Re: Consonant allophones in Minza

John Vertical wrote:

> Consider also other Latin-1 diacritics, maybe the acute:
> front <í é á>
> non-front <i e a o u> (or <ı> if you prefer)
> <é e> for /e @/, at least, looks a LOT better to my eyes than <ë e> in
> whichever order. If you added front rounded vowels, <ú ó> for /y 2/ might
> not have a precedent, but IMHO it looks OK; acute for length is not rare,
> and didn't some northern English dialects have an alternate GVS where /u:
> o:/ went to /y 2/?
I may need to use acute, grave, and circumflex to mark distinctions of
length and stress (although in that case, I'd need to be really careful
to pick appropriate letters for the extra vowels). The problem is, in
most cases stress and length are predictable, but I haven't come up with
a scheme that doesn't have exceptions. I'd also like a set of characters
that works with the built-in Windows fonts in Windows XP (Times New
Roman, etc.) I know, I could just use something like Gentium in my own
documents, but I'd also like to bring the Minza web pages up to date.

I'm also concerned about how diphthongs will look. If I use "ï" and "ë"
(or "ö") for the central vowels, I'll end up having lots of words with
"ïë" ("ïö") and "ëï" ("öï"). But if I use "y" for the high central
vowel, "γy" (with gamma for /G/) is an awkward-looking combination. So
then "ghy" (or even "gjy", following your suggestion) might be the
better option. Or just go with the dotless-i for /1/ ("γı").

So I'd have a similar problem with the front diphthongs if I use a
diacritic for them: íé, éí, áí.

Of course, I could use one of my writing systems like Ljörr-teg or Vlika
to write Minza, but most of what I write will still be using some kind
of romanization.