Re: USAGE: Adapting non-Latin scripts

On 25/05/06, Gary Shannon <fiziwig@...> wrote:
> --- Tristan Alexander McLeay <conlang@...>
> wrote:
>
> >
> > I'm not really sure that's a *problem* though. It's
> > certainly not why
> > the English orthography is a bit difficult to work
> > with. As long as
> > the rules were regular with how to spell sounds, it
> > doesn't matter if
> > we spelt /æ/ as "a", "ä", "æ" or "ae" and /ei/ as
> > "ai", "aa" or "é".
>
> There are times when I think that English lies
> somewhere on a continuum between phonetic spelling and
> abstract pictographic. It's not as precise as IPA, yet
> not *quite* as arbitrary as spelling "house" as "QTPN"
> and "mouse" as "BHDK".
Well, yeah; again, that wasn't my point. The English orthography as it
is exists today when spelt with Latin letters is a bit hard. But an
English orthography can be devised using the Latin alphabet (even
using only our current twenty-six letters!) that is perfectly regular
and phonetic (in the conventional sense of a phonetic orthography).

By way of example (using Australian English phonemes because it's the
lect I'm most familiar with; it's not a serious proposal):

/I i: I@/ => i ei ie
/e e:/ => e ee
/& &: &i &O/ => a aa ai ao
/a_" a_": Ae/ => u ah ae
/O o: @u\ oi/ => o oo ou oi
/U u\:/ => y yy
/3:/ => oe
/@/ => e or a
/j/ => j
/dZ/ => gh
(other consonants should be obvious and marking stress by doubling
following consonants, optional word-finally)

Dhiss sisstem iz baissikli fenettik and ae dount think its
aambiggjyywes... Maibbi not sou eizzi on dhei aez dhou ... moo dubbel
lettaz dhen jyy kan shaik a stikk at!

(This system is basically phonetic and I don't think it's ambiguous
[even when spelling aloud! No "double you" versus "double-you"]. Maybe
not so easy on the eyes though ... more double letters than you can
shake a stick at!)

Of course, once /i:/ [Ii] and /I@/ [i:~i@] (with [i] being slightly
centralised, and [I] being substantially centralised) merge or
whatever it is they plan on doing it'll be a bit more confusing!

> But instead of complaining, I suppose we should thank
> our lucky stars we don't have even more exceptions to
> the rules. We could, for example, use "gh" as the long
> vowel marker and end up spelling "light" (which
> already observes this rule) and "hoghl" (for "hole"
> which does not yet follow this rughl.)
If wegh did that perfectly regughly, then what is the problem?
Probably we could simplify it to just a "h", but where's the fun in
that? :)

--
Tristan.