Length

Okay, I did it again, I changed Watakass=ED.  This time, I (re)added
phonemic length for vowels (which may have an impact on allophones -
perhaps long /i/ and /u/ have no [e] and [o] allophones?  I'll have to
look into it).  Anyhoo, now my problem is how to indicate it.  I don't
want to add any new diacritical marks.  My thoughts are:

Doubling (a vs. aa)
Use of -h (a vs. ah)
Use of -k (a vs. ak)
Diacritic (a vs. a`)
Diacritic (a vs. a', with current acutes becoming graves, and long
accented vowels using circumflex)
Use of colon (a vs. a:)

The last three I really do not like, and will probably not use,
especially not the last, colon as an orthographic device I think is very
ugly.  So, the question is which of the first three?  A note on #'s 2
and 3.  Length comes from syllable-final velar fricatives, that is, /ax/
and /aG/ became /a:/, velar fricatives come from stops, in Old
Watakass=ED, schwa contrasted with /a/, thus /ak@/ and /ag@/ existed.=20
Those schwas were lost, and syllable-final stops became fricatives, /ab/
--> /av/, /ad/ --> /az/, /ap/ --> /af/, /at/ --> /as/, and finally /ag/
and /ak/ to /aG/ and /ax/.  /v/, /d/, /z/, and /f/ already existed, and
therefore there were letters to use for them, but /G/ and /x/ didn't, so
-k and -g were kept, thus old abe" (/ab@/) became av (/av/), but age"
(/ag@/) became ag (/aG/).  So, my thought is that when those were lost,
there'd be no contrast between <ak> and <ag>, both having become /a:/,
and <-k> would've generalized, thus the use of <-k>.  But, that doesn't
look too good, IMO, plus could be potentially misread by a non-Native
speaker (<akta> being read as /akta/ instead of /a:ta/), so I thought of
replacing it with -h, which doesn't exist in Watakass=ED, thus no
confusion.

So, any thoughts?

--=20
Yaw=EDntasva natab=ED, plan saf=ED nlak=FAsi.
http://members.tripod.com/~Nik_Taylor/Conlang/W.html
http://members.tripod.com/~Nik_Taylor/Books.html
ICQ #: 18656696
AIM screen-name: NikTailor