Re: [tied] Unreality...

--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "elmeras2000" <jer@...> wrote:

> --- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, enlil@... wrote:

> Taking just the first page-and-a-half of Lanman's Reader, we
> encounter no difficulties if we try to transcribe the text using

no

> other vowel signs than /a/:
>
> brhadas'va vvaaca
> br.hadas'va uva:ca

<Snip>

> So, at least the Sanskrit in which the first ten couplets of the
> Nala Saga are recorded works fine as a one-vowel language. The
> notation of the words in the above is 100% unambiguous, in no
> instance is there any other possible reading of the notation than
> the correct one.

And you could have got rid of the retroflex stops and sibilant as
well! There's just one unpredictable retroflex nasal in your sample.

> And I have not used signs for /a:/ or <e> or <i> or
> <u> or syllabic <r.> at all. They all occur in the original, but
> they are expendable, at least for this piece of the language. You
> couldn't do that with English or Latin.

Would you say Latin was well-nigh a 3-vowel (/a/, /e/, /o/) language?