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( [70.224.74.45]) by mx.gmail.com with ESMTP id v50sm1010339pyv.2006.07.01.10.42.41; Sat, 01 Jul 2006 10:42:42 -0700 (PDT) Message-ID: <44A6B369.70006@gmail.com> Date: Sat, 01 Jul 2006 13:39:53 -0400 From: Hugh O'Byrne User-Agent: Mozilla Thunderbird 1.0.7 (Windows/20050923) X-Accept-Language: en-us, en MIME-Version: 1.0 To: lojban-list@lojban.org Subject: [lojban] Re: [hobyrne: Alphabet] References: <20060630232721.15247.qmail@web56404.mail.re3.yahoo.com> <44A5BC53.5040803@kli.org> <12d58c160606302046k5a8d7abbk4d747f36cbe6b8b@mail.gmail.com> In-Reply-To: <12d58c160606302046k5a8d7abbk4d747f36cbe6b8b@mail.gmail.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Spam-Score: -2.4 (--) X-archive-position: 11862 X-ecartis-version: Ecartis v1.0.0 Sender: lojban-list-bounce@lojban.org Errors-to: lojban-list-bounce@lojban.org X-original-sender: hobyrne@gmail.com Precedence: bulk Reply-to: lojban-list@lojban.org X-list: lojban-list Yay! I'm on the list now. I can defend my message! Before I start, in the interests of disclosure, and providing a context for my comments: I am an idealist. It is my weakness. I do not think of implementation difficulties. I don't think of the awkward transition period. I put very little value on cultural inertia. These are all passing things. I think of the goal. And I try and think of the broader implications of the goal. I love ideals. At least, some of them; genocides have been 'justified' by ideals. Lojbanistan appears to be a land where I cannot physically hurt someone, even unintentionally, and is still academic and theoretical enough that I feel I can safely unleash my idealism to the furthest corners. I know I'm still in a place where I can hurt people (other than physically). If I call someone names, please ban me from the forum. If I bash up an idea, I don't mean to bash the person proposing it. I would love to learn, and, yes, I suppose it's probably called arrogance, maybe even teach a little, on this forum. But as I said, idealism is my weakness. I have blind spots, some of which I've described above. Please forgive me them, or understand it'll take quite some persuasion to convince me. On with the show. komfo,amonan wrote: > On 6/30/06, *Mark E. Shoulson* > wrote: > > Now, to respond to the Lojban-specific points from Hugh O'Byrne... > > > From: Hugh O'Byrne > > To: lojban@lojban.org > > Date: Fri, 30 Jun 2006 11:30:31 -0400 > > > > To whom it may concern, > > > > I adore Lojban. The biggest weakness it has, IMHO, is its > alphabet. > > > > Recently, I came across "Visible Speech". The symbols of this > alphabet > > indicate the sound they represent by their shape. For > example, 'b', > > 'd', and 'g' (as in bay, day, gay) are represented by the same > > symbol in > > three different orientations, because the sounds are so similar. > > 'm' is > > a nasal 'b' sound, so its symbol is similar to 'b', with a small > > modification. 'n' is a nasal 'd', so it's the 'd' symbol with > the same > > modification. 'ng' is a nasal 'g', so it's the 'g' symbol > with the > > same > > modification. > > > You should know that VS is not unique in this, though it may be one of > the more developed and consistent such systems. I *think* there is some > basis to the claim that hangul is a featural script like this, and > certainly Tolkien's tengwar is. > > You can read about the featural properties of Hangul here: < > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hangul#Jamo_design > > It looks as if Hangul is featural. It doesn't look as nice, at first glance, but I'll study it too. Of course, Tengwar. I knew that. I like Tengwar, a lot. Thoughtfully constructed by a great linguist. But I like VS more. It appears, to me, to be more complete, more regular. > And tengwar suffers from the same > problem that VS does: all the letters are related and formed in neat > logical ways... which means that they all look alike!! Reading tengwar > takes a lot of practice, because all the letters look more or less > alike. Think how much trouble dyslexics (and even non-dyslexics) have > with d,b,p,q. Now imagine that the *entire alphabet* was like that. Dyslexia... a very good point which I hadn't even considered. I'm glad you brought it to my attention. I shall have to sleep on this. I may write more on this point later. The glib answer would be that Lojban is more difficult for people who have trouble making formal logical associations, and that's part of the intentional design of the language. It is *good* that the grammar is logical, even at the cost of making it difficult. To make it more difficult for people who have trouble with spatial aspects of symbols, with the benefit of making the alphabet more logical, seems in keeping with that Lojban philosophy. It's not *meant* to be easy, as much as it's meant to be *good*. It's meant to be clean, and logical. I'm not too comfortable with this answer, though, because it makes Lojban (or at least my vision of it) appear terribly elitist. Dyslexics develop their own, alternate skill sets for recognising and dealing with symbols. By putting _so_ _much_ emphasis on the spatial aspects of symbols, this may indeed encourage dyslexics to discover and hone these skills sooner, rather than gliding by with 'enough' understanding that's not really enough. Meh. That's a very contrived defense. Hardly worth mentioning, except I already have (oops). I'll think about it some more. This (to my mind) is the most significant argument against VS so far. BTW, The word 'dyslexic' makes *me* feel dyslexic. I have this nagging feeling in the pit of my stomach that it should be 'dislexic'. That 'y' just seems *wrong*. :) > (Want to mess yourself up? Take a text and have the computer replace > every [dbpq] with a *random* character from [dbpq]. Then try to read > it). I'm not sure what you're trying to express here. Take a text and have the computer replace every [aeio] with a random character from [aeio], then try to read it. Pick *any* four (relatively common) letters. Pick 7.8% (approx. frequency of [dbpq] combined) of the letters in the text randomly, and shuffle them. A demonstration only statistically demonstrates something when there are control cases too. > I recall also Herman Miller has a phonetic alphabet called Lhoerr > or something like that which is similarly featural, rather like VS in > philosophy though not in actual design. Lhoerr does seem to be closer to Visible Speech than Hangul. And it uses a wider set of features on the symbols, which goes some way toward addressing the "all letters look alike" argument. Thanks! You've helped me (at least, partially) deflect the biggest argument against the idea! I like the look of it, I like it quite a bit; I'll investigate some more. > The other thing, though, is that Lojban in particular doesn't *need* > VS. The issue of *need* is addressed in another post. > It is the non-solution to a non-problem in Lojban. You don't see a problem. I do. I guess we'll just have to agree to differ. And VS *is* an (at least partial) solution to the problem I see (Lhoerr very possibly being even better). Well, maybe 'problem' isn't the right word for it. Room for improvement along the philosophy that generated Lojban in the first place. Isn't that worth aiming for? > In *English* it > would fill a need: English's writing system is a mess, and it's insanely > complex to deduce how to pronounce an unfamiliar word in general. It > also would be useful for the same purposes that we use the International > Phonetic Alphabet. But Lojban's writing is phonemic already. The > symbols are more or less arbitrary (though strangely familiar to huge > chunks of the literate world), but in order to learn to read with any > fluency you have to learn the symbols iconically, not as collections of > features, so you'd have to learn the VS symbols as if they were > arbitrary too. And once you have your 25-odd symbols learned, there's > no advantage to using VS. The symbols are arbitrary. They don't have to be (at least, on such a high level). That's my point. Stating that familiarity with the symbols is an advantage is dubious to me. More in another post. In summary: I am *so* familiar with the 'o' symbol, I was pronouncing the beginning of the word 'Lojban' like 'logic', even after I had read and practised the alphabet out loud half a dozen times, even after I had used the correct 'o' sound in the middle of other Lojban words. I doubt I was the only one to do this. Because of familiarity. (I was very embarrassed when I heard it pronounced correctly the first time. I had been telling friends and family about this wonderful language, when I hadn't even been saying the name of the language properly.) Learning the symbols iconically, yes, that probably is a necessity for most people. But the process of learning will be more structured because of its regularity. The goal is not so the majority of people don't have to learn something new; in fact, quite the opposite, part of the point is so that people *do* learn something new and fun, right? And that learning is in a well-ordered, structured environment. > It's a nifty alphabet, but it doesn't seem to me to add anything to > Lojban. Lojban may add something to IT, though, since it can discuss > features unambiguously... It doesn't add to the language of Lojban, no (at least, not immediately). It adds to the culture. It embodies (what I see as) the ideal of Lojban. It expresses the philosophy. It supports Lojban. > I agree with Mark here. It sounds like Mr O'Byrne's objection to use of > the Roman alphabet for Lojban is down to its 1) illogicality and 2) > cultural bias. Understandable. Right, thanks. > But it seems that we don't think in terms of phonemes when we read. I > don't reckon that the idea that /n/ is a nasal /d/ helps a reader very > much and in fact it may hinder understanding. In situations where the > minimal pairs lack a connection in their meanings ( e.g. {na}/{da}, > {po}/{bo}), there's not much advantage to expressing the phonemic > connection in the writing system. Maybe you don't think in terms of phonemes when you read the Latin alphabet. You don't think as much in terms of predicates when you read English, do you? Isn't one of the important goals of Lojban to open the mind to new ways of thinking? Logical, structured representations? > When I learned hangul, I did so without knowing about its featural > properties. And I think if I had, it would have slowed me down as I > would struggle to figure out each letter according to the system rather > than memorize them individually. Granted, I could imagine that the learning process might be slower. Counterpoints: First, Hangul does not seem as well structured as VS, so VS should be easier. Second, if you *had* learned Hangul by its featural aspects (and if it really is as expressive as VS), you would not only have learned an alphabet, but you would have learned more about the workings of your own mouth and voice. This is information you can use and apply when learning *any* new language from then on. Bonus! > That being said, hangul could be adapted for Lojban quite easily (in > contravention to statements made at lojban.org ); > it's adapting that system for use on computers that would be hard \(>-^)/ > > mu'o mi'e komfo,amonan Alphabets such as VS and Lhoerr teach a different way (a more structured, logical way) to think about how we speak, and represent speech. How can anyone think they're *not* appropriate for Lojban?! It's at a lower level, closer to the physical interface than the information-bearing higher-level protocols, but it's *entirely* the spirit of Lojban. Also, Lojban has a mechanism for expressing words in foreign languages. But because of the limited number of phonemes, and the fact that the phonemes of Lojban do not match phonemes of other languages exactly, they can't be properly expressed in the Lojban alphabet. VS/Lhoerr needn't be used in its entirety to write basic Lojban, just pick the symbols of the existing phonemes. But it has the *capability* of expressing foreign words with foreign sounds without going outside of the system. Summary: Advantages of Latin alphabet: * Fewer people will have to learn the symbol set (familiarity with the symbols, which I consider a disadvantage). Disadvantages of Latin alphabet: * Deeply ingrained associations many people in the world already have with the symbols, inconsistent both globally and individually (familiarity, which some consider an advantage). * If you are unfamiliar with the Latin alphabet, there is no way to learn it except by memorizing all the arbitrary symbol-sound associations. * Less expressive for foreign sounds. Advantages of VS/Lhoerr: * It is structured, logical, and consistent; entirely in tune with the philosophy of Lojban. * If you are unfamiliar with the alphabet, you can choose to learn all the associations straight off the block just like Latin, *or* you can choose to learn the fundamentals (granted, arbitrary, but at least expressing something more fundamental about the sound, so there are fewer components for more expressiveness) and work from first principles. * It teaches some physical aspects of speech. This could be an advantage to some people who have difficulty elocuting. * More expressive for foreign sounds. (But the 'core' symbol set used in regular day-to-day Lojban still need not be ridiculously large.) * Written-spoken isomorphism (which some consider a disadvantage). * It's fun to learn something new. Isn't that why we're learning Lojban in the first place? Disadvantages of VS/Lhoerr: * More people will have to learn the symbol set. (Not a major point, IMHO. People all around the world are about equally *capable* of learning VS/Lhoerr. This seems to be to be a more important long-term goal.) * Written-spoken isomorphism (which I consider an advantage, a direct extension of the 'phonemic representation' ideal, which is already agreed to be an advantage). * Meaning, encoded in slight geometrical features on symbols, can be difficult for people not sensitive to such geometries to detect and process correctly. This one, I may not be able to wangle my way out of. I shall have to ponder... My bias is obvious. Anyone care to add to this table? mi'e .xius. To unsubscribe from this list, send mail to lojban-list-request@lojban.org with the subject unsubscribe, or go to http://www.lojban.org/lsg2/, or if you're really stuck, send mail to secretary@lojban.org for help.