Izografia
Izografia is a writing system devised by the Polish logician Tadeusz Wójcik (1917-1975). Its principles were outlined in his article "Wspólne pismo dla ludzi i maszyn" ("A common writing system for humans and machines"), published in the December 1971 issue of the Polish periodical "Młody Technik". A brief follow-up appeared in the April 1972 issue.
Izografia uses a two-line writing format: the lower line is dedicated to consonants; the narrower upper line contains vowels, as well as markers for aspirated consonants and tones. Each glyph is constructed from a standardized set of straight lines and arcs, based on a square grid (the glyph template is depicted on the cover of the 1971 "Młody Technik" issue - see here).
Glyphs have one-to-one correspondence to phonemes. Visual features of the glyphs correspond to particular types of phonemes. For example, glyphs representing voiced consonants contain arcs in their upper halves, while those for unvoiced consonants do not. Voiced/unvoiced consonant pairs correspond to pairs of glyphs with similar shapes; for example, "p" is written as 𝖤 while "b" is written as 𝖡, which is shaped like 𝖤 with added arcs. Palatalized consonants (which are particularly common in Slavic languages such as Polish) have glyphs struck through with a line.
Izografia was proposed as a universal system, usable for all languages with a single standard set of glyphs. The author argued that izografia could supersede all existing alphabets, and argued for its advantages as follows:
- All words are written phonetically, with no exceptions or irregular spellings. Additionally, there is no separation into upper- and lower-case letters. Therefore, izografia would simplify spelling, making the writing system easier to learn.
- Because the glyphs are composed of simple geometric elements based on a rigid grid, izografia writing is well-suited for optical character recognition. (This idea is similar to bespoke OCR typefaces, which had already existed since the 1960s.)
- The script is more space-efficient (no digraphs, smaller vowels) and thus printing and writing requires less ink and paper.
External links
- Original article from Młody Technik (page 36, in Polish); from the Młody Technik 1971 collection at the Internet Archive.
- Follow-up article from Młody Technik (page 59, in Polish); from the Młody Technik 1972 collection at the Internet Archive.
