From cbmvax!uunet!cuvma.bitnet!LOJBAN Thu Feb 13 00:58:48 1992 Return-Path: Received: by snark.thyrsus.com (/\==/\ Smail3.1.21.1 #21.19) id ; Thu, 13 Feb 92 00:58 EST Received: by cbmvax.cbm.commodore.com (5.57/UUCP-Project/Commodore 2/8/91) id AA06047; Wed, 12 Feb 92 22:56:43 EST Received: from rutgers.edu by relay1.UU.NET with SMTP (5.61/UUNET-internet-primary) id AA01393; Wed, 12 Feb 92 22:00:28 -0500 Received: from cbmvax.UUCP by rutgers.edu (5.59/SMI4.0/RU1.4/3.08) with UUCP id AA20141; Wed, 12 Feb 92 20:40:21 EST Received: by cbmvax.cbm.commodore.com (5.57/UUCP-Project/Commodore 2/8/91) id AA23349; Wed, 12 Feb 92 19:28:06 EST Received: from CUVMB.COLUMBIA.EDU (via uunet.UU.NET) by relay2.UU.NET with SMTP (5.61/UUNET-internet-primary) id AA23327; Wed, 12 Feb 92 17:48:25 -0500 Message-Id: <9202122248.AA23327@relay2.UU.NET> Received: from CUVMB.COLUMBIA.EDU by CUVMB.COLUMBIA.EDU (IBM VM SMTP R1.2.1) with BSMTP id 5420; Wed, 12 Feb 92 17:21:43 EST Received: by CUVMB (Mailer R2.07) id 7246; Wed, 12 Feb 92 17:17:28 EST Date: Wed, 12 Feb 1992 17:14:44 -0500 Reply-To: "Mark E. Shoulson" Sender: Lojban list From: "Mark E. Shoulson" Subject: Unofficial alphabet lists for Lojban/Latin/English, Greek, To: lojban@cuvmb.cc.columbia.edu In-Reply-To: John Cowan's message of Wed, 12 Feb 1992 12:43:03 EST Status: RO Cowan: >I don't know. Originally "i"/"j" and "u"/"v"/"w" were not distinct letters; >now they are. The 1976 Israel Standards Institute computer charset separates >bet/vet, kaf/khaf, peh/feh, sin/shin. This is probably reasonable. I'm feeling sort of like reversing myself. After all, the alternation for all the letters like this (except shin/sin, which don't alternate) is determinable by the grammar of the word. Then again, that grammar is so hairy four out of five Israelis would be wrong. OK. They deserve separate lerfu. The only one missing that significant chunks of population still distinguish is taf/"saf" (orig. "thaf", but the Ashkenazim pronounce it "s"). Very few people know that gimel and dalet also sound different depending on the dot, or how to handle a dagesh in another letter (I believe Yemenites are careful about this, though). I'm torn on assigning some of these, though. for kaf/chaf, chet, and qof, I'd recommend {ky./xy., xy.bu, ky.bu} respectively, on Zipfean and cognate grounds (the qof is related to the Latin q, I'm told). peh/feh is easy because they don't overlap any other letter's sounds. Bet/vet and vav are tough, because I'd like bet and vet to be as similar as possible, and since bet doesn't overlap anyone that'd indicate {by./vy.}, leaving {vy.bu} for vav. But vav is a more common letter. I think {by.bu/vy.bu, vy.} is better for bet/vet, vav. Shin/sin, tzadi, and samekh, though, are the real sticking points, since they step on each other so thoroughly, especially since {*tsy.bu} is illegal. Grumble. I suppose {tsabu} is as well, because of the cluster, even as {tsa.bu}. Shin is the most common of these, probably followed by tzadi, then sin, then samekh. Not sure of the positions of tzadi and sin, though. To make life easier, I guess {cy./sy.} for shin/sin, but that leaves samekh with something like {sy.bubu}, which is icky. bleah. Maybe I can come up with something better. Final forms are pretty obvious from context, and you can always break out of lerfu mode to indicate {my. voi famno} or something. >Okay. The character set mentioned above has the following vowels, so they >at least should be included: hireq, sereh, segol, qubbus, qamas, pathah, >shewa, hataph pathah, hataph segol, hataph qamas, holem, shureq. Needless >to say, these are just random character strings to me. Can you map them >into the Lojban vowel set in any reasonable fashion? I was splitting overly-fine hair in my complaint about the vowels. You need words for the symbols; if you can't tell from the marks on the page that a qamatz is katan or gadol, why should the lerfu distinguish? Still some fine-points left, though. Let's see. in order: .ibu, .eibu, .ebu, .ubu, .abu(?), .a'abu(?), .ybu, [see below for hataph-*], .obu, .u'ubu. The trouble with .abu and .a'abu is that the vowels differ not in length but in quality. Modern pronunciation has them identical, but Ashkenazic preserves the more back-sounding qamatz as, well, more back-sounding, while patach is the true {.a} sound. I see no problem with collapsing them phoenitcally to the same sound in Lojban, but whatever we do I can't see myself being able to remember which is which (having looked away from my screen, even now I don't remember if I assigned .abu to patach or qamatz). I almost want .aubu for qamatz, at least that's close to how we might spell a similar sound in English (au as in Australia), but the Lojban pronunciation is hopelessly confusing. The hataph- series are sorta "hyphenated" vowels. Technically they're variants of the shewa (where do you think the English word comes from?), variants of the "moving" (pronounced) shewa, to be precise. They're written as the vowel with a shewa to its right, both under the same letter. Pronounced pretty much the same as a regular vowel, except shorter and never stressed. So I can see either listing two vowels under the letter, or else using {.a'ybu, .e'ybu} and, ugh, {.a'a'y.bu} for those three. Yuch. {.a'a'y.bu} has to go. 'Sides, are things like {.a'y.bu} valid? Didn't think so. Maybe stick with listing both vowels. ~mark