From C.J.Fine@BRADFORD.AC.UK Fri Jul 30 05:20:50 1993 Received: from YALEVM.YCC.YALE.EDU by MINERVA.CIS.YALE.EDU via SMTP; Fri, 30 Jul 1993 05:20:48 -0400 Received: from YALEVM.CIS.YALE.EDU by YaleVM.YCC.Yale.Edu (IBM VM SMTP V2R2) with BSMTP id 1673; Fri, 30 Jul 93 05:19:36 EDT Received: from YALEVM.CIS.YALE.EDU (NJE origin LISTSERV@YALEVM) by YALEVM.CIS.YALE.EDU (LMail V1.1d/1.7f) with BSMTP id 8163; Fri, 30 Jul 1993 05:19:35 -0400 Date: Fri, 30 Jul 1993 10:17:41 +0100 Reply-To: Colin Fine Sender: Lojban list From: Colin Fine Subject: Re: logban ' X-To: conlang@diku.dk, LOJBAN@cuvmb.BITNET To: Erik Rauch Status: RO X-Status: Message-ID: <73AM5HWnkl.A.GN.500kLB@chain.digitalkingdom.org> And asks: +++++++> Why? The only reason I've ever been given is from Lojbab, who calimed that ' is not equivalent to h phonetically. This is not a very good reason, since (a) transcribing Lojban ' by [h] *would* be approved by the IPA, and (b) not all letters of the lojban alphabet (notably c,j,y) correspond to the phonetic values ot the same characters in the IPA alphabet. >++++++++ The reason for me is two-fold (and they are related) 1) 'h' is a letter, and as a letter it is a consonant. Using it in lojban distorts the CV structure 2) Therefore your -h- rich lojban distorts the (starting to be) familiar pattern of lojban words and makes them much harder for me to read. (I have to say them out loud to myself, or mentally translate them, in order to understand them). Obviously I could learn to read your format if I put the effort in. I do not want to have to cope with variant orthographies at this stage, and I prefer the standard lojban orthography partly because it's standard and familiar, and partly because it captures an important structural feature of the language in a way which 'h' hides. Colin