[lojban] Re: Nth letter of the alphabet

["Jorge Llambías" <jjllambias@gmail.com>]

On 4/26/08, Pierre Abbat <phma@phma.optus.nu> wrote:
> When numbering the letters of the Lojban alphabet, what number is assigned
> to "a"? Do we start "y'y, abu, by", or "y'y, slaka bu, denpa bu, abu"?

I would not count slaka bu as a letter of the Lojban alphabet, on the
grounds that it does not represent any Lojban phoneme. It's more
like a symbol like "?", "!", or even the use of capital letters, which
may have its meaning but is not strictly a part of the alphabet.

As for dictionary order, I would prefer to ignore denpa bu (so that
{.e} cames after {fa}, not before as in ASCII, and almost ignore y'y,
using it only to put the vowel pair after the diphthong it breaks, so
I prefer the order "at au a'u av" rather than the ASCII "a'u at au av".

As for the actual numbering question, given that the Lojban alphabet
is an extension of a reduced Latin alphabet, I would put them at the
end of the alphabet, so abu is the first letter, as usual, and y'y and
denpa bu the last two (in whatever order).

mu'o mi'e xorxes


To unsubscribe from this list, send mail to lojban-list-request@lojban.org
with the subject unsubscribe, or go to http://www.lojban.org/lsg2/, or if
you're really stuck, send mail to secretary@lojban.org for help.