The heart of our trouble is with our foolish alphabet. It
doesn’t know how to spell, and can’t be taught. In this it is
like all other alphabets except one–the phonographic. This is
the only competent alphabet in the world. It can spell and
correctly pronounce any word in our language.
That admirable alphabet, that brilliant alphabet, that
inspired alphabet, can be learned in an hour or two. In a week
the student can learn to write it with some little facility, and
to read it with considerable ease. I know, for I saw it tried in
a public school in Nevada forty-five years ago, and was so
impressed by the incident that it has remained in my memory ever
since.
I wish we could adopt it in place of our present written
(and printed) character. I mean SIMPLY the alphabet; simply the
consonants and the vowels–I don’t mean any REDUCTIONS or
abbreviations of them, such as the shorthand writer uses in order
to get compression and speed. No, I would SPELL EVERY WORD OUT.
I will insert the alphabet here as I find it in Burnz’s
PHONIC SHORTHAND. [Figure 1] It is arranged on the basis of
Isaac Pitman’s PHONOGRAPHY. Isaac Pitman was the originator and
father of scientific phonography. It is used throughout the
globe. It was a memorable invention. He made it public seventy-
three years ago. The firm of Isaac Pitman & Sons, New York,
still exists, and they continue the master’s work.
What should we gain?
First of all, we could spell DEFINITELY–and correctly–any
word you please, just by the SOUND of it. We can’t do that with
our present alphabet. For instance, take a simple, every-day
word PHTHISIS. If we tried to spell it by the sound of it, we
should make it TYSIS, and be laughed at by every educated person.
Secondly, we should gain in REDUCTION OF LABOR in writing.
Simplified Spelling makes valuable reductions in the case of
several hundred words, but the new spelling must be LEARNED. You
can’t spell them by the sound; you must get them out of the book.
But even if we knew the simplified form for every word in
the language, the phonographic alphabet would still beat the
Simplified Speller “hands down” in the important matter of
economy of labor. I will illustrate:
PRESENT FORM: through, laugh, highland.
SIMPLIFIED FORM: thru, laff, hyland.
PHONOGRAPHIC FORM: [Figure 2]
To write the word “through,” the pen has to make twenty-one strokes.
To write the word “thru,” then pen has to make twelve strokes–
a good saving.
To write that same word with the phonographic alphabet, the
pen has to make only THREE strokes.
To write the word “laugh,” the pen has to make FOURTEEN
strokes.
To write “laff,” the pen has to make the SAME NUMBER of
strokes–no labor is saved to the penman.
To write the same word with the phonographic alphabet, the
pen has to make only THREE strokes.
To write the word “highland,” the pen has to make twenty-two
strokes.
To write “hyland,” the pen has to make eighteen strokes.
To write that word with the phonographic alphabet, the pen
has to make only FIVE strokes. [Figure 3]
To write the words “phonographic alphabet,” the pen has to
make fifty-three strokes.
To write “fonografic alfabet,” the pen has to make fifty strokes.
To the penman, the saving in labor is insignificant.
To write that word (with vowels) with the phonographic
alphabet, the pen has to make only SEVENTEEN strokes.
Without the vowels, only THIRTEEN strokes. [Figure 4] The
vowels are hardly necessary, this time.
We make five pen-strokes in writing an m. Thus: [Figure 5]
a stroke down; a stroke up; a second stroke down; a second stroke
up; a final stroke down. Total, five. The phonographic alphabet
accomplishes the m with a single stroke–a curve, like a
parenthesis that has come home drunk and has fallen face down
right at the front door where everybody that goes along will see
him and say, Alas!
When our written m is not the end of a word, but is
otherwise located, it has to be connected with the next letter,
and that requires another pen-stroke, making six in all, before