Message-Id: <199604101936.PAA03189@locke.ccil.org>
Date:         Wed, 10 Apr 1996 14:25:48 -0400
Reply-To: Logical Language Group <lojbab@ACCESS.DIGEX.NET>
Sender: Lojban list <LOJBAN@CUVMB.BITNET>
From: Logical Language Group <lojbab@ACCESS.DIGEX.NET>
Subject:      * on h
To: John Cowan <cowan@LOCKE.CCIL.ORG>
Content-Length: 2112

Last month, And wrote:
>As for the idea that using <h>
>implies that there is a C at that position:  it doesn't when the lojban
>orthography is looked at in isolation, and while admittedly H functions
>as a rather defective consonant in the phonologies of latin and some
>other major languages that use the roman alph, equally it also functions
>as a diacritic of sorts in pretty well every major roman alph language.

A good point, but only for the linguistically aware/educated.  The
average schoolkid, or even the average Esperantist who uses 'h' instead
of a diacritic, is NOT thinking of the fact that 'h' is a diacritic.
The term that they use in the schools is "consonant blend" of two
"consonants".  While you and I may realize that "sh" is something more
than a blend of "s" and "h", that is not what the average kid is taught.

>Then there's the matter, raised by Ivan & JulianP, of omission of <'>
>obscuring certain within-selmao patternings.  The same criticism can be
>levelled at the loglany alternative standard, of course.  My initial
>response to this is:  (i) how widespread are these patternings?  (ii)
>how many are lost through nonuse of the std std?  (iii) are any useful
>new patternings in fact brought into being by nonuse of the std std?
>Let's assume for the sake of argument that the upshot of (i-iii) is that
>the std std is significantly better.  Well in that case we could equally
>well seek a way of marking <ei> <ai> <oi> <au>, e.g. by some diacritical
>mark, or by using a different character for the glide - e.g.  <ey> <ay>
><oy> <aw> (also <wa we wi wo wu ya ye yi yo yu>) tho this particular
>suggestion has the disadvantage of making <y> correspond (unambiguously)
>to two phonemes.

If I were "doing it over", I might indeed use 'y' for the diphthong
glide, and try to find another way to express the schwa.  The only two
free letters in that case would be 'q' and 'h', though, which are both
traditionally consonants in natlang orthographies.  The bottom line is
that Roman orthography has too few vowel letterals, even for the fairly
sparse vowel set of Lojban.

lojbab