From: Xipirho (xipirho@runbox.com)
Date: Tue Jan 15 2002 - 09:17:15 MST
Hey Yash, sorry i didn't reply for ages. About the "dj" thing, that's exactly what i was trying to ask! - i was reading on some site that the j sound in job was pretty much dj, so i thought, to minimise the need for new letters (and hopefully minimise opposition to my scheme by doing so), i could just use dj and tc for English "j" and "ch". I really wasn't sure about this idea and thought that mayber new characters were in fact needed. As i wasn't convinced either way, i chose to seek others opinions, ie: you folks! I do think that perhaps tc for ch is ok, as ch is already two letters in english, but i agree that dj is slightly different. I had thought of a symol that is a combination of d and j that could be used - a j with a d bulge on the left hand side. I will send images of the symbol idea (well actually the symbol ideas - ch and dj) to you (Yash) if you want. The list idea sounds excellent, as virus is a bit of a broad base for some of these kinds of discussions and could be a bit tedious for members,
not to mention the fact that perhaps more specialists would be attracted. If you set it up, i'll join, cheers yash!
P.S: I've got some other little decisions to make about charcters too and a list on which to discuss them would be great!
Yash wrote:
> Why not strive to simplify the number of variations of symbolic
> representations of sounds? As an example, one could explore whether it is
> really necessary to have 'a' (as in 'park' and 'o' as in 'Dog'. A single
> symbol could suffice. But then again, maybe that would bring about a
> restriction in terms of the number of different short words. We'd probably
> find it necessary to invent longer words or to use many synonymous terms.
>
> If I get you correctly, your endeavour is at least twofold:
>
> 1. Simplify existing words by substituting simpler alternatives for existing
> letter combinations: alFabet instead of alPHabet,
> 2. Rationalise the use of letters by fixing a unique (letter, sound) pair
> for each letter, thereby rendering existing spelling variations of letters
> into a combination of your rationalised letters: j is always spelled as in
> the French "je", and so the word 'judge' should be rewritten 'djudje' in
> your system.
>
> In the latter case, there will probably be a statistical effect which will
> make you (or peoples using your system) decide or natural adopt ways of
> circumventing some unwieldy long words. As soon as the words become too
> long, you'll probably want to collapse some letter combinations into a
> single symbol (another letter).
>
> It could be interesting then, that the pictorial representation of the new
> letter be built with the original two-letter combination. i.e. find a
> graphical representation of 'dj' which is a single letter, but which looks
> somewhat like 'dj' for easy memorisation.
>
> BTW I am thinking of making a mailing list about some of our ideas. Would
> you like to join?
>
> Regards,
>
> Yash.
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: owner-virus@lucifer.com [mailto:owner-virus@lucifer.com]On Behalf
> Of Roly Sookias
> [yash]
> I would say what you need to target is the unicity of (letter, sound) pairs
> (speaking like a French Mathematician here). In other words, Each letter
> must give one and only one sound, and your alphabet must cover all possible
> sounds (dismiis all slight sonic variations for simplification - no need to
> go all the way like Sanskrit does).
>
> [roly]
> The problem with covering all possible sounds is that many would find the
> alphabet daunting and perhaps even "worse" than the old one! I stress that I
> would try to cover all sounds in the tongues I know, and perhaps others
> could add to it. Sounds that aren't used in any language at all would be
> pointless to include, although writing "noises" in books could become more
> accurate if they were included! I do stress that I would try to keep it as
> "letter per sound", but with sounds like the j in job or the ch in church,
> two letters could be used. For the j, a d followed by a j as in j'aime could
> be used and for the ch, a t followed by a c (to represent the sh sound in
> shrink) could be used. On the other hand, separate symbols could be devised
> for these. What do you think?
>
>
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