[lojban-beginners] Re: '''''''''''

[Robert LeChevalier <lojbab@lojban.org>]

Jared Angell wrote:
> Why was ' chosen instead of h?  since h is left out but it's in the 
> middle of the keyboard (even in Russian) this bothers me as a bad and 
> annoying choice as the ' seems counterintuitive to anyone accustomed to 
> the romantic character set and keyboard.  Perhaps there are Spanish and 
> French keyboards which readily have ' but lack h????
>
> This irritates me something fierce so I'd like to hear the logic behind 
> it if anyone knows.

h is a consonant in all languages that have the letter.

In Lojban, at least in theory, it is NOT defined as a consonant, but a 
solution to the problem of vowel glides when two vowels are adjacent.

Thinking of the orthography as representing the sound-stream:
If a close-comma appears between the two vowels, then there is a voiced 
glide.  If an apostrophe appears, then it is a devoiced glide.  If a 
period appears, there is a glottal stop (and it separates into two 
words), and if none of these appear, the vowels form a diphthong.

English speakers (and those of many other languages) often hear a 
devoiced glide as an "h", and more importantly, they tend speak a 
devoiced glide as an "h" as the default.  In theory, you could use a 
different devoiced sound (as long as it isn't one of the other unvoiced 
consonants of Lojban, or a glottal stop), and some have used a devoiced 
"th" which of course makes a lojbanist sound like like they have a funny 
lithp.

The apostrophe does not count as a consonant or a vowel in any of the 
Lojban word-formation rules, which rely on consonant and vowel patterns. 
 If it were an h, we would probably have great difficulty keeping this 
clear.

lojbab