Ronald Kingsley Read (19 February 1887February 1975) was one of four contestants chosen in 1959 to share the prize money for the design of the

Shavian alphabet The Shavian alphabet ( ; also known as the Shaw alphabet) is a Constructed writing system, constructed alphabet conceived as a way to provide simple, phonemic orthography for the English language to replace the inefficiencies and difficultie ...

, a completely new alphabet intended for the writing of English. In 1960, he was appointed sole responsible designer of the alphabet. In the early 1960s, Read produced the quarterly journal ''Shaw-script'', which was printed using the Shavian alphabet. In 1966, after extensive testing of Shavian with English speakers from around the world, Read introduced

Quikscript Quikscript (also known as the Read Alphabet and Second Shaw) is a constructed alphabet intended to replace traditional English orthography. It is a revised version of the Shavian alphabet, designed to be written more quickly by hand than its ...

, a revised form of his Shavian alphabet. Quikscript, also known as the "Read alphabet", has more

ligatures Ligature may refer to: Language * Ligature (writing), a combination of two or more letters into a single symbol (typography and calligraphy) * Ligature (grammar), a morpheme that links two words Medicine * Ligature (medicine), a piece of suture us ...

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 alphabet called ''Soundspell'' (now ''Readspel''), based, probably for increased chances of popular acceptance, on the

Latin script The Latin script, also known as the Roman script, is a writing system based on the letters of the classical Latin alphabet, derived from a form of the Greek alphabet which was in use in the ancient Greek city of Cumae in Magna Graecia. The Gree ...

References

External links

*
Quikscript io group

Shavian Yahoo Group
1887 births 1975 deaths Creators of writing systems {{writingsystem-stub English-language spelling reform advocates