Re: Consonant allophones in Minza

On 2007-10-03 Petr Mejzlík wrote:
 > You can use the first variant, just replace ï with i and
 > 1 with y.
 > :  Front: i ë ä ö ü
 > :  Back:  y e a o u
 >
 > I like this variant, it's nice and systematic.

So do I, except that pace what I said yesteday about the
Swedish Dialect Alphabet the idea to use y and γ (gamma)
within the same transcription is a bit chilling. I've
misread them in transcribed Mongolian more than once -- due
to poor print/copy quality that's true, but they are too
somilar in some fonts, like the one I'm reding mail in! :-/
The Swedish Dialect Alphabet fonts were designed for clarity
in this respect, with a distinct loop in gamma.


 > I think the single dots are awful. Not only they are too
 > small but when there are underdots the letter is rendered
 > visibly lower (that's just how it looks here).

Underdots have a tendency to go unnoticed, to disappear in
bad copy, or in handwriting to look like an overdot in the
line below!, as I've experienced in reading Sanskrit in
transliteration.[^1] Romanists use ẹ ę ọ ǫ \u1EB9
\u0119 \u1ECD \u01EB for [e E o O] and in bad copy the hook
tends to look like a dot and the dot to disappear entirely.
In electronic media with todays printers we won't at least
have that problem, though.

As for overdots they make the ordinary i dot look like a
diacritic: if ė ȧ ȯ \u0117 \u0227 \u022F are [@ 6 8] then
surely i is [i\]! (And WTH is ı then?!) I didn't think of
that either before.

[^1] I won't even enter into the problem of figuring out
what dicritic goes with what in stenography! Besides
diacritics run counter to the very idea of stenography.

/BP 8^)>
--
Benct Philip Jonsson -- melroch atte melroch dotte se
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
No man forgets his original trade: the rights of
nations and of kings sink into questions of grammar,
if grammarians discuss them.
-Dr. Samuel Johnson (1707 - 1784)

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