A suggestion for new hànzì-base writing system

[gleki]

The number of Esperanto speakers has dropped in China considerably in the last decades.

Esperanto leaders say it's all because it's hard for native Chinese speakers to learn Latin alphabet and understand that each symbol doesn't represent any semantic element but rather just a (usually) meaningless sound.

That's why I'm happy that Lojban doesn't have any official writing system.

Here is a draft of hànzì (Chinese symbol)-based Lojbanic writing method.

1. Every gismu and it's corresponding rafsi are represented using one symbol usually taken from hànzì table.

e.g. {melbi} is 美  (pronounced as melbi, but in the original Chinese script it's mei3 that means "beautiful")

更 - zmadu (in hanzi it means "more" or "to change")

1a. Rafsi are written with exactly the same symbols but may be pronounced in a short form (not only {melb}, but {mle}, {mle} too)

2. Lujvo are written by joining several gismu together using simple character. For now I suggest caret (^) but it might be changed.

e.g. 

美^更 - mlemau

3. Personal names are written using jbopomofo or standard Chinese methods (using rare symbols with predefined sounding to represent certain sounds instead of meaning)

[Jonathan Jones]

On Tue, Mar 6, 2012 at 2:01 AM, gleki <gleki.is...@gmail.com> wrote:

The number of Esperanto speakers has dropped in China considerably in the last decades.

Esperanto leaders say it's all because it's hard for native Chinese speakers to learn Latin alphabet and understand that each symbol doesn't represent any semantic element but rather just a (usually) meaningless sound.

That's why I'm happy that Lojban doesn't have any official writing system.

Yes it does. It's called the "standard orthography". CLL 3.1

We just also happen to have alternative orthographies for those so inclined. I even made a katakana-based orthography some ways back.
 

Here is a draft of hànzì (Chinese symbol)-based Lojbanic writing method.

1. Every gismu and it's corresponding rafsi are represented using one symbol usually taken from hànzì table.

e.g. {melbi} is 美  (pronounced as melbi, but in the original Chinese script it's mei3 that means "beautiful")

更 - zmadu (in hanzi it means "more" or "to change")

1a. Rafsi are written with exactly the same symbols but may be pronounced in a short form (not only {melb}, but {mle}, {mle} too)

2. Lujvo are written by joining several gismu together using simple character. For now I suggest caret (^) but it might be changed.

e.g. 

美^更 - mlemau

3. Personal names are written using jbopomofo or standard Chinese methods (using rare symbols with predefined sounding to represent certain sounds instead of meaning)

Good luck with that, but it seems to me that that orthography would make Lojban even harder. The "this is a lujvo" marker is an interesting idea, but it breaks audio-visual isomorphism, which is one of the foundation stones of Lojban, as does using the same symbol for a word and it's rafsi. In order to have isomorphism, what is written must be able to be said, and vice versa, without any information being lost or required to be added.

--
mu'o mi'e .aionys.

.i.e'ucai ko cmima lo pilno be denpa bu .i doi.luk. mi patfu do zo'o
(Come to the Dot Side! Luke, I am your father. :D )

[Mark E. Shoulson]

Hanzi for Lojban is an excellent notion (has it already been
entertained?) Hanzi are probably better-suited to Lojban than the Latin
alphabet is, and possibly better-suited to Lojban than they are to
Chinese. A fixed, *closed* number of roots, each representable by a
single figure, none needing to be related to the others... Sounds good
to me.

Each gismu should have a single official graph, as close as possible in
meaning. It will never be perfect, but the mapping of sounds to Latin
letters isn't perfect either, to an English-speaker. Rafsi use exactly
the same graph, as you propose, except they're linked together to make
lujvo. It's reminiscent of the distinct on/kun readings in Japanese,
where they have different pronunciations if they're in compound or other
environments. I don't like your ^ because it separates as much as joins,
and since there won't be spaces between the graphs in general (or will
there?) you wind up with lujvo-elements that are more visually separated
than adjacent words. Something like a COMBINING DOUBLE INVERTED BREVE or
COMBINING DOUBLE BREVE BELOW would be nice, though I'm not sure applying
such non-Han diacritics to Han characters doesn't qualify as an unholy
abomination. Something small, some little separator that joins more than
it separates... Maybe something like ˌMODIFIER LETTER LOW VERTICAL LINE
or ˈMODIFIER LETTER VERTICAL LINE, squeezed between the rafsi-graphs?

Presumably specific graphs for the cmavo as well. There we lose the
cmavo/brivla distinction that the Latin writing system gives, with the
consonant clusters. (what might be cool is to take the cmavo-graphs from
katana/hiragana, which are visually distinct from the Han graphs, but
then you'd wind up straying pretty far from pronunciation and meaning).

And yes, some kludgy whatever for cmene and fu'ivla (these also suffer,
by never being able to reduce the markedness of being written all funny).

~mark

[guskant]

coi

la gleki posted the same topic to Japanese mailing list, and I
commented in English (though .ua .u'u including some grammatical
errors) a little from a native Hanzi-user's point of view. I put here
the link to the thread for your information.
http://groups.google.com/group/lojban-soudan/browse_thread/thread/d64737063aaf1590

mi'e .guskant. mu'o

[Jonathan Jones]

There's a Japanese Lojban board? Sweet. Any idea if one of them would be willing to help me with my Japanese?

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[gleki]

This poses a more general thoughts on whether fu'ivla are really needed in Lojban.

in many cases they can be readily replace with cmene or lujvo. I just find the similar solution  in Chinese itself.

compare

latcribe = cionmau

(cionmau is from Shiong Mao which literally means "latcribe")

 

~mark

[gleki]

On Wednesday, March 7, 2012 1:26:43 PM UTC+4, guskant wrote:

coi

la gleki posted the same topic to Japanese mailing list, and I
commented in English

(though .ua .u'u including some grammatical
errors)

 oh sorry. Replying without typos from my smartphone is somewhat difficult .u'u

[guskant]

On Wed, Mar 7, 2012 at 8:13 PM, gleki <gleki.is...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
> On Wednesday, March 7, 2012 1:26:43 PM UTC+4, guskant wrote:
>>
>> coi
>>
>> la gleki posted the same topic to Japanese mailing list, and I
>> commented in English
>>
>> (though .ua .u'u including some grammatical
>> errors)
>
>  oh sorry. Replying without typos from my smartphone is somewhat difficult
> .u'u

ko na .u'u zei cinmo .i ki'u bo do na.e mi srera

[MorphemeAddict]

On Tue, Mar 6, 2012 at 4:01 AM, gleki <gleki.is...@gmail.com> wrote:

The number of Esperanto speakers has dropped in China considerably in the last decades.

Esperanto leaders say it's all because it's hard for native Chinese speakers to learn Latin alphabet and understand that each symbol doesn't represent any semantic element but rather just a (usually) meaningless sound.

If 'Esperanto leaders' really did say that, then I think they are grossly misinformed. 

stevo

That's why I'm happy that Lojban doesn't have any official writing system.

Here is a draft of hànzì (Chinese symbol)-based Lojbanic writing method.

1. Every gismu and it's corresponding rafsi are represented using one symbol usually taken from hànzì table.

e.g. {melbi} is 美  (pronounced as melbi, but in the original Chinese script it's mei3 that means "beautiful")

更 - zmadu (in hanzi it means "more" or "to change")

1a. Rafsi are written with exactly the same symbols but may be pronounced in a short form (not only {melb}, but {mle}, {mle} too)

2. Lujvo are written by joining several gismu together using simple character. For now I suggest caret (^) but it might be changed.

e.g. 

美^更 - mlemau

3. Personal names are written using jbopomofo or standard Chinese methods (using rare symbols with predefined sounding to represent certain sounds instead of meaning)

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[MorphemeAddict]

On Tue, Mar 6, 2012 at 8:30 PM, Mark E. Shoulson <ma...@kli.org> wrote:

Hanzi for Lojban is an excellent notion (has it already been entertained?) Hanzi are probably better-suited to Lojban than the Latin alphabet is, and possibly better-suited to Lojban than they are to Chinese. A fixed, *closed* number of roots, each representable by a single figure, none needing to be related to the others... Sounds good to me.

Finding enough hanzi that are unrelated to any others is not easy. Maybe the bare radicals... But there are only 214 radicals (in one common selection). 

stevo 

Each gismu should have a single official graph, as close as possible in meaning. It will never be perfect, but the mapping of sounds to Latin letters isn't perfect either, to an English-speaker. Rafsi use exactly the same graph, as you propose, except they're linked together to make lujvo. It's reminiscent of the distinct on/kun readings in Japanese, where they have different pronunciations if they're in compound or other environments. I don't like your ^ because it separates as much as joins, and since there won't be spaces between the graphs in general (or will there?) you wind up with lujvo-elements that are more visually separated than adjacent words. Something like a COMBINING DOUBLE INVERTED BREVE or COMBINING DOUBLE BREVE BELOW would be nice, though I'm not sure applying such non-Han diacritics to Han characters doesn't qualify as an unholy abomination. Something small, some little separator that joins more than it separates... Maybe something like ˌMODIFIER LETTER LOW VERTICAL LINE or ˈMODIFIER LETTER VERTICAL LINE, squeezed between the rafsi-graphs?

Presumably specific graphs for the cmavo as well. There we lose the cmavo/brivla distinction that the Latin writing system gives, with the consonant clusters. (what might be cool is to take the cmavo-graphs from katana/hiragana, which are visually distinct from the Han graphs, but then you'd wind up straying pretty far from pronunciation and meaning).

And yes, some kludgy whatever for cmene and fu'ivla (these also suffer, by never being able to reduce the markedness of being written all funny).

~mark

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[guskant]

For your information, go to http://www.lojban.org/ and select language
"中文(简体字)", and you will see download links to the spreadsheets of
gismu-Hanzi correspondence.

[MorphemeAddict]

Thanks. That's an interesting list. It looks a lot like what I'm doing with hanzi and English. But it also shows what I said. Almost all of the characters chosen for gismu are composed of other characters, hence are related to those characters. 

stevo

2012/3/7 guskant <gusni...@gmail.com>

For your information, go to http://www.lojban.org/ and select language
"中文(简体字)", and you will see download links to the spreadsheets of
gismu-Hanzi correspondence.

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[Sid]

Um. Given that pinyin is taught from childhood, and that the Latin
script is near ubiquitous on the internet and computers in general, I
really doubt Chinese people have any problem with the Latin script.

It's more likely that people have stopped using Esperanto because
there are tons of better, more interesting, languages to learn (like
Lojban).

mi'e cntr

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[gleki]

Actually you are probably right. Here is the link.

I can't explain why Yu Tao told only about pictographical system as the only stumbling block for spreading of Esperanto in China.

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