Date: Fri, 29 Jul 1994 23:21:26 -0400
From: Logical Language Group <lojbab>
Message-Id: <199407300321.AA25117@access1.digex.net>
To: lojbab@access.digex.net, lojban@cuvmb.cc.columbia.edu
Subject: Lojbanizing umlaut
Status: RO
X-From-Space-Date: Fri Jul 29 23:21:31 1994
X-From-Space-Address: lojbab

By happenstance, Gary Burgess, co-inventor of Lojban phonology 7 years ago
came over tonight and I raised the issue of transcribing such vowels as
back-unround and front rounded (umlauted) vowels.  He was of 3 minds (no
one says we are too decisive around here at Lojban central.
1) when in doubt, follow the spelling - linguists are of-ten (emphasis on the
non-silent 't') wrong about language and its nature  (Gary is a professional
linguist, i.e. translator, for the US Air Force).
2) Lojban ignores rounding, so back unrounded is the same as back rounded.
But then we didn;t really discuss this 7 years ago, so this is an arbitrary
post facto ruling on your original dicussion and what it meant.
3) Use diphthongs to trnascribe these, possibly "ui" for u: and "oi" for o:
He was unwilling to go so far as to urge "o'e" for the latter, and none of us l
like the glide "o,e" which is more like a diphthong, but rather unLojbanic.
He noted that English does something quite similar in borrowing some umlauted
words, leaving up to posterity to figure out exactly how to pronounce
"Goethe" if you are unfamilair with German phonology.

3) is the only suggestion that hasn't been proposed in this iteration of the 
discussion, so I will add it to the stack of possible techniques.


Nora's opinion is that with names of people, the ultimate source must be
either the person himself or the namer, as to how it should best be
pronounced Lojbanized.  For people where this isn't possible (dead ones, etc.)
and for places of uncertain pronunciation, there will no doubt be multiple
transliterations into Lojban, as with English (how many versions of "Beijing"
have existed in the American press in the last 50 years), and usage or input
from a local native speaker will decide which one sticks for the long term.

So lets do our best guesses and presume that some will sooner or later
get changed when a Lojbanist who knows better tells us that we are culno loi
kalci.

'
lojbab