and Alexander Browne wrote:
....If someone wrote something
with no spaces, I could still find what morphemes are where. The only real
problem I can see is that voice-recognition software might get confused, so
for this they could be limited to foreign names/place names. With the
context clues, this works seems to work
to me.
Ray Bergmann responds to both these points:
The sound before a word beginning with a vowel is a glottal
stop. In semitic languages like Arabic and Hebrew the common
semantic root of a group of words related in meaning consist of
the same one, two or three consonants, and the glottal stop and the
pharyngal stop are both considered to be consonants. If
one represents the glottal stop by ` (as in `aL`f - where the `
before the vowel is a glottal stop and the ` before the consonant is
a schwa) and represents the pharyngal stop by ' (as in 'ayin) and uses the
letter "x" whenever it follows another sound to indicate by
digraph a similar sound to that normally ascribed to the letter that
precedes the "x", then one could represent as follows the names of the first
few letters of the Hebrew alphabet which letters have been used
over tens of centuries to represent sounds from a myriad of
languages (Hebrew however used a dot after the consonant to represent the
function that is here represented by "x" and used two dots under the
consonant to represent the "schwa" - that is, the schwa without any consonant
in front of it would be represented by the letter `al`f with two dots under
it. So in this system of romanisation:
`AL`f (represents a glottal stop when followed by any vowel
as in the first ` in Hebrew `AL`f - note that when ` occurs between
any consonants (even where the first consonant may merely be the glottal stop
` )it represents the "schwa" neutral vowel as in English "about" [``bAUt] -
that is, the first ` in the English word [``bAUt] represents the glottal stop
and the second ` represents the schwa.);
bEIt (representing the bilabial stop in English "babble"
[bAXb`L] - it is the voiced partner of "p" as in English "babble"
[bAXb`L];
vxEIt (repesenting a lipodental stop in Ashkenazic
Hebrew and Yiddish similar to the bilabial fricative of Sefardic
Hebrew, Ladino and Spanish "saber" [sAbxER] - it is the voiced partner of
Japanese "fxUXji" or "pxUXji");
gIm`l (representing the velar stop in English "giggle" [gIg`L]- it is
the voiced partner of "k");
gxIm`L (representing the velar fricative as in Greek "gxAmA" or
Arabic "gxi:m" - it is the voiceless partner of "kx");
dAL`t (representing the dental stop as in English "diddle"
[did`L]); dhalet (representing the English "whether / weather"
[wedx`r]);
dhal (Arabic
hEI (representing the glottal fricative in English "hello" [hELOU]);
vOwUv (can represent either the consonant "v" or the semivowel "w" or
the short vowels [O] or [U] - when followed by another vOwUv it
represents the long vowels [o:] or [u:] in Sefardic Hebrew and Arabic or
the diphthong [OU] in Askenazic Hebrew and Yiddish - when it follows a vowel
it represents that part of a diphthong);
zAyIn (like English [z];
qxEt (pharyngal fricative further down the throat than the
Scottish "loch");
tEt (like English [t];
yOUd (can represent the semivowel [y] at the beginning of a
word or the short vowel [I] if it follows a consonant
- when followed by another yOUd it represents the long vowel [i:] or
[u:] and when it follows a vowel it represents that part of a
diphthong.
kaf (like English [k];
kxaf (uvular fricative like the Scottish "loch"),