[YG Conlang Archives] > [ceqli group] > messages [Date Index] [Thread Index] >
on 8/1/02 9:48 PM, Alexander Browne at alexbrowne@hidden.email wrote: >>>> Yes. So I want to change that to 'kway'. >>> >>> I actually much preferred "kwaj", so y can be used as the schwa. >> >> I'd actually forgotten that. Let me think about it. > > I like j as [dZ] or [Z] and y as [j] (I hope that's the correct ascii > ipa), but a schwa would be preferable (I think?), so something has to > be done. > > ...Last night I stumbed upon a page describing the scripts used by > Azeri (i.e. the Turkish-like language of Azerbaijan). They now again > use the latin alphabet (first it was arabic, then latin, then > cyrillic, now back to latin), but to fit their sounds better, > the upside-down--lower-case--e schwa character was added. It seems no > other language uses it, so they're in trouble when it comes to > finding typewriters, but there are some Azeri fonts and I personally > think it looks rather nice, if strange (see the left side of this > page <http://www.azeri.org/Azeri/az_latin/latin_choice.html>). > > A bizarre solution, I admit, but hopefully it will at least make you > think. Azeri looks terrific. The basic problem is that 26 letters aren't enough. Especially, the five vowels aren't enough. One way to get a schwa would be to let the y and w do double duty as vowels and semivowels, thus y as in bIg or as in You w as in lOOk or as in We And allow schwa as an allophone of 'w.' At one point I considered assigning 'c' to be a schwa, because it sort of resembles it. And, unless we go for more than 26 letters, the only other way to get a schwa would be with digraphs. If we say that no vowels can juxtapose, then when they _do_ juxtapose, they become digraphs. And we could thereby acquire a few more vowel sounds: OE = Schwa AE = as in cAt UE = German umlaut U So the possibilities are: 1. No schwa 2. C becomes schwa 3. OE is schwa 4. Some new character as schwa. 5. A diacritic schwa. é, ê, 6. Oh, a non-letter ascii schwa _ ', `, /, whatever -- >PLEASE NOTE MY NEW E-MAIL ADDRESS: rmay@hidden.email > Rex F. May (Baloo) > Daily cartoon at: http://www.cnsnews.com/cartoon/baloo.asp > Buy my book at: http://www.kiva.net/~jonabook/gdummy.htm > Language site at: http://www.geocities.com/ceqli/Uploadexp.htm >Discuss my auxiliary language at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/txeqli/