>I think the symbols /A/ and /a/ are the wrong way round - I'm sure
>the short vowel is near /æ/ (in IPA. 'a' with a tail), and the long
>vowel would be written without a tail.
I wasn't trying to write IPA symbols, as they wouldn't show up on most
people's computers! I was following the convention that a capital vowel
stands for a the sound of the short vowel, and a small letter stands for a
the sound of long one - length can be indicated by the colon.
There is no standard way of typing IPA from an ordinary keyboard. Several
attempts have been tried, but it's still hit and miss. Perhaps I should
have explained what I was doing. I write unrounded front vowels, from high
to low, as /i I e E A a/. I have no way of distinguishing back /a/
from front /a/ as it's not usually necessary for what I do.
Peter