Re: Lojbanizing place names

[Logical Language Group <lojbab>]

Thanks for contributing.

Your suggestion is already in the system.  We have delimited quotes for
non-Lojban text, which need not even be writable much less in Roman alphabet.

Example "do puzi cusku zoi gic. What do you think? gic."
The matching words "gic." are delimiters
that set off the non-Lojban text - in speech, you could insert a whistle,
tones, or animal sounds just as well.  Generally people use some kind of
delimiter that conveys something about the nature of the quoted text.

There is a corresponding form for names:  la'o .ital. Roberto Ricci .ital.
(making a guess at the source language which might in turn give a clue to 
someone as to how to pronounce it.

BUt this is cumbersome in the long term, and all language eventually start
to modify names into a form that fits the local phonology and sounds
pleasant.

Similarly, all languages borrow specioalized terms from other languages,
modifying them to fit their own language rules.  (Even Chinese has borrowings
from the Western languages, though they are often hard to recognize.)

Thus we have an effort to teach HOW to systematically "borrow" words from
another language into Lojban.  Because we are dominated by English-speaking
Americans, this first and foremost means that we have to teach people that
the way something is pronounced in American English is NOT the standard for
Lojbanization.  Thus the capital of Russia should NOT be la maskaus.

Once you get past that point, you are at least TRYING to recognize and respect
native pronucications, and then it is a matter of degree and aesthetics as
to exactly which form is ideal, which dialect to base things on.  But I will
be happy if people end up with any of "la maskfas.", "la mazgvas.", or even
"la moskyvas".  There are arguments to be said for each of these, and one
might even be superior by some agreeable standard.  But we have at least turned
to the source language for the borrowing.  Similarly, we should Lojbanize
your name from YOUR version of the name, perhaps "la roberton." rather than
from the Anglicized "Robert": "la rabrt.

At this point, I am trying to teach by example, and major countries and
cities, as well as some proper names, are useful for this purpose. Thus,
I intend to include what I can in the first dictionary, to serve as a 
minimum standard of quality for peoples' efforts to do so on their own.

lojbab