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

["Jared Angell" <angell.jared@gmail.com>]

I see.

Okay, I'm really curious: Are you a linguist Bob?  And if not then why haven't you received an honorary degree in linguistics by now?

Djared (Farlus)

On 10/25/07, Robert LeChevalier <lojbab@lojban.org> wrote:

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

-- 
Jared

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