Re: Optimum number of symbols

Kendra wrote:
> The idea of diacritics for something other than vowels interests me! I
> probably never would have thought of that on my own. Do any ('natural')
> systems use something like that? (I can only write fictional ones, which
> might be the source of my problem.)
Well, I was partly inspired by the hangul system of combining letters
into syllabic clusters.  The diacritics are historically derived from
characters that represented consonant-schwa syllables (the classical
language had just 3 phonemic vowels, whereas the ancestral system it
comes from had 6, schwa being one of the 3 that were lost).  In Common
Kassi (the ancestor), to write _kasë_ (ë is used for schwa) you'd write
simply _ka_ followed by _së_, but to write _kas_, you'd write _ka_ with
_së_ underneath it.  Eventually, these characters were simplified and
reduced in size becoming diacritics which go underneath the character.

Also, I forgot to mention that there's a long vowel diacritic, also
placed under the syllable.

> Though I suppose all that wouldn't be a problem with conlangs, since you'd
> probably develop a standard spelling, even with a phonemic alphabet. :)
Actually, the Uatakassi syllabry has some variation.  For one thing,
there's the matter of dialects, some of which can be hard to make the
syllabry fit, so that there may be multiple systems in use to adapt it.
Also, there are some variations when it comes to morphemic boundaries.
For example, it's common to always write the plural suffix -i as the
syllable -i, even if it's preceded by a consonant, and the
gender-prefixes are, whenever possible, written separately.  An example:
(Note: diacritics will be indicated by lower-case letters; * indicates
the gemination diacritic)
Uifkal (book) = u- (gender 6 singular; variant of ua-) ifkal;
   written U-If-KA-L
Uafifkali (books) = uaf- (gender 6 plural) ifkal -i (plural);
   written U-Af-If-KA-L-i; a purely phonemic spelling would be expected
to be U-A-FIf-KA-LI; however, that would lead to only one of the three
characters used to write the root remaining the same, as the I would be
replaced by FI and the L by LI.
Uifkalaf (of a book) -(a)f = genetive
   U-If-KA-L-Af - rather than U-If-KA-LAf
Uatiki (arm) = ua- (Gender 6 sing) tiki
   U-A-TI-KI
Uaftikii (arms) = uaf- (G6 pl.) tiki -i (pl.)
   U-Af-TI-KI-I - rather than the expected U-Af-TI-KIi (i.e., long vowel
diacritic)

Of there are times when you can't show morphemic boundaries without
irregular spellings, and in those cases, phonetics takes precedence, and
example:
Tlikan (daughter) = t- (gender 1 singular, variant of ti-) likan
   TLI-KAn
Tillikani (daughters) = ti*- (gender 1 plural) likan -i (plural)
   TI*-LI-KAn-I

And then there are nouns with irregular plural, like:
Lalasta (bird) = La- (gender 5 singular) lasta
   LA-LAs-TA
Laflassi (birds) = La- (gender 5 plural) lassi (plural stem of lasta)
   LAf-LA*-SI

(The reason for the -ta/-si alternation there is that it's part of a
subclass of nouns that replace final -a with -i in the plural, a vestige
of the old schwa, combined with a regular phonetic change of _sti_ ->
_ssi_)

A domestic bird, incidentally, would be:
Klasta/Kiflassi = K-/Kif- (gender 4 sing/pl, var. of ki-/kif-)
   KLAs-TA
   KIf-LA*-SI

In this case, the characters used between the singular and plural forms
are completely distinct.  :-)

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