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Re: Hmong and semi-syllabic writing

From:Barry Garcia <barry_garcia@...>
Date:Wednesday, October 13, 1999, 20:21
dirk.elzinga@m.cc.utah.edu writes:
>I've always thought that having separate characters for onset >and rhyme was an interesting compromise between an alphabet and >a syllabary. This kind of system would be useful for a language >which allowed onset clusters, like Hmong, but nevertheless had a >fairly limited range of syllable types. I'm trying to develop >something similar to it for my new project, Shemspreg. > >Dirk
I created a script once where you had characters for syllables, and also single characters for representing vowels, consonants, and diphthongs so that if you had a word like: 'naktaandai', you could write it out like: 'na-k-ta-a-n-d-ai'. However, creating all the characters for the syllables and single characters took me a long time and I found I started to run out of letter forms that didnt start to look like one another. I also made one where it was basically an alphabet, but you also had diacritics to represent vowels, and diphthongs (went over the preceeding consonant). But also had separate characters for the vowels and dipthongs too. _-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_- 'The beginning calls for courage; the end demands care'