Re: [lojban] Re: "la" in names

[Yanis Batura <ybatura@mail.ru>]

-----Original Message-----
From: Robin Lee Powell <rlpowell@digitalkingdom.org>
To: lojban-list@lojban.org
Date: Wed, 8 Nov 2006 20:50:04 -0800
Subject: [lojban] Re: "la" in names

> 
> On Thu, Nov 09, 2006 at 07:34:08AM +0300, Yanis Batura wrote:
> > I am absolutely sure that a native Lojban speaker will have the
> > rule comfortly sitting in his/her brain. I am absolutely sure that
> > given a good special training we will all internalize this rule.
> 
> I utterly disagree.  More to the point, there is *no evidence* for
> your view, and lots for mine.

I see your point. In the 19th century, people didn't fly on airplanes. 
Now they do.

No one has ever created or made special excersizes to internalize this rule.
Lojban is different from natural languages, and it requires making many special
excersizes to master it. It requires special approaches to learn.

I think memorizing {la}-prohibition rule is like getting accustomed to the
{cu} before selbri. All beginners frequently forget {cu} and say {le ninmu prami le nanmu}
but after practice they stop forgetting it. {cu} is 100 times more frequent and obvious
than cases of {la} prohibition.
 
> > > A rule we can't follow that, in the not-following, breaks
> > > audio-visual isomorphism is, to me, a total travesty of one of
> > > the most important goals of the language.  Whether someone gets
> > > to use the "la" sound in their name or not is totally irrelevant
> > > to my concerns.  We're *breaking the language*, and it has to
> > > stop.
> > 
> > Your suggestions? (sorry if I missed something back from 2005 :)
> 
> Pauses before all names.
> 
> http://www.lojban.org/tiki/tiki-index.php?page=The%20Case%20Against%20LA

This suggestion is reasonable, but it has two disadvantages:

1) {la.} is longer and a bit harder to pronounce than {la} if used with consonant-starting names.
2) You'll have to change the language.