Return-Path: Date: Mon, 26 Aug 91 12:11:10 EDT From: "Arthur W. Protin Jr." (GC-ACCURATE) To: lojban-list@snark.thyrsus.com Subject: Re: th in Lojban Message-Id: <9108261211.aa29377@COR4.PICA.ARMY.MIL> Status: RO X-From-Space-Date: Mon Aug 26 14:36:24 1991 X-From-Space-Address: cbmvax!uunet!PICA.ARMY.MIL!protin Folks, (Same as it ever was, I try to keep quiet but something always drives me to post.) I had a problem with the loss of 'th' 18 years ago. I resolved it then. My understanding of the situation is, regretable at odds with lojbab's: > In Lojban, 't' represents the English 't' and 'th' of korant's > name - he could presumably even pronounc his 't's as 'th'. My position is that the letter 't' in lojban has only the 't' sound! The 'th' sound is a consonant pair. Thus, the question becomes what consonant provides the continuing sound (I cannot remember the words to technically describe the sound catagories. There are the stops 'dptb' and the continueing sounds 'mnlrscxfv'.) I find that the closest thing to the 'th' sound are the consonant pairs 'ts' and 'tx' where most uses I heard I would write as the former. Eg., Ruts, Bets, Korants, and Artsur . I would probably treat "Beth" as "Bess". Since lojban does not has an official 'th' sound, I would naturally treat it as a lisp and try to correct for that failing. Thus, unless there was some emphasis on the initial stop or other sound hint to aid in the correction, we will have to assume that 'th' is just an 's'. If lojban accepts the 'th' as an alternative for the 't', then one of the most common speech defects introduces ambiguity into the language. thats the way I see it, Art Arthur Protin These are my personal views and do not reflect those of my boss or this installation.