This lesson shifts focus from Shavian characters that represent sounds to those that represent entire words. To keep things simple and compact, Kingsley turned five of the most common english words into single characters. Some of these will be familiar, while others will be introduced in future lessons. Each word is linked to a character based on its sound, making them easy to remember.

With the Shavian characters you've already learned and the introduction of "function words" in this session, you'll soon be able to read simple sentences. At first, you'll only read sentences using the characters you know, but as you learn more, the sentences will become more varied.

* Function words are words that act as connectors between concepts, such as "the," "of," "and," "to," and "for"

You've already seen the character 𐑞 ('they') used for its 'th' sound. Now, we'll reveal its dual role: it also represents the word "the." So, when 𐑞 ('they') appears by itself, it stands for the word "the," not just the sound.

The character 𐑑 ('tot') is a simple abbreviation for "to." Although it saves just one character, its frequent use helps the Shavian alphabet reduce text length.

For the next word, we revisit 𐑯 ('nun'), a unique abbreviation where the isolated sound represents the word "and."

Similar to how 𐑯 ('nun') represents the word "and" when isolated, the character 𐑝 ('vow') represents the 'v' sound, which closely mirrors the word "of."

In our upcoming lesson, we'll explore 𐑝 ('vow') and its counterpart, 𐑓 ('fee'). We're learning their abbreviations first so we can start working with full sentences.

Like 𐑝 ('vow'), we'll dive into the details of 𐑓 ('fee') in a future lesson. For now, just note that 𐑓 ('fee') with its 'f' sound effectively represents the word "for," adding both brevity and clarity to Shavian text.

Ready for some practice? Let’s read our first set of Shavian sentences and see these function words in action, noticing how they simplify the Shavian script.

As we wrap up this lesson, you've expanded your understanding of Shavian characters to include those that represent entire words, such as:

• 𐑞 = 'the'
• 𐑑 = 'to'
• 𐑯 = 'and'
• 𐑝 = 'of'
• 𐑓 = 'for'