Speedwords: genesis of the Briefscript Project

[Where to find information about Speedwords] [What features of Speedwords prompted the Briefscript Project?] [A note on the pronunciation]

Where to find information about Speedwords

If you do not know Speedwords, you may wish to look at one or more of these three sites:

For many years Richard Kennaway's Conlang directory has contained information about Speedwords. Currently, you will find:
- a document giving some background, including Dutton's 'Open Letter to the Young People of all Nations' published in 1943
- a copy of the 1951 Speedwords Dictionary
- notes on the pronunciation of Speedwords
- a copy of Rick Harrison's language profile: Speedwords
In 1995, the New Congress, which is an art group interested in a variety of subjects including designed language, adopted the use of Dutton Speedwords. At some point it contacted members of the Dutton family to post a web-site and now hosts the 'Dutton Speedwords Official Site'; this site gives links to other interesting pages, including a biography of Dutton himself.
It seems that at about the same time Bob Petry was seeking to revive the language; he also made contact with some members of the Dutton family and, with their approval, hosted in 1997 what he believed at that time was the only official Speedwords web-site. Bob has nicknamed the language "Rap Lin Rie" (rapid language shorthand) and the current version of this site is written in a mix of Occidental, English and Speedwords.

What features of Speedwords prompted Briefscript Project?

There were principally two features I came not to like in my late teens? There are:

that Speedword roots and affixes are not self-segregating
(This page links to "So what do itollis and evue actually mean?": an examination of the structure of these two words)
that the rules of pronunciation are complicated and kludgey.

There were also two other features which were not so prominent in my mind at that time but were certainly there and, over the years, have helped mould my design principles for BrSc; they are:

that word-building presents problems
(This page also links to "So what do itollis and evue actually mean?")
that Speedwords is (largely) a relexification of English.

(As I have said, these links are not intended as an attack on Speedwords per se. No human artifact can ever be perfect. I have no problem whatever if people are happy with Speedwords as designed by Dutton and wish to use it. At one time I was very interested but, in my case, as time went on I became more and more unhappy with it and this led to the slow genesis of BrScr. I am merely explaining those issues that caused me to be unhappy with the product.)

A note on the pronunciation

The pronunciationrules which I found unsatisfacxtory are those that given in " Dutton World Speedwords" (1943) and "Dutton Double-Speed Words" (1943); they were perpetuated in the editions of 1945 and 1946. It is the pronunciation I learnt and, as far as I know, the only full account to be published, and is the source of the notes on the pronunciation of Speedwords on Richard Kennaway's site.

A member of the New Congress has told me that the Congress has come upon at least three different methods of pronunciation. The one I know is the most widely circulated and also, it seems, the most complicated. I am told the Congress was fortunate enough to lay hands on copies of original papers from the Dutton estate from his late daughter, Elizabeth, and that in these papers Dutton revised the pronunciation.

This last revision, I am told, was much easier to work with and I understand that the New Congress has adopted it, with one minor modification. This method has never been published and was, of course, not known to me in the late 1950s. Indeed, although I have requested details, I have received none and, regretfully, still remain entirely ignorant of them.