Re: phonology of Plan B

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_). 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].

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     :)

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.

> [snip]
>
>
>>>>How so, you ask? If 32 is too many, surely 256 is way over the top! But
>>>>consider De Kolovrat's system of mapping the 100 decimal numerals from
>>>>00 through to 99 into pronounceable CV syllables. One could fairly
>>>>easily create a similar system for mapping the hex values 00 through to
>>>>FF into pronounceable CV syllables; this even byte value would map into
>>>>a unique CV syllable.
>>
>>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!

--
Ray
==================================
ray@carolandray.plus.com
http://www.carolandray.plus.com
==================================
Nid rhy hen neb i ddysgu.
There's none too old to learn.
[WELSH PROVERB]