Re: A break in the evils of English (or, Sturnan is beautiful)

--- In conlang@y..., Christophe Grandsire <christophe.grandsire@F...> wrote:

> En réponse à jesse stephen bangs <jaspax@U...>:
> > Besides, it makes more sense for {ei} to be high-mid.  Everyone
> > generally
> > agrees that {e} represents an unrounded (usually front) mid vowel.
> > Everyone agrees that {i} represents an unrounded high vowel.
> > Logically,
> > combining them to {ei} can give an unrounded mid-high vowel, or [e],
> > which
> > then leaves plain {e} to represent [E] (or whatever else you need it
> > for).
I actually considered using |ei| for /e:/ in Caelva.  I find it the
assignment quite intuitive, on the same grounds.

For /E/, I was going to use |ea|.



> But the problem is that nobody uses it that way, so there must be a reason. In
> my opinion, [e] is more "simple" than [E].
Well, /e/ is tense and thus requires more articulation than the lax
/E/.  Languages who have both sounds will usually place /e/ in the
stressed or long syllables, while it slackens into /E/ in less
important places.



>I think that if we did a frequency
> survey on the use of [e] and [E], we would find that [e] is used much more
> often than [E], even in languages that have both.
I'd be surprised.  The only reason I can imagine for that to be true
would be that many /E/s decay into schwas.



> And I don't know of any
> language that has [E] without [e]
Bärndüütsch?  It has most of its vowels lowered, even in long
syllables.

And then, of course, there's English.  It has /E/ as a phoneme, but
/e/ only in the diphthong /eI/.



>, while I do know the contrary. And my opinion
> is also that a more frequent sound should be written down simpler
> than a less frequent sound.
IMHO, a lax and unstressed sound should be written as simply and
unobtrusively as possible.  I find the final -ë of Quenya-for-English-
speakers (and of Albanian) very ugly, as it suggests a false
importance for an unstressed vowel.

Similarly, I hate it when people write the schwa of Swiss German as
|ä|, it turns phrases like "en Guete" /@N"gu@t@/ into "än Guätä",
which looks shrill and overloaded.

Or have a look at French:  |e| is /E/ by default in closed syllables
(e.g. |tresse| /trEs/ or |robinet| /rObinE/), while it degrades even
further into a rounded schwa in open syllables.  An accent aigu is
needed to elevate it into the privileged status of /e/!



> Languages tend to agree with me, even if it's for other
> reasons. Even the IPA uses |e| for [e] and not for [E]!
Because [e] is the "purest" version of |e|.



> Of single letters yes. Not of the digraph |ei| which I have absolutely never
> seen used for [e]
Didn't Greek have that at some point in its history?  And what about
the |ei| of Irish?  I thought |eire| was pronounced /e:r_je/.


> but did see used for [E].
Where?  I can't think of any such language right away.


-- Christian Thalmann

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