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

 --- jesse stephen bangs wrote:

> > > > Vengei /veN gE/ to walk, to go
> > >
> > > Eh?  It's *very* odd for a conlang to write {ei} for [E] and {e} for
> > > [e]. Is that what you meant?  Or did you confuse the phonetic symbols?
> >
> > Why is it weird? It's basically what French does!
>
> French (and English) can *not* be used as examples of normal orthography!
Can Dutch be considered an example? If so, let me tell you this:
According to standard pronunciation, |ei| is a diphtong, pronounced like
[Ei]. However, there are many dialects (mainly, but also the city dialects
of Amsterdam and The Hague) where it is pronounced exactly like [E].

> Please don't write to inform me that language XYZ does something
> different.  I *know* that already.
Sure. But every language has its own orthography, which gives it its own
particular taste and feeling. Those orthographies are not the result of
somebody's clever thinking, but emerged in a natural way.
Is it logical to represent [i] as |ie|, like Dutch and German do?
Is it logical to have |ei|, |oi| and |è| sound like [i], while |ai| sounds
like [E], as is the case in Modern Greek?
IF you want to create two different spellings in your conlang for [e] and
[E], than IMHO |ei| is the most obvious way. Nothing particularly risky
or adventurous about that!

Jan


=====
"You know, I used to think it was awful that life was so unfair. Then I thought,
wouldn't it be much worse if life were fair, and all the terrible things that
happen to us come because we actually deserve them? So, now I take great
comfort in the general hostility and unfairness of the universe." --- J.
Michael Straczynski

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