For those of you following this thread, I have added below the
identification of the correct Unicode characters for the representation
of Australian languages in their usual orthographies.
>
> The characters used in Australian languages depend on the accuracy of
> pronunciation which the author is trying to portray. Although the usual
> Roman alphabet predominates, from time to time other characters are used.
> The palatal nasal, which is an 'n' with the long hook on the first
U+0272 LATIN SMALL LETTER N WITH LEFT HOOK (for palatal nasal)
> downstroke represents ny. This has caused a lot of confusion, for example,
> in Jawoyn, where the word is mispronounced as Jawonee if the correct
> spelling Jawony is used. Yidin(y) is another such word. Other areas with
> symbols are the dental articulation symbol (like a half square underneath
> the character) which is now usually represented as nh, lh, dh, etc, and the
U+032A COMBINING BRIDGE BELOW (for IPA dental articulation)
> retroflex symbol of dot under the character. It is difficult to represent
U+0323 COMBINING DOT BELOW (for IPA close articulation; also for retroflexion)
Note also the precomposed character:
U+1E5B LATIN SMALL LETTER R WITH DOT BELOW
> 3 different 'r' sounds in a language.
>
> The engma is important because the pronunciation of Wangurri is Wan'gurri,
> whereas Yolngu is Yol'ng'u. It is a common mispronunciation to give two
> sounds like kang'garoo, instead of one kang'aroo.
U+014B LATIN SMALL LETTER ENG
>
> There are also some languages with diacritics, e.g. Ndjebbana with an
> acute, and soem Yolngu languages have umlaut.
U+0301 COMBINING ACUTE ACCENT
U+0308 COMBINING DIAERESIS
Although most of the letters to which an acute or diaeresis diacritic
are applied in Australian languages also occur in Unicode as a precomposed
letter as well.
--Ken Whistler
> Geraldine Triffitt, Collection Manager (Linguistics), AIATSIS
>
>
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