On Wed, 20 Mar 2002, Raymond Brown wrote:
> Oh well, as others are joining in........
>
> At 12:09 am -0800 19/3/02, Frank George Valoczy wrote:
> >...in my opinion, regardless of whether it's likely or not, would be this:
> >
> >Vowels:
> >
> >i y 2 E a
>
> Ooooh - /2/ is not merely not beautiful, but downright ugly IMO. No thank
> you. /y/ is OK on a good day, but IMO Sindarin would've been better
> without it. In view of Cambricity, the north Walian [1] would've been
> better. Presumably [y] was an 'import' fro Old English.
I dunno, I like /2/ :)
>
> I'm afraid I've discovered nothing better than the 'classic' /i/, /e/, /a/,
> /o/, /u/ - with the latter two definitely rounded.
aarcgh...back vowels (runs & hides)
>
> >Consonants
>
> >
> >t_j d_j n_j F T D S Z h x K K\ l L w j
> >
> >Naturally, it would be written in Cyrillic. :)
>
> Why? Surely a beautiful phonology deserves a beautiful script. Cyrillic
> is so boring with most of the letters being the same height. At least the
> ascenders & descenders of the modern Roman and Greek alphabets lend them
> some attractiveness.
IMO there is no script more beautiful than handwritten Cyrillic.
> There must be no initial consonant compounds; the only consonants that may
> appear in word final position are /s/, /n/ and /l/. Consonant gemination
> as in Italian & Finnish is IMO quite a beautiful feature - so consonants
> maybe geminate in medial positions.
Me too. Word must start CV- or V-. Of course gemination would be present
too.
>
> ..all of which goes to prove how subjective aesthetics are :)
>
Indeed. I could see two countries going to war over something like,
Gulgustan: "/l/ is prettier than /r/"
Zomozgia: "No it's not"
Gulgustan: "yes it is"
Zomozgia: (to aide) "launch the Scuds"
---ferko