Quikscript - Description

Description

Each Quikscript letter represents one, and only one, English phoneme. There are 25 consonants and 15 vowels, totaling in all 40 letters. The letters are also designed to be written easily and each of them only requires a single (usually curved) stroke of pen.

• Just as in the Roman alphabet, there are short letters, e.g. a, c, e, m, and n, written between the base writing line and the "upper parallel" (as Read calls it), tall letters, e.g. b, d, f, k, and t, which ascend above the top of the short letters, and deep letters, e.g. g, j, and y, which descend below the base writing line. Quikscript, however, makes better use of these possibilities by using 11 tall, 11 deep, and 18 short letters. All vowels are short letters, just as they are in the Roman alphabet.

• The most common phonemes have the simplest letter shapes.

• Similar sounding phonemes have similar letter shapes. Examples:
  • Long vowels and glides are written with a larger bend or loop, while short vowels have a simpler shape.
  • Every voiced consonant is written with a deep letter similar in shape to the corresponding voiceless consonant which in turn is written with a tall letter.

• While the Roman alphabet has two distinct forms in common use, which are designated as lower and upper case, this concept does not exist in the Quikscript alphabet. There is only one form for the majority of the letters. Names and proper nouns are preceded with a mid-line dot (called a name-dot) which is sufficient to distinguish them from ordinary words.

• Beginners learn Junior Quikscript first. Each word is spelled "as it is spoken". Each letter is written separately from the next so that it is equivalent to what is termed "printing" in the Roman alphabet. Some people may prefer Junior Quikscript for printed texts as readers are used to the Roman alphabet being printed in that manner.

• Senior Quikscript introduces a number of advanced techniques which save time in writing. The most obvious difference between the two is that Senior encourages the connection of one letter to the next as long as the shapes of the letters are not altered. The design of the alphabet fosters these natural connections, as each Quikscript letter either begins or ends on the base line or the upper parallel. This structure permits letters to connect easily yet maintains the shapes of the individual letters because there are no connecting strokes between letters as there are in cursive Roman alphabet writing. It is common that Senior writing will have several letters in a row which are connected to each other, but when such a connection is not possible, the letters are simply left unconnected. Read added a very small number of alternative letter forms, which permit even more letters to connect easily. It is the writer's choice whether to use them or not.

• Senior Quikscript also introduces the concept of half-letters. Read recognized that the top half of several tall letters and the bottom half of several deep letters clearly distinguish those letters. Therefore, the portion of the vertical shafts of those letters which lie between the base line and upper parallel can be discarded without legibility being affected. Using half-letters increases the number of letters which can connect with each other. This produces several benefits: 1) it speeds up handwriting because fewer pen-lifts are required; 2) the alphabet takes on a more cursive and fluid appearance, which is artistically attractive; and 3) most importantly, it increases the variability of the word-shapes. Fluent readers do not sound out words letter by letter. They recognize a familiar word-shape without conscious thought of the individual letters. Anything that increases the distinctiveness of the word-shapes should promote the legibility of the script and the average reading speed. The use of Quikscript's half-letters create more varied and distinctive word-shapes than Junior Quikscript, which may make reading fluency in Quikscript easier to achieve and ultimately lead to faster reading speeds. If this proves to be true in actual usage, then it should encourage the use of Senior Quikscript in printed texts rather than Junior Quikscript.

• Senior Quikscript also introduces a number of abbreviations for the most common English words, which writers may choose to use. These further reduce the space requirement for printed material and hence the costs.