Re: Buffer vowel and "y"

[And Rosta <cbmvax!uunet!cuvmb.cc.columbia.edu!ucleaar>]

Colin, quoting Bruce:
> > If it were _my_ language, I'd accept Mark's suggestion. In fact, u-umlaut
> > is the sound of y in Latin, Finnish, Swedish, and probably other languages
> > as well, so it isn't even a strange use of the letter; it's the sound that
> > the letter originally stood for in the Latin alphabet. But it isn't my
>  decision
> > to make, and I'll bet Lojbab won't take it.
>
> I'm inclined to agree. However, you don't need to make it precisely /y/
> (high front rounded). Any high non-back rounded will do.

Central high rounded (IPA barred u) might get confused with Lojban /u/.
My vowel in _boot_ is pretty central, as in many accents of English,
except before /l/. Chris's problems in sussing what [y] is (rounded [i])
suggest that even [y] used for the hyphen might get confused with /u/
by some speakers. Still, as the language presently stands /y/ might
get confused with unstressed /a/ by Eng. speakers, so no extra
confusion is created by Mark's suggestion.

---
And