Re: USAGE: An example of script adaptation to large phonologies

On Thu, Oct 19, 2000 at 07:55:51PM -0500, Danny Wier wrote:
[snip]
> There has to be some sort of way to make sure that 8-bit text doesn't get
> jumbled on anybody's side! Having to limit myself to 7-bit is rubbing me
> the wrong way. And I *hate* using case-sensitive phonetic notation.
I hate using case-sensitive phonetic notation too. But having 27 distinct
consonants and 9 vowels in my conlang, and the limited number of letters
in the Roman alphabet, this is going to be a problem.

The problem with 8-bit text is that different systems have *different*
encodings for the upper 128 characters in the set. Even Microsoft itself
uses two different encodings! And I can assure you that MacOS and Linux
will have two totally different encodings, too. Good luck trying to
convert between them (not possible on email 'cos you don't know what
system your recipient is running). Currently, I *think* my mail program
uses a MS-compatible character set for the upper 128 characters, but I'm
not positive on that (I suspect some characters may not be showing up
right at all).

It's because of incompatibilities like these that I hesitate to use
anything beyond 7-bit ASCII on email, although I hate case-sensitive
phonetic notation as much as you do. I hate digraphs/trigraphs/... as
well, but without digraphs, I'd have even less symbols to use for my
conlang's orthography :-(

> (Speaking of Caucasian languages, Adyghe adds only one letter to the
> Russian Cyrillic alphabet, the _palochka_ which is identical to our
> capital I, marking aspirates mostly. What happens is that you have the
> tense uvular stop written as a *** T E T R A G R A P H ***.)
[snip]

*shudder* :-P


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