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Date: Wed, 22 Mar 2000 15:54:33 -0500
From: "Bob LeChevalier (lojbab)" <lojbab@lojban.org>
Subject: Re: [lojban] Translating names
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From: "Bob LeChevalier (lojbab)" <lojbab@lojban.org>

At 04:58 AM 03/22/2000 -0500, pycyn@aol.com wrote:
>The final consonant and the pause are needed for segmentation purposes but
>are not otherwise significant.  Nor, in Lojban, is the choice of final
>consonant; in Loglan, -s is required in borrowed or constructed names that
>would end in a vowel.

I don't recall him ever saying 's' was required, but it is one he used 
commonly.  As you note, he also used 'n' a lot.

>   I suspect that JCB used -s because, as suggested, it
>was familiar, but also because he took it to be a minimal addition (talking
>about {romas} for Rome, he notes how little the mere -s would bother a Roman,
>though he is contrasting it with the effect of dropping the last syllable.
>He makes a similar comment about {paRIS} for French).  Lojban's preference
>for s probably is inherited.  The preference for n probably is, too; it
>appeared in constructed names first where it was vaguely justified
>({loglentan, the last element from {takna}) then where it was not.  It was
>also used to make names out of cmavo ({nen}, One).  Again this is familiar
>and minimal (in some sense) and, I suspect, the symmetry of {nen}, the most
>common case, was appealing to JCB.  Both of these rules or patterns might
>have been generalized in Lojban's more relaxed atmosphere.

There was one other conscious reason for MY using "n".  This was also a 
conscious letter choice in a small number of gismu that were made wherein 
it did not matter what consonant was chosen in a given position; I later 
regretted this because of rafsi collisions.  It is a syllable-ending 
consonant that is phonologically acceptable in many languages that prefer 
to avoid CVC syllables.  It therefore probably sounds more pleasant to a 
speaker of such languages.

In addition, because of the mapping of Chinese phonemes it is also the most 
common syllable ending consonant in Lojban, with r and s and c also in 
there.  Thus rafsi using n are common and names built to emulate lujvo or 
to chop a character off a gismu will tend to end in these letters (JCB's 
dog's name: "cimr").  I think that s and c occur so much in the language 
that I get sibilant-tired, and so I avoid using them in names.  I don't 
know why I never end names with 'r'.

lojbab
----
lojbab                                             lojbab@lojban.org
Bob LeChevalier, President, The Logical Language Group, Inc.
2904 Beau Lane, Fairfax VA 22031-1303 USA                    703-385-0273
Artificial language Loglan/Lojban:  http://www.lojban.org (newly updated!)


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