From LOJBAN%CUVMB.bitnet@YaleVM.YCC.YALE.EDU Sat Mar 6 22:50:09 2010 Received: from YALEVM.YCC.YALE.EDU by MINERVA.CIS.YALE.EDU via SMTP; Mon, 2 Aug 1993 12:50:32 -0400 Received: from CUVMB.CC.COLUMBIA.EDU by YaleVM.YCC.Yale.Edu (IBM VM SMTP V2R2) with BSMTP id 1737; Mon, 02 Aug 93 12:48:38 EDT Received: from CUVMB.COLUMBIA.EDU by CUVMB.CC.COLUMBIA.EDU (Mailer R2.07) with BSMTP id 3854; Mon, 02 Aug 93 12:43:45 EDT Date: Mon, 2 Aug 1993 17:40:30 +0100 Reply-To: ucleaar@UCL.AC.UK Sender: Lojban list From: Mr Andrew Rosta Subject: Re: logban ' X-To: lojban@cuvma.BITNET, Colin Fine To: Erik Rauch In-Reply-To: (Your message of Fri, 30 Jul 93 10:17:41 N.) <9307300921.AA25497@link-1.ts.bcc.ac.uk> Status: RO X-Status: X-From-Space-Date: Ukn Aug 2 12:50:36 1993 X-From-Space-Address: ucleaar@UCL.AC.UK Message-ID: Colin (an antiallographist) writes: > 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 In English it counts as a consonant. But in Lojban it wouldn't. Phoneticians & phonologists have tended to treat h as both consonant and vowel or as neither. (In terms of phonation it is like an obstruent but in terms of articulatory stricture it is like a vowel.) So for Lojban to say it is neither a C nor a V would be quite well motivated. > 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). I accept this as a general objection to allography, but note that a lot of people on the list, including many lurkers, have spoken out in favour of h as an allograph of '. The arguments really come down to aesthetics vs. recognizability, with each alternative facilitating ease of use in some ways. If one were to prefer to increase recognizability by stamping out harmless variation, there already exists harmless variation in Lojban orthography which could be stamped out. For example, on the whole the presence of spaces between words is optional, but for me it takes time to spot that something is not a lujvo but a concatenation of several cmavo. Me being liberal, I accept this, but on the antivariationist principle there ought to be rules making it obligatory to concatenate or not concatenate words. Such rules would not be necessary for the grammar to work, but they would aid recognition. ---- And