Re: [lojban] Wheels in my Head

[Pierre Abbat <phma@phma.hn.org>]

On Thursday 15 September 2005 03:34, Brandon Wirick wrote:
> I really am working on the program to visualize 7SD characters in a
> Lojban context; don't anyone think I've put that on the back-burner. I
> have, however, come up with yet another fun and mostly useless idea. I
> would like to devise a ray to represent every conceivable Lojban
> syllable in exactly two bytes apiece (I'm counting a consonant
> followed by a {denpa bu} as a syllable). The way I've broken it up in
> my mind is into four nybbles (four-bit numbers for those non-computer
> people).
>
> Nybble #1 would include the voiced and unvoiced consonant pairs (not
> {ly}, {my}, {ny}, or {ry}, and I don't know about {xy}) and a null
> sound.
>
> Nybble #0 would precede Nybble #1 with any consonant or a null sound
> (maybe a {slaka bu}, but Nybble #1 would set the voice, so Nybble #0
> in both {tca} and {dja} would be the same (a sort of {ty}-{dy} pair)
> but Nybble #1 would differ.
>
> Nybble #2 could include the consonants {ly}, {my}, {ny}, or {ry}; the
> vowels {ibu} or {ubu}; any vowel followed by {y'y}; a {denpa bu}; or a
> null sound
>
> Nybble #3 could include any vowel, lowercase or capitalized, or one of
> the diphthongs {ai}, {au}, {ei}, or {oi}.
>
> Some Nybble combinations would not be allowed, like those that result
> in double letters, but the point is to cover the set of Lojban
> syllables. This system is not perfect, so I'm open to suggestions, but
> it probably won't serve any practical purpose, so feel free to ignore
> this if you don't care.

I'm a bit confused by your notation, as you seem to be using {...} for both a 
letter (or string of letters) and the Lojban name of a letter.

What definition of the set of Lojban syllables are you using? There's the 
pre-BPFK one, which isn't well specified; the one by xorxes; and mine, which 
I haven't put on the wiki yet. The pre-BPFK one allows arbitrarily long 
syllables, such as {ststststststa}; the other two don't. Both x's and mine 
(IIRR; I haven't looked at his lately) have syllables consisting of a 
consonant followed by 'r', 'n', 'l', or 'm'; these (except for 'm') are used 
in type-3 fu'ivla such as {sma,cr,ko,bai,u} "guinea pig". Consonantal 
syllables are not counted for stress, so {bakrto} (some edible mammal 
mentioned in the Bible) is stressed on {ba}. Syllables can end in consonants, 
such as {bif,mlo} "windmill", and I allow a syllable to end in 'r', 'n', 'l', 
or 'm' followed by a consonant, such as {tark,sa,ko} "dandelion". I also 
allow an initial cluster followed by any diphthong, such as {tcio,te} 
"annatto", which xorxes doesn't.

phma