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Mike S., On 28/08/2012 00:21:
On Mon, Aug 27, 2012 at 2:30 PM, Leonardo <leolucas1980@hidden.email <mailto:leolucas1980@hidden.email>> wrote:
> I believe there is wide consensus in IAL-land that /a e i o u/ is an
> optimum inventory for vowels (universal acknowledgement is a gross
> exaggeration of course). A lot of people mix /@/ up with other things, and
Yes. Here in Brazil /@/ is an allophone of /a/. In Portugal, it is frequently allophone of /e/ or /i/. The default epenthetic vowel of Brazilian Portuguese is /i/ (or /I/, non-contrastingly).
I believe that in French the schwa is sometimes considered an
allophone of /9/. In German, I don't know if it's considered an
unstressed allophone of /E/, but it sure sounds like it to my ears.
In my English, the schwa is pronounced exactly like an unstressed
version of "short u" as in <cut>; most Brits keep a pretty clear
contrast TTBOMK.
That's right.
In my reform of Lojban, which I named Tikybau, which I was working on until about a week ago, I decided I needed seven vowels, so I considered the following systems: /a e i o u @ 1/ - similar to Lojban, except that Lojban does not define [1] for its seventh vowel, even though that's plainly the only practical choice for a seventh given the sanctioned allophonic ranges of the other six.
For that reason I use [y] for the buffer vowel, which is ridiculous, but still the best way of coping with idiotic design. I pronounce _zbasu_ as [zybasu].
/a E i O u e o/ - similar to Italian. Sounds nice, but too hard for too many people IMHO. /a e i o u 9 y/ - this is like French with the /E/~/e/ contrast leveled or German with the /E/~/e:/ contrast leveled.
This is the one I favour, with 9 allowed a very wide allophonic range, so long as it is acoustically centralized.
I decided to make the sixth vowel /9/ (with the allophone [@] allowed in unstressed syllables due to its frequency). /y/ is the seventh vowel, which sees more use in Tikybau than in Lojban. My reasoning is this: if people can pronounced /a e i o u/ with rounded back vowels and unrounded front vowels, with a little practice, people can pronounce /y 9/ too, and therefore that's probably the best choice if you want seven vowels.
We think alike! Perhaps I go one step further in thinking that given that, for concision's sake, one wants the maximum number of vowels that are able to generally remain distinct, this 7-vowel system is the optimum one. --And.