A  Phonetic Picture - Writing   with  20  Letters      last change: 10.3.00     [go back]


Here  the  table  of  letters,  which  are  increased  from  12   to  20;   on  the  right,
arranged  in  the  same  way,  their  associated  sounds:





New  are:  The triple vertical line   r,    the  wave  line  q   and  the  double  point   y.
New  are  also  the letters  in  the  2. column:  Besides the broad slash  they are the
left halves  of the signs  in the 4. column;  thus they are asymmetrical and positioned
at the left edge:
v  is the left half of   m,  or a left-shifted   l.
u  is the left half of   a,  or a left-shifted   e.
So   v-l   and   u-e   don't differ in form, but only in their position  -  see the examples
of  ideograms  below.

About  the pronunciation:         Broad slash:  like  ch  in chair;    short slash (rising):   like  ts  in  cats;
sh:  like  sh  in  shoe:   wave line:  like  qu  in quick.  These  3  combinations of sounds   ts,  tsch,  qu
are counted  as only  1  consonant each  (well  pronounced,  they are  only 1 sound;   sh  anyway  is
only  1  sound).   Double point  y:  speak it  like u in french  'du'  (an i-like sound, not used in English).

The system  of the  alphabet  with  12 letters  mostly  has  been  conserved:  Vowels
are flat,  consonants high.    Humming  consonants  consist of  straight  vertical  lines.
Hissing consonants  decline  from left to the middle,  stopping sounds rise (vice versa
was intuitively better).  (The sounds  ts, tsh, qu   are counted as stopping consonants,
even though  they also have  hissing or  humming part).   So  the  asymmetrical signs,
consisting of  1 straight  line  each,  represent the  4 directions,  with  wich  signs can
begin, and  simultaneously  the  4  sound  groups.

There surely  are  better ways  to associate  these sounds  to  these signs.  But then
this  extended system  was not more compatible  to the  simple system  with  only 12
letters. In the moment, we leave it so:  when  we  will  change  the  sounds  in  future,
the  ideograms  remain, only  they  will  be  pronounced  differently.

Here some words,  which show  the  usability  of the letters and  the  position  of  the
asymmetrical letters:






There are further desirable signs, for example semi-broad bows, at the  left or right
edge,  by  which   curved  and   rotation-symmetrical   ideograms   can  be  formed:



Also  doubled small signs  (down left in the picture)  or  small signs  beside  a vertical
line  or  between  2 vertical  lines  would  be  useful.

The  problem  is:    There  are  not  enough  well  different,   well  speakable  sounds. 
Up  to  now,    we  renounced    b, d, g,     as  these  sounds  often  are  pronounced
unclearly,  when  speaking  fluently,  so  that  they  easily are  mistaken for    p,  t,  k 
(which  sound  differently  in  different  native  languages,  and  resemble  to   b, d, g
when not spoken aspiratedly).

Even the use of   h, r, y    is a hindrance  for the  use of  the  phonetic  picture-writing
as an  auxiliary  language  (auxlang).   (But  compared to English, it's  easy to speak).
But it seems to be better to give some phonetic training to some people  than always
to handle  optically  unsatisfactory  ideograms.

But there is  another way  to solve  the  pronunciation problem:  One could renounce
the problematic sounds and use  diphthongs  instead,  for example    st, nt, mp   and
ei, ai, oi, ui .  Then  it is  advantageous  to associate  to the  often used  signs  short
sounds, to the  seldom used  sounds  diphthongs. But it also  makes sense to  asso-
ciate to the  small signs  simple sounds, to the  composed signs  composed sounds. 

Also a  combined  letter-/syllable writing  is  possible.  Or one designs a real syllable
writing,  and  so  has  a clear  system.  These  topics  are  discussed  in  the  article
Kinds of phonetic picture-writings