Re: A question on vowel orthography

Tim May wrote:

>In ASCII, though, I'm not sure what to do with /o/ and /Q/.  The rest
>of the vowels have pretty obvious latin equivalents, except /@/, which
>I'll probably leave as @.  /o/ and /Q/ are both "o" in my experience,
>though (certainly in English).  So I could use a plain "o" for one,
>and with a diacritic for the other.  But which way round would be
>best, and what diacritic, I don't know.

My personal preferences would be :
/o/ "o"
/Q/ "ò"  ograve or ALT0242 as 1st choice--- å (html?) ALT0229 2nd choice--
a-ring is closer to the phonetic truth, but the grave accent can generally
be used to indicate a more open vowel quality.  Also, on the Intl. keyboard,
it's easier to type; a-ring (for me at least) requires a separate trip to
the Num. keypad (it's also in the keyboard, but I rarely use it, so haven't
memorized its location, as I have L-ALT-z for  æ (ash)).
 I don't like the appearance of @ in text, so usually use ë (euml, ALT0235).
If "y" is not otherwise used, it could be schwa. Any symbol is OK, as long
as it explained.........
(The above applies to PC/Windows; Macs and others may differ)
>
>Now, in the script I'm making, there'll be some kind of relation
>between the symbols for equivalent front and back vowels (a diacritic
>or something similar).  So it would also be possible to make /o/ "o"
>and /Q/ "a" with a diacritic.  But again, I don't know which one would
>be best.  (Also, this would suggest that /u/ should be "i" with a
>diacritic, which would hardly be intuitive).
In a "native" script all bets are off; diacritics could be irrelevant.  In
the Kash alphabet, for ex., u is the mirror image of i, o is the inversion
of e.  (If I ever get around to related languages/dialects, symbols for
E,Q,y,@ et al. will be necessary)

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