From lojbab@lojban.org Thu Jun 01 12:14:56 2000 Return-Path: Received: (qmail 22841 invoked from network); 1 Jun 2000 19:14:56 -0000 Received: from unknown (10.1.10.26) by m2.onelist.org with QMQP; 1 Jun 2000 19:14:56 -0000 Received: from unknown (HELO stmpy-3.cais.net) (205.252.14.73) by mta1 with SMTP; 1 Jun 2000 19:14:55 -0000 Received: from bob (241.dynamic.cais.com [207.226.56.241]) by stmpy-3.cais.net (8.10.1/8.9.3) with ESMTP id e51JElH77686; Thu, 1 Jun 2000 15:14:47 -0400 (EDT) (envelope-from lojbab@lojban.org) Message-Id: <4.2.2.20000601145631.00a2bf00@127.0.0.1> X-Sender: vir1036/pop.cais.com@127.0.0.1 X-Mailer: QUALCOMM Windows Eudora Pro Version 4.2.2 Date: Thu, 01 Jun 2000 15:16:11 -0400 To: "Alfred W. Tüting" , lojban@egroups.com Subject: Re: [lojban] Re: Chinese names In-Reply-To: <8h5drr+6j5u@eGroups.com> References: <39344693.6DC772E4@bilkent.edu.tr> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit From: "Bob LeChevalier (lojbab)" At 10:28 AM 06/01/2000 +0000, Alfred W. Tüting wrote: >IMHO, lojbanizing Chinese (and every other language's) words to >*cmene* has to follow certain standards, i.e. the 'high' language >and not local variations. As Cowan noted, there is no "high English" in the US, and we explicitly rejected the British one. > (Creating gismu, for sure is different, >because due to far stronger changes to the linguistic base, the >resulting word anyway isn't affected that much!). Without referring >to Chinese dialects (i.e. different languages like Cantonese, >Fujian=Hokkien language or Hoklo, Taiwanese, Hakka etc.) the >differences in pronunciation are immense even in "Mandarin" from >one village to the next. One should necessarily stick to *one* >standard! Why? (I am not disagreeing with you, but you make no case). >It's okay giving the last word of how a certain cmene has to be >pronounced, to the very bearer of the name respective. But should >common names like Johnson, Mueller, Smith, Jack - or *Bob* follow >individual rules?? If their names are pronounced individually, it seems the only choice, and in the US, this is often the case. One of the first Lojbanists was a Southern lady named "Kim", where the vowel would be the "short i" of "bit". We suggested Lojbanizing it as "kim" which not only preserved the spelling, but sounded right to us, i.e. "standard". But she is from the South, where vowels are drawled (lengthened), and despite the funny spelling, she chose to Lojbanize her name as "ki,ym". Who are we to argue? >I do not like at all seeing words like 'Bob', >John etc. written lb: bab., djan. instead of bob. and djon. My name is pronounced "bob" by Russians, but not by me. Indeed, for many American dialects including mine, the sound described as an "open o" or "short o" is almost always pronounced as an /a/, unless followed by 'r'. >The >American way of pronunciation may be a bit different to the British >accent, i.e. the o vowel pronounced 'darker' and more going towards >the a vowel: but it still *is* an "o" and *not* an "a"! This is true for my wife, from Philadelphia, but not for me, from California (nor for most people from the West or Midwest). For me, the names "Don" and "Dawn" are exact homonyms, sounded with the 'a' of "father". This drives my wife crazy since my daughter has a girl friend named Dawn. >If you >really have a closer look at it, you'll 'see' the difference e.g. >between (American) 'Bob' and 'hum' (BTW, *what* American local >accent should be the norm? - Boston? Middle Western? ...) We would reject anyone but our own being used, of course. Americans refuse to be standardized, especially if someone tells us that we "should". Why do you think the metric system has not yet been adopted? >(Due to selfrestriction) the means of Lojban for*appropriate* display >of sounds (other than Lojban themselves) are so narrow, >that it seems almost ridiculous to pay so much attention to slight >personal, local variations in pronouncing a language that *has* a >fixed orthographic state pointing to a pronunciation standard. A point that is moot if there is no pronunciation standard. lojbab -- lojbab lojbab@lojban.org Bob LeChevalier, President, The Logical Language Group, Inc. 2904 Beau Lane, Fairfax VA 22031-1303 USA 703-385-0273 Artificial language Loglan/Lojban: http://www.lojban.org