Received: from mail-ye0-f189.google.com ([209.85.213.189]:54302) by stodi.digitalkingdom.org with esmtps (TLSv1:RC4-SHA:128) (Exim 4.76) (envelope-from ) id 1TbhZf-00049S-Li; Thu, 22 Nov 2012 16:57:00 -0800 Received: by mail-ye0-f189.google.com with SMTP id r9sf2000707yen.16 for ; Thu, 22 Nov 2012 16:56:49 -0800 (PST) DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha256; c=relaxed/relaxed; d=googlegroups.com; s=20120806; h=x-beenthere:received-spf:from:to:subject:date:message-id:user-agent :in-reply-to:references:mime-version:x-original-sender :x-original-authentication-results:reply-to:precedence:mailing-list :list-id:x-google-group-id:list-post:list-help:list-archive:sender :list-subscribe:list-unsubscribe:content-type; bh=Hxt/5mVnzfCUf0jQGrwvUJWbxBt+3x68kA8L9eZPWxU=; b=nMpEZzihZ+L5hPW2q2EBF/ZdaILruYZJJzFT/HU+/I2CMt5ivaRnyqKP96UeR3Iv3h +cv198ybifB/tKQe7QaBKzvVaumMsoZyRuOWXd2TsP09OJkTZS8ybS2+NR16SuHxyUy9 KXYz5IQpLccG1HJvpjfS/7NIGtPHBXX/maeBW4u9jei3y5EyL+j13dcDDsoCd4jW8b2D uzhDbvu7qB8wlXiefIj7xvF5g9Zx/GljCECssCmzQkPHqcCNcOLrrBRlp1W7cbkmzMyb Sp3KPPLhw0Ta3ORGSv/b6pmGvWo+BGDWB3073ume5TTxLaEyIT33AM8epkYwF70EshK+ sZ2g== Received: by 10.49.116.34 with SMTP id jt2mr366329qeb.38.1353632208863; Thu, 22 Nov 2012 16:56:48 -0800 (PST) X-BeenThere: lojban@googlegroups.com Received: by 10.49.127.177 with SMTP id nh17ls159719qeb.36.gmail; Thu, 22 Nov 2012 16:56:47 -0800 (PST) Received: by 10.236.44.168 with SMTP id n28mr1379561yhb.21.1353632207355; Thu, 22 Nov 2012 16:56:47 -0800 (PST) Received: by 10.236.44.168 with SMTP id n28mr1379560yhb.21.1353632207342; Thu, 22 Nov 2012 16:56:47 -0800 (PST) Received: from chausie ([2001:470:8:42:2c0:f0ff:fe3b:b5b5]) by gmr-mx.google.com with ESMTP id u20si176375anj.3.2012.11.22.16.56.47; Thu, 22 Nov 2012 16:56:47 -0800 (PST) Received-SPF: neutral (google.com: 2001:470:8:42:2c0:f0ff:fe3b:b5b5 is neither permitted nor denied by best guess record for domain of phma@bezitopo.org) client-ip=2001:470:8:42:2c0:f0ff:fe3b:b5b5; Received: from caracal.localnet (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by chausie (Postfix) with ESMTP id 7CCEC17C17 for ; Thu, 22 Nov 2012 19:56:46 -0500 (EST) From: Pierre Abbat To: lojban@googlegroups.com Subject: Re: [lojban] Novel written system that parallels the logic of Lojban? Date: Thu, 22 Nov 2012 19:56:47 -0500 Message-ID: <19910053.Qief0Ljvg0@caracal> User-Agent: KMail/4.8.5 (Linux/3.2.0-32-generic; KDE/4.8.5; x86_64; ; ) In-Reply-To: References: <291e8942-2309-4343-b7ff-a56ac60c320a@googlegroups.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 X-Original-Sender: phma@bezitopo.org X-Original-Authentication-Results: gmr-mx.google.com; spf=neutral (google.com: 2001:470:8:42:2c0:f0ff:fe3b:b5b5 is neither permitted nor denied by best guess record for domain of phma@bezitopo.org) smtp.mail=phma@bezitopo.org Reply-To: lojban@googlegroups.com Precedence: list Mailing-list: list lojban@googlegroups.com; contact lojban+owners@googlegroups.com List-ID: X-Google-Group-Id: 1004133512417 List-Post: , List-Help: , List-Archive: Sender: lojban@googlegroups.com List-Subscribe: , List-Unsubscribe: , Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 X-Spam-Score: -0.0 (/) X-Spam_score: -0.0 X-Spam_score_int: 0 X-Spam_bar: / On Thursday, November 22, 2012 18:24:28 Sebastian wrote: > But what about people from India, Arab countries, China etc? are they equal > eager to use the Roman alphabet? Maybe they are (like we would had to learn > chinese if China were the dominant force of the world). In that case I > should quit arguing right now, because then I speak of other people's > behalf. Most Indic languages and some others in the area are written with an abugida of about 50 letters, which distinguishes some phonemes that need two letters or some diacritics to distinguish in the Latin alphabet. Even though many letters are written in two ways, the Indians aren't likely to give it up. Similarly, the Arabic alphabet distinguishes emphatic consonants, and as vowels are less semantic in Semitic languages, they are often omitted. But the Turks, who used to use the Arabic script, switched to Latin because the Arabic three long and three short vowels did not match well the Turkish cube of eight vowels. Other writing systems you may want to look at are Thai/Lao, Khmer, and Tibetan, all derived from some ancestor of Nagari. Thai/Lao/Khmer have repurposed the voicing or aspiration distinction for tones or vowel quality, and Tibetan spelling has remained largely fixed as the pronunciation has changed, so none of them match up spelling to sound well. But all of them have a simple way to map Sanskrit or Pali spelling, which is important to these peoples, so they're not likely to give up their abugidas. Lojban phonetics are a pretty good match to the Latin alphabet. Let's keep it. Pierre -- loi mintu se ckaji danlu cu jmaji -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "lojban" group. To post to this group, send email to lojban@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to lojban+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/lojban?hl=en.