SB: Shaw specified the linguistic requirements for an alphabet code as early as 1941.  He wanted one unequivocal symbol for 42 English speech sounds and he did not want it to be confused with traditional spelling.  His model was phonemic shorthand.  In his will, Shaw left most of his fortune to fund the development of a new alphabet.  The will was contested and only a small sum [less than $20,000] was made available to carry out Shaw's proposal.  The group that controlled the funds decided that the best they could do with such limited funds was to run a contest.  The alphabet displayed on this page was designed by Kingsley Read, the winner of the Shaw alphabet competition.

PV: A contest was announced specifying the linguistic requirements, in 1958. Four contestants submitted alphabet schemes that met or surpassed the requirements. The Shaw Alphabet was created from an amalgam of these 4 proposals. Kingsley Read, an architect and designer, provided the majority of the design. He also created a script or cursive version of the Shaw alphabet called Quickscript.
Further revisions to remove some confusing spiral letters and to streamline an overly complex vowel design were successful and incorporated in this book by the author.

SB: In 1941, Shaw specified the goal for his proposed British alphabet. He himself used Pitman shorthand and was familiar with the advantages of phonemic writing.  Pitman, however, was not linear and difficult to print.  Shaw was impressed with Sweet's "current" linear shorthand but objected to the focus on abbreviation. 

Kingsley Read was impressed with the essay which appeared as the preface to the book, The Miraculous Birth of Language, and contacted Shaw.  He showed Shaw his early attempts to build a phonemic notation to match Shaw's requirements.  Shaw encouraged his efforts.

In his will, Shaw left most of his fortune to advancing his linguistic ideas. The will was challenged by lawyers representing the British Museum and other charities on the grounds that you can't leave money to an idea.  Shaw's fortune did not amount to much until the spectacular success of My Fair Lady.  Pitman negotiated a deal whereby a small amount of the fortune, about £8000, would be used to fulfill the terms of the will.
 

Both vowel letters and vowel markers are part of the Shaw alphabet, but they have different functions. The Shaw Letters indicate the exact vowel sounds for the key vowels of a written word. The Shaw Vowel Marker indicates just the kind of vowel used in the written word and how the internal vowels hold the syllables together.

The main or Primary Shaw vowel letters each represents a specific vowel sound preceded by a Glottal Stop in order to make it emphatic. A Shaw vowel marker indicates the presence of a vowel, without an associated Glottal Stop. A vowel marker does not indicate the specific vowel. It indicates the type of vowel. For example, whether it is a long, short, double, half sized vowel or Schwa. A vowel marker does not necessarily give an exact pronunciation. There may be as many as 6 different vowel sounds, represented by any one particular vowel marker. Or as few a one vowel sound in the case of a Schwa.

The Roman alphabet uses over 30 of vowel letters and vowel letter combinations made up from "a", "e", "i", "o", "u", "w" and "y" and also adds the silent "e" to the end of the word to indicate many of the various vowel sounds used by English. Unfortunately, all of those various vowel letters and vowel letter combinations are not logical and do not consistently represent the same sound. The Shaw alphabet uses a system, that can handle a wider variety of vowel sounds and their combinations and represent them accurately and consistently.