Envelope-to: rlpowell@digitalkingdom.org
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Date: Sat, 29 Mar 2008 20:14:04 +0100
From: Arnt Richard Johansen <arj@nvg.org>
To: Isen hand <isenhand@yahoo.co.uk>
Cc: jbovlaste@lojban.org
Subject: [jbovlaste] Re: [isenhand@yahoo.co.uk: zveriys or sferies]
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On Fri, Mar 28, 2008 at 09:12:08PM -0700, Robin Lee Powell wrote:
> Can you take this?
> 
> -Robin
> 
> ----- Forwarded message from Isen hand <isenhand@yahoo.co.uk> -----
> 
> Subject: zveriys or sferies
> From: Isen hand <isenhand@yahoo.co.uk>
> To: Robin Lee Powell <rlpowell@digitalkingdom.org>
> Date: Fri, 28 Mar 2008 07:31:48 +0000 (GMT)
> 
> Robin,
>  
> I don’t quite follow how jbovlaste works. I have been toldthere is an entry for Sweden as “sfari,es” but I can’t find it.  The reason for this come from the Lojban wikipages See :
>  
> http://jbo.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Bobas#sfari.2Ces
>  
> I think sfari,es doesn’t fit the Swedish pronunciation for Sverige
> but have been told sfari,es is authoritive as it is supposed to be in jbovlaste.
> If that’s the case then I would ague that it needs changing in jbovlaste. How
> could I do that?

Short answer: see http://jbovlaste.lojban.org/dict/sferies and http://jbovlaste.lojban.org/natlang/en/Sweden

Long answer:

The Swedish pronounciation of "Sweden" (in X-SAMPA) is [sv{rje].

Given this, there are two problems with it's Lojbanisation.

First, Lojban does not have the vowel [{]. So it must changed into something else. The closest alternatives are "a" [a] and "e" [E]. Like you, I think it sounds more like the Lojban "e", but "a" is an equally valid alternative.

Second, in Lojban you cannot have two consecutive consonants where one is voiced and the other is voiceless, or vice versa. So, the native "sv" is not possible. The alternatives are either "zv" or "sf". Of these, I think the latter is more natural, since the "z" sound does not occur in Swedish.

Of course, in Lojban, "the name is the prerogative of the namer, [but] the consequences are the prerogative of the namee" (Nick Nicholas), so Jbovlaste doesn't have much authority in which names should be used. Of course, it would be great if people were to standardise on specific names rather than constructing them on the fly, since it would make it easier to look up what the names refer to.

Some of the hard-core Jbovlaste editors are subscribed to jbovlaste@lojban.org; you can send your enquiries there. If you want to contribute to Jbovlaste yourself, you can register at http://jbovlaste.lojban.org/newaccount.html . As on Wikipedia, be bold, but expect your work to be torn to shreds. :-) Oh, and read all the help before you begin. http://jbovlaste.lojban.org/help/index.html

-- 
Arnt Richard Johansen                                http://arj.nvg.org/
Evan, a Quiz Bowl reject, nevertheless knows more than what's good for
him. The son of deposed royalty from some obscure nation whose name is
probably only known to himself, Evan is the life of the party when the
party's over.                     -- Leon Lin: Kissing the Buddha's Feet