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Re: [westasianconlangs] Re: discussing Kuman in lostlangs

On Jul 30, 2004, at 12:48 PM, Melroch 'Aestan wrote:

What about writing /Z;/ as жь,

[snip]

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? 

Then rather Jj by itself.  I think the problem is that the shape җ
suggests /dZ/ to me.  IMHO ӝ would more nicely suggest [Z;] or [z\].
In my Cyrillic transliteration of Rokbeigalmki, i use Ж for _zh_, /Z/ that comes from /z/, and Җ for _jh_, /Z/ that comes from /dZ/. 

For example, two cases of 'final consonant agentive noun softening':

 ЎАЗ  |  ЎАЖ  ||  ЎАЏ   | ЎАҖ
 waz  | wazh  ||  waj   | wajh
/waz/ | /waZ/ || /wadZ/ | /waZ/
 do   | agent || settle | settler
Other examples of /Z/ which aren't due to obvious morphophonological processes are spelled _zh_ or _jh_ based on subjective 'what it sounds like' or etymological considerations. 


-Stephen (Steg)
 "jeremiah was a bullfrog"