Re: [lojban] Re: I wanted to share this with you (writing thingy!).

And the point of all this is...? Creating new alphabets is an interesting part of language creation and give flight to the more aesthetically inclined. It is thus welcomed and applauded. But the suggestion that we actually use this (or any other clever alphabet) for Lojban inevitably brings on the point of practicality. It is hard enough to learn Lojban as it is, in a familiar -- if slightly modified -- alphabet, bbut to add learning a new alphabet, however clever, may well be the straw, etc. (see, as a not very atypical example, my years of not learning Hebrew, not to mention Chinese). The fact that the letter ""all look the same" just adds to the problem in this case (cf Hebrew again and Armenian and Thai to start the list). While the claim is not literally true, it is perceptually true enough to amount to a serious problem.

But it sure looks nice.

From: Jonathan Jones <eyeonus@gmail.com>
To: lojban@googlegroups.com
Sent: Sun, November 7, 2010 3:13:43 PM
Subject: Re: [lojban] Re: I wanted to share this with you (writing thingy!).

On Sun, Nov 7, 2010 at 1:57 PM, Lindar <lindarthebard@yahoo.com> wrote:

> First of all I thought it would be constructive to post this link:http://www.ccelian.com/ElianScriptFull.html
> It explains *a lot* :) Especially how this would look like in handwriting.

Actually, that doesn't explain a damn thing, as larlermorna is really
only loosely based on Elian Script. If you look at the pictures that
I've linked, you'll see that I've included several writing and style
examples. Elian's English-mode functions veeeeeeery much not like the
Lojban mode.

> I really like this idea. One question though: where's {y}? :)

Okay, since we've got so much confusion here, I will be very explicit.

http://jbotcan.org/ideas/thumb/1289102653812s.jpg
This picture outlines the basic script. It shows the grid and how the
system was developed for a Lojban mode. Each corner of the hash
corresponds to a letter. The example text reads {.i .o'i mu xagji
sofybakni cu zvati le purdi}. This shows an example of every character
(minus the 'hard-diphthongs'), so please refer to this as your core
example. For those of you that just can't seem to get it, {.y'y} would
be written:

X X
. ^

I hope that clears up an confusion on the 'non-letters'.

http://jbotcan.org/ideas/thumb/1289103671236s.jpg
This picture outlines several writing styles. The first two were
hastily written with a round tip in two different fashions to
illustrate how each character may be 'casually' written. Note that
{coi} is the first word, and is a great example of how characters may
be variably written. It can be written as a u or a |_|, as long as
it's obvious that all 'sides' are equal(-ish) in length and that the
top is open. We can also see in the first two lines that {rodo} is
written two different ways. In the first, the D is written hanging
down, whereas in the second it's written ===| with the horizontal bars
extended instead. This is to illustrate that it doesn't matter which
dimension is lengthened as long as it's made obvious that it is not
equal in all dimensions. This is driven home in the third and fourth
examples because all of the sides -are- equal, but in both there is a
tail dropping downward. All four examples say {coi rodo mi'e
la .lindar.} except the third which says {.lin.} because I was sloppy.
Refer to this for style guides.

http://jbotcan.org/ideas/thumb/1289106614940s.jpg
This illustrates how the 'soft' diphthongs are made. I wanted to, for
the sake of consistency, fill in the entire grid for the vowels as
well. So AU AI EI OI have a single character. However, to come up with
single characters for every permutation of initial I and initial U
would be very difficult, especially since we've nearly exhausted every
permutation of this grid system. To make this easier, diphthongs that
have an initial I are overlined and initial U are underlined. The
first example reads {.ui}. It is the character {.i } with the diacrit
underlined. The second is the character {.u } which has been
overlined, giving us {.iu} as a result. The third is {.ua}, which is
the {.a } character underlined. The final example is an overlined
{.o }, which gives us {.io}.

http://jbotcan.org/ideas/src/1289156112875.png
This is a nifty picture of a giant stone monster.

http://jbotcan.org/ideas/src/1289156177933.png
This is a picture of the same using larlermorna in a 'stone etched'
style of writing as another example of its use and stylisation. The
bubble reads {.i ti mo}.

I hope I have cleared up any confusion on usage and characters.

I think remo should start using this script in his comic translations - I think it's an excellent method for space-restricted writing.

--
mu'o mi'e .aionys.

.i.a'o.e'e ko cmima le bende pe lo pilno be denpa bu .i doi.luk. mi patfu do zo'o
(Come to the Dot Side! Luke, I am your father. :D )

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