Why English Spelling is Broken
George Bernard Shaw (author of *Pygmalion*) hated English spelling. He famously pointed out that "fish" could be spelled "ghoti" (gh as in *tough*, o as in *women*, ti as in *nation*). To fix this, he funded the creation of the Shavian Alphabet.
How Shavian Works
Unlike the Latin alphabet, Shavian is phonetic. Each character represents exactly one sound. * Tall Letters: (7, 𐑐, 𐑑) represent voiceless consonants (p, t, k). * Deep Letters: (𐑚, 𐑛, 𐑜) represent voiced consonants (b, d, g). * Short Letters: (𐑨, 𐑩, 𐑪) represent vowels.
Why Learn It?
- Speed: It was designed to be written faster than standard English.
- Secret Code: It looks like alien script but is actually just efficient English.
- Efficiency: "Though," "Thought," "Through," and "Tough" are all completely different symbols, eliminating confusion.