| LETTERS, SYMBOLS & SUCH |
| Guardian of All Odd Letters & Symbols | Claudius (10BC-AD54), for introducing us to the letters ⅎ, ↄ, and ⱶ |
| Guardian of All Roman Click Symbols | Lewis Grout (1815-1905), for his part in popularising the letters q, c, and x to denote click sounds in Zulu |
| Guardian of All Obsolete Click Symbols | Thomas Herbert (1606-1682), for being the first to write down clicks, using the string “ist” |
| Guardian of All Meaningless Script Reforms | George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950), for his Shavian Alphabet |
| Guardian of American Spelling | Noah Webster (1758-1843), for his contributions to American English lexicography and spelling, changing many English c’s to s, and -our to -or |
| Guardian of All Silly Characters | John Wilkins (1614-1672), for his Real Character |
| Guardian of All Punctuation | Victor Borge (1909-2000), for his ingenious readings of all unreadable signs |
| Patron Saint of a | Isaac Pitman (1813-1897), for his part in devising the English Phonotypic Alphabet |
| Patron Saint of æ | King Ælfred (849-899), for his part in preserving the Anglo-Saxon language and culture |
| Patron Saint of Æ | Abbot Ælfric (955-1010), for having written the first grammar of Anglo-Saxon (early English) |
| Patron Saint of the Jumping α | Noam Chomsky (1928- ), for having spawned more formalisations than there are linguists |
| Patron Saint of α and β | David Diringer (1900-1975), for his contributions to the study of the alphabet |
| Patron Saints of ə | The Masoretes of Tiberias (7th-11th centuries), collectively, for giving us the schwa symbol |
| Patron Saint of ff | William Jones (1746-1794), for his contributions to Indo-European studies and for being Welsh |
| Patron Saint of ɥ | Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790), for introducing us to the letter ɥ for [ʌn], in his Reformed English Alphabet |
| Patron Saint of i | John Hart (16th century), for his early work on English orthography and pronunciation |
| Patron Saint of J | Samuel Johnson (1709-1784), for his influential English dictionary, the entries of which appear in the OED marked as ‘J’ |
| Patron Saint of ʞ | P.W. Schmidt (1845-1921), for using the letter ʞ as a click symbol in the Anthropos Alphabet |
| Patron Saint of ɯ | William Thornton (1759-1828), for wanting to use the letter ɯ instead of w |
| Patron Saint of ng | Alexander J. Ellis (1814-1890), for having preferred ng over ŋ in his Digraphic Alphabet |
| Patron Saint of p | Lu Xun (1881-1936), for his part in promoting the use of Pinyin |
| Patron Saint of ꝥ | Eduard Sievers (1850-1932), for his studies of Anglo-Saxon meter |
| Patron Saint of q | Félix du Bois Reymond (1782-1865), for suggesting that the letter q should be used for [t] |
| Patron Saint of ʇ | Charles Butler (1560-1647), for introducing the letter ʇ to denote [θ] |
| Patron Saint of ts | Yuen Ren Chao (1892-1982), for his part in devising Gwoyeu Romatzyh, one of the precursors of Pinyin |
| Patron Saint of tz | Lin Yutang (1895-1976), for his part in devising Gwoyeu Romatzyh, one of the precursors of Pinyin |
| Patron Saint of x | Qu Qiubai (1899-1935), for his part in devising Latinxua, one of the precursors of Pinyin |
| Patron Saint of the Laryngeal ‘ | Otto Dempwolff (1871-1938), for using the letter/symbol ‘ to denote something that was either a vowel, a consonant, something in between, or nothing at all |
| Patron Saint of the Retroflex ² | Ernst Brücke (1819-1892), for using a superscript 2 to denote retroflex sounds, hence t² = [ʈ] |
| Patron Saint of the Nasal * | Hans Christian Knudsen (1818-1863), for choosing to represent nasality with an asterisk |
| Patron Saint of ⌒ | Peter Kolbe (1675-1726), for having used ⌒ as a generic click symbol |
| Patron Saint of △ | François le Vaillant (1753-1824), for having used △ as a click symbol for [ǂ] |
| Patron Saint of ◡ | John Barrow (1764-1848), for having used ◡ as a click symbol for [!] |
| Guardian of All Egyptian Hieroglyphs | Jean-François Champollion (1790-1832), for being the first in modern times to decipher the Egyptian Hieroglyphs |
| Guardian of the Hieroglyphic Index | Alan H. Gardiner (1879-1963), for his efforts in standardising the use and printing of Egyptian Hieroglyphs |
| Patron Saint of 𐀀𐀖𐀛𐀰 (aminiso) | Michael Ventris (1922-1956), for deciphering Linear B |
| Patron Saint of 𐀝 (nu) | John Chadwick (1920-1998), for his part in deciphering Linear B |
| Guardian of All Morphophonemic Characters | John DeFrancis (1911-2009), for his role in debunking myths about Chinese writing |
| Guardian of the 540 Radicals | Xǔ Shèn (58-147), for being the first to organise Chinese Characters according to form |
| Guardian of the Fǎnqiès (反切) | Sun Yan (3rd century), for allegedly being the first to use fǎnqiè (phonetic cues) to indicate the pronunciation of Chinese Characters |
| Guardian of Chinese Soundalikes (音訓) | Liú Xī (3rd century), for allegedly having compiled the Shìmíng (釋名), an early Chinese dictionary based on puns (yínxùn) |
| Guardian of All Rhyming Eyes (韻目) | Lu Fayan (581-618), for having compiled the Qièyùn (切韻), an early Chinese rhyming dictionary |
| Guardian of All Edible Chinese Characters | James D. McCawley (1938-1999), for his gastronomic explanations of Chinese Characters |
| Patron Saint of the Erya (爾雅) | Duke of Zhou (11th century BC), for allegedly having compiled Erya, the first known Chinese dictionary |
| First Patron Saint of Kangxi Zidian (康熙字典) | Zhang Yushu (1642-1711), for his part in compiling the great Kangxi dictionary |
| Second Patron Saint of Kangxi Zidian (康熙字典) | Chen Tingjing (1639-1712), for his part in compiling the great Kangxi dictionary |
| Patron Saint of the Hùdiǎr (蝴) | George A. Kennedy (1901-1960), for his contributions to the Case of the Chinese Butterfly |
| Guardian of Han’gul (한글) | Sejong the Great of Korea (1397-1450), for inventing the Han’gul script |
| Guardian of All Things Cherokee | Sequoyah (1767-1843), for creating the Cherokee syllabary |
| Guardian of All West African Scripts | Mɔmɔlu Duwalu Bukɛlɛ (1800s-1850), for having invented the Vai script, or ꕉꕧꕮꕯ (Ajamana) |
| Patron Saint of the Bamum Script | Chief Nʒoya of Fumban (19/20th centuries), for inventing the Bamum syllabary |
| Patron Saint of Bassa Vah | Thomas Flow Lewis (20th century), for inventing Nnikasefa, or the Bassa Alphabet |
| Patron Saint of Kikaku | Kisimi Kamara (1890-1962), for having invented the Mende syllabary |
| First Patron Saint of Obɛri Ɔkaimɛ | Michael Ukpɔn (20th century), for his part in inventing the Obɛri Ɔkaimɛ alphabet |
| Second Patron Saint of Obɛri Ɔkaimɛ | Akpan Udɔfia (20th century), for his part in inventing the Obɛri Ɔkaimɛ alphabet |
| Patron Saint of the Loma Script | Widɔ Zoɓo (20th century), for inventing the Loma syllabary |
| Patron Saint of the Kpelle Script | Chief Gbili of Sanoyea (20th century), for inventing the Kpelle syllabary |
| Patron Saint of the N’ko Script (ߏߞߒ) | Soulemayne Kante (1922-1987), for having invented the N’ko Alphabet |
| Patron Saint of the Bete Script | Frédéric Bruly-Bouabré (20th century), for inventing the Bete syllabary |
| Guardian of All Modern Shorthand Systems | John Willis (1572-1625), for creating the first modern shorthand system, or Stenography |
