| Romic alphabet |
|
|---|---|
| Type | Alphabet |
| Languages | Proposed for English |
| Creator | Henry Sweet |
| Time period | 19th century |
| Child systems | Influenced the original International Phonetic Alphabet |
| Note: This page may contain IPA phonetic symbols. | |
The Romic Alphabet, sometimes known as the Romic Reform, is a phonetic alphabet proposed by Henry Sweet. It is the direct ancestor of the modern International Phonetic Alphabet. The alphabet differs from previously proposed spelling reforms by favoring a return to the sound values of the Roman (and consequently Old English) alphabet instead of retaining irregular elements of modern English. Every sound had a dedicated symbol, and every symbol represented a single sound. There were no capital letters.
The vowels had their English "short" sounds when written singly, and their "long" sounds when doubled:
If the beginner has once learnt to pronounce a, e, i, o, u, as in glass, bet, bit, not, dull, he simply has to remember that long vowels are doubled, as in biit—"beat," and fuul—"fool," and diphthongs formed by the juxtaposition of their elements, as in boi—"boy" and hai—"high" [...]
Sweet proposed creating new letters by rotating existing letters, and in this way no new type would need to be cast:
There is, however, one simple method of forming new letters without casting new types, which is very often convenient. This is by turning the letters, thus - ə. These new letters are perfectly distinct in shape, and are easily written. The ə was first employed by Schmeller to denote the final e-sound in the German gabe, &c. Mr. Ellis, in his "Palæotype", uses it to denote the allied English sound in but.
The IPA letter ⟨ɔ⟩ acquired its modern pronunciation and first use with this alphabet. He resurrected two Anglo-Saxon letters, ash ⟨æ⟩ and eth ⟨ð⟩, and borrowed the Greek letter theta ⟨θ⟩, which had the pronunciations they retain in the IPA. He used ⟨q⟩ for /ŋ/ and ⟨c⟩ for /tʃ/.