Re: /E~/ (was: Re: Kyrgyz was Re: Zetowvu / Ezotwuv (new conlang))

John Cowan wrote:

> Actually, you are both partly wrong.
> > The IPA is designed to allow representation of every phone that makes a
> phonemic distinction in some language.  If two sounds are distinguishable,
> but are never used contrastively in any language, they share an IPA symbol.
> In such a case, they may be distinguishable by diacritics, but that is not
> guaranteed.
As usual, John clears things up. Thanks. That's exactly what I meant. I didn't
mean that IPA wasn't meant to distinguish phonetically. I just meant
that within a language it isn't solely used for that purpose, if you see what I
mean. It's used for phonemic as well as phonetic writing.

Perhaps I should just shut up before I say something even more stupid... :/

Daniel Andreasson