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Hi group, I've just started working on a Romance conlang called Orientis, and not having any educational background in any Romance language, I find myself very confused over vowels. Latin vowels distinguish between quality and quantity. Unfortunately the terms long and short are used for both traits. I've looked through several grammar books for help but I've ended up more confused. Here's my problem: My Latin dictionary says that it marks quantity with diacritics. However, it doesn't do it consistently. It also gives several rules for determining quantity, but these don't cover all possible cases and quite frequently disagree with the diacritics. Other books I've looked at indicate long quality with a macron (unmarked vowels are considered short). They give the same rules about vowel quantity, which means that they're incomplete. So I guess my question is, what are the rules for determining vowel quantity and quality, if any? I don't want to get rid of quantity (the easy solution) because Orientis is supposed to be Latin influenced by Middle Persian which also has vowel quantity. Thanks in advance for any help you can give.