lerfu shift cmavo

[Logical Language Group <lojbab>]

Goran Topic <topic@math.hr>:
>Subject:      Re: cmavo hit list - lojbab responds
>> >        ce'a lau tau zai
>> >        ga'e ge'o je'o jo'o lo'a na'a ru'o se'e to'a (character shifts)
>> >
>> >Since letterals are really pro-sumti and not letters, these shifts
>> >only augment the number of available pro-sumti, which is already
>> >pretty big. If I want to quote a fragment of, say, Greek writing,
>> >I have to do it with zoi gy .... gy, and the shifts are of no use.
>> >These could be used in mathematics, where Greek letters are very
>> >much used as symbols, but I don't intend to use Lojban for mathematics.
>>
>> alpha particles, gamma rays, "I am the alpha and the omega" - these
>> things tend to crop up in non-mathematical language on occasion.
>> Since much Lojban discussion seems to be about Lojban, I wouldn't doubt that
>> long-run won't see IPA shift, or an ASCII character set shift being much used.
>> Still, I have to admit that word.bu has reduced the need for these by an
>> order of magnitude.
>
>Umm...  {lo kantrgama} (or {gusnentceka'u} or {gu'ibacybacka'u} for
>purists that don't like le'avla) is a concept in itself.  Gamma letter
>has nothing to do with gamma rays except as symbol.  Symbol in language
>we can replace with another symbol, from another language (hence, {lo
>gusnentceka'u}), and symbol in equations is a convention - and we can as
>easily say {gama.bu.} Same reasoning with alpha particles.  Maybe
>{ratnrxeli velnarge}.  Dunno.  Should put in some thought.  As for "I am
>the alpha and omega", you don't actually write the greek letters in the
>text, do you?  It is symbolism again.  I don't know.  It could be {mi
>cfari je fanmo roda}, if you are after the meaning itself.  If you want
>literal and exact translation, you could use {.alfas.bu.  .e
>.omegas.bu.} (but that is not ambiguous, I believe they wouldn't be
>taken for symbols, but KOhA variables, right?).  And if I want to take
>symbolism and make it real for lojbanists, rather than greeks, I could
>use something along the lines of {zo tu'e .e zo tu'u}... if I knew how
>to handle the "I am" part.  How do you say if without claiming that you
>are the word {tu'e}, or the letter alpha?  How DO you handle symbolism
>in lojban?

As I said, the lerfu shifts predated name+BU which MIGHT make it
superfluous.

The bottom line is that Lojban does not try to replace international
symbols in translation, especially in Mex/equations.  As far as I know,
even in Chinese, they use a Greek gamma symbol in referring to gamma
rays. alfas.bu might work just as well as ge'o.abu

Of course in contexts where part of the significance is lerfu order, then
ge'o .abu, ge'oby is more informative than alfas.bu, betas.bu

We put in the shifts PRECISELY because we did NOT want to give it a lot
of thought.  There are a lot of character sets in the world, and Lojban
is NOT going to solve the problem of reconciling them quickly.  If we
have more than one way to deal with the problem, probably one way will
win out and the other will disappear.  Meanwhile, we won;t be using up
the cmavo that would be freed for some other equally obscure purpose,
per the line about cmavo uses expanding to fill the cmavo available.

lojbab