Ronald Kingsley Read
Encyclopedia
Ronald Kingsley Read was one of four contestants chosen to share the prize money for the design of the Shavian alphabet
, a completely new alphabet intended for writing English. He was later appointed sole responsible designer of the alphabet.
In 1966, after extensive testing of Shavian with English speakers from around the world, Read introduced Quikscript
, a revised form of his Shavian alphabet. Quikscript, also known as the "Read alphabet", has more ligatures than Shavian, which makes it easier to write by hand. Its appearance is more cursive than Shavian.
A few days before his death, he completed a new script
called Soundspell
(now called Readspel
), based, probably for increased chances of popular acceptance, on the existing standard roman alphabet.
Shavian alphabet
The Shavian alphabet is an alphabet conceived as a way to provide simple, phonetic orthography for the English language to replace the difficulties of the conventional spelling. It was posthumously funded by and named after Irish playwright George Bernard Shaw...
, a completely new alphabet intended for writing English. He was later appointed sole responsible designer of the alphabet.
In 1966, after extensive testing of Shavian with English speakers from around the world, Read introduced Quikscript
Quikscript
Quikscript is an alphabet specifically designed for the English language. Quikscript replaces traditional English orthography, which uses the Latin alphabet, with completely new letters. It is phonemically regular, compact, and comfortably and quickly written...
, a revised form of his Shavian alphabet. Quikscript, also known as the "Read alphabet", has more ligatures than Shavian, which makes it easier to write by hand. Its appearance is more cursive than Shavian.
A few days before his death, he completed a new script
Writing system
A writing system is a symbolic system used to represent elements or statements expressible in language.-General properties:Writing systems are distinguished from other possible symbolic communication systems in that the reader must usually understand something of the associated spoken language to...
called Soundspell
Readspel
Readspel is a new script or writing system invented by Kingsley Read. It is based on the Roman alphabet, but with new meanings for the letters, so that each symbol represents a distinct phoneme in the English language, and, more importantly, each phoneme in English can be represented with only one...
(now called Readspel
Readspel
Readspel is a new script or writing system invented by Kingsley Read. It is based on the Roman alphabet, but with new meanings for the letters, so that each symbol represents a distinct phoneme in the English language, and, more importantly, each phoneme in English can be represented with only one...
), based, probably for increased chances of popular acceptance, on the existing standard roman alphabet.