Re: Romanization of Reduced Vowels

Kristian wrote :

Raymond Brown wrote:
 One might use {a}, {i} and {u} if it
> >were possible in the spelling to distinguish between 'reduced'
> >[@] [I] and [U] or maybe put a breve or some other appropriate
> >diacritic above them.
> >
> All right... I think I'm beginning to understand this now. Thanks to
> you. I believe that all these vowel sounds are all conditioned
> variants of /@/. So you'd suggest using one symbol. But the question
> is, what symbol? It seems really contrived to me to write for
> instance a word that sounds like [mw@j] and [mj@n] as "maway" and
> "mayan" respectively.
>
You don't need to because these words are *mu@.y* and *mi@.n* with long diphtongs
*u@* and *i@*, not *m.w@.y* and m.y@.n* (consonant *w* and short *y@* don't
exist).
Actually isolated consonant *m.*, *p.*, etc are written *moo*, *poo*, etc in either
consonant register.
So you could write all *C.CV(V)(C)* words : *C@CV(V)(C)* or *ChC(V)(C)* depending
wether first C is a plosive. ex :
 *r.vw@l* (written *ru@l* with subscribed *l*) = *r@vuol*.
*p.kaa* (written *phaa* + subscribed *k* : *phkaa*.
etc.
Personally I don't write the @ and I write the aspirated plosive consonants
*C+circumflex*. And as I told you, the @ in diphtongs never really sounds @ to
me but rather o, a, e or e" so I write it like that. I write long isolated
vowels as double : aa, ee, ii, oo, etc.. and I write the 3 short diphtongs with
an accent on the first vowel *u'o*, *e'a*, *o'a*. Especially, there is only a
long *e*. So I write the long e : *ee* and my *e* is the isolated @ which
sounds rather like *e"* to me (the IPA font looks like a Russian *sh*. I
believe that the reason why there is no isolated @ among the 63-vowel Khmer
script is because isolated @ doesn't exist, but scholars seem to disagree with
me ;-) (I do believe so but I'm sure I'm wrong from some logical viewpoint).
I can't find out that paper, so I will post you a description of the
orthography. I'm sure you'll get it right away much quicker than from a scholar
description. Khmer children read Khmer vowels in their alphabet without
trouble. I doubt they would with the *scholar* explanation of @ which they
never ever write nor pronounce so IMHO ;-)
Mathias




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