Re: A BrSc a?

The distinction between (b) & (c) seems -- to use your words! --
overly nice.

I prefer b to a. But without vowel harmony. Instead, I would have
CV syllables in the phonology, use the roman letters as an alphabet,
and leave the high central vowel unwritten. This would increase
written brevity because it would make more letter combinations
count as legitimate words. Only vowel+vowel sequences would be
orthographically illegitimate, & you could always think up some
extra rules to make use of them.

--And.

> After two positive responses and no negative ones following my email on
> 15th April outling some current ideas on BrSc phonology & orthography, I'm
> encouraged to continue working on this revised system.
>
> One thing Dirk pointed out was that there was no /a/.  This is not because
> I dislike the sound or want to drop it - quite the reverse, in fact.  I was
> not happy at finding no place for it and wondered if anyone would comment
> on its absence.  Well, someone did.
>
> There seem to me, without abandoning the vowel harmony system inherent in
> Dirk's syllabary suggestion, there are three possibilities:
>
> Scheme (a)
> ----------
> Not to get worried by lack of /a/, and keep the 4-vowel scheme outlined on
> the 15th, namely:
>
>       FRONT     BACK
> HIGH  /i/       /u/
> LOW   /E/       /O/
>
> The low vowels might optionally be as low as [{] and [Q].
>
>
> Scheme (b)
> ----------
> This is Dirk's original scheme and which, personally, I prefer.   That
> means we have a high, central vowel [1], like the north Walian
> pronunciation of Welsh {u}, the Romanian î (i-circumflex) or Russian bI,
> namely:
>
>       FRONT    CENTRAL   BACK
> HIGH  /i/       /1/      /u/
> LOW   /e/       /a/      /e/
>
> Here the front & back low vowels would be expected to range from [e] to
> [E], and [o] to [O] respectively.  The very low [{] and [Q] should be
> avoided.
>
> The only thing that holds me back is that high, central vowel.  So many
> languages (including English, which is quite widely spoken  :)    lack the
> sound.  I don't know of any constructed IAL that includes it.  Would its
> inclusion be unacceptable in a conlang that had, as one of its aims, the
> possibility of being used as an IAL?
>
>
> Scheme (c)
> ----------
> This is really a modification of the (b) which might make it make
> internationally acceptable.  As /a/ is, in fact, lower than /e/ and /o/, we
> could have the 'high central' vowel lower than /i/ and /u/; we could have
> /@/, the shwa so beloved by anglophones.  This would give us:
>       FRONT    CENTRAL   BACK
> HIGH  /i/       /@/      /u/
> LOW   /e/       /a/      /e/
>
> Although /@/ occurs much more frequently than /1/, it is still absent from
> very many languages, including some widely spoken ones such as Spanish.  Is
> this scheme acceptable in an IAL?
>
>
> Comments will be very much appreciated.
>
> Ray.
>
>
> ======================
>    XRICTOC ANECTH
> ======================
>
>

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