From nobody@digitalkingdom.org Tue Apr 01 10:10:12 2008 Received: with ECARTIS (v1.0.0; list lojban-list); Tue, 01 Apr 2008 10:10:13 -0700 (PDT) Received: from nobody by chain.digitalkingdom.org with local (Exim 4.68) (envelope-from ) id 1Jgjzv-0008GS-Kt for lojban-list-real@lojban.org; Tue, 01 Apr 2008 10:10:11 -0700 Received: from grendel.dealloc.org ([213.133.97.204]) by chain.digitalkingdom.org with esmtp (Exim 4.68) (envelope-from ) id 1JgjzY-00085u-A5 for lojban-list@lojban.org; Tue, 01 Apr 2008 10:10:11 -0700 Received: by grendel.dealloc.org (Postfix, from userid 1001) id 5BFE639C4FB; Tue, 1 Apr 2008 19:08:10 +0200 (CEST) Date: Tue, 1 Apr 2008 19:08:10 +0200 From: mublin To: lojban-list@lojban.org Subject: [lojban] Re: Chinese, English and Spanish etymology of Lojban (was: Re: gismu etymology) Message-ID: <20080401170810.GH9672@grendel.dealloc.org> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline User-Agent: Mutt/1.5.13 (2006-08-11) X-Spam-Score: 2.2 X-Spam-Score-Int: 22 X-Spam-Bar: ++ X-archive-position: 14277 X-ecartis-version: Ecartis v1.0.0 Sender: lojban-list-bounce@lojban.org Errors-to: lojban-list-bounce@lojban.org X-original-sender: mublin@dealloc.org Precedence: bulk Reply-to: lojban-list@lojban.org X-list: lojban-list [Repost in ASCII] coi skaryzgik. On Tue, Apr 01, 2008 at 10:31:04AM -0500, mls1@rice.edu wrote: > Looking at the part of the page about the other orthography for > Alice in Wonderland reminded me of a question I have about > diphthongs. How did the terms "rising" and "falling" come about? Here's the phrase in question: > A diaeresis is applied to the second vowel of a two-syllable vowel > pair if the pair would otherwise constitute a falling diphthong > (``ai, ei, oi, au''), and to the first vowel if the pair would > otherwise constitute a rising diphtong (``ia, ie, ii, io, iu, iy, > ua, ue, ui, uo, uu, uy''); the diaeresis is not used in any other > case. I thought the terminology was from ``What Is Lojban?'' [1]. Actually it isn't; ``ai, ei, oi, au'' are described as _rising_ diphthongs there. However, my use of the terms seems to be in accordance with the definition given on Wikipedia [2]: > Falling (or descending) diphthongs start with a vowel of higher > prominence (higher pitch or louder) and end in a vowel with less > prominence, like /aI_^/ in "eye", while rising (or ascending) > diphthongs begin with a less prominent vowel and end with a more > prominent vowel, like /I_^a/ in "yard". You also wrote: > All the falling diphthongs *end* with high vowels, and all the > rising diphthongs listed *begin* with a high vowel. This seems > backwards to me [snip] Now I am confused. I thought ``ai, ei, oi, au'' (falling diphthongs in my terms) start with a vowel of higher prominence and end on a semivowel; whereas in the ``ia'' and ``ua'' series it is the other way round. [1] http://lojban.org/publications/level0/brochure/phonol.html [2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diphthong -- mu'o mi'e mublin. 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.