How are we to represent the pronunciation of the "DR" in words like "DRain," "DRake," & "DRive"?
The Quikscript Manual gives us an answer on page #13, doesn't it? In fact, it shows a list of two-letter groups & how those letters should be connected to one another. "DR" is one of those groups listed &, clearly, the two letters are #4 ("-d-") & #25 ("-r-").
Furthermore, on page #23, the word "drake" uses that exact same letter combination of #4 + #25. Finally, even the dictionary tells us that the phonetic pronunciation is "DR." On the surface, it seems to be a pretty air-tight case - the digraph of "DR" is spelt with #4 + #25.
| Quickscript | drEk |
| Normal | Drake |
| Page # | 23 |
However, just how does one pronounce "DR" in the words described above?
| Word | drain | Jane | drake | Jake | drive | jive |
| Link | Audio | Audio | Audio | Audio | Audio | Audio |
So, what do we do? In all of these instances, the "DR" sound is pronounced "J-r," not "D-r"! There's no dialect where the "D" sound is kept intact when it follows the "R" sound when they are both in the same syllable. For words where the "D" and "R" sounds are together but separated by a syllable, like in the word, "Bedroom," the "D" and "R" sounds are distinct and should be spelt as such. I realize that some people pronounce "Bedroom" as "Beh-droom" and not "Bed-room" but that simply illustrates the point further - When the syllable break is "Beh-droom," the word is pronounced "Beh-jroom," illustrating that when "DR" is used in the same syllable, it turns into "JR."
Quikscript already has a character for the "J" sound, character #16. Why should we make an exception to use "D-r" when there's already a character that better illustrates how the word should be properly pronounced? It makes no sense to use "D-r" when "J-r" is more accurate.
Therefore, when the "DR" dipthong is used in the same syllable, the accurate pronunciation will be portrayed on this website as character #16 + character #25, "J-R."
| Quickscript | JrF | JrFv | JriNk | bedrMm | aJrift |
| Normal | dry | drive | drink | bedroom | adrift |