Re: Not phonetic but ___???

Joe scripsit:

> Indeed.  But you need to represent every single phoneme in every
> single(widespread, native) dialect.  That is the nature of the quest.
Well, a practical diaphonematic orthography doesn't have to go that
far: it can allow for a few multiple spellings, or blur some distinctions
with low functional load.  The familiar Wells lexical sets for
vowels (KIT, DRESS, TRAP, LOT, STRUT, BATH, CLOTH, NURSE, FLEECE, FACE,
PALM, THOUGHT, GOAT, GOOSE, PRICE, CHOICE, MOUTH, NEAR, SQUARE, START,
NORTH, FORCE, CURE, and the weak vowels HAPPY, LETTER, and COMMA) make
27 distinctions, but that's almost certainly overkill.

(For me the mergers are TRAP = BATH, LOT = PALM, NORTH = FORCE, CLOTH =
THOUGHT, FLEECE = HAPPY, and NURSE = LETTER, leaving 21 distinctions.)

> It is by no means an impossibility to construct a dialect-neutral, phonemic
> orthography.
The 6th-century Qieyun dictionary of Middle Chinese organizes the possible
(morpho)syllables of the language into 35 initials (onsets) and 209 finals
(including tone information among the finals).  This is almost certainly
diaphonematic; no one made all of those distinctions!

--
John Cowan  www.ccil.org/~cowan  www.reutershealth.com  jcowan@reutershealth.com
"'My young friend, if you do not now, immediately and instantly, pull
as hard as ever you can, it is my opinion that your acquaintance in the
large-pattern leather ulster' (and by this he meant the Crocodile) 'will
jerk you into yonder limpid stream before you can say Jack Robinson.'"
        --the Bi-Coloured-Python-Rock-Snake

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