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Rex May - Baloo wrote: > > on 3/5/02 12:43 PM, Mike Wright at darwin@hidden.email wrote: > > Do ya? (sorry Ð I couldn't help it) That's two syllables for me. > > Unless there is a great need for such > > triphthongs, I would avoid them. > > Just in an occasional loan word, like hawa (Arabic for air) or, come to > think of it, how about 'jawa' for coffee from 'Java'? But <w> in Arabic is a consonant, and <hawa> is two syllables. I rather like <jawa> for "coffee", as long as it doesn't have to be a single syllable. > > BTW, are vowel combinations other than the defined diphthongs and > > triphthongs forbidden? If not, then we could simply specify that > > combinations like <uia> and <iua> are two syllables, and that the > > default is that the second and third elements form a diphthong. Then, > > if a loan required something like /ui a/ or /iu e/, an apostrophe > > could be used to separate the syllables, without necessarily implying > > a glottal stop. > > I don't know, but I have a feeling that Malay and Japanese will yield words > with -awa and -ayo and such in them. Yes, but they won't be triphthongs in the original. Japanese <kawa> is two syllables. > > Of course, its much simpler to just stick to the defined diphthongs > > and triphthongs. It will make pronunciation easier, and it shouldn't > > interfere too much with bringing in loans. Since morphemes can't begin > > with vowels, no odd vowel sequences should arise from compounding. > > Quite right. And since these emails are passing each other slowly, I'll say > here that I've decided the most sensible thing is to go with the y&w, which, > as John said, leave no room for confusion. How so? I'm confused. :-p Does this mean that we're now writing diphthongs and triphthongs with <y> and <w>? And, does it mean that <i> and <u> will always represent syllables? In other words, will <dia> be two syllables and <dya> one syllable? Or, is <dia> simply disallowed? > As far as contrasting ai and ay, the only reason to have ai would be because > it's from a loan word, and in that case we'd just borrow it as ay. Say, > English 'pain' is borrowed as 'payn.' [...] Spelling pronunciation one-step removed, eh? Instead of <pen>? -- Mike Wright http://www.CoastalFog.net _____________________________________________________ "China is a big country, inhabited by many Chinese." -- Charles de Gaulle