Re: Romanization of Reduced Vowels

Righto! It is about time I go and meditate over this. I think I have
a better understanding of this. I really appreciate the
contributions made by everyone. Thank you all!!

What I have learned here is to be applied to my reformation of
Lumanesian (now Boreanesian). I'm redoing the whole vocabulary to
conform to the new Boreanesian word structure that I have recently
'discovered'. It resembles a lot like Mon-Khmer's word structure, so
I'm thankful to Mathias that he has shared what he knows of Khmer
and how it is written. There has been some useful hints that I can
apply to the Boreanesian syllabary conscript.

Boreanesian, like its conlang predecessor Lumanesian, still has only
four vowels: /a/ /i/ /u/ /@/. From what Raymond has posted, the
vowel in Boreanesian's minor syllables would naturally have to be
/@/, and that this vowel has several conditioned variants: voiced
and voiceless [@],[I],[U], and zero. Raymond has also suggested that
if this were the case, I should represent the vowel in the Roman
orthography.

But how should this be represented? Matt made me aware that there is
nothing contrived about using the same symbol - even in conditions
where the vowel represented by this symbol would either change or
reduce to zero. Using a vowel also removes the ambiguity that
existed when two major syllables form a compound and the first
component ends in a cluster or digraph. For instance:
writing 'kalhyal' could be read as [kaL'jal] or [kal.h@'jal] if I
don't indicate the reduced vowel in the orthography. But if the
reduced vowel was always indicated by 'e', then [kaL'jal] would be
written as 'kalhyal' while [kal.h@'jal] would be written as
'kalheyal'.

Like I said, its about time I go meditate now. Retreat to the other
dimension where I can consult some more native Boreanesian speakers.
8-) Thanks again to everyone. If there are anymore useful comments
and suggestions, please feel free to disturb my meditation.

Regards,
-Kristian- 8-)