Subject: Re: [lojban] coi rodo -- greetings from the newbie

From: "Bob LeChevalier (lojbab)" <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 04 May 2000 04:25:29 -0400

At 07:15 PM 05/03/2000 -0400, Paul Jarc wrote:
>Bob LeChevalier (lojbab) writes:
> > At 12:17 PM 05/03/2000 -0400, Paul Jarc wrote:
> > >The lojban spelling would be {DJEF OLsyn}.
> >
> > This is a good answer, but two points:
> >
> > 1) Lojban syllables with "y" are never stressed, the default stress is
> > penultimate (next to last syllable),
>
>More precisely, IIRC, it's the next-to-last non-y syllable (i.e., the
>non-y syllable most immediately prior to the last non-y syllable, as
>opposed to the non-y syllable most immediately prior to the last
>syllable).

Correct. I was sloppy.

> So while Pol has given an acceptable Lojban version,

>I think I prefer `Paul' in English, or {la pol} in lojban. `Pol' is a
>bit... odd-seeming. Speaking of name-lojbanization, can anyone think
>of a better way to lojbanize that vowel?

Being a speaker of a Midwest dialect that pronounces "la" and "law" with 
the same vowel, I would pronounce it "pal". Another option is to preserve 
the spelling at the cost of pronunciation, because "paul" is a perfectly 
good Lojban spelling, if pronounced a bit differently from the 
English. Still another approach splits the difference and keeps the vowel 
sound and the spelling, using "pa,ul", which I suspect is how the name is 
pronounced in some countries, based on similarity to Raoul (ra,ul).

lojbab

> > 2) Most dialects of English do not actually use a "y" in the pronunciation
> > where Pol inserted one, but just use syllabic "n".
>
>Listening to myself, I hear a little bit of a vowel between the s and
>n - not quite lojban's {y}, more like English's short i (I ought to
>learn the phonetic alphabet one of these days...), but lojban doesn't
>have an unambiguous way to write that sound.

To be specific, it is one of the optional buffer sounds between consonant 
pairs. As such, it is a legitimate pronunciation of "olsn".

Again with this name there is the option of surrendering the 
identical-to-English pronunciation, and Lojbanizing the name as "olsen" 
which is actually quite close to the English, as long as you smile broadly 
while you say the name (so as to keep your mouth tense and hence your 
vowels pure - this is a bit of advice I often give Lojbanists: smile when 
you talk Lojban).

lojbab
----
lojbab [email-masked]
Bob LeChevalier, President, The Logical Language Group, Inc.
2904 Beau Lane, Fairfax VA 22031-1303 USA 703-385-0273
Artificial language Loglan/Lojban: http://www.lojban.org (newly updated!)