Re: The romamization of a complex tone system

En réponse à Jesse Raccio <jraja0722@...>:

> Hi all,
>
> I'm a new member here so I will start with an
> introduction.
Welcome to the list!

> I would think that the above would simply get annoying
> and confusing.
> I am creating an alphabet with the Hebrew torah trope
> system in
> mind.
What's this system? Never heard of it...

  But for someone checking the lang out casually,
> I cannot
> expect them to care about an alphabet system too much.
>
> So if anyone has any suggestions, or could point out
> something I've
> missed, thanks.
> J.
>
Well, the real problem is that the Roman alphabet is absolutely not suited for
something more complicated than Spanish :)) . Especially, as soon as you get
complex tone patterns or sounds unknown to European languages, the Roman
alphabet ceases to be useful. You could use a bunch of diacritics, dots,
accents, etc..., but you couldn't represent it in HTML and even less in ASCII.
And even by making PDFs you would get problems... You arrive here at one limit
of the Roman alphabet, to which there's not much of a solution, except
inventing new characters that you won't be able to represent on a computer
except by making a new font. So I think your idea to make an alphabet is the
best. You'll need a Roman transliteration though, but since it will only be a
transliteration it doesn't need to be beautiful, only useful... And then,
whether using number, non-letter characters or whatever won't change much
anything...

Christophe.

http://rainbow.conlang.free.fr

Take your life as a movie: do not let anybody else play the leading role.

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