Friday, May 9, 2014

Color Alphabet Letter Choices

Fig is still learning the names of 13 colors, and we continue to adjust the names of the colors in search of 13 easy to say, and hear sounds for Fig.

The 13, single syllable color words were:
ah-white, ko-black, ha-brown, ka-pink, arr-silver/gray, rah-gold, no-clear, aka-red, oh-orange, ki-yellow, do-green, ao-blue, oa-purple

Changes: Fig has difficulty saying the syllable K, or kuh, and has herself suggested that AKA or RED be changed to AWA, so it has.

In fact, Crows do NOT ka, kaw, or caw; they actually aw! They say AW!

Fig will also say the sound GWAH or QUWA. Look, it's her language. It is all foreign to me, the point is, it is very hard to catch the sounds she is saying exactly because it's Crow, not my native language. Anyway, I have observed that WA and GWA are in her natural lexicon, and she naturally suggested AWA in place of AKA, so I have decide to make the additional changes of KA to GWA, KO to GO.

These changes mean that...
1. the vowels Ah, Oh, and now U (long ooh, as in ooh la la) are present.
2. the vowel I (hard E) is now out. I cannot get her to say it easily.
3. the hard vowels A,E,I,U are excluded, but hard O is in.
4. the soft vowels Egg, Igloo, Apple, Umbrella, are excluded, but Ah is in.
5. the consonants B,C,D,F,J,K,L,M,P,Q,S,T,V,X,Y,Z are out, but D,G,H,N,R, GW, W are in.

I suspect in time:
N will change to M
D will get axed too.
Double vowel sounds UA will get included, but not AU as it is too similar to AO.

The end result of this quest for a working alphabet will be:
(Changes are indicated in red.)
ah-white
go-black
ha-brown
gwa-pink
arr-silver/gray
rah-gold
awa-red
oh-orange
ua-yellow
wa-green
ao-blue
oa-purple
mo-clear

Seen another way:
ah, ar, awa/ ha, wa, gwa, ra/ ao
oh/ go, mo/ oa
ua

From this alphabet, I should be able to make lots of words such as:
ah go
ah mo
ah ra
ah ha
go ra
ha go
etc... but I will need to calculate the exact number of easily distinguishable words as I am hoping to aim for an alphabet that can make around 1000 words.

I suspect three letter words may be the ticket for good communication.
ah go ah
ah mo ah
...but this requires further thinking down the road.

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