From lojbab Sat Mar 6 22:55:40 2010 Subject: Re: Diphthongs in Lojban To: lojban@cuvmb.cc.columbia.edu From: lojbab Date: Mon, 28 Mar 1994 10:53:41 -0500 (EST) Cc: lojbab (Logical Language Group) In-Reply-To: <199403281541.AA00772@nfs1.digex.net> from "Matthew Faupel" at Mar 28, 94 11:52:47 am X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL23] MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Length: 1447 Status: RO X-From-Space-Date: Mon Mar 28 10:53:41 1994 X-From-Space-Address: lojbab Message-ID: la matius. cusku di'e > 1. Can the "second-class" diphthongs (ia..iu, ua...uu) be used in le'avla? Yes. However, no two le'avla may differ solely on the differential assignment of diphthongs: thus "*bloi,o" and "*blo,io", though both valid le'avla, cannot be both in use. By default, "*bloio" means "*bloi,o". In addition, le'avla like "*bloi,io", with two consecutive diphthongs, are discouraged. > 2. Is the restriction of diphthongs in normal words to ai, au, ei and oi > purely historical? How about the complete non-use of eu, ao etc.? I wasn't there when the decision was made, but I understand that it was basically intended for ease of use. I personally would have permitted "eu" as well, but many people have trouble saying it. Loglan did not (and does not) have "'" at all; there are 25 diphthongs with rules about which are to be pronounced as monosyllables, which as disyllables, and which are variable. Furthermore, "aa", "ee", and "oo", which are disyllabic, could only be used where one of the syllables bears the word stress. The introduction of "'" made all 25 diphthongs sayable as disyllables, and distinct from any retained monosyllables. Monosyllabic diphthongs add nothing except brevity and greater cmavo/rafsi space; 4 apparently seemed like a reasonable tradeoff against increased pronunciation difficulty. -- John Cowan sharing account for now e'osai ko sarji la lojban.