Vocal Signs

Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1864, by D P Lindsley, in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the District of Connecticut.

THE ALPHABET.

The availability of alphabetic signs depends upon their simplicity and facility, their direction, their brevity, the appropriateness of the classification, and above all, on their distinctiveness.

We represent the consonantal sounds by straight lines, and curves of the quarter of a circle, and the vocal sounds by small semi-circles, dashes, dots, and diamond points.

Our alphabet is in some respects similar to the phonographic alphabet, but there are several important points of difference; and these differences are fundamental, growing out of important principles. In Phonography vocal sounds were expressed by dots and dashes, which took their value from their position. A dot in the first position was E, in the 2d, A, in the 3d, Ah, etc. So the same dots and dashes represented sounds entirely different. These dots and dashes were disjoined, leading to difficulties which we shall allude to presently.

We represent the vocal sounds as definitely as the consonantal, by giving each sound a sign distinguished by form instead of position, and joining these signs in their proper order; instead of picking out all the consonants, and putting the vowels in, one by one, after the rest of the word was written, as phonographers are obliged to do.

The forms of these signs are such as to ensure the best joinings with the consonants. The advantages growing out of this principle are numerous. Greater definiteness and accuracy are secured, and (what is still more important) greater facility of writing on account of the increased continuity. The importance of having signs that can be joined in the outline can scarcely he overestimated. We complain more of dotting the i in our common writing than of making our most interminable m. The momentum acquired in writing rapidly seems to carry the hand through a thousand graceful curves with a sort of pleasure, while a pause or difficult joining occasions hesitation and loss of speed. It is only by taking advantage of this principle of continuity that the writing of short-hand can be made effective. If any one wishes to test this principle let him take any word - common, for instance - and write it as many times as he can in a minute in the ordinary way; then let him write it, disjoining every letter, and he will find that he loses half his speed, or more. Let him now write the word another minute, separating each letter into strokes, making three for c, two for o, seven for w, and so on, and see how slow and toilsome the writing is, and he will, we are sure, become thoroughly convinced of the absolute necessity of a good degree of continuity in any system of writing where speed is required.

The difficulty attending the use of disconnected vowels rendered the corresponding style of Phonography worthless. When fully vocalized it could be written with all its contractions and complexity but little faster than long-hand. The reporting style was more successful, on account of the use of phrase signs. But the flow of the writing was seriously impaired, even in the reporting style, by the necessity of distinguishing words by position; for it was difficult, and often impossible, for the word to maintain its proper position on, above, or below the line of writing, while it maintained its proper position in the phrase.

Our alphabet obviates both of these difficulties. The vowels form a part of the word-form, and are written without lifting the pen from the paper; and in the reporting style distinction of outlines is made, wher necessary, by a connective vowel, thus avoiding all necessity of depending upon position, and giving a freedom with the use of phrase signs, impossible by any other alphabet. So it will be seen that, while but few vowels are required in the reporting style, the use of connective signs for such as are employed is as important as the use of such signs in the common style.

The choice of signs for the consonantal sounds demands more explanation than we can give here.

The use of the numerous contractions which are employed in the simplest style of Phonography is incompatible with simplicity. So long as it is possible to write a word from three to nine, ten, or more ways - so long as a variety of forms are used to represent the same sounds - there must be great difficulty in mastering and remembering the proper forms for words. There was, in fact, so little law in the formation of phonographic outlines that the pupil must learn each word by itself - a prodigious labor! and besides, the same outline stood for several words; and though they might be distinguished by dots and dashes, yet these were not sufficiently conspicuous to make the reading plain.

These difficulties could be obviated in a plain and natural way, by writing each sound out clearly and fairly by itself, in its own proper order, un-contractedly. In this way, if there was any difference of sound, there must be a corresponding difference in the word-form. But to do this by the phonographic alphabet was impossible. The most unshapely, unmanageable outlines conceivable was the result of the effort. The most frequently occurring characters ran down perpendicularly, and some words would descend through the line below, and even through two or three lines, so that their use was impossible. But was there no plan - no arrangement of the signs - that would enable us to avoid this? It was long a question, but after months of labor the very simple fact was discovered that certain sounds were of so frequent occurrence that, by giving them horizontal forms, all others could be so arranged as to run along the line of writing, forming facile outlines. This led to the present arrangement of the consonantal signs.