Re: Nihongo de. (Japanese)
Saul Epstein 
Sat, 14 Mar 1998 17:31:00 -0600

Quotes from: Sorik of Vulcan
Date: Saturday, March 14, 1998 3:24 PM
 
> in the Zvelebil notation I would do this:
> 
> vowels:
>      i -as in pit
> 
> would be notated as piht, where the "h" actually lets you know that
it 
> should be pronounced differently.
> 
> The character <i> would be represented in a romajish notation as
ih.  

	[...]
 
> the character presently known as i: should be written as "i".  With
this 
> done, then there would not be a need for double vowels such as <ii>
as 
> notated by Saul (i think), unless you wish a vowel sound to be
longer 
> than usual.

I see. The thing is, all this does is substitute one "difference"
marker (-h) for another ( -: or -V ). The use of -h in this way,
though reasonably well understood on an informal basis by some
speakers of English, interferes with the use of -h to indicate
aspiration, as well as the use of <h> to indicate [h]. ;-) And for
that reason, I avoided the temptation to use it for a vowel digraph.
Here's how the informal system works, as I understand it. How does it
compare to romaji?

	ah	as in botch		(retracted from a, as in bat?)
	eh	as in bet		(lowered from e, ~ in bait)
	ih	as in bit		(centralized from i, as in beat)
	oh	as in boat		(raised from o, as in bought)
	uh	as in but		(somehow derived from u, as in booth?)

-h stands for no consistent difference, even considered only as a
modifier for vowels. And this doesn't give us a way to indicate the
sound in "put."

--
from Saul Epstein
locus*planetkc,com
www,johnco,cc,ks,us/~sepstein
"Surak ow'phaaper thes'hi thes'tca'; thes'phaadjar thes'hi
	suraketca'."
							-- K'dvarin Urswhl'at