Photo © Steve Johnson, cc-by-sa.
« awe, ah
or »
𐑸
are

You have now learned all the really important letters. Most of the rest of the letters are ligatures: common combinations of letters stuck together. They are useful, but not necessary: the magazine Shaw Script was written in Shavian entirely without ligatures, because they were too wide to type on a typewriter.

The letter 𐑸 is an example of a ligature. It is made from 𐑭 with 𐑮 written so close to it that they touch. Of course, we can use it to write the word "are" in one letter.

I have said that you should write Shavian as you hear the words. Here is one exception: some people, including me, speak a kind of English where they do not pronounce the letter "r" after a vowel. But you still have to write it. Otherwise, you could not tell the difference between "paw" and "poor" when they were written down.

Now you can write:

car𐑒𐑸"car"
garlic𐑜𐑸𐑤𐑦𐑒"garlic"
arch𐑸𐑗"arch"
star𐑕𐑑𐑸"star"
shark𐑖𐑸𐑒"shark"


Carry on to the next lesson: or »

Creative Commons photo credits: draco2008, fotoosvanrobin, mount_otz, christopheducamp, miusam. Lessons by Thomas Thurman, licensed under cc-by-nc-sa..