Inposibla

"Impossible"

I have deemed that it is impossible to conform to those rules defined two posts down plus Romance phonetics and orthography. As a result, I have formally decided to drop this project...for now.

I do have other language ideas...(like a "feminine"-looking Romance language, where all Latin neuters use their plural accusative forms ending in -a, instead of coming in as masculine nouns [e.g.: el mar -> la maria, el cielo -> la ciela, etc.])...and if I loosen up these requirements, I could possibly go back to RC...maybe not. Interlingua has done it before.

The Vowels

I have to break some of the rules set in the previous entry...it's impossible to adhere to them and stay with Romance phonetics and orthography. The reason is, when the Romance languages were developed, they killed etymology by dropping stuff from their Latin words. (French "l'homme" from Latin "hominem"? That's a huge change. If they continued on, it'd be impossible to figure out...hypothetically writing..."l'om").

The vowels are AEIOUY, A is /a/, E is /e/, I is /i/, O is /o/, U is /u/, and Y is in loan words only: semi-consonant /j/ or vowel /i/ (i.e.: redundant letter). Each letter represents a phoneme. Short E and O (/ɛ/ and /ɔ/) have been tossed out (from the original plan, where shorts were E and O, and longs had acutes) and replaced by long E and O (/e/ and /o/) orthographically because the short versions are bound to occur in speech as allophones. There will be no phonemic distinction between the lax and tense versions of E, I, O, U (which are bound to happen in speech).

In theory, the natural vowels are AEIOU. Y is a foreign, loan vowel. All Y's in transcription should be turned into I's.

I guess the big challenge is to preserve etymology and try not to clutter up the orthography and phonology...or anything... I doubt what I'm undertaking is possible... Interlingua is not as Romantic as everyone thinks. "nunc", the Interlingua word for "now" is most likely not Romance, it's Latin. I don't think the Romance languages use that (I know Italian uses "adeso" or something like that...I looked at Italian briefly for a history project...).

Orthography

I'm a little slow with RC...'cause I'm starting French on my own, and I'm trying to improve my Latin at the same time. However, I've come to a general set of rules for orthography for RC.

1. There should be no polygraphs.
2. Each monograph should map to exactly one IPA symbol.
3. Only the Latin alphabet should be used.
4. Diacritics should not be used.
5. No new punctuation marks should be introduced.

The basic rule governing these rules is that, anything written down should be able to be spoken in such a way that it could be written down by an outside observer who only knows the sounds and their corresponding graphs, but not the actual spelling of the words themselves. Basically, if I wrote down "cane", I should read it as ['ka ne] and someone would be able to write down "cane" without knowing how to spell it, simply by hearing it. This is not the case for many English words like, "candy". If I said it, ['kæn di], it could be written down as "candy", "candee", "kandy", "kandi", "candi", "kandee"...and various other ways.

For #2, several monographs can map to the same IPA symbol, though this is discouraged because then you're being redundant.

For #3, you can remove letters if you wish; however, this is discouraged for it will leave you with a small sound/letter inventory.

For #4, you can break this if you distinguishing between allophones or preserving the written history of a word (etymology). I mention the latter because spelling reforms seek out to destroy the history of words, which I find is one of the more interesting aspects of language. The history of a word should be kept as much as possible without impeding on its phonetic representation (however, if this causes redundancy, forget it).

Based on these principles, the most basic, least redundant, minimalist alphabet is the Latin alphabet itself: ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ, where each one (in their lowercase form) could be the exact IPA symbol for their sound. But we're dealing with Romance phonetics, so we need to alter this a bit...not right now.

Diacritics

It is extremely difficult to represent all of the necessary sounds using only monographs. I've had to add cedillas and acutes when I don't want diacritics...because they are in a sense irregular. No more diacritics, I don't care if "c" is pronounced [k] before [e], [i], [ɛ], or [ɪ]...because switching to "s" per IPA [s] looks odd. Still, I can't figure out what to do. Stick with IPA-compliance? Or stick with Romance phonetics and their irregular rules for pronunciation?

Transcription 2

Latin to RC transcription: Every graph translates to exactly one allophone. For nouns: reference the singular accusative. For adjectives: reference the singular feminine accusative. For substantives: reference the singular masculine accusative. For pronouns: reference the singular masculine accusative. For verbs: reference the present active infinitive. Drop unstressed penultimate vowels followed by one or more consonants EXCEPT verbs. Drop intervocalic antepenultimate vowels ONLY verbs. Drop final consonants and vowels EXCEPT one syllable words ending with a vowel. Replace consonant I's with J's. Replace long A's with A's. Replace final or stressed, short I's with E's. Replace final or stressed, short U's with O's. EXCEPT QU combinations. Replace AE's and AI's with E's. Replace OE's and OI's with E's. Replace AU's with O's. Drop all macra. Replace intervocalic B's with V's. Append E's before beginning S's followed by one or more consonants. Replace C's preceding E, I, or Y with S's. Replace Y's with I's. Replace doubled sounds of the same quality with single sounds. EXCEPT liquids (L or R) Stress is on the vowel before the last consonant, otherwise it is on the penultimate syllable by default. Still, trying to figure out a definite set of rules to alter Latin words into RC.

Transcription 1

Latin to RC transcription: For nouns: reference the plural accusative. For adjectives: reference the plural feminine accusative. For substantives: reference the plural masculine accusative. For pronouns: reference the singular masculine accusative. For verbs: reference the present active infinitive. Long E and O are written with an acute over them. Drop all final consonants and vowels. Except words of one or more consonants followed by one vowel. Drop all unstressed ultimate vowels followed by one or more consonants in everything but verbs, according to old stress. Drop all unstressed penultimate vowels followed by one or more consonants in verbs. All consonant I's to J's. All long A's to short A's. All final or stressed, short I's to long E's. All final or stressed, short U's to long O's. All AE's and AI's to short E's. All OE's and OI's to long E's. All AU's to short O's. Replace intervocalic B's with V's. Replace all doubled vowels with single long vowels. Append an short E before beginning S followed by a consonant. Drop the first consonant preceding a R if the pair is not followed by a vowel or diphthong. Drop all macra. Add acutes over long E's and O's. Add cedillas under C's, G's, and T's followed by either an E, I, Y, or a diphthong beginning with those vowels. Drop acutes over beginning long E's. Stress is on the vowel before the last consonant, otherwise it is on the penultimate syllable by default.