li [Philip Newton] mi tulis la

> Sent: Tuesday, May 30, 2006 2:18
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: Re: No rants! (USAGE: di"f"thong)
> 
> 
> On 5/29/06, Dana Nutter <d_n@...> wrote:
> > li [[log in to unmask]] mi tulis la
> >
> > >  [x] _Esperanto!_ j/k
> >
> > I overlooked that one in my post. Though it is phonemic, 
> the diacritics
> > need to go.  I prefer the <cx gx hx jx sx w> system, but 
> would rather
> > see something that doesn't need digraphs either.
> 
> Er, you have the problem that Esperanto has more phonemes than there
> are letters in the Latin alphabet. Thus, you need to extend the
> alphabet -- and diacritics and digraphs are two popular ways to do so.
> If you eliminate those, what else is left? (I suppose you could press
> into service letters such as <q w x y> which aren't currently used,
> but only a Pinyin-reader could love that...)
> 
> _If_ you don't want extra letters, a better way is to reduce the
> number of phonemes. As several of the Esperanto reforms did :)
> 
> For example, Ido got rid of <hx gx> (the first is pretty marginal in
> Esperanto anyway, and is often replaced by <k>) and spells <jx> as <j>
> (Esperanto <j> is Ido <y>). However, the other two special letters use
> digraphs, <ch sh>; I suppose one might have used <q x> had one not
> wanted to use those for <qu> = /kw/ and <x> = /ks/ (/gz/?).

As you mentioned, some letters/phonemes could be eliminated by merging
with others, but that involves a little more than just orthographic
reform.  /x/ -> /h/ (or /k/?)  /ts/ -> /s/, /z/ or maybe /tS/.  

Then you could have something like:

	<ux>	->	<w>
	<j>	->	<y>
	<jx>	->	<j>
	<cx>	->	<c>
	<sx>	->	<x>
	<gx>	->	<q>


It's not too pretty, but neither is the existing system.  However now
it's easily machinable.


------------------------------
dejnx nxtxr / Dana Nutter

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