Grafemi e fonemi. by Gianpiero Spinelli

Grafemi e fonemi Il suono della tipografia

UniversitĂ degli Studi di Venezia FacoltĂ di Design e Arti Corso di laurea magistrale in Comunicazioni visive e multimediali

Laboratorio di design della comunicazione 1 a.a. 2011/2012 docenti Leonardo Sonnoli, Gabriele Toneguzzi, Thomas Bisiani Titolo Grafemi e fonemi. Il suono della tipografia. a cura di Tania Ferrari e Gianpiero Spinelli carattere tipografico Fedra Serif A, Fedra Sans, Fedra Mono stampa e legatura QuattroEsse, Treviso

Grafemi e fonemi Il suono della tipografia

Indice

Prefazione

SEZIONE 1 10

IPA International Phonetic Alphabet

Phonetic Alphabet Benjamin Franklin

Morse Code Alfred Vail

Deseret Alphabet Brigham Young

Visible Speech Alexander Melville Bell

New Music Notation Henry Sweet

Shaw Alphabet Kingsley Read

Paroliberismo. Arte dei Rumori Futurismo

SEZIONE 2

SEZIONE 3 60

Ursonate + Neue Plastische Systemschrift Kurt Schwitters

Universal Alphabet Jan Tschicold

Type from word-images Max Bill

Fonetik Alfabet Herbert Bayer

Quantage + SintĂ¨tik Pierre di Sciullo

Fedra Phonetic IPA Peter Bilâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ak

Approfondimenti e note biografiche

Bibliografia e sitografia

Prefazione Il presente lavoro vuole indagare e approfondire le origini e le successive, conseguenti evoluzioni della ricerca di un sistema di scrittura che possa rappresentare al meglio i suoni della lingua parlata. Tale indagine è circoscritta all’area europea, e si occupa delle maggiori lingue del continente. Una ricerca su più larga scala, che possa inglobare i ceppi linguistici dell’intero pianeta sarebbe molto interessante, ma richiederebbe un altro tipo di approccio. Come si potrà notare nelle pagine a seguire, gli stadi di ricerca individuati sono fondamentalmente tre: il primo riguarda le sperimentazioni nate già alla fine del ‘700, da parte di personaggi di varia estrazione culturale e professionale, da Franklin Benjamin ad Alexander Melville Bell, passando per l’inventore del codice Morse, Alfred Vail. Ricerche, queste, in cui la figura dell’artista o tipografo, laddove presente, è sicuramente secondaria, ma che hanno sempre dato risultati di tipo grafico. La seconda sezione si occupa delle ricerche sonore, linguistiche e quindi artistiche e tipografiche, svolte dai maggiori esponenti del Futurismo italiano. Nonostante la brevità del capitolo, si è scelto di dedicare ai futuristi una sezione assestante poichè le loro sperimentazioni, sebbene determinanti e suggestive, si discotano leggermente dall’obiettivo di questa indagine. Infine l’ultima parte analizza il lavoro prettamente tipografico svolto da artisti, tripografi e progettisti visuali dalla prima metà del ‘900 fino ai giorni nostri. I risultati analizzati in quest’ultima sezione sono sempre frutto di un metodo moderno di approccio al problema, in un periodo storico in cui si acquisiva sempre più consapevolezza intorno al mestiere del progettista grafico.

IPA “Handbook of the International Phonetic Association. A guide to the Use of the International Phonetic Alphabet.” University Press of Cambridge, 1999

B. Franklin “A Scheme for a new Alphabet and a Reformed Mode of Spelling” “Features” pages 36-37, n. 56 , 2007 “Culture of Listening” ed. Corraini, n. 27, 2009 Richard G. Moore “The Deseret Alphabet Experiment The Religious Educator” Vol 7 No 3, 2006. Article by A. Graham Bell “Visible Speech as a Means of Communicating Articulation to Deaf Mutes” 1872 Michael K.C. McMahon, “Using phonetics in a New Musical Notation: Henry Sweet’s manuscript notes of 1904 and 1908” 2007 “The Shaw Alphabet Edition of Androcles and the Lion.” Penguin Books, 1962 en.wikipedia.org (12 dicembre 2011)

IPA International Phonetic Alphabet History of IPA

The International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) is a system for writing down sounds. It was created by the International Phonetic Association in 1886, so that people could write down sounds of languages in a standard way. Linguists, language teachers, and translators use it to write words and phonemes. In 1886, a group of French and British language teachers formed the International Phonetic Association. These teachers used the Romic alphabet at first. They later changed the alphabet so that different languages would all write the same sounds with the same letters. the aim of the international phonetic association is to promote the study of the science of phonetics and the various practical application of that science, to have a consistent way of representing the sounds of language in written form. From its foundation in 1886, the Association has been concerned t develop as set of symbols which would be convenient to use, but comprehensive enough to cope with the wide variety of sound fund in the languages of the world. IPA, that is the abbreviation, is based on the roman alphabet, which has the advantage of being widely familiar, but also includes letters and additionals symbols from a variety of other sources. These additions are necessary because the variety of sounds in languages is much grater than the numbers of letters in the Roman alphabet. The IPA can be used for

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many porpoises. For instance, it can be used as a way to show pronunciation in a dictionary, to record a language in linguistic fieldwork, to form the basis of a writing system for a language or to annotate acoustic and other displays in the analysis of speech.

Computer Coding of IPA symbols

The process of assigning computer codes to phonetic symbols began when the 1989 Kiel Convention of the International Phonetic Association (Germany) was called to revise the Associationâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s alphabet. The Workgroup of Computer Coding formed at the time had the set of numbers referring to IPA symbols unambiguously. A Kiel, after reviewing several submissions on current practice, the Workgroup concluded that each symbol used by the IPA should be assigned a unique, three-digit number known as its IPA Numbers. IPa Numbers was assigned in linear order following the new IPA Chart which resulted from the deliberations at Kiel. IPA Numbers were not only created for approved consonant, vowel, diacritic and suprasegmental symbols, but also for symbols often referred to in IPA deliberations or implied by IPA convention but which do not appear explicit on the IPA Chart.

The comprehensive documentation of phonetic symbol usage and categorization in the Phonetic Symbol Guide by Pullum and Ladusaw (1986,1996) assistant in the process. The result is that the list of IPA Numbers includes more characters than are specified on the IPA Chart alone. The reason for the comprehensive inclusion of all symbols is to anticipate the possibility that some symbols ay be withdrawn while other symbols may be reintroduced into current age; and a numerical listing of character shapes and types must be comprehensive enough to support slight revisions in symbol specification or diacritic placement as well as to be available to wide spectrum of phonetic users of computer systems. The set of IPA Numbers also allows for the extra symbols and cross-reference to other phonetic sets, the 300 series for vowels, the 400 series for diacritics, and the 500 series for suprasegmental symbols. Ligatures for affricates, for example, are included in the 200 series as formerly recognized IPA symbols although they do not occupy a specific location on the IPA Chart. As the 1989 IPA Chart was subjected to review, several modifications emerged, resulting in the publication of the 1993 IPA Chart which was updated in 1996. No new Numbers were required to specify these symbols.

Phonetic description of the IPA Chart

Behind the system of notation known as the IPA lie a number of theorical assumptions about speech and how it can best be analyzed. These include the following: some aspect of speech are linguistically relevant, whilst others such ad personal voice quality are not. Speech can be represented partly as a sequence of discrete sounds or segments. Segments can usefully be devised into two major categories, consonants and vowels. The phonetic description of consents an vowels can be made reference to how they are proceed and

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to their auditory characteristics. In addition to the segments, a number of “suprasegmental” aspects of speech, such as stress and tone, ned to be represented independently of the segments. Phonetic analysis is based on the crucial premise that is possible to describe speech in terms of a sequence of segments and on the further crucial assumption that each segment can be characterized by an articulatory target. “Articulation” is the technical term for the activity of the vocal organs in making a speech sound. On the IPA Chart, symbols for the majority of consonant are to found in the large table at the top. Place of articulation is reflected in the organization of this consent table. Each column represents a place of articulation, reflected in the labels across the top of the table from bilabial at the left to glottal ( consonants made by the vocal cords or vocal folds) at the right. The term “bilabial” and “ labiodental” indicate that the consent is made by the lower lip against the upper lip and upper front teeth respectively. For instance, IPA provides symbols to transcribe the distinct phonetic events corresponding to the English spelling refuse, but the IPA does not provide symbols to indicate information such as “ spoken rapidly by a deep, hoarse, male voice”.

IPA Chart

As the 1989 Chart was subjected to review, several modifications emerged, resulting in the publication of the 1993 IPA Chart (IPA 1993) which was updated in 1996. The complete set of IPA symbols is shown in the quadrilateral Chart. there are vowels symbol, consonant symbols (pulmonic and non-pulmonic), suprasegmentals, tone and word accents, diacritic and other symbols.

Vowels

Vowels are sound which occur at syllable centers, and which because they involve a less

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extreme narrowing of the vocal tract than consonants cannot easily be described in terms of a “place of articulation” as consonant can. Instead, they are classified in terms of an abstract “vowel space”, which is represented by the four sided figure known as the “Vowel Quadrilateral”. The space bears a relation though not an exact one, to the position of the tongue in vowel production. The first part of figure shows that joining the circle representing the highest point of the tongue in these four extreme vowels gives the boundary of the space within which vowels can be produced. For the purposes of vowel description this space can be stylized as a quadrilateral shown in the second part of figure. Further reference vowels can now be defined as shown in the third part of figure. Similarly, two fully back vowels [ ] and [o] are defined to give equidistant steps between [a] and [u]. The use of auditory spacing is the definition of these vowels means vowel description is not based purely on articulation, and is one reason why the vowel quadrilateral must be regarded as an abstraction and not a direct mapping of tongue position. There are now four vowels heights: [i] and [u] are close vowels, [e] and [o] are close--mid vowels. The vowel space can be seen to be taking on the form of a grid. The eight reference vowels are known as the “primary cardinal vowels”. “Cardinal” in this sense, refers to points on which the system of description hinges. The description of the primary cardinal vowels outlined above differs slightly from that of the English phonetician Daniel Jones who first defined them, but is in accord with a widespread conception of them today. So far lip activity has been largely ignored. In the back series of cardinal vowels, which is [a u], lip-rounding progressively increases, from none on [a] to close rounding on [u]. By convention unrounded vowels are placed to the left of the front or back line of the quadrilate-

ral, and rounded vowels to the right. Conversely, in the front series [ a i] the lips are neutral for [a] and become progressively more spread thought the series to [i]. Lip activity is, however, independent of tongue position, and many languages exploit this in their vowel systems. Top reflect this, eight “secondary cardinal vowels” are therefore defined which differ only in lip position form their primary counterparts. Suprasegmental

A numbers of properties of speech tend to form patterns which extend over more than one segment, and/or to vary independently of the segmental target. This is particularly true of the pitch loudness and perceived timing. These properties are often referred to as suprasegmentals and part of the process of phoneti analysis is the separation of these properties from the rest of the speech event. The IPA provides a separate set of symbols for suprasegmentals, to be found on the Chart at the bottom right corner. Pitch variation, for instance, can operate over complete utterances to convey meaning additional to that of the words in what is generally termed “intonation”. This is true in all languages, thigh the complexity of the intonational system varies across languages. For example, the symbol [||] can be use to mark the end of the domain of an intonation pattern and [|] to demarcate a smaller unit. the arrows symbol for “global rise” and “global fall” respectively may also be useful for intonation although a complete intonational transcription, will require symbols not provided on the IPA Chart.

Tone and word accents

The Ipa has two alternative sets of symbols for indicating tones. In languages in which lexical contrast are predominantly dependent on the pitch movement on each syllable, such as Thai and the various forms of Chines, so called tone letters are often used. these letters, as

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in the Tahi examples, indicate the tone of the preceding syllable bay a vertical stroke with a line preceding it. The vertical stroke is assumed to represent five possible pitch heights within the speaker’s range, and the position of the line shows the height and movement (if any) of the pitch on the preceding syllable. the tone s letters are often used to indicate general tone movements. For example, if there is only one falling tone in a language, and no strong reason to draw attention to the particular level of its endpoints, it can be noted as going from the highest to the lowest level. Thus a transcription of the Chines word for “scold” is [mav] although most Chinese speakers will not produce this syllable with a fall extending through their whole pitch range. It is also possible to use the tone letters to show more detailed transcriptions for certain purposes. Thus, the Thai high tone can be transcribed with the symbol [ ] but measurements of the fundamental frequency in high tone syllables show that there is actually a rise and a fall in syllables of this sort, so the tone could be represented as [ ] Other tone system: diacritics

The other IPA system for transcribing tone has often been used for languages in which tonal contrast depend predominantly on the pitch height in each syllable. There are three diacritics, corresponding to high, mid and low tone, which can be placed above the segment bearing the tone. Notice that these tone symbols must not be interpreted as iconic. The diacritics shown in rows four to nine of the first column of the diacritic table, together with the diacritics for “raised” – the rising tone is represented combining a “low” and a “high”tone –, and lowed shown by a vowel symbol. The diacritics for “raised” and “lowered” when applied to a consonant symbol, change its manner category. There are many form of diacritic like “rhoti-

city” diacritic, “dental” diacritic, nasal release, lateral release and no audible release. Other symbols

These symbols are included in their own section of the Chart for presentational convenience.The section contains several consonant symbols which would not fit easily into the “place and manner” grid of the main consonant table. In some case, such as the epiglottal and the alveoli palatals, no column is provided for the place of articulation because of its rarity and the small numbers of types of sounds which are found there. In other case such as [w], the sound involves two places of articulation simultaneously, which makes it inconvenient to display in the table. If separate columns for all consonants with two places of articulation were provided, the size of the grid would become unmanageable. most consonants tha involve two simultaneous places of articulation are written by combining two symbol with the “tie bar” [ˆ] ˆ a voiceless for example which represents [kp] labial-velar plosive. IPA “Handbook of the International Phonetic Association. A guide to the Use of the International Phonetic Alphabet.” University Press of Cambridge, 1999

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1779

Phonetic alphabet Benjamin Franklin Benjamin Franklin took great interest in the promotion of spelling reform. While living in London in 1768 he wrote A Scheme for a new Alphabet and a Reformed Mode of Spelling in which he proposed a fairly accurate phonetic system for spelling English. The alphabet was published in 1779 in Franklin’s publication called Political, Miscellaneous, and Philosophical Pieces. His new phonetic alphabet consisted all the lowercase letters of the Latin alphabet, consisted of 26 letters, but the conventional letterforms c, j, q, w, x, and y were all thrown out which he thought redundant and unambiguous orthographic representation, to be replaced with new six letterforms. Briefly, these new letters represented the following sounds: 1. law, caught 2. run, enough 3. this, breathe 4. singer, ring 5. she, sure, emotion, leash 6. thing, breath The remaining letters of the traditional Latin alphabet were retained, but their sound value was narrowed to just one sound, or phoneme, so that, for example “the g has no longer two different Sounds, which occasion’d Confusion, but is as every Letter ought to be, confin’d to one”. Franklin commissioned a type foundry to prepare a suitable type including for the 6 new

letters, but soon lost interest in his alphabet. The only other person to show an interest was Noah Webster. Franklin’s first use of this alphabet was in a letter to his London landlady’s daughter, Polly Stevenson. She was living with her aunt in the country, and their correspondence is a mixture of flirtation and long-distance instruction: Franklin wrote to her at length and in complex detail about how electricity is conducted, how colors absorb heat, and how the moon affects tidal flows. Previous exposure to Franklin’s eclectic and experimental intelligence must explain the fact that on receiving a letter entirely written in a new alphabet, Polly simply transcribed it, and then replied in the new alphabet, listing the obstacles in the way of its widespread adoption.

Glhyps of Franklin phonetic alphabet.

Franklin had his new letters cast into type in Philadelphia, and they were used to print his Scheme for a new Alphabet and a Reformed Mode of Spelling eleven years later. But, as you may have deduced, his new alphabet remained temporary, his twisty variations on the letter “h” exist now only as a historical curiosity. In between developing his alphabet in letters to Polly Stevenson, and the alphabet’s publication eleven

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years later, Franklin’s time was spent on the arguably more urgent tasks of drafting the Declaration of Independence, securing French support for the American Revolutionary War, and then shaping the Constitution of his newly formed country, the United States. In a new country, filled with revolutionary spirit, Franklin’s alphabet did find some support, particularly in the person of Noah Webster, who pioneered American spellings, such as “color,” “center,” and “organize,” and went on to publish the first American Dictionary of the English Language in 1828. In 1785 and 1786, Webster was on the road, lecturing on language and spelling in Boston, Charleston, and just about everywhere in between. In Philadelphia, Benjamin Franklin was in the audience, and eagerly shared his own scheme with Webster, giving Webster free access to his library as well as bequeathing him special type for the reformed alphabet. Webster was persuaded: “Your Excellency’s sentiments upon the subject … have taught me to believe the reformation of our alphabet still practicable.” Webster saw in Franklin’s alphabet a way to achieve his own aims: a cohesive, uniquely American, national identity: “Language, as well as government, should be national”Webster insisted in 1789, and again “America should have her own distinct from all the world”. Benjamin Franklin “A Scheme for a new Alphabet and a Reformed Mode of Spelling”

1836

Morse Code Alfred Vail Morse code is a type of characters encoding that trasmits telegraphic information using rhythm. Morse code uses a standardized sequence of short and long elements to represent the letters, numerals, punctuation and special characters of a given message. the short and long elements can be formed by sounds, marks or pulses in on off keying and are commonly known as “dots” and “dashes” or “dit” annd “dahs”. The speed of Morse code is measured in words per minute (WPM) or characters per minute, while fixed-length data forms of telecommunication transmission are usually measured in baud or bps. History said that Samuel f. b. morse was a painter of ability. During the voyage home, in 1832, no the packet ship Sully, discussions about recent electrical experiments in Paris aroused his interest. He had some knowledge of the subject, having attend lectures and assisted with laboratory experiments back home, and he spent the rest of the journey trying to devise a practical electromagnetic telegraph system capable of carrying messages rapidly over great distances. His 1832 notes, setting out his first ideas, are of great interest and were eventually reflected in his successful system. A sending apparatus to transmit signal y the closing and opening of an electric circuit. A receiving apparatus operated by an electro magneto to record the signals as dots and spa-

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ces on a strip of paper moved by clockwork and a code translating the foots and spaces into numbers and letters. His first code used figures only, coupled with a dictionary of numbered words. It was very simple and his notebook spells out a message showing various numbers with their word equivalents. Morse intended to spell out unusual words or names letter by letter, and this assumption is strengthened by a reference in his caveat of 1837, to the dictionary having numbered words,” beginning with the letters of the alphabet”. All of the early experiments and demonstrations had used Morse’s number code. On 24 January 1838, however, he demonstrated a new code comprising letters instead of numbers, achieving a transmission speed of 10 w.p.m., doube that attained previously. The transmitter (correspondent) had a printer’s port-rule with cast type inserted inn it as required, each type letter having saw-teeth to activate the circuit as it passed through the machine. this continued in use, until about 1840, when it was replaced by a simple hand key, which was later claimed by Vail, Morse’s assistant, to be his invention. On 24 May 1844, the first official demonstration took place before invited observers.The first words to be transmitted was “What hath God wrought!” took its place in history. About this time, Morse, probably with Vail’s assistance, devised a new code alphabet, which became known as American Morse. The exact date is not known, although Morse’s remarks to Vail about his sending on the new line suggest an unfamiliarity with the code which would not have existed had they still been using the 1837 version. An undated note by Morse lists the different quantities of type found in a printing-office, to determine which were the most frequently use letters of the alphabet. He gave every letters a separate symbol, unlike the previous code,

which had the same symbol for phonetically similar letters. He weight-lenght counting a dot as 1, a space between groups of dot as 1, a dash as 2 and a long dash as 4. The shortest symbols were allocated to the most commonly used letters, and longer ones to the less frequently used. But morse’s original code had not symbols fot the accented letters used in many European languages. An international conference in Berlin in 1851 revised the code once again, taking symbols from American Morse and three other systems, to form Continental, or International Morse code, which remains in use today. “Features”, pages 36-37, n. 56 , 2007 “Culture of Listening”, ed. Corraini, n. 27, 2009

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International Morse code Alphabet picture. 1836.

1847

Deseret alphabet Brigham Young The Church president and governor of the Territory of Utah Brigham Young was the driving force behind Mormonism’s experiment in alphabet reform and the creation, from the 1847, of the Deseret Alphabet, a phonetic system, he assigned characters to specific sounds. The concept of revising language symbols was not original: in Great Britain, a man named Isaac Pitman developed a shorthand system that he published and began to teach in 1837. He had a tremendous interest in “correcting” the written form of the English language. He may have been considering the possibility of altering the spoken word as well by simplifying certain aspects of the language. Brigham Young felt that there were too many words to express the same idea, and he was in favor of standardizing word usage. A number of schools taught the Deseret Alphabet during 1855: one of the difficulties of teaching the Deseret Alphabet at this time was that there were no printed materials except an 1854 broadside with the new alphabet characters and their pronunciations. Several attempts were made to create Deseret Alphabet type, both locally and through an order to a St. Louis foundry. Although local efforts failed, the type made in St. Louis was used to print sections of the Deseret News in the new alphabet for a number of months. Young was still not pleased with the quality of the St. Louis fonts. With the coming of

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Johnstonâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s army and the Utah War, followed by the Civil War, the push to have the Deseret Alphabet published and taught was neglected and nearly abandoned. Following the publication of the two primers, eight thousand copies of part one of the Book of Mormon were published in 1869. The first primer sold for fifteen cents, the second for twenty cents. The family edition, (the complete) Book of Mormon sold for two dollars, and part one of the proposed threevolume set cost seventy-five cents. Most of the Saints seemed willing to follow the instructions of Church leaders, but for whatever reason, though encouraged and promoted by some Church and educational leaders, the Deseret Alphabet generated little interest among most teachers and students. The Deseret Alphabet experiment lasted roughly from 1853 to 1877. The project cost the early Saints over twenty thousand dollars, a large sum in those days.The hours spent developing the alphabet, transliterating the scriptures, writing the primers, and promoting and teaching the new system cannot be determined. the Deseret Alphabet remains a fascinating episode in Church history. Reading, writing, and speaking Deseret

The Deseret Alphabet varied in characters from as many as forty-three to the thirty-eight (and other two optional letters) that became the alphabetâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s standard. All printed materials were done with the thirty-eight-character alphabet. Each of the characters had only one form, there being no difference between capital and lowercase letters except for size. It was decided not to have any tops, tails, or dots on any of the characters so that the type would last longer without wearing out.

How the Deseret was used

Evidence suggests that the new alphabet was not taught or used to any great extent. Some classes were taught, and a few journal entries from teachers and pupils describe their

[machine]

[grey]

[art]

[aught]

[tone]

[moo]

[it]

[desert]

[cat]

[cot]

[woman]

[book]

[aye]

[cow]

[wonder]

[you]

[hurah]

[put]

[bee]

[teach]

[desert]

[cheese]

[john]

[kitten]

[good]

[france]

[voice]

[this]

[they]

[said]

[zebra]

[shoot]

[measure]

[ride]

[letter]

[nice]

[sing]

[boy]

[few]

[mouse]

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experience with teaching and learning the Deseret Alphabet. In addition to its use in the publications mentioned above, the Deseret Alphabet was used by a few people to write in their journals. To what degree the alphabet was used in schools and by immigrants learning English cannot be determined. Examples of where the alphabet was used, such as coins and diaries, are scant. These outcomes suggest that the Deseret Alphabet movement never became popular. Reasons for the alphabet’s creation and demise

The motivation of Brigham Young and other Church and education leaders for the creation of the Deseret Alphabet has been credited to the following: .The Saints’ desire for exclusiveness, or to separate themselves even more from the United States, to the point of having their own writing and their own literature. .An attempt to teach English to Native Americans so they might more effectively be taught the gospel. .The intention to create a new worldwide system that would revolutionize the way people read and write. .The idea of making learning easier for children so they would have to spend less time in school. .A plan to keep “yellow-covered literature” out of the hands of the youth of the Church simply by publishing only approved material in the Deseret Alphabet. .The desire to teach English to immigrating converts in a shorter amount of time. .An effort to keep sensitive Church information secret by writing all the information down in a “secret Deseret code”. But the idea of separating from the world by keeping writings secret does not make sense in the light of the Church’s desire to publish its literature in as many languages as possible. Also, the use of a secret code is not especially effective when the key to the code is printed on

cards that are sold to anyone interested and is included in the front of each book published in the Deseret Alphabet. Reasons why was not successful

Book of Mormon St. Louis foundry 1869.

.The difficulty of reading Deseret. .The cost to the citizens of the Utah Territory to develop a unique alphabet, create type, and print materials. .The coming of the railroad and, with it, the availability of inexpensive published materials from the East. .The inability of territorial leaders to demand that the new alphabet be taught in a non-tax-supported school system. .And the key factor: most people had very little interest in learning a new system of reading and writing, including the teachers who were supposed to be promoting the system and educating people in its use. Richard G. Moore, â&#x20AC;&#x153;The Deseret Alphabet Experiment The Religious Educatorâ&#x20AC;? , Vol 7 No 3, 2006.

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1867

Visible Speech Alexander Melville Bell In 1867, Alexander Melville Bell published the book Visible Speech: The Science of Universal Alphabetics. The book contains information about the system of symbols created by him that indicates the pronunciation of words so accurately that it represents even regional accents. Melville Bellâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s intention was to create a script in which the characters actually look like the position of the mouth when they are being pronounced. The system is useful not only because its visual representation mimics the physical act of speaking, but because it does so, these symbols may be used to write words in any language, hence the name: Universal Alphabetics.

The Visible Speech teaching scheme

In fact, in 1849 the Author wrote is principles of speech having reference to English sounds, twelve form of articulative action, most of which do, and all of which may, modify both voice and breath, so producing twentyfour elements of speech. The practicability of extending this mode of representation to all possible sounds, was conceived and ultimately became a persistent idea. But the necessary pre-requisite for carrying out the idea was to obtain a knowledge of the exact relation of sounds, and the conditions to which they owed their differences, by observation and experiments. A table of all recognized elements

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Chart of English sounds written in Visible Speech from a pamphlet by A.G. Bell (1872) < On the nature and uses of Visible Speech

of speech on this natural principle of arrangement would be one step toward the realization of that indefinite philological speculation, a universal language. It was evident that there were three classes of purely lingual vowels, moulded respectively by the back, the front, and by mixed back and front positions of tongue: and that each element in this triple scale was the basis of another vowel, in forming which a definite labial modification was simply adds. Then, there were six sets of vowels instead of three, as formally supposed, one half being labialized or “rounded” forms of the other half. The study of the demonstrably Physiological solved the problem of a universal alphabet. The consonants were much more easily classified, as their organic formation was more obvious: the relation to various parts of the vowel effect was made manifest, and a New class of Elements, intermediate to vowels and consonants, was recognized. These “glides” or true semi-vowels completed the scheme of Linguistics Sounds, joint the vowels and consonants into one harmonious scale. Now the problem was to construct a scheme of symbols, shish should embody the whole classification of sounds, and make each element of speech shown in its symbol the position of its sound in the organic scale. The adaptation of letters from existing alphabet was obviously irreconcilable with the desired conformity of symbol to sound. The consideration that all these varieties of elementary sound, vowels-consonats-glides and their combinations, resulted mainly from the evolutions of a single organ, the tongue, definite representation of each class of elements by a single radical symbol. The fundamental principle of visible speech is, that all Relations of Sound are symbolized by Relation of Form. Each organ and each mode of organic action concerned in the production or modification of sound, has its appropriate symbol.

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And all sounds of the same nature produced at different parts of the mouth, are represented by a single symbol turned in a direction corresponding to the organic position. The scheme that result of the new alphabet provides the means of alphabetically representing all languages exactly as they are spoken, or according to any standard pronunciation. The symbols have been explained with reference only to the organic adjustments which they represent, and not in connection with the elementary sounds of language: because the sound intended necessarily results, in every case, from putting the organs in the symbolized position. The sound of many of the symbols cannot be exemplified by ordinary letters, or even by key-words, which are so differently pronounced by different speakers; but the relations of the various elements will be perfectly apprehended from an attentive study of the Symbols themselves and the explanatory Diagrams.

Principle of Visible Speech

The possibility of representing the organic actions of speech by the revolutions of Single Radical Symbols was originally suggested by the fact, that the elementary sounds of languages are produced mainly by the evolutions of a single organ, the tongue. It would be possible to print all languages from a number of types corresponding to that of the Radical Symbols, but the effect would be confusing to the eye, and otherwise objectionable. Convenience requires that all elementary sounds should have their organic and other constituent signs embodied in individual letters. Also, the system of Visible Speech was rendered the telegraphing of words through any country equally certain and easy, in all languages. Article by A. Graham Bell, â&#x20AC;&#x153;Visible Speech as a Means of Communicating Articulation to Deaf Mutesâ&#x20AC;?, 1872.

1876

New music notation Henry Sweet Sweet, in his Who’s Who entry for 1905, lists music as one of this interests in “old age”. The only extant evidence for these remarks is the manuscript material to be described below. There are some earlier, passing references to musical matters in Sweet’s published work, which perhaps indicate more than a superficial matters in Sweet’s subject. For example, in a a paper read to the Philological Society in June 1876, and later published under the title Words, Logic and Grammar, Sweet noted that: “In the ordinary musical notation the bars are divided by vertical lines or bars… My own practice has been for some time to discard the lines, &c., entirely, and write each bar simply as a word with nothing but a space between each group. With the help of a few simple signs for pauses and for holding or continuing a note, and a few diacritics to indicate fractions of notes (which often need not be expressed at all), music can thus be written almost as quickly as ordinary writing” (Sweet, 1875-1876: 481). This clearly indicates that Sweet had experimented with an alternative (or alternatives) to Western staff notation, including Tonic Solfa. He might have composed music as distinct from ‘translated’ it from staff notation into his own personal system. He was, after all, from a middle-class Victorian family where learning to play a musical instrument or to sing would have been regar-

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ded as a predictable social accomplishment.2 Alternatively, an interest in musical notation may have been triggered by the views of one of his mentors, Alexander John Ellis (1814-1890). If a serious interest in music developed only late in Sweet’s life, then a specific circumstance in the early 1900s which persuaded him to devise a new form of musical notation is likely to have been the publication in 1903 of Charles Abdy Williams’ The Story of Notation (Williams, 1903). Williams (1855-1923) provides a long and detailed survey of the many musical notations that have been used since the time of the ancient Greeks. He uses the expression ‘phonetic’ notation to refer to sounds ‘represented by alphabetical letters, arithmetical figures, or by words.

1. In the top half of the page, to the righthand side of the vertical line, after the words ‘octaves’ and ‘treble’ in current, the note C is set out in octaves on traditional bass and treble staves.12 The loop added to the glyph 13 for C signals the appropriate octave for C, by means of height and position. On the third line down in this section, there are glyphs for the treble and bass clefs — both simpler and faster to write than the traditional ones. In addition, there are symbols for lengths, rests, grace notes, stress and syncopation. 2. The bottom four lines of page 50 contain explanations in current alongside the glyphs. Many of them have to do with tempi (‘speed’, ‘very slow’, ‘moderate’, ‘quick’, etc), and with what Sweet calls ‘force’: for example, ‘very weak’ and ‘weak’. The glyphs for loudness, and others for notes that are detached, staccato, played with wrist staccato, and notes that are repeated, including a very simple one to show that an entire chord is repeated: namely, the | glyph on the right-hand side of the last line.

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Manuscript notes of Sweetâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s musical notations.

3. On the top left of page 50, to the left of the vertical line, are three blocks of horizontal lines; each consists of four lines. The top block, like the other two, consists of a series of glyphs and phonetic symbols: e.g. the second row reads <k t s f n l r>, with glyphs above them. The first item on lines 1 and 2 represents the note C, and the line reads from left to right as an ascending scale: C D E F G A B. Thus, there are two ways of notating the scale: either glyphs which have only a marginal connection with phonetic symbols, or else IPA symbols. There is logic in the shapes of the glyphs: those for C, D and E have a backwards-facing loop; F faces both backwards and forwards; and G, A and B face forwards. One question is why Sweet should have chosen to use the symbols <k, t, s>, etc, instead of <c, d, e>, i.e. the conventional musical symbols. The symbols may be completely arbitrary, in the sense that he wished to break away consciously from the conventional ‘A to G’ lettering system in order to see how symbols which are not used in staff notation might be employed, or else their choice is motivated. If the latter, then a mnemonic factor could lie behind the choice of characters. The note C would be written as <k> because phonetically there is a degree of connection (velar plosives) between the <c> of, say, CAT (phonetically [kat]) and the IPA’s use of [k]. Similarly, <t> can be interpreted as a ‘voiceless’ version of D. The symbol <s> for E may have been motivated, since, in Current, the symbol for /s/ (as in CITY or SIT) is the lowercase <e>. The symbol for G, Sweet’s <n>, is also probably a mnemonic: in the shorthand, the symbol for /n/ is precisely the glyph he uses on the top line. The traditional For one thing, the symbol <a> was used with different articulatory implications at different points in Sweet’s career: in 1877 and the Handbook of Phonetics, it was used for the vowel of HEART; 30 or so years la-

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ter, in 1908, and the Sounds of English, for the vowel of HUT. The <oe> digraph was not used at all by Sweet for a phoneme in English: instead he reserved it for a French, German or Scandinavian phoneme. Its articulatory value is shown by Bell’s Visible Speech symbol next to it on the page, namely a front open-mid rounded vowel (such as the stressed vowel in the German word GÖTTER). The reason for using these two symbols may again be purely mnemonic: the italic <a> is the first letter in the alphabet, and C is the first note in the scale of C major. [oe] is a rounded vowel; its unrounded equivalent is [æ], which can be equated with the note A. In each of these three blocks (naturals, sharps and flats) there are consonant and vowel symbols, as well as glyphs. Sweet is experimenting with two optional forms of notation: the glyphs are quicker to write than the phonetic symbols, and can be considered equivalents of shorthand strokes. The consonants and vowels are slower to write, and not always as logically structured as the glyphs. But an explanation has still to be found for this dual notational system: i.e. each note is represented twice, either as two glyphs or as a consonant and a vowel. In the middle section of this page there are six scales ascending in fifths: the first is C major, even though he omits to put a C at the beginning of it. In Sweet’s notation, then, there is no need for a key signature: the hyphen shape (or the equivalent vowel) provides the information, and so either device can be used. The consonant glyph and the symbol equally reveal the note’s position in relation to the 12-semitone scale. Sweet’s choice of roman letters may have been motivated simply by the patterns of phoneme symbols in English. For the consonant letters corresponding to the notes C and D, he uses two plosives; for E

and F two fricatives; for G and B three ‘liquids’: <n, l, r>. With the other notes, he is using all six plosive symbols, all three nasals, and seven out of the eight fricatives. The ‘extra’ sound and symbol is <j>. The next two lines in IPA notation may be connected with the acoustic structure of the vowel, although the precise connections remain a quite different explanation which I would like to propose is that Sweet saw his ideas not as a contribution to musicological theory or to the further practical development of Tonic Solfa, but instead as a relatively straightforward intellectual challenge: to assemble the evidence for using phonetic symbols and shorthandlike glyphs for notating music. In other words, given his life-long interest in notational systems, especially alphabets, he wished to see if yet another species of notation could be added to the long series of systems with which he was very familiar — and some of which he had created himself. That list includes Broad and Narrow Romic, Bell’s Visible Speech alphabets, Sweet’s own reworking of parts of Visible Speech to form the Organic Alphabet, two versions of Current Shorthand (the phonetic and the orthographic), adaptations of Current Shorthand to German, Norwegian, Old English and French, as well as the writing systems of several non-Latin-based alphabets, for example Russian, Sanskrit, Arabic and Mandarin Chinese. Michael K.C. McMahon, “Using phonetics in a New Musical Notation: Henry Sweet’s manuscript notes of 1904 and 1908” 2007

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1958

Shaw Alphabet George Bernard Show Kingsley Read From Bernard Shaw’s idea (1912), his Shavian alphabet (also known as Shaw alphabet) is an alphabet conceived as a way to provide simple, phonetic orthography for the English language to replace the difficulties of the conventional spelling. It was posthumously funded by and named after Irish playwright George Bernard Shaw. Shaw set three main criteria for the new alphabet: it should be at least 40 letters; as phonetic as possible (that is, letters should have a 1:1 correspondence to sounds); and distinct from the Latin alphabet to avoid the impression that the new spellings were simply “misspellings.” The Shavian alphabet consists of three types of letters: tall, deep and short. Short letters are vowels, liquids (r, l) and nasals; tall letters are unvoiced consonants. A tall letter rotated 180° or flipped, with the tall part now extending below the baseline, becomes a deep letter, representing equivalent voiced consonant. The alphabet is therefore largely featural. The Shavian alphabet is named after George Bernard Shaw and was devised by Kingsley Read. Shaw saw use of the Latin alphabet for writing English as a great waste of time, energy and paper, so in his will he stipulated that a competition should be held to create a new writing system for English and made provision for a prize of £500. The competition took place in 1958 and Kingsley Read’s system was chosen as the winner out of the 467 entries.

new alphabet could only afford to publish one book: a version of Shaw’s play Androcles and the Lion, in bi-alphabetic edition with both conventional and Shavian spellings. (1962 Penguin Books, London). Some disagreement has arisen among the Shavian community in regard to sound-symbol assignments, which have been the topic of frequent arguments. Primarily, this has concerned the alleged reversal of several pairs of letters. The most frequent disagreement of the letter reversals has been over the Haha-Hung pair. The most convincing evidence suggesting this reversal is in the names of the letters: the unvoiced letter Haha is deep, while the voiced Hung, which suggests a lower position, is tall. This is often assumed to be a clerical error introduced in the rushed printing of the Shavian edition of Androcles and the Lion. This reversal obscures the system of tall letters as voiceless consonants and deep letters as voiced consonants. “The Shaw Alphabet Edition of Androcles and the Lion.” Penguin Books, 1962 en.wikipedia.org

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Redesign of Shavian Alpahbet George Bernard Shaw

Giovanni Bove â&#x20AC;&#x153;Scrivere futurista: la rivoluzione tipografica tra scrittura e immagineâ&#x20AC;? Nuova Cultura, 2009

Paroliberismo Arte dei Rumori Futurismo Il lirisimo simultaneo e l’ortografia libera espressiva trattano le parole come morfemi, unità di forma, deformandoli rilassandoli, tagliandoli o allungandoli, rinforzando il centro dell’estremità, aumentando o diminuendo il numero delle vocali e delle consonanti, sminuzzando o impastando i caratteri. Lettere «umanizzate e animalizzate» dovevano calcare le tavole parolibere per rappresentare drammi ortografici e tipografici. Filippo Tommaso Marinetti voleva moltiplicare i caratteri e diversi colori d’inchiostro per aumentare la forza espressiva della parola “dipinta”. Il significante grafico poteva così esprimere nuove forme di contenuto: il grassetto tondo per onomatopee violente; il corsivo per esprimere l’infinitamente piccolo-tutta “una vita molecolare fatta di sensazioni simili o veloci”. Per il loro specifico carattere grafico, i testi futuristi derivati dalla pratica della cosiddetta rivoluzione tipografica avviata da alcuni scritti di Filippo Tommaso Marinetti, il leader del movimento, possono essere considerati come una sintesi esemplare di due modalità espressive radicalmente diverse: la scrittura e l’immagine. Infatti in riferimento al corpus di testi presentato, è possibile rilevare che le operazioni di forzatura e leva sul segno grafico alfabetico spingono all’analisi verso uno studio del segno visivo a tutto campo. In particolare, si propone un’analisi del sincretismo fra scrittura e im-

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magine per un insieme di composizioni paro libere estratte dalla rivista l’Italia futurista e intese come il risultato espressivo e linguistico di configurazioni inedite di elementi segnici, riportati sul piano della rappresentazione e suscettibili di generare processi di significazione che investono più specificatamente l’aspetto verbo-visivo dei linguaggi.

L’analisi della scrittura

Il futurismo italiano si presentò al pubblico con un vigore espressivo destinato ad investire gradualmente tutti gli ambiti artistici che era oggetto del dibattito culturale europeo. Filippo Tommaso Marinetti dedicò estrema attenzione alla diffusione del suo progetto di rinnovamento estetico ideologico: in tale direzione, la letteratura diventò uno dei campi di azione fondamentali. La riflessione sulla letteratura e sulle forme espressive che essa andava assumendo in quel periodo maturò attraverso tre scritti firmati da Marinetti e orientati a trasformare radicalmente il sistema espressivo alla base del fare letterario: la scrittura. Questi scritti, riconosciuti per il loro carattere non solo teorico ma anche tecnico, sono indicati come pilastri del paroliberismo futurista: Manifesto tecnico della letteratura futurista (1912), Distruzione della sintassi-Immaginazione senza fili-Parole in libertà (1913), Splendore geometrico e la sensibilità meccanica (1914). Dopo la diffusione di questi manifesti, Marinetti continuò a teorizzare e praticare la nuova letteratura futurista. [...] L’esposizione di alcuni punti teorici di questi scritti risultano così utile per comprendere il nesso tra la tecnica tipografica prevista da Marinetti e il risultato-in termini di rappresentazione con un linguaggio-dell’attività artistico-letteraria di coloro che scelsero di “scrivere futurista”. Nel Manifesto tecnico della letteratura futurista si legge: «[...] bisogna fondere diretta-

mente l’oggetto con l’immagine che esso evoca, dando l’immagine in scorcio mediante una sola parola essenziale».sebbene la terminologia marinettiana non si sia mai chiaramente e sufficientemente soffermata sulla definizione del concetto di immagine, è opportuno rilevare che il trattamento previsto per il sistema della scrittura finì per generare aspetti plastico-visibili fortemente ancorati alla tecnica di realizzazione del testo. [...] Nella prima fase del Manifesto tecnico (1912), si esplicita che principi e regole di composizione del testo saranno il bersaglio prescelto dagli scrittori futuristi: si tratta allora, di riconoscere «[...] l’inanità ridicola della vecchia sintassi ereditata da Omero [...]» per cui «Bisogna distruggere la sintassi disponendo dei sostantivi a caso, come nascono». Di conseguenza, diversi punti programmatici di questo manifesto introducono gradualmente il trattamento da riservare a sostantivi, verdi, aggettivi, avverbi e congiunzioni. Inoltre, il potere evocativo e di “stupefazione” che può essere veicolato attraverso un linguaggio letterario maturato da particolari scelte linguistico-stilistiche, è presentato con tutta la sua carica novatrice: il manifesto, infatti, si chiude introducendo le parole in libertà derivate dall’assenza di punteggiatura e quindi dalla «[...] continuità balia di uno stile vivo che si crea da sé, senza le soste assurde delle virgole e dei punti».

Scrivere futurista

Nell’impianto teorico-letterario tracciato da Marinetti le parole in libertà possono essere associate non solo al «[...] bisogno furioso di liberare le parole» ma anche alla suggestiva possibilità di non pensare le composizioni liriche attraverso le scelte stilistiche in senso stretto e la carica linguistico-eversiva implicitamente vincolata dalla volontà di un rinnovamento radicale.questo aspetto e emergerà con ulterio-

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Tavola da Zang Tumb Tumb di Filippo Tommaso Marinetti.

Riproduzione onomatopeica di un bombardamento militare.

Parole in libertĂ futuriste di Filippo Tommaso Marinetti.

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re enfasi in altri scritti tecnici, a partire dalle Risposte alle obiezioni pubblicate pochi mesi dopo il Manifesto tecnico del 1912. Ecco uno dei passaggi più importanti: «Le parole liberate dalla punteggiatura irradiando le une sulle altre, incroceranno i loro diversi magnetismi, secondo il dinamismo ininterrotto del pensiero. Uno spazio bianco, più o meno lungo, indicherà al lettore i polsi ai sogni più o meno lunghi dell’intuizione. Le lettere maiuscole indicheranno al lettore i sostantivi che sintetizzano un’analogia dominatrice». E ancora, dallo stesso scritto: «La distruzione del periodo tradizionale [...] e della punteggiatura determineranno necessariamente il fallimento della troppo famosa armonia dello stile, così che il poeta futurista potrà finalmente utilizzare tutte le onomatopee, anche le più cacofoniche, che riproducono gli innumerevoli rumori della materia in movimento». Continuando, nel secondo scritto tecnico dal titolo ancora più esplicito Distruzione della sintassi-Immaginazione senza fili-Parole in libertà (1913) si ritrovano due sezioni destinate a sancire definitivamente il passaggio dalla distruzione dell’armonia dello stile a quella dell’armonia tipografica della pagina. Nella prima, dal titolo Rivoluzione tipografica, compaiono alcune indicazioni per l’uso di caratteri tipografici destinati a «[...] raddoppiare la forza espressiva delle parole». Nell’altra, sull’ortografia libera espressiva lo stesso passaggio è reso in maniera ancora più incisiva inquadrandolo fin dall’inizio nella seguente considerazione: «Da necessità storica dell’ortografia libera espressiva è dimostrata dalle successive rivoluzioni che hanno sempre più liberato dai ceppi

e dalle regole la potenza lirica della razza umana». Infine l’ultimo punto della sezione sull’ortografia si dimostra molto significativo. «Oggi non vogliamo più che l’ebrietà lirica disponga sintatticamente le parole prima di lanciarle fuori coi fiati da noi inventati, ed abbiamo le parole in libertà. Inoltre la nostra ebrietà lirica deve liberamente deformare, riplasmare le parole, tagliandole, allungandone, rinforzandone il centro o l’estremità, aumentando o diminuendo il numero delle vocali delle consonanti. Avremo così la nuova ortografia che io chiamo libera espressiva. Questa di deformazione istintiva delle parole corrisponde alla nostra tendenza naturale verso l’onomatopea. Poco importa se la parola deformata, diventa equivoca». «L’ortografia e tipografia libere e espressive servono inoltre ad esprimere la mimica facciale e la gesticolazione e del narratore. Così le parole in libertà giungono ad utilizzare (rendendola completamente) quella parte di esuberanza comunicativa e di generalità epidermica che è una delle caratteristiche delle razze meridionali. Quest’energia d’accento, di voce e di chimica che finora si rivela soltanto in tenori commoventi e in conversatori brillanti, trova la sua espressione naturale nelle sproporzioni dei caratteri tipografici che riproducono le smorfie del viso e la forza scultorea e dei gesti».

Rumori del linguaggio

In un articolo di Luigi Russolo, pubblicato nel 1216 e intitolato rumori del linguaggio (le consonanti), le osservazioni sulle possibilità fonico-espressive che potrebbero realizzarsi attraverso scelte stilistiche e formali si spingono fino a riflettere sul valore comunicativo delle consonanti delle vocali: «[...] nelle parole in li-

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bertà futuriste, la consonante che rappresenta il rumore è finalmente adoperata per se stessa e serve, come una musica, a moltiplicare gli elementi dell’espressione dell’emozione». È interessante aggiungere che nello stesso intervento Russolo si rifà anche ad alcuni risultati emersi dal primo congresso internazionale di fonetica sperimentale:

La copertina de L’arte dei rumori di Luigi Russolo.

> pp. 56, 57 Il manifesto de L’arte dei Rumori.

«Così al primo congresso internazionale di fonetica sperimentale, è stato provato anche che non solo la musica ma pure il rumore esercita un’influenza sulla voce. [...] Da ciò quindi l’influenza che esercitano i rumori naturali come le cascate d’acqua, le onde del mare, i venti, ecc. sul timbro e l’intonazione della voce di chi è esposto quest’influenza. [...] Si tratta di una tendenza involontaria e incosciente che ha il carattere di un fenomeno fisiologico di natura generale». Prendendo spunto da queste osservazioni, Russolo aggiunge delle riflessioni dirette ad arricchire quanto lui stesso aveva già sostenuto nel suo manifesto L’arte dei Rumori del 1913. «Ma è del rumore come elemento stesso del linguaggio, che io voglio parlare, elemento che fino ad ora non è stato considerato con l’importanza che ha. Le vocali rappresentano, nel linguaggio, il suono, mentre le consonanti rappresentano indubbiamente il rumore. [...] La consonante cioè va pronunciata, e non solo chiamata col suo nome. Sono irrinunciabili benissimo le seguenti consonanti: R,S,F,Z,V, e C; molto Meno Le B, D, G, M, N, P, Q, T, ecc». La volontà di indagare i meccanismi per la “resa sonora” degli elementi del linguaggio svelerà in effetti il suo aspetto tecnico-lirico in molteplici composizioni parolibere nel primo decennio di vita dell’avanguardia futurista. Giovanni Bove, “Scrivere futurista: la rivoluzione tipografica tra scrittura e immagine”, Nuova Cultura, 2009

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Commenti di Schwitters alle Ursonate http://members.peak.org (5 dicembre 2011) “Culture of Listening” ed. Corraini, n. 27, 2009 www.jaddesignsolutions.com/ (29 novembre 2011) G. Fleischmann, H. R. Bosshard, C. Bignens “Max Bill. Typography advertising book design” Niggli, 1999 Arthur A. Cohen “Herbert Bayer. The complete work.” Cloth, 1984 “Pierre di Sciullo. Graphiste/typographe”, prefàce de Guillaume Pò, Pyramyd Éditions, 2003 “New fonts/Used Fonts” Typotheque tipe foundry

1922-32 1927

Ursonate + Neue plastische Systemschrift Kurt Schwitters

“The Sonata consists of four movements, of an overture and a finale, and seventhly, of a cadenza in the fourth movement. The first movement is a rondo with four main themes, designated as such in the text of the Sonata. You yourself will certainly feel the rhythm, slack or strong, high or low, taut or loose. To explain in detail the variations and compositions of the themes would be tiresome in the end and detrimental to the pleasure of reading and listening, and after all I’m not a professor.” “In the first movement I draw your attention to the word for word repeats of the themes before each variation, to the explosive beginning of the first movement, to the pure lyricism of the sung “Jüü-Kaa,” to the military severity of the rhythm of the quite masculine third theme next to the fourth theme which is tremulous and mild as a lamb, and lastly to the accusing finale of the first movement, with the question “tää?”

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â&#x20AC;&#x153;The letters applied are to be pronounced as in German. A single vowel sound is short... Letters, of course, give only a rather incomplete score of the spoken sonata. As with any printed music, many interpretations are possible. As with any other reading, correct reading requires the use of imagination. The reader himself has to work seriously to become a genuine reader. Thus, it is work rather than questions or mindless criticism which will improve the readerâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s receptive capacities. The right of criticism is reserved to those who have achieved a full understanding. Listening to the sonata is better than reading it. This is why I like to perform my sonata in public.â&#x20AC;? Commenti di Schwitters alle Ursonate da http://members.peak.org

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Schwitters recita le Ursonate. < Trascrizione delle stesse.

Like many new experimental types to arise from the early twentieth century avant-garde in Europe, Schwitters’ type is an attempt to remake the Western writing system through reduction, and the abandonment of idiosyncrasies. Schwitters proposed a monocase system, adopting a rectilinear interpretation of roman capitals, and contrasting these with six vowel alternate characters, A, E, I, O, Ü, and Y scaled

Design for a single-alphabet phonetic type.

to the same height but based upon Carolingian lowercase. The vowel alternates, though primarily used for the short sound, are used somewhat indiscriminately in his print work. Unlike his contemporaries, Herbert Bayer, Theo Van Doesburg and Jan Tschichold all who produced experimental universal alphabets that rejected uppercase, Schwitters retained the form of roman capitals. “Culture of Listening”, ed. Corraini, n. 27, 2009

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1928

Publicity lieflet for Die Neue Typography

Universal alphabet Jan Tschicold Beginning in 1928,Tschichold attempted to do away with two signs for one symbol, but his attempt at designing a Universal type looked much different than that of Bayer. He mixed both upper and lower-case letters thereby creating a single-case alphabet. In his Universal typedesign Tschichold reiterates that clarity is the highest goal. Interestingly, he also attempted to create an alphabet that would be much more closely related to speech. This work predates Bayer’s fonetik alfabet by some thirty years. This is not unlike what concrete poetry, Dada, and Futurism were attempting to achieve in the early part of the century. In his Futurist Manifesto, Filippo Tommaso Marinetti states the need for this type of typographic expression one which would more closely mirror verbal expression. www.jaddesignsolutions.com/

> pag. 67 An example for Universal alphabet

This alphabet has been designed to clean up the few multigraphs and non-phonetic spellings in the German language. He devised brand new characters to replace the multigraphs “ch” and “sch”. His intentions were to change the spelling by replacing systematically “eu” with “oi”, “w” with “v”, and “z” with “ts”. Long vowels were indicated by a macron below them, though the umlaut was still above. The alphabet was presented in one typeface, which was sans-serif and without capital letters. “Culture of Listening”, ed. Corraini, n. 27, 2009

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Universal alphabet

Jan Tschichold, 1926 /29. This alphabet has been designed to clean up the few multigraphs and non-phonetic spellings in the German language. He devised brand new characters to replace the multigraphs “ch” and “sch”. His intentions were to change the spelling by replacing systematically “eu” with “oi”, “w” with “v”, and “z” with “ts”. Long vowels were indicated by a macron below them, though the umlaut was still above. The alphabet was presented in one typeface, which was sans-serif and without capital letters.

1933

> pp. 69, 71 Example of “typeface from word-images”

Type from word-images Max Bill In a series of pencil drawings on sketch paper, repro film and paste-ups from single contact prints, Bill attempted to develop a“typeface from word-images” at the beginning of the sixties. The type should be “readable with the aid of machines by emphasizing the vowels, and more readable for people: a typeface for our time”. With this argument he takes up the advertising slogan for Futura from the end of the twenties - perhaps a memory of the experiments at the Bauhaus. The idea, similar to Schwitter’s “Optophonetik”, was to find a correspondence in the appearance of the words with their acoustical for by emphasizing the vowels. This would increase the reading speed with regard to its industrial effectiveness. The most striking are the bold vowels a, e i, o, u with their circular inner spaces. This was a theme that already interested Bill in his langen plastik from 1933, which had a circular hole somewhat below the middle. The e departs the most from familiar lettering. It is related to the e that Bill had already used for lettering for Wohnbedarf and Neub u hl. The unfinished concluding stroke reminds one of a construction diagram of a Grotesque typeface from Joost Schmidt from 1925. Here, Schmidt made this the asis of the two hours of typeface instruction per week within framework of the foundation course: “four circles in a square, three verticals, three horizontals, the two large and the four small diagonals; these are

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the elements with which you can make all of your letters.” […] Despite his preference for lowercase, the capital letters that Bill designed for the “type from word-images” remind one more of image elements format the earlier years than of characters. The circular openings are a theme on the vowels as well, though only the o reminds one of a common letterform. Bill pursued the idea of lettering with extremely conspicuous and bold vowels in many pencil drawings on sketch paper in countless variations - for a roman typeface as well as for an italic one. From the drawings, reductions were made on film and then paper contact prints were made from these. He mounted words and whole sentences from these single characters, which, reduced once again, were made into blocks and proofed. These typeface experiments were not taken so far as to find use. We do not read with the vowels, but rather with word-images, which are primarily formed by the ascenders and descenders of the consonants. Other languages even go so far as to write only the consonants, while indicating the vowels by additional small dots and dashes; or they are not reproduced at all, such as in Arabic and Hebrew. G. Fleischmann, H. R. Bosshard, C. Bignens, “Max Bill. Typography advertising book design” , Niggli, 1999.

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1959

Univeral Type (narrow face bold, 1925)

Fonetik alfabet Herbert Bayer The imaginative impetus given Bayer by his creation of universal type in 1925-26 was never lost. Characteristically, he does not let go of an idea but in all his work continues his reflections on its implications long beyond the point that others, having made their mark, pass on to something else. The creative impulse, as can be seen from my discussion of his painting, describes an initial vocabulary that over the years is continually reinvestigated and restated. No less the case with the more general issue of the Western Phoenician alphabet, which has occupied Bayer since the 1920s. The war on capital letters was an initial skirmish, not the major confrontation. That would come nearly thirty years later, from 1958 to 1960, when Bayer devised a new orthography that would eliminate the immense oral-aural confusions provoked by the English language, as well as by every other Western language where spelling and speech were not synchronized. In his essay â&#x20AC;&#x153;basic alphabetâ&#x20AC;? (40) Bayer advanced beyond universal type to the assertion of a computer face that would reflect his rules for a new orthography to eliminate all discrepancy between spelling and pronunciation. The difficulties English orthography presents to the foreigner are notorious, perhaps these, combined with Bayerâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s avowal that in the United State he would not speak German unless compelled to do so by his

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friends (like Siegfried Giedion, who Bayer reported did everything possible to avoid speaking English), made vivid the contradictions between English spelling and pronunciation. Be that as it may, the underlying principle of Bayer’s basic alphabet was the conviction has as medium of communication English lacked “a moor organized relationship of the written word to the spoken language”. Although he alludes in this essay to earlier attempts to correlate majuscules and minuscules (by Stefan George and A. M. Cassandre) and to eliminate majuscules in favor of a single alphabet (by W. Portsmann, Jan Tschichold, and Bayer himself), such polemics were of limited value since the basic alphabet was still inefficiently correlated to speech. The substance of the essay “basic alphabet”, genially developed and modestly argued, presses toward the “principles for the concept of a new alphabet, not the design of a new typeface”. The aesthetics of design, Bayer acknowledged, would entail a free play of diversity, where trial and error in compliance with the implied flexibility of the computer would at the right time devise appropriate type styles. Arthur A. Cohen, “Herbert Bayer. The complete work.”, Cloth, 1984 In 1959, he designed his fonetik alfabet, for English. It was sans-serif and without capital letters. He had special symbols for the suffixes “ed” “-ory”, “-ing”, and “-ion”, as well as the digraphs “ch”, “sh”, and “ng”. An underline indicated the doubling of a consonant in traditional orthography. “Culture of Listening”, ed. Corraini, n. 27, 2009

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1988 1992

Quantange + Sintètik Pierre di Sciullo Homme de caractères, Pierre di Sciullo est d’abord un adepte de la logique. Il propose d’en faire usage le plus fréquemment possible afin de mieux comprendre le monde qui nous entoure. Il crèe une publication irreèguliére, Qui?Rèsiste. Il dessine enfin avec méthode et rigueur une grande quantité de polices de caractères dont le besoin comme le police ortographico-phonètico-plastique, le Quantange trouverait naturellement sa place dans les écoles de langages, ou le Sintètik, qui se prononce en se pinçant le nez “avec l’accent de l’Ange du bizarre”.

Le Quantange

Le Quantange, police de caractères ortographico-phonètico-plastique, offre autant de formes de lettres que de façons de les prononcer en français. Cela permet d’indiquer la prononciation, par des correspondances graphiques entre les signes et les sons qui respectent l’orthographe. Le texte se rapproche alors de la partition musicale, mais sans codage supplémentaire. Pour les enfants, les étrangers et tous ceux qui aiment jouer avec la langue: pour les textes à lire à voix haute comme le thèàtre, la chanson et les formulaires administratifs.

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Images extract du cd Karaoké. Ces 6 expériences sont à visionner dans l’ordre ou le dèsordre sur le.

Le Sintètik

À l’inverse du Quantange, le Sintètik comprime impitoyablement l’alphabet. Toutes les lettres inutiles ont disparu. Les syllabes homophones s’écrivent d’une seul façon. Le lecteur doit s’aider du son de sa voix et de sa mémoire pour retrouver le sens en fonction de la mélodie et du contexte. L’intèrêt économique du Sintètik saute aux yeux: gain de place, gain de temps, gain d’argents - et plus d’espace pour la pub. “Pierre di Sciullo. Graphiste/typographe”, prefàce de Guillaume Pò. Pyramyd Éditions, 2003

Le caractĂ¨re Quantange.

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Tableau d’équivalences de le Sintétik.

2006

Fedra Phonetic IPA Peter Bil’ak Fedra is a multilingual contemporary typeface developed by Peter Bil’ak for visual identities, designed to work equally well on paper and on the commuter screen. Harper Collins Publishers have adopted the Fedra family to redesign their dictionaries and also commissioned the designing of a phonetic font. The font consists of more than 330 linguistic symbols, letters and diacritical marks for use in dictionaries, language guides, linguistics texts, or wherever else spoken sounds need to be typographically represented. Fedra Serif A Phonetic Phonetic is the first full IPA font to treat the glyphs as individual letterforms and is drawn according to the same principles as Fedra Serif rather than just mirroring existing glyphs, which results in incorrect weight distribution. “New fonts/Used Fonts”, Typotheque tipe foundry

Comparing various phonetic fonts. Characters in grey indicate incorrect contrast between the thick and thin strokes resulting from mirroring of the shape. > pag. 81 All glypsh of Fedra Phonetic.

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Approfondimenti e note biografiche IPA (Association from 1886) is the major as well as the oldest representative organization for phoneticians:is an organization that promotes the scientific study of phonetics and the various practical applications of that science. It was established in 1886 in Paris.The group, led byPaul Passy 2011 marks the 125th anniversary of the founding of the IPA.The group’s initial aim was to create a set of phonetic symbols to which different articulations could apply, such that each language would have an alphabet particularly suited to describe the sounds of the language. Eventually it was decided that a universal alphabet, with the same symbol being used for the same sound in different languages was the ideal, and development of the International Phonetic Alphabet progressed rapidly up to the turn of the 20th century. Since then, there have been several sets of changes to the Phonetic Alphabet, with additions and deletions that the several and progress of the science of phonetics has indicated. Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790) was one of the Founding Fathers of the United States. A noted polymath, Franklin was a leading author, printer, political theorist, politician, postmaster, scientist, musician, inventor,satirist, civic activist, statesman, and diplomat. As a scientist, he was a major figure in the American Enlightenment and the history of physics for his discoveries and theories regarding electricity. He invented the lightning rod, bifocals, the Franklin stove, a carriage odometer, and the glass ‘armonica’. From 1785 to 1788, he served as

governor of Pennsylvania. He was the first United States Ambassador to France, a major figure in the development of positive Franco-American relations and in defining the American ethos as a marriage of the practical and democratic values of thrift, hard work, education,community spirit, self-governing institutions, and opposition to authoritarianism both political and religious, with the scientific and tolerant values of the Enlightenment. In June 1776, he also was appointed a member of the Committee of Five that drafted the Declaration of Independence. Toward the end of his life, he freed his slaves and became one of the most prominent abolitionists. Alfred L. Vail (1807-1859) was a machinist and inventor. Vail was central, with Samuel F. B. Morse, in developing and commercializing the telegraph between 1837 and 1844.He was also responsible for several technical innovations of Morse’s system, particularly the sending key and improved recording registers and relay magnets.Alfred attended public schools before taking a job as a machinist at the iron works. He enrolled in New York University to study theology in 1832, graduating in 1836. He became fascinated by the technology and negotiated an arrangement with Morse to develop the technology.After having secured his father’s financial backing, Vail refined Vail retired from the telegraph operations in 1848 and moved back to Morristown. He spent his last ten years conducting genealogical research.His papers and equipment were subsequently donated by his son Ste-

phen to the Smithsonian Institution and New Jersey Historical Society. Brigham Young (1801-1877) was an American leader in the Latter Day Saint movement and a settler of the Western United States. He was thePresident of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints from 1847 until his death in 1877, he founded Salt Lake City, and he served as the first governor of theUtah Territory, United States. Young also led the foundings of the precursors to theUniversity of Utah and Brigham Young University. Young had a variety of nicknames, among the most popular being “American Moses,”because, like the biblicalfigure, Young led his followers, the Mormon pioneers, in an exodus through a desert, to what they saw as a promised land. Young was dubbed by his followers the “Lion of the Lord” for his bold personality, and was also commonly called “Brother Brigham” by Latter-day Saints. He was a polygamist and was involved in controversies regarding black people and the Priesthood, the Utah War, and the Mountain Meadows massacre. He was the longest serving President of the LDS Church in history, having served for 29 years. Alexander Melville Bell (1819–1905) was a teacher and researcher of physiological phonetics and was the author of numerous works onorthoepy and elocution. Additionally he was also the creator of Visible Speech which was used to help the deaf learn to talk. He was born in Edinburgh, Scotland, and studied under and became the principal assistant of his father, Alexander Bell (1790– 1865), an authority on phonetics and speech disorders. From 1843 to 1865 he lectured on speech elocution at the University of Edinburgh, and from 1865 to 1870 at theUniversity of London. Melville married Eliza Symonds, the only daughter of a British naval surgeon. In 1868, and again in 1870 and 1871, Melville lectured at the Lowell Institute inBoston, Massachusetts after having moved to Canada. In 1870 he became a lecturer on philology at Queen’s College, Kingston, Ontario; and in 1881 he moved to Washington,

D.C. at the suggestion of his son Graham, where he devoted himself to the education of the deaf by the use of Visible Speech. Melville Bell died at age 86 in 1905 due to pneumonia after an operation for diabetes,and was interred in Washington, D.C.’s Rock Creek Cemetery. Henry Sweet (1845–1912) was an English philologist,phonetician and grammarian. As a philologist, he specialized in the Germanic languages: in addition, Sweet published works on larger issues of phonetics and grammar in language and the teaching of languages. Many of his ideas have remained influential, and a number of his works continue to be in print, being used as course texts at colleges and universities. When he was twenty-four, he won a scholarship in German and entered Balliol College in Oxford. In 1877, Sweet published A Handbook of Phonetics, which attracted international attention and other books include An Icelandic Primer with Grammar, Notes and Glossary (1886), The History of Language and a number of other works he edited for the Early English Text Society.Despite the recognition he received for his scholarly work, Sweet never received a university professorship, a fact that disturbed him greatly; he had done poorly as a student at Oxford, he had annoyed many people through bluntness, and he failed to make every effort to gather official support.His relationship with the Oxford University Press was often strained. Sweet died on 30 April 1912 in Oxford, of pernicious anemia. George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950) was an Irish playwright and a co-founder of the London School of Economics. Although his first profitable writing was music and literary criticism, in which capacity he wrote many highly articulate pieces of journalism, his main talent was for drama, and he wrote more than 60 plays. Nearly all his writings address prevailing social problems, but have a vein of comedy which makes their stark themes more palatable. Shaw examined education, marriage, religion, government, health care, and class privilege.

He was most angered by what he perceived as the exploitation of the working class. An ardent socialist, Shaw wrote many brochures and speeches for the Fabian Society. He became an accomplished orator in the furtherance of its causes, which included gaining equal rights for men and women, alleviating abuses of the working class, rescinding private ownership of productive land, and promoting healthy lifestyles. For a short time he was active in local politics, serving on the London County Council. In 1898, Shaw married Charlotte PayneTownshend, a fellow Fabian, whom he survived. They settled in Ayot St Lawrence in a house now called Shaw’s Corner. Shaw died there, aged 94, from chronic problems exacerbated by injuries he incurred by falling from a ladder. He is the only person to have been awarded both a Nobel Prize in Literature (1925) and an Oscar (1938), for his contributions to literature and for his work on the film Pygmalion (adaptation of his play of the same name), respectively. Shaw wanted to refuse his Nobel Prize outright because he had no desire for public honours, but accepted it at his wife’s behest: she considered it a tribute to Ireland. He did reject the monetary award, requesting it be used to finance translation of Swedish books into English. Ronald Kingsley Read (1887–1975) was one of four contestants chosen to share the prize money for the design of the Shavian alphabet, a completely new alphabet intended for writing English. He was later appointed sole responsible designer of the alphabet. In 1966, after extensive testing of Shavian with English speakers from around the world, Read introduced Quikscript, a revised form of his Shavian alphabet. Quikscript, also known as the “Read alphabet”, has more ligatures than Shavian, which makes it easier to write by hand. Its appearance is more cursive than Shavian. A few days before his death, he completed a new script called Soundspell (now called Readspel), based, probably for increased chances of popular acceptance, on the existing standard roman alphabet.

Futurism was an artistic and social movement that originated in Italy in the early 20th century. It emphasized and glorified themes associated with contemporary concepts of the future, including speed, technology, youth and violence, and objects such as the car, the airplane and the industrial city. It was largely an Italian phenomenon, though there were parallel movements in Russia,England and elsewhere. The Futurists practiced in every medium of art: and politician, In fact, many Italian Futurists supported Fascism. Key figures of the movement include the Italians Filippo Tommaso Marinetti, Umberto Boccioni, Carlo Carrà, Gino Severini, Giacomo Balla,Antonio Sant’Elia, Tullio Crali and Luigi Russolo, and the Russians Natalia Goncharova, Velimir Khlebnikov, and Vladimir Mayakovsky. Important works include its seminal piece of the literature, Marinetti’s Manifesto of Futurism, as well as Boccioni’s sculpture, Unique Forms of Continuity in Space, and Balla’s painting, Abstract Speed + Sound. Futurism influenced art movements such as Art Deco, Constructivism, Surrealism, Dada, and to a greater degree, Rayonism and Vorticism. A revival of sorts of the Futurist movement began in 1988 with the creation of the Neo-Futurist style of theatre in Chicago, which utilizes Futurism’s focus on speed and brevity to create a new form of immediate theatre. Kurt Schwitters (1887–1948) was a German painter who was born in Hanover, Germany. Schwitters worked in several genres and media, including Dada, Constructivism,Surrealism, poetry (the Ursonate), sound, painting, sculpture, graphic design, typography and what came to be known as installation art. He is most famous for his collages, called Merz Pictures. After studying art at the Dresden Academy alongside Otto Dix and George Grosz, 1909–14, Schwitters returned to Hanover and started his artistic career as a post-impressionist. Expressionism was a predominantly German artistic movement best exemplified by Die Brücke, and by the paintings of Emil Nolde and Ernst Kirchner in particular. Cut off from the centres of the European

Avant-Garde, and with International Modernism Schwitters’ work in exile became increasingly organic, with natural forms and muted colours replacing the mass produced ephemera of previous years. Plagued by health problems in his remaining years, including temporary blindness in 1946 and a number of strokes, Schwitters died in Kendal, England, 8 January 1948, of a heart attack, and was buried in Ambleside. Jan Tschichold (1902-1974)was a typographer, book designer, teacher and writer. Tschichold was the son of a provincial signwriter, and he was trained in calligraphy, that set him apart from almost all other noted typographers of the time, since they had inevitably trained in architecture or the fine arts. Although Die neue Typographie remains a classic, Tschichold slowly abandoned his rigid beliefs from around 1932 onwards as he moved back towards Classicism in print design. Between 1947-1949 Tschichold lived in England where he oversaw the redesign of 500 paperbacks published by Penguin Books, leaving them with a standardized set of typographic rules and 1929, he designed a “universal alphabet” to clean up the few multigraphs and non-phonetic spellings in the German language. After the election of Hitler in Germany, Tschichold took up a teaching post in Munich at the behest of Paul Renner,when both he and Tschichold were denounced as “cultural Bolshevists” and they were arrested: SS found Soviet posters in his flat, casting him under suspicion of collaboration with communists. All copies of Tschichold’s books were seized by the Gestapo “for the protection of the German people”.After six weeks a policeman somehow found him tickets for Switzerland, and he and his family managed to escape Nazi Germany in August 1933. He lived the rest of his life in Switzerland, until his death in Locarno. Max Bill (1908–1994) was a Swiss architect, artist, painter, typeface designer, industrial designer and graphic designer. Bill was born in Winterthur. After an apprenticeship as a silversmith during 1924-1927,

Bill took up studies at the Bauhaus in Dessau under many teachers including Wassily Kandinsky, Paul Klee and Oskar Schlemmer from 1927 to 1929, after which he moved to Zurich. In 1944, he became a professor at the school of arts in Zurich. In 1953, Max Bill, Inge Aicher-Scholl and Otl Aicher founded the Ulm School of Design, in Germany, a design school initially created in the tradition of the Bauhaus and which later developed a new design education approach integrating art and science. The school is notable for its inclusion of semiotics as a field of study. The school closed in 1968. Bill was the single most decisive influence on Swiss graphic design beginning in the 1950s with his theoretical writing and progressive work. His connection to the days of the Modern Movement gave him special authority. As an industrial designer, his work is characterized by a clarity of design and precise proportions. Examples are the elegant clocks and watches designed for Junghans, a long-term client. Among Bill’s most notable product designs is the “Ulmer Hocker” of 1954, a stool that can also be used as a shelf element or a side table. As a designer and artist, Bill sought to create forms which visually represent the New Physics mathematics of the early 20th century. He sought to create objects so that the new science of form could be experienced by the senses. A prime example is his sculptural work using the Möbius strip form. From 1967 to 1971 he became a member of the Swiss National Council, then became a professor at the Staatliche Hochschule für Bildende Künste Hamburg and chair of Environmental Design from 1967 to 1974. In 1973 he became an associate member of the Royal Flemish Academy of Science, Literature and Fine Art in Brussels. In 1976 he became a member of the Berlin Academy of Arts. Herbert Bayer (1900–1985) was an Austrian American graphic designer, painter, photographer, sculptor, art director, environmental & interior designer, and architect, who was widely recognized as the last living member of the Bauhaus and was instrumental in the development of the Atlan-

tic Richfield Company’s corporate art collection until his death in 1985. Bayer apprenticed under the artist Georg Schmidthammer in Linz. Leaving the workshop to study at the Darmstadt Artists’ Colony, he became interested in Walter Gropius’s Bauhaus manifesto. After Bayer had studied for four years at the Bauhaus; in the spirit of reductive minimalism, Bayer developed a crisp visual style and adopted use of all-lowercase, sans serif typefaces for most Bauhaus publications. Bayer is one of several typographers of the period who experimented with the creation of a simplified more phonetic-based alphabet. From 1925 to 1930 Bayer designed a geometric sans-serif Proposal for a Universal Typeface that existed only as a design and was never actually cast into real type. These designs are now issued in digital form as Bayer Universal. In 1928 the artist left Bauhaus to focus more on his own artwork and moved to Berlin, where he worked as a graphic designer in advertising and as an artistic director of an advertising agency. In 1938 Herbert Bayer emigrated to the US and in 1944 he married Joella Syrara Haweis. In 1946 the Bayers moved moved to Aspen, Colorado, where he worked as a painter, graphic designer, architect and landscape designer.In 1959, he designed his “fonetik alfabet”, a phonetic alphabet, for English. It was sans-serif and without capital letters. He had special symbols for the endings -ed, -ory, -ing, and -ion, as well as the digraphs “ch”, “sh”, and “ng”. An underline indicated the doubling of a consonant in traditional orthography. In 1974 the artist moved to Montecito, California, where he died in 1985. Pierre di Sciullo was born in Paris in 1961. He began publishing his own Qui ? Résiste in 1983, in which he experiments with typography and design, taking on such media as the book, the poster, the screen, or architecture. He is currently on his 10th edition of the publication. In 1995 he was awarded the Prix Charles-Nypels for his typographical research. He teaches in Strasbourg and gives lectures in France as well as abroad. Di Sciullo has a very fresh

and energetic approach to both typography and graphic design. His typefaces are strikingly modern (or perhaps, appropriately post-modern). His attention to type as an iteration of the spoken word makes him stand out among even the best typographers. His dedication to the medium of type is the most impressive, as he manages to make bolder statements than many designers with only type (e.g. “danse”). Peter Bil’ak (born 1973) is working in the field of editorial, graphic, type and web design, on a scope of cultural and commercial projects. He designed several fonts for FontShop International, and custom typefaces for visual identities. In 1999 he started his own type foundry Typotheque. In 2000, he organized and curated and exhibition of contemporary Dutch graphic design at the Biennale of graphic design in Brno, Czech Republic. He is the editor of dot dot dot, a graphic design and visual culture magazine (together with Stuart Bailey). The magazine offers inventive critical journalism on a variety of topics related both directly and indirectly to graphic design. His work has been presented in magazines such: Abitare, Étapes Graphiques, Graphics International, HOW, I.D., Items, Page, U&lc, and several books. In addition to daily design practice, Peter Bil’ak acts as a visiting tutor at the Royal Academy in The Hague, Art Academy in Arnhem, and regularly gives talks and workshops internationally. He based in The Hague, NL.

Bibliografia e sitografia IPA “Handbook of the International Phonetic Association. A guide to the Use of the International Phonetic Alphabet.” University Press of Cambridge, 1999 B. Franklin “A Scheme for a new Alphabet and a Reformed Mode of Spelling” “Features” pages 36-37, n. 56 , 2007 “Culture of Listening” ed. Corraini, n. 27, 2009 Richard G. Moore “The Deseret Alphabet Experiment The Religious Educator” Vol 7 No 3, 2006. Article by A. Graham Bell “Visible Speech as a Means of Communicating Articulation to Deaf Mutes” 1872 Michael K.C. McMahon, “Using phonetics in a New Musical Notation: Henry Sweet’s manuscript notes of 1904 and 1908” 2007

“The Shaw Alphabet Edition of Androcles and the Lion.” Penguin Books, 1962 Giovanni Bove “Scrivere futurista: la rivoluzione tipografica tra scrittura e immagine” Nuova Cultura, 2009 G. Fleischmann, H. R. Bosshard, C. Bignens “Max Bill. Typography advertising book design” Niggli, 1999 Arthur A. Cohen “Herbert Bayer. The complete work.” Cloth, 1984 “Pierre di Sciullo. Graphiste/typographe”, prefàce de Guillaume Pò, Pyramyd Éditions, 2003 “New fonts/Used Fonts” Typotheque tipe foundry Commenti di Schwitters alle Ursonate http://members.peak.org (5 dicembre 2011) en.wikipedia.org (29 novembre 2011) www.jaddesignsolutions.com/ (12 dicembre 2011)

UniversitĂ degli studi di Venezia FacoltĂ di Design e Arti CdL in Comunicazioni visive e multimediali Laboratorio di design della comunicazione 1 docenti: Sonnoli, Toneguzzi, Bisiani progetto di Tania Ferrari, Gianpiero Spinelli