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Lercme list, proposed, version 1



The following note proposes a set of cmene to be used to name the
Lojban lerfu.  These cmene can be used in place of the usual cmavo
in noisy environments; for example, "la deltam." means the same thing
as "dy", but is not as easily mistaken for "ty" or "by".  Because of the
regularity of the lerfu cmavo, "spelling out" is not as useful an aid to
comprehension in Lojban as in natural languages.

The cmene are analogous to, and based upon,
the International Telecommunications Union phonetic alphabet.
This alphabet has been very widely used and is known to be noise-resistant,
and was adopted after cmene constructed using several a-priori schemes
turned out to be insufficiently distinct.

I chose not to use existing bridi, per lojbab's suggestion, because it seemed
to me that the meaning of the bridi would intrude.  The cmene proposed here
do not "mean" anything in Lojban, but the ITU phonetic alphabet does not
"mean" anything to people who don't speak English -- it is an international
standard nevertheless.

The lujvo "lercme", based on the tanru "lerfu cmene", is suggested as
a generic name for these cmene.  Each lercme begins with the sound
which it names, and ends with n if a vowel, or {t,s,m,r} if a consonant.
Each lercme is two syllables long, with the usual penultimate stress.
The ITU letters which were already proper names were modified a bit to avoid
conflicts with personal cmene, Lojbanized place names, and so on.
New lercme were invented for x and y, since "X-ray" and "Yankee" depend
on English spelling conventions not shared by Lojban.

a	.alfan.
b	bravot.
c	carvis.
d	deltam.
e	.eskon.
f	faktrat.
g	golfas.
i	.indan.
j	julat.
k	kilot.
l	laiman.
m	mukar.
n	novem.
o	.oskas.
p	papar.
r	romlot.
s	seiras.
t	tangor.
u	.unform.
v	viskor.
x	xurfas.
y	ycvan.
z	zulfus.

	-- djan.kau,n.