Re: [lojban] Ack! Numbers

["Bob LeChevalier (lojbab)" <lojbab@lojban.org>]

At 08:51 PM 03/19/2001 -0500, Robin Lee Powell wrote:
> Why, in the name of all that's holy, are the first letters of the number
> cmavo not in increasing alphabetical order?  That would have been _SO_
> nice for sorting.

Sorting (or indeed other forms of computer processing) was not in the least 
a priority in the language design.  Computers can be made to do whatever we 
want them to do - the language is designed for humans and not for computers.

In this case the priority was on seeking maximum contrasts between the 
numbers so that no two numbers differed by only a single sound 
feature.  Then we tried to give them a mnemonic for easy memory, for which 
I chose putting the vowels in alphabetical order because I could see a 
solution of that sort that would work.  I don't think I could have gotten 
alphabetization to work for that many numbers, though I did make the hex 
digits occur in alphabetical order; too many other CV cmavo were already 
reserved when I was choosing the number words.

lojbab
--
lojbab                                             lojbab@lojban.org
Bob LeChevalier, President, The Logical Language Group, Inc.
2904 Beau Lane, Fairfax VA 22031-1303 USA                    703-385-0273
Artificial language Loglan/Lojban:                 http://www.lojban.org