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> I'd have no trouble if 'au' is a diphthong and 'ao' is not, but if they're > both diphthongs they sound very similar when I pronounce them ?because of > the glide you mention. If both are two-syllables, I don't have much > problem. Well, then I suppose there will be no problem with ao and au, as they're supposed to be two syllables separated by a glottal stop, I think. > > Obvious? For whom? I recall a post to Google groups by > > a Swede some time ago complaining about English use > > of letter <y>, which he "instinctively felt" as a vowel > > letter, for the consonant /j/, which he "instinctively", > > "obviously", associated with letter <j>. > > It would be nice to start fresh with the Shavian alphabet or something for > this, because the roman letters have so much emotional weight. Yes, but I think nowadays there's no option as to which alphabet is to be used in an auxlang. The roman alphabet is readily available for almost everyone in the world, it offers thousands of different fonts for every conceivable need and taste and poses no problem when using it in computers and e-mails. Nothing similar at all can be said of any other alphabet in use today and less of an alphabet like Shavian which so far isn't even in use in any language and AFAIK so far offers just one font. And moreover, Shavian letters have already been critiziced for their high degree of mutual similarity. And, if you start considering the "emotional weight" of the roman alphabet, you should re-consider not just the use of letter y, but of almost every other, because e.g. the Chinese associate letter b not to [b], as English speakers, but to [p]; the Spanish-speakers, for our part, associate letter j not to [dZ] nor [Z] as the English and French, but to [X]; and so on... > My problem, > for example, with 'y' as schwa is that I want to pronounce it as i in 'bit' > and as /j/ when it's adjacent to a vowel. I'm considering x as schwa > simply because it has so many other values that one is less likely to > knee-jerk and get it wrong. But letter x is perceived by ALL AND EVERY "native" user of the roman alphabet as a clearly consonant letter; absolutely no natlang uses it as a vowel letter, so it would be completely awkward and odd to use it that way. > http://www.geocities.com/ceqli/alph.htm > > And see if this system would be bearable. I consider the use of x for > schwa to be a temporary expedient for those who have nothing to use except > the straight Roman alphabet. Would everybody be happy with this if x were > replaced with ø or ¦ or ö? The advantage to ¦ is that it could also be > spelled 'oe', provided that it is prohibited for two full vowels to > juxtapose elsewhere in the language. I could live with that. But there's simply no real need at all to introduce diacritics, double- nor non-letters. It would > eliminate all questions about whether ao and au and eo and eu are > pronounceable. > > And, for that matter, schwa and French 'eu' could be allophones of ¦, giving > us a Jacques Clouseau vowel:) > > Here are what I see as the advantages > > 1. X as schwa. It uses up all 26 letters and doesn't need any more. I don't see any advantage in using a consonant letter as a vowel. And it is possible and very easy to use all 26 roman letters for the same phoneme chart without introducing any additional letter nor absurd oddities such as x for a vowel, just by using vowel letter y for the schwa and x for /Z/. The use of y for the schwa will no cause no real problem even to you, English speakers, if you just realize that it is sometimes used that way in English, e.g. in some pronounciations of "syrup". And, anyway, why should we take into account the "emotional weight" some English speakers have towards y as representing /j/ or /I/ or towards j representing /dz/ or /Z/, while ignoring the "emotional weight" of other people, like me, a native Spanish speaker who "emotionally" associate letter j with /X/ or like Swedes or Germans, who associate y with /y/? Is it then that English-speakers are first-class while the rest of us are second- or third-class and so our "emotions" towards the roman alphabet don't deserve to be considered as much as yours? > 2. ` as schwa. It feels more natural, and is, at least, vowel in form. An apostrophe? Vowel in form? To me, the apostrophe isn't even a letter, but just a punctuation mark to signal the absence of a letter. Best regards.