Whew! I really haven't been goofing off the last week-- I've been
extensively redesigning the Jerome font, and believe that I'm finished, although
I'd like for you all to play around with it a little a see if there's any major
problems or not. The font is much larger now, and is legible at 10 pts
(with difficulty) but at 12 pts pretty easily. I took a suggestion from Roger to
make it more like a sans serif font with little variation of thick and
thins. They're still there, and they show up nicely when printing at
larger sizes, to give it some chracter, but they're inconspicuous on the screen
at smaller sizes.
The tall and deep sections are now 70% the size of the short section.
Also, I fixed the shapes of Zhivago, Eat, and Up.
Also, Jerome is no longer disjunct. Most of the combinations that can
connect in handwritten Second Shaw can connect now. I think there
may be a point in creating a secondary "Jerome disjunct" font
for greater ease of reading, like the "Junior Quickscript," but my feeling from
QM, is that Read thought of Junior QS as primarily an intermediate step in
learning QS, which is basically conceived as a cursive script.
Now, on page 26 of QM, he refers to Junior QS as having "separated letters
as they would be in type." I don't think this should be taken as proof
that he would've wanted a typeface for QS to be in separated letters, for a few
reasons.
1) At the time of writing QM, Read had given up hope of seeing a
typeface for it, as funding for Shaw alphabets had long ceased.
2). Read could not have anticipated the capabilities of
modern computers and word-processors.
3) Read may not have been terribly familiar with the many cursive
alphabets like Hindi, Arabic, and Aramaic, in which most
letters connect even in typeset printing.
For these reasons, I'm leaning to the presentation of the Second Shaw
alphabet in the computer age as a connected, cursive-looking alphabet, rather
than the disjunct, separate letters of Junior Quickscript. However, I
DO want to hear all of your thoughts on this!
However, in lengthy transliterations posted to the greater
Shavian community, it will be polite to refrain from using WHITEWHEAT, the
half-letters, the alternate letter "NAN," and the "connecting THITHER".
Doing so keeps us in the same map, with 100% compatibility between the two
wonderful Shaw alphabets. When we want to show the full capability of the
Second Shaw, it's probably best to include a version without the fancy stuff so
it can be easily viewed in a First Shaw font by someone who's more familiar
with that one (and who finds us annoying!). Also, the translation program,
at least at this stage, won't give us these alternate letters from a roman text
unless we insert them after the fact. Yet even with this restraint, we
have a very connected, beautiful Shavian alphabet that is far closer to the
final Quickscript than "Junior Quickscript": Furthermore, while the
alternate forms speed up handwriting, they only slow down typing.
However, you may have noticed that I do sometimes use the
alternative ADO "UP". It is on the Standard Shavian map, as a
letter with the roughly the same sound, so there is almost no confusion if a
First Shaw-er wants to switch to a First Shaw font he's more familiar
with. Where I see the usefulness of the half-letters, the inverted N, and
the connecting THITHER, is in images, posts primarily for Second Shaw
aficionados, "calligraphic" effects, "Bi-alphabetal" posts, etc.
Speaking of alternative letters, we have 15 of them!
Paige, your enhancements to the Revised Shaw alphabet are here, with
the half-Yo and half-Wheat!
The alternate Shaw letter forms are mapped as follows:
Whitewheat
at grave accent(`)
half-Wheat
at tilde (~)
half-Win
at @
sign
half-Yo
at circumflex (^)
half-Tot at
left bracket ([)
half-Peep at right
bracket (])
half-Ha
at
backslash (\)
half-Deed at
Cap B
half-Zoo at
Cap L
NAN (alt-NUN) at Cap
G
UP (alt
-ADO)
at small u.
"connecting THITHER" at Cap K
The "Non-Shaw" Letters from QM are available, but off the keyboard,
thus:
Gaelic LLan at ALT+0230
Gaelic LoCH at ALT+0231
Tall X
at ALT +0232
Deep X
at ALT +0233
I tried to keep the half letters as close as possible to their full
counterparts when possible: Hence, Half-Wheat is on the same key as Whitewheat,
half-Win is close to W, Half-Yo is close to Y, and two up diagonally from Yo-Yo
on J, Half-Peep is just two over from P, as Half-Deed is two away from
D. "Connecting Thither" is two over from regular Thither at H. Sorry
about the awkwardness of the placements for Half-Tot and half-Ha. Couldn't
see a better way to do it without getting rid of some of the more useful symbol
keys.
I wasn't able to create a "final half-Tot" as Read uses it; a straight
upstroke from the curve in OUT. Doing so would have to combine a backspace
with a letter, however, I don't think it's a great loss. Using the regular
Half-TOT right after the OUT looks pretty good, despite the thorn in the right
side of it.
Regarding EAR. Read discusses most of the First Shaw combined letters
in QM.
AIR and YEW are on his alphabet chart, and ARE, OR, and EARTH
are discussed on p10. IAN isn't discussed per se, but it naturally
occurs in connected writing. However, in QM, Read spells EAR as EAT +
EARTH, which seems strangely inaccurate.
You can force yourself to make a full, tight EE sound collapsing down to
'er', but you sound like a parody of an American hillbilly when you
do. The First Shaw character EAR seems much more accurate, like the sound
I really hear when I say hear, dear, myriad, etc. in a
natural tone. I had considered for a while making the EAR
ligature (a must for consistency with the map) look like QM's EAT+EARTH,
but I've decided (unless I'm overruled!) to keep the First Shaw
ligature. It also looks a heck of a lot more attactive to
me. And anyone who prefers to spell the sound as
EAT+EARTH can certainly do so, it's just that the translation program will
give us this letter from the existing map.
There's a serious bug which I don't know how to get rid of: In some
font sizes in Word and IE, the letters half-wheat, half-win, valve, connecting
Thither, which connect from beneath, don't connect properly. In other
sizes they do. In italics, it always seems to work. I'll keep
trying to fix it. Maybe it's just my copy of Word. (Works great in
Front Page, and Paint Shop Pro!)
Anyway, all that said, here's a treat as to what the new version can
do:
t b, P not t b, --HaT iz H kwescG.
`eKD 'tiz nOblD in H mFnd t safD
H sliNL n ArOz v Q]rEJus fPcan,
P t tEk Rmz ageGst a sI V [rablz,
n bF apOzN, end Hem? --t dF, --t slIp,--
no mP; n bF a slIp t sE wI end
H hRtEk n H TQzand nAcDl Soks
HAt fleS z X t. 'tiz a koGsumESG
divQtli t b wiSt. t dF, --t slIp;--
t slIp! pDcAns t drIm:--F, HX'z H rab;
n iG HAt slIp v deT ~a[ drImz mE kum,
`eG wI hAv Safld of His mPtl kql,
must giv us pYL: Kx'z H ris]ekt
HAt mEks kalAmi[i v sO loN lFf;
fP hM wUd bX H `ips n skPnz v
H o]resD'z roN, H ]rQd mAn'z kontVmli.
H pANL v dispFzad luv, H lY'z dilE,
H insOlans v ofis, n H spDnz
HAt ]ESant mXit v H an@DKi [Eks,
`eG hI himself mF[ hiz oG kwFItus mEk
wiT a bX boBkiG? hM wUd fRdlz bX,
t grant n swet andD a wCi lFf,
ba[ HAt H dred V sumTiN AftD deT --
H andiskuvDd kan[ri, frum hMz bMDn
nO [rAvalD ritDnz, --pazlz H wil,
n mEks us rAKD bX HoL ilz wI hAv
HAn flF t aKDz KAt wI nO not V?
Hus koGSGs daz mEk kQ@DdL v us Yl;
n Hus H nEtiv hV v resOlMSG
z siklIB P wiT H ]El kAst V Tyt;
n eGtD]rFzL v grEt ]iT n mOmant,
wiT Tis riRd, HXr kDants tDn urF,
n lML H nEm v AkSG. --soft V GQ!
H fX /OfIlW. --/nimf, iG KF Pisanz
b Yl mF sinz rimembDd.
(eèFtN, ha?)
It is more important to love much than to think much.
Always do that
which most impels you to
love.
--St. Teresa of Avila
