Subject: Re: [lojban] World-historical and religious figures in Lojban

From: Ivan A Derzhanski <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 27 Aug 2000 11:21:20 +0300

[email-masked] wrote:
> In a message dated 00-08-25 13:11:33 EDT, iad writes:
> << (What was the story about {-,dz.}? Is that acceptable?
> If not, I'll suggest {kunfu'ydz.}.) >>
> 
> I don't think it is, alas and I think there is nothing to
> prevent a thoroughly CV person from say /dIz/ for /dz/.

Then I conclude that {dz}, {dj}, {ts}, {tc} are unsuitable for
representing the affricates of other languages.

I'm always annoyed by the way Nahuatl final _tl_ (as in the name
of Popocatepetl the volcano, or the language itself) is rendered
in Bulgarian as _tøl_ (with a schwa in the middle). They say this
is done because `<stop> <liquid>' is not a permissible final cluster
in Bulgarian. My objection is that the Nahuatl _tl_ is an affricate
(unlike the English /tl/ in _Seattle_, say, which rightfully becomes
_Siatøl_ in Bulgarian), and the rendering of an affricate as a stop
plus a fricative or approximant very much depends on the fact that
they will be strictly adjacent.

> that latter aside, I don't find (and thought aulun was game too)
> kunfudz all that bad, thoug kunfu,ydz might be safer.

It's three syllables in Chinese; I want that to come across.

> It appears that the no ndz rule applies even to names, so juandz
> is out. The reasoning, I think, was that it was too hard to
> distinguish from simple nz for many speakers (hard to taime the
> nasalization to quick before the stop is released).

That is true. Fricatives do tend to become affricates after sonorant
consonants (nasals and liquids). Happens sporadically in German, but
is a rule in Yiddish (De _unser_ --> Yd _undzer_ `our', De _falsch_
--> Yd _falch_ `false'); also in Mordvin and other languages.

> And Lojban does not recognize the sibilants as syllabic,
> so juan,dz won't work either -- and probably falls under
> the same ban anyhow.

Then let's try {juan,yz.}.

--Ivan