Nyuu Romaji WAS: Re: A BrSc a? & Nyuu Romaji

Levi Tooker wrote:

>--- J Y S Czhang <czhang23@A...> wrote:
>> Vocalic "r" is indicated by R, so TO "ruler" and
>> "earth" are represented by
>> RUULR and RTH. In "r"-less dialects of English, A
>> and AA may be used in place
>> of (unstressed and stressed, respectively) vocalic
>> "r", so TO "ruler" and
>> "earth" may optionally be represented by RUULA and
>> AATH.
>
>Here is a hole in the scheme: If American stressed
>vocalic "r" is represented by AA in non-rhotic
>accents, the words "father" FAADHA and "further"
>FAADHA become orthographically the same despite
>distinct pronunciations, as do "Balmer" BAAMA and
>"Burma" BAAMA (yes, I know it's MIIAENMAR now :), and
>I bet there are other examples.
>
>And if "AR" is represented by AA to, then "farther"
>joins the group of words represented by FAADHA!

Well, first of all, I most definitely don't pronounce
"further" and "farther" the same, according to Nyuu Romaji
they would be FRTHR and FAARTHR and non-Rhotic friends and
relatives of mine definitely use different vowels for them
too.

But my main problem was with Zhang's original explanatory
message (sorry, I lost it) where he gives several
alternative spellings but gives the only spelling for
"alms" as AAMZ -- not that the vowel changes for me, a
North American, but I say AALMZ just as I say PAALM -- are
those also acceptable variations?  Is anything an
acceptable variation as long as someone says it?  (Even the
name, at least the one used for the subject of this thread,
could be pronounced differently -- and I suspect would be
in most of North America, i.e. I know very few North
Americans other than myself who would say NYUU as opposed
to NUU)

And another thing:  using R for both consonantal and
syllabic sounds could create ambiguities between words that
are not (for some?) homophones:  sear and seer, for
example, would both be SIR.

Not that I think it is a *bad* scheme, per se.  It's a
tough job, though, because while some differences in vowels
will always occur in some environments (SHAANT vs SHAENT)
there are other differences that are unique to certain
words and certain people, with little rhyme or reason, that
make it difficult to allow just any "acceptable spelling"
for a given word...

nicole

PS -- what does "C" represent?  And what about voiceless w?

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