From nobody@digitalkingdom.org Fri Apr 03 09:18:14 2009 Received: with ECARTIS (v1.0.0; list lojban-beginners); Fri, 03 Apr 2009 09:18:15 -0700 (PDT) Received: from nobody by chain.digitalkingdom.org with local (Exim 4.69) (envelope-from ) id 1Lpm5t-0006TK-SR for lojban-beginners-real@lojban.org; Fri, 03 Apr 2009 09:18:14 -0700 Received: from mail-ew0-f163.google.com ([209.85.219.163]) by chain.digitalkingdom.org with esmtp (Exim 4.69) (envelope-from ) id 1Lpm5r-0006Rt-6d for lojban-beginners@lojban.org; Fri, 03 Apr 2009 09:18:13 -0700 Received: by ewy7 with SMTP id 7so939855ewy.34 for ; Fri, 03 Apr 2009 09:18:05 -0700 (PDT) DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha256; c=relaxed/relaxed; d=gmail.com; s=gamma; h=domainkey-signature:mime-version:received:in-reply-to:references :date:message-id:subject:from:to:content-type :content-transfer-encoding; bh=k3ACqnNWBOLAO1oZFANlG+J3XaRB7UYkpSui025pAvE=; b=BRUFUOvFkubRHFaRaogd2voFYHUniPZjYxBM+qo4975tkjnCP4xkqWFv61Xw+4s9g9 Rt2UV9qV2IB1rEHEXh6mchTDK36uNZjc/rHr7p3fjlODTZlGA6DGCk/IZzQLoPiq3NZv pC7GvtvSi9UiMsPPgS/FsqOvoMqlHwFf4NK4E= DomainKey-Signature: a=rsa-sha1; c=nofws; d=gmail.com; s=gamma; h=mime-version:in-reply-to:references:date:message-id:subject:from:to :content-type:content-transfer-encoding; b=DpNV6+V9NzFZz81ZjvviN/MVEtuG1RecWozo5fppeQPSKLQlVzVkRTLsEEHwLzT6ov JIyWzoln0jnx2Vy+GAs2IP+6YNSAG/7gkY8NMRUis21Ar3xR5QRbgHZETeMLX0nV/lhH UnVDdFV9/XoadpOJ0Hx3+pdxl2giIHPTVKt4s= MIME-Version: 1.0 Received: by 10.216.19.68 with SMTP id m46mr492392wem.7.1238775484965; Fri, 03 Apr 2009 09:18:04 -0700 (PDT) In-Reply-To: <5715b9300904030611g1e3d1c56kc6c69e3fafd50244@mail.gmail.com> References: <4de8c3930904030158s6901f5f5qb17b057933ee348@mail.gmail.com> <5715b9300904030611g1e3d1c56kc6c69e3fafd50244@mail.gmail.com> Date: Fri, 3 Apr 2009 18:18:04 +0200 Message-ID: <4de8c3930904030918g15df245axc022e827fd54d6fe@mail.gmail.com> Subject: [lojban-beginners] Re: Long consonants & long vowels From: tijlan To: lojban-beginners@lojban.org Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit X-MIME-Autoconverted: from quoted-printable to 8bit by Ecartis X-Spam-Score: 0.0 X-Spam-Score-Int: 0 X-Spam-Bar: / X-archive-position: 1474 X-ecartis-version: Ecartis v1.0.0 Sender: lojban-beginners-bounce@lojban.org Errors-to: lojban-beginners-bounce@lojban.org X-original-sender: pascal.akihiko@gmail.com Precedence: bulk Reply-to: lojban-beginners@lojban.org X-list: lojban-beginners 2009/4/3 Luke Bergen : > I think the reason that they don't allow geminate consonants is that it > would introduce some difficulty in hearing a distinction between "b" and > "b:".  And the LLG worked very hard to make all the lojban sounds as > distinct as possible. The difference between [b] and [bː] is most significant when they are used as an inbetween sound, which is how they are used mostly. Unlike in English, gemination can be very distinctive so as to form different lexemes or display different grammatical features in various languages. Again from the wiki article... Hungarian: megy (go) - meggy (sour cherry) Japanese: kita (came) - kitta (cut) Latin: anus (ring) - annus (year) Italian: beve (drinks) - bevve (drank) Personally I don't find these geminate consonants as much difficult a sound to recognize as "y" (the schwa) can be. > As far as the long vs short vowels, I like that every letter in lojban > corresponds to one and only one sound, even if it means that I can't use > long "a" and "i" (the rest you can get through the vowels or diphthongs). I would consider ":" a marking-oriented letter like ",". It is useful only when there is an adjacent letter to mark; it cannot be pronounced alone. I can think of many lojbanizations that can benefit from the availability of long vowels & long consonants. Here are some good examples of Finnish and Japanese city/prefecture names that contain both a long consonant and a long vowel: Lappeenranta [lapːeːnranta] --> lap:e:nranta Hämeenlinna [hæmeːnlinːa] --> xame:nlin:a 北海道 Hokkaidō [hokːaidoː] --> xok:aido: Furthermore, in Japanese, long vowels are often distinctive so as to help recognize their corresponding Kanjis and therefore meanings of names: 裕香 yūka [juːka] --> iu:ka 由香 yuka [juka] --> iuka 大木 ōgi [oːgi] --> o:gi 小木 ogi [ogi] --> ogi mu'o mi'e tijlan