From cbmvax!uunet!cuvma.bitnet!LOJBAN Thu Dec 5 07:54:00 1991 Return-Path: Date: Thu Dec 5 07:54:00 1991 Message-Id: <9112050345.AA05848@relay2.UU.NET> Reply-To: cbmvax!uunet!pucc.princeton.edu!C.J.Fine Sender: Lojban list From: CJ FINE Subject: Re: response on Lojban names 11/30/91 X-To: lojbab@GREBYN.com X-Cc: Lojban list To: John Cowan , Ken Taylor In-Reply-To: ; from "Logical Language Group" at Dec 2, 91 12:57 am Status: RO Lojbab writes: > > If you are transliterating a name from another language and do not know > how it is pronounced, and cannot ask, it is wisest to preserve spelling, > or to make conventional changes. I don't know how "Mr. Khan" > pronounced his name, but I would transliterate it "genxis. xan." based > on my conventions of mapping /ng/ to /n/, and /h/ and /kh/ to /x/. I believe the closest rendering is 'djengiz'. There is a current Kirghiz author by the name of C,ingiz Aitmatov /tcingiz/. > ... I've been told several times that the > leader of the USSR should not be Lojbanized as "gorbatcof.", but rather > more like "garbaTCAF." No, 'grbaTCOF' is closest. Russian has precise rules for vowel reduction. In this subject, I've just been reviewing Lesson 1, which has been sitting in a drawer unread for lo these many years along with my other Lojban stuff. Reading the names in the exercise I was struck by how much lojbanised English names come out like russified English names - it's the combination of syllabic 'r' and 'e' for 'a'. Incidentally, as well as 'grbatCOF', there's an error in another one: it should be 'crlok. homz.' - there's no 'l' in it. > > (By the way, as an alternate answer to Dave Cortesi regarding the street > number, I might use "la byklyx. cmaklaj. pe li re". I would be > unlikely to use either cardinal or ordinal suffixes, reserving them for > "2nd Avenue"). Colin's answer, using ordinals, might be valid in some > limited situations where the numbers are actually consecutive and > indicate position on the street. This is seldom the case in US > addresses. Or maybe that should be "la'eli re po'e la byklyx. cmaklaj." > That respresented by the number 2 inalienably associated with Buccleuch > small-street. I don't agree that the ordinal is appropriate only when the numbers are consecutively positioned. I have no trouble with a notional order (with gaps) and ordinals within that. But I like your first suggestion. co'omi'e la kolin