SUL has its own alphabet, and you can write it two ways: a roomy form where every symbol stands alone, and a compact form for faster writing.
Expanded Form
Each little chunk of sound gets its own symbol, written one after another. Here is "hello thank-you":
afus osuf
Condensed Form
The same symbols, but squeezed together into combined shapes so writing goes faster - like cursive versus printing.
afus osuf
Reading the Condensed Form
Inside a combined square, read the vowel first - every SUL word starts with a vowel, so you can't get lost. The only small marks you will ever see sit above a symbol:
Marks above are the glue letters, written above the start of the symbol they lead into: n is a dot, and w is a short line reaching back to the left - pointing at the symbol before it, the one its piece attaches to.
Spaces and Sentence Ends
The gap between words is not empty - it is written as a low line along the bottom, so a sentence is one unbroken rail from its first word to its last. Where the rail finally breaks, the sentence ends: a true blank gap is SUL's period.
afus osuf.afus osuf
Good layout puts one sentence on each line, so a line and a rail are the same thing - the end of the line is the period. Text only runs on and wraps where space is at a premium, like the pages of a novel.
If a line of text ends mid-sentence, it ends with the low line - your sign to keep reading on the next line. A line that ends bare has finished its sentence.
In braille the low line is three raised dots, like any other stroke. A fingertip never loses the thread: dots in the gap mean the sentence is still running, and a smooth blank is the sentence end - you can feel how long a sentence is before reading a word of it.
The Alphabet
a
a
e
e
i
i
o
o
u
u
t
t
f
f
s
s
k
k
g
g
n
n
w
w
Our Theory: SUL Could Be a Huge Help for Dyslexic Readers
Research has long shown dyslexic readers do better in languages with regular, predictable spelling - and SUL is as regular as a writing system can get:
One symbol, one sound, zero exceptions. Every symbol always makes exactly the same sound, in every word, forever. There is nothing irregular to memorize and no way to sound a word out wrong.
A tiny alphabet. Twelve symbols instead of twenty-six. Less to learn, less to mix up.
Syllables you can see. In real SUL writing, each vowel-consonant pair fuses into one combined shape, so every syllable is a single visual chunk. The word's structure is right there on the page instead of something you have to work out.
A predictable rhythm. Every word alternates vowel, consonant, vowel, consonant. You always know what kind of sound comes next, so breaking a word into its pieces - the exact skill dyslexia makes hardest - is as easy as it can possibly be.
Short, regular words. Root words are two, four, or six letters. No marathon spellings, no silent letters hiding in the middle.
To be clear: dyslexia is a difference in how the brain processes language, and no writing system can cure it. But a writing system with nothing irregular in it should make it far less of an obstacle. If you're dyslexic and try SUL, we would genuinely love to hear how it goes.