[lojban-beginners] Re: towns and countries

[mungojelly@ixkey.info]

Quoting ????? ????????? <fjotra@yandex.ru>:

> My name is Mari, I study lojban since December. But English is my   
> third language after Russian and German, so I have a question: when   
> I lojbanize a name of a country or a town, what pronounsation   
> schould i use as base? For example, Moscow can be la moskou., but   
> when I translate from Russian it can be la moskwAs. And Russia: la   
> racas. or la rosIas?

Another option to keep in mind is Lojban's ability to quote  
non-Lojbanic names and text, using "la'o" or "zoi".  I think it makes  
sense, whatever Lojbanization you're using for a name, to also include  
a non-Lojbanized version.  The goal is to get a reader to understand  
what place you're talking about, somehow, and then once you've  
established that, Lojban gives you lots of ways to name things & refer  
to them.

For instance if I was talking about Russia, I might say: "la'e zoi  
zoi. ??????/Russia .zoi goi ry." -- or "goi fo'a" -- and then I could  
just refer to Russia as "ry." or "fo'a" for the rest of the  
text/conversation.

mu'o mi'e. bret.