Re: Turkey (Re: cecla fanta flalu)

["Mark E. Shoulson" <mark@kli.org>]

>From: "Adam Raizen" <araizen@newmail.net>
>Date: Wed, 29 Sep 1999 00:53:20 +0200
>
>From: "Adam Raizen" <araizen@newmail.net>
>
>I would suggest "tri'iki". I realize that it doesn't look much like most 
>languages pronunciation or spelling of Turkey, but since it's of the 
>form CCVVCV, and so conforms to the rafsi fu'ivla proposal in 
>section 16 of chapter 4 of the href grammar, I think it works best.

FWIW, I'm not at all sanguine about Stage 4 fu'ivla pretty much ever, at
this point in the language (and possibly ever, period).  Lojban's tricky
enough with lujvo and rafsi and contextually-defined cmene; I'd rather not
add fu'ivla (which have place structures and all) to the mix without at
least flagging them with a classifier rafsi.  So to me, {gugdrturki,e} or
{kulnrturki,e} is just fine, as appropriate (or {jectrturki,e}, etc).  If
you don't like the comma, fine, use the diphthong, whatever.  If you need
lujvo from those (which is stretching it; tanru should do in most cases)
there's always {zei}.  In fact, a fair amount of the time you can even make
do with just the cmene and {zei}.  So to me, even a correct and well-chosen
Stage 4 fu'ivla is still not something I'd want to see.

>Using "i'i" as the two consonants may not be as recognizable at 
>first glance as "u'u", but if the sound in Turkish is the same as 
>French u (IPA [y]), it should definitely be i, since [y] is a valid 
>allophone for the letter i. This may not look exactly like most other 
>languages, but this often happens when learning another language. 

Still, even Turks are used to seeing "Turkey" (or "Turk*") in just about
every other Latin-alphabet orthography.  That can't be a coincidence; /y/
is close to /i/ in other languages as well.  Between that and the
metathesis (ok, is the accent on the second of third syllable in that
word??) of the /r/, the word is pretty hard to recognize.  Particularly
dangerous in a word not canonized in "official" lists.

>The last letter could be either "i" or "e"; I chose "i" because then it 
>matches the other vowels and creates a sort of a vowel harmony 
>(though not in the Turkish sense, I realize). In any event, it doesn't 
>really matter since rafsi fu'ivla aren't supposed to differ only in the 
>last letter.

Fair enough, but note that {o} is the traditional ending for cultural
brivla in Lojban.

~mark