How should I handle non-lojban characters? I can strip out some that
should be superfluous, and others that I can't make any sense out of,
but should I translate some characters into cmavo? I'm thinking of
parentheses, braces, and brackets here. I could translate parentheses
into to-toi, and square brackets into sei-se'u. Any other ideas?
Should I just ignore any random non-lojban characters?
I think it's probably best to leach this shorthand out of Lojban usage. It feels like a natlang security blanket to me, and seems to run counter to the principle of audiovisual isomorphism. A problem with numerals that hasn't been brought up (at least in this thread) is: don't most non-anglophone countries use "," where anglophones use "." and a space or "." where we use "," (i.e. 186,282.397 == 186 282,397 == 186.282,397)? Of course, the downside is that use of English-style numerals in Lojban text is semi-standard & well represented in Lojban text to date, including the instructional materials. mu'o mi'e komfo,amonan