From nobody@digitalkingdom.org Sun Jan 03 20:24:23 2010 Received: with ECARTIS (v1.0.0; list lojban-list); Sun, 03 Jan 2010 20:24:23 -0800 (PST) Received: from nobody by chain.digitalkingdom.org with local (Exim 4.69) (envelope-from ) id 1NReUR-0006jw-AE for lojban-list-real@lojban.org; Sun, 03 Jan 2010 20:24:23 -0800 Received: from mail-yw0-f186.google.com ([209.85.211.186]) by chain.digitalkingdom.org with esmtp (Exim 4.69) (envelope-from ) id 1NReUN-0006hR-Tt for lojban-list@lojban.org; Sun, 03 Jan 2010 20:24:22 -0800 Received: by ywh16 with SMTP id 16so13558886ywh.25 for ; Sun, 03 Jan 2010 20:24:12 -0800 (PST) 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 :from:date:message-id:subject:to:content-type :content-transfer-encoding; bh=6+pCZuLB0klyuxQ0Y3qnoEunrDw9AM4CAtKrfKpqdlY=; b=qf2epsd8N2NwXbUyWHMyk5lNuIDvEPcERWsNZ0iZQ2/aCbdcBxKXSphQ1x3eBnJdVB hXZ22wvlZa5ALQ6OMJ2k4Svc8VaR5m7bWAZ7V+zNFgcUel4ZaytMyWUudiHbe8CJRi8G mIhUj/oxZK5SIxeEL9ffAgmEvCfDOkhDDbGMg= DomainKey-Signature: a=rsa-sha1; c=nofws; d=gmail.com; s=gamma; h=mime-version:in-reply-to:references:from:date:message-id:subject:to :content-type:content-transfer-encoding; b=K/RqAPVJaUSQorMDt7CwHVTMfPoTirTKHhdgtD11/BF/oumME/U7ZaI0f7feM9sRcT vgVTxoc58uRyZTRaArUmSC+hVu/Lvcb0Uklc6L5rvurhpXnH/F8AFe5Us+y4gXzpf3Nx RDPufGQoHGmI0d3XyP9aIzgZW/MKEtjLoNDfI= MIME-Version: 1.0 Received: by 10.101.27.6 with SMTP id e6mr22940203anj.33.1262579052057; Sun, 03 Jan 2010 20:24:12 -0800 (PST) In-Reply-To: <425e4ac21001031952t22834298oa24977c0eef72d35@mail.gmail.com> References: <425e4ac21001031952t22834298oa24977c0eef72d35@mail.gmail.com> From: Christopher Doty Date: Sun, 3 Jan 2010 20:23:52 -0800 Message-ID: Subject: [lojban] Re: Initial impression To: lojban-list@lojban.org Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit X-MIME-Autoconverted: from quoted-printable to 8bit by Ecartis X-archive-position: 16779 X-ecartis-version: Ecartis v1.0.0 Sender: lojban-list-bounce@lojban.org Errors-to: lojban-list-bounce@lojban.org X-original-sender: suomichris@gmail.com Precedence: bulk Reply-to: lojban-list@lojban.org X-list: lojban-list A couple of thoughts, as a newbie (and a linguist). (Have I posted on this list before, or just been lurking? If I haven't posted yet, hi!) On Sun, Jan 3, 2010 at 19:52, Stela Selckiku wrote: >> 1. First, the usage of punctuation marks for pronounciation aides is >> confusing and looks simply ugly. > > They're not punctuation, they're letters.  Letters are quite arbitrary > in general, there's nothing odd about having a couple of letters that > are small dots. I have to agree with the other newbie on this point, although Stela is certainly correct that letters are arbitrary, and the "punctuation" symbols in Lojban count as letters rather than punctuation. Nonetheless, most of the letters in Lojban represent a sort of happy medium between the ways different languages with a Roman alphabet use the letters--/t/ isn't just like English /t/, but it's similar enough for speakers to get an idea of the sound. But, with the English-punctuation Lojban letters, this isn't true, and any effort towards it seems to have been tossed by the wayside. I don't have much issue with the apostrophe used for an /h/ (except, perhaps, that in most languages that use an apostrophe, and in linguistics, it represents a glottal stop). But, whatever, this is fine with me. What I **hate** is the period. Try as I might, I just can't be looking through a Lojban text and not see these as periods. This despite the fact that languages as diverse as Arabic, English, and Japanese/Chinese (which use a circle on the line instead of a dot), use a period for punctuation, and not as a character. (If it was any later, I'd probably argue that there's something psychological happening here, with tiny little bits just not looking quite like full letters...) > We've had various scripts invented in the past few years, it's been > fun.  None have caught on yet in any big way, just a few posts here > and there to the Jbotcan, but it's always possible. I've come up with a system I rather like, that gets rid of all of these little punctuation marks (so annoyed was I with the period :p), but I can't make it pretty enough to share. > All languages do violence to each other's names, I'm afraid. I'm not sure I agree with this. Although it is certainly true that languages do violence to names when they pronounce them, or when converting them from another writing system, they do this in writing much less frequently--English speakers don't rewrite the Spanish name 'Juan' as 'Whann', for example. Nonetheless, Lojban does at least have built-in outs for this. I do wonder about this as Lojban grows and expands, though. I wouldn't be surprised if people stop doing this to names eventually, and just use people's names when talking... Chris 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.