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j/'; The use of i, j or ' after consonants
Topic Started: Aug 18 2008, 01:33 PM (4,108 Views)
IJzeren Jan
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Jan van Steenbergen
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Hello!

I have a question. Could someone please explain to me what exactly is the state of affairs regarding the use of j vs. ' in Slovianski?

As I understand it, a few things have changed from our first iterations of Slovianski. We used to have i in both cases, and ' only at the end of words. Well, I can see that ia causes a problem, because - as Iopq wrote somewhere - it does not make a distinction between "Marija" and "Marja". As far as I can see, that has been fixed. Now, we write Marija, just like we write Vengrija etc.

So, what is in that case the reason for changing it in other positions as well? Instead of piat, we now write pjat', right? But at the same time, I'm getting the impression that we don't write djakovat', but d'akovat'. Frankly, I've been trying to get it for a few days now, but I still can't really see the logic. Somewhere else I saw it written that ' can come only after t/d/r/l/n, but is that really the case? And of so, does that mean that these letters cannot be followed by j? Is there really a need for the distinction, anyway?

The way I see it, the old solution with i wasn't so bad after all. If we really want to get rid of it, it can easily be substituted by j in all cases (except of course when it is a vowel). If so, we'd end up with pjatj, djakovatj , delanje. However, many people (including myself) find all these j's ugly, and that's why we opted for i instead.

The apostroph ' was added only as a means to regularlise inflection without sacrificing naturalism, so that for example put' would naturally generate a genitive putia/put'a/putja instead of *puta. Now, I can live with the fact that its use has been extended somewhat, but I really don't see why we should have bor'ba instead of borba. On the other hand, if we decided to have pjat', we should also have šest' instead of šest. As a rule, however, I think we better avoid it whenever possible.

In any case, I believe we should pick one solution for, let's call it Standard Slovianski. I can live with any solution (although a lot of apostrophes make the language look ugly, IMO). I don't think it is wise to have sjagnut' and t'agnut' at the same time. Frankly, I'm leaning somewhat towards have j in all these cases - that might be a bit ugly, but it would have one advantage: ju and ja will always turn out in Cyrillic as ю and я.

Thoughts? Answers?

Jan
Človeku, ktoromu je trudno s soboju samim, verojetno to bude trudno s vsim inim.

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IJzeren Jan
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Jan van Steenbergen
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To give a little more form to what I suggested above, I'll elaborate my ideas somewhat. Let's assume that there's no need to distinguish between j the semivowel and j the palataliser, as the two are complementary: the latter exists only after a consonant, the former in all other cases. And let's also assume that it would be desirable if one could easily be transcribed from/into Cyrillics without raping the Cyrillic or the Latin alphabet.

In Latin script, we can basically use j in all cases. Because endings like -atj would be ugly, we replace it by an apostrophe at the end of syllables/words. This is merely an orthographic devise, nothing more.

In Cyrillics, we have strange beasts like я/ю/й/ь. Even if we discard я/ю, we are stuck with the fact that й can never follow a consonant, while ь can never follow a vowel. Therefore, I suggest we use this as a rule: й for the semivowel and ь for the palataliser. In the orthography that includes я/ю, they replace both йа/йу and ьа/ьу.

In other words, this is what we get:

Code:
 

        LATIN        CYRILLIC       SERBIAN
jV      ja/ju        я/ю (йа/йу)     ја/ју
        je           йе              је
        jo           йо              јо
VjV     aja/aju      ая/аю           аја/ају
        aje          айе             аје
        ajo          айо             ајо
Vj#     aj           ай              ај
CjV     tja/tju      тя/тю (тьа/тьу) тја/тју
        tje          тье             тје
        tjo          тьо             тјо
Cj#     at'          ать             ат'


How does that sound?

Jan
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Silmethule
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We should, IMO, have distinction between "soft" and "hard" t (in Polish [t] and [ʨ], in Czech [t] and [c], etc.). In native Slavic words we have (almost?) everywhere "soft" t - <t'>, or soft d - <d'>, like in d'akovat', but in loan words there should be "hard", so there is <dj> - djabol. Same with other pairs soft <=> hard. In Polish there is <dź> and <d>, <t> and <ć>, <ł> and <l>, <r> and <rz>. Most of Slavic langs makes these distinction. Maybe r <=> r' and l <=> l' is more "rare".

EDIT: and I don't like j-palatalizer. I like apostroph (or letters with "haček", ť, ď, ň, ľ, ř) more.
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IJzeren Jan
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Jan van Steenbergen
Now that I think of it, using ' in Latin where Cyrillic uses ь, and j where Cyrillic uses й would have at least one advantage: it would give us the opportunity of a 1:1 transliteration. But it would give us ugly things like: p'at', d'akovat', mor'e, delan'e, l'ubit', etc.

This problem could be solved by using y, a letter unused in Slovianski, in front of vowels and leave it i at the end of words or syllables. That would give us: pyat', dyakovat', morye, delanye, lyubit', etc. I'm not saying I'm exactly in favour of such a solution, but it would be a fairly unambiguous solution, in any case. Besides, unless I'm mistaken this is how f.ex. Russian is often written by Russians who don't have Cyrillics at their disposal, in sms messages and the like.

Anyway, it seems like the name Slovianski is obsolete by now. I guess it should now either be Slovijanski, Slovjanski, Slov'anski or even Slovyanski! ;)

Jan
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Silmethule
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We should first make standard pronounciation of Slovianski/Slovjanski/Slov'anski/Slovyanski/Slovijanski... and then make ortography to this. (also we could give examples of pronounciation Russian-like, Polish-like, Czech-like, Serbian-like etc. for those, who want to communicate mostly with ppl of given nationality), we should more standardize Slovianski's phonology and grammar before ortography ;).
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IJzeren Jan
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Jan van Steenbergen
Silmethule
Aug 18 2008, 02:33 PM
We should, IMO, have distinction between "soft" and "hard" t (in Polish [t] and [ʨ], in Czech [t] and [c], etc.). In native Slavic words we have (almost?) everywhere "soft" t - <t'>, or soft d - <d'>, like in d'akovat', but in loan words there should be "hard", so there is <dj> - djabol.


In my opinion, there's no need for such subtleties. If in Poland a person says "dziabeł", he his perfectly understandable anyway. Maybe I'm playing advocate of the dziabeł here, but there's one thing we shouldn't forget: Slovianski is supposed to be a highly simplified language. We can add hundreds of new rules to make it even more naturalistic, but that would pretty much be beside the point of a naturalistic IAL.

Besides, we dó have a distinction between soft and hard t. It's just that we are explicit about it only in particular cases (i.e. when it helps to regularise inflexion, and when ambiguity might emerge). Polish ty and ci are both written as ti. So why would we need to distinguish between Polish tia and cia?

Quote:
 
EDIT: and I don't like j-palatalizer. I like apostroph (or letters with "haček", ť, ď, ň, ľ, ř) more.


That's a matter of taste. I don't particularly like j-palatliser either, but frankly, a text full of apostrophes looks even worse to me. Besides, not only t/d/n/l/r can be palatalised, but other consonants as well.

As for hačeks: we already have three, for which we also have ascii alternatives. More hačeks would make it pretty hard to write (and for some, even to read). If we start introducing these, I can't escape the feeling of reinventing Czech! ;)

From an aesthetical point of view, I still prefer the old i. I wouldn't mind keeping it, and I don't think it would be a problem: since Maria has become "Marija" now, we can safely say that i followed by a consonant is always a palataliser.

Jan
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iopq
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We write pjat' because we don't have a soft p sound like p'
While phonetically it could be realized soft, it shouldn't be a part of the phonemic inventory.
The Czech word for five is pět. You may notice that it is pronounced pjet. Since we chose the reflex of the front nasal to be ja, we have pjat'.

If you listen to Russian, the Russian word sounds like [pʲætʲ] which is the true "soft p" sound
But if you listen to Ukrainian it sounds like [pjatʲ] and it is spelled п'ять
In Slovak "fifth" is piaty which is pronounced [pjati]
I think this [pj] pronunciation is useful because it is easier for speakers of languages without soft labials

Ijekavian has words like тjескоба and I doubt that пjать would seem very hard for those speakers



Why do we need to distinguish between j and '?
First reason is for morpheme boundaries, we want to have words like predjavitel' - payee
which is completely Slavic

Second reason is for words like Реjкjавик which is the capital of Iceland

even if you decide to make all loans like djavol to become d'avol nobody will be able to pronounce Реjкьавик anyway since soft k doesn't exist

In the first case Russian has the orthographic device of ъ - предъявитель
In the second case Russian has the orthographic device of ь - Рейкьявик

but Ukrainian uses nothing for case 1 and apostrophe for case two - Рейк'явік (so does Belarusian тарашкевіца)

So in your system either we do nothing like Bulgarian or we use some kind of an orthographic device a-la Ukrainian or Russian

Or we could just use the Serbian alphabet, like Macedonian does: Објаснување
Then we avoid the problem entirely
Also, we have a very simple transcription between Latin and Cyrillic

which is the solution I like
Bo v c'omu žytti pomiž baletom i svobodoju zavždy potribno vybyraty svobodu, navit' jakščo ce čehoslovac'kyj general.
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Silmethule
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the question is if we make distinction between palatalized p/v/b/m/k... and not palatalized, so p vs p', b vs b', etc. We make distinction between n' and n, d and d', etc. If we don't with b, p, m, f, etc. haczeks are good, in other cases we could use i/j, if we do (so there would be diference between speaking pjum and p'um - this isn't simplest solution) then right - we have to avoid all ways of "softening" by diacritics.

If we don't (so we have distincion djabol, d'akovat' but not with p'u and pju) then diacritics shouldn't be a problem, when we can't use them - we could have alternative plain-ascii-ortography.

But first something like "standard" phonology - to know what we should show in ortography.
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Jan van Steenbergen
Quote:
 
We should first make standard pronounciation of Slovianski/Slovjanski/Slov'anski/Slovyanski/Slovijanski... and then make ortography to this.


I'm not in favour of standardising anything but orthography. One of the nice features of Slovianski as I see it, is that is not telling people what they should do and what they shouldn't. It's merely a toolbox, a set of suggestions. God forbid that we turn it into something prescriptive!

Orthography shouldn't necessarily be extremely standarised either. But it is important that in a dictionary, for example, we stick to one orthography consequently.

Quote:
 
(also we could give examples of pronounciation Russian-like, Polish-like, Czech-like, Serbian-like etc. for those, who want to communicate mostly with ppl of given nationality), we should more standardize Slovianski's phonology and grammar before ortography ;).


In time, I think that would be a good idea.

Jan
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Quote:
 
I'm not in favour of standardising anything but orthography. One of the nice features of Slovianski as I see it, is that is not telling people what they should do and what they shouldn't. It's merely a toolbox, a set of suggestions. God forbid that we turn it into something prescriptive!

I'm thinging about something like: you can do as you wish, but we do this this way: ..., and we suggest to do the same, because it's easy, ortography is based on it. But nobody will hit you, if you do this another way than we do.
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iopq
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Well, soft labials are out of the question, only Poles and Russians know how to pronounce them.

And even then, wiem sounds like [vʲjem] to me
Bo v c'omu žytti pomiž baletom i svobodoju zavždy potribno vybyraty svobodu, navit' jakščo ce čehoslovac'kyj general.
Sergij Žadan "Anarchy in the Ukr"
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Silmethule
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Quote:
 
And even then, wiem sounds like [vʲjem] to me

Because Poles have soft labials only before or [j] ;). Most of Poles can't say just [vʲem].
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iopq
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Well, in my opinion it helps simplify the language if we DON'T have confusing rules like ja = я because that's two letters to one

that's why all Ukrainian tables have four columns in them
Hard Mixed Soft (ь) Soft (й)
Nominative -0- -0- -ь /-0- (1) -й
Genitive (2) -а / -у -а / -у -я / -ю -я / -ю
Dative (3) -ові/-у -еві/-у -еві/-ю -єві/-ю
Accusative (4) -0- / -а -0- /-а -ь / -я -й / -я
Instrumental -ом -ем -ем -єм
Locative (5) -ові /-і/ -у -еві /-і -еві /-і -єві /-ї
Vocative (6) -у/-е -е/ -у -ю -ю

OUCH!

half of the table could be cut if you just don't use ja = я and treat ' not as a letter but as PART of the previous letter
(and remember that jo -> e)

so it would make more sense to have a word like kon' and sg. genitive to be kon'a because you look up the table and it says -a
kon' + -a = kon'a

you don't have to look up the orthography table and find out that it's actually spelled konja even though it's kon' in the nominative

kon' + -a = konja (??)
Bo v c'omu žytti pomiž baletom i svobodoju zavždy potribno vybyraty svobodu, navit' jakščo ce čehoslovac'kyj general.
Sergij Žadan "Anarchy in the Ukr"
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iopq
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also Slovianski went through a period of hardening of consonants before e and i like most Slavic languages

so of course ci and ty are both ti in Slovianski
Bo v c'omu žytti pomiž baletom i svobodoju zavždy potribno vybyraty svobodu, navit' jakščo ce čehoslovac'kyj general.
Sergij Žadan "Anarchy in the Ukr"
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IJzeren Jan
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Jan van Steenbergen
iopq
Aug 18 2008, 03:36 PM
[...]I think this [pj] pronunciation is useful because it is easier for speakers of languages without soft labials


Thank you for replying! Yes, I agree with that, of course.

Quote:
 
Why do we need to distinguish between j and '?
First reason is for morpheme boundaries, we want to have words like predjavitel' - payee which is completely Slavic


Yes, I can see that, too. But then again, I'm not saying we should disallow l' or something. All I'm saying is that we should be overly specific about it. I've nothing against predjavitel', but I think there's nothing wrong with writing predjavitel, as long as it will be understood anyway. Same goes for tradicijonal'ni vs. tradicijonalni.

Quote:
 
Second reason is for words like Реjкjавик which is the capital of Iceland [...] even if you decide to make all loans like djavol to become d'avol nobody will be able to pronounce Реjкьавик anyway since soft k doesn't exist


In Polish it does, as a matter of fact. But the gist of what I'm saying is that it doesn't really matter. Rejk'avik, Rejkiavik or Rejkjavik, it's all the same to me, really. What I'm proposing, really, is nothing more than an orthographic device that can express all of them, no matter how a person pronounces it.

Just like it wouldn't really matter in Polish if tia, cja and cia were written the same way. Not in a simplified language, at least!

Quote:
 
So in your system either we do nothing like Bulgarian or we use some kind of an orthographic device a-la Ukrainian or Russian


Exactly! I treat it as one letter that people can do with as they please.

Quote:
 
Or we could just use the Serbian alphabet, like Macedonian does: Објаснување
Then we avoid the problem entirely
Also, we have a very simple transcription between Latin and Cyrillic

which is the solution I like ;).


All true. We established a long time ago that this would be one of the "allowed" solutions, didn't we? The Serbian solution is definitely the easiest one, the trouble is only that only Serbians (and Macedonians?) can write it on their keyboard. According to my transliterator, it comes out as: објаснуванје. Not a big problem, I suppose!

Cheers,
Jan
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