[lojban-beginners] Re: Long consonants & long vowels

[tijlan <pascal.akihiko@gmail.com>]

2009/4/3 Luke Bergen <lukeabergen@gmail.com>:
> I think the reason that they don't allow geminate consonants is that it
> would introduce some difficulty in hearing a distinction between "b" and
> "b:". And the LLG worked very hard to make all the lojban sounds as
> distinct as possible.

The difference between [b] and [bË] is most significant when they are
used as an inbetween sound, which is how they are used mostly.

Unlike in English, gemination can be very distinctive so as to form
different lexemes or display different grammatical features in various
languages. Again from the wiki article...

Hungarian:
 megy (go) - meggy (sour cherry)

Japanese:
 kita (came) - kitta (cut)

Latin:
 anus (ring) - annus (year)

Italian:
 beve (drinks) - bevve (drank)

Personally I don't find these geminate consonants as much difficult a
sound to recognize as "y" (the schwa) can be.


> As far as the long vs short vowels, I like that every letter in lojban
> corresponds to one and only one sound, even if it means that I can't use
> long "a" and "i" (the rest you can get through the vowels or diphthongs).

I would consider ":" a marking-oriented letter like ",". It is useful
only when there is an adjacent letter to mark; it cannot be pronounced
alone.

I can think of many lojbanizations that can benefit from the
availability of long vowels & long consonants. Here are some good
examples of Finnish and Japanese city/prefecture names that contain
both a long consonant and a long vowel:

 Lappeenranta [lapËeËnranta] --> lap:e:nranta
 HÃmeenlinna [hÃmeËnlinËa] --> xame:nlin:a
 åæé HokkaidÅ [hokËaidoË] --> xok:aido:

Furthermore, in Japanese, long vowels are often distinctive so as to
help recognize their corresponding Kanjis and therefore meanings of
names:

 èé yÅka [juËka] --> iu:ka
 çé yuka [juka] --> iuka
 åæ Ågi [oËgi] --> o:gi
 åæ ogi [ogi] --> ogi


mu'o mi'e tijlan