Alphabet
From Ial
[edit] Alphabet
For our international Auxiliary Language (AL), we better borrow from the Latin/Roman alphabet, only because it is already well-known and, even if a few people are not familiar with it, it is supported by all existent writing systems (including computers). The alphabet could be:
a i u m n p t k s l
The proposed order of letters is mnemonic: first the three vowels, then the seven consonants. It also helps to remember the main points of the strict syllabic structure of the language, which are described in more details below. In the same syllable: after a vowel only an m or an n can come. P t k s are the only other consonants that can comee before the liquid l (again in the same syllable).
BTW, order matters, e.g. in paper dictionaries.
TODO: decide about the order of the consonant group p t k s, establish an order for this group that makes sense.
This very short alphabet is a trade-off between something easy for everyone in the world and something comprising all unmarked (voiceless) phonemes, for allowing one to talk at length without stressing his vocal cords.
These sounds, other than being the most unvoiced, are already present in at least 22 of the 25 world's major languages, according to Rick Morneau researches.
But I want to hear your opinion too. Please leave a comment for this page if you do not know one or more phonemes from this list and you find it difficult to learn it.
No breath-consuming aspirated letters, like the English h. Only ten letters, just as the decimal digits 0..9. Our AL wants to be maximally pronounceable. Conciseness is not a goal.
I hope nobody would reckon such a choice as non-neutral. Apart from these familiar signs, our language has nothing to do with other natural languages that use a similar alphabet, e.g. a lot of Western European languages.
On the contrary, in the future, these writing signs could be changed, e.g. for something easier to handwrite or recognize with the sense of touch, but associated phonemes will remain the same, because they are the easiest sounds for almost everybody.
BTW, the s has always an /s/ sound, not a /z/ sound, that is same voiceless sound like the s of cats, not like the s of dogs.
When declaiming the alphabet, consonants are pronounced adding i, always i. All vowels are normally short, a speaker can optionally make some vowels longer, as he wishes, but no phonemic distinction exists between long and short vowels. Anyway it is recommended to pronounce all vowels as short vowels.
Note in particular there is no r. This is a frightful consonant that gives a lot of problems to many speakers, even in natural languages. E.g. I can only utter the r as the French r, although I am Italian I was never able to learn the Italian r and I am not the only one who has trouble with this consonant.
Moreover the sheer fact that there is no single way to pronounce the r is a source of irregularity. I rather want pronunciation to be uniform between all speakers.
There are no e and o vowels, because they are slightly more marked and have a closed and open variant which adds undesired variation and complexity. There are neither diacritical marks nor vowel mutations, because they are difficult both to type and to pronounce.
If we wanted to reduce word length, but still have rather common phonemes, we could introduce some slightly more marked sounds in the alphabet. The best choices are: e, o (which gives us five vowels) and b, d, y. Three more consonant for a total of ten. In some languages e.g. German, j has the same sound as y, e.g. German ja has the same semivowel y of yes, so this is the sound we associate to y. This semivowel is useful to allow the creation of consonant clusters, e.g. kya.
A problem with b and d is that they are too similar to their unmarked equivalents p and t respectively. If we want our consonant to be quite diffferent from each other, a quite unmarked and well-known candidate is f, so another proposal is to add the set: e, o, f, j and to discard b and d. This means 14 letters in total.
The only problem with f is it is rather breath-consuming, as you can realize by utting a hand before your mouth. If we extend the alphabet to include letters that can be pronounced in slightly different ways, we could accept all variants as equivalents and let the user choose. E.g. both close and open e or o, and both labiodental or bilabial f.
What do you think about extending the alphabet as proposed? Do you have a better proposal? I prefer to have an easier pronunciation although there are slightly longer words on average, which is not only a con. For instance, a pro is it gives listeners more time to understand and speakers more time to think before speaking!
