Re: Romanization of Reduced Vowels

Kristian Jensen wrote:
> What's better, phonemic or phonetic transcription?
I'd say it depends on the language.  For instance, in Japanese, [P]
(bilabial fricative) is an allophone of /h/ before /m\/ (unrounded back
high vowel).  Nevertheless, in the most common transliteration, one
writes <fu>, and not <hu> (which is fortunate, since recent borrowing
have begun to use [P] for [f] in other places), thus <fuji>, and not
<huji>.  However, sometimes it's best to use a phonemic transcription.
For instance, in my conlang,  /t/ is pronounced [tS] before /i/ and /j/,
however, it is always written <t>, this is especially good with the
gender-prefixes.  Gender 1 (female-rational) uses the prefix t(i)-.
Before a non-glide consonant, it is ti- ([tSi]), before a glide or vowel
it is t-, thus [ta], [tu], [tSi], [tl], [tSj], and [p] (slight
complication: *tw, *dw, and *nw are impossible, they become p, b, and
m).  To write it phonetically would require additional rules:
1. Chi- before non-glide consonants
2. T- before a, u, and l
3. P- replacing w.
4. Ch- before i and y

Whereas now one only needs to write
1. T(i)-
2. P- replacing w.

And allow the syllable rules to indicate when one needs the i.
Actually, the second rule isn't even necessary, since tw, dw, nw --> p,
b, m  operates across the language, so that, for instance, words ending
in -u form their plural by changing u --> wi, so that -tu --> -pi.

So, in your particular lang, is it simpler to indicate the allophonic
variation or is it simpler to indicate the phonemic variation.  This is,
of course, a subjective decision, but from your examples, I'd guess that
it's simpler to indicate the allophonic variation.

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