Message-Id: <199509292018.QAA13978@locke.ccil.org>
Date:         Fri, 29 Sep 1995 19:53:05 +0100
Reply-To: ucleaar <ucleaar@UCL.AC.UK>
Sender: Lojban list <LOJBAN@CUVMB.BITNET>
From: ucleaar <ucleaar@UCL.AC.UK>
Subject:      Consonant buffer
To: John Cowan <cowan@LOCKE.CCIL.ORG>
Status: OR

Paulo Barreto:
> I have been seeing words like "lehavla" instead of "le'avla" and
> "giuste" instead of "gi'uste" in this list. Initially I thought
> this was due to keyboard limitations, but some articles mix the
> forms of writing. Is it optional to use the apostrophe, or to
> replace it by "h"?
John Cowan:
> The apostrophe is standard and preferred.  Some people like to
> use an "h" instead, and this is a semi-standard variant. And Rosta
> likes to omit it altogether, using an "h" when ambiguity would result:
> he writes "ba'a" as "baa", "ba'i" as "bahi".

The proposal to make {h} a standard allograph (or "alloglyph", in
Mark Shoulson's terminology) of {'} received quite a lost of support
when it was made, but did not become official.

I also follow the practise of omitting {h/'} when it is redundant.

The motivation is partly aesthetic, and partly practical. The {'}
is typographically ugly when preponderant. Most software doesn't
recognize it as a within-word character. Omitting it altogether
makes the text briefer and more pleasing to the eye. I could go
into more details, but won't bother.

Lojbab:
> It has not been cnsidered optional to use the 'h' instead of the
> apostrophe. There is an alternate orthography that was intended
> to be used in a peace settlement with JCB and the Loglan community
> that would allow this, but no one ever uses the alternate orthography
> as a whole to my knowledge.

This is partly because I can't find my copy. It was posted once, ages
ago. I do recall that it looked nicer than standard Lojban orthography,
much as Loglan orthography does (all those vowels connote Hawaiian
lei and hulahula and aloha & lands of cockaigne).

> And Rosta uses the h vs. apostrophe in his Lojban writings, and
> violates other conventions as well, Perhaps because he likes being an
> iconoclast.

Rather, he is a progressive liberal, who prefers that things improve
than that they stay the same, and holds that conformity is only as
virtuous as that which is conformed to.

The standard policy on modifications to Lojban is that changes will
be made by fiat only if something is demonstrably broken. All other
changes will emerge only from usage. Hence, I make in my usage certain
desirable modifications sufficiently minor to adopt without wholesale
restructuring of the language. I don't want to confuse new learners,
but I'd be delighted if others innovated too.

> He has been criticized for this, although his practices ARE fairly
> close to the alternate orthography. Of course it also means that his
> Lojban usages often get ignored (all our automated tools will not
> recognize his texts as being Lojban, so he can't use the parser, or
> get his usages processed into the dictionary).

Cor. That is always the fate of one who does not go with the majority.
The civil rights of the orthographically deviant are withheld; their
usages are shunned.

---
And