bartlett22183:Thus, as one respondent wrote, I would be justified, even if a little nonstandard, in writing my middle name as Oŭen[o].

People will call you anything you want to be called in Esperanto, even if it sounds unusual, even if the listener thinks it sound ridiculous. "Oŭeno" is unusual but if you told people to call you that, they would.

I personally have never liked very much when people named David or Dave want to go by Dejvid or Dejv in Esperanto but hey, it's their name, so I'll call them what they want to be called.

I think that the article on Phonotactics is more confusing than helpful. It says that H may not close a syllable (when did Zamenhof say that?) then Budho appears a few paragraphs below. It says that word-final voiced obstruents are rejected (because of 2 words: "al" and "ol" from "ad" and "od") but there are 2 exceptions: sed and apud. How useful is that pseudo-rule? It looks like a tie to me.

Later on the assimilation rules seem to heavily biased toward speakers of some specific languages. I don't see why egzemplo or apsolute might have more prestige than "-izmo".

The article never said that Zamenhof said that h couldn't close a syllable. I think the article was only drawing conclusions based on choices Zamenhof made versus choices he could have made (and choices other languages made). Therefore since there is no official "rule" it doesn't make much sense to talk about exceptions, since it's only an exception to a general trend, rather than a rule.

Zamenhof *generally* didn't combine certain phonemes, but it wasn't a fixed rule, only a trend or inclination, so he did do those things on rare occasion.

Budho isn't a construction that Zamenhof came up with. It is a modern innovation, hence not necessarily in keeping with the rules he set.

I believe the article states that in early Esperanto it was "Buddo".

A similar thing has happened with the word for India. "Hindujo" is the traditional word, but since that word is religion-specific (Hindu) and in fact, since that word can be used to describe the entire subcontinent, the word Barato is preferred by many speakers today. I know some people who say Bharato but since Esperanto doesn't have the bh phoneme, some people say that Bharato doesn't make sense in Esperanto.

The problem with Barato is that it means the same as bar/at/o. But it is unlikely that any confusion would occur since the contexts of the words' use are so different.

On ekzemple/absolute/ismo, I think the article was saying that for the human mouth, it is easier not to voice the s in ismo, than it is not to voice the k in ekzemple or devoice the b in absolute.

Practically speaking, another reason might be that in rapid speech it would be nearly impossible to differentiate between ekzemple and egzemple, whereas even in rapid speech, it's easy to hear the difference between ismo and izmo.

I do agree that the article was a bit confusing but then again it was written using very technical language.

erinja:Though Esperanto is easily capable of producing certain dipthong sounds, for example, we don't normally replicate those in borrowed words. Therefore although we have words like "hejmo" and "hejti" and "najlo", we translate Iowa as "Iovao" and not as "Ajoŭao".

Sorry to resurrect an old thread (I was looking for something in Google Groups, actually and this thread came up instead) but in my copy of Leksara kolekto de ofte uzataj propraj nomoj (Lexical (?)* collection of oft-used proper names), "Iowa" is entered as "Ajovo" (and consequently, Iowa City is "Ajovurbo").

The list/book was compiled by Rikardo Sxulco kaj Hermano Bermano, and published by the Esperanto-Centro Paderborno, in 1989.

Just sayin'

*Neither "lekso" nor "leksaro" come up in the vortaro.net version of the PIV.

Cf: http://en.lernu.net/komunikado/forumo/temo.php?t=1...

nornen:Cf: http://en.lernu.net/komunikado/forumo/temo.php?t=1...

I'm sorry, maybe I'm just stupid, but I fail to see the relevance of that thread to my comment. I'm not talking about the "w"........

orthohawk:

erinja:Though Esperanto is easily capable of producing certain dipthong sounds, for example, we don't normally replicate those in borrowed words. Therefore although we have words like "hejmo" and "hejti" and "najlo", we translate Iowa as "Iovao" and not as "Ajoŭao".

Sorry to resurrect an old thread (I was looking for something in Google Groups, actually and this thread came up instead) ...

Amazing! I had completely forgotten that I started this thread over four years ago.

From my observations and experiences over the years, there seem to be (roughly) two attitudes among the authors and users of constructed international auxiliary languages (conIALs) with respect to otherwise unassimilated "foreign" words and, especially, proper names.

One attitude is to warp any such words into the phonemic structure of the conIAL. To a large extent, this seems to me to be the attitude and usage of many (if not quite all) Esperantists. Also the users (few though they may be) of Lingua Franca Nova seem to do this with a vengeance (unless they have loosened up since the last time I was in significant contact with their (small) community). Volapük seems to have done this to some extent also, although I am not quite certain.

The other attitude is to accept such words (proper names and a few "foreign" words) more or less as is, if they can be at least somewhat represented into the orthography of the conIAL. As nearly as I can tell, users of Ido seem to be much more open to this approach than users of Esperanto.

I suppose it comes down to design decisions. Where are you going to go, in what way, and how far? Different groups make different decisions and/or different usages. I have read some texts in E-o which use <Ŭ> more or less as a semiconsonant (as I might use it to write my middle name), and some texts which almost uniformly substitute .

bartlett22183:

orthohawk:

erinja:Though Esperanto is easily capable of producing certain dipthong sounds, for example, we don't normally replicate those in borrowed words. Therefore although we have words like "hejmo" and "hejti" and "najlo", we translate Iowa as "Iovao" and not as "Ajoŭao".

Sorry to resurrect an old thread (I was looking for something in Google Groups, actually and this thread came up instead) ...

Amazing! I had completely forgotten that I started this thread over four years ago.
(snip)
Different groups make different decisions and/or different usages. I have read some texts in E-o which use <Ŭ> more or less as a semiconsonant (as I might use it to write my middle name), and some texts which almost uniformly substitute .

As I replied to Nornen, above, my comment was more about the first part of the Esperanto version of "Iowa" rather than the debate/choice between ux and v (For the record, I'm a "voisto" ) I did find the google groups post I was looking for and was reminded that I was basically chastised for transcribing "Iowa" according to the sounds of the name rather than the spelling (in my only-took-a-few-course-in-college, amateur linguist opinion, language is an oral/aural phenomenon, afterall. There are still more than a few languages that are not written down and have no orthography, standard or not), so write/wrote it as "ajouxa" (I wasn't quite the rigid voisto then as I am now, lol). I still say that Iowa should be based on the sound of the name and not the spelling, therefore Ajovo. Afterall, Korean esperantists got to choose the esperanto form of their country/citizens, so why not Iowans?

As you indicate, there are languages which have no written form. If they come to be written, how will they handle unassimilated words? Yes, I know that in the Fundamento <ŭ> seems to occur only in the combinations and , but is it impossible that it could occur in , as I might write my middle name?

To be sure, the Fundamento is extremely important, as it has given E-o stability which many conIALs lack, but cannot there sometimes be extensions (not changes) to the Fundamento? After all, the language is no longer limited to the roots in the Fundamento, the Unua Libro, and Krestomatio. I do not see something like as kontrafundamenta but rather as an extension, just as much as new roots in the vortaro.

bartlett22183:As you indicate, there are languages which have no written form. If they come to be written, how will they handle unassimilated words? Yes, I know that in the Fundamento <ŭ> seems to occur only in the combinations and , but is it impossible that it could occur in , as I might write my middle name?

To be sure, the Fundamento is extremely important, as it has given E-o stability which many conIALs lack, but cannot there sometimes be extensions (not changes) to the Fundamento? After all, the language is no longer limited to the roots in the Fundamento, the Unua Libro, and Krestomatio. I do not see something like as kontrafundamenta but rather as an extension, just as much as new roots in the vortaro.

With ŭ vs v, I really don't have any strong feelings one way or another. I just happen to lean towards the "voista" view (mainly because the bilabial glide is much less phonetically distinct and therefore easier to, I dunno, "gloss over"?; also the glide doesn't "separate" vowels nearly as well as a "v" ). I prefer, "Ajovo" for the name of my state because......well by insisting that it's "iovao", it's the same as if Esperanto were to insist that the capitol of Indonesia be spelled with a J (and thereby changing the pronunciation needlessly) instead of writing it with the proper sound: Yah-KAR-toh instead of the "proper" way: "Gxakarto". I guess in all, I advocate the "Korean solution" which seems to be to allow the Esperanto speaking inhabitants of the political entity decide how to write the name in Esperanto.

Anyway, to answer thy question about unwritten languages, I can only relate my pesonal experience: A friend of mine is a Rom (aka Gypsy) who actually still speaks the language. When he decided to go onto the mission field (he's a baptist pastor) he was lamenting about how he was not going to be able to communicate with his parents and other people back home in Romany (it's being unwritten (or so I thought, haha)) and so I came up with a spelling system based on the sounds I heard while I was attempting to learn the language with him as "informant". Anyway, he and his family learned my system and then proceeded to "Romanize" the place names at home. They chose to go by the sound of them and transcribe the sound sequences as if they were Romany words, instead of starting with the spelling and pronouncing the spellings as Romany words. (for example a nearby city, New Carlisle, they write as Nukarlayl instead of pronouncintg the written name as if it were romany (which would be new kar-lees-leh). Because, if you say "where is nehv kar-lees-leh" people will not know what/where you mean)