On Mon, 18 Jan 1999, Rhialto wrote:
>I wrote:
>>On Mon, 18 Jan 1999, Rhialto wrote:
>>>------------------------------
>>>Series 1: Stops and nasals use the same set of characters,
>>>but use diacritics to distinguish between voiced/unvoiced/nasal.
>>>
>>>P B M
>>>T D N
>>>K G Ng
>>
>>Since v/uv/n is marked by diacritics, the place of
>>articulation 'stem' for the stops should be very dissimilar
>>from eachother.
>
>Umm, translation please, Mr Spock? I dont understand 'articulation stem'.

"place of articulation"-stem. Base/root shape? For
instance, if the p/b/m root-shape was a dotless i, the t/d/n
root-shape would need to be an... o? and the k/g/ng perhaps
a v? i, j, l would be unwise, diacritics or not, as they
look very similar. Or what about l (lowercase l) vs. 1 (one)
and ij (i + j) vs. =FF (y umlaut)

>>>Series 2: Fricatives and Affricatives use
>>>the voicing accent found in stops.
>>>
>>>F V
>>>Q J (Q is a ch, or glottal stop if at end of word)
>>>S Z
>>>X   (X is a sh)
>>>H
>
>[snip]
>
>
>Q - ch in church
>X - sh in shine (just a normal strongly pronounced E sh)
>H - h in horse (never silent of softened)
>
>I considered having a voiced X /zh/, but 1) I ran out of consonants and =
2)
>it would have made the language too sybylant for my tastes. Marking X as=
 an
>accented S would not be good. the voice diacritic is taken by Z and X is=
nt
>exactly a nasal sound, and I want to keep the meaning of the diacritics
>pure.

But use a different diacritic, different both from the
voicing and nasal-diacritic? 's what I meant anyways.

>>>vowels
>>>------
>>>a   e  i  o  u
>>>ar  er    or
>>>aj  ej    oj
>>>au  ee ii oo uu
>
>That grid explained...
>
>=3Dhat   =3Dbed   =3Dhit   =3Dhot   =3Dput
>#harp  #her          #saw
>*my    *day          *by
>*how   *hair  #heat  *hope  #too
>
>*dipthong
>#long
>=3Dshort
>
>Hmm, maybe heat and too should be moved up 2 rows? Like I say, I know vo=
wels
>like the back of my neck (now theres an idiom!)

Looks like it, but then again, english vowels/dipthongs is a
complicated affair!

>>The two lowest rows... are they diphthongs or geminates? And
>>the second row... rhoticized?

/snip/

>>If you have long vowels, the diacritic marking length can be
>>used to mark geminate vowels as well, if you should add such
>>later.

>If I understood these terms, I would tell you :(

Geminate: long sound. Usually only used for long consonants,
but valid use for long vowels as well.

>I currently have all the consonants and vowels that I want, but Im sure =
the
>vowels as arranged in teh grid could be re-aranged to better reflect how
>vowels actually work. Some of those vowels are long, some are dipthongs.=
 The
>idea was that only one vowel character would appear in a single syllable.
>
>Any vowel gurus know how that vowel table should be arranged?
>
>---
>Rhialto
>wau miliwafeng
>[translation: farewell]

Ooh, 'wau miliwafeng', sounds nice.


tal.