English has the worst spelling I know of. It is inconsistent all the way. When someone mispronounces a word, you might think they are avid readers, because it might be the case they learned about the word while reading.

If you listen to a word in English there is no guarantee you’ll be able to spell it. That is certainly why English speaking countries have spelling contests, it is not easy. Neither is it clear after you see a word, whether you’ll be able to pronounce it.

This state of affairs has always annoyed me. I even crafted a humorous speech around it: English - The torture of the conqueror

Discovering Shavian

Many months ago, I learned about Shavian : an alternative alphabet for English. What annoyed me has annoyed others too. Bernard Shaw, the Irish playwright, left money in his will to create and propagate a British Alphabet. Unfortunately such great and reasonable endeavor was challenged by human greed – his will was contested and ruled invalid. Later, under the pressure of appeals, the new beneficiaries agreed to a small prize fund to carry out Shaw’s wishes. What a pitiful turn of events, not even in dead are your last wishes served.

As the nerd that I am. I of course liked the idea, the proposed alphabet looked so sensible. I had to learn that pointless script that barely anyone uses and appreciates. It was a lot of fun. I even improved my English pronunciation. That little win makes it worth it all. I have been for a long time a victim of learning English as a Spanish speaker and pronounced some Spanish phonemes on English words. Spanish is after all phonetically well codified in the Latin alphabet.

The last paragraph transliterates into the Shavian alphabet to:

𐑨𐑟 𐑞 𐑯𐑻𐑛 𐑞𐑨𐑑 𐑲 𐑨𐑥. 𐑲 𐑝 𐑒𐑹𐑕 𐑤𐑲𐑒𐑑 𐑞 𐑲𐑛𐑾, 𐑞 𐑐𐑮𐑩𐑐𐑴𐑟𐑛 𐑨𐑤𐑓𐑩𐑚𐑧𐑑 𐑤𐑫𐑒𐑑 𐑕𐑴 𐑕𐑧𐑯𐑕𐑩𐑚𐑩𐑤. 𐑲 𐑣𐑨𐑛 𐑑 𐑤𐑻𐑯 𐑞𐑨𐑑 𐑐𐑶𐑯𐑑𐑤𐑩𐑕 𐑕𐑒𐑮𐑦𐑐𐑑 𐑞𐑨𐑑 𐑚𐑺𐑤𐑦 𐑧𐑯𐑦𐑢𐑳𐑯 𐑿𐑟𐑩𐑟 𐑯 𐑩𐑐𐑮𐑰𐑖𐑦𐑱𐑑𐑕. 𐑦𐑑 𐑢𐑪𐑟 𐑩 𐑤𐑪𐑑 𐑝 𐑓𐑳𐑯. 𐑲 𐑰𐑝𐑩𐑯 𐑦𐑥𐑐𐑮𐑵𐑝𐑛 𐑥𐑲 𐑦𐑙𐑜𐑤𐑦𐑖 𐑐𐑮𐑩𐑯𐑳𐑯𐑕𐑦𐑱𐑖𐑩𐑯. 𐑞𐑨𐑑 𐑤𐑦𐑑𐑩𐑤 𐑢𐑦𐑯 𐑥𐑱𐑒𐑕 𐑦𐑑 𐑢𐑻𐑔 𐑦𐑑 𐑷𐑤. 𐑲 𐑣𐑨𐑝 𐑚𐑰𐑯 𐑓 𐑩 𐑤𐑪𐑙 𐑑𐑲𐑥 𐑩 𐑝𐑦𐑒𐑑𐑦𐑥 𐑝 𐑤𐑻𐑯𐑦𐑙 𐑦𐑙𐑜𐑤𐑦𐑖 𐑨𐑟 𐑩 𐑕𐑐𐑨𐑯𐑦𐑖 𐑕𐑐𐑰𐑒𐑼 𐑯 𐑐𐑮𐑩𐑯𐑬𐑯𐑕𐑑 𐑕𐑳𐑥 𐑕𐑐𐑨𐑯𐑦𐑖 𐑓𐑴𐑯𐑰𐑥𐑟 𐑪𐑯 𐑦𐑙𐑜𐑤𐑦𐑖 𐑢𐑻𐑛𐑟. 𐑕𐑐𐑨𐑯𐑦𐑖 𐑦𐑟 𐑭𐑓𐑑𐑼 𐑷𐑤 𐑓𐑩𐑯𐑧𐑑𐑦𐑒𐑤𐑦 𐑢𐑧𐑤 𐑒𐑴𐑛𐑦𐑓𐑲𐑛 𐑦𐑯 𐑞 𐑤𐑨𐑑𐑦𐑯 𐑨𐑤𐑓𐑩𐑚𐑧𐑑.

Is there a second advantage? Well more a curiosity. Large Language Models(LLMs) are the big hype nowadays. They understand human language, they can translate between languages and the can even write some almost functioning code. But there is probably so little content in Shavian, even when every website I know about it uses a two column layout to help you read, that LLMs can’t understand it.

As an example. The old chatgpt translated it to:

I have a secret to tell. It is something very important that must be kept safe. If anyone else finds out, it could cause a lot of trouble. So please remember to keep it to yourself and do not share it with anyone else. If you need to remember, write it down and keep it in a safe place. It is very important that this secret is not revealed. Keep it safe and do not let anyone else know. Remember to always protect the secret.

–chatGPT 3

The free and unauthenticated version of at chatgpt.com replies:

The text you provided appears to be written in a script that doesn’t correspond to any widely known language, such as Latin, Cyrillic, or Greek, but rather seems to be written in the Carian script, which was used in ancient Anatolia (modern-day Turkey). Unfortunately, Carian is not commonly used today, and the script is highly specialized, with limited resources available for direct translation.

If you have more context about this text or if you know the language it is supposed to be in, I may be able to assist further!

–chatGPT, online for free

Well it tries to be more “helpful”, and gives more context. But it is complete non sense. When I help it, telling it that it is Shavian, to which it replies:

Ah, I see! The text is written in the Shavian alphabet, which is a phonetic alphabet created for English. I’ll translate it into English for you:

The Shavian text you provided reads:

“Shaw’s son took to drink and died in a hospital, his only legacy was his work. He wrote of the fools and their ways, speaking plainly of the lives of those who sought to change the world.”

Let me know if you’d like further assistance!

–chatGPT, online for free

Which is still an hallucination.

Using the latest model 4o, in my personal chatgpt account it does actually manage to transliterate the text.

What wish I were different?

I understand that Shaw specified some rules like having at least 40 letters, to avoid indicating single sounds by groups of letters or diacritical marks. If you want to win the contest you must follow the rules. But, I do like diacritical marks and groups of letters like diphthongs. They keep the alphabet smaller and simpler.

I also understand that its design took place in time were handwriting was prevalent, which makes sense for more symbols and ligatures. However, I would still prefer to have less letters for a simpler alphabet and make composing sounds with the letters you have. That is certainly a bias coming from Spanish.

Take for example the short vowels 𐑦,𐑨,𐑪. Shavian they have a corresponding long form 𐑰,𐑭,𐑷. If you look carefully, you might even imagine like the original symbols is longer and got squeezed into the available space. That is a great mnemonic, and even makes sense to write like this. Yet, I would have preferred to simply repeat the letter to state that is longer. Much in the way you would in English write ship and sheep. Two letters for the long vowels and you save yourself 3 symbols to learn.

Similarly, vowels like 𐑱,𐑲,𐑬,𐑶 are to me diphthongs which you could write like 𐑧𐑦,𐑨𐑦,𐑨𐑫,𐑪𐑦 and you save yourself 4 more symbols. You could write this diphthongs with a ligatures if you like.

Is this the only alternative?

You can read the wikipedia article English-language spelling reform , particularly the section about replacing the alphabet. I was very happy to see that Benjamin Franklin also tried to fix English, and very sad that he did not achieve it.

English is a disaster, and there have been some smart people trying to fix it without any success. Intellectual Inertia is certainly the most powerful of the laziness, it is too late to change, too expensive to change, so let us keep repeating the same mistakes so that nobody has to learn anything new.