I've been thinking of creating a phonetic writing system that could be 
relatively easily understood visually. Basically a featural phonetic 
system.

I still need to add tones and more advanced features.

Please let me know if it is understandable to use.
Suggestions are welcome.

https://drive.google.com/folderview?id=0B3kSno0ESYYoTVJSRklEeVhGOHc&usp=sharing


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-Nekar Xenos-

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Am 22.06.2016 um 21:38 schrieb Nekar Xenos:
> I've been thinking of creating a phonetic writing system that could be
> relatively easily understood visually. Basically a featural phonetic
> system.
> 
> I still need to add tones and more advanced features.
> 
> Please let me know if it is understandable to use.
> Suggestions are welcome.
> 
> https://drive.google.com/folderview?id=0B3kSno0ESYYoTVJSRklEeVhGOHc&usp=sharing

It seems to me that your basic concept is to depict the phonemes via the
position of the vocal tract.

While this idea looks neat at first glance, it must inevitably fall
short, for at least two reasons:

1) You still need to introduce somewhat arbitrary notation for any
phonetic features arising from dynamic processes, such as trills,
taps/flaps, implosives, and what-have-you-nots. It is there that all the
ease of visual understanding breaks down at the very next cultural barrier.

2) It does not deal with the phenomenon of allophones, i.e. sounds that
are generated in different ways but perceived as identical.

My suggestion would be to stick with the IPA alphabet. Not only is it
well-established in the expert community, well-supported by Unicode, and
well-equipped for pretty much any human vocal expression you could
possibly imagine -- it also comes with a host of tried and tested best
practices how to actually apply it to various different use cases.

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On 2016/06/23 03:12 AM, clipka wrote:

> 1) You still need to introduce somewhat arbitrary notation for any
> phonetic features arising from dynamic processes, such as trills,
> taps/flaps, implosives, and what-have-you-nots. It is there that all the
> ease of visual understanding breaks down at the very next cultural barrier.
>

I do have trills and taps/flaps. The symbol is basically a graph of the 
movement of the tongue. I still need to do implosives, tones and the rest.

> 2) It does not deal with the phenomenon of allophones, i.e. sounds that
> are generated in different ways but perceived as identical.
>

All allophones should be written phonetically with this system.

> My suggestion would be to stick with the IPA alphabet. Not only is it
> well-established in the expert community, well-supported by Unicode, and
> well-equipped for pretty much any human vocal expression you could
> possibly imagine -- it also comes with a host of tried and tested best
> practices how to actually apply it to various different use cases.
>

This will be mapped to the IPA alphabet in Unicode.

Thanks for the input.

My son is into linguistics and calligraphy and I find the IPA very 
confusing, so I thought of creating a more visual representation that 
can represent any sound you can make.

I know; if you are going to learn a new language, you can just as well 
learn the normal IPA first. I guess I'm a stickler for logical systems.

This one is for a right to left system. It can be mirrored for left to 
right. The main reason I did this one right to left is because all the 
IPA charts show the vowels with the mouth facing left.

It also makes a nice SF font which will probably be it's main use :)



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-Nekar Xenos-

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Am 23.06.2016 um 04:47 schrieb Nekar Xenos:

>> 2) It does not deal with the phenomenon of allophones, i.e. sounds that
>> are generated in different ways but perceived as identical.
>>
> 
> All allophones should be written phonetically with this system.

Phonetically, rather than phonemically? I.e. using the most precise
possible notation? Are you sure that's what you mean? Because then you'd
have to provide a ton of different symbols, for instance both a
velarized and a palatalized variant of the voiced bilabial plosive,
although the difference between the two is only relevant in a very few
languages such as Irish, and virtually no Englishman could even tell
them apart.


> This will be mapped to the IPA alphabet in Unicode.

You've picked quite a challenge there.


> It also makes a nice SF font which will probably be it's main use :)

When it comes to that, you are of course free to go wild :)

In that case you also won't need to add more spacing between the
symbols: It would certainly be very helpful in discerning where one
character ends and the next begins, and hence improve readability, but
it might be considered a violation of tradition, an intolerable lack of
respect for the forefathers, by the fictional users of the writing system.

(Personally, I'm more into tengwar-ish fonts, but your results are also
interesting.)

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On 2016/06/24 11:00 AM, clipka wrote:
> Am 23.06.2016 um 04:47 schrieb Nekar Xenos:
>
>>> 2) It does not deal with the phenomenon of allophones, i.e. sounds that
>>> are generated in different ways but perceived as identical.
>>>
>>
>> All allophones should be written phonetically with this system.
>
> Phonetically, rather than phonemically? I.e. using the most precise
> possible notation? Are you sure that's what you mean? Because then you'd
> have to provide a ton of different symbols, for instance both a
> velarized and a palatalized variant of the voiced bilabial plosive,
> although the difference between the two is only relevant in a very few
> languages such as Irish, and virtually no Englishman could even tell
> them apart.
>

Since I'm thinking in terms of learning languages, I think it should be 
phonetic. I aim to have all the possibilities in as simple and logically 
as possible.

>
>> This will be mapped to the IPA alphabet in Unicode.
>
> You've picked quite a challenge there.
>

I am also working on a system to use the normal keys of the keyboard to 
make the most common sounds. For instance the "qwerty" row can be used 
to indicate the place e.g. labial, dental, etc. while the rest can be 
used to indicate the method (fricative, plosive, voiced, etc). I would 
then use the capitals in a similar way for creating the vowels. Mapping 
to the IPA will come after that.

>
>> It also makes a nice SF font which will probably be it's main use :)
>
> When it comes to that, you are of course free to go wild :)
>
> In that case you also won't need to add more spacing between the
> symbols: It would certainly be very helpful in discerning where one
> character ends and the next begins, and hence improve readability, but
> it might be considered a violation of tradition, an intolerable lack of
> respect for the forefathers, by the fictional users of the writing system.
>
Indeed, that sounds very much like the Harians :)
I considering scaling it horizontally about 60% so that the characters 
don't take up too much space and I can then also have more space between 
characters for readability.

> (Personally, I'm more into tengwar-ish fonts, but your results are also
> interesting.)
>
The circles were inspired by the RL Telugu script which I find most 
beautiful.


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-Nekar Xenos-

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