The Algilez Alphabet and font

Contents on this page

1     Start Here - Downloading the Algilez (Gilo) Font

1.1        Downloading the font1

In order to see text using Algilez Alphabet characters, it is necessary to download the Algilez Font (32KB). 

Use the right mouse button (not the left) and 'Save Target as ...' (MS Internet Explorer) or 'Save Link as ...' (Firefox) will enable you to copy the file onto your computer prior to installing.  (Clicking with the left button only gives a preview of the font and does not enable you to download and install it).

Save the font file into any convenient folder on your computer.  Note that the font uses an earlier name for Algilez - ‘Gilo’.

The Algilez font automatically modifies your keyboard to type all the Algilez characters.  For the two new characters, ã & Ã and ø & Ø, then use the colon/semi-colon key and the ~/# key.

1.2        Installing the font

For Windows Vista and earlier this font and can be installed very easily through:

'My Computer > Control Panel (Classic View)> Fonts

Right click on the Font folder and click on ‘Install New Font'.

Open the folder containing the Gilo font file, select it and it will appear in the box.

For Windows 7, simply find the font file, right click on it and select 'Install font' from the drop down menu

1.3       Kerning

In order to give the best appearance to the font, it is necessary to make sure that kerning (automatic letter spacing) is turned on.  This can be done for each style type by:

1. Format>Style>Modify>

(For Word 2003 go direct to 2)

2. Format>Font>Character Spacing>Kerning for fonts (check)>OK>OK>Apply'

For Word 2007, in the Home tab, click Font, Character Spacing and tick the Kerning box. 2

2     The Algilez Alphabet

The alphabet is made up of symbols from a basic 'cartwheel' sign. Œ

3     Want to stay using the usual  Roman letters on your keyboard?Changing your keyboard to type ã and ø characters

3.1        New sounds and new letters1

Two new vowels are added to the Roman alphabet.  The first vowel is ã a(r) pronounced as in far.  The second is ø o(r) pronounced as in fort.  All characters in the Algilez alphabet are made from components of the original cartwheel pattern.

Although the use of additional letters with diacritical marks is not desirable (it caused considerable problems with Esperanto), much of the problem was due to typesetting and conventional typing restrictions.  With modern computer fonts the issue can be easily resolved.  As for the need for the two extra vowels, the English language actually has 31 different pronunciations of the 5 vowels, so I don’t think asking people to learn an extra two vowels (instead of an extra 26) is too much.

Using normal Roman character fonts (e.g. Courier, Arial etc)

If you wish to write Algilez but still want to continue using your normal fonts, then you can modify your keyboard layout to produce the above two new characters more easily (i.e. with just two keys instead of 3 or 4).  The change only takes a few seconds and should not affect your normal use of the keyboard.  Please go to this link to see the instructions:- Changing keyboards to type ã and ø characters 4

Using the Algilez font

If you decide to use the Algilez alphabet, then this will automatically adapts two of the keys on your keyboard to show the two new Algilez characters.  The colon (:) & semi-colon (;) key will produce the ã and à characters and the ~ & # key will produce the lower and upper case ø and Ø characters.  If you should need to type :  ;  ~ or #, (none of which are Algilez characters) then just switch back to your usual font.

4     Writing & Printing Algilez

Algilez is written along a theoretical centre line through the 'hub' of each symbol.

The cartwheel, with its 16 basic components (i.e. 8 arms and 8 arcs) can form many hundreds of symbols, although only about 50 are required for normal use (i.e. alphabet letters, numbers, mathematical and punctuation symbols).

Hand-written symbols will still need to written reasonably carefully to maintain legibility.  There would be an advantage for people to learn the pen strokes in a more formalised way, in order to standardise the handwriting (in a similar way that Chinese & Japanese children are taught the correct order in which the pen strokes for the Kanji characters are to be made).  E.g.

5     Upper & Lower Case, Punctuation

In Algilez there are no different upper or lower case letters.  Initial letters of sentences, proper names and initials (such as UN etc) have the 'za' circle around them, which then forms the equivalent of upper case e.g. :-

Algilez:-                      Algilez

John Smith:-               Jon Smiq

UN                             UN

Full stops (periods) come at the end of a sentence but always on the centre line.

A conventional one letter space gap is used between words, after full stops (periods) and between number parts.

A right comma (font symbol 44) is used between phrases and parts of a number. 6

6     Additional Algilez Symbols

7  International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)

IPA characters are a peculiar set of modified Roman and other characters e.g.:-,., , ,,

These are virtually unknown outside language teaching and linguistics.  However they are the only simple way of expressing the majority of sounds used in different languages.  The three Phonetic Alphabet ‘N’ symbols used above, are obvious variations on the letter ‘N’.

However, things become much more difficult with characters such as ,& especially.  Here the relationship to normal Roman alphabet letters is less clear and no-one apart from a language expert will know what sounds the symbols represent.

There are many unused Algilez symbols available to incorporate all of the main International Phonetic Alphabet and other associated characters. Where the IPA character has a similar (but slightly different) sound to a Algilez character, then by the addition of parts of the perimeter arc to the Algilez symbol it is possible to form a new symbol and demonstrate its linkage and similarity.

E.g.  the Algilez character for 'n' is n.

The nasal 'ng', which is shown by the Phonetic Alphabet character , can be Character 192 in Algilez – À.  (The 'tail' to the right is slightly exaggerated at this scale, just to demonstrate the principle)

Other similar 'n' sounds, such as  and  can be shown by similar characters e.g. Á (193) and  (194).

Similar modifications could be made to the Algilez letters u, ã & c which are similar to ,& .

Even the simplest Algilez letter u (the ‘oo’ sound) could have up to ten additional arc parts added (4+3+2+1) in various combinations of (top left, top right, bottom left & bottom right) to denote similar but slightly different sounds in other languages.  Those letters that have three arms could have up to 21 different sounds associated with them.

There are several implications for this.  It could mean that languages presently using the Roman alphabet could be written using a particular subset of the full, international Algilez alphabet (i.e. one incorporating all of the sounds in the International Phonetic Alphabet).  This would avoid the confusing idiosyncrasies presently found in many languages due to pronunciations of words being quite different to their spellings (particularly in languages such as English and French). It could make the learning of other second languages much easier since students would see the Algilez phonetic symbol and be able to see the similarity to other Algilez characters from which the sound has originated and what the correct pronunciation should be.

However we have to bear in mind that word recognition may depend as much on spelling (no matter how idiosyncratic) and that national culture may require the retention of what might not be totally logical spelling systems!  It would obviously be counter-productive if an aid to learning then had to be ‘unlearnt’. 8

8     The Algilez Plain Font

The current Algilez font has been created as a True Type font using a proprietary font writing programme 'TypeTool' from the Fontlab Company.  The Algilez version used in this text was version 1.5, which has been superseded by newer versions.  A number of additional symbols are still required.  These will be created in the near future.

The font currently used is designed to be as simple as possible and is probably best compared to a Algilez version of Ariel.  Hence although I use the expression 'Algilez Font', strictly speaking this is the 'Algilez Plain Font' of the Algilez Alphabet.

An example is the Algilez letter 'ke'.  In its simplest form is just k or, upper case K .

However, we can also create letters such as Ê , or Ä or even more elaborate styles such as Å which are still perfectly clear Algilez characters.

In other words, the Algilez alphabet is capable of being represented in a complete range of different fonts.  It would therefore be possible to have the Algilez equivalents of fonts used for the existing Roman alphabet such as   Times New Roman, Old English, Comic,, etc. 9

9     What is wrong with the Roman Alphabet?

There are two main problems.  One is that it is already too complicated, with upper case, lower case and handwritten letters which may differ.  The second, more important problem, is that the sounds of the letters in the Roman alphabet differ between different languages and even within a single language.  For example in English, the Concise Oxford Dictionary gives :-

            7 different pronunciations of the letter 'a'

            6 different pronunciations of the letter 'e'

            4 different pronunciations of the letter 'i'

            10 different pronunciations of the letter 'o'

            4 different pronunciations of the letter 'u'

all differing according to the context, preceding and following letters and historical usage.  If you compare the pronunciations of Roman letters in some of the major European languages e.g. English, German, French, Italian and Spanish, they all differ!  There is not a single Roman letter which has a constant pronunciation throughout these languages!

There are probably only four Roman letters that the majority of (not all) languages pronounce in the same way :-  d, k, m & p.

Hence, although there is a workload involved in the learning of a new alphabet, the time taken would be rapidly repaid by the elimination of the confusion resulting from the multiple sounds possible for conventional Roman letters.

Last revised: 13 December 2011