Re: response on Lojban names 11/30/91

[CJ FINE <cbmvax!uunet!pucc.princeton.edu!C.J.Fine>]

Lojbab writes:

>
> If you are transliterating a name from another language and do not know
> how it is pronounced, and cannot ask, it is wisest to preserve spelling,
> or to make conventional changes.  I don't know how "Mr.  Khan"
> pronounced his name, but I would transliterate it "genxis. xan." based
> on my conventions of mapping /ng/ to /n/, and /h/ and /kh/ to /x/.

I believe the closest rendering is 'djengiz'. There is a current Kirghiz
author by the name of C,ingiz Aitmatov /tcingiz/.

> ...  I've been told several times that the
> leader of the USSR should not be Lojbanized as "gorbatcof.", but rather
> more like "garbaTCAF."

No, 'grbaTCOF' is closest. Russian has precise rules for vowel
reduction.

In this subject, I've just been reviewing Lesson 1, which has been
sitting in a drawer unread for lo these many years along with my other
Lojban stuff. Reading the names in the exercise I was struck by how much
lojbanised English names come out like russified English names - it's
the combination of syllabic 'r' and 'e' for 'a'.
Incidentally, as well as 'grbatCOF', there's an error in another one: it
should be 'crlok. homz.' - there's no 'l' in it.

>
> (By the way, as an alternate answer to Dave Cortesi regarding the street
> number, I might use "la byklyx. cmaklaj. pe li re".  I would be
> unlikely to use either cardinal or ordinal suffixes, reserving them for
> "2nd Avenue").  Colin's answer, using ordinals, might be valid in some
> limited situations where the numbers are actually consecutive and
> indicate position on the street.  This is seldom the case in US
> addresses.  Or maybe that should be "la'eli re po'e la byklyx. cmaklaj."
> That respresented by the number 2 inalienably associated with Buccleuch
> small-street.

I don't agree that the ordinal is appropriate only when the numbers are
consecutively positioned. I have no trouble with a notional order (with
gaps) and ordinals within that.
But I like your first suggestion.

                        co'omi'e la kolin