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[lojban] Re: Lojban alphabets

Jorge Llambías wrote:

Some thoughts on a featural alphabet for Lojban:
1- In principle, I like it as an idea. In practice, I don't see the community 
of Lojbanists adopting one in the short term, simply because it would
be too impractical to do so. This could actually be a good thing, as it
allows the designers of such an alphabet plenty of time to tinker with
it without worrying that people will be learning a version that would then
become obsolete.


:-) yay.  Agreed on all points, including that the time could be well
spent.  I maintain there is wisdom in at least preparing for such a
feature of the language.

I was thinking I might win over John E Clifford, but now *you're* my
best friend in the list. :)


2- In terms of efficiency of number of symbols to be learned, I don't think
a lot is gained by going down to features.


Not a lot.  But some.


2a- For vowels, there is no gain at all, as there are six vowels
and six features: a, e, i, o, u, y and open/mid/close, front/central/back).
One feature combination is unused (mid back) and three combinations
constitute the same phoneme: /a/ is just open, whether front, central or
back.


Wow.  Some meaty argument.  I was looking forward to this.  Thanks, Jorge.

I'm going way to the limits of practicality here, but that's just
because the game suddenly got more fun again :) and I wanna *play*!
Please forgive my exuberance!

y could be considered the 'center' vowel, indeed it's called the
'central mid vowel', and you can't get more centred than that.  Vowels
go in order away from y in one direction ('back'): 'o' 'u', and in order
away from y in the other direction ('front'): 'a' 'e' 'i'.  A
sign/magnitude representation appears appropriate.

Hm.  Maybe my cultural familiarity with the 'a' symbol is affecting how
I drew that map (a bad thing, yes? oh please say yes).  I'm so used to
making the 'a' sound more in the front.


2b- For consonants, there are 19 consonants and 12 features (five
points of articulation, five manners of articulation, and voiced/unvoiced),
so while there is a slight gain in efficiency, it is not extremely
significant.


Yay!  Meaty.  Mmmm.


3- One possible advantage of a featural alphabet that I don't think has
been mentioned is that it might help with the learning of phonotactics.


Um, I know *I* didn't bring it up.  Never saw the word before.  I'm glad
you did!  Thank you!


Some people have trouble recognizing which consonants are voiced and
which are unvoiced for example, so if this was encoded in the character
that represents the phoneme they would have an easier time knowing
when they are required to insert a {y} in making a lujvo. There are a few
other phonotactic rules that are based on features too. By the same token
though, a featural alphabet would also have the disadvantage of exposing
some other phonotactic rules as totally arbitrary :)


Eh :) what is and is not arbitrary, where it belongs and is desired and
is necessary, is a current point of contention in some parts of the
globe (you may have noticed).  Making it more transparent where it is
and is not, IMHO, would be a *good* thing.

mi'e .xius.
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