Re: Rubaga Orthog. Part 1

Jeff Jones sekalge:
>    _soft_, when the consonant letter is preceded by the soft mark `,
>        a vowel letter, or R,
>    _firm_, when the consonant letter is preceded by the firm mark ^,
>and _hard_, otherwise.
>There is also a 4th category, _phrase-initial_, which duplicates
>either the hard or soft form, but isn't relevent until later.
Okay, perhaps I'm being denser than osmium, but what exactly do the marks
mean? I tried to find a definition and failed.

It looks slightly confusing to me, but then, I'm not a phonetician. (I
like the pronunciation of that word, especially with two vowel sounds in
phone.)

Laimes,
Wright.