sitting in Shaw's armchair in Ayot St Lawrence in 1974 whilst writing a postcard home in Shavian. Regarding the 'if' vs 'eat' matter, I always choose the former simply because it is neater and represents an unstressed sound better than the uniquely angular 'eat'. Whereas I spell candy with 'kandi', I spell candied with 'kandeed'. My only real complaint with Androcles is with the absence of a letter to represent the 'wh' in words like 'which'. There is no way to distinguish 'which' from 'witch' although I pronounce both words very differently. I found this so off-putting that I devised a modified w in the true type font that I made.

[@shavianalphabet4307]

Thank you. I’d be surprised if you’d be allowed to sit in Shaw’s chair today but that is wonderful. For Shavian, Kingsley Read recommended using “𐑣𐑢” if you want to distinguish the sound. But he did also devise a “wh” letter for Quikscript-did you use this or come up with something else? Is your font available for others to download?

[@Scaw]

@@shavianalphabet4307 I still have some adjusting to do before I could release the font generally. You can get a flavour of it through imgur.com/YWBAu82. In that link I mention that I devised three extra letters to the original alphabet. 1. the "wh" is represented by a modified "w" much as Kingsley Read did for Quikscript. 2. a modified "k" serves as the letter for the voiceless velar fricative for words such as: Taoiseach [I'm Irish]; Bach; loch; Reichstag; Pesach, etc.; 3. "yea" and "wool" have been fused in the same way that "yea" and "ooze" were to give "yew". I became weary of writing the letters separately when transliterating my own copy of Androcles. That exercise turned out to be very worthwhile since when I put the entire file through a concordancer I found many mistakes and inconsistencies. Not surprising really given the novelty of the project. Of course, that I now have a good copy of Androcles in Shavian was a pleasing outcome.

[@Rolando_Cueva]

@@Scaw Y'all Irish can pronounce German, Arabic, and Hebrew more easily. Non-Celtic English speakers really struggle with that sound.

[@tfan2222]

@@DR-54Well, the thing is…English is spoken by so many across the entire globe. Having a standard written language is just more advantageous. For this reason, I like the way Shaw did it. Having Received Pronunciation with American rhoticity is a very pleasant mid point. That said, I do represent “hw” in my writing because it distinguishes certain word pairs, and because a sizable amount of speakers (including myself) still pronounce it differently. Moreover, I also keep “wr” because…well, the overwhelming majority of speakers still distinguish that. Some younger speakers don’t (I highly suspect this is due to being taught that there’s not difference), but most English speakers pronounce “wr” as [rʷ]; myself included.

[@emilyhelms-tippit4053]

Why then do the "y" 's in "hockey" and "key" have different letters? "hockey" uses the letter if and "key" uses the letter key. How do I tell which letter to use in a given case of a word-final "y"?

[@emilyhelms-tippit4053]

* "key" uses the letter eat.

[@shavianalphabet4307]

The difference between 'hockey' and 'key' is mainly stress. The second syllable of 'hockey' is unstressed and, in some accents, pronounced as a shorter vowel.

[@thefub101]

I thought if the pronunciation changes the spelling changes?

[@IN-pr3lw]

I like your video production, will you be making more?

[@shavianalphabet4307]

Thank you. I hope to but I’m focused on some other Shavian projects at the moment. I might do a video about those when finished.

[@themeantuber]

Just like you said, perfection is unattainable and I'd say unnecessary. Otherwise we'd be discussing a phonetic alphabet.

[@purelightapologetics4930]

I don’t see the problem with multiple words being spelled the same. English does it all the time.😂😂😂 I’m gonna stick with my one that looks like a backwards ‘n’ thank you very much. :)

[@spelchec6727]

neat little thing.., that backwards n is used in cyrillic to represent the i sound

[@notwithouttext]

what about the i in "media"? is it written the same as the KIT or FLEECE vowel?

[@cmyk8964]

𐑥𐑰𐑛𐑾

[@notwithouttext]

@@cmyk8964 ah i see. how about "inebriate"?

[@tfan2222]

@notwithouttext𐑦𐑯𐑰𐑚𐑮𐑾𐑑.

[@notwithouttext]

@@tfan2222 oh sorry i didn't clarify i meant the verb. so inebri-ate with FACE instead of inebri-et with commA or KIT or something

[@CodyCasterline]

This reminds me of a difficulty I had learning Icelandic. The “short i” sound as in “sit” cannot end a word in American English, but it CAN in Icelandic, as in the word “listi” (a list). For me, it takes special effort to pronounce those vowels the same way instead of pronouncing it like the Y in “happy”. So it makes sense to me, as an American, that “i” is a single phoneme that is pronounced differently in different cases. It didn’t even occur to me that a final “i” can be “short” in some accents. But when I heard the RP, there it was! Was the author of Shavian American? That might explain the choice.

[@shavianalphabet4307]

Bernard Shaw stipulated in his will that Shavian should represent the King's English, and the approach to spelling in the first Shavian book reflected this. This is one of the quirks or charms of Shavian, depending on how you look at it. However, it can equally be adapted to represent an American accent as well, with a few tweaks in spelling conventions.

[@servantofaeie1569]

𐑲 𐑛𐑧𐑓𐑦𐑯𐑦𐑑𐑤𐑰 𐑓𐑰𐑤 𐑣𐑨𐑐𐑰. Aj defınitɂli fil hæpi. [aj dɛfɪnɪtˀɫi fiʟ hæpi]

[@tookiecar1]

*also defined in depth.

[@petroglyph888mcgregor2]

Just add accent marks (diacritics)

[@lunarna]

Every Shavian letter is written as a single stroke, adding diacritics in such a common ending would decrease speed of writing and esthetics

[@petroglyph888mcgregor2]

@@lunarna good point. thanks

[@fyaerwe]

Not by much @@lunarna

[@thatguy-ty3qv]

This is ridiculous. Talking about how context for using a single letter to represent two sounds in an alphabet that was invented to take all the guess work out of spelling should be fine, but then arguing that using a letter that has an appropriate sound could be confusing because in a conversation about pets you might get lost suddenly because someone mentioned that their dog is a trustee and now you're apparently talking about finances. If you're at the bank and some with an open check book in front of them asks to barrow a pin, you're not going to wonder why in the world he thinks you're carrying thumbtacks on you. You're going to hand them a pen and hope he doesn't steal it.

[@shavianalphabet4307]

It was just an example. The point is, 𐑰 is never unstressed in Shavian. That’s the way the alphabet was designed and implemented in Androcles and the Lion. And I don’t think it’s possible to ‘take all of the guesswork out of spelling’ in an alphabetic script unless one happens to speak whatever reference accent is chosen-it’s just easier to spell according to a contemporary standard than according to a 15th century standard.

[@liambyrne591]

​@@shavianalphabet4307have you got any opinions on to learn Shavian ,maybe get the Shaw's book but it's out of print

[@sbeaber]

Thanks! I was confused

[@LearnRunes]

In runes, ᛁ would be used for both these sounds. While there are cases where this could cause a problem, it overcomes another problem in that there are some accents where the vowels in 'kit' and 'fleece' are switched. Would Shavian encourage people with some accents to write those letters the opposite way around to how people who use the more common pronunciation write?

[@shavianalphabet4307]

It's really up to the individual, but the original standard in Androcles and the Lion follows British Received Pronunciation conventions. Some people choose to use -𐑰 for the happY sound. But swapping 𐑦 and 𐑰 in *every* case could lead to confusion in words like 'ship' and 'sheep'.

[@americanswan]

I want to make clear. I teach 5, 6, and 7 year olds ESL English. They often can not write b and d correctly. The mind and hand eye coordination is just not there. I understand and appreciate the effort to fix English but the MIRRORED characters are horrendous. 👎🏼

[@tpbunghole420]

Most people who have spelling issues don't have this issue and the ones that do, will correct themselves when they get older. You seem to be angry that this is being talked about. Instead of children taking six years to learn English, it would them four or even three years to learn for a small child. I bet the real reason you hate this is because it will make your job not as important. You people are the reason you see non English speakers try to tell us! That we need to learn their language! You don't care about kids! You only want to keep your job!

[@Carlos-vn4ec]

thanks i hate it. I think ill just stick to writing things the way I actually pronounce them. no rules just right. Like i thought the whole point of this was to make it so you didn't have to memorize a bunch of spelling rules. Sure its just one rule, but the difference between one and none is a lot. everyone else in the comments already made the other points i was gonna make about the example collisions and youtube at the rest of my comment so i guess ill leave it here.

[@shavianalphabet4307]

You’re free to write as you speak, of course. This video is aimed at people who want to understand the standard spelling. A standard helps if you want to communicate with people who don’t speak exactly the same as you.

[@leftwardglobe1643]

I don't think having an extra letter would be a complication at all, and it would go a long way to improving legibility. It could also be added with the same shaping scheme seen elsewhere in the alphabet. A "z" shaped character, perhaps even called happ*y*. It might not be the most critical flaw with the system, but that doesn't mean improvements should not be made. Though ultimately this highlights an issue that I have with the system overall: homophones can't be effectively distinguished from each other in this system. Latin English, while it does have a complex and often contradictory method of spelling, bypasses this almost entirely and remains legible regardless of context. Also because words each have unique spelling, it can be read at speed with a trained eye. (Below the same text in Shavian. Because I want to, and it looks pretty.) 𐑲 𐑛𐑴𐑯𐑑 𐑔𐑦𐑙𐑒 𐑣𐑨𐑝𐑦𐑙 𐑩𐑯 𐑧𐑒𐑕𐑑𐑮𐑩 𐑤𐑧𐑑𐑼 𐑢𐑫𐑛 𐑚𐑰 𐑩 𐑒𐑪𐑥𐑐𐑤𐑦𐑒𐑱𐑖𐑩𐑯 𐑨𐑑 𐑷𐑤, 𐑯 𐑦𐑑 𐑢𐑫𐑛 𐑜𐑴 𐑩 𐑤𐑪𐑙 𐑢𐑱 𐑑 𐑦𐑥𐑐𐑮𐑵𐑝𐑦𐑙 𐑤𐑧𐑡𐑩𐑚𐑦𐑤𐑦𐑑𐑦. 𐑦𐑑 𐑒𐑫𐑛 𐑷𐑤𐑕𐑴 𐑚𐑰 𐑨𐑛𐑩𐑛 𐑢𐑦𐑞 𐑞 𐑕𐑱𐑥 𐑖𐑱𐑐𐑦𐑙 𐑕𐑒𐑰𐑥 𐑕𐑰𐑯 𐑧𐑤𐑕𐑢𐑺 𐑦𐑯 𐑞 𐑨𐑤𐑓𐑩𐑚𐑧𐑑. 𐑩 «z» 𐑖𐑱𐑐𐑑 𐑒𐑨𐑮𐑩𐑒𐑑𐑼, 𐑐𐑼𐑣𐑨𐑐𐑕 𐑰𐑝𐑩𐑯 𐑒𐑷𐑤𐑛 𐑣𐑨𐑐𐑦. 𐑦𐑑 𐑥𐑲𐑑 𐑯𐑪𐑑 𐑚𐑰 𐑞 𐑥𐑴𐑕𐑑 𐑒𐑮𐑦𐑑𐑦𐑒𐑩𐑤 𐑓𐑤𐑷 𐑢𐑦𐑞 𐑞 𐑕𐑦𐑕𐑑𐑩𐑥, 𐑚𐑳𐑑 𐑞𐑨𐑑 𐑛𐑳𐑟𐑩𐑯𐑑 𐑥𐑰𐑯 𐑦𐑥𐑐𐑮𐑵𐑝𐑥𐑩𐑯𐑑𐑕 𐑖𐑫𐑛 𐑯𐑪𐑑 𐑚𐑰 𐑥𐑱𐑛. 𐑞𐑴 𐑳𐑤𐑑𐑦𐑥𐑩𐑑𐑤𐑦 𐑞𐑦𐑕 𐑣𐑲𐑤𐑲𐑑𐑕 𐑩𐑯 𐑦𐑖𐑵 𐑞𐑨𐑑 𐑲 𐑣𐑨𐑝 𐑢𐑦𐑞 𐑞 𐑕𐑦𐑕𐑑𐑩𐑥 𐑴𐑝𐑼𐑷𐑤: 𐑣𐑪𐑥𐑩𐑓𐑴𐑯𐑟 𐑒𐑭𐑯𐑑 𐑚𐑰 𐑦𐑓𐑧𐑒𐑑𐑦𐑝𐑤𐑦 𐑛𐑦𐑕𐑑𐑦𐑙𐑜𐑢𐑦𐑖𐑑 𐑓𐑮𐑪𐑥 𐑰𐑗 𐑳𐑞𐑼 𐑦𐑯 𐑞𐑦𐑕 𐑕𐑦𐑕𐑑𐑩𐑥. 𐑤𐑨𐑑𐑦𐑯 𐑦𐑙𐑜𐑤𐑦𐑖, 𐑢𐑲𐑤 𐑦𐑑 𐑛𐑳𐑟 𐑣𐑨𐑝 𐑩 𐑒𐑪𐑥𐑐𐑤𐑧𐑒𐑕 𐑯 𐑪𐑓𐑩𐑯 𐑒𐑪𐑯𐑑𐑮𐑩𐑛𐑦𐑒𐑑𐑼𐑦 𐑥𐑧𐑔𐑩𐑛 𐑝 𐑕𐑐𐑧𐑤𐑦𐑙, 𐑚𐑲𐑐𐑭𐑕𐑩𐑟 𐑞𐑦𐑕 𐑷𐑤𐑥𐑴𐑕𐑑 𐑦𐑯𐑑𐑲𐑼𐑤𐑦 𐑯 𐑮𐑦𐑥𐑱𐑯𐑟 𐑤𐑧𐑡𐑩𐑚𐑩𐑤 𐑮𐑦𐑜𐑸𐑛𐑤𐑩𐑕 𐑝 𐑒𐑪𐑯𐑑𐑧𐑒𐑕𐑑. 𐑷𐑤𐑕𐑴 𐑚𐑦𐑒𐑪𐑟 𐑢𐑻𐑛𐑟 𐑰𐑗 𐑣𐑨𐑝 𐑿𐑯𐑰𐑒 𐑕𐑐𐑧𐑤𐑦𐑙, 𐑦𐑑 𐑒𐑨𐑯 𐑚𐑰 𐑮𐑧𐑛 𐑨𐑑 𐑕𐑐𐑰𐑛 𐑢𐑦𐑞 𐑩 𐑑𐑮𐑱𐑯𐑛 𐑲.

[@cmyk8964]

Smile, you’re on Candied Camera!

[@Morphimus]

One problem I find is, how do you know how to spell words with this system? Great example is the word "am" do you spell it 𐑨𐑥 𐑧𐑥 𐑧𐑩𐑥 or 𐑩𐑥 ? One might instinctively reach for out any of those vowel letters based on what it sounds like in one's own dialect. Should I have to memorize spellings based on someone else's dialect that sounds nothing like mine, where spellings will seem unintuitive? Or vise-versa with you learning mine? Or can spelling vary based on dialect? I know it's supposed to be phonemic, not phonetic, but that's only slightly less confusing than our current system, since people don't inherently know which phonemes a word has cross-dialectically, whereas they could easily know which phones it has in their own dialect. E.g., if you have the father-bother merger ( as I do) you might not even know that there are people out there who pronounce it "𐑚𐑪𐑞𐑼"

[@shavianalphabet4307]

The short answer is: you have a choice. The slightly longer answer is that there is a standard spelling which was developed for the first book published in Shavian, Androcles and the Lion, in 1962. It is based on British Received Pronunciation, but with rhotic vowels. But this is just *a* standard, not the one true orthography. Most people use the standard as a theme on which to compose their own variation, which helps keep some level of mutual intelligibility. One common change is to merge the TRAP and BATH lexical sets as in General American. You can read about the Androcles standard at www.shavian.info/spelling/ and see a dictionary I prepare based on it at github.com/Shavian-info/readlex .

[@Morphimus]

I have to admit, all issues aside, I find it really cool that Shavian has a massive leg up against competitors in that it has unicode support.

[@Wookiee925]

I must admit, being on Reddit/Twitter/ various blog sites and going "this was written by an Australian" or I bet this person is from Boston" etc just from reading their writing is kinda fun

[@Morphimus]

@@Wookiee925 Yeah, being able to tell accent from writing is a cute idea for sure.