Re: xsampa for vowels and diphthongs

From xsampa to herpetology-- my my, this thread slipped OT in record
time.....;-)))))))))

Yitzik-- I think you'd be in Big Trouble over here, referring to your wife
as a snake.  But a good riposte nonetheless.....;-))))))))

Now then:  Elyse Grasso wrote:


> I don't need enormous precision for depicting the vowel sounds in
> Jouevyaix... the Shayanans have stingers and venom sacks in their
> mouths, so the shapes of their oral cavities are affected by mood.
Clearly, alien morphology is going to make a difference; as I assumed for
the Kash, you just press on regardless and come as close as you can.....(For
ex. I'm sure they have wider mouths/lips, and apparently a bit of underbite,
since /f/ and /v/ are pronounced with the lower teeth touching the (inner
surface) of the upper lip.

> They don't like bilabial stops, so may also shy away from the frontmost
> close vowels.
I'd guess rounded vowels would be more of a problem than close front, which
don't involve the lips.

>
> Phonemically, the vowel sounds are
> (u" is u umlaut)
> Ascii   Latin1  Center of gravity of the Sound  possible xsampa
> a       a       hot,father                      a or A ?
This seems to depend on dialect/region. See the URL given below.

> e       e       pet                             e or E ?
definitely [E]
> o       o       Japanese o (no glide )          V or 7 ?
Is this unrounded? I don't know Japanese that well.

> @       u       hut (unrounded)                 @ or 6?
@ is US, 6 (inverted a?) is more RP IIRC

> i       i       hit                             I  or 1?
[I].   You may have [1] (barred i) in the sequence [s..z] as in "kisses", or
in adverbial "just", but it does vary toward [I] a lot.

> ii      ii      heat                            i: or i_i?
[i] as in the "pure" Span/Fr/Italian pronunciation; [i:] is lengthened, if
that's what you want.

> ai      ai      height                          a_i ?
> ei      ei      hate                            e_i ?
> oi      oi      choice                          o_i ?
Those are correct transcriptions for US speech; IIRC they can also be
written [Vj] or the way you've done but without the underline. IPA/Sampa [e]
is without the i-offglide.

> u       u"      hoot (rounded)                  u?
Confused here...the vowel of "hoot" is [u].  The umlaut symbol generally
indicates front/rounded (French "u" IPA and sampa [y]).  And if your
language doesn't like rounded vowels, it might be [M] (same position as [u]
but unrounded-- Japanese "u" I think.

> au      au      how                             a_u A_u?
> eu      eu                                      e_u ?
> ou      ou      oat                             o_u ?
No problem.  Note again, IPA/SAMPA [o] has no u-offglide. (But it's
perfectly OK to have the offglides in your language; Engl. isn't the only
language that does it.)
>
> Notes:
> I don't think my native dialect has a clean example of eu.
No; if you can get a Spanish speaking friend to pronounce "Europa", that's
close.

> Using cap I is a problem because in many fonts it is indistinguishable
> from l (small L).
Right.  When you devise your romanization, it may be possible to use e.g.
"i" for [I], "ii" for [i]; "u" for @, "uu" for your u-sound, or "a" = @,
"aa" = [a].  Whatever.

Go to D.Andreasson's site
http://www.conlanglinks.tk  and look at the IPA links with sound samples.
There are several, and they vary a bit..  _Personally_ I find the UCLA site
more in accord with what I learned and speak (esp. as to the [a] ~ [A]
distinction, and UCLA's [a] is very different from what the NTNU site
gives.)
>
OT something that has been intriguing me, though it's none of my business,
so you needn't answer.... You mentioned you were born in Connecticut, which
some years back boasted the first woman governor in US history, Ellie
Grasso.  Any kin?

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