TIW: [Letter discussing phonetics problems in tengwar vowel system as proposed]

[page 17] _BANKS MEBANE_, 6901 Strathmore St., Chevy Chase, Md. 20015 If Ned Brooks has difficulty hearing the "ng" in "think", let him try to pronounce the word but stop before the "k". The result sounds a lot more like "thing" than like "thin". Ned's further comments in his letter point out how phonetic spelling emphasizes regional accents. I've talked to Ned several times, and he speaks a Tidewater Virginia variant of General Southern, mixed with Southern Highland. His Southern accent converts the vowel in "sat" into a diphthong and it removes the r-coloring and broadens the diphthong in "there"; he doesn't pronounce "sat" like "set" (that's a different diphthong), but he does use the same vowel-sound in "sat" and "there". After nearly driving myself crazy listening to myself pronounce words, I think my suggestion about the "r" tengwar is valid. -- if my pronunciation is close enough to General American. Tengwa 25 would be used for fricative "r" ("retrospect"); 21 would be used both for frictionless "r" ("for", "harm") and for the "r-colored vowel" ("murder", "here", "there"). Don Simpson's mode works out so that 21 will always have an underposed dot when it represents r-coloring and will lack the dot when it is frictionless "r". I suppose he must have taken all this into account already, so I am only duplicating what he has thought through before me.