Re: Tengwar [was Typesetting Lojban ]

[David Brookshire Conner <nellardo@concentric.net>]

[ split of threads again - this is the tengwar thread ]
Ivan A Derzhanski writes:
 > (3) Lojban in tengwar should work, although, in fairness, there are
 > natlangs whose consonant structures are more regular, and which are
 > better candidates for being written in tengwar (I'd nominate Nivkh,
 > or any of a number of Australian languages such as Aranta).

I don't know these particular languages, so I'll take your word for
it. Any recommended reading?

 > But no primary-order tengwa for {'}, please!  Writing it as if
 > it were a voiceless velar fricative would make it more similar
 > to {k} or {x} that many other consonants would be. 

Here's the basic mode (where / stands in for a tengwa that is
unused). Map it to the standard tengwar diagram:

t p k /
d b g /
s f c '
z v j x
n m / /
? / ? /

The last row, the semi-vowels, I hadn't yet decided on whether it
should include r and l or not. That decision was discussed briefly
elsewhere. One thought was to switch tengwa depending on usage.

 > If it must
 > be a tengwa, let it be a very distinctive one such as yanta.
 > (This is why I've always opposed {h} for {'} in Roman script
 > -- it should be very prominent, but it is a Good Thing that it
 > doesn't look like a consonant.)

Hmmm. I want to think about that. I used the short carrier for a comma 
- rather than two tehtar on one tengwa, the vowel separation becomes
explicit with the short carrier which has no consonantal sound. I used 
the long carrier as a period (which works especially well for before a 
vowel, and is visually indicative after a consonant).

Perhaps the short carrier is better for ' than for ,. ' is only ever
between vowels, so the short carrier seems to be a bit better
suited. Which means I need to think about the comma, now :-)

 > And if you want to take advantage of the logicality of the tengwar,
 > you shouldn't dream of writing {x} as if it were a voiced consonant.

My goof - I first worked on a Loglan mode, where "x" is explicitly
noted as a voiced "h".  Of course, x should be where I have ' in my
lojban mode (which is where I had h in the loglan mode).

Thanks for the feedback.....

Brook

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