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Orthography help needed

From:Mark J. Reed <markjreed@...>
Date:Monday, April 5, 2004, 18:47
Okay, I'm currently working on a small side-language (called
['r\Vm,bjUgv]) which is in need of an orthography.  The problem is that
its phoneme set consists of the entire repertoire of phones in (my 'lect
of) English, and despite this phonological similarity I refuse to go the
English route and overload the symbols.

So far, I'm thinking that <c> for [S] and <j> for [Z] seem reasonable.
Dunno what to do about [D], [N] and [T], though.   I'm reluctant to
introduce <ð>, <ŋ>, and <þ> or <θ> for them, and there's certainly no
obious mapping from <q> and <x> to any pair of those sounds.

And the vowels!  I'm obviously going to have to do quasi-overloading
here with diacritical marks; I'm opting for a typical "long"/"short"
distinction, probably indicated with a macron, that really indicates
quality rather than quantity: /e/ = [E], /e:/ = [e], /i/ = [I], /i:/ =
[i], /o/ = [O], /o:/ = [o], /u/ = [U], /u:/ = [u].    But that still
doesn't quite solve the problem.  Assuming /a:/ represents [a], for instance,
what does /a/ represent: [V] or [&]?  How do I represent the other one?
And what about [@]?  The Lojban solution of using <y> for [@] isn't
available since <y> is used for [j], and I've never been completely
happy with <'>, which is what I used to represent [@] in Okaikiar.

Any suggestions welcome.

Thanks (['SVmp.wi])!

-Mark

Reply

Adam Walker <carrajena@...>