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--- In romconlang@yahoogroups.com, Benct Philip Jonsson <bpj@...> wrote: > > Mark G skrev: > > Continuing on with my series of disjointed questions: > > > > One of the phonemes in my current romlang is /OE/ (open front > > unrounded)... I know in a few Germanic languages, and possibly even > > French, it's sometimes an allophone of /oe/, but I've discarded the > > idea of French 'oeu' or even the more appropriate 'oau' so as to avoid > > confusion (because the language also has a few polyphthongs), and I > > really don't want to resort to "ö" for aesthetic reasons (or actually, > > *synaesthetic* reasons; "ö" simply doesn't look like /OE/ sounds to > > me). Obviously, this is a much more common allophone than phoneme in > > most cases, so it isn't often represented as such-- any ideas how I > > might be able to represent in a way that's a little more original but > > not beyond convincing? > > > > First of all: have a look at <http://www.theiling.de/ipa/> > for the system of ascii-transliterating IPA current on this > list (and other offshoots of CONLANG). It is more > convenient to write [\&] and [9] since the diphthongs > [OE] and [oe] do actually occur in languages... > Apologies, open front *un*rounded was completely a mistype on my part... as for the use of /OE/, that was more purism... I'm very familiar with SAMPA, the conlang variant included-- I'll be sure to use it in the future if the potential for confusion is that high. > The question how you should write /6\/ (open front rounded) > depends quite a bit on two factors, namely how you write > /9/ (half-open front rounded) and [2] (half-closed front > rounded) and your position wrt digraphs/polygraphs vs. > diacritics generally and how you use them. > Part of the issue with the way I write /6\/ and /2/ is that they don't actually appear as phonemes in this language (although /Q/ does, I should add, and tentatively it is written Ä). I'm certainly not closed to digraphs or diacritics, though. > If you use <oe> for /9/ then perhaps you can use > <eo> for /&\/. If this clashes with a diphthong > you may perhaps use <ëo> for the diphthong or a > sequence of two vowels which are not a diphthong. > I had played with <eo>, <ao>, and <oa>, and I haven't ruled out the possibility of any of them-- while I mentioned not loving the idea of making people distinguish between digraphs and diphthongs, I do, to be objective, know several natlangs and conlangs based in and around France seem to use both diphthongs and then also letter digraphs such as <ou> for /u/. > If you have nothing against diacritics > and you use é and è similar to how they are used in > French then you might use something like > > Front Back > Unrounded Rounded Rounded > > Half-closed é Å` ó > > Half-open e ö o > > Open è È? ò > > If you want to stay within Latin-1 you may use ö ô õ > to get three varieties of non-closed front rounded > vowels. Swedish dialect spelling uses the circumflex > as a general laxing-centralizing diacritic so that > you get > > â î ô û Å· > for [a] [I] [&\] or [3\] [8] [Y] > > versus a i o u y > for [A] [i] [o] or [O] [u\] [y] > > If you are on Windows I suggest you download BabelMap > > <http://www.babelstone.co.uk/Software/BabelMap.html> > > and some suitable Unicode fonts (look at > > <http://wiki.frath.net/Help:Free_Unicode_fonts> > > for links). Browsing the Latin script ranges of > Unicode will almost certainly turn up something > which is to your liking. > I actually have Babelmap, and my unicode fonts run the gamut of the Latin extensions-- I suppose the question was more on orthodoxy than simple lack of resources, though you answered both very well. I'm actually having trouble reading most of your diacritics, though-- reading about this before, though, I'm guessing it's because I'm using the web interface to read this message, so I'll work on correcting this for myself before I ask about another way to see them. By your suggestion to refer to French, though, and what little bit I can see, I'm getting the idea thus far. Thanks for your help!