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
Shavian alphabet entitled "Poe Meets Shaw: The Shaw Alphabet Edition of Edgar Allan Poe", by Tim Browne. This book was published via Shaw Alphabet Books and had two editions in its original release. One, like "Androcles and the Lion", had Shavian side-by-side with the Latin equivalent and the other was a Shavian only edition. The second, released in 2013, was an edition of "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland", transcribed into Shavian by Thomas Thurman. This was published as a Shaw only edition with no side-by-side Latin equivalent. The Shavian fonts were designed by Michael Everson. Some disagreement has arisen among the Shavian community