Ben Franklin's Answer to the $#@!ty English Spelling System

[Lamp]

http://www.omniglot.com/writing/franklin.htm

Benjamin Franklin's Phonetic Alphabet

Benjamin Franklin took great interest in the promotion of spelling reform. While living in London in 1768 he wrote A Scheme for a new Alphabet and a Reformed Mode of Spelling in which he proposed a fairly accurate phonetic system for spelling English. The alphabet was published in 1779 in Franklin's Political, Miscel*laneous, and Philosophical Pieces.
His new phonetic alphabet consisted all the lowercase letters of the Latin alphabet, minus c, j, q, w, x, and y, which he thought redundant, plus six new letters for sounds which he thought lacked unambiguous orthographic representation. The other letters all adhered to the principle of one symbol (or unique digraph) per one sound.
Franklin commissioned a type foundry to prepare a suitable type including for the 6 new letters, but soon lost interest in his alphabet. The only other person to show an interest was Noah Webster.
Notable features

• Double vowels represent long vowel sounds, e.g. aa = [ a: ] and ii = [ i: ].
• Only one accented letter appears in the alphabet: ê, which represents the a in mane and lane.
• Consonant combinations are used to represent such sounds as the ch in chew and the j in jaw.

Franklin's Phonetic Alphabet


Sample text


Transliteration

Much as the imperfections of the alphabet will admit of; the present bad spelling is only bad because contrary to the present bad rules: under the new rules it would be good -- the difficulty of learning to spell well in the old way is so great, that few attain it; thousands and thousands writing on to old age, without ever being able to acquire it. 'Tis, besides a difficulty continually increasing; as the sound gradually varies more and more from the spelling: and to foreigners.
Links

Benjamin Franklin's description of his alphabet
http://www.historycarper.com/resourc...3/phonetic.htm
Further details of Benjamin Franklin's alphabet
http://www.childrenofthecode.org/cod...y/franklin.htm
http://www.foolswisdom.com/~sbett/franklin-webster.htm

[Lamp]

@heavenlyboy34 I think you'll be very interested by this one.

[heavenlyboy34]

Very interesting indeed! Being a press operator, Franklin would've known more than enough about type and fonts to create the characters.

[timosman]

Pronunciation respelling for English - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pronun...ng_for_English

[Lamp]

Shavian Alphabet

Origin

The Shavian alphabet is named after George Bernard Shaw and was devised by Kingsley Read. Shaw saw use of the Latin alphabet for writing English as a great waste of time, energy and paper, so in his will he stipulated that a competition should be held to create a new writing system for English and made provision for a prize of £500. The competition took place in 1958 and Kingsley Read's system was chosen as the winner out of the 467 entries.
Shaw's will also stipulated that his play Androcles and the Lion should be printed in the winning alphabet. Few other texts were printed and the alphabet, which became known as Shavian, was never seriously considered as an alternative for writing English.
Notable features

• There are three types of letters - tall, deep and short. Tall letters are the equivalent of ascenders in the Latin alphabet (e.g. b, d, f, h), deep letters are the equivalent of descenders (e.g. p, g, j, y) and short letters are all the same height, like the letters a, c, e and i.
• Consonant letters come in pairs, with the tall one representing an unvoiced consonant and the deep one representing a voiced consonant. The letters for l, r, m and n are the exceptions to this pattern.
• Vowel letters are all, with only one exception, short. Some come in pairs, others don't.
• There are no capital letters, although a 'namer dot' is used to mark proper names.

The Shavian alphabet


Sample text in Shavian


Translation

All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.
(Article 1 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights)

[Chester Copperpot]

yf =wife