Message-ID: <38D74401.585E@math.bas.bg>
Date: Tue, 21 Mar 2000 11:42:25 +0200
Reply-To: iad@math.bas.bg
Organization: Institute for Mathematics and Computer Science
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To: The Lojban List <lojban@onelist.com>
Subject: Re: [lojban] Translating names
References: <8b69v1+fml0@eGroups.com> <38D6AD90.4583C26D@reutershealth.com> <200003202328.AAA27291@Zeke.Update.UU.SE>
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From: Ivan A Derzhanski <iad@MATH.BAS.BG>
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Thorild Selen wrote:
> John Cowan writes:
>  > > are the final letters "s" and "n" preferred, and if so, why?
>  >
>  > Historical accident.  You are perfectly free to add "vzv" if you prefer.
> 
> I think I can tell you why.
> We are comfortable with adding -s and -n to words, because they already
> are very common endings for nouns in languages that we know well --
> -s in English and Spanish, and -n in German and Finnish, for example.

Common in some classes of nouns, anyway.  Women's names in {-a}
start looking and sounding like Lithuanian men's names when {s}
is attached to them.  Not necessarily a good idea.

Another problem is that it is hard to tell if the {s} or {n}
was there originally or is a cmene-maker.  That's why I have
suggested that the thing appended to vowel-final names should be
something that the name couldn't end in, or would be unlikely to
-- John's {vzv} is a reasonable candidate.

--Ivan