Welcome! My name Haruki โHaleyโ Wakamatsu (๐ฃ๐ผ๐ต๐๐ฐ or ๐ฃ๐ธ๐ต๐๐ฐ โ๐ฃ๐ฑ๐ค๐ฆโ ๐ข๐ญ๐๐ฉ๐ฅ๐ญ๐๐๐ต), a language nerd from Japan, and I made this landing page to leads you to lots of neat and useful resources related to the Shavian alphabet, my favorite way to write English.
What is this?
The Shavian alphabet, also known as the Shaw Alphabet, is a phonemic English alphabet devised by Ronald Kingsley Read. It derives from the lifelong wish, and made manifest through the last will and testament, of the Irish-born playwright George Bernard Shaw. He long wished for a radical overhaul of English spelling, where our speech sounds are directly reflected.
[...] I should be able to spell t-h-o-u-g-h with two letters, s-h-o-u-l-d with three, and e-n-o-u-g-h with four: nine letters instead of eighteen: a saving of a hundred [sic] percent of my time and my typistโs time and the printerโs time to say nothing of the saving in paper and wear and tear of machinery.
— Preface to The Miraculous Birth of Language by Professor Richard Albert Wilson
Shaw bequeathed a large sum of money to organize an international contest for his dream alphabet. He counted at least 40 distinct speech sounds in English, and Read, the winner, designed a letter for each of them, plus some combined letters for utility. The result is this 48-letter marvel of ingenuity. Just as Shaw wished, though is spelled ๐๐ด, should is spelled ๐๐ซ๐, and enough is spelled ๐ฆ๐ฏ๐ณ๐. 9 letters for 9 sounds, instead of the old 18โthough itโs impossible to know if Shaw himself would have been pleased with the alphabet bearing his name, had he been alive to witness its creation.
While the alphabet never attained the playwrightโs lofty ideals, a small but dedicated community of Shavianists survives and thrives to this day. You are looking at an outpost of one such Shavianist!
๐๐ง๐ ๐ ๐ฏ๐ด ๐ฆ๐ - get to know it
โThereโs a better English alphabet.โ by RobWords โ An excellent introduction to Shavian for beginners
Shavian School by trosel โ An excellent step-by-step guide to Shavian for beginners
A Slightly Nerdy Crash Course to Shavian Letters โ A quick introduction for those with a bit of a phonetics/phonology background
๐๐ง๐ ๐ฟ๐๐ ๐ ๐ฆ๐ - get used to it
Quick reference for writing Shavian
Interactive Shavian info sheet for reading Shavian โ Click, see, and hear the letters
A Guide to American Shavian Spelling โ Suggestion for an alternate standard for speakers in the US and Canada
Dang It, Shavian! โ Personal complaints about Shavian.
๐๐ฒ๐ ๐ฏ ๐๐ฉ๐ฏ๐๐ป๐ - type and convert
Type in Shavian โ browser-based mnemonic keybinds, similar to Lexilogos
Keyman by SIL Intโl โ installable, multi-platform input method
The Read Lexicon by Shavian.info โ standard dictionary for the Shavian alphabet
Converting English text to Shavian script by Dechifro โ browser-based
ReadLex Latin to Shavian Converter by Shavian.info โ browser-based
to-shavian by Noah Burney โ Javascript library
๐๐ค๐ฑ - play
Word games and other games that you can play using the Shavian alphabet, including ports of Wordle and Waffle!
List of Shavian games by hai!touch Studios
๐ค๐ง๐๐ฉ๐ฏ๐ - lessons
Easy reading material and quizzes for Shavian reading practice
๐ฅ๐ฒ ๐ค๐ช๐ ๐ข๐ฐ๐๐ง๐ฏ๐ - my long weekend
The Cat in the Hat by Dr. Seuss โ The classic childrenโs book entirely transcribed into the Shavian alphabet
Androcles and the Lion by George Bernard Shaw, transcribed by Ronald Kingsley Read โ The Shavian play that first presented the alphabet to the world
๐๐ฆ๐๐ฒ๐ฏ - design
Every writing system needs fonts.
Fonts on Shavian Info โ Including Inter Alia, the de-facto standard font of the Shavian community
Shavian fonts โ Mainly dercorative fonts for the Shavian alphabet
๐ฎ๐ง๐๐ผ๐ฉ๐ฏ๐ - reference
Ready to dive deeper?
๐๐ฉ๐ฅ๐ฟ๐ฏ๐ฆ๐๐ฑ๐ - communicate
What use is a writing system without someone to write to?