Re: Futurese

>> >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/.
>
>Oughtn't that be (lower-case) /x/? /X/ ought to indicate uvular phoneme,
and
>I don't see how introducing uvulars help analyzing Spanish (then, I know an
>Argentine who apparently has [h] and [C] in free variation - who said
>English was insane?).
No, because the sound of Spanish is precisely the uvular
fricative. So far I've never heard any native Spanish
speaker pronounce <j> as [x] the way Russians prounce
their /x/.

And introducing uvulars does in fact help in analyzing
Spanish, because it shows that all the fricatives are
pronounced in not exactly the same point as the plosives
of their order. Compare: p/f (bilabial/labiodental),
t/z (dental/interdental), ch/s (postalveolar/alveolar),
k/j (velar/uvular).


>Still, chosing a value for |x| etc that occurs in languages more well-known
>than Albanian would be helpful for most potential speakers. One might also
>question your choice |q|=/N/ - it'll be a freakingly small proportion of
the
>potential speakers that'll guess that.
Can you suggest an alternative letter assignment which
doesn't introduce diacritics nor additional letters
nor leaves any letter unused?


>> >[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/).
>
>Apart from /S/, to my knowledge only in real marginal languages.
And what?


>> >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?
>
>Well, it depends on what you mean by making good use of the Latin alphabet.
>If you mean using it as efficiently and elegantly as possible, then
>obviously no. If you mean to maximize the advantage of using a well-known
>script, then I think yes.
You mean that introducing a diacritic which will only
cause problems and leaving unused a letter which is
available in every keyboard around the globe is what
you understand by "maximizing the advantage of using a
well-known script"?

And how would those hundreds of millions of Spanish-
speakers, used to assign letter j to sound [X] instead
of [Z] (and Argentinians "instinctively" associate this
sound to letter y not to j), get any advantage with
your option?

OTOH, you propose to use <ë> for the schwa, something
which to my knowledge is supported precisely by that
"odd" orthography of that "marginal" Albanian.


>>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.
>
>Could this be due to the simple fact the failure to distinguish /b/~/v/ is
>quite rare compared to the failure to distinguish /r/~/l/, but nonetheless
>occurs in Spanish?
To which extent is b/v merging more rare than r/l?
Confusing b/v is not just an oddity of Spanish.

Best regards,
Javier