Re: [lojban] Re: Number of unique symbols needed to write lojban

[Jacob Errington <nictytan@gmail.com>]

On 9 June 2013 06:56, la arxokuna <gleki.is.my.name@gmail.com> wrote:

On Sunday, June 9, 2013 2:36:10 PM UTC+4, v4hn wrote:

coi

On Sat, Jun 08, 2013 at 08:27:42PM -0700, la arxokuna wrote:
> Oh, i was inprecise a bit.
> 1. dot and apostrophe are letters in lojban so we have 25 lowercase letters.
> 2. There is a new trend to use capital letters instead of names of letters
> (A,B instead of .abu, by.). So we have 23 capital letters.

There is such a trend? Well, at least now there is...
Still capitals have to be included anyway.

> 3. space

What do you need the space for?

????

To input normal text in lojban of course. It's standard lojban. And space is a symbol.

If stress is always indicated, be it by accented characters or capital letters, then the space character is unnecessary, but aids in readability. The comma is the same: if one understands Lojban morphology, then the comma is unnecessary, as it does not alter the pronunciation of a word, and two words differing only in a comma are the same word.

That being said, the absolute minimal set of characters needed to write Lojban using the Latin alphabet are the lowercase letters a to z, minus h, q, and w. The apostrophe and the dot are also needed. In case of atypical stress patterns (which only occur in cmevla) five accented characters are also needed (perhaps six, as I can't recall if one is allowed to stress ybu in cmevla). However, I would not consider each individual accented character to be a separate character, as the sound is the same modulo the stress difference.

Unless we always indicate stress, the space is needed.

That's 25 letters + one symbol if we choose to not always indicate the stress, not counting the accented vowels as characters in their own right (which, IMO, they are not.)

.i mi'e la tsani mu'o

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