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From: MorphemeAddict <lytlesw@gmail.com>
Date: Sat, 24 Jun 2017 17:28:34 -0500
Message-ID: <CAHiXx=ME6fcgjrFeM6oO4Hkum7sX+Xe4YRHbQNry5UrQ1GX9Qw@mail.gmail.com>
Subject: Re: [lojban] Apologia, using h instead of yhy
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For the reasons given in the Apologia, I'd welcome a change from "'" to "h"
IF it were essentially community-wide. It's only the fringe aspect of its
use that makes it unappealing.

stevo

On Fri, Jun 23, 2017 at 5:34 PM, <vpbroman@gmail.com> wrote:

>
> I was questioned on my usually using "h" instead of " ' " in lojban,
> so I would like to explain my reasoning and usage preference,
> and I invite constructive criticism, since I am surely open to reason in
> reconsidering the issue.
>
> First, like every supreme court justice nominee I have ever heard,
> I understand the great value of "stare decicis", "let what is decided
> stand".
> Zamenhof laid down the unchangeable Fundamento to avoid the chaos
> of endless amendments by creative conlangers.
> Still which "decisis" are the ones that must "stare"?
>
> From 1955, TLI loglan had no kind of "h" or "x" until 1981,
> when the former was added as a regular consonant phoneme,
> and the latter was its special-case colleague.
> This is still true of TLI Loglan.
> By 1989, LLG loglan/lojban arose with a regular consonant "x" and a
> special " ' ".
>
> In CLL1, the pronunciation is canonical, even if inexact,
> but for the orthography there is a standard form,
> as well as two alternatives that seem to be accepted (Cyrillic and
> Tengwar),
> plus the International Phonetic Alphabet, IPA, used as the standard by
> which you define everything else.
> That is four orthographies.
>
> In the usage of other lojbanists I see experiments in orthography,
> e.g. the grave accents placed on accented vowels,
> or the underdots or over-breves placed on semivowels, or even a few people
> using h.
> I think my usage is not far from the mainstream,
> and I coexist happily with those who write differently.
>
> My actual extremest position is to use IPA in a broad transcription when
> your fonts support it,
> but to do CLL with h when ASCII-only is required.
> The IPA is a very widely accepted international standard.
> An IPA dress for lojban does not look that strange or different; see this
> example.
>
>
> <https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-QhCJoJuyYo4/WU2TSwKPGII/AAAAAAAAAK0/FGRJOHGog04BlOq-NFyVj9__miCOT0E_gCLcBGAs/s1600/ipa-example.png>
>
> Now, which spelling is better and why?
>
> In CLL1 3.3 the apostrophe, period, and comma are grouped together as
> characters that divide syllables,
> but the period and comma are silent ways of separating words or syllables,
> while the apostrophe is an audible way to separate syllables
> in precisely the same way that "t" separates the syllables in "mlatu".
> Nothing special there.
>
> In the same section, we read
>     The letter "h" is not used to represent this sound for two reasons:
>     primarily in order to simplify explanations of the morphology,
>     but also because the sound is very common, and the apostrophe
>     is a visually lightweight representation of it.
>
> The sound is not so very common as to justifying it being a special case.
> In 130000 words of lojban I can quickly lay my hands on, the letter
> frequencies are as follows.
> 55421 i
> 46986 a
> 43758 u
> 38175 o
> 36048 l
> 27341 e
> 26722 n
> 21790 h/'
> 20522 c
> 17803 s
> 16437 r
> 14279 m
> 13755 t
> 13551 k
> 10828 d
>  9181 b
>  8832 p
>  7037 j
>  5199 g
>  5017 f
>  4713 y
>  4250 z
>  4130 v
>  3530 x
> The h trails behind all the basic vowels and behind the consonants l and
> n, too, in frequency of use.
>
> Even the measured time it takes to pronounce h, 77-109 msec for me,
> similar in published results for other languages, is not like quicksilver.
> In this respect, h is one of the faster fricatives, but in the middle of
> the pack for vowels, stops, and liquids.
> So, why does it need a "lightweight" graphical representation?
>
> What about the argument that spelling with apostrophe instead of h
> simplifies explanations of morphology?
> Except for "e" and "o" having the same phonology rules,
> every other pair of letters differs in its allowed usages -- they are all
> special cases.
> The h is far more constrained than the other consonants in its usage,
> but it appears in every type of word except the gismu.
>
> I think the principal rule that makes h seem special is the constraint
> that brivla have a consonant pair in the first five letters of the word,
> after excluding h and y.
> Still, if in this respect h is not a real consonant and y is not a real
> vowel,
> then why is y allowed in the alphabet, but h not?
>
> In terms of practical convenience, it is nice to be able to search in an
> editor for whole words
> and have the editor software agree with you about what characters occur in
> words.
> Typing /[a-z]+/ is much nicer than /[a-z',]+/.
> And who wants to have to hack emacs syntax tables to search for words?
>
> So, after I come to the conclusion that h/' ought to be in the alphabet as
> much as y or any consonant,
> I think about how best to represent it.
> The answer to that depends on past usage in other languages and on our
> desire to take advantage of
> habit and familiarity to assist those learning lojban.
> All the languages with latin alphabets that I know of that use the h sound
> also use the h grapheme to represent it.
> French lacks the sound so it uses the letter as a separator.
> Spanish has only x which is written j.
> Ancient Greek used to have a rough breathing sound represented by
> a left-side arc or the left half of capital HTA,
>   while the apostrophe-looking mark represented the lack of an h at the
> start of a word.
> Modern Greek has no h sound, just a x.
>
> The use of "h" for the unvoiced glottal fricative seems like a slam dunk
> choice to me.
>
> mihe la bremenli
>
> --
> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups
> "lojban" group.
> To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an
> email to lojban+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com.
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> Visit this group at https://groups.google.com/group/lojban.
> For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
>

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<div dir=3D"ltr"><div class=3D"gmail_default" style=3D"font-family:courier =
new,monospace">For the reasons given in the Apologia, I&#39;d welcome a cha=
nge from &quot;&#39;&quot; to &quot;h&quot; IF it were essentially communit=
y-wide. It&#39;s only the fringe aspect of its use that makes it unappealin=
g.=C2=A0</div><div class=3D"gmail_default" style=3D"font-family:courier new=
,monospace"><br></div><div class=3D"gmail_default" style=3D"font-family:cou=
rier new,monospace">stevo=C2=A0</div></div><div class=3D"gmail_extra"><br><=
div class=3D"gmail_quote">On Fri, Jun 23, 2017 at 5:34 PM,  <span dir=3D"lt=
r">&lt;<a href=3D"mailto:vpbroman@gmail.com" target=3D"_blank">vpbroman@gma=
il.com</a>&gt;</span> wrote:<br><blockquote class=3D"gmail_quote" style=3D"=
margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex"><div dir=3D"=
ltr"><p class=3D"m_5844155319108251699separator" style=3D"text-align:center=
;clear:both"><br></p>I was questioned on my usually using &quot;h&quot; ins=
tead of &quot; &#39; &quot; in lojban,<br>so I would like to explain my rea=
soning and usage preference,<br>and I invite constructive criticism, since =
I am surely open to reason in reconsidering the issue.<br><br>First, like e=
very supreme court justice nominee I have ever heard,<br>I understand the g=
reat value of &quot;stare decicis&quot;, &quot;let what is decided stand&qu=
ot;.<br>Zamenhof laid down the unchangeable Fundamento to avoid the chaos<b=
r>of endless amendments by creative conlangers.<br>Still which &quot;decisi=
s&quot; are the ones that must &quot;stare&quot;?<br><br>From 1955, TLI log=
lan had no kind of &quot;h&quot; or &quot;x&quot; until 1981,<br>when the f=
ormer was added as a regular consonant phoneme,<br>and the latter was its s=
pecial-case colleague.<br>This is still true of TLI Loglan.<br>By 1989, LLG=
 loglan/lojban arose with a regular consonant &quot;x&quot; and a special &=
quot; &#39; &quot;.<br><br>In CLL1, the pronunciation is canonical, even if=
 inexact,<br>but for the orthography there is a standard form,<br>as well a=
s two alternatives that seem to be accepted (Cyrillic and Tengwar),<br>plus=
 the International Phonetic Alphabet, IPA, used as the standard by which yo=
u define everything else.<br>That is four orthographies.<br><br>In the usag=
e of other lojbanists I see experiments in orthography,<br>e.g. the grave a=
ccents placed on accented vowels,<br>or the underdots or over-breves placed=
 on semivowels, or even a few people using h.<br>I think my usage is not fa=
r from the mainstream,<br>and I coexist happily with those who write differ=
ently.<br><br>My actual extremest position is to use IPA in a broad transcr=
iption when your fonts support it,<br>but to do CLL with h when ASCII-only =
is required.<br>The IPA is a very widely accepted international standard.<b=
r>An IPA dress for lojban does not look that strange or different; see this=
 example.<br><p class=3D"m_5844155319108251699separator" style=3D"text-alig=
n:center;clear:both"><a href=3D"https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-QhCJoJuy=
Yo4/WU2TSwKPGII/AAAAAAAAAK0/FGRJOHGog04BlOq-NFyVj9__miCOT0E_gCLcBGAs/s1600/=
ipa-example.png" style=3D"margin-left:1em;margin-right:1em" target=3D"_blan=
k"><img src=3D"https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-QhCJoJuyYo4/WU2TSwKPGII/A=
AAAAAAAAK0/FGRJOHGog04BlOq-NFyVj9__miCOT0E_gCLcBGAs/s400/ipa-example.png" w=
idth=3D"400" border=3D"0" height=3D"56"></a></p><br>Now, which spelling is =
better and why?<br><br>In CLL1 3.3 the apostrophe, period, and comma are gr=
ouped together as characters that divide syllables,<br>but the period and c=
omma are silent ways of separating words or syllables,<br>while the apostro=
phe is an audible way to separate syllables<br>in precisely the same way th=
at &quot;t&quot; separates the syllables in &quot;mlatu&quot;.<br>Nothing s=
pecial there.<br><br>In the same section, we read<br>=C2=A0=C2=A0=C2=A0 The=
 letter &quot;h&quot; is not used to represent this sound for two reasons:<=
br>=C2=A0=C2=A0=C2=A0 primarily in order to simplify explanations of the mo=
rphology,<br>=C2=A0=C2=A0=C2=A0 but also because the sound is very common, =
and the apostrophe<br>=C2=A0=C2=A0=C2=A0 is a visually lightweight represen=
tation of it.<br><br>The sound is not so very common as to justifying it be=
ing a special case.<br>In 130000 words of lojban I can quickly lay my hands=
 on, the letter frequencies are as follows.<br>55421 i<br>46986 a<br>43758 =
u<br>38175 o<br>36048 l<br>27341 e<br>26722 n<br>21790 h/&#39;<br>20522 c<b=
r>17803 s<br>16437 r<br>14279 m<br>13755 t<br>13551 k<br>10828 d<br>=C2=A09=
181 b<br>=C2=A08832 p<br>=C2=A07037 j<br>=C2=A05199 g<br>=C2=A05017 f<br>=
=C2=A04713 y<br>=C2=A04250 z<br>=C2=A04130 v<br>=C2=A03530 x<br>The h trail=
s behind all the basic vowels and behind the consonants l and n, too, in fr=
equency of use.<br><br>Even the measured time it takes to pronounce h, 77-1=
09 msec for me,<br>similar in published results for other languages, is not=
 like quicksilver.<br>In this respect, h is one of the faster fricatives, b=
ut in the middle of the pack for vowels, stops, and liquids.<br>So, why doe=
s it need a &quot;lightweight&quot; graphical representation?<br><br>What a=
bout the argument that spelling with apostrophe instead of h<br>simplifies =
explanations of morphology?<br>Except for &quot;e&quot; and &quot;o&quot; h=
aving the same phonology rules,<br>every other pair of letters differs in i=
ts allowed usages -- they are all special cases.<br>The h is far more const=
rained than the other consonants in its usage,<br>but it appears in every t=
ype of word except the gismu.<br><br>I think the principal rule that makes =
h seem special is the constraint<br>that brivla have a consonant pair in th=
e first five letters of the word, after excluding h and y.<br>Still, if in =
this respect h is not a real consonant and y is not a real vowel,<br>then w=
hy is y allowed in the alphabet, but h not?<br><br>In terms of practical co=
nvenience, it is nice to be able to search in an editor for whole words<br>=
and have the editor software agree with you about what characters occur in =
words.<br>Typing /[a-z]+/ is much nicer than /[a-z&#39;,]+/.<br>And who wan=
ts to have to hack emacs syntax tables to search for words?<br><br>So, afte=
r I come to the conclusion that h/&#39; ought to be in the alphabet as much=
 as y or any consonant,<br>I think about how best to represent it.<br>The a=
nswer to that depends on past usage in other languages and on our desire to=
 take advantage of<br>habit and familiarity to assist those learning lojban=
.<br>All the languages with latin alphabets that I know of that use the h s=
ound<br>also use the h grapheme to represent it.<br>French lacks the sound =
so it uses the letter as a separator.<br>Spanish has only x which is writte=
n j.<br>Ancient Greek used to have a rough breathing sound represented by<b=
r>a left-side arc or the left half of capital HTA,<br>=C2=A0 while the apos=
trophe-looking mark represented the lack of an h at the start of a word.<br=
>Modern Greek has no h sound, just a x.<br><br>The use of &quot;h&quot; for=
 the unvoiced glottal fricative seems like a slam dunk choice to me.<br><br=
>mihe la bremenli<span class=3D"HOEnZb"><font color=3D"#888888"><br><br></f=
ont></span></div><span class=3D"HOEnZb"><font color=3D"#888888">

<p></p>

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</font></span></blockquote></div><br></div>

<p></p>

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