Keyscript employs only the ordinary lower case letters of the alphabet. The letters are not shortened or modified in any way.
Basically, the vowels in a word are omitted, leaving only the consonants.
The consonants are written phonetically, e.g. 'ph' is written as 'f'. All consonant sounds are written with one letter: 'ch', 'sh' & 'th' are 'c', 'j' & 'h' respectively.
The vowels, and the least common English consonants in the alphabet are used as 'indicators'. An indicator shows a combination of consonants which occur frequently in English. For example, in the word 'people', 'pl' is represented by the vowel 'i'. So 'people' becomes 'pi'. Combinations of various consonants with 't' 'd' 'l' 'r' & 's' are shown using indicators.
Common prefixes and suffixes are represented by one letter, e.g. 'self-' or '-self' is 's'.
There is a list of about 80 very common words that are written somewhat outside the rules of Keyscript so that they may: 1. be written with only one letter and 2. not be able to be confused with each other in context, for example, 'have' is 'v'; 'he' is 'i' to distinguish it from 'they' which is 'h'.
Some other common words are contracted but are spelled with more than one letter, e.g. 'important' is 'mp'.
Where the
spelling of two words in Keyscript would be the same, and they could be
mistaken in context, one of these is written not quite according to
rule, for example, 'amuse' is written as 'mus' to distinguish it from
'amaze', which is 'ms'.
Keyscript joins words together according to definite rules based on the natural flow of the English language, so 'I am' is 'ym'.
Notes
on Keyscript for Students: Lightning Guide
101 j. Where ‘j’ is written instead of ‘s’, this is
because these particular words have a vowel before or after the ‘s’ sound at
the beginning or end of the word where there is no other consonant to take the
vowel. ‘s’ is an empty consonant
– it cannot take a vowel before or after it, so it is reliant on the consonant
before or after it to take it instead.
When there is no such consonant to take the vowel, ‘j = ess’ must be
written instead. ‘j’ is a full
consonant, meaning that it can take a vowel both before and after it.
101 x. ‘x’ is either ‘ks’ or ‘gs’. I have dictated the use of each in
Keyscript, which seems in line with general pronunciation. Of course, the one letter ‘x’ would be
quicker and simpler to write here, but ‘x’ has a far more important role in
Keyscript, as Stages 2 & 3 will show.
Moreover, in some of these words the ‘s’ is substituted for a letter
which combines the ‘s’ with what follows it, as will be seen in further Stages.
103. ‘the’ is omitted in phrases in
Keyscript. A phrase is a combination of
words, spoken together. The ‘the’
occurs in the middle of a phrase with a word before and after it. ‘The’ at the beginning of a sentence is not
part of a phrase, and must be shown (as ‘h’). ‘the’ very often occurs in phrases and omitting it, while still
showing that it is there, is one of the major strengths of Keyscript,
contributing both to the speed of writing and to its legibility.