Re: Lojbanized German place names

[Logical Language Group <lojbab>]

Erik Rauch writes:

> I used the standard German pronunciation rather than that of the residents
> of these places themselves. The "ue" sound is halfway between lojban u 
> and e, so I chose u for visual recognizability.

I have argued in the past that the correct equivalents of \"u and \"o are
Lojban "i" and "e" respectively, because roundedness does not count in Lojban,
only tongue position.  So "i" matches any high front vowel, and "e" any
mid half-front vowel.  Turkish, e.g. is "natrmtirki,ie".

You missed devoicing a few final consonants, as Standard NHG pronunciation
demands.

The sequence "la" is now legal in names as long as a consonant immediately
precedes it.

Here are my suggested revisions.  Feel free to take issue with any of them.

> xamburg.		Hamburg
  xamburk.
> mEklenburg.		Mecklenburg
  mEklenburk.
>   dUs,ldorf.		  Duesseldorf
    dIs,ldorf.
>   kyln.			  Koeln			  (Cologne)
    keln.
>   byn.			  Bonn
    bon.  (Why the "y"?)
> rainlynd. fAlts.	Rheinland Pfalz		(Rhineland-Palatinate)
  rainlant. pfalts.
    (If this is two names, no stress mark is needed, and "pf" is not a problem
	in names, either.)
> zarlynd.		Saarland
  zarlant.
> brAnd,nburg.		Brandenburg
  brAnd,nburk.
> tUring,n.		Thueringen		(Thuringia)
  tIring,n.
> bad,n. vUrt,mberg.	Baden Wuerttemberg
  bad,n. vIrt,mberk.
> bai,rn.			Bayern			(Bavaria)
  bai,yrn.  (Unfortunately, this exposes a limitation in Lojban vocalic
	consonants.  A syllable "rn" is ambiguous as to whether the "r" or
	the "n" is the vowel, and should be avoided; what you have is
	ambiguous between G. "Bayern" and E. "Byron".)
>   munx,n.		  Muenchen		  (Munich)
    minx,n.
>   nurnberg.		  Nuernberg		  (Nuremberg)
    nirnberk.

-- 
John Cowan		sharing account <lojbab@access.digex.net> for now
		e'osai ko sarji la lojban.