Subject: Toward the semi-annual attempt to get a Record on names

From: [email-masked]
Date: Thu, 16 Aug 2001 15:51:11 EDT

1. As far as Lojbandizing your own name, anything goes, including not only 
what name you Lojbandize but how you choose to do it: translate or 
transliterate, and how you do the latter. Pick something you like and can 
explain if asked.

2. For names of other people and places, the basic rule is to go with the 
native speakers' presentation, if there are any native speakers available.
A. If there are no native speakers, then follow the descendant 
language with the best claim to descent or the written tradition.
i. The written tradition can follow the written form (assuming 
some uniform way of getting to the Roman alphabet), dealing with anomalies 
(illegal VV or CC and diacritics) in some conventional way (no conventions 
presently exist in any firm form, so make your own for most languages, then 
wrassle them out with others who have a feeling for that language). 
ii. Or the written tradition can follow some traditional 
pronunciation. This fairly often comes down to following either the best 
descendant langauge or trusting some scholars. On the whole following the 
scholars seems safest, since they offend no one specially (i.e., all about 
equally).
iii. The "best claim of descent route" always leads to problems 
if there is more than one contender, so should be avoided unless there is a 
good reason tos elect one, e.g., a national hero of a country speaking A 
whose records were nonetheless in ancient language B: use A's version of B.

B. As is painfully often the case these days, there may be more than 
one "native speaker" version, especially for place names (though not 
exclusively), for the object in question may be in the culture of two or more 
language groups in the same area (mentioning no name), and none of them so 
obviously dominant as to make a clear claim on the naming. This may be time 
for "international usage," if there is one and it is not too obviously one of 
the contending groups (fat chance). It may also be possible to hit a 
compromise in the process of adapting various versions to Lojban, one that is 
not obviously from one language or another, but a muddle in the middle 
somewhere (Lojban's limited phonic resources can be an advantage). 

3. Having hit upon a version to use for the Lojban name, there is now the 
question of just how to represent this version. Of course, it may happen 
that you are working with a language that is just like Lojban phonically and 
so you just write the name in Lojban. But usually the original language and 
Lojban differ in many ways. Some features, like tone and length, we simply 
have to drop (unless it is embarassing not to, then a convention must be 
devised -- but these are probably not different in principle from other 
conventions -- see later). For others, we have to decide what to do.
A. We write it the way it sounds to us (well, officially the way it 
would sound to a native monolingual Lojban speaker, but we fake it as best we 
can). So, for example, English /th/ are /f/ and /v/ or /s/ and /z/ or /t/ 
and /d/, depending on our ear or whatever else influences our perception 
(often how other languages we know -- including non-standard dialects -- do 
it). 
B. We work with the spelling as much as possible: /th/ is spelled 
with a /t/ so we use /t/ for it, for example. Since lojban is still largely 
a written language, this makes things look familiar, even when they sound 
strange (she SHARE own may not sound familiar by ciceron, looks better than 
kIkeron -- which, come to think of it, doesn't sound that good either)
C. Assuming we have a good phonemic analysis of the original language 
(yeah, right), we may try to match that analysis with similar contrasts in 
Lojban, even when these cut across Lojban phonemes. Thus, as noted recently, 
the Japanese phi ("candle blowing sound" as the IPA Handbook had it) before 
u, patterns with /h/ (Lojban /x/ befoe /i/), so might meaningfully be written 
as /xu/ (the the Chinese final /n/~/ng/ as /m/~/n/ is another example). The 
problem here is whether the phonemic analysis is a reality to the native 
speakers who might recognize the convention. Both the examples given seem to 
work, but several others for chinese at least do not.
D. The biggest problem seems always to be vowels. Lojban's 6 align 
nicely with the European ones in stressed syllables and then get left behind 
in the details. They offer no help for umlauts or their opposites (which 
must have a good German name) and are generally weak both up the center and 
along the bottom of the vowel positions (is the vowel of bleating "Kansas" an 
/a/ -- by spelling -- or an /e/ ). For vowel harmony languages, there is a 
temptation (based on the phonemics above) to separate out the components of 
the harmony rules -- and a competing temptation to ignore the harmony 
altogether in the interest of fitting the sounds in.

In the end, the answer to "How do I Lojbanize this word?" seems to be "What 
is the most pleasing sounding word I can come up with a justification for 
good enough to beat down most of the informed opposition?"