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On Mon, Mar 04, 2002 at 11:31:02AM -0800, Mike Wright wrote: > > iV and uV always form a diphthong, > > But not 'ii' and 'uu', don't you agree? Otherwise, you're introducing > vowel length, which might be a bit much. You don't need vowel length; these would be the same as 'yi' and 'wu'. Though I think those were going to be disallowed anyway. Looking at the list now, there's the word 'ciyo'. I don't think that 'iy' and 'uw' are very nice either. > > as do ai, ei, oi, au, eu. > > Other 2-vowel combinations do not form diphthongs. > > > > Three-vowel combinations can be triphthongs, provided the middle element is > > not i or u. > > > > uai - why > > iau - yow! > > Actually, I would allow only those two. You'd lose a bunch of words like "daya" (daia). But then I think that it's pointless to get rid of y and w, and they should be used for diphthongs. What seems to be in place now is to use weaks where there are two syllables, but vowels if not, meaning that adding the "a" sound to "dai" gives "daya". It should just be "day" from the start. Is the only reason for using diphthongs of vowels that they look nicer? -- Rob Speer