Shavian alphabet Shavian alphabet The Shavian alphabet (also known as the Shaw alphabet) is an alphabet conceived as a way to provide simple, phonetic orthography for the English language to replace the difficulties of conventional spelling. It was posthumously funded by and named after Irish playwright George Bernard Shaw. Shaw set three main criteria for the new alphabet: it should be (1) at least 40 letters; (2) as "phonetic" as possible (that is, letters should have a to phonemes); and (3) distinct from the Latin alphabet to avoid the impression that the new spellings were simply "misspellings". The Shavian alphabet consists of
The Lady with a Fan (Velázquez) the protection of Philip IV, after having escaped from France disguised as a man. But some experts argued that no resemblance could be discerned with other portraits of the duchess, and it was assumed that the costume of the woman in "The Lady with a Fan" revealed a Spanish "tapada", which was a precursor to the "majas" of the 18th century. "The Lady with a Fan" was first recorded in the collection of Lucien Bonaparte in the early 19th century. It is believed that Bonaparte acquired it in Spain when he was there in 1801. But because there was no