Re: "lojbab"

[HACKER G N <c9709244@ALINGA.NEWCASTLE.EDU.AU>]

On Tue, 16 Sep 1997, John Cowan wrote:

> And Rosta wrote:
>
> > To non-North Americans, of course, [Bob's] name rhymes with
> > "cab" rather than with "cob", and had it been us who had nicknamed
> > you you would have become "Lojbob".
>
> Have you perhaps reversed "cab" and "cob" here?  Bob himself,
> being from California, speaks the version of American that unrounds
> all low vowels:  "law" is /lA/.


To non-north Americans, "Bob" rhymes with "cob", but the non-north
American "o" sound is way closer to a Lojban "o" than it is to Lojban "a";
the latter sound would seem to be spelt like "ar" or "ah" to us. So we
would have Lojbanised his name to "lojbob" rather than "lojbab". Our
English spelling for the Lojban word "lojbab" would presumably be
something like "lozhbub"! :)


Regards,

Geoff