yay!
Okay, this is probably how I will write these in the Roman alphabet.
Consonants:
b, t, d, ph (ɸ), f, th, ss*, sh, h, pf, ch(/x/), [still-not-sure-I-have-a-J], r, l, m, n
* I could totally do this as “s” but I like the visual susurration of the double s.
** This is a very fricative language. I felt like it.
That was easy.
Vowels
| uh | u |
| oe(oo) | o |
| ah(ae) | a |
| eh | e |
| ee | ea |
| ih | i |
Alphabet…. I’m still considering style, much less actual letters. And numbers. Since it’s a real-world system, they may use arabic numbers.
This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/1041282.html. You can comment here or there.
What sound do you mean by “ɸ”? In the IPA it’s a bilabial voiceless fricative, an /f/ that uses the lower lip instead of the lower front teeth, the sound you make when gently blowing out a candle. If that’s what you mean, “fi” works as its name since it’s the Greek letter phi, but “fi” is not that sound. I’d suggest “ph”, as in “phi”. I’m not sure of your vowels yet.
…ph DOES work better, yes thank you. What are you not sure of?
What they sound like. You have two or three “spellings” for each. Suppose that • u = [ʌ] = the vowel in “but” • o = [o:] = the vowel written with an “o” in “hope” or in the Italian “canto”. (English usually diphthongizes “long o” to something more like [oʊ].) • ah = ???? To me, “ah” represents the [ɑ] of “father”, while “ae” could represent the “long a” [ɛɪ] of “cake” or the “short a” [æ] of “cat” (who is helping me type by lying on my wrists and occasionally rolling her butt onto the touchpad, which screws up my text). • eh = [e] like French “café”, not diphthongized to [eɪ] [or ɛɪ]; or possibly “short e” [ɛ] as in “bet”. • ee: This one’s unambiguous: [i] or [i:] as in squeak • ih: Likewise, “short i”, [ɪ] as in “bit”.
To clarify, the sounds in parentheses are dialectical changes. I’ll grant that the spellings on the left are, at this stage of the game, mostly to help me remember what I had in mind. Since my accent varies so much from almost everyone else I encounter online, using word pronunciations doesn’t work for anyone else, and I don’t read IPA, so it doesn’t work for me. let’s see, but, hope (boot), father(cat), bet, squeak, bit, in order, works the way I say those words.
Ah! That’s MUCH clearer now that I know what the parens are for. Thanks.
This or something like it would be a big help to readers.
Something screwy in the rendering. The preview shows a fully boxed table, but here I see only the column headers in individual boxes.