questions not many people ask

[fox]

"Is that supposed to be a semi-vowel or a voiced palatal affricate?"

When I'm in charge of the world, IPA will be compulsory for all phonetic transcriptions. The fact that in English we don't have the sound German spells with a u-umlaut and French spells with a u -- a high front rounded vowel -- will not give us license to be utter sissies and appropriate the symbol [y] for the sound that begins the word "yowza". The symbol for that is [j], and I'm fed up with seeing that symbol for the sound that begins the word "jitter." It confuses me, and I don't like being confused.

That is all.

Comments

Re: May I just add here...

[mearagrrl.livejournal.com]

Ooh! Fantasy writers who make up unpronounceable names drive me CRAZY. I mean, sure, they look pretty, but if I refuse to discuss your book with anyone for fear that we'll all start laughing as we have seventeen pronunciations for your main character's name? Bad.

And wow, it's interesting to read, but I still have no idea what all that stuff above means...but it looks cool, or something...