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
John Willard (playwright) John Willard (playwright) John Willard (November 28, 1885 – August 30, 1942) was an American playwright. His most famous work is "The Cat and the Canary" (1922), which was made into the influential silent film of the same name in 1927. Also, the work was filmed in 1930, in 1939 (starring Bob Hope and Paulette Goddard) and in 1979 (by Radley Metzger). Willard also co-wrote "The Blue Flame" (1920) with George V. Hobart. Willard was also a published novelist. Willard also appeared as one of the actors in the broadway production of "The Cat and the Canary". During World War