Re: Balek, work in progress.

Martin wrote:
>Thanks, it should be fixed.  (Thanks to Sylvia and Amber as well ;)>
It is fixed.  What there is looks interesting.  Why don't you like "hadha",
"jetyähadha" etc.? (I do)

Stress:  On the basis of your 4 examples, looks like:  Stress a final closed
(-CVC) syllable, otherwise stress the next-to-last.  It's probably more
complicated than that.

I like the "staccato vowels".  Apparently they're separated by a glottal
stop?  Systematically, they could be considered simply V plus [?], with the
subsequent "echo" an automatic feature.  I'm familiar with at least one
natlang where this can occur e.g. phonemic /sá?daN/ pronounced [sá?adaN]
(the middle _a_ is very fast).  This would suggest that you ought to include
glottal stop in your consonantal inventory, otherwise, why would it be found
in just this one environment?

Just a personal preference:  I'd be happier to see your vowels/spelling
system more in line with the "international" (IPA) values than with English,
which I feel might confuse the casual reader..    But that's just me.


Letter Sound IPA Pronunciation
á  ay [e] "lain" "ate" ---- why not use  _e_(or é, see below)
a ah   "latte" -----   use a
à aw   "on" "sean" "cotton" ----- (SAMPA [O], could be ò or  ô or digraph
"oa"?
e eh   "enter" "met" -----SAMPA [E], could be è (If this vowel is more
common than "á" [e], you could put the diacritic on it: é)
Becomes [e] when final
é ee [i] "machine" "eat" ----- _i_
i i   "high" "I" ------  this is a diphthong, ay, ai or Latinate ae
o oh [o] "snow" "mow" ----- no problem
u ew [u] "soon" "moon" -----no problem
ù uh   "under" "ugh" ------SAMPA [@] if schwa, or [V] (IPA upside-down v) if
the vowel of Am.Engl. "cup, butt, rough", always a problem to represent.
One possible solution, use"a" for this, "â" for the ah-sound....sort of
Portuguese.

Just my 2 cents worth; of course it's all up to you.  :-)
Roger Mills

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