Jörg Rhiemeier wrote:
[snip]
>>Instead of mapping each grapheme to two different & unrelated sounds, he 
>>could have mapped each bit quartet(half-byte, "nibble") to two different 
>>graphemes: one denoting a consonant the other a vowel/vowel combo.
>  
> Yes, that would have been more sane and elegant.  But then, he would
> have run out of letters, at least as long as he restricted himself
> to the 26 letters of the standard Latin alphabet ...

The Latin alphabet as used by the Romans had six vowel symbols |a e i o 
u y| (note for purists: I am using _u_ as the lower-case of _V_). One 
needs two more symbol to extend this to eight; on my webpage I suggest 
adding the |w| of Welsh and the Scandinavian |ø|. The vowels |a e i o| 
could be given the values they have in Spanish or Italian; |w| will 
retain its Welsh value, i.e. /u/, while |u| is used as in French for 
/y/. This leaves |y| to be the high unrounded central vowel (one of its 
Welsh uses), i.e. /ɨ/ and |ø| is a low rounded front vowel, varying 
between [ø] and [ɶ].

These are the same eight vowels that Claudio Gnoli has in his Conlang 
'Liva' and Anander Hythloday reports in Mefato. I can't help thinking my 
use of |a e i o u w y ø| is better than his |a e i o y u ɨ ø | with its 
barred-i. Maybe I should suggest this change to him     :)

Anyway, to return to Plan B. He could then have used the upper-case 
forms of the same vowels for the r+V combos. I know the use of mixed 
case is not elegant, but it would IMO have been less confusing than what 
he actually did.

> [snip]
> 
> 
>>>>How so, you ask? If 32 is too many, surely 256 is way over the top! But 
>>>>consider De Kolovrat's system of mapping the 100 decimal numerals from 
>>>>00 through to 99 into pronounceable CV syllables. One could fairly 
>>>>easily create a similar system for mapping the hex values 00 through to 
>>>>FF into pronounceable CV syllables; this even byte value would map into 
>>>>a unique CV syllable.
>>
>>OOPS! That should have read: "thus every byte value would map into a 
>>unique CV syllable."
> 
> 
> Which I guessed that you meant it, anyway.

Good - and it has now been done!

-- 
Ray
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Nid rhy hen neb i ddysgu.
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