From cowan@ccil.org Fri Sep 01 17:49:44 2000 Return-Path: Received: (qmail 726 invoked from network); 2 Sep 2000 00:49:43 -0000 Received: from unknown (10.1.10.26) by m2.onelist.org with QMQP; 2 Sep 2000 00:49:43 -0000 Received: from unknown (HELO locke.ccil.org) (192.190.237.102) by mta1 with SMTP; 2 Sep 2000 00:49:43 -0000 Received: from localhost (cowan@localhost) by locke.ccil.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id VAA05936; Fri, 1 Sep 2000 21:43:51 -0400 (EDT) Date: Fri, 1 Sep 2000 21:43:51 -0400 (EDT) To: Daniel Gudlat Cc: lojban@egroups.com Subject: Re: [lojban] Re: vowel counts In-Reply-To: <026201c01423$21e2daa0$22191bc1@rus.ger.com> Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII X-eGroups-From: John Cowan From: John Cowan On Fri, 1 Sep 2000, Daniel Gudlat wrote: > a) vowel distribution in the source languages: I don't know anything > about the vowel distribution in Chinese, Hindu or Russian, but Arab only > has a, i, u, AFAIK. So this would tend to temper the English prevalence > of e quite a bit, I imagine. "o" is rare in American English and nonexistent in Chinese (pinyin "o" is basically a schwa with w-coloring). > b) maximal separation of sounds: As far as vowels are concerned, a and i > (and u) are maximally separated and thus make for easier word > recognition in noisy environments. So this may have been a design > choice. No. > c) Dipthongs: ai, ei, oi, and au are the lojban standard diphthongs and > strongly favor i and a. Gismu don't contain diphthongs. -- John Cowan cowan@ccil.org "[O]n the whole I'd rather make love than shoot guns [...]" --Eric Raymond