Re: phonology of Plan B

Hallo!

On Mon, 9 Jul 2007 19:11:27 +0100, R A Brown wrote:

> Jörg Rhiemeier wrote:
> [snip]
> >>Instead of mapping each grapheme to two different & unrelated sounds, he
> >>could have mapped each bit quartet(half-byte, "nibble") to two different
> >>graphemes: one denoting a consonant the other a vowel/vowel combo.
> >
> > Yes, that would have been more sane and elegant.  But then, he would
> > have run out of letters, at least as long as he restricted himself
> > to the 26 letters of the standard Latin alphabet ...
>
> The Latin alphabet as used by the Romans had six vowel symbols |a e i o
> u y| (note for purists: I am using _u_ as the lower-case of _V_).
Yes, of course.  I was referring to the 26 letters that are commonly
assumed to be part of "the alphabet".

>       One
> needs two more symbol to extend this to eight; on my webpage I suggest
> adding the |w| of Welsh and the Scandinavian |ø|. The vowels |a e i o|
> could be given the values they have in Spanish or Italian; |w| will
> retain its Welsh value, i.e. /u/, while |u| is used as in French for
> /y/. This leaves |y| to be the high unrounded central vowel (one of its
> Welsh uses), i.e. /ɨ/ and |ø| is a low rounded front vowel, varying
> between [ø] and [ɶ].
This is a quite sensible transcription.  Actually, I once considered
adopting a similar system, with |u| for /y/, |w| for /u/ and |y|
for /ø/, for Albic, but I simply could not attune to it.  So, I have
everything as in IPA.

> These are the same eight vowels that Claudio Gnoli has in his Conlang
> 'Liva' and Anander Hythloday reports in Mefato. I can't help thinking my
> use of |a e i o u w y ø| is better than his |a e i o y u ɨ ø | with its
> barred-i. Maybe I should suggest this change to him     :)
Do so if you want to.

> Anyway, to return to Plan B. He could then have used the upper-case
> forms of the same vowels for the r+V combos. I know the use of mixed
> case is not elegant, but it would IMO have been less confusing than what
> he actually did.
Yes.  Surely, |E| is a better spelling for /re/ than |m|!  But I think
enough has been said on Plan B's baroque spelling.

[...]

> >>OOPS! That should have read: "thus every byte value would map into a
> >>unique CV syllable."
> >
> >
> > Which I guessed that you meant it, anyway.
>
> Good - and it has now been done!
Yes, I have noticed the connection between this thread and your post
on Mefato.

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