Re: A BrSc a?

Alright Ray, I owe you some feedback.  ;-)


--- In conlang@y..., Raymond Brown <ray.brown@F...> wrote:

> 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.
I find it hard to imagine any human language without a sound between
/a/ and /A/. It's fundamentality makes it quite inevitable.  The only
reason I can think of not to have it in a lang would be religion (as
always...  the strangest stunts of mind-boggling anti-logic can be
excused with religion).

Maybe /a/ is considered the Devil's vowel?  Or maybe /a/ appears in
so many involuntary or subconscious utterings such as shouts, groans
or baby babble that the Empire considers it primitive and uncivilised,
and prohibits its pronunciation in noble circles.  =)



> 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/
Kinda limited, you'll run out of syllables pretty soon unless you
allow clunky consonant clusters.



> 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?
I'm rather adverse to the sound myself, and I would expect it to
cause much trouble for people who don't distinguish it in their
natlangs.  I think I can pronounce it myself, though it's hard to
keep it from gliding off into /M/ or something.

Maybe if you'd allow /M/ or even /y/ as allophones of /1/, you'd be
on safer ground.  More people would be able to pronounce it, though
it might become even harder for them to distinguish it in other
people's talk.



> 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?
I find this scheme far preferable to the former two.  /@/ should be
easier to learn for most people than /1/.

If an IAL is indeed your goal, you could even allow /1/ as an allophone
of /@/, thus uniting schemes (b) and (c).



-- Christian Thalmann