Re: Kyrgyz was Re: Zetowvu / Ezotwuv (new conlang)

Peter Clark wrote:
>         From what I can make of it, Kyrgyz has the following vowels:
> i y  1   u
>  e 2    o
>   E
>    &
>     a
Just out of curiosity, is "& " for the low front unround vowel (æ, a-e lig.)
or the X-SAMPA low front _round_ vowel??  If by chance the latter, the
system could be described as actually quite symmetrical, though still
front-heavy and with anomalous high-central 1::
Front      Central     Back
i y              1           u
e 2                          o
E &(ro)                   a

Does Kyrgyz have vowel harmony? In that case it closely resembles Turkish,
but with anomalous E &(whatever its quality):

Front        Back
i y             1 u
e 2            a o
(E &)

(Even better, Yitzik tell us that "y" should be not /1/ but /M/-- unrounded
high-back-- nice counterpart to /u/ in a harmony-system.)

That anomalous E & suggests there may once have been a 3rd, low back vowel
?*/O/; perhaps it and its unround counterpart merged with /a o/, and perhaps
"&" was/is the surviving front round (or de-rounded) counterpart.  Just
speculating; I expect phonologies to exhibit a certain symmetry,
historically if not synchronically-- though of course they don't always!

Incidentally and OT, I made an interesting discovery the other day, cruisng
around the various IPA sites.  I, and most fellow midwesterners, definitely
have [a] in hot, father etc., not [A].  And I seem to have [Q] in law,
bought, caught etc, not [O]-- at least according to the (IIRC) UCLA samples.
This is not meant to start an EP (you-know-what pronunciation) thread!!

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