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This site last updated 9-24-97

Rap Lin Rie is the nickname I have given to Dutton World Speedwords. Dutton World Speedwords was intended to be a shorthand system that could also be used as an international language. And, it turns out that it is the perfect email shorthand system for the 21st Century.

"The purpose of an International Auxiliary Language is not to displace any national tongue, but to provide for every country a second language which would designate every separate object and idea by a special international appellation. Such an I.A.L. would sweep away language barriers to spoken and written communication between all peoples of both hemispheres

The question as to the structure of an ideal I.A.L. was investigated after the last great War by a special committee of the British Association for the Advancement of Science, and the committee delivered its report in 1921. This, in short, rejected (a) Classical languages such as Latin and Greek because of their difficulty; (b) National languages such as English, French or Spanish, because jealousy might be aroused and an undue advantage conferred on the nation whose language was chosen.

After considering the matter from all points of view the committee finally declared, "An invented neutral language would be the best."

Of the 100 I.A.L.'s which may be inspected in the Reading Room of the British Museum Esperanto has enjoyed the greatest vogue. It may be said to answer all the requirements of an I.A.L., and some years ago the inventor of Speedwords spent much time and money in efforts to persuade the British public to take it up.

But ultimately it had to be admitted that for some reason the great masses of the people remained apathetic. Consequently, those who regarded a second language as essential to world understanding exercised their minds as to whether some new additional advantages could not be introduced which would have the effect of attracting much greater numbers to the study of an international auxiliary language.

In this connection the process of evolution in regard to numerals should have a special interest for I.A.L. enthusiasts. Consider, then, the three following methods of writing or printing numbers: --

1. Seven hundred and seventy-seven thousand seven hundred and seventy-seven (64 characters).

2. DCCLXXVII-DCCLXXVII (20 characters, the long bar multiplying Roman numerals a thousand-fold, Note: I could not get the bar drawn at the top of the first set of numbers from the first D to II-).

3. 777,777 (7 characters).

The economy effected by the third or Arabic system of notation is patent and, indeed, Arabic numerals may be said to have infiltrated their way into the scripts of practically all languages, not because of propaganda or of agreements between governments but because their striking brevity first attracted the commercial interests and later the peoples as a whole. One interesting feature which they reveal is that sometimes what is spoken may be indicated by mere position, the position of a figure making it unnecessary to reproduce specific characters for every sound uttered. Thus, the first and last 7's are exactly the same in form, but no one has found any difficulty in recognising the fact that in English the first 7 stands for 'seven hundred thousand' (six syllables and five letters). The same principle, of course applies to the spoken numerical equivalents in the many occidental and oriental tongues in which the Arabic numerals are now used.

Brevity in regard to its written and printed script has accordingly been the guiding principle in the construction of Speedwords, and the invention thus breaks entirely new ground so far as international language is concerned. One valuable outcome of such brevity is that it will enable the nationals of every country to write twice as fast as when using their own tongue. By its saving in paper and type-setting costs Speedwords will also enable books and printed publications of all kinds to be produced at less than half their present cost and thus bring the cultural, scientific and technical literature of all nations within the purchasing means of young people throughout the whole world.

Whereas in the past foreign and international language students have been faced with the arduous task of memorising some 5,000 strange root-words, Speedwords students will only need to learn 493. These 493 radicals, moreover, will be easily memorised by the inhabitants of four out of the five continents because most of them are shortened forms of root-words with which they are already familiar. Moreover, internationally-minded students of the fifth continent, Asia, should not find the memorising of only 493 Aryan root-words a very difficult task.

But, it may be asked, how can 250,000 words (the number listed in the Oxford English Dictionary) be written and spoken by the use of no more than 493 radicals? This question is answered as follows: --

(1) The 26 letters of the Speedwords alphabet are used singly to denote the 47 most-frequently spoken words in any language. Thus, e denotes am, are, be, is', b is 'but', c 'this', i 'in', j 'I, me', k 'that', l 'the', m 'with', n 'no, not', v 'you', w 'us, we', and so on.

These 47 most-used words, according to the statistical researches of Professor Ernest Horn of Iowa University, U.S.A., constitute 50 out of every 100 running words, and most readers who care to check their speed will find that they can write the 26 letters of the alphabet in 7 ½ to 10 seconds, which means that when proficient in Speedwords they will be able to write 50 out of every 100 running words at a speed of from 150-200 words per minute.

(2) Members of the Royal Air Force abbreviate 'intelligence' to 'gen', 'operations' to 'ops', etc., and the inventor of Speedwords has adopted the same sensible time-saving principle. Thus 'authority' is expressed by the 3 letter radical aut, 'love' by am, 'electricity' by el, 'efficiency' by ef, 'understanding' by sav, 'write' by ri, 'life' by bi, 'establishment' by ry, and so on.

(3) Twenty single-letter suffixes, each having its particular function, give a corresponding variation of meaning to any radical to which one is attached. Thus, -o added after a consonant, or -x, after a vowel, reverses the meaning of the radical to which it is joined. For example, am meaning 'love', amo means 'hate', and fy meaning 'cause', fyx means 'prevent'. Similarly with ad-addition, ado-subtraction; as-ascend, aso-descent; ax-ask, axo-answer; bel-beautiful, belo-ugly; du-duration, dux-cessation, etc.

Again, -a added to a Speedword radical imparts an unfavourable aspect to the root meaning, so that vy-advise becomes vya-warn; haz-hazard, haza-unfortunate; sol-alone, sola-desolate; oz-occurrence, oza-accident; ax-ask, axa-demand; ent-entrance, enta-invasion, etc.

The single-letter suffix -u, on the other hand, imparts a favourable aspect, as ax-ask, axu-invite; oz-occurrence, ozu-opportunity; haz-hazard, hazu-fortunate; ib-possible, ibu-probable; vy-advise, vyu-recommend; men-intellect, menu-intelligence; rap-rapid, rapu-prompt, etc.

One other suffix may be mentioned here, namely -e, which has an augmentative or intensive effect, e.g. fe-happy, fee-delighted; am-love, ame-adore; ax-ask, axe-appeal; dem-nation, deme-empire; ef-efficiency, efe-skill; en-attention, ene-care; fot-photograph, fote-cinematograph; gu-good, gue-very good, etc.

The successive addition of the 20 separate suffixes to each of the 493 radicals makes it possible to express no fewer than 493 X 20, i.e. 9,860 different ideas without the learning of a single new root.

(4) Further, an enormous number of fresh ideas is made available by forming idea-compounds ["Prof. Karlgren's Sound and Symbol in Chinese has proved to be an invaluable work of reference, and provided the source of inspiration for the scheme of Idea Compounds."] of any two of the original radicals or derivatives. This means theoretically that a possible range of 493 X 20 X 492 X 20, or 97 million different ideas, becomes capable of easy expression by learning no more than the 493 Speedword radicals and the 20 single-letter creative suffixes.

Examples of idea-compounds are: rysan (establishment-health) 'hospital, rypos (establishment-post) 'post-office', rykap (establishment-head) 'headquarters', ryma (establishment-construct) 'factory', rytes (establishment-experiment) 'laboratory', rybu (establishment-book) 'library', liri (liquid-write) 'ink', libi (liquid-life) 'blood', tabri (table-write) 'desk", rimem (write-remember) 'memorandum', riel (write-electricity) 'telegram'.

It is instructive to compare the logical method of word-structure in Speedwords with the arbitrary nature of English word-formation. The English words 'bead', 'beak', 'beam', 'bear', 'beard', 'beast', 'beat' and 'beauty' all begin with the same three letters; yet they represent objects or ideas which have nothing in common with each other. They indicate, indeed, such varying classes as an ornament, a bird's proboscis, a shaft of light or a heavy piece of wood, a vegetable, a wild animal, hair, an animal, the act of hitting, and pleasing appearance. The complete absence of any connection between these outwardly similar English words is in marked contrast with the correspondence between structure and meaning which characterises Speedwords. In the latter, the first two or three letters always indicate the general class into which the Speedword falls, while the remaining letters single out the particular member of that class which it is desired to designate.

This point is admirably exemplified by the following. When a foreign student of English first meets the words 'write', 'scribble', 'receipt', 'shorthand', 'stenographer', 'telegram', 'pen', 'correspondence', 'memorandum', 'signature', 'subscription', 'postscript', 'read', 'clerk', 'literary' and 'print' there is nothing in the appearance or structure of the words to indicate that there is any logical connection between them. Yet the first two letters of their Speedword equivalents - ri - at once reveal that they are all concerned with 'writing', while the second part of each Speedword automatically selects the specific variation of meaning conveyed by the whole word. In this way, from ri - 'write' - are obtained ria (write-unfavourable) 'scribble', rice (write-receive) 'receipt', rie (write-augment) 'shorthand', rier (shorthand-person) 'stenographer', riel (write-electricity) 'telegram', rig (write-general) 'pen', riin (write-between) 'correspondence', rimem (write-remember) 'memorandum', rinam (write-name) 'signature', ripa (write-payment) 'subscription', ripo (write-after), 'postscript', ris (write-complement) 'read', rist (write-professional) 'clerk', riu (write-favourable) 'literary', riv (write-association) 'print'. Thus, whereas the student of every national or international language can only memorise its root-words by constant repetition, every Speedword 'announces' its identity at sight.

Further, each Speedword conveys one idea only and, conversely, each idea is translatable by only one Speedword. Hence, the confusion caused by the existence in ordinary language of words like English 'right' and 'fair', each with several meanings, is done away with. In Speedwords 'right' meaning 'correct' is ok, meaning 'right-hand' is dek, 'completely' ga, 'just' jus, 'straight' rek, while 'fair' meaning 'light-coloured' is lumi, and so on. Thus, despite the tremendous extent of the English vocabulary, a comparatively small number of Speedwords is capable of effecting greater precision of expression.

Finally, Speedwords dispenses with all the usual grammatical rules regarding parts of speech, genders, cases and moods, with the consequent 'agreements' which are such a troublesome feature of ordinary language and of most other international auxiliary languages. It relies on simple rules of word-order as in English and Chinese. There is no distinction in English between the noun 'cold' and the adjective 'cold', nor between the noun 'love' and the verb 'love', and this principle of using the same word-form for different parts of speech is employed throughout in speedwords. In thousands of years the Chinese have not found it necessary to differentiate between 'beauty', 'beautiful', 'beautifully' and 'beautify', nor between the members of any similar group of words which in most languages present the same mental idea in varying word-forms. The exact meaning is conveyed by word-order and in Speedwords, similarly, word-order decides that bel ne means 'beautiful nature' and ne bel 'natural beauty'.

Mr. G. Bernard Shaw has been good enough to permit a translation of an extract from his Saint Joan to be included in this text-book, and personally wrote to the inventor: --

For many years past I have held that it is much easier and more sensible to say 'I be, you be, it be, we be, they be', and that a few auxiliaries and prepositions get rid of such superstitions as tenses and a lot of unnecessary verbs and adjectives.

I do not know whether it was you or Ogden and his Orthological Institute that first attempted to make Pidgin scientific; but both Basic English and your Speedwords are moves in that direction. Not only is the Speedwords ideography scientifically ingenious, but it is very strong on the economic point, so stupidly neglected by all your predecessors. What I am interested in is the enormous quantity of unnecessary manual labour wasted every day in writing, typing, and printing. When we are at peace and The Times is in full blase, it often contains a million words a day. A saving of even ten per cent would leave 100,000 fewer words to write and set up, to say nothing of a saving in paper. Faithfully, G. Bernard Shaw.

The above was written by Reginald G. Dutton. It is quoted from the 1946 edition of his Speedwords textbook. The following quote is from the book Loom of Languages. I have typed it both in Speedwords and English. Even in 1944, two years before Dutton's next to last revision, Speedwords was recognized for it's "ingenious" value.

D l Loom d Lin, by Frederick Bodmer, Lancelot Hogben, Editor, W.W. Norton & Co, Inc., NY, copyright 1944. Pps 516-518

INTERLANGUAGE STU MO TEARS

W pi nu sum up l outstanding features d u constructed lin designed m due regard a criticisms provoked by u succession d earlier projects & a l efforts d cz qi aim a adapting English a international us.

1. T yr e essentially u isolating lin. L edor yr n h a plod tru u maze d useless & irregular flexions common a Aryan lin so z French or Spanish, German or Russian. M l ib exception d u plural terminal, t yr h n flexional modifications d mot form. Apart d u fu sip rules f l us d operators like wi motz ma & get, formation d compounds like toothbrush, & insertion d empty motz like d a sho up l layout d l sentence, ti rules d grammar yr e rules d mot ord. Cz yr e z uniform & z fu z ib. I lox, l grammar d l lin yp e set forth fully m examples i half u dozen pages d print.
2. T yr e essentially u lin m Latin-Greek mot material, so chosen k l edor yp associate ute d l basic mot ro m syllables d internationally current motz.
3. T yr h mot economy a least z la z k d Basic English. Cu e di, l entire ro d motz essential f ordinary discussion, news, & self-expression (n num compound formations, motz hab a l popular spe d l East z ub z a l West., & l specialized vocabulary d l scientist & technician) ypi e n me z u kil, & yp e printed o u sheet d pap.
4. T yr h regular spelling based o l characters d l Latin sonic. Hu l limited range d simple vowels, t yr vok f n diacritic marks (like , , & ) qu reduce l rap d ri & ad a l cost d printing.
5. Zi d ti la mot economy t yp e fas equipped m l type d sip alphabetic shorthand embodied i R. Dutton's ingenious system d Speedwords.

Grammatically so u lin yr e mu sip z Esperanto, & ul ot pioneer efforts, though n mu sip z Novia (x w exclude Jespersen's elaborate machinery d mot derivation!). Ti syntax yr e decidedly sip z k d Anglo-American, zi shedding d flexions & leveling d l fu surviving ones h n e accompanied by u proportionate sip & standardization d mot ord. Ti mot material yr e far me international z k d any hitherto constructed lin. Unlike Esperanto, Interlingua, Novial, etc., t yr annex Greek roots qu e i ig circulation qo ever scientific discovery e changing onk habits. T yr e me universal z Basic English zi t yr e pax d Teutonic roots. Like Basic English t yr n e encumbered m cenz d redundant verbs, & l task d stu yr n e yma unnecessarily faso by l fantastic irregularities d English, or French spelling. Zi l mot mat yr e transparent t yr e fas a mem. Je ut yr e u peg f attaching relevant semantic associations.

U lin purged d irregular spelling, irregular & irrelevant grammar, unusual mot collocations (i.e. idioms), & redundant mot forms yr ne ti ep unobstrusively i u program d general elementary instruction i semantics & etymology. Stu t wyr e stu a associate roots hab a ido mot & a gain facility i l art d definition. Proficiency yr thus ko m et effort i u small fraction d l te nu devoted a l teaching d foreign lin. Dy ti adoption presupposes u stable, supranational organization i qu children & adults e collaborating m u hitherto unknown intensity d int & effort, l climate d ryu tuition yr e idoe d cu d l French kla i u American or l Latin kla i u Scottish high ryu. Progress i l kosi uv oku Interlingua yr e u passport a u wider international culture yma actually or psychologically ubiquitous by broadcasting, l modern cinema, & air travel.

D t ip, n so change p bring l age-lo calamity d war a u ed; & t e u dangerous error a conceive cu t p fa so. W pn atu a reach u remedy f l lin obstacles a international co-operation o u democratic footing, while predatory finance capital, intrigues d armament manufacturers, & l vested int d u rentier kla i l misery d colonial erz du a stifle l impulse a u kos-wide enterprise f l hab wealth d onk. N lin reform p abolish war, while social agencies far me powerful z mere linguistic misunderstandings furnish fresh oz f t. Qd intelligent lin planning p fa e a forge u nov instrument f onk collaboration o u planetary scale, qe social institutions propitious a international strife n lo thwart l constructive task d planning health, leisure, & plenty f al."

Although, some other of the IAL's may fit, or come close to fitting the above 5 points, I believe Rap Lin Rie / World Speedwords does an exceptional job. And, it is easy to learn on top of that.

Common Market Speedwords

taken from Teach Yourself Speedwords

"The proposal that Great Britain should enter the Common Market greatly increases the value of Speedwords as a means of international communication. The countries which Great Britain would join are Italy, Germany, France, Holland, Belgium, and Luxembourg.

In its illustrated brochure the G.P.O. announces that Telex, the public teleprinter service, gives all United Kingdom subscribers directly-dialled contact with most of the Telex users on the continent of Europe. Charges for all calls dialled directly, both inland and overseas, are based on the time occupied in sending messages, with no three minute charge. This is most important to Speedword users.

The Speedwords already taught in this course of instruction ensure that five of every six running words of average matter will be expressed through the medium of short word-forms of one, two, or three letters. This high proportion of Speedwords will itself suffice to double the writing speed of all students, but that speed could be still further increased by utilising spare moments every day to memorise additional abbreviated word-forms from the Dutton Speedwords Dictionary, which tabulates the 4,000 most-frequently-used words in our language -- actually over 10,000 words with derivations.

Most of the Speedwords already presented are abbreviations of words of international currency. This new principle in the construction of a speedy-writing system has been deliberately adopted so that all nations can use the same short word-forms, and utilise them not only as a rapid-writing system for their own personal use, but also as a means sweeping away for ever the present language barriers to free and easy communication between all peoples, whatever their race or colour."

Thus the Speedword po, used as the abbreviated form for the English preposition and adverb 'after', is the actual Czech, Polish, and Lithuanian two-letter native word having the same meaning, and is also an easily memorised abbreviation of Latin 'post', Russian and Serbo-Croat 'posle', Italian 'dopo', Portuguese 'depois de', and Esperanto 'poste'; the Speedwords el -- electricity and int -- interest, are also typical of many abbreviations which are automatically alike for the French, Spaniards, Portuguese, Italians, Albanians, Russians, Poles, Czechs, Serbo-Croats, Bulgarians, Scandinavians, Turks, and Esperantists.

The inventor hopes, therefore, that the student who has worked through the present course will look to this wide horizon. Every writer who thus increases his or her Speedwords vocabulary could exchange messages with counterparts in every Common Market country, and indeed every other quarter of the globe, on any branch of science, technology, art, or industry, though entirely ignorant of each other's native language. The outcome would be an immense advancement in general world knowledge, a vast increase in international trade, and a much deeper understanding of the problems of other peoples. It is intended to publish this Speedwords course in all the major languages of both hemispheres. The rules will be detailed in the native language of each nation, but all peoples will, of course, use exactly the same Speedwords letter-combinations."

This next quote, by Dutton, was actually a dictation test for students who had learned the first 1,000 words in Speedwords. Hope you enjoy it. Why not try to write it out in Speedwords to see how much you know, or don't know by now.

FINAL REVISIONARY TEST

It is perfectly clear to every sensible person that one of the greatest difficulties in the way of international understanding and good-will is the fact that every nation speaks a different language, so that a person who lives in one country is unable to speak, write or communicate in any way with one who lives in another, unless he happens to have learnt the latter's language. But this requires time, trouble and ability, and even then it is not enough to know only two languages; there are hundreds, if not thousands more, and no one person can possibly know more than a very small number of them. One could well imagine a visitor from another world expressing his surprise at the fact that the people living in this world should use so many different languages and that, for instance, a person in England should not be able to communicate with one in France, although only about twenty miles away. Surely it is time that a definite effort should be made to bring into use some medium of international communication which every nation could understand so that political, scientific, economic and other ideas could be exchanged easily and freely between different communities for the benefit and advancement of all.

By this means a real bond of fellowship could be brought into being between the various peoples and their governments, so that with better understanding and fuller co-operation between them war should finally be done away with -- indeed, it should be impossible, especially in the age of the telephone, wireless, aeroplane and perhaps of other things yet to come [makes a wonderful tool for email and the internet] and to bring the nations of the world even closer together. The new medium should be short, simple, practical and easy to learn, and in this respect Dutton Speedwords (Mote) meets every requirement.

As a foundation it has only 493 very short words of international origin which, by the addition to each of single final letters produce other words of related meaning and by simple rules for putting two or more words together give fresh words whose meaning is immediately evident. The result is that the student of Speedwords need only learn the 493 short words and a few simple rules to be able to express any idea which can come into the human mind; and this can be done in a matter of weeks, not years. Not only that, but Speedwords are so short that they can be written, typed or set up for printing at double the speed of ordinary language, and of course the amount of paper and of labour required -- to say nothing of the cost -- is correspondingly reduced by a half. Thus, Dutton Speedwords is an ideal medium of communication and should be learned and practised universally on grounds both of economy and world progress, and although the latter reason is really the more important of the two, it must be remembered that Speedwords fully answers the condition that a universal medium must above all be simple and easy to learn." [And, I might add, it should be fun to learn. Speedwords is lots of fun, plus practical.BP]

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