Re: Sidestepping Spelling Reform
| From: | Gary Shannon <fiziwig@...> |
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| Date: | Wednesday, January 28, 2004, 17:43 |
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> 10,000 syllables?
<snip>
> 616,000,000 syllabls?
I came up with about 70 to 80 syllables. First of
all, a syllabary doesn't have to be precisely
phoenetic, nor does it have to represent every
possible dialect of the language, nor does it have to
make rhotic/non-rhotic distinctions.
Secondly, a diacritical mark can mark a syllable as
having its vowel suppressed so that ugly English
consonant clusters can be represented as syllable
clusters with vowels supressed. s'kool (school)
Thirdly, there can be diacritical marks to indicate
syllables that have "N", "M", "L", or "R" following
the the vowel. Thus the syllables "po", "pon", "pom",
"pol", "por" are a single symbol with different
diacritical marks. (kon-st'-ru-k'te-d' lan-gwe-j')
OR symbols could be stacked or combimed as in Korean.
At any rate, any number over 100 symbols is just plain
nuts, and I suspect 40 to 50 symbols would be plenty.
--gary
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