William Bullokar was a 16th-century printer who devised a 40-letter phonetic alphabet for the English language. Its characters were in the black-letter or "gothic" writing style commonly used at the time. Taking as his model a Latin grammar by William Lily,^[1] Bullokar wrote the first published grammar of the English language, in a book titled Brief Grammar for English, which appeared in 1586.^[2]

Works

• Bullokar, William (1580). Booke at large, for the Amendment of Orthographie for English Speech. London: Henrie Denham.,
  • facsimile edition: Bullokar, William (1968). The Amendment of Orthographie for English Speech. Amsterdam: Theatrum Orbis Terrarum Ltd.
  • facsimile in Bullokar (1977)
  • transcription at Plessow (1906), pp. 237-330
• Bullokar, William (1584). Æsops Fábĺz. London: Edmund Bollifant.
  • transcription at Plessow (1906), pp. 1-212
• Bullokar, William (n.d.) [1585]. The short Sentences of the wýʒ Cato. London: Edmund Bollifant.
  • transcription at Plessow (1906), pp. 213-235
• Bullokar, William (1586). Bref Grammar for English. London: Edmund Bollifant.
  • facsimile in Bullokar (1977)
  • transcription at Plessow (1906), pp. 331-385
• Bullokar, William (1586). Pamphlet for Grammar. London: Edmund Bollifant.
  • transcription at Plessow (1906), pp. 386-390