Why did I make an Alphabet?
Simple: I was bored in English class, I was thinking about how it would be nice not to have to write as much. That got me thinking about how English could be a simpler language. How many words could I remove from this sentence and still convey the same meaning? (best attempt: number words possible remove from this while meaning same? Even though I changed some words, the sentence is 6 words shorter) Then I realized that one need not necessarily modify the English language to prevent their wrist from becoming sore and running out of space on paper, one needs only a more efficient way of writing down English syllables. I had my work cut out for me.
Does it work?
IDK, I haven’t memorized how to write it yet, and I have found some minor problems, but we’re gonna walk through it anyway.
Strategy:
Have letters be able to be stacked on top of each other to make room on the page.
I’ll have each letter start as a line, and add modifications to the line to show different consonants and syllables.
The Base Letter:
Boom! I can feel the potential here. Let’s put all the consonants on one side, and all the vowels on the other, this way, a new letter only becomes necessary to write when a consonant sound comes after a vowel sound.
Letter Mark II:
Great! There aren’t as many vowels as consonants, so let’s work on those next. And let’s keep in mind that some vowel sounds are actually made up of 2 vowel sounds (like the ‘a’ in ‘made’, you can hear the transition from an ‘eh’ to an ‘ee’ “eh-ee.”
Letter Mark III:
The real vowels won’t be color-coded, that’s there just to be precise about where the base line starts and where the vowel markings begin.
EH is pronounced like “end”
EE like “see”
IH like “stick”
AH like “spam” but can also be pronounced like the ‘o’ in “hot”
OH like “so”
UH like “bruh” but can also be like the ‘oo’ in “look”
UU like “soon”
This is sweet, but if there are several vowels in one letter, how do you know which comes first?
Ordering Vowels (Letter Mark III.V):
In all cases, the last vowel sound pronounced in a syllable will be marked with a simple line. If there are 2, the first will be marked with a small ‘T’ shape perpendicular to the base line, and the second won’t have a modification.
If there are 3 vowels, the second one pronounced will be marked with a small circle at the end of the vowel marking. If there are 4 vowels the 3rd will be marked with a small x. I don’t have anything prepared for words with 5 vowels in a row, at that point, just start a new letter, but I can’t think of any words with 4 vowel sounds in a row, let alone 5. So stop queueing up to attack me. (That being said, you actually would have to start a new letter for the second ‘ee’ sound in queuing because you wouldn’t be able to tell it’s the last one pronounced because the ‘ee’ mark would already be modified)
If you were wondering, the letter in the picture would be pronounced “ee-ih-ah-oh” which reminds me of old Mc. Donald.
Great! Now we know how to read and write vowels in this alphabet, but we still need to make consonants. We already know where the consonant markings will be, but before we start making symbols, we need to determine what consonants we’re actually going to use.
What Consonants do we Need?
Here’s a list of all the consonants in the Latin alphabet:
b, c, d, f, g, h, j, k, l, m, n, p, q, r, s, t, v, w, x, y, z
You may notice some consonant sounds are missing, such as ‘ch’ ‘sh’ or ‘th” (There are 2 ‘th’ sounds, a voiced one like in the word “that” and one non-voiced one such as in the word “thanks.” But seen as how the pronunciation can be understood either way, we’re going to save some time by using the same symbol for both versions of ‘th’ later on, similar to how certain vowel sounds share the same symbol.)
The consonant sound found in the Spanish letter ‘ñ’ appears in the English language often. It is usually written an ‘ng’ like in any word that ends with ‘ing’ The obvious exception to this being the delicious Italian masterpiece of cuisine: Gnocchi (it uses a ‘gn’ instead of an ‘ng’)
So now we have a list we can use:
b, c, d, f, g, h, j, k, l, m, n, p, q, r, s, t, v, w, x, y, z, ch, sh, th, ñ
I’m going to make a symbol for each and every one. I promise.
The Consonants I’m not Actually Going to Make Symbols for
You really believed me when I said I’d make a symbol for every consonant there!?!?!
We can easily be more efficient by deleting unnecessary ones. What do I mean by unnecessary? Well, if a consonant can be written as some combination of other consonants, or vowels, it’s pretty clearly a useless letter.
C, K, and Q all make the same sound. So I’m going to go ahead and remove Q, and C, from the list.
W is just 2 vowels disguised as a consonant. Don’t believe me? Say “uu-ah-ggin.” That’s right. You just said the world-famous word enjoyed by word enthusiasts throughout this planet “wagon.” Isn’t that uu-eerd? (I guess ‘r’ has the same kind of problem, but there’s no room for another vowel, even a vowel as magnificent as ‘ur’)
X is cleary pronounced as ‘ks’ or ‘z’ every time it’s used, which is barely at all. That’s right people, we have an entire letter in our alphabet for the sole reason that we can save .2 seconds by writing ‘x’ instead of ‘ks’. Is such a small benefit worth the blood sweat and tears sacrificed by Kindergarten teachers to teach their students an entire letter? there’s already 25 others!
And now we get to ‘y’ the most controversial letter in the alphabet. Is it a consonant? Is it a vowel? The answer may shock you.
WARNING: EXTREMELY SHOCKING INFORMATION:
It’s a vowel. It’s just an ‘ee’ sound every time it’s used.
“What’s your favorite thing to knit with?”
“ee-arn.”
“What’s your favorite color?”
“ee-eh-l-oh-uu.”
Great! Now we have our definitive list.
b, d, f, g, h, j, k, l, m, n, p, r, s, t, v, z, ch, sh, th, ñ
How should we go about making symbols for them?
Consonant Groups:
If our goal is to save space by having letters be able to be stacked on top of each other while remaining legible, we should make consonant sounds that are often used in a row be distinct from each other.
If 2 consonant sounds are said in the same part of the mouth (like ‘p’ and ‘b’) they are less likely to be used in a row (notably ‘p’ and ‘b’ are used in a row in several compound words in english such as ‘cupboard’ or ‘humpback’ but you get the point, they are both more likely to be used in a row with consonants pronounced in different parts of the mouth such as ‘l’)
So let’s split the consonants into groups depending on where they are pronounced in the mouth, from there, we can assign symbols located in the same part of the letter to symbols in the same group. This way, consonant sounds pronounced in different parts of the mouth will be distinct from each other on letters.
Group 1 can be the lips: b, f, m, p, v
Group 2 can be the front of the mouth: d, j, l, n, s, t, z, ch, sh, th
Group 3 can be the back of the mouth: g, k, r, h, ñ
There we have it. Our consonants, let’s make some symbols.
Letter Mark IV:
Sweet! But, when there are several consonant sounds in a row, how to you order them? Easy! Same as vowels. You can place a small symbol indicating the order the consonant sounds are pronounced in on the end of the consonant symbols. Infact, many of these consonant symbols will require several ordering symbols to be placed on the ends of them.
Here’s a quick guide to let you know where to place the ordering symbols on these consonant symbols.
The alphabet is complete. Stay tuned for some Mark V images, in which I will write some English words in this alphabet, along with some quirks in the alphabet that I’ve found.
I hope you’ve enjoyed (: