Message-ID: <51C9ED49.7070001@lojban.org>
Date: Tue, 25 Jun 2013 15:19:37 -0400
From: "Bob LeChevalier, President and Founder - LLG" <lojbab@lojban.org>
Organization: The Logical Language Group, Inc.
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To: Collin Damskov <collin.damskov@gmail.com>, 
 "Logical Language Group, Inc." <lojban@lojban.org>
Subject: Re: Questions about ' and y
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In-Reply-To: <s4XL1l00q56Cr6M014XMkj>
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Collin Damskov wrote:
> Logical Language Group,
>
>       I do have the knowledge that ' makes the English h sound,

That is not its definition.  It is rather its effect for a typical 
English speaker (and probably that of many other languages).

The actual definition is that it signifies a devoiced glide between two 
vowel sounds in a word.  If you turn off your vocal cords while changing 
vowels, the airstream continues, and usually this will sound like an 
English h (to an English speaker).  It could also sound like an unvoiced 
"th" or some other unvoiced sounds.

> and it is not permitted at the beginning or end of a word in Lojban, but I have a question.

It is not permitted because it is intended to prevent confusion of vowel 
sounds INSIDE a word, between a vowel glide (between two vowels), and a 
diphthong, a confusion that is not possible between Lojban words.  Any 
Lojban word starting with a vowel requires a pause before it, and hence 
never involves a glide. (The ' is not considered a vowel or a consonant 
for purposes of these rules). Any Lojban word ending with a vowel will 
not be followed by a vowel sound (since the pause would be mandatory 
before that vowel), and hence never involves a glide.

If the separation of two vowels were not important, we would never have 
added the '.  If we had wanted a consonant equivalent to an "h", we 
could have simply added an "h" to the set of consonants.

>  I know that the sound of ' wouldn't work well at the end of a word, but why not the beginning?

Because it would never occur between two vowels, due to the mandatory pause.

>  As for the letter y, how commonly used is it?

Like ', it is only a special-purpose letter, used to force a vowel sound 
between certain consonant pairs (usually because they are 
unpronounceable).  Its most common usage is in lujvo compounds, where it 
serves as a bridge between rafsi affixes that happen to have 
incompatible letters.

You won't see as many lujvo as a beginner, because in general lujvo are 
used for less common words, and teaching examples tend to use the more 
basic gismu roots.  But you'll find a lot of words with y in a lojban 
dictionary that includes lujvo, such a jbovlaste, and skilled writers 
are more likely to know and use lujvo that have a y.

selyla'a for example would be a lujvo for something that is fastened or 
attached to something else (the x1 of lasna is an agent that fastens x2 
to x3)

lojbab
-- 
Bob LeChevalier    lojbab@lojban.org    www.lojban.org
President and Founder, The Logical Language Group, Inc.