From cbmvax!uunet!prc.unisys.com!dave Tue Feb 11 22:37:47 1992 Return-Path: Received: by snark.thyrsus.com (/\==/\ Smail3.1.21.1 #21.19) id ; Tue, 11 Feb 92 22:37 EST Received: by cbmvax.cbm.commodore.com (5.57/UUCP-Project/Commodore 2/8/91) id AA05531; Tue, 11 Feb 92 22:11:26 EST From: cbmvax!uunet!prc.unisys.com!dave Received: from rutgers.edu by relay1.UU.NET with SMTP (5.61/UUNET-internet-primary) id AA17471; Tue, 11 Feb 92 21:10:05 -0500 Received: from cbmvax.UUCP by rutgers.edu (5.59/SMI4.0/RU1.4/3.08) with UUCP id AA05725; Tue, 11 Feb 92 18:09:42 EST Received: by cbmvax.cbm.commodore.com (5.57/UUCP-Project/Commodore 2/8/91) id AA20681; Tue, 11 Feb 92 18:07:28 EST Received: from CUVMB.COLUMBIA.EDU (via uunet.UU.NET) by relay1.UU.NET with SMTP (5.61/UUNET-internet-primary) id AA10388; Tue, 11 Feb 92 16:47:28 -0500 Received: from arbor.PRC.Unisys.COM by CUVMB.COLUMBIA.EDU (IBM VM SMTP R1.2.1) with TCP; Tue, 11 Feb 92 16:46:24 EST Received: from gem.PRC.Unisys.COM by arbor.PRC.Unisys.COM (4.1/mls/3.3) id AA12846; Tue, 11 Feb 92 16:44:52 EST Received: from emerald.PRC.Unisys.COM by gem.PRC.Unisys.COM (4.1/mls/3.3) id AA03498; Tue, 11 Feb 92 16:47:23 EST Message-Id: <9202112147.AA03498@gem.PRC.Unisys.COM> Received: by emerald.PRC.Unisys.COM (4.1/mls/3.3) id AA00785; Tue, 11 Feb 92 16:47:10 EST Date: Tue, 11 Feb 92 16:47:10 EST To: cbmvax!UUNET.UU.NET@cuvmb.cc.columbia.edu!snark.thyrsus.com!cowan In-Reply-To: John Cowan's message of Tue, 11 Feb 1992 14:08:13 EST <9202111957.AA09874@cunixf.cc.columbia.edu> Subject: Re: Unofficial alphabet lists for Lojban/Latin/English, Greek, and Russian Status: RO If A and Alpha are distinguished only by the alphabet-shift letteral, why does Aleph get a name of its own? Is it because upper-case A and upper-case Alpha have the same glyph? If so, I don't like this, because everybody uses the lower-case alpha to avoid this confusion. ("Everybody" meaning people who use Greek letters in formulae; I don't know any Greek language.) In my experience, the primary use for the non-English alphabet letters is in writing mathematical formulae. Hence the main criterion for letteral names is that they be easily read in that context (which might involve a LOT of alphabet shifts!). I think whatever letteral scheme is adopted ought to pay close attention to this issue. Japanese kana come in two flavors: Hiragana and Katakana (not sure of my Anglicized spelling...). These aren't alphabets, but _syllabaries_, one glyph per syllable. [If you conclude from this that the Japanese must use many fewer syllables than we do, you're right.] Hence, each already has a pronunciation and an obvious Roman alphabet (Romanjii) spelling. Now, I don't offhand know whether they are all "legal" Lojban syllables, but most names have to get seriously mangled in order to be legal Lojban. On another issue: not being a physicist, I don't use femto- a whole lot, but as a computer scientist, nano- and pico- and giga- are part of my everyday vocabulary (and tera- is starting to be). Let's not cripple the language for scientific use. Stay close to the metric system, provide convenient ways to say things like "1.36^24" and "(alpha) A (beta) --> B".