Re: M

Am 07/05 21:16  Herman Miller yscrifef:

> Does "fOrest" have the same sound as in "stOry"? Does "or" always sound
> like /VUr/ if another vowel comes directly after the "r"? I'm thinking that
> this might be the kind of variation that the system can tolerate,
>
/stOri/  Odd that.  Maybe it's <o>=/VU/ before /r@/?  Don't know.

> >I don't find initial <ü> ugly.  It happens in Russian.  <ü> for eu-
> >looks right to me, and probably not unknown in Martian nomenclature for
> >the classic placenames given before colonization on the planet.  I
> >suggest that <yü> might become used as subject form and <Ü> as the
> >object form, except among those lowlives who think it is 'cool' to write
> ><Ü> all the time.
>
> There's another question, would <yü> or <yû> be preferable? I like the idea
> of using variant spellings to distinguish different words, but I'm not sure
> that monolingual English speakers who aren't linguists would consistently
> distinguish subject "you" from object "you". For that matter, unstressed
> <ye> might become the norm. But if there are enough native speakers of
> other languages who learned English as a second language, their usage might
> prevail.
>
> Maybe <yû> = "you" and <yü> = "yew"?
>
I was thinking that <yü> becomes <Ü> when it becomes unstressed in a
sentence, but that choice is up to <yû>. (Sorry, couldn't resist!)  I
had in mind the you to U thread that was on this list a couple of weeks
ago.  It could be a nice feature, but inconsistant with the
characteristic of the people creating this orthography.

I'm waiting to see the grammar of future Martian now.  Will there be any
changes in language after colonization?


- andrew.
--
Andrew Smith, Intheologus                       hobbit@griffler.co.nz
alias Mungo Foxburr of Loamsdown
http://hobbit.griffler.co.nz/homepage.html

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