Another article in the late seventeenth century journal discussed in my previous post addresses the issue of a “universal alphabet.” Although I hate to admit it, it’s a lot more interesting — and easy to read — than the piece on Chinese characters.

Here is the Lord’s Prayer in English, rendered in the alphabet of the author, Francis Lodwick.

Lodwick didn’t just stop at letters. He addressed punctuation as well.

The Characters signifying the various Modes of Expression may be these following, and ought to be placed at the beginning and end of every Sentence requiring it.

• [ ] explication
• ? ? interrogation
• ( ) parenthesis
• ! ! wonder
• ¡ ¡ emphasis
• ¿ ¿ irony

Some of those marks far outdate similar proposals I’ve seen.

sources and further readings:

• An Essay towards An Universal Alphabet, by Francis Lodwick. Philosophical Transactions (1683-1775), Volume 16, 1686/1692, pp. 126-37.
• early ‘universal’ romanization system, Pinyin News, April 20, 2006