From cbmvax!uunet!CUVMA.BITNET!LOJBAN Wed Feb 12 19:28:14 1992 Return-Path: Received: by snark.thyrsus.com (/\==/\ Smail3.1.21.1 #21.19) id ; Wed, 12 Feb 92 19:28 EST Received: by cbmvax.cbm.commodore.com (5.57/UUCP-Project/Commodore 2/8/91) id AA23228; Wed, 12 Feb 92 19:26:47 EST Received: from cunixf.cc.columbia.edu by relay1.UU.NET with SMTP (5.61/UUNET-internet-primary) id AA06163; Wed, 12 Feb 92 18:33:33 -0500 Received: from cuvmb.cc.columbia.edu by cunixf.cc.columbia.edu (5.59/FCB) id AA10433; Wed, 12 Feb 92 18:33:36 EST Message-Id: <9202122333.AA10433@cunixf.cc.columbia.edu> Received: from CUVMB.COLUMBIA.EDU by CUVMB.COLUMBIA.EDU (IBM VM SMTP R1.2.1) with BSMTP id 5690; Wed, 12 Feb 92 18:32:04 EST Received: by CUVMB (Mailer R2.07) id 8039; Wed, 12 Feb 92 18:29:29 EST Date: Wed, 12 Feb 1992 18:00:28 GMT Reply-To: CJ FINE Sender: Lojban list From: CJ FINE Subject: Re: Unofficial alphabet lists for Lojban/Latin/English, Greek, X-To: dean@ANUBIS.NETWORK.com X-Cc: Lojban list To: John Cowan , Eric Raymond , Eric Tiedemann In-Reply-To: ; from "Dean C. Gahlon" at Feb 11, 92 2:35 pm Status: RO Dean Gahlon says: > > I don't know about Devanagari, but as for Japanese kana, given that > (with the exception of ) they already represent syllables, would it > not make sense for the letteral for each one to be the pronunciation > of that particular symbol, possibly with some additional syllable > added for those whose values are simple vowels? (I'd produce a sample > set of letterals under this scheme, but don't have a list of kana > here) I agree, but with reservations. There are a couple of kana which are phonetically different from their theoretical phonological values because of subsequent effects (such as palatalisation). Consider the following paradigms: kaku kakanai kakimasu karu karanai karimasu kasu kasanai kashimasu matsu matanai machimasu You could reasonably name the kana "tsu" as either "tsu" or "tu" .a .i .u .e .o ka ki ku ke ko sa ci su se so ta tci tsu te to na ni nu ne no ha hi fu he ho ma mi mu me mo ya yu yo ra ri ru re ro .ua (.ui) (.ue) .uo .un Also nigori (thickening) and han-nigori (half-thickening). The ones in parenthesis are not used in modern Japanese. Of course you need two different shift-words, because there are two separate sets of kana - katakana and hiragana. I think this is getting out of hand! kolin c.j.fine@bradford.ac.uk