Message-Id: <199602161614.LAA16075@locke.ccil.org>
Date:         Fri, 16 Feb 1996 15:39:05 GMT
Reply-To: Julian Pardoe LADS LDN X1428 <pardoej@LONNDS.ML.COM>
Sender: Lojban list <LOJBAN@CUVMB.BITNET>
From: Julian Pardoe LADS LDN X1428 <pardoej@LONNDS.ML.COM>
Subject:      Re: loglan rapprochement orthography
To: John Cowan <cowan@LOCKE.CCIL.ORG>
Content-Length: 2255

This damn mail tool has just lost the message I was replying to.

Anyway, la .ivan. cusku something about "visual incoherence"
which suggests that I should have explained what I mean by that
phrase.

In a private response to Chris Bogart I said LU
Thus we had V_procedure (I_int).  The trouble was that most of the other
programmers never used any white space so I had to read things like
    I_foo=I_proc(PC_string,I_format_code,D_number);
I found that the {,}s bound more closely than the {_}s, especially
with the followings capitals so that my eyes resolved the above as
    I  foo=I  proc(PC  string,I  format  code,D  number);
Lojban {'}s have the same effect, break a single word into several
visual units.
LI'U.

This is really only a serious problem with fixed-width founts.
Looking at some text on my screen, I suspect that my eye wants
to bind a {.i} to the preceding word unless I put two spaces
before the {.}.  So, my eyes tend to resolve {mi'o .i} as {mi} {o.i}.

But, as I said, I wasn't seriously proposing any alternative to
the current orthography -- even if {Hituwe ro maarbiyi ba galtu.}
looks much nicer to me than {.itu'e ro ma'arbi'i ba galtu}.

On the {au}/{ao} question, I would tend to treat /au/ as one `sound'
and allocate it an orthogram(?) without worrying too much whether
it was related to /u/.  At the phonetic level I'm not at all sure
that the u in [u] is the same as the u in [au].  At the phonemic
level I can't really compare and say that it's /a/ + /u/ and not
/a/ + /o/ -- maybe [u] is an allophone of /o/ that occurs after
/a/.   So, again, I end up treating /au/ as a unit.  {au} and {ao}
are plausible orthograms for this unit.  {au} is somehow more
`scientific'.  {ao} looks nicer.  {u} and {i} tend to combine with other
vowels, {o} does not so {ao} doesn't fit into the pattern if the orthography.
To English speakers {au} might suggest [O:], not [au], whereas (supposing it
doesn't confuse them altogether) {ao} probably suggests [au].

I could go on...but the exact orthography used is probably the least
interesting and least important part of Lojban (though the principles
behind it, e.g. isomorphism, aren't).  To misquote one of history's
more famous {ao}s: Let a hundred orthographies bloom!

- jP --