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[lojban] Re: [hobyrne@gmail.com: Alphabet]
Taking up where I left off:
John E Clifford wrote:
In *English* it
would fill a need: English's writing system is a mess, and it's insanely
complex to deduce how to pronounce an unfamiliar word in general. It
also would be useful for the same purposes that we use the International
Phonetic Alphabet.
Actually figuring out how to pronounce an English word is a snap compared to figuring out how to
spell it (we don’t have pronunciation bees, after all).
Point: granted (though I don't see how it's relavent, it's still fun to
talk about).
Right. Part of that is that English is just such a random
conglomeration of other languages. Spelling can give a clue as to the
origin of the word: using the example you've described, 'dys' indicates
the word is from Greek, which subtly influences how you think about
letter-sound mapping of the rest of the word, and 'dis' indicates the
word is from Latin, which gives different cues. But hearing them,
without being told "This word comes from such-and-such language", makes
spelling more difficult, because you don't have any clue which
sound-letter mapping is more appropriate.
Even if you *were* told the base language, it would be difficult for
most people (myself included). I imagine that the letter-sound maps are
so deeply buried in the subconscious (e.g. I didn't know enough to
associate 'dys' with Greek, and I have no idea what else in my head is
associated with Greek and I don't even know it), and so used to being
used in the symbol-to-sound direction, that without training in those
languages, trying to consciously use that part of the brain backwards
would be very difficult.
But English is spoken in an enormous
number of dialects and it is generally thought that it is better that all speakers spell their
words more or less the same way than that each spells ‘em like they says ‘em, thus spreading
the impaired intelligibility around in another medium (cf. the problem with similar letters for
similar sounds). English could use some work, to be sure, but it is not nearly as bad as
reformers like to make out – and the details are relatively unimportant anyhow, given that we
don’t read letter by letter.
Point: granted. I refine my argument.
Dialects drift over time. But there is a defined baseline of phonemics
for Lojban. While no region or accent has the claim to be a more
'definitive' or 'central' accent for the English language (except for
the Royal Family speaking the King's English, perhaps, but even that's
just a social rank not universally recognised as being the authority on
the subject), that is not the case for Lojban. Lojban *has* a Grand
Supreme Primary Definition.
So even if dialects drift, and the borders on the phonemic map wander in
different ways in different places, the symbolism of the alphabet will
still represent the baseline. It would serve the role of Japan's common
dialect. There are many regions in Japan with different dialects, but
everyone learns the common one as well as the local one; when with
friends, or in the neighbourhood, everyone uses the local dialect, when
communicating with someone in a different region (one of the things
Lojban is supposed to facilitate), everyone uses common Japanese.
But VS symbols are arbitrary at a very basic level – the way they represent features. Given the
representation rules, they become systematic. The Latin alphabet leaves out this lower level and
represents sounds arbitrarily directly. It is thus the simpler system (26 arbitrary connections
versus several dozen arbitrary connections and then calculating what the combination means).
Point: agreed (I changed my mind).
Argument about simpler vs. better applies here.
Also, the size of VS, I now agree, is way too big for Lojban, related to
the issue of a phonemic alphabet vs. a phonetic one. A *phonemic*
symbol set which represents features of sounds (i.e. a phonemic parallel
to the phonetic VS), will thus be 'simpler' (in the sense you follow
that word with: fewer arbitrary axioms at the initial creation of the
symbol set). Two parts of the symbol, with three attributes each, six
elements in all, will cover the 9 sounds of 'p' 'b' 'm' 't' 'd' 'n' 'k'
'g' 'ng'. Not much of an improvement, from 9 symbols down to 6, but
considering just number of features, representative phonemic alphabet wins.
I'm going to use RPA as an abbreviation for this 'representative
phonemic alphabet'. Substitute RPA for VS in all my previous posts...
Stating that familiarity with the symbols is an advantage is dubious to
me. More in another post.
Not from the Lojban philosophy.
Point: clarification.
I wasn't so much talking about familiarity's inherent value in the sense
of not having to learn something new. That is a positive advantage. I
was talking about familiarity's sense of already having learned
something that has to be unlearned. As I wrote on:
In summary: I am *so* familiar with the 'o'
symbol, I was pronouncing the beginning of the word 'Lojban' like
'logic'...
well, depending upon what ‘o’ you use, it might be acceptable, since Lojban vowels cover
fairly broad areas (I suspect you use the one like Lojban ‘a’ and that would not work).
Point: agreed.
Right. I'm pretty sure the way I was saying it, before I listened to a
podcast, was unacceptable by the rules of the language. I was
embarrassed. This is the associated baggage with 'familiarity' that
IMHO makes the advantage 'dubious'.
It doesn't add to the language of Lojban, no (at least, not
immediately). It adds to the culture. It embodies (what I see as) the
ideal of Lojban. It expresses the philosophy. It supports Lojban.
I don’t see what relevant it adds to Lojban culture.
Point: clarification.
Lojban is about new, clean, structured communication and its
representation (what is communication but representation?). The focus
of many people will be in the higher realm of intellectual expression.
But the focus *need* *not* be so narrow. It will harmoniously extend to
new, clean, structured representation of lower aspects of communication
too. That is how it would add to Lojban culture.
Benefits to the deaf, and some of the other points I make, are just
happy side-effects. But they still have real value, even if not to you
personally, which is why I mention them. But I grant you they are not
primary motives.
Lojban is not interested in teaching the
deaf (or anyone else) to speak plainly and that is the sole real use of VS.
Point: confusion.
"Lojban is not interested in teaching people to speak plainly."
Hm. I just cannot wrap my head around that sentence.
Wow. I'm afraid *this* is a *real* communications breakdown.
I agree with Mark here. It sounds like Mr O'Byrne's objection to use of
the Roman alphabet for Lojban is down to its 1) illogicality and 2)
cultural bias. Understandable.
Not obviously. It is not clear in what sense the Latin alphabet is illogical (and some other
logical)
Point: clarification.
As you point out a bit later, I am being a bit fast and loose with the
word 'logical'. What I was trying to express here was that the Latin
alphabet has no *depth* of *structure*. It is a set of phonemic
symbols, but those symbols reveal nothing about the phonemes. It is
possible to generate a set of symbols which *does* represent something
about the phonemes, with an RPA.
Depth of regular structure is (in my mind, anyway) very closely
associated with logic. I hope it is now clear what I meant.
and the Latin alphabet is the de facto universal alphabet, cutting across most cultural
lines – at least for government work, but also for advertising and, of course, computer use.
Point: granted.
I said in my intro, that I place very little value on cultural inertia.
I take a long view.
But I recognise that there is no long view if the project dies in the
early stages, so I do concern myself with short-term issues too. Just
not as much.
I may write more on this later.
Maybe you don't think in terms of phonemes when you read the Latin
alphabet. You don't think as much in terms of predicates when you read
English, do you? Isn't one of the important goals of Lojban to open the
mind to new ways of thinking? Logical, structured representations?
Huh? The structure is just another, more complex, arbitrary association. And, of course,
“logical� here is just a positive word without content (as yet, anyhow).
Point: clarification.
Yes, there's that word 'logical' again.
If I had a chance to rewrite the last bit, I would use "Representations
that convey more meaning in deeper structures".
When I learned hangul, I did so without knowing about its featural
properties. And I think if I had, it would have slowed me down as I
would struggle to figure out each letter according to the system rather
than memorize them individually.
Granted, I could imagine that the learning process might be slower.
...
How is this relevant to anything in Lojban?
Point: Answer.
Lojban is an exercise in learning ways to express yourself, in neat,
structural, clear, regular ways. VS has the same goal.
Meta-point.
The paragraph above, which I was responding to, is not relavent to
anything in Lojban. It was relavent to Hangul and VS and its ilk, which
is why my reply was relavent only to VS and its ilk, and not to Lojban
in particular. I'm not the one who took this part of the conversation
off the track, you are.
Alphabets such as VS and Lhoerr teach a different way (a more
structured, logical way)
Brap!
Point: confusion.
I don't know what "Brap!" means (except a minor angel, skilled at
locating precious metals; I don't think this was the meaning you
intended, though). I was hoping that this forum, in particular, would
be one in which communication would be clearer.
I'm guessing you're getting tired of me using the word 'logical' to
represent anything I value positively, which I understand. I'll try and
use more specific words, like 'structured', maybe 'layered',
'representative'. Anyway, I'll try and swerve from the word "logic" in
future, when I see it dead ahead in the thought-to-typing buffer in my mind.
to think about how we speak, and represent
speech. How can anyone think they're *not* appropriate for Lojban?!
It's at a lower level, closer to the physical interface than the
information-bearing higher-level protocols, but it's *entirely* the
spirit of Lojban.
It’s easy to think they are not appropriate to Lojban since they violate a basic design
principle. It thus is entirely the opposite of the spirit of Lojban. A course in Lojban history
seems called for.
Point: somewhat conceded.
Lojban has conflicting requirements. It is to be easy to integrate into
the current culture, and it is to remain relavent (avoid obsolescence)
for long into the future. (I guess that second one is an implicit one,
and it's possible I have the wrong end of the stick here. Let me know
if I do.) I am valuing the second point higher. Many value the first
point higher.
Also, Lojban has a mechanism for expressing words in foreign languages.
But because of the limited number of phonemes, and the fact that the
phonemes of Lojban do not match phonemes of other languages exactly,
they can't be properly expressed in the Lojban alphabet. VS/Lhoerr
needn't be used in its entirety to write basic Lojban, just pick the
symbols of the existing phonemes. But it has the *capability* of
expressing foreign words with foreign sounds without going outside of
the system.
Lojban expresses foreign words as much as possible in Lojbanic phonology; it does not need – nor
want – a more accurate representation.
Point: opinion.
I disagree. Mark E. Shoulson disagrees.
Lojban has specific mechanisms for expressing foreign words. It is
lacking, because Lojbanic phonemes are not the same as all foreign
languages. Lojban 'wants' (perhaps... some would say 'needs') to have
at least the *capacity* to be as precise as possible in everything it
expresses (though not necessitating precision all the time).
So I disagree. If you can back your statement, that Lojban does *not*
want to be accurate, I'd be interested to hear.
Summary:
Advantages of Latin alphabet:
* Fewer people will have to learn the symbol set (familiarity with the
symbols, which I consider a disadvantage).
But Lojban calls an advantage.
Point: opinion
*You* call an advantage. There is extra baggage associated with
'familiarity', as I say in my next point:
Disadvantages of Latin alphabet:
* Deeply ingrained associations many people in the world already have
with the symbols, inconsistent both globally and individually
(familiarity, which some consider an advantage).
But the differences are relatively small and easily compensated for: see how quickly an English
speaker learns Pinyin.
Point: uncontested.
It is a disadvantage.
* If you are unfamiliar with the Latin alphabet, there is no way to
learn it except by memorizing all the arbitrary symbol-sound associations.
Which are fewer and simpler than the articulatory rules of VS etc.
Point: agree (changed my mind)
Yes, I now recognise that phonemic is suited for this job, and phonetic
is not. Layers of symbolism within the phonemic alphabet would have
fewer still and simpler still rules than Latin.
* Less expressive for foreign sounds.
Not a problem, since we are not learning those foreign sounds.
(dismissive)
Point: scope
*You* are not learning foreign sounds. Lojban has a place for foreign
sounds, ZOI and la'o. It is currently not as expressive as it should
be; by that, I mean that words which are not homonyms in their own
language can effectively become so when limited to the current system.
Perhaps you don't use the ZOI/la'o feature of the language, I'm not
saying my idea is for you, I'm saying my idea is for Lojban.
Advantages of VS/Lhoerr:
* It is structured, logical, and consistent; entirely in tune with the
philosophy of Lojban.
I don’t see any part of Lojban’s “philosophy� that belnds well with this system, which is
arbitrary and illogical (if xuis can use empty words, I can use theor equally empty opposites).
Point: missed.
I have backed up my words. 'Depth of representation' or 'reductionist'
are perhaps the terms I should have used more than 'logical'. I
maintain that the three are very closely linked, though I admit maybe I
should have used the other terms more often instead of using the one,
'logical', so much.
If the philosophy of regularity, conveying meaning clearly (on many
levels), is one you cannot see in Lojban, then we have ideological
differences. I shall be so bold and assertive enough to state I'm not
the only one.
As to arbitrariness, in the end, it is really just about unavoidable.
Pushing it down to its most fundamental elements is 'logical', yes, I'll
use the word. By that, I mean it only makes common sense. Common
within the circles with which I associate myself, anyway. The creators
of Lojban could have chosen an arbitrary symbol for each word in the
language. They did not. Why? Because they knew that although
arbitrariness would come in somewhere, they didn't want it at such a
high conceptual level as words. They decided to push the lowest unit of
representation not to words but to the components of words: phonemes.
This is a good decision. I hope you agree. My extension of that train
of thought is that phonemic representation is still a higher-level
representation than is possible. Representation of the shape and use of
the mouth and vocal cords is a yet lower expression of how we speak. If
nothing else, the inertia of the decision to use phonemic symbols
instead of word symbols is a pointer that this is the way to go.
So this point stands.
* If you are unfamiliar with the alphabet, you can choose to learn all
the associations straight off the block just like Latin, *or* you can
choose to learn the fundamentals (granted, arbitrary, but at least
expressing something more fundamental about the sound, so there are
fewer components for more expressiveness) and work from first principles.
I.e, you can learn it just as easily as the Latin – which you already know – or you can learn
a much more complex set of associations to do the work of the Latin alphabet – which you already
know.
Point: clarification.
I prefaced my point with "If you are unfamiliar with the alphabet".
This did not express what I meant it to. Here, and elsewhere too I
think, I should have written instead "If you are unfamiliar with both
alphabets, and had to learn one or the other".
Point: uncontested.
With my new qualifier, you do not invalidate my point. Drop all the
"which you already know" bits, and what's left is, yes, you have a
choice. Choice is good.
Besides that, backing away from a phonetic alphabet to a phonemic one
(which is my new position), you're now down to learning fewer
associations. That makes the alternative in the choice more appealing.
* It teaches some physical aspects of speech. This could be an
advantage to some people who have difficulty elocuting.
And this is relevant to Lojban how?
Point: uncontested.
I was not making points about Lojban. I was making points about
advantages of VS/Lhoerr. I stated that clearly.
* More expressive for foreign sounds. (But the 'core' symbol set used
in regular day-to-day Lojban still need not be ridiculously large.)
Relevance?
Point: uncontested, already addressed.
I was not making points about Lojban, and Lojban *is* intended to
represent foreign sounds when necessary.
* Written-spoken isomorphism (which some consider a disadvantage).
More just an irrelevancy.
Point: uncontested.
I was not making points about Lojban.
* It's fun to learn something new. Isn't that why we're learning Lojban
in the first place?
Well, no –at least for some of us.
Point: conceded.
Disadvantages of VS/Lhoerr:
* More people will have to learn the symbol set. (Not a major point,
IMHO. People all around the world are about equally *capable* of
learning VS/Lhoerr. This seems to be to be a more important long-term
goal.)
But the added work for no gain is a negative factor: we know the Latin alphabet or, if not, it is
easier to learn than VS.
Point: clarification.
This is the other place I should have said something like "If you are
unfamiliar with both alphabets, and had to learn one or the other"
Point: mostly already addressed.
*We*, you and I, know the Latin alphabet. Lojban is bigger than us.
"easier to learn than VS": but always at least as difficult as, and (I
imagine) most of the time more difficult than, learning a representative
phonemic alphabet. I'm going to start using RPA in my posts, for
'representative phonemic alphabet', rather than VS.
"for no gain" does not apply. VS has advantages. A representative
phonemic alphabet has advantages. Maybe not for you personally, but
Lojban is bigger than you.
* Written-spoken isomorphism (which I consider an advantage, a direct
extension of the 'phonemic representation' ideal, which is already
agreed to be an advantage).
Relevance?
Point: uncontested.
* Meaning, encoded in slight geometrical features on symbols, can be
difficult for people not sensitive to such geometries to detect and
process correctly. This one, I may not be able to wangle my way out of.
I shall have to ponder...
My bias is obvious. Anyone care to add to this table?
mi'e .xius.
*phew*
--- Hugh O'Byrne <hobyrne@gmail.com> wrote:
John E Clifford wrote:
Nah! The wikipedia contains a contemporary review which still applies nearly 150 years later.
The analysis is faulty (though Bell Jr corrected some of it).The so-called representationalism
is
largely arbitrary -- better than the Just-So stories but nothing to help a trained
articulatory
phonologist.
Granted, the representationalism in the symbols *is* fairly arbitrary at
its lowest level, as are the modifiers to those symbols. But the
compound symbols (which are most of the letters) are consistent, logical
applications of those modifiers to the base symbols. As such, it is
clearly superior to the Latin alphabet in that respect. And consistency
and logic are respects that are valued highly in Lojbanistan, as I
understand.
As usual, “logical� here adds nothing to the tale – at least so far. The rules are
consistently applied – for the most part, but the analyses are in several cases faulty.
Point: granted.
VS is not ideal. But it points in a direction worth going in. I'll use
'RPA' to represent that direction, from now on.
And
learning the rules and calculating out the effects of their applications is a much more complex
task than just applying the correlations given directly by the Latin forms.
Point: missed, irrelavent.
Learning the rules of pronounciations of letters in English and the
effects of their applications on words is a much more complex task than
just recognising a word and saying it. That doesn't invalidate the idea
that a more regular phonemic representation is better than, say, English
spelling. I'm proposing an exact parallel. (More below.)
To be sure, this
complexity is largely irrelevant (except that it keeps being offered as an advantage), since we
will use the symbols much the way we use the Latin ones, without recalculating each time.
You're putting words in my mouth. As I've said before, I won't let you
misrepresent me.
The regularity, and depth of representation, (and now, fewer components
of RPA than the Latin alphabet,) are what I offer as advantages.
As has been pointed out in another thread, even the letters aren't the
fundamental units of recognition for a fluent person reading a text.
Words are the units. So, if words are the units, why not have symbols
for each word? There too many of them to do regularly, and the
designers of the language decided that fewer representations of a more
basic property of the word (phonemes), put together in a structured way
would be better. These are few enough that it's "no big deal" that they
themselves are not regular. But I propose that fewer representations of
a more basic property of phonemes (symbols for the shape of the mouth,
etc.), put together in a structured way would be better.
The relationship of IPA components to phonemes is the same as the
relationship of phonemes to words. Words don't *need* to be broken to
phonemes, but it's a 'good thing', mostly because there are fewer.
Phonemes don't *need* to be broken to individual properties of parts of
the mouth, but there are fewer, they can be (somewhat) regularly
categorized: is this not a 'good thing' in the same way?
But in
that case, why change from the ones we know to another we know not
Point: scope
I see Lojban as being bigger than you or I. What you or I know or don't
know is a small consideration in the reductionist philosophy that has
extended from long before we were born to long after we're dead.
(and which are even harder to
deal with than the familiar ones).
Point: opinion
I disagree. Children learn the alphabet, and phonemes, before they
learn words. Learning these things is hard, but it makes the larger
structures of words easier. Eventually, the letters get lost in the
words, words are seen as a whole, but the letters are still there, and
still valuable. Learning the fundamentals of how the mouth moves, apart
from being a valuable knowledge and skill in and of itself, I opine is
easier (and more fundamental) than learning letters. And after these
skills are mastered, it makes the larger structure of phonemes easier in
just the same way as mastering phonemes makes words easier. The
components will get lost in the letters, letters will be seen as a
whole, but the components are still there, and still valuable.
And VS is *considerably* better than the Just-So stories alphabet.
There's hardly a comparison. In the story, there are very few modifiers
to existing symbols, mostly new made-up symbols even where there were
parallels to previous sounds to guide in consistent creation of new
symbols. And what modifiers there are, aren't even applied in
consistent ways. VS is *very* different from that.
Not sure what story you are thinking of. The one I remember derives the Latin alphabet from
various – arbitrarily uisolated – features of articulation: very much like VS then. There are
no modifications of existing symbols, merely an etiological myth about those symbols.
Point: missed.
I just skimmed the "Just So Stories" to find the one you were referring
to. "How the alphabet was made", right?
http://www.boop.org/jan/justso/alpha.htm
This story starts with the English phonemes, and assigns symbols to each
sound based on the fictional culture the characters live in and the
fictional language they speak.
This is two degrees removed from VS.
First of all, as to culture and language. Not only are they fictional,
they are anything but culture-neutral. Not everyone in the world has
seen and heard a snake. Many people use a machine to dry their clothes
after washing them. I haven't seen carp-fish, or a pike, I've never
hunted with a spear, I don't live in a family of three whose names all
begin with 't', and I've never seen the Wagai river. I never knew that
"shi" meant "spear", and that "shi-las" meant "broken spear" (I suspect
it never really did).
As icons, these are not as suitable for a world-language as geometrical
shapes. Every culture has spirals, circles, zig-zags, rays, horizontal
and vertical and diagonal lines, and the like, in even their ancient
carvings on rocks.
Second, as to the level of representation. In JSS, the fundamental unit
being represented was a phoneme. In VS, the fundamental units being
represented are different aspects of the configuration of the mouth that
make up phonemes. The JSS story is about sounds, VS is about
subcomponents used in generating sounds.
VS starts with elementary components of phonemes, not phonemes
themselves. The phoneme-symbols are *compound* symbols, just the way
"word" can be seen as a single compound symbol, consisting of the
symbols "w" "o" "r" "d". (Yes, a symbol can consist of spatially
disconnected line segments: small 'i' is considered a whole symbol, even
including the dot.) Phonemes are generated by putting symbols together
in an orderly way, with layers of meaning behind it that any human being
can relate to, regardless of what animals live in their environment,
regardless of how they do their laundry.
If I give you a 3*3 grid of sounds:
puh buh muh
tuh duh nuh
kuh guh ???
and ask you what sound goes at ???, you can figure it out. It has the
nasal quality of 'muh' and 'nuh', and it has the position-of-tongue
quality of 'kuh' and 'guh'. You'll come up with 'nguh'.
If I give you 3*3 grid of shaped line segments in a table:
<pre>
+-+-+-+
|p|b|m|
+-+-+-+
|t|d|n|
+-+-+-+
|k|g|?|
+-+-+-+
</pre>
and ask you: What symbol goes where the question mark is? There is no
answer to this in the symbolic space.
If I gave you a corresponding table with VS symbols instead of Latin
letters, the gap in the table could be correctly drawn by matching
corresponding features of geometry and shape. The position of the
tongue is represented by the orientation of the symbol, the nasal
quality by the presence of a squiggle.
The orientation, and presence or absence of squiggles, are the
'modifications' to the VS symbols I was talking about. Modifying the
position of the tongue from the front of the mouth to the back (e.g.
changing a 't' sound to a 'k' sound) is isomorphic to modifying the
orientation of the symbol by 90 degrees clockwise (the same modification
going from 't' to 'k' as from 'd' to 'g' and going from 'n' to 'ng').
This is a feature the JSS story lacks. The 't':'k' relationship is as
the 'd':'g' relationship, there is no inkling of this in JSS, there is
clear representation of it in VS.
Clarification: Yes, I'm no longer pushing VS, but RPA. The fundamental
points still apply. RPA can represent more fundamental parts of
phonemes, just as phonemes represent fundamental parts of words.
"... nothing to help a trained articulatory phonologist". Is that the
target audience of Lojban? Or, putting that idea on its head, do you
think a trained articulatory phonologist has nothing to contribute to
improving the design of an artificial spoken language? I, obviously,
think that they could contribute. I think we should take advantage of
the insights of such people.
I think that a trained phonologist could offer a lot of improvements for artifical languages in
general and Lojban in particular. That has nothing to do with VS, however (it is about best use
of pronunciation space and word space).
Point: uncontested.
A trained phonologist came up with VS as a way to offer his expertise
and insight for the use of the world at large. I think he succeeded.
Visual symbolic representation of pronunciation space and word space is
a requirement of Lojban (so it is more than a spoken language, it is a
written language too).
Lojban is designed to be 'good'. As such, best use of pronunciation
space and word space is relavent.
Or are you proposing that, all other things being equal,
less-than-best-use is what you'd *prefer* for Lojban?
My point was just that the symbols in VS are in no sense
“natural� symbols for the articulatory mechanism, so that one could read off the articulation
from the symbols without considerable training in the rules of the representation system.
Point: uncontested.
Perhaps no more natural. But definitely no more unnatural. And
definitely fewer (with IPA instead of VS), and definitely representative
of more fundamental actions of speaking words.
In this respect, Lojban will not educate a linguist, but an educated
linguist can help in the formulation of Lojban.
And (not mentioned) the fact that similar sounds are represented by similar
characters merely carries over into writing the common confusions in speech (not a desirable
written-spoken isomorphism).
I did mention it in my original post, or at least I tried to, with my
'b' 'd' 'g' example.
I'm not sure I agree. I'd be interested to hear more about how you come
to this conclusion. Written-spoken isomorphism is *very* desirable.
It's the very reason Lojban has a phonemic alphabet. It is desirable to
as much and as precise a degree as possible.
My point is just that, if we confuse two related sounds in the speech stream because they are
similar, it is not an advantage to have them also easily confused in the letter stream by making
them similar again. One use of writing is exactly to overcome speech confusions.
Point: ... I'm confused.
That would be better accomplished by having a one-word-to-one-symbol
mapping. Maybe a one-sentence-to-one-symbol mapping. But Lojban goes
in the other direction: it represents shorter, more fundamental aspects
of utterances, of sentences, of words, of phonemes. The direction
Lojban takes is exactly opposite to the direction you're proposing.
Confusions occur both in speech and text. Would it be better for these
confusions to be unrelated, independent? Put it this way: If you see a
word that is obviously misspelled, what do you do? You vocalize it in
your mind, think ov words that sound the same, and see if they fit into
the sentence properly. You go from the visual to the auditory world.
Phonemic spelling makes that transition easier. But VS makes the
transition entirely unnecessary: a misspelling of that nature in VS can
be analyzed in that fashion entirely in the visual world. Assuming
you're not deaf, maybe not a big deal to you, 'v' and 'f' being very
different symbols are still closely related in your mind, but perhaps to
a deaf person, having the symbols for 'v' and 'f' be similar as the
sounds are similar might make the job a bit easier.
I am not sure your description of what happens is accurate, but even supposing it is, it does not
answer to the problem I was referring to. It does raise another though (not applicable to Lojban,
which has no homonyms): we convert all the homophones into homoglyphs so little is gained in the
way of intelligibility (though the old homoglyphs will by and large disappear – sometimes into
new ones, like the “read�s.
Point: scope.
In the current system, and in RPA, homophones are all represented as
homoglyphs. Is that *enough*?
In a one-symbol-to-one word mapping, homophones are all represented as
homoglyphs. That is *not* enough. Symbols are chosen to represent
smaller features of words (phonemes). What was the motivation to choose
phoneme-level symbol mapping rather than word-level symbol mapping? Why
does it not apply to property-of-phoneme-level symbol mapping better
than phoneme-level symbol mapping?
Lojban has a requirement for a word-symbol mapping. I see the scope of
that as being larger than you see it.
My problemwas, remember, that the easily confused speech forms are
now represented by easily confused written forms, importing into the writing a kind of confusion
that was less present before (p, b, d, q and g are less easily confused in speech than in writing,
though are somewhat).
'b' and 'p' are similar sounding and similar looking. In that respect,
this pair already embodies the RPA. So I shall try to make my point
with these existing symbols and their existing associations.
Someone transcribing the goings-on at a party mishears "beer" and writes
"peer". A person who knows no English, is deaf and mute, and has a
small English dictionary (strangely lacking a phonetic guide), reads "I
drank my peer". After studying the dictionary, he becomes very
confused. One of the words must be wrong, he comes to realise; but
which one? He could read the whole English dictionary, and educate
himself in the language until it becomes obvious what the intended
meaning was. But that's terribly tedious; he wants to take a short-cut.
He wants it to be easy. He decides to look up words 'like' the ones
written until he comes across a combination that makes sense. How is he
to know one word is 'like' another? In this case, the fact that 'b'
looks like 'p' *and* 'b' sounds like 'p' gives him a very important
clue. He looks up "beer" and aha!, it all makes sense now.
The similarity of sub-phoneme components of the spoken 'b' and 'p' being
reflected in the similarity of the geometric shapes of the symbols 'b'
and 'p' works in this guy's favour.
In fact, changing 'of' to 'ov' brings up so many more issues than just
that, so it's probably not as good an example as I'd like it to be. But
it demonstrates a transition from the visual to the auditory that can be
done away with using VS.
Only in the sense that “ov� in the new system would not be a misspelling (for some people);
the confusion with “’ ve� now appears in writing as well as speech.
Point: lost.
I'm lost here. Since I was already making the point that 'ov' was going
beyond the realm of the topic at hand, I'll just drop it.
Further, when reading a handwritten page, the mind automatically fills
in meaning where there are smudges, or slightly askew lines, stuff like
that. That very same mechanism will work in favour of making slight
transcription errors more easily understandable.
As indeed they now do (witness reading my typing). The whole issue of handwriting is an
interesting one: what would a running script that kept all the relevant features of VS look like?
Is it feasible at all? It is bound to be slower than our present hand in any case. Again,
however, it worls by Gestalt – why reading an unfamiliar hand is so hard at first, until you get
the correspondences down (going back to learning to read in effect).
Point: ??
Um, your typing isn't smudged. "it worls by Gestalt", I take as being
an (intentional?) typo of "it works by Gestalt", embodying the other
type of 'writo'. So I'm going to run with that.
My poor deaf-mute sees your sentence. Again he gets confused, "worls"
is not in the dictionary. You and I know, this is a fundamentally
different *type* of error than mishearing and transcribing auditory
mistakes. But my poor suffering subject is deaf-mute, and knows nothing
of this.
So, what does he do? He searches his dictionary for words which look
visually similar to what he sees, "worls". He sees that with just the
addition of two small line segments, the word may potentially be
"works". He puts it all together, and is overjoyed.
What did he do different this time? Nothing. A misheard transcription
is an error as easily fixed, by the same means, as a slipped pen. This
IMHO is a good feature of error-tolerance.
Take, for example, how you or I would handle dealing with either case.
I personally don't believe in the literal 'grandmother neuron', but I do
believe it is a phenomenon, and I'm going to use it as a guide to
illustrate my thought-process.
We see "peer" out of place, but because I'm subvocalising as I read (I
don't know if you do too), the 'beer' neuron fires because it's in close
proximity to the 'peer' neuron (by reason of we speak and hear words
frequently, and on some levels neurons represent lower-level
sound-patterns such as phonemes and phoneme components as well as
word-patterns), and it much better fits the context. We see "worls" out
of place, and it takes a little longer, but the "works" neuron fires
because it's in somewhat close proximity to the 'worls' neuron (by
reason of we look at symbols frequently, and on some levels neurons
represent line segments and geometrical components of letters as well as
letters themselves), and it much better fits the context.
You see what happened there? I (I'm assuming you, too, but I don't want
to overstep my allowed assumption-space) used two *different* avenues to
resolve the two different cases. My deaf-mute used *one* avenue, and it
worked for both, exactly *because* of the component-of-phoneme to
component-of-symbol isomorphism.
>what would a running script that kept all the relevant features of VS
look like?
> Is it feasible at all?
Point: agreed.
These questions have value. Do you have answers to these questions? Do
you think it's better not to ask these questions? Don't you think it's
an avenue of thought that at least deserves a look down?
> It is bound to be slower than our present hand in any case.
Point: contested.
I'd like to see you back this statement.
There are some fun jokes that involve expressing visual puns verbally,
or more commonly, verbal puns visually. They're so much fun because
they're delayed-reaction jokes, it takes a second (or a day) to 'get'
it. VS will pretty much kill those kinds of jokes. What is a verbal
pun, is a visual pun (or is more likely to be perceived as bad
transcription). I enjoy those jokes. But they are, fundamentally,
misunderstandings and misrepresentations. They don't belong in Lojban.
And are virtually impossible in Lojban already, as those who have tried them have found. There
are a few metAathesis jokes but that is about all.
Point: agreed.
As to *need*: The Latin alphabet *is* all you need to represent Lojban,
it's true. And it has the dubious advantage of being familiar to many
people in the world (more on that later). But then, English is all you
*need* for anything you'd want to say in Lojban, and it is also familiar
to many people in the world. Lojban is not about stopping at mere need,
otherwise it wouldn't exist. No, Lojban doesn't *need* VS. The world
doesn't need Lojban. But the world *has* Lojban, because people were
(and still are) enamoured with ideas such as creating a useful,
culture-neutral communication system.
It is not clear that anyone really wants this
Point: incorrect.
I really want it. There's that dismissiveness again. You *know* that
it *is* clear that I want it. I am (in potentia) 'anyone'.
nor that it is a reason why someone learns Lojban
Point: irrelavent.
The wide spacing of digits in sound-space I have cited as a favourable
feature of Lojban. I severely doubt that this is a reason why *anyone*
wants to learn Lojban. The IPA, I propose, would be a favourable
feature of Lojban. I claim no more than that. I never suggested it
would become a *reason* for someone to learn Lojban.
(and it is even less clear that Lojban is culturally neutral in any relevant sense).
*sigh*
Google:
Lojban "culturally neutral"
and tell me what you see.
That's three misses in one sentence.
Point: I'm about to get emotional again.
What *is* this? Is this some kind of sparring match? I get the
increasing notion you're *actively* missing the points I'm trying to
make, you are *sabotaging* the formation of a common understanding.
(I'm giving you credit for being intelligent. It's either that, or the
notion that you're ignorant, and wilfully so, so I'm being charitable in
my evaluation.) While sparring is fun occasionally, this is just
getting tedious. Is this some kind of hazing ritual, to see if I have
the determination and skill to stick at my guns in the face of
adversity, to prove I'm 'worthy' to join your cabal? To hell with that.
I am offering an idea. I want you to understand the idea, because I
enjoy it and I think you might enjoy it too if you let yourself, but if
you're determined not to accept this gift I offer, that's your problem.
I'll offer it, but I won't break my back over it. Combat zone as it
may be, there are still rules of engagement.
mi'e .xius.
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