Is it hard to develop an orthography?

My primary focus at the office is to develop the orthography (writing system) of three different languages. That doesn't sound too difficult, right? You just write it the way it sounds.

I had no idea what I was getting into.

I had no idea that I would debate whether or not hyphens should be used in certain contexts. Or, how to word a rule that covers a theoretical situation for which we have no real world examples. Or, whether 'r' should be used rather than 'l'.

What causes these debates?

One of the major factors is speakers' perceptions. One person thinks that they are pronouncing an 'l' while another thinks that it is an 'r'... and it's the same word. So, do you write 'l' or 'r'? Thankfully that question is resolved for all the languages I work with!

The question I've been looking at recently in one language is whether two non-identical vowels can occur next to each other. For instance; is 'ei' ok or should it be written 'eyi', is 'ou' ok or is it 'owu'? Some speakers clearly hear a 'y' or a 'w' between two non-identical vowels, while others don't think that they are necessarily there.

If we are going to standardize an orthography for this language we must write a rule that clearly tells all speakers of this language how to write, regardless of personal perceptions.

Ok, I don't like to post without a picture...but, what picture can I really post to go with this? So, completely randomly, here is a picture of me with a koala!