"o", "u", and "u"

[John Sullivan]

Fran,
    You're right.   The "u" sound and the "w" sound will always be
distinguished because the latter will appear as "cu" or "hu". Instead of
proposing confusing new alphabets, I guess I'll just comment on what this
scribe was trying to do.
    John

on 1/11/01 12:34 PM, Frances Karttunen at karttu at nantucket.net wrote:

> Dear John,
>
> The orthographic "u" of "hu" and "cu" is not a vowel like the other two.
> It's part of digraphs for the consonants /w/ and (resorting to yet another
> digraph because I can't do superscripts in email) /kw/. This latter
> represents labialized /k/ as in English quick or Spanish cuando, but
> permitted phonotactically at both the beginning and end of syllables in
> Nahuatl.
>
> So you are really only looking for two distinct vowel symbols.  The hu and
> cu are predictable packages.  Won't u and o do?
>
> Fran
>
> ----------
>> From: John Sullivan <jsullivan at prodigy.net.mx>
>> To: nahuat-l <nahuat-l at server2.umt.edu>
>> Subject: "o", "u", and "u"
>> Date: Thu, Jan 11, 2001, 1:00 PM
>>
>
>> I am working on a nahuatl document from los altos de jalisco whose writer
>> seems to distinguish between the "o", its "u" variant, and the "u" of "cu"
>> and "hu". The "u" in "hu" and "cu" is written with the normal letter "u" (it
>> has a little tail). The "u" which is a pronunciation variant of the "o" is
>> written with a letter "o" that is open at the top, kind of like a "u"
>> without the tail. The "real" "o" is written with a normal closed letter "o".
>> Has anyone seen this fenomenon before? Is it documented? Also, when I get
>> this published, I would like to distinguish between the three sounds in the
>> transcription by using three different letters. Can a linguist give me
>> advice on an appropriate symbol for the "u" variant?
>>     John Sullivan
>>     Universidad Autónoma de Zacatecas
>>