Contenido

Fun with the x-system

de Oŝo-Jabe, 5 de julio de 2009

Aportes: 24

Idioma: English

Oŝo-Jabe (Mostrar perfil) 5 de julio de 2009 05:44:28

I noticed another reason why I like the x-system, aside from the two most cited reasons. If you put a breeve over a circumflex, and squint really hard it sort of looks like an x, don't just take my word for it, look at the picture! rideto.gif

ceigered (Mostrar perfil) 5 de julio de 2009 06:36:39

Oŝo-Jabe:I noticed another reason why I like the x-system, aside from the two most cited reasons. If you put a breeve over a circumflex, and squint really hard it sort of looks like an x, don't just take my word for it, look at the picture! rideto.gif
I always thought that WAS the reason - because it somewhat resembled the circumflexes ridulo.gif
(after all, there are many ASCII characters other than 'x' that could have been used, like 'y')

What are the other reasons? (pardon my ignorance)

mnlg (Mostrar perfil) 5 de julio de 2009 08:39:09

I think the main reason for the x, is that it is not in the Esperanto alphabet, so there can be no ambiguity. Other choices could have been q, w, y. How do they look?

[LISTO]
ehqosqangqo cqiujqauqde
ehwoswangwo cwiujwauwde
ehyosyangyo cyiujyauyde[/list]I am rather happy with the x, but I guess I could have lived with any of those three ridulo.gif

Oŝo-Jabe (Mostrar perfil) 5 de julio de 2009 09:42:26

The other reason for the x-system is used, is for organizing data alphabetically. 'Cx' correctly follows all 'c' words except the rare 'cz', while the h-system puts all the words starting with 'ĉ' in the middle of the 'c's.

The only two options then were 'x' and 'y' because they are right next to each other at the end of the alphabet.

ceigered (Mostrar perfil) 5 de julio de 2009 11:23:11

Ah right, cheers guys.

I think I could have lived with a 'y' system too, especially since "hy", "tsy" and "sy" could all have very similar sounds as to what "hx", "tsx" and "sx" have in esperanto, depending on what language you're talking about.

nissa_amas_katoj (Mostrar perfil) 6 de julio de 2009 16:14:17

According to the Fundamento de Esperanto, an 'h' is the letter to be used when circumflexes are unavailable. It doesn't mention the x-system at all.

R2D2! (Mostrar perfil) 7 de julio de 2009 01:17:32

nissa_amas_katoj:According to the Fundamento de Esperanto, an 'h' is the letter to be used when circumflexes are unavailable. It doesn't mention the x-system at all.
Because Zam. didn't live in the computer era. The x-system is most useful than h-system because of word collation and encoding.

—Ilhuıtemoc

russ (Mostrar perfil) 8 de julio de 2009 09:51:41

nissa_amas_katoj:According to the Fundamento de Esperanto, an 'h' is the letter to be used when circumflexes are unavailable. It doesn't mention the x-system at all.
Which doesn't mean the x-system is kontraŭfundamenta.

Indeed, just the same as (e.g.) Braille or Morse code respresentations of Esperanto text, the x-system is just another way of representing Esperanto text in contexts where the Esperanto-specific letters are not available or don't work correctly for whatever technical reasons.

The Academy of Esperanto officially said using non-h-surrogates (e.g. x-system) for technical reasons is fine, if it's just a technical measure and not intended to fundamentally reform the orthography of the language. (I.e. some Esperantists wish to entirely eliminate ĉ ĝ ĥ ĵ ŝ ŭ as letters - but simply writing cx gx etc in email is not itself any attempt to get rid of ĉ ĝ etc, any more than Braille or Morse code Esperanto text is.)
http://akademio-de-esperanto.org/decidoj/apartaj_t...

ceigered (Mostrar perfil) 8 de julio de 2009 14:17:09

russ:some Esperantists wish to entirely eliminate ĉ ĝ ĥ ĵ ŝ ŭ as letters
Quite frankly I could not stand writing two letters every time for all of them, the written language would become very cluttered (which it already can be with the long latin-based roots).
But I wouldn't mind redesigning the ligatures... e.g. instead of having accents, doing something so the look like letters in their own right. wouldn't work with fonts too well tho.

russ (Mostrar perfil) 9 de julio de 2009 04:25:08

ceigered:
russ:some Esperantists wish to entirely eliminate ĉ ĝ ĥ ĵ ŝ ŭ as letters
Quite frankly I could not stand writing two letters every time for all of them, the written language would become very cluttered (which it already can be with the long latin-based roots).
But I wouldn't mind redesigning the ligatures... e.g. instead of having accents, doing something so the look like letters in their own right. wouldn't work with fonts too well tho.
They mean to replace them with existing Latin letters, based how letters sound in various other languages, and doing a bit of rearranging of existing "normal" letters: e.g. ŭ becomes w, ŝ becomes x, ĉ becomes q, ĝ becomes j (and so then j has to become y), c becomes ts, etc or some such schemes (I don't pretend to remember all the proposals) that would rather seriously and confusingly break existing text and tradition. Occasionally in mailing lists there have been people who insist on writing with some such alternate rearranged alphabet, to the annoyance and frustration of everyone else in the group.

They usually seem to have a crank theory that most people in the world don't learn Esperanto because of the letters ĉ ĝ ĵ ĥ ŝ ŭ being inconvenient in email, SMS's, and some buggy programs, and that if only Esperanto used only standard ASCII letters, then the world would enthusiastically embrace Esperanto. ridulo.gif

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