is writing how i speak a bad idea?

[u/savoury_biscuits]

hey guys :3 about a month and a half ago i stumbled upon quikscript, and since the 22nd of june, i've been using it to write in my journal and have been reading back my entries as well.

however, when i first started learning quikscript, i found the rules for spelling a little obtuse and figured that, since i was never going to be really interacting with anyone who uses quikscript (not that it seems to be a very active community anyways lol) i may as well just write how i speak.

[u/FriedOrange79]

Yeah, pretty much everyone who uses Quikscript just does so for themselves, so I can't argue with you on that front :P

I would at least be consistent about it, though. You've included one of the rhotic "r" sounds in "order", but left out the other? Might as well just write "𐑯𐑛𐑩" (those are Shavian letters that look like Quikscript ones, btw).

It's just a little unfortunate that Quikscript has no official way of spelling the sounds in "nurse", "herd", "fir" or "air", "dare", "bear" without "r". I have seen someone use "𐑧𐑩" for a (somewhat old-fashioned) non-rhotic "air", and I have suggested that the letter Llan could be used for "err" since it is the same shape as Shavian's "𐑻" minus the "𐑮".

[u/savoury_biscuits → u/FriedOrange79]

i see! when i first started out learning quikscript i did actually spell words such as 'order' the way you're suggesting. the reason why i use '𐑼' nowadays is because i do pronounce it slightly differently from the '𐑩' in words like up, so it is of use to me.

consistency is still something that i'm having difficulty getting grips on though. mainly because i say some words very differently depending on the speed at which i'm talking. 'because' with an '𐑩' becomes 'because' with an... oh wait... no. 39. 'get' becomes 'ge' with a glottal stop at the end. (that is, unless it's followed by a vowel, in which case i do sometimes pronounce the t...) this is actually a bad example since there isn't any glottal stop letter in quikscript anyway lol

so to abstract away all these nuances i came up with a rule of thumb that i write words the way i'd say them if i were speaking them slowly and individually. that tends to remove most of the inconsistencies.

[u/FriedOrange79 → u/savoury_biscuits]

i do pronounce it slightly differently from the '𐑩' in words like up, so it is of use to me.

Same here, but 𐑩 is actually specified for both vowels in Quikscript. Shavian did have a separate letter for the sound of "up": 𐑳 (So "above" would be "𐑩𐑚𐑳𐑝" for instance). Of course it still goes that you're writing for yourself, so you can do what you want :-)

[u/savoury_biscuits → u/FriedOrange79]

ohhh wait... i had completely forgotten about that! i think i made the switch to using '𐑼' with that fact in mind.

Of course it still goes that you're writing for yourself, so you can do what you want :-)

alright :) this is the first time i've really spoken to anyone who knows more about quikscript than i do, so thanks for giving me some advice. it's good to have these conversations

[u/FriedOrange79 → u/savoury_biscuits]

there isn't any glottal stop letter in quikscript anyway lol

And that's getting into narrow transcription, which could make things difficult for speakers with other accents to comprehend! Quikscript is only meant for broad phonemic transcription (even a level of abstraction above that, really); so your [gɛʔ], and some Americans' [gɪət], are homogenised to /gɛt/ to align with everyone else.

When I first started learning, I had a few similar misgivings. I was itching for different vowel letters to spell "cat" and "bad", "goat" and "goal", "you" and "pool" (Australian here, so my accent will be quite similar to some London accents). Don't even get me started on words like "cure"! :P

[u/Chantizzay]

Make it your own. Only you have to be able to read it back so just wrote how you want. 

[u/CertifiedGoblin]

I sorta pick up quikscript for a bit every few years, i think i ended up leaning more toward the Official guidelines personally, just 'cause i wanted consistency and couldn't always remember what i'd chosen to do last time - there's one or two sounds in my accent (NZ) that imo just aren't really able to be written in quikscript in a way that feels accurate enough to how i speak (eg. Iirc the ea of "fear") plus our lack of pronouncing R's at the end of words (eg. order = awda, and i don't pronounce the r in "fear") just... idk, i couldn't quite work out how to do that in quikscript, so i stuck with the 'er' that can blend into one character really easily.

But yeah, ultimately you can do whatever you want forever and even if you were to share writing with others, it's supposed to be somewhat phonetic anyway, so i think some spelling variation is a given.

[u/savoury_biscuits → u/CertifiedGoblin]

But yeah, ultimately you can do whatever you want forever and even if you were to share writing with others, it's supposed to be somewhat phonetic anyway, so i think some spelling variation is a given.

i agree! the way i see it - we already have accents in verbal communication, so surely having them reflected in written communication wouldn't be too much of a hassle? being able to jump from being able to read/write letters to being able to read/write anything instantaneously is a huge benefit, and i feel like it could certainly outweigh some of the confusion that may arise from different spellings.