Re: [lojban] Apologia, using h instead of yhy

[Pierre Abbat <phma@bezitopo.org>]

On Saturday, June 24, 2017 1:53:04 PM EDT uakci wrote:
> also, my 3 cents:
> <'> can be used for any other unused fricative sound (as described in the
> CLL), so it needn't be pronounced /h/ all the time, especially when one's
> native language doesn't have /h/. then, if we picked <h> to symbolize some
> non-/h/ sound, would it make sense anymore? (I'm not sure about that, but I
> guess that the founding fathers of the CLL were sure that using the
> grapheme <h> would mess things up.)

There are two words in which <'> was borrowed from /θ/:
fu'arka (rune — not entered because I'm not sure what the place structure 
should be)
abata'adj (an alphabetical order of Arabic script, the other being la .abgad.)
There may be others, but I didn't find them.

On Saturday, June 24, 2017 10:36:26 PM EDT Mike S. wrote:
> Nice arguments; it's been hashed for decades.  The Lojban apostrophe is the
> symbol for a certain sort of semi- or degenerate-consonant sound that is
> only allowed to appear between vowels, and not near another consonant or a
> pause.  There is a certain logic to it.  The distribution of <'> is quite
> distinct from that of other consonants.  Also, there is a competing
> argument, not mentioned on this thread, that <h> should cover /x/.

The distribution of <y> is also distinct from that of other vowels; it does 
not occur within morphemes of a brivla, nor at the end of a word except in 
cmavo. However, that of <'> is more different than that of <y>. Also <y> is 
the only vowel descender, but <h> is not the only consonant ascender.

> Looking at the bigger picture, if there was one thing I could change about
> Lojban orthography, it'd be the use of <.> as a phonological segment, and
> the need to place it front of cmevla.  That's a worse aesthetic offense
> than the Lojban apostrophe ever was; IMHO it's downright jarring.  One
> might have the wish to back up and change a few things at once.  Most
> likely it's never going to happen though, since nothing about Lojban
> orthography is broken in a fundamental way.  It works.  It just pokes a
> finger in the eye of Latin-spelled languages, especially with that
> abominable initial <.>.

I find capitalizing syllables in the middles of words more jarring than 
periods at the beginnings of words or apostrophes pronounced /h/. I much 
prefer the acute accent. Lojban, though, isn't the only language that does 
unusual things with capitals. Saanich is written entirely in capitals.

Pierre
-- 
lo ponse be lo mruli ku po'o cu ga'ezga roda lo ka dinko

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