Re: Futurese

>>Well, sorry, I guess I should have offered an ASCII-IPA
>>equivalent for each phoneme, so as to avoid misunderstandings
>>such as this.
>
>You should have.
I'll do now:

a /a/
b /b/
c /S/
d /d/
e /E/
f /f/
g /g/
h /h/
i /i/
j /j/
k /k/
l /l/
m /m/
n /n/
o /O/
p /p/
q /N/
r /r/
s /s/
t /t/
u /u/
v /v/
w /w/
x /Z/
y /@/
z /z/


>> >In
>> >addition, any language that uses |x| for anything voiced ought to be
>>shot,
>> >IMHO.
>>
>>May I know why on Earth?!
>
>Well, because I've got an irrational personal dislike for the idea, and
>because |x| prototypically indicates voiceless sounds.
>
>>According to that, English ought to be "shot", because it uses
>><x> for something voiced in some cases (think of "example" and
>>"xylophone"), not to mention Albanian, which uses <x> for
>>/dz/ and "xh" for /dZ/.
>
>I've never denied I hate English orthography. I don't now much of Albanian
>orthography, but the use of |x| and |xh| is at the very least quite
>counterintuitive for people used to more mainstream uses of the Latin
>alphabet. If I'm correct in assuming you chose said script because it's the
>most well-known in the world, one'd expect you to use as "normal" values of
>the letters as possible to maximize this advantage.
Yes, but some roman letters (especially c, j, x and y) do not
have a "normal" value strongly associated with them but are
used for very different sounds in the different languages in
which they're used. E.g. to us, Spanish speakers, the "normal"
value of letter j is /X/.


>[snip]
>> > except I'd still hate |x| to indicate anything voiced.
>>
>>I'm waiting for undefeatable arguments against the use
>>of letter x for something voiced; I mean, other than your
>>personal taste which is of course totally irrelevant.
>
>The "IMHO" rather suggests a personal opinion, doesn't it?
>
>Still, using |x| for something as odd as [Z] does work against the point of
>using a well-known alphabet.
I don't see using <x> for /Z/ that odd. <x> is already in
use for very closely related sounds to that (/S/, /dz/ and
/dZ/).


>One possible rejuggle would be |x|=/S/, |j|=/Z/, |y|=/j/ and |ë|=/@/ (|ë|
is
>e-diaeresis, in case the mailer mangles it). Would feel rather less exotic
>to me, at least.
And do you consider that that option, introducing a
cumbersome diacritic and leaving letter c sillily unused,
really makes a better use of the roman script than mine?


>> >It's quite obvious you'ven't tried to achieve a maximally universal set
>>of
>> >contrastive sounds, but are real sure your IAL ought to distinguish
>>'tween
>> >/l/ and /r/? And exactly what kind of "r" are we speaking about? From
>>your
>> >chart above I'd have to guess it's a dental trill.
>>
>>Well, I've already posted in several other places very
>>extensive and detailed arguments to support the choice of
>>phonemes, which by no means is arbitrary. If you want I'll
>>paste those explanations here.
>
>Well, I don't suspect you of picking phonemes arbitrarily; I'm just curious
>as to the justification for including these two.
Yes, I expected the l/r opposition to be questioned here.
But why hasn't anybody so far complained about the b/v
one? When I posted it to a Spanish-language list, the l/r
"problem" wasn't even mentioned in the replies while the
b/v one was ubiquitous.


>> >>4) Syllable structure: (C)V(C)
>> >>(glottal stop inherent in syllable-initial vowels)
>> >>
>> >Does this mean that the glottal stop, in fact, isn't a phonemic
>>consonant?
>>
>>Yes, the glottal stop in fact isn't a phonemic consonant;
>>what you have instead is pre-glottalized syllable-initial
>>allophones for the vowels.
>
>Which leaves the question why it appeared in the phoneme chart, then. Not
to
>mention why indicate it in the orthography.
I placed it in the chart just to round it up and on the
grounds that it will not be completely ignored in the
phonology of the language (it will make the difference
between CVC-VC and CV-CVC sequences). And usually it will
NOT be indicated in the orthography, I used the apostrophe
just to write in the phoneme chart. Thus, [?a] will be
spelled simply as <a>, as it is an allophonic version of
just one phoneme /a/.


>> >My initial impression is that this's gonna look like the result of a
>> >run-of-the-mill euroclone IAL secretly dating Chinese. :-)
>>
>>Have you had a look at the sample sentences yet?
>>If those sentences look to you like a euroclone IAL, then
>>anything will.
>
>You hadn't posted any sample sentences when I wrote the above (or at least
>they hadn't rached me). Still, the phonology is quite European (which's of
>course not necessarily bad), while the monosyllabicity is reminicent of
>Chinese.
Well, then some of its features will happily be found
"familiar" in some areas while some different ones in
some different areas. I understand "cultural neutrality"
in a relative way, because you simple can't try to be
absolutely neutral when regarding language, since you
have to make a choice whether the script is going to
be left-to-right or right-to-left, the language to be
right-branching or left-branching, isolating or flexive,
etc. and all those choices imply a certain degree of
cultural bias. So, the solution to be "as culturally
neutral as possible" is IMHO not to make all the choices
coincide with those used by the languages of some group,
but to try to use the option most appropriate in each
case: the most appropriate script is undeniably the roman
alphabet and so, if you want to make an optimal use of it,
the resulting phoneme chart will show something of a
European taste; but then, OTOH, the isolating structure
of Chinese also seems to be the most appropriate and so,
the grammar will display something of an Oriental taste
instead.

Best regards,
Javier