As a social scientist, I can only lurk in awe at the qalam members'
knowledge of language and typography. Anyway, I noticed this article
in the Times of India online (http://www.timesofindia.com) on 28th
October and wondered if you might find it worthy of comment.
Best wishes,
Jonathan Lewis
Tokyo Denki University
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Linking languages through the science of sounds
Sushma Nargundkar
BELGAUM: As cultural and linguistic barriers collapse, the need for a
universal language becomes all the more imminent. And Belgaum's Col
(Retd) Dinakar D. Patil, has taken a leap towards that direction.
The New Phonetic Script, a book by Patil, illustrates "the mechanism
of speaking", while laying accent on the science of sounds
articulated while we speak. It presents a new common script based on
this speech science. Patil's new script provides full scope to write
any language of the world with perfect phonetic accuracy. It is
simple in design, easy to understand, write and learn.
The letters of this script have been designed to suggest the
pronunciation of that letter with a perfect phonetic base.
The book was released on October 1. First, The Times of India carried
a report on this feat and a little later, Col Patil was interviewed
for two hours by the BBC London about his work which took twelve-long
years.
Excerpts of the interview:
BBC: We came to know about your work. Can you tell us more about it?
Patil: I have designed this script with an aim to provide common base
to link all the world languages.
BBC: The necessity?
Patil: There are about 3000 languages in the world. And quite a large
number of scripts are also existing. Earlier, we were living in
isolated places, but now we have come closer. So there is a need to
have a common script for all the languages.
BBC: Col Patil, what do you have to say when there is already The
International Phonetics existing?
Patil: The existing international script has the simply modified
characters of existing Latin and Roman script. It is a bit difficult
for the common lot to use it effectively. For example, designs of the
characters of the International Phonetics does not suggest the exact
pronunciation. BBC: Does your script have it?
Patil: Yes.
BBC: How did you manage to go about it?
Patil: By studying the existing script. Especially the important root
scripts which have influenced the other scripts in the world like the
Roman, Arabic, Chinese and Devnagari and many other. Then I designed
the new script by adapting the stroke system from the Chinese.
Chinese use strokes to draw a pictorial word. I have used strokes to
draw the phonetic sounds of the letter.
BBC: How is it done?
Patil: By studying speech mechanism where various speech organs are
used. My study revealed that there are 28 articulators and four wind
frequencies used for all the sound pronounced in all the world
languages. I have allotted strokes to these articulators and the wind
frequencies. There are exactly 14 strokes used for this purpose. I
have used the related strokes of these articulators to design the
particular letter. Likewise, I have designed 60 basic letters, which
are sufficient to cover all the languages in the world.
BBC: How does your script look like?
Patil: It looks like Roman i.e., English and Russian.
BBC: Anything else you would like to say about your script?
Patil: The script has tone signs used for Chinese vowels. Punctuation
signs have been adopted from the existing script. My script is based
on scientific phonetics. And any language can be written with
accurate pronunciation.
BBC: What about the languages which do not have a script?
Patil: These languages can straight away adopt my script.
BBC: Have you got any international recognition?
Patil: My book was published only on October 1, 2000. Now you are
interviewing me. That itself is an international recognition.