From LOJBAN@CUVMB.CC.COLUMBIA.EDU Sat Mar 6 22:59:23 2010 Return-Path: Delivered-To: veion@XIRON.PC.HELSINKI.FI Received: (qmail 1105 invoked from network); 27 Nov 1996 11:27:30 -0000 Received: from SEGATE.SUNET.SE (192.36.125.6) by xiron.pc.helsinki.fi with SMTP; 27 Nov 1996 11:27:29 -0000 Received: from listmail.sunet.se by SEGATE.SUNET.SE (LSMTP for OpenVMS v1.1a) with SMTP id <9.D14F2D61@SEGATE.SUNET.SE>; Wed, 27 Nov 1996 12:27:28 +0100 Date: Wed, 27 Nov 1996 11:25:16 GMT+0 Reply-To: And Rosta Sender: Lojban list From: And Rosta Organization: University of Central Lancashire Subject: Re: subordinate interrogatives X-To: LOJBAN@cuvmb.cc.columbia.edu To: Veijo Vilva Content-Length: 1887 Lines: 46 Message-ID: Mark: > >{kuau} is just an alternative to {loy duu}. It is not approved by > >Lojban Central, because it is motivated solely by conceptual > >elegance, and not by dire need. > >The issue Jorge address is: What is the logical alternative to the > >colloquial {mo kaw}? [& Xorxes gives the answer.] > Your orthography gets harder to follow by the month. Why "kuau" for > "ku'au" but "kaw" for "kau"? Why isn't it "kuaw"? At least be > consistent. I'm not sure that CVhVV is valid. Anyway, I originally proposed {kuau} as CVhVhV (I think). Hence {kuau} rather than {kuaw}. > And what do you get by "loy" instaed of "loi"? Oh, loi for > lo'i? Right. > It doesn't look to me like you're gaining anything but your own > aesthetics, which doesn't seem reason enough to change a writing system > that others are using beyond recognition (you don't go to France and say > "You know what, guys? That cedilla is really dumb; from now on I'm writing > it with an s.") You might do that to French. With Lojban, there's more of a presumption of optimality and engineeredness - that the language has been engineered to make it optimal. Hence one has a correspondingly greater inclination to engage in such engineering oneself. More than issues of arbitrary and subjective aesthetics are involved. The question I ask myself is: if the orthography were being designed from scratch, which system would one choose? If that were the question being asked generally, and properly debated and voted on, then I might be more inclined to go with the collective choice. But in fact decisions and choices are governed by inertia and a will to preserve the status quo, and I am disinclined to myself feel governed by such choices. > Then again, I hypocritically support "h" as an alloglyph > for ' in Lojban. Go figure. > > ~mark That hardly has the same potential for sowing confusion. coo, mie And