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Benct Philip Jonsson wrote: > Isaac Penzev wrote: > > > And I'm still hesitating about too many things in Kuman, esp. > > in the verb morphology. I'm also considering to add an extra letter "zhe > > with descender" to denote palatalized /Z;/ < CT */j-/. > > *Is* there really an /Z/ in native Turkish vocabulary? I don't think so. But there will be tons of /Z/ in Slavic loans. > What about writing /Z;/ as жь, I'm still hesitating. It could have been a good idea, unless it had been confusing vowel harmony. If I use Russian soft vowels, we'll have to solve this: e.g., жёл 'road' is clearly "hard", because final Л is not palatalized. So pl. would be жёллар. But is жюк 'load' "hard" or "soft" (most final consonants do not get palatalized)? OTOH, if I use жь, it will produce more or less normal жьол (see Ukrainian), but very strange жьулдуз 'star' and even more confusing жьюк most ppl would love to read as [Z;juk], not [Z;uk]! > since a minority language hardly > can afford special fonts etc.? NB even in OTL most fonts > don't contain special characters like Җҗ! Well, I *really* think about Kumans as guys from *our* universe... Is it because they live in my native lands? OTL provides computer fonts with Җ since Autumn 2002. This is the time Karsakov spelling could have appeared. Or would he use a fake substitute, smth like ЖJ / жj digraph? > Are you aware of the Karai language, which has replaced vowel > harmony with consonant/palatalization harmony? That is exactly what I meant by /ö/ > /jo/ and /ü/ > /ju/ shift. I just didn't know the term. I've read some materials about Karaim lang in our FL library. I looks like the authors of this info may be confused by spelling. Indeed, in some Karaim publications, as well as in standard Karachay-Balkar and Kumyk orthography ё and ю denote /2/ and /y/ respectively, while the other use ö and ÿ. And, besides, Karaim has at least three dialects that are very different. Crimean Karaim is *verrry* close to Qırım Tatar (Southern dialects), and Trakai Karaim and Halician Karaim are totally different from the former. E.g. they completely lost front rounded vowels: /2/ > /E/, /y/ > /i/. ------------- <http://www3.aa.tufs.ac.jp/~djn/karaim/kCDlang.htm> <http://www.turkiye.net/sota/karaim.html> <http://www.turkiye.net/sota/karlang.html> Thanx for the links, Сав кал, Yitzik