Re: Bopomofo and pinyin

John Cowan:
> DOUGLAS KOLLER wrote:
>
> > > Wooh zaih Zrongguoo dahluh zruh le sih niaan, zaih
> > > Taaiwan zruh le chi niaan.
> > >
> > > Gohngchaahnzruuhyih wahnsuih!
> >
> > FTIW, Ugh!
>
> Yeah, I agree, unfortunately.  Not exactly "John's definitive
> solution".  It especially looks awful in multisyllabic words.
> "Gongchanzhuyi" is much better than "gohngchaahnzruuhyih".
> We *must* have something more lightweight.
The solution I use for Livagian is that there is an explicit
correspondence between diacritical characters (used in digraphs
and trigraphs) and supradiacritics. You use the supradiacritics
when typographical resources permit (e.g. á = a-acute), and elsewhere,
like in email, you use a separate diacritic character (e.g. ah). The same
goes for use of thorn, eth and yogh.

In consequence ASCII Livagian is (pleasingly) monstrous, but at
least the monstrosity is shifted to the level of typography rather
than the level of orthography. It also has the attractive consequence
of giving the romanized language two different faces, two contrasting
visual textures.

ASCII Livagian is useful not only for email but also for alphabetization.

--And.