Re: EVA Transcription

["Gabriel Landini" <G.Landini@xxxxxxxxxx>]

On 15 Jan 2002 at 2:08, Jacques Guy wrote:
> There is a misunderstanding here about the EVA transcription.
> Certainly, <iin> is, almost beyond doubt, a single letter. 

I like the "almost" :-)

> But so are ch and rr in Spanish

..... and "ll" too!

> If EVA has <in> for what is clearly a single letter, it is only because
> its designers, quite literally, ran out of pronounceable single letters
> and had to make do with pronounceable groups of letters. 

Moreover, if <i> is a part of <in> and <iin> and *not* a character by 
itself, then we would not find <i> preceding any other characters, 
unless those characters are also composed by that stroke.
So one should look at how common are those <i?> duplets are (with <?> 
different than <i> and <n>) .
And the answer is: "not very uncommon". In fact 1163 times.

ir	734
is	81
im	64
il	54
ik	53
it	35
id	26
i_ 	19
io	17
ip	15
ig	10
if	10
ic	9
ih	8
ie	7
i'	7
iy	5
ia	3
i*	2
i¯	1 (&175;)
iÅ	1 (&197;)
iÄ	1(&196;)
ix	1

Maybe <ir> and <iir> may be single characters, but before deciding 
that, one has to count them, and to do so, one has to transcribe 
them, and so the need for a transcription alphabet.
Still, considering <ir> there are 429 instances of <i?> to account 
for. 
So what is <i>?

Cheers,
Gabriel