XXXVII wrote:destinysWalrus wrote:Vowels:
/ a eɪ e i ɪ aɪ ʊ u /
<a aa e ee i ii u uu >
The sound you identify as "short e" is actually probably closer to /ɛ/ than it is to /e/, likewise "short u" may also be a bit closer to /ʌ/ depending on the word you chose and what accent you have, <gut> for instance may use it, <put> (as opposed to <putt>) probably does use the one you indicated. Also, might I suggest a slightly less English-y romanization? Maybe <a eî ê i î aî û u>? Also, not sure if one should have /eɪ/ and not /e/...
Also, it may bear mentioning that the traditional English usage of "long" and "short" has very little resemblance to any of the things going on in vowel distinctions. Long and short, in phonology, refer to the length of time the vowel in question is held, not to the actual sound quality of the vowel. So, in essence, none of your vowels are actually long, so using the <VV> system to represent them would be, at best, misleading.
Also, I am curious what the other sound is you are talking about... I'm sure someone here could help you get the proper IPA for it!
The new sound's just a "V", I've just been too busy to come up with examples of the right sound in English and try to hear differences in IPA to get the right one. I'll take your word for it on my "short e" being closer to /ɛ/, and after thinking about it, my "short u" is actually more like the ones in "gut" and "putt" than what I originally said (with "put") - the sound drifted without my noticing, I'll have to change that.
My usages of "short" and "long" for the vowels... That was mostly because I'm not very familiar with the actual vocabulary, and it seemed like the simplest shorthand for me to distinguish them to myself. Thanks for correcting me on that - I'll probably leave it as-is in the post above, but I get that it's not very accurate.
Phoneme Analysis/Discussion Stuff: I'm fairly sure that all went straight over my head, sorry. I'm still trying to figure out a lot of how to describe languages so others can understand specifically what I'm talking about. I'm working on it, though - so don't feel like you have to explain in here, I have a lot of schoolwork to deal with right now so I'm not sure I'd be able to absorb it properly. At some point I'll try to come back with an intelligent response, and if I don't feel free to bug me about it.
Xing wrote:I would change the romanisation slightly:
/i/ <ii>
/eɪ/ <ee>
/aɪ/ <aa>
The phoneme inventory could have evolved from a historic four-vowel system: /i e a u/, with a length contrast. The long versions of /e/ and /a/ turned into the diphthings /eɪ/ and /aɪ/, while the length distinction in the high vowels /i/ and /u/ turned into a tense-lax contrast.
But I understand that there are trade-offs when it comes to romanisation. Different goals for the romanisation might pull in different directions. For example, if the goal of the romanisation is to reflect the internal phonemic structure and/or the 'in-world' historical development of the language, one romanisation might be used. If the goal is to give English-speakers with little linguistic background a rough hint of the pronunciation, another romanisation might be better.
There's actually no "history" to this language. The real-life and in-character explanations for the language's existence are "I'm making a language, out of nowhere, because I'm bored". So while it is interesting (though maybe a bit complicated for me as the complete beginner I currently am) to figure out what could have lead to it, the official canon is "because we felt like it".
I do have a reason for no "o" or "oo" though - I thought the "oo" and "uu" would be hard to distinguish different sounds for, so I threw out "oo" as a possibility, and then it just seemed weird to have an "o" on its own. Which admittedly is bad planning on the part of the RP character who's making the language, since her name is Corri.
Romanisation: I'm not sure if I want to make the romanisation less English-y, for a couple reasons. First, what I'm using right now is something that makes it easy for me to remember how to pronounce the words, and I'm somewhat reluctant to change to different symbols at the moment because of that. Second, it makes more sense in-character for the romanisation to look English-y because the character of mine who's making the language has had no exposure to any language other than English. Anyway, even though I'm not sure if changing it is something that makes sense at the moment, thanks for the suggestions and I will think about them. I may fiddle with this later.
Apologies if my replies sound like excuses not to change what I already have because I'm lazy - that wasn't the intent. I am trying to think about the feedback whether or not I agree with it, and trying to explain my reasoning for things. Heck, it's entirely possible my reasons for doing things are completely stupid.
![[;)]](./images/smilies/icon_wink2.png ";)")
