komLang Vowels

A komLang Vowel is a combination of 2 characters, 4 primary vowels (like our "regular" vowels) and 3 indicator vowel (which would tell you if the vowel is long, short or special [correct terminology, easy, hard or weird])

I. A vowels

1. ah- short a, like "bat"
2. ay- long a, like "bait"
3. aw- special a, like "Saw"

II.  E vowels

1. eh- short e, like "bet"
2. ey- long e, like "key"
3. ew- special e, like "boo"

III. I Vowels

1. ih- short i, like "bit"
2. iy- long i, like "bite"
3. iw- special i, like "but" [upside down e]

IV. O Vowels

1. oh- long o, like "Oh my gosh!"
2. oy- short o, like "boy"
3, ow- special o, like "eye brow"

Terminology

If you notice, A, E, I indicators go "short, long special", but O indicators go "long, short, special." Sucks, doesn't it.

1. If an "h" follows the vowel, it means it's an "easy" vowel, which mostly corresponds to "short vowels" (except "o")

2. If a "y" follows the vowel, it means it's a "hard vowel, which mostly corresponds to "long vowels". What a "y" really means it that the vowel is followed by an "long e" sound, meaning a dipthong (oh+ey= oy) Note: Ey is already the "long e" sound, so when you follow it with another "long e" you don't really get a dipthong.

3. If a "w" follows the vowel, it means it's a "weird" vowel, and no real rules apply, you just have to memorize it.

Frequency

Easy set:

ew
ey

iw
oh

aw
ah

Hard set:

eh
ow

oy
iy

ih
ay

More details

komLang uses the following letters as primary vowels:

a, e, i, o

Every time you use a primary vowel, it needs to be followed by an indicator vowel:

h, y, w

Rationale

Vowels are hard to learn. If you have too many, it takes forever to learn them all. If you have too few, your words will get too long. My compromise is 12 vowels. Not too few, not too many. (And again, there's an easy set for dialect/introductor purposes, and a hard set for advanced die hards.) These twelve vowels are easy to transliterate all English words into. (I haven't heard much trouble with foreigners' vowels.) Also, for speech recognition, this set is a good mix of hi/lo front/back tongue placement which lets makes miscommunication less likely (I hope.)

Consonants have one character for one sound. Vowles have a unique 2 character combination for each sound.