> En réponse à Nathan Richardson
> <nathan000000@...>:
>
> > Howdy all. I just registered for this egroup.
> Looks
> > like it will be fun.
> >
>
> Welcome! Sorry for the belated welcome, but I wanted
> to have time to take a
> look at your site before replying :) .
>
> >
> >
>
> >
> > If it's not too much trouble, I would greatly
> > appreciate comments or feedback
> > (nathan000000@yahoo.com). Thank you for your time!
> >
>
> OK, well, the idea is interesting (and has already
> been tried several times
> IIRC :)) ). Your shapes are nicely reminiscent of
> the Latin alphabet, despite
> an a priori start :) . For the problem of the dot
> for unvoiced consonants, why
> not use a character tail instead? What I mean is a
> little squiggle on the right
> of the character, like what people use to connect
> two letters in connected
> handwriting? That would also solve a little
> inconsistency of your alphabet:
> your non-dotted characters are supposed to be the
> voiced versions of a voiced-
> voiceless pair. But your character for unvoiced 'h'
> has no dot, while the
> voiced 'h' does exist. Now I can understand that
> this character is not very
> practical to dot, but if you use this tail as mark
> of voicelessness, the
> problem would be solved.
>
> Also, your assumption about the IPA is wrong: it's
> not an attempt at listing
> all the phones (it's impossible: the acoustic space
> is a continuum), but all
> the sounds that at least one language has
> *phonemically*. So the IPA *is* an
> alphabet of phone*m*es, it's just that it doesn't
> restrict itself to a single
> or a few languages but tries to describe all the
> phonemes of all the languages
> in the world. And even then it's not completely
> successful in doing that, hence
> the need for the numerous diacritics. So it may be
> complicated, but the
> complication is necessary, and any phonetic alphabet
> needs about the same
> amount of characters. If you try to simplify, you'll
> make mistakes, as you did.
>
> Now, on to some of the mistakes:
> - you consider "retroflex" to be among the manners
> of articulation (stop,
> fricative, lateral, etc...). It's incorrect.
> "Retroflex" is a *place* of
> articulation, like "bilabial", "palatal" or "velar".
> It's between postalveolar
> and palatal.
> - the affricates "ch" and "j" and the fricatives
> "sh" and "zh" are *not*
> palatal. They are postalveolar. Palatal is the
> position of for instance the
> German fricative "ch" in "ich". It's quite different
> in sound from the
> English "sh". And "r" is not palatal either. It's
> plain alveolar in British
> English, or retroflex (which is I think what you
> meant). In fact, the "r"
> belongs with the glides ("approximants" is the usual
> term). It's the alveolar
> glide in British English, and often the retroflex
> glide in American English
> (please don't start another English pronunciation
> thread with that. I know the
> picture is much more complicated and that I am
> partly incorrect. I'm just
> simplifying for educational purposes. Nathan will
> learn the complexities soon
> enough ;)) ).
> - I wouldn't put the affricates as a single manner
> of articulation. Affricates
> are complicated sounds which are best described by
> specifying the two sounds
> they start and end up as. I think you should do the
> same with your iconic
> alphabet (if you want it to be really iconic): use
> two characters for an
> affricate, with a mark indicating that they refer to
> a single composite sound.
> You could mark diphtongues (like "i" in "like" ;)) )
> and coarticulations
> (sounds with two articulations at the same time) in
> the same way, and it would
> be more iconic than the system you have now.
> - I can't agree with your way of describing vowels.
> It may be valid for your
> dialect of English, but it is *not* usable for any
> other language, and it is
> not possible to simply extend it without inventing
> new shapes. You really need
> to learn first what vowels are common phonemes in
> languages and start from
> there.
>
> In the end, you get an alphabet which may be very
> well done to write English,
> but is not readily modifyable to write any other
> language, and thus defeats
> your goal of universality. The idea of iconicity is
> good, but not followed to
> its logical conclusion. In short, you have let your
> native language get in the
> way of the sound analysis. It's quite common,
> especially since you're a
> beginner, but you need to be aware of that and first
> learn a bit more about
> phonetics before working again on this iconic
> alphabet.
>
> I hope you won't take my comments as an attack. On
> the contrary, I mean them as
> a way for you to improve your iconic alphabet by
> correcting some of the
> mistakes that crept in. The idea in itself is nice,
> and the current aesthetics
> are not bad (they are quite readable for a European
> person indeed, probably
> easier to read than Tengwar :) ).
>
> Anyway, welcome again!
>
> Christophe.
>
>
http://rainbow.conlang.free.fr
>
> It takes a straight mind to create a twisted