Re: OT: Conorthography aesthetics (WAS: Re: Featural code based on ...

--- In conlang@yahoogroups.com, Andreas Johansson <andjo@F...> wrote:

> PS of my own conlang orthographies, the one I find most aesthetically
> appealing is Meghean's. How can anyone fail to love the look of
_Gheao Chaino
> Seoimearo sedheum_?
As mentioned before, I ám quite fond of it.

Generally, things that put me off in an orthography are the use
of many different diacritics, overabundances of diacritics,
spellings that seem to suggest messed-up syllable systems
(eg |rqgtwf|...  even if |g| and |w| are vowels in this system),
the use of capital letters within a word (boo Okrand! ;-),
spellings modeled after uhmehrihcuhn "fonehtihcs", etc.

On the other hand, typographic aesthetics is much more complex
than that.  A spelling system should be pervaded by a consistent,
original "flavor".  For example, I tend not to like the letter
|k| much, especially for fluid-sounding low-profile languages.
However, for a language with Germanic flavor, a |k| or even |ck|
can fit perfecktly.

Things I like, on the other hand, are vowel digraphs, non-trivial
yet non-grotesque featural coding etc...  though simple and
straight-forward spellings like Spanish or Quenya are also pretty
-- just not exceptional in any way.

As for my own langs, Obrenje transliteration looks pretty
clinical and utilitarian.  I'm very fond of the Jovian look
though: Vowel digraphs, non-trivial yet non-grotesque featural
coding, no |k|, |q| etc, extremely rare accent marks...  the
same goes for Oro Mpaa, which has even more of an individual
flavor, though its initial nasal+stop clusters might be an
acquired taste.  ;-)



> PPPS That means I did decide that /s/ get's realized as [S] before
/j i e/.
> I'll indicate this on the webpage tonight, or so I hope.
Wheee!  Victory!  ):-P



-- Christian Thalmann