[lojban-beginners] Re: lojbanization

["Philip Newton" <philip.newton@gmail.com>]

On 5/23/07, Vid Sintef <picos.picos@gmail.com> wrote:
> How would you translate "Spiral Dynamics" and "Holon" (concepts related to
> Ken Wilber's philosophy) in Lojban?
> {lo sarlu (dynamics)}
> {(something that is simultaneously a whole and a part)}

I'm curious why you feel the need to express those concepts in Lojban.
When I started learning French, I didn't want to know how to say
"dialectical materialism", I wanted to know how to say "I am going to
the shop to buy some bread".

What would you do with the translations once you had them?

> Also, how would you lojbanize a name beginning with "h", like "Hemingway" or
> "Hegel"? Is it ok to use the apostrophe at the beginning of a word?

No; it only comes between vowels.

> Or must we interpret the sound as "x",

That's one possibility. Or adding a prothetic vowel, e.g.
{.e'eminueis.} or the like, if you'd prefer to use the apostrophe. (If
prothetic vowels work for "Espanish", why not?)

> risking an even more phonological distortion?

I wouldn't worry about phonological distortion, if I were you. Unless
you go around pronouncing "Hegel" in the German way (without even a
trace of an English-style diphthong in the first syllable), and saying
"København" (with proper Danish pronunciation) instead of
"Copenhagen".

Different languages have different phonotactics, and mould borrowed
words to fit. It's a fact of life.

mu'o mi'e .filip.
who's not too worried about the fact that Lojban has no specifically
lax [I] vowel for use in his name, and uses [i] instead.