Lawrence K Lo has done some work with phonetics and historical liguistics on his site AncientScripts.com.

The Omniglot site is worth digging through as it has many links and sub-links to experimental, con-script and syllabic systems, including The Phonogic Alphabet a creation of Charles Smith.

I know you mentioned no interest in IPA, but Luc Devroye’s site has many jump points on his Phonetics page that might lead you towards new work as well.

Thanks, those are some interesting links!

By the way, it’s not that I dislike IPA, I’m just looking for as many ’universal’ alphabets as possible. IPA is a well-elaborated writing system trying to reach for every distinct sound of every human language; I wondered if there were more alphabets IPA-alike but with other roots.

Those ’home-made’ alphabets I saw, some of them are really nice; however, their readibility is near-zero. They’re the esperantos of type design, sprung from idealism; or worse, made for the sake of the inventor only.

Actually, from my personal point of view, there should be an alphabet which is a synthesis of worldwide typography; that is to say, it’s been build up from the best elements of all writing systems. An amalgamation of styles and traditions, recognizable rather than readable, eclectic but coherent, concrete and useful as a global ’logo-language’.

An amalgamation of styles and traditions, recognizable rather than readable, eclectic but coherent, concrete and useful as a global ‘logo-language’.

Personally, I think such developments in language and written forms happen not through intentional design but more through the clash or melding of cultures (not only global, but societal) necessitated by commerce. Like the anglo-japanese-“hi-tech”-citypseak lingo and word forms in Blade Runner.

Very interesting points, Ringo and Norbert,

I am an absolutely newbie in fontography though I have been interested all my life - and now need to learn a little. But I am an oldie in linguistics with an MA many years ago and more recently a PhD - with general interests in the acquisition of syntax and phonetics/phonology, and currently researching a British linguistic tradition which ran from the seventeenth century to the late nineteenth century and then got buried.

In a way which may interest you, Ringo, the last exponent of this tradition, Alexander Melville Bell, the father of Alexander Graham, had the idea of a phonetics notation based on an early version of distinction feature theory. In 1849 he dismissed what he called ’Romics’ - the approach assumed by Passy and the other founders of the IPA in 1894 - as hardly worthy of discussion. Bell, like his seventeenth century predecessor William Holder, was interested in the isssue of universalism which you mention. I don’t think that this stuff is on the net.

I meant ’distinctive feature theory’ of course.

The last exponent of this tradition, Alexander Melville Bell, the father of Alexander Graham, had the idea of a phonetics notation based on an early version of distinction feature theory. In 1849 he dismissed what he called ‘Romics’ - the approach assumed by Passy and the other founders of the IPA in 1894 - as hardly worthy of discussion.

At the Omniglot site, I found this about the Bell’s phonetics notation. Very elegant; every symbol is, as you mentioned, a representation of a distinctive sound feature instead of representing a particular sound (which is a combination of features).

A very analytical approach and quite logical in its looks. This seems to be more universal than IPA as it doesn’t depend as much from Latin alphabet. (I doubt it does at all.)

Still questioning the readability, however. :P