Re: states/provinces/counties

[John Cowan <cbmvax!UUNET.UU.NET!snark.thyrsus.com!cowan>]

la .iVAN derJANSK cusku di'e:

> No, because Lojban letter names are for Lojban letters.  The name "US"
> (commonly used to denote a certain country in the major language of
> her population) consists of two English letters.

Lojban letter names are for Lojban letters, but internally to Lojban it is
recognized that the Lojban character set is also the Latin one, with a few
deletions.  The same character set marker ("lo'a") is used to signal either
Lojban or Latin letters.

> I don't know of any Lojban names of any non-Lojban letters.  (This
> last term may mean:  (1) letters of a script such as Cyrillic, kana,
> or devanagari;  (2) Roman letters not used in Lojban ("h", "q", "w");
> (3) Roman letters when pertaining to a language other than Lojban
> (since we're pretending that it is by chance that we use Roman letters
> for writing Lojban).)

In an accompanying message I will post the current UNOFFICIAL character sets
as I have them.  Criticisms are welcomed from any with expertise.  (Nick,
Ivan, et al.)  I also need Hebrew and Arabic character sets (Mark?)

> >  Why use English pronunciations for the letters?
>
> Because the natives use them.  {la .iu,es.} is a valid cmene and it is
> close to the original pronounciation.

Historically and traditionally, Loglan/Lojban has used its own character sets
to make acronyms, thus "dy.ny.abu" = DNA (even though a lujvo for "deoxyribo-
nucleic acid" wouldn't necessarily contain those letters).

> To the Sea of
> Tranquility and the rest of the Moon's surface?

Names of extraterrestrial objects are in Latin and are agreed upon by
international convention, so we don't change them. The feature called
the Sea of Tranquility in English is "la mar. trankuilitatis." (or "la marex.")

        la .olimpus mons. conrai cmana la mars.
        Olympus Mons is the tallest (lit. "deepest") mountain on Mars.

(Whether you call something "tall" or "deep" in English is a matter of
whether you are standing at the bottom or the top of it.  Latin "altus"
makes no distinction, and Lojban "condi" can mean "tall".)

--
cowan@snark.thyrsus.com         ...!uunet!cbmvax!snark!cowan
                e'osai ko sarji la lojban