xsampa for vowels and diphthongs

The IPA  vowels are a lot harder to visualize (is there a word for the
sound equivalent of visualization?) than the consonants..

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. An
individual Shayanan may show as much phonetic variation as entire broad
swaths of English-speaking populations.

The stinger is actually the organ of articulation: the tongue-equivalent
is just for swallowing food. (Since virus is Latin for poison, the
Shayanans have previral, midviral and postviral articulation points...)
They don't like bilabial stops, so may also shy away from the frontmost
close vowels.

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 ?
e       e       pet                             e or E ?
o       o       Japanese o (no glide )          V or 7 ?
@       u       hut (unrounded)                 @ or 6?
i       i       hit                             I  or 1?
ii      ii      heat                            i: or i_i?
ai      ai      height                          a_i ?
ei      ei      hate                            e_i ?
oi      oi      choice                          o_i ?
u       u"      hoot (rounded)                  u?
au      au      how                             a_u A_u?
eu      eu                                      e_u ?
ou      ou      oat                             o_u ?

Notes:
I don't think my native dialect has a clean example of eu.
Using cap I is a problem because in many fonts it is indistinguishable
from l (small L).

Suggestions? Comments?

Thanks
--
Elyse Grasso

Replies