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Re: Romanization of Reduced Vowels

From:Mathias M. Lassailly <lassailly@...>
Date:Wednesday, December 9, 1998, 8:37
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 ----- See the original message at http://www.egroups.com/list/conlang/?start=19052