Quikscript Tutorial
Introduction
It is beneficial to have a
Quikscript font (preferably "King Plus Monospace" or "King Plus") installed on your system to view the Quikscript words & letters as they were intended to be viewed.
If you can read and write in the English language, you can learn to read & write in Quikscript. First, let me write on what
Quikscript is NOT :
- Quikscript is NOT a new language; It uses English grammar & does NOT introduce any new grammatical rules.
- Quikscript is NOT a shorthand writing system; It is written from left to right on a straight horizontal line. It's words are spelt phonetically & any abbreviated spellings are the result of an elimination of unnecessary spelling rules.
- Quikscript is NOT "cursive"; Although letters can be joined, it is not a requirement.
This browser-based tutorial on learning to read & write Quikscript is synonymous with the original Quikscript manual written by Kingsley Read, the inventor of Quikscript. Any person who is seriously intent on using Quikscript on a regular basis should download the manual from the
Yahoo! Quikscript Group. Neither that manual or this browser-based tutorial should be considered a learning tool for those who do not yet have a mastery of the English language (such as children, the learning disabled or non-native English speaking individuals who are still learning English as a second or otherwise alternate language).
This browser-based tutorial is designed to quickly introduce the Quikscript alphabet to those individuals unaccustomed to it & to involve them with several of the main tenets of the alphabet.
Quikscript is written using forty letters & has other, optional letters. While some of these letters can vaguely resemble normal English letters (such as the Quikscript "R" resembling a backwards "c" or the Quikscript "T" resembling a lower-case "L"), that is not their intent. The Quikscript letters were designed with many goals in mind. Amongst those goals were...
- To have letters that could be written in one stroke of a pen or pencil.
- To be easily distinguishable from one another.
- To be purposefully different from the English alphabet.
Lesson #1 will introduce you to the forty Quikscript letters, punctuation, ligatures & the eight basic "abbreviations".
Lesson #2 will introduce you to an important pronunciation reminder, some additional (entirely optional) letters as well as some prefix & suffix rules.
Lesson #3 will introduce you to more prefix & suffix rules, as well as more additional characters (again, entirely optional).
Extended Content
Unfortunately, as extensive as the Kingsley Read manual is in describing the Quikscript alphabet, there are questions that remain on how it should best be used. The answers are not directly addressed with Kingsley Read's manual. Since Kingsley Read died in 1975, we may never know what his opinion would be towards alleviating these concerns.
The extended content listed below is based on my own personal investigations as to how to address these concerns as best as possible. I do not claim any special knowledge of Quikscript beyond my own enthusiastic pursuit of it. My views are not "canon" & you are free to utilize whatever solution you feel fit to address the concerns that I mention in the extended content below.
"CH" + "R" or "T" + "R"? My thoughts on addressing how to spell words in Quikscript that use the "TR" digraph.
Vowel + "R"? My thoughts on addressing how to spell words in Quikscript that use a vowel + "R" digraph.
"D" + "R" or "J" + "R"? My thoughts on addressing how to spell words in Quikscript that use the "DR" digraph.