| Palaeotype Paleotype | |
|---|---|
 Letters of the palaeotype alphabet, organized per the chart for Visible Speech, as published in 1869 | |
| Script type | alphabet
(phonetic) |
| Creator | Alexander John Ellis |
| Language | English |
| Related scripts | |
Parent systems | Latin alphabet
|
Child systems | Romic alphabet |
The Palaeotype alphabet is a phonetic alphabet used by Alexander John Ellis to describe the pronunciation of English. It was based on the theory of Bell's Visible Speech, but set in roman script, and attempted to include the sounds conveyed by Lepsius's Standard Alphabet as well. It in turn inspired Henry Sweet's 1877 Romic alphabet, which itself served as the basis for the International Phonetic Alphabet.
It differs from previous phonetic alphabets, especially the English Phonotypic Alphabet of the same author, by maximal use of trivial changes to existing characters, including rotated letters (such as ⟨ə⟩, ⟨ɔ⟩), small capitals (such as ⟨ɪ⟩), rotated small capitals, and italic rather than roman typeface (such as ⟨𝑙⟩).