From nobody@digitalkingdom.org Sun Jan 03 02:55:53 2010 Received: with ECARTIS (v1.0.0; list lojban-list); Sun, 03 Jan 2010 02:55:54 -0800 (PST) Received: from nobody by chain.digitalkingdom.org with local (Exim 4.69) (envelope-from ) id 1NRO7k-0004pv-Ug for lojban-list-real@lojban.org; Sun, 03 Jan 2010 02:55:53 -0800 Received: from mail.gmx.net ([213.165.64.20]) by chain.digitalkingdom.org with smtp (Exim 4.69) (envelope-from ) id 1NRO7f-0004oR-Up for lojban-list@lojban.org; Sun, 03 Jan 2010 02:55:51 -0800 Received: (qmail invoked by alias); 03 Jan 2010 10:55:40 -0000 Received: from f050242061.adsl.alicedsl.de (EHLO kobra) [78.50.242.61] by mail.gmx.net (mp021) with SMTP; 03 Jan 2010 11:55:40 +0100 X-Authenticated: #370125 X-Provags-ID: V01U2FsdGVkX193ihAfexR3oh5Q+Hax3QFBGC1WbrOU/mV0mBAAy2 fY/Q91SuaMyuuH Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8; format=flowed; delsp=yes To: lojban-list@lojban.org Date: Sun, 03 Jan 2010 11:55:39 +0100 Subject: [lojban] Initial impression MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit X-MIME-Autoconverted: from quoted-printable to 8bit by Ecartis From: "Klaus F. Abel" Message-ID: User-Agent: Opera Mail/10.10 (Win32) X-Y-GMX-Trusted: 0 X-FuHaFi: 0.62 X-archive-position: 16759 X-ecartis-version: Ecartis v1.0.0 Sender: lojban-list-bounce@lojban.org Errors-to: lojban-list-bounce@lojban.org X-original-sender: kfa@gmx.net Precedence: bulk Reply-to: lojban-list@lojban.org X-list: lojban-list Dear friends, A happy new year to everybody! I just discovered this site and find it really exciting. As a computer programmer, the idea of a completely parseable human language sounds ingenious. I'll definitely want to learn more about Lojban. My native language is German, I'm fluent in English and Esperanto, have basic knowledge in French, Spanish, Finnish, Russian, and got just a taste of Chinese. From an initial impression, regarding the chapter on alternative orthographies, it appears to me that development of Lojban is still in flux. Is that correct? If yes, I hope it's not a complete heresy to sound off a few spontaneous dislikes which might put some people off getting friendly with it. 1. First, the usage of punctuation marks for pronounciation aides is confusing and looks simply ugly. Although this may sound subjective, the development of our various alphabets has come a long way also in the field of aesthetics. Therefore I believe that many would agree in an initial judgment about a language that deliberately ruptures the image. Punctuation ought to be reserved for marking various degrees of breaks and pauses in the flux of speech or thought - between words, not within. It adds structure to written text to make it easier on the eye - remember how it came about, most ancient and early medieval scripts did not use punctuation at all. Even if this language uses marker words in its stead, if you want it to be read by humans and not only by machines, you have to accomodate human perception to a degree. And the apostrophe represents an omission, either to indicate sloppy speech, to facilitate rhythm keeping in poetry, or the like. All these identifications are preoccupied and not easily unlearned. 2. If the apostrophe between vocals stands simply for a spoken 'h' sound, what's the point of not using the 'h' proper, especially since it is otherwise not used at all? The argument of better visibility and greater simplicity of the apostrophe is quite subjective and I can't find myself subscribing to it. In that case, why such a privilege for the 'h' sound over any other? Then a different alphabet should be developed with overall simper graphics, that would facilitate faster handwriting and easier recognizability than the Roman letters. Shavian or Shorthand are examples of such an endeavour. 3. Most irritating I find the full stop at the beginning of a word to mark the glottal stop where a word begins with a vocal. Most languages don't write the glottal stop at all, but I assume there is a good reason for it which I will discover when reading on. Maltese is an exception to this, it uses the 'q' for the glottal stop. As this letter also has been otherwise disused for Lojban, it seems just perfect to fill the spot. 4. Same goes for the comma in the middle of the word to separate vocals that do not form a diphtong. Again the 'q' would seem perfect in its place. This would introduce different pronounciation rules for the 'q' depending on its position, but sufficiently simple and unambiguous. 5. The forced adding of an 's' (or at least any consonant, if I understand correctly) to transliterated names that end on a vocal comes across to me almost as an act of violence against a sacrosanct name, I find it disturbing at best. Yet again the 'q' seems the ideal fit for the purpose of fulfilling the rule that it must end on a consonant. It would not alter the sound of the spoken name, since it would remain silent as the glottal stop at the end of a word is not pronounced (hardly doable at all). (Could this possibly create ambiguity in spoken language?) An alternative for the silent consonant could be 'w', as it occurs sometimes in German (e.g. the name Pankow, a borough of Berlin, is pronounced "paŋkoː"). From this viewpoint it would be even better suited than 'q' to replace the midword comma as well. But these issues are honestly just pristine feedback aimed at only serving the course. I am not aware of others having expressed similar or contrary thoughts. All in all, I can only laud this project and its creators, wishing you great success in the coming year, decade, and beyond. Sincerely, Klaus F. Abel To unsubscribe from this list, send mail to lojban-list-request@lojban.org with the subject unsubscribe, or go to http://www.lojban.org/lsg2/, or if you're really stuck, send mail to secretary@lojban.org for help.