Sound-writing

In 1972, Kingsley Read’s work on phonetic alphabets was shown to the world in the exhibition Sound-writing 1892-1972, at the Museum of English Rural Life (MERL) in Reading, England. Read wrote an essay in accompanying catalogue, which traces the history of Shaw’s Alphabet from Henry Sweet’s Current Shorthand (1892), through Read’s first alphabet inspired by it (Sound-Spell, 1943), to the official Shaw’s Alphabet (1962, more commonly known as Shavian) and its descendant Quikscript (1966), Reads penultimate phonetic alphabet. (His final offering, Soundspell, or Read spell was published four years after the exhibition, a few days before his death.)

The following pdf is a transcription of the essay, reproduced with the kind permission of the wonderful staff of MERL Special Collections.