[jbovlaste] Re: fu'ivla for liquors

[Craig Daniel <teucer@pobox.com>]

On Tue, Nov 23, 2010 at 12:15 PM, A. PIEKARSKI <totus@rogers.com> wrote:
> coi ro do
>
> Please comment.  My fui'vla creation abilities are limited,
> so feel free to suggest something better.
>
> 1) koinka (cognac)
> English/French: cognac
> Chinese Mandarin: Gānyì
> Spanish: coñac

I like it. The <in> implies something like the palatal nasal of the
French version.

> 2) vi'iski (whiskey)
> English: whiskey
> Chinese Mandarin: wēishìjì
> Hindi: vhiskī
> Spanish: güisqui

That's a lujvo meaning something like "coprologist."

You're also missing the important form on your list - uisge, short for
uisge beatha. The word's Gaelic; the others are all fu'ivla
themselves. I'd start with a vowel (likely to be realized as a
semivowel by most speakers) and go for something starting with .ui.
.uiski is invalid (because ski is the rafsi for skicu, so a cup of
whiskey would become a delightful description-cup), but .uiskyba would
be a halfway decent approximation of the Gaelic form and entirely
valid as a Lojban fu'ivla.

> 3) vo'odka (vodka)
> English/Russian: vodka
> Chinese Mandarin: fútèjiā
> Hindi: vōdakā
> Spanish: vodka

dk is an invalid cluster. I'd go with vo'otka to fix it. (The fact
that tk is invalid as an initial cluster is relevant here or this
would be a lujvo form.)

> 4) campana (champagne)
> English/French: champagne
> Chinese Mandarin: xiāngbīn
> Hindi: śaimpēna
> Spanish: champaña

Looks pretty good, although I'd do what worked for cognac and make it
campaina instead; the <gn> is supposed to be palatal, IIRC.