Re: Consonant allophones in Minza

Philip Newton wrote:
> On 9/29/07, Herman Miller <hmiller@...> wrote:
>> Actually, the Greek gamma doesn't look too out of place in the middle of
>> words in the Latin alphabet: arγa, fulγa, γäiγa, γälika, γemet, γüluŋ,
>> łuγu, möγïlör, muγä, nelγä, paγë, rëγa, tšaγïl, xraγu. I don't know if
>> I'd want to go so far as to mix Cyrillic characters in with the gamma,
>> so "nelγä" ends up as "nelγя" and "tšaγïl" as "tшaγыl" (or "чaγыl");
>> that doesn't quite look the way I'd like for it to look.
>
> *shrug* it worked for me; my default script for GSF is a mix of Latin,
> Greek, and Cyrillic (mostly the latter, though).
>
> LGC have the well-known advantages that they're all well-supported by
> many fonts, and that within the same font the letters will tend to
> match one another stylistically.
Well, one thing I might consider is Cyrillic л for the [l`] ~ [J]
phoneme. In general I've been using the wedge-caron thing for the
retroflex/postalveolar/palatal sounds: š, ž, ň, but there isn't an
L-with-caron character. So I was using ř for a while, but now I've got
ľ. I haven't been really satisfied with either of these options. And э
might be a good option for the low-mid central vowel...

But at least now I think I've got a good idea of the phoneme inventory
of Minza, and I can play around with different writing systems.

Bilabial and labiodental: /p/ /b/ /m/ /f/ /v/
Dental and alveolar: /t/ /d/ /n/ /r/ /s/ /z/ /K/ /l/
Retroflex / postalveolar: /ň/* /š/ /ž/ /ľ/
Velar / palatal: /k/ /g/ /N/* /x/ /G/

* /ň/ and /N/ contrast only around central or back vowels; the
distinction is neutralized in syllables with front vowels.

(There are some details not yet decided; it's possible that /K/ has a
retroflex allophone, etc.)

Front vowels: /i/ /E/ /&/
Central vowels: /1/ /3/ /A/
Back vowels: /u/ /o/

Vowel length and stress: still undecided. I might just want to make
stress and/or length phonemic so I don't have to figure out a set of
rules that gives the results I want in every case.

Basically, I'd like to get this nailed down so I don't have to change it
again; one of the things that's held Minza back is the time-consuming
process of reviewing the whole vocabulary each time the phonology
changes, and I think I'm getting close to something I could live with
without needing to change it much further.

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