Re: loglan rapprochement orthography

[Ivan A Derzhanski <IAD@BGEARN.BITNET>]

Date:         Fri, 16 Feb 96 10:11:41 BG
From:         Ivan A Derzhanski <IAD@BGEARN>
Subject:      Re: loglan rapprochement orthography
To:           Lojban list <LOJBAN@CUVMB>
In-Reply-To:  Message of Thu, 15 Feb 1996 11:47:51 -0500 from
 <shoulson@CS.COLUMBIA.EDU>
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On Thu, 15 Feb 1996 11:47:51 -0500 Mark E. Shoulson said:
>>la .iVAN. cusku di'e
>
>>> Whatever it is phonetically, it is structurally not
>>> a consonant (it can't be one of the {C}s in {CVCCV}, {CCV} and all the
>>> other formulae), so I'd rather keep it graphically distinct from them
>>> as well.  (This is also an argument against {h} in Roman.)
>
>Well, "graphically distinct" is in the eye of the beholder.

Is it?  I think the apostrophe is universally and anonymously
acknowledged to be graphically distinct from the Roman letters.
That's why some people hate it so much.

>Is "a" really "graphically distinct" from "s"?  No more so than
>any other two letters.  Yet one is a consonant and one is not.

Look, Mark, just because we're not going to make all distinctions
that might be useful doesn't mean that we should give up the ones
that are already there.  Some things may be broke(n), but that is
not a reason to break what ain't.

Besides, both vowels and consonants are segments, whereas {'} isn't.
We use letters for segments and other characters for things that are
not segments.  It's simple and elegant, as things should be in Lojban.


On Thu, 15 Feb 1996 17:00:34 GMT Julian Pardoe LADS LDN X1428 said:
>Seeing that this is *an* argument against {h} is not the same as seeing that
>this argument outweighs any counter-arguments -- such as the argument that
>the current orthography is visually incoherent and messy.

Yes, I suppose one man's idea of a useful distinction is another man's
idea of incoherence.  I should note, however, that visual incoherence
is not necessarily a Bad Thing.  Greater variety of character shapes
means higher readability.

I'm very much against `normal' capitalisation and punctuation, though.
They go straight against the sign/sound homomorphism (whatever its
official name was) that is one of the central things about Lojban.
It's not our goal to add yet another `normal'-like language to the
market; we have other priorities.

--Ivan