[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next][Date Index][Thread Index]
[Wikichanges] Wiki page wavelessonscontinuedp0 changed by gleki
The page wavelessonscontinuedp0 was changed by gleki at 12:20 UTC
You can view the page by following this link:
http://www.lojban.org/tiki/wavelessonscontinuedp0
You can view a diff back to the previous version by following this link:
http://www.lojban.org/tiki/tiki-pagehistory.php?page=wavelessonscontinuedp0&compare=1&oldver=1&newver=2
***********************************************************
The changes in this version follow below, followed after by the current full page text.
***********************************************************
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
@@ -Lines: 1-3 changed to +Lines: 1-3 @@
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
- !Chapter 1. Sounds, names and a few attitudes
+ !Preface. Sounds
The first thing you need to do when you learn a foreign language is to become familiar with the sounds of the language and how they are written, and the same goes for Lojban. Fortunately, Lojban sounds (__phonemes__) are fairly straightforward.
!!Vowels
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
@@ -Lines: 7-13 changed to +Lines: 7-13 @@
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
e |as in ''g__e__t''
i |as in ''mach__i__ne'' or (Italian) ''v__i__no'' (not as in ''h__i__t'')
- o |as in ''b__o__ld ''or ''m__o__re''not as in ''s__o''__ (this should be a pure sound.)
+ o |as in ''b__o__ld ''or ''m__o__re''not as in ''s__o''__ (this should be a 'pure' sound.)
u |as in ''c__oo__l'' (not as in ''b__u__t'') ||
- These are pretty much the same as vowels in Italian or Spanish. The sixth vowel, y, is called a __schwa__ in the language trade, and is pronounced like the first and last ''A''s in ''America'' (thats English ''America'', not Spanish.) Its the sound that comes out when the mouth is completely relaxed.
+ These are pretty much the same as vowels in Italian or Spanish. The sixth vowel, y, is called a __schwa__ in the language trade, and is pronounced like the first and last ''A'''s in ''America'' (that's English ''America'', not Spanish.) It's the sound that comes out when the mouth is completely relaxed.
Two vowels together are pronounced as one sound (__diphthong__). Some examples are:
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
@@ -Lines: 32-119 changed to +Lines: 32-114 @@
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
x |as in German ''Ba__ch''__, Spanish ''__J__ose'' or Arabic ''__Kh__aled'' ||
The English sounds ''ch'' and ''j'' are written as tc and dj.
- Lojban doesnt use the letters ''H'', ''Q'' or ''W''.
+ Lojban doesn't use the letters ''H'', ''Q'' or ''W''.
!!Special Characters
Lojban does not require any punctuation, but some special characters (normally used in punctuation in other languages) affect the way Lojban is pronounced.
- The only one of these characters which is obligatory in Lojban is the apostrophe; in fact the apostrophe is regarded as a proper letter of Lojban. An apostrophe separates two vowels, preventing them from being pronounced together (as a __diphthong__); it is itself pronounced like an ''h''. For example, ui is normally pronounced ''we'', but ui is ''oohee''.
+ The only one of these characters which is obligatory in Lojban is the apostrophe; in fact the apostrophe is regarded as a proper letter of Lojban. An apostrophe separates two vowels, preventing them from being pronounced together (as a __diphthong__); it is itself pronounced like an ''h''. For example, ui is normally pronounced ''we'', but u'i is ''oohee''.
A full stop (period) is a short pause to stop words running into each other. The rules of Lojban make it easier for one word to run into another when the second word begins with a vowel; so any word starting with a vowel conventionally has a full stop placed in front of it.
- Commas are rare in Lojban, but can be used to stop two vowels blurring together when you dont want to use an apostrophe (which would put a ''h'' between them). No Lojban words have commas, but theyre sometimes used in writing non-Lojban names, for example pi,ER. (''Pierre''), as opposed to pier. (''P-yerr''), pi.ER. (''Pee; Ehr''), or piER. (''Piherr''). <br />Capital letters are not normally used in Lojban. We use them in non-Lojban words (like ''Pierre'') when the stress of a word is different from the Lojban norm. The norm is to put the stress on the last-but-one syllable; so, for example, kurmikce nurse is kur__MIK__ce, not __KUR__mikce. The name ''Juliette'' would be written DJUli,et. if pronounced in an English way, but juLIET. if pronounced as in French.
+ Commas are rare in Lojban, but can be used to stop two vowels blurring together when you don't want to use an apostrophe (which would put a ''h'' between them). No Lojban words have commas, but they're sometimes used in writing non-Lojban names, for example pi,ER. (''Pierre''), as opposed to pier. (''P-yerr''), pi.ER. (''Pee; Ehr''), or pi'ER. (''Piherr''). <br />Capital letters are not normally used in Lojban. We use them in non-Lojban words (like ''Pierre'') when the stress of a word is different from the Lojban norm. The norm is to put the stress on the last-but-one syllable; so, for example, kurmikce 'nurse' is kur__MIK__ce, not __KUR__mikce. The name ''Juliette'' would be written DJUli,et. if pronounced in an English way, but juLIET. if pronounced as in French.
!!Alphabet
In most language textbooks, you get the alphabet of the language together with its sounds. Letters (lerfu) turn out to be even more important than usual in Lojban, so we might as well go through their names quickly.
- Consonants are straightforward: the name of a consonant letter is that letter, plus y. So the consonant letters of Lojban, ''b, c, d, f, g ...'', are called by., cy., dy., fy., gy.... in Lojban (using the full stop as weve just described.) <br />Vowels ''would'' be called .ay, .ey, .iy, but that would be rather difficult to pronounce. Instead, they are handled by following the vowel sound with the word bu, which basically means letter. So the vowels of Lojban are: .abu, .ebu, .ibu, .obu, .ubu, ybu. <br />The apostrophe is regarded as a proper letter in Lojban, and is called .yy.. To some people, this sounds like a cough; to other, like ''uh-huh'' (when it means Yes rather than No.) <br />Lojban has ways of refering to most letters you can think of; see ''The Complete Lojban Language'', Chapter 17 for details. If you have the urge to spell out your name in Lojban and have an ''H'', ''Q'', or ''W'' to deal with, you can use .yy.bu, ky.bu and vy.bu. So ''Schwarzenegger'' is spelt in Lojban as: <br />sy. cy. .yybu vybu. .abu ry. zy. .ebu ny. .ebu gy. gy. .ebu ry.
+ Consonants are straightforward: the name of a consonant letter is that letter, plus y. So the consonant letters of Lojban, ''b, c, d, f, g ...'', are called by., cy., dy., fy., gy.... in Lojban (using the full stop as we've just described.) <br />Vowels ''would'' be called .ay, .ey, .iy, but that would be rather difficult to pronounce. Instead, they are handled by following the vowel sound with the word bu, which basically means 'letter'. So the vowels of Lojban are: .abu, .ebu, .ibu, .obu, .ubu, ybu. <br />The apostrophe is regarded as a proper letter in Lojban, and is called .y'y.. To some people, this sounds like a cough; to other, like ''uh-huh'' (when it means 'Yes' rather than 'No'.) <br />Lojban has ways of refering to most letters you can think of; see ''The Complete Lojban Language'', Chapter 17 for details. If you have the urge to spell out your name in Lojban and have an ''H'', ''Q'', or ''W'' to deal with, you can use .y'y.bu, ky.bu and vy.bu. So ''Schwarzenegger'' is spelt in Lojban as: <br />sy. cy. .y'ybu vybu. .abu ry. zy. .ebu ny. .ebu gy. gy. .ebu ry.
And spelling ''that'' is a task the equal of anything the Terminator ever did!
Exercise 1
- Spell your name in Lojban (or at least something close enough to it to use the twenty-six letters of English we have learned, and the apostrophe.) No peeking at the backwe dont have the answer to this exercise there! <br />!! Correct pronunciation<br />You dont have to be very precise about Lojban pronunciation, because the phonemes are distributed so that it is hard to mistake one sound for another. This means that rather than one correct pronunciation, there is a range of acceptable pronunciationthe general principle is that anything is OK so long as it doesnt sound too much like something else. For example, Lojban r can be pronounced like the ''r'' in English, Scottish or French. <br />Two things to be careful of, though, are pronouncing Lojban i and u like Standard British English ''hit'' and ''but'' (Northern English ''but'' is fine!). This is because non-Lojban vowels, particularly these two, are used to separate consonants by people who find them hard to say. For example, if you have problems spitting out the zd in zdani (house), you can say zdaniwhere the is very short, but the final i has to be long.
+ Spell your name in Lojban (or at least something close enough to it to use the twenty-six letters of English we have learned, and the apostrophe.) No peeking at the backwe don't have the answer to this exercise there! <br />!! 'Correct' pronunciation<br />You don't have to be very precise about Lojban pronunciation, because the phonemes are distributed so that it is hard to mistake one sound for another. This means that rather than one 'correct' pronunciation, there is a range of acceptable pronunciationthe general principle is that anything is OK so long as it doesn't sound too much like something else. For example, Lojban r can be pronounced like the ''r'' in English, Scottish or French. <br />Two things to be careful of, though, are pronouncing Lojban i and u like Standard British English ''hit'' and ''but'' (Northern English ''but'' is fine!). This is because non-Lojban vowels, particularly these two, are used to separate consonants by people who find them hard to say. For example, if you have problems spitting out the zd in zdani (house), you can say zdaniwhere the '''' is very short, but the final ''i'' has to be long.
!!Lojban Names (cmene)
- Watch any film where people dont know each others language. They start off saying things like Me Tarzan, which is as good a place to start learning Lojban as any. So here we go. <br />mie robin.
+ Watch any film where people don't know each other's language. They start off saying things like Me Tarzan, which is as good a place to start learning Lojban as any. So here we go. <br />mi'e .robin.
I-am-named Robin
- Im Robin <br />mie is related to mi, which is I, me and so on. Its a good example of the apostrophe separating two vowels, and sounds a bit like ''me heh''. <br />I am lucky because my name goes directly into Lojban without any changes. However, there are some rules for Lojban names which mean that some names have to be Lojbanised. This may sound strangeafter all, a name is a namebut in fact all languages do this to some extent. For example, English speakers tend to pronounce ''Jose'' something like ''Hozay'', and ''Margaret'' in Chinese is ''Magelita''. Some sounds just dont exist in some languages, so the first thing you need to do is rewrite the name so that it only contains Lojban sounds, and is spelt in a Lojban way. <br />__Note: __The catch here is, what version of the sounds will you be using? For English in particular, British and American vowels can be quite different. The British version of ''Robin'' is reasonably approximated by robin.; but the American version is closer to rabyn. or rab,n.. And within America and Britain, there is also a good deal of variation. So you should take the transliterations given below with a grain of salt. <br />Lets take the English name ''Susan''. The two ''s''s are pronounced differentlythe second one is actually a ''z''and the ''a'' is not really an ''a'' sound, its the schwa we just mentioned. So ''Susan'' comes out in Lojban as suzyn.. <br />You may have noticed the extra full stop (period) there. This is necessary because if you didnt pause, you might not know where the name ended and the next word began. In addition, if a name ''begins'' with a vowel, you need a full stop there as well. For example:
+ I'm Robin <br />mi'e is related to mi, which is 'I', 'me' and so on. It's a good example of the apostrophe separating two vowels, and sounds a bit like ''me heh''. <br />This guy Robin is lucky because his name goes directly into Lojban without any changes. However, there are some rules for Lojban names which mean that some names have to be 'Lojbanised'. This may sound strangeafter all, a name is a namebut in fact all languages do this to some extent. For example, English speakers tend to pronounce ''Jose'' something like ''Hozay'', and ''Margaret'' in Chinese is ''Magelita''. Some sounds just don't exist in some languages, so the first thing you need to do is rewrite the name so that it only contains Lojban sounds, and is spelt in a Lojban way. <br />__Note: __The catch here is, what version of the sounds will you be using? For English in particular, British and American vowels can be quite different. The British version of ''Robin'' is reasonably approximated by .robin.; but the American version is closer to rabyn. or rab,n.. And within America and Britain, there is also a good deal of variation. So you should take the transliterations given below with a grain of salt. <br />Let's take the English name ''Susan''. The two ''s'''s are pronounced differentlythe second one is actually a ''z''and the ''a'' is not really an ''a'' sound, it's the 'schwa' we just mentioned. So ''Susan'' comes out in Lojban as .suzyn.. <br />You may have noticed two extra full stops (periods) there. This is necessary because if you didn't pause, you might not know where the previous word ended and the next word began. For example:
- ||.an. |Anne <br />.axmet. |Ahmet <br />.eduard. |Edward <br />.IBraxim. or .IBraim. |Ibrahim <br />.odin. |Odin ||<br />You can also put a full stop in between a persons first and last names (though its not compulsory), so ''Jim Jones'' becomes djim.djonz.. <br />An important rule for Lojbanising names is that the last letter of a cmene (Lojban name) must be a consonant. Again, this is to prevent confusion as to where a name ends, and what is and is not a name (all other Lojban words end in a vowel). We usually use ''s'' for this; so in Lojban, ''Mary'' becomes meris. , ''Joe'' becomes djos. and so on. An alternative is to leave out the last vowel, so ''Mary'' would become mer. or meir.. <br />A few combinations of letters are illegal in Lojbanised names, because they can be confused with Lojban words: la, lai and doi. So ''Alabama'' cant be .alabamas. but needs to be .alybamas. , for example. <br />The final point is stress. As weve seen, Lojban words are stressed on the penultimate syllable, and if a name has different stress, we use capital letters. This means that the English and French names ''Robert'' come out differently in Lojban: the English name is robyt. in UK English, or rab,rt. in some American dialects, but the French is roBER. .
+ You should also put a full stop in between a person's first and last names (though it's not compulsory), so ''Jim Jones'' becomes djim.djonz.. <br />An important rule for Lojbanising names is that the last letter of a cmene (Lojban name) must be a consonant. Again, this is to prevent confusion as to where a name ends, and what is and is not a name (all other Lojban words end in a vowel). We usually use ''s'' for this; so in Lojban, ''Mary'' becomes .meris. , ''Joe'' becomes .djos. and so on. An alternative is to leave out the last vowel, so ''Mary'' would become .mer. or .meir.. <br /><br />The final point is stress. As we've seen, Lojban words are stressed on the penultimate syllable, and if a name has different stress, we use capital letters. This means that the English and French names ''Robert'' come out differently in Lojban: the English name is .robyt. in UK English, or .rab,rt. in some American dialects, but the French is .roBER. .
To give an idea of how all this works, here are some names of famous people in their own language and in Lojban.
||__English__
- Margaret Thatcher |magryt.tatcys. (no ''th'' in Lojban because most people around the world cant say it!) <br />Mick Jagger |mik.djagys. ||
+ Margaret Thatcher |.magryt.tatcys. (no ''th'' in Lojban because most people around the world can't say it!) <br />Mick Jagger |.mik.djagys. ||
||__French__
- Napoleon Bonaparte |napole,ON.bonaPART. <br />Juliette Binoche |juLIET.binOC. ||
+ Napoleon Bonaparte |.napole,ON.bonaPART. <br />Juliette Binoche |.juLIET.binOC. ||
||__Chinese__
- Laozi |laudz. <br />Mao Zedong |maudzyDYN. (Final ''ng'' is in Lojban conventionally turned into n.) ||
+ Laozi |.laudz. <br />Mao Zedong |.maudzyDYN. (Final ''ng'' is in Lojban conventionally turned into n.) ||
||__Turkish__
- Mustafa Kemal |MUStafas.keMAL.
+ Mustafa Kemal |.MUStafas.keMAL.
Erkin Koray |.erkin.korais. ||
||__German__
- Friedrich Nietzsche |fridrix.nitcys. <br />Clara Schumann |klaras.cuman. ||
+ Friedrich Nietzsche |.fridrix.nitcys. <br />Clara Schumann |.klaras.cuman. ||
||__Spanish__
Isabel Allende |.izaBEL.aiendes.
- Che Guevara |tcegevaras. ||<br />Exercise 2
+ Che Guevara |.tcegevaras. ||<br />!!!Exercise 2
Where are these places?
- #nu,IORK. <br />#romas. <br />#xavanas. <br />#kardif. <br />#beidjin.
+ #.nu,IORK. <br />#.romas. <br />#.xavanas. <br />#.kardif. <br />#.beidjin.
#.ANkaras.
#.ALbekerkis.
- #vankuver. <br />#keiptaun. <br />#taibeis. <br />#bon. <br />#delis. <br />#nis.
+ #.vankuver. <br />#.keiptaun. <br />#.taibeis. <br />#.bon. <br />#.delis. <br />#.nis.
#.atinas.
- #lidz. <br />#xelsinkis. <br />Exercise 3
+ #.lidz. <br />#.xelsinkis. <br />!!!Exercise 3
Lojbanise the following names
#John
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
@@ -Lines: 132-145 changed to +Lines: 127-140 @@
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
#San Salvador
!!Lojban words as names
- By now you should be able to Lojbanise your own name. However, if you prefer, you can translate your name into Lojban (if you know what it means, of course) or adopt a completely new Lojban identity. Native Americans generally translate their name when speaking English, partly because they have meaningful names, and partly because they dont expect the ''wasichu'' to be able to pronounce words in Lakota, Cherokee or whatever! <br />All Lojban words (as opposed to cmene) end in a vowel, and although you ''can'' use them as names as they stand, its common to leave out the final vowel to make it absolutely clear that this is a name and not something else (Lojban goes for overkill when it comes to possible misunderstanding). So if your name or nickname is ''Cat'' (Lojban mlatu), you can either add s like a normal cmene to make mlatus., or just chop the end off and call yourself mlat. .
+ By now you should be able to Lojbanise your own name. However, if you prefer, you can translate your name into Lojban (if you know what it means, of course) or adopt a completely new Lojban identity. Native Americans generally translate their name when speaking English, partly because they have meaningful names, and partly because they don't expect the ''wasichu'' to be able to pronounce words in Lakota, Cherokee or whatever! <br />All Lojban words (as opposed to cmene) end in a vowel, and although you ''can'' use them as names as they stand, it's common to leave out the final vowel to make it absolutely clear that this is a name and not something else (Lojban goes for overkill when it comes to possible misunderstanding). So if your name or nickname is ''Cat'' (Lojban mlatu), you can either add s like a normal cmene to make .mlatus., or just chop the end off and call yourself .mlat. .
Here are a few examples:
- Fish finpe finp. <br /> Bjrn (Scandinavian = bear) cribe crib. <br /> Green crino crin. <br /> Mei Li (Chinese = beautiful) melbi melb. <br /> Ayhan (Turkish = Moon Lord) lunra nobli (= lurnobli) lurnoblis.
+ Fish finpe .finp. <br /> Bjrn (Scandinavian = bear) cribe .crib. <br /> Green crino .crin. <br /> Mei Li (Chinese = beautiful) melbi .melb. <br /> Ayhan (Turkish = Moon Lord) lunra nobli (= lurnobli) .lurnoblis.
!!Answers to Exercises
- Exercise 2
+ '''Exercise 2'''
#New York: USA
#Rome: Italy
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
@@ -Lines: 151-176 changed to +Lines: 146-171 @@
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
#Vancouver: Canada
#Cape Town: South Africa
- #Taipei: Taiwan (note b, not p. Although actually, the b in Pinyin is pronounced as a p... But this isnt meant to be a course on Mandarin!)
+ #Taipei: Taiwan (note b, not p. Although actually, the b in Pinyin is pronounced as a p... But this isn't meant to be a course on Mandarin!)
#Bonn: Germany
- #Delhi: India (The Hindi for ''Delhi'' is ''Dill'', which would give diliys. or diliis..)
+ #Delhi: India (The Hindi for ''Delhi'' is ''Dill'', which would give diliys. or dili'is..)
#Nice: France
#Athens: Greece (''Athina'' in Greek)
#Leeds: England
#Helsinki: Finland
- Exercise 3<br />There are usually alternative spellings for names, either because people pronounce the originals differently, or because the exact sound doesnt exist in Lojban, so you need to choose between two Lojban letters. This doesnt matter, so long as everyone knows who or where youre talking about. <br />#djon. (or djan. with some accents) <br />#melisys.
+ '''Exercise 3'''<br />There are usually alternative spellings for names, either because people pronounce the originals differently, or because the exact sound doesn't exist in Lojban, so you need to choose between two Lojban letters. This doesn't matter, so long as everyone knows who or where you're talking about. <br />#.djon. (or .djan. with some accents) <br />#.melisys.
#.amandys. (again, depending on your accent, the final y may be a, the initial a may be y, and the middle a may be e.)
- #matius. <br />#maikyl. or maik,l. , depending on how you say it. <br />#deivyd.bau,is. or bo,is. (but not bu,is.thats the knife) <br />#djein.ostin.
+ #.matius. <br />#.maikyl. or .maik,l. , depending on how you say it. <br />#.deivyd.bau,is. or .bo,is. (but not .bu,is. that's the knife) <br />#.djein.ostin.
#.uiliam.cekspir.
- #sigornis.uivyr. or sygornis.uivyr. <br />#ritcyrd.niksyn. <br />#.istanBUL. with English stress, .IStanbul with American, .istanbul. with Turkish. Lojbanists generally prefer to base cmene on local pronunciation, but this is not an absolute rule. <br />#maDRID. <br />#tokios. <br />#san.salvaDOR. (with Spanish stress)
+ #.sigornis.uivyr. or .sygornis.uivyr. <br />#.ritcyrd.niksyn. <br />#.istanBUL. with English stress, .IStanbul. with American, .istanbul. with Turkish. Lojbanists generally prefer to base cmene on local pronunciation, but this is not an absolute rule. <br />#.maDRID. <br />#.tokios. <br />#.san.salvaDOR. (with Spanish stress)
***********************************************************
The new page content follows below.
***********************************************************
!Preface. Sounds
The first thing you need to do when you learn a foreign language is to become familiar with the sounds of the language and how they are written, and the same goes for Lojban. Fortunately, Lojban sounds (__phonemes__) are fairly straightforward.
!!Vowels
There are six vowels in Lojban.
||a |as in ''f__a__ther'' (not as in ''h__a__t'')
e |as in ''g__e__t''
i |as in ''mach__i__ne'' or (Italian) ''v__i__no'' (not as in ''h__i__t'')
o |as in ''b__o__ld ''or ''m__o__re''—not as in ''s__o''__ (this should be a 'pure' sound.)
u |as in ''c__oo__l'' (not as in ''b__u__t'') ||
These are pretty much the same as vowels in Italian or Spanish. The sixth vowel, y, is called a __schwa__ in the language trade, and is pronounced like the first and last ''A'''s in ''America'' (that's English ''America'', not Spanish.) It's the sound that comes out when the mouth is completely relaxed.
Two vowels together are pronounced as one sound (__diphthong__). Some examples are:
||ai |as in ''h__igh''__
au |as in ''h__ow''__
ei |as in ''h__ey''__
oi |as in ''b__oy''__
ia |like German ''__Ja''__
ie |like ''__yeah''__
iu |like ''__you''__
ua |as in ''__waah!''__, or French ''q__uoi''__
ue |as in ''q__ue__stion''
uo |as in ''q__uo__te''
ui |like ''__we''__, or French ''__oui''__ ||
Double vowels are rare. The only examples are ii, which is pronounced like English ''ye'' (as in “Oh come all ye faithful”) or Chinese ''yi'', and uu, pronounced like ''woo''.
!!Consonants
Most Lojban consonants are the same as English, but there are some exceptions:
||g |always ''g'' as in ''__g__um'', never ''g'' as in ''__g__em''
c |''sh'', as in ''__sh__ip''
j |as in ''mea__s__ure'' or French ''bon__j__our''
x |as in German ''Ba__ch''__, Spanish ''__J__ose'' or Arabic ''__Kh__aled'' ||
The English sounds ''ch'' and ''j'' are written as tc and dj.
Lojban doesn't use the letters ''H'', ''Q'' or ''W''.
!!Special Characters
Lojban does not require any punctuation, but some special characters (normally used in punctuation in other languages) affect the way Lojban is pronounced.
The only one of these characters which is obligatory in Lojban is the apostrophe; in fact the apostrophe is regarded as a proper letter of Lojban. An apostrophe separates two vowels, preventing them from being pronounced together (as a __diphthong__); it is itself pronounced like an ''h''. For example, ui is normally pronounced ''we'', but u'i is ''oohee''.
A full stop (period) is a short pause to stop words running into each other. The rules of Lojban make it easier for one word to run into another when the second word begins with a vowel; so any word starting with a vowel conventionally has a full stop placed in front of it.
Commas are rare in Lojban, but can be used to stop two vowels blurring together when you don't want to use an apostrophe (which would put a ''h'' between them). No Lojban words have commas, but they're sometimes used in writing non-Lojban names, for example pi,ER. (''Pierre''), as opposed to pier. (''P-yerr''), pi.ER. (''Pee; Ehr''), or pi'ER. (''Piherr'').
Capital letters are not normally used in Lojban. We use them in non-Lojban words (like ''Pierre'') when the stress of a word is different from the Lojban norm. The norm is to put the stress on the last-but-one syllable; so, for example, kurmikce 'nurse' is kur__MIK__ce, not __KUR__mikce. The name ''Juliette'' would be written DJUli,et. if pronounced in an English way, but juLIET. if pronounced as in French.
!!Alphabet
In most language textbooks, you get the alphabet of the language together with its sounds. Letters (lerfu) turn out to be even more important than usual in Lojban, so we might as well go through their names quickly.
Consonants are straightforward: the name of a consonant letter is that letter, plus y. So the consonant letters of Lojban, ''b, c, d, f, g ...'', are called by., cy., dy., fy., gy.... in Lojban (using the full stop as we've just described.)
Vowels ''would'' be called .ay, .ey, .iy, but that would be rather difficult to pronounce. Instead, they are handled by following the vowel sound with the word bu, which basically means 'letter'. So the vowels of Lojban are: .abu, .ebu, .ibu, .obu, .ubu, ybu.
The apostrophe is regarded as a proper letter in Lojban, and is called .y'y.. To some people, this sounds like a cough; to other, like ''uh-huh'' (when it means 'Yes' rather than 'No'.)
Lojban has ways of refering to most letters you can think of; see ''The Complete Lojban Language'', Chapter 17 for details. If you have the urge to spell out your name in Lojban and have an ''H'', ''Q'', or ''W'' to deal with, you can use .y'y.bu, ky.bu and vy.bu. So ''Schwarzenegger'' is spelt in Lojban as:
sy. cy. .y'ybu vybu. .abu ry. zy. .ebu ny. .ebu gy. gy. .ebu ry.
And spelling ''that'' is a task the equal of anything the Terminator ever did!
Exercise 1
Spell your name in Lojban (or at least something close enough to it to use the twenty-six letters of English we have learned, and the apostrophe.) No peeking at the back—we don't have the answer to this exercise there!
!! 'Correct' pronunciation
You don't have to be very precise about Lojban pronunciation, because the phonemes are distributed so that it is hard to mistake one sound for another. This means that rather than one 'correct' pronunciation, there is a range of acceptable pronunciation—the general principle is that anything is OK so long as it doesn't sound too much like something else. For example, Lojban r can be pronounced like the ''r'' in English, Scottish or French.
Two things to be careful of, though, are pronouncing Lojban i and u like Standard British English ''hit'' and ''but'' (Northern English ''but'' is fine!). This is because non-Lojban vowels, particularly these two, are used to separate consonants by people who find them hard to say. For example, if you have problems spitting out the zd in zdani (house), you can say zɪdani—where the ''ɪ'' is very short, but the final ''i'' has to be long.
!!Lojban Names (cmene)
Watch any film where people don't know each other's language. They start off saying things like “Me Tarzan,” which is as good a place to start learning Lojban as any. So here we go.
mi'e .robin.
I-am-named Robin
I'm Robin
mi'e is related to mi, which is 'I', 'me' and so on. It's a good example of the apostrophe separating two vowels, and sounds a bit like ''me heh''.
This guy Robin is lucky because his name goes directly into Lojban without any changes. However, there are some rules for Lojban names which mean that some names have to be 'Lojbanised'. This may sound strange—after all, a name is a name—but in fact all languages do this to some extent. For example, English speakers tend to pronounce ''Jose'' something like ''Hozay'', and ''Margaret'' in Chinese is ''Magelita''. Some sounds just don't exist in some languages, so the first thing you need to do is rewrite the name so that it only contains Lojban sounds, and is spelt in a Lojban way.
__Note: __The catch here is, what version of the sounds will you be using? For English in particular, British and American vowels can be quite different. The British version of ''Robin'' is reasonably approximated by .robin.; but the American version is closer to rabyn. or rab,n.. And within America and Britain, there is also a good deal of variation. So you should take the transliterations given below with a grain of salt.
Let's take the English name ''Susan''. The two ''s'''s are pronounced differently—the second one is actually a ''z''—and the ''a'' is not really an ''a'' sound, it's the 'schwa' we just mentioned. So ''Susan'' comes out in Lojban as .suzyn..
You may have noticed two extra full stops (periods) there. This is necessary because if you didn't pause, you might not know where the previous word ended and the next word began. For example:
You should also put a full stop in between a person's first and last names (though it's not compulsory), so ''Jim Jones'' becomes djim.djonz..
An important rule for Lojbanising names is that the last letter of a cmene (Lojban name) must be a consonant. Again, this is to prevent confusion as to where a name ends, and what is and is not a name (all other Lojban words end in a vowel). We usually use ''s'' for this; so in Lojban, ''Mary'' becomes .meris. , ''Joe'' becomes .djos. and so on. An alternative is to leave out the last vowel, so ''Mary'' would become .mer. or .meir..
The final point is stress. As we've seen, Lojban words are stressed on the penultimate syllable, and if a name has different stress, we use capital letters. This means that the English and French names ''Robert'' come out differently in Lojban: the English name is .robyt. in UK English, or .rab,rt. in some American dialects, but the French is .roBER. .
To give an idea of how all this works, here are some names of famous people in their own language and in Lojban.
||__English__
Margaret Thatcher |.magryt.tatcys. (no ''th'' in Lojban because most people around the world can't say it!)
Mick Jagger |.mik.djagys. ||
||__French__
Napoleon Bonaparte |.napole,ON.bonaPART.
Juliette Binoche |.juLIET.binOC. ||
||__Chinese__
Laozi |.laudz.
Mao Zedong |.maudzyDYN. (Final ''ng'' is in Lojban conventionally turned into n.) ||
||__Turkish__
Mustafa Kemal |.MUStafas.keMAL.
Erkin Koray |.erkin.korais. ||
||__German__
Friedrich Nietzsche |.fridrix.nitcys.
Clara Schumann |.klaras.cuman. ||
||__Spanish__
Isabel Allende |.izaBEL.aiendes.
Che Guevara |.tcegevaras. ||
!!!Exercise 2
Where are these places?
#.nu,IORK.
#.romas.
#.xavanas.
#.kardif.
#.beidjin.
#.ANkaras.
#.ALbekerkis.
#.vankuver.
#.keiptaun.
#.taibeis.
#.bon.
#.delis.
#.nis.
#.atinas.
#.lidz.
#.xelsinkis.
!!!Exercise 3
Lojbanise the following names
#John
#Melissa
#Amanda
#Matthew
#Michael
#David Bowie
#Jane Austen
#William Shakespeare
#Sigourney Weaver
#Richard Nixon
#Istanbul
#Madrid
#Tokyo
#San Salvador
!!Lojban words as names
By now you should be able to Lojbanise your own name. However, if you prefer, you can translate your name into Lojban (if you know what it means, of course) or adopt a completely new Lojban identity. Native Americans generally translate their name when speaking English, partly because they have meaningful names, and partly because they don't expect the ''wasichu'' to be able to pronounce words in Lakota, Cherokee or whatever!
All Lojban words (as opposed to cmene) end in a vowel, and although you ''can'' use them as names as they stand, it's common to leave out the final vowel to make it absolutely clear that this is a name and not something else (Lojban goes for overkill when it comes to possible misunderstanding). So if your name or nickname is ''Cat'' (Lojban mlatu), you can either add s like a normal cmene to make .mlatus., or just chop the end off and call yourself .mlat. .
Here are a few examples:
• Fish – finpe – .finp.
• Björn (Scandinavian = bear) – cribe – .crib.
• Green – crino – .crin.
• Mei Li (Chinese = beautiful) – melbi – .melb.
• Ayhan (Turkish = Moon Lord) – lunra nobli (= lurnobli) – .lurnoblis.
!!Answers to Exercises
'''Exercise 2'''
#New York: USA
#Rome: Italy
#Havana: Cuba
#Cardiff: Wales (The Welsh for ''Cardiff'' is ''Caerdydd'', which would Lojbanise to something like kairdyd..)
#Beijing: China
#Ankara: Turkey
#Albequerque: New Mexico, USA
#Vancouver: Canada
#Cape Town: South Africa
#Taipei: Taiwan (note b, not p. Although actually, the b in Pinyin is pronounced as a p... But this isn't meant to be a course on Mandarin!)
#Bonn: Germany
#Delhi: India (The Hindi for ''Delhi'' is ''Dillî'', which would give diliys. or dili'is..)
#Nice: France
#Athens: Greece (''Athina'' in Greek)
#Leeds: England
#Helsinki: Finland
'''Exercise 3'''
There are usually alternative spellings for names, either because people pronounce the originals differently, or because the exact sound doesn't exist in Lojban, so you need to choose between two Lojban letters. This doesn't matter, so long as everyone knows who or where you're talking about.
#.djon. (or .djan. with some accents)
#.melisys.
#.amandys. (again, depending on your accent, the final y may be a, the initial a may be y, and the middle a may be e.)
#.matius.
#.maikyl. or .maik,l. , depending on how you say it.
#.deivyd.bau,is. or .bo,is. (but not .bu,is. — that's the knife)
#.djein.ostin.
#.uiliam.cekspir.
#.sigornis.uivyr. or .sygornis.uivyr.
#.ritcyrd.niksyn.
#.istanBUL. with English stress, .IStanbul. with American, .istanbul. with Turkish. Lojbanists generally prefer to base cmene on local pronunciation, but this is not an absolute rule.
#.maDRID.
#.tokios.
#.san.salvaDOR. (with Spanish stress)
_______________________________________________
Wikichanges mailing list
Wikichanges@lojban.org
http://mail.lojban.org/mailman/listinfo/wikichanges