----- Original Message -----
From: "John Cowan" <cowan@...>
To: <CONLANG@...>
Sent: Sunday, October 22, 2000 9:50 PM
Subject: Re: IPA (Was: Re: Hello, I'm new too)
> On Sat, 21 Oct 2000, Yoon Ha Lee wrote:
>
> > IPA claims that Korean "r" in certain contexts is /l/
> > but I hear two different l-like sounds in two different contexts. Even
> > if they're allophones they sound different, darnit. I really must ask
my
> > mom about it this winter.
>
> Remember that IPA is not meant to represent every *possible* distinction,
> but only every *necessary* distinction in existent languages. For
example,
> [j] represents both the approximant of English "yes" and the fricative
> of (some kinds of) Spanish "yo", because no known language makes a
phonemic
> distinction between these sounds. If one were found, a new symbol would
> be introduced into IPA.
That isn't very helpful on conglangers trying to use some slightly unusal
phonemes. What if, say, Esperanto decided it wanted to use it - would they
change IPA? :)
James
>
> --
> John Cowan cowan@ccil.org
> One art/there is/no less/no more/All things/to do/with sparks/galore
> --Douglas Hofstadter
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