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"lsulky" <lsulky@hidden.email>
>
> Okay, here's what I've come up with for letter names.
> ...
> a = ka-sanhu-bea
> ...
> w = ka-wo-bea
>
"Sa" is a classifier and cannot appear in a semi-root. "Kawo" is a
single morpheme and is not equivalent to "ka" plus "wo". Thus,
"kasanhubea"and "kawobea" are NOT valid proper names.
Otherwise, everything should work just fine. However, I don't like the
use of consonant clusters for any of the letters, and I would like
greater distinction between upper and lower case. (This is just
personal preference, not criticism!). This means, though, that the rule
for 'h' must be changed.
So, I've modified the rules and the parser to allow 'h' in a proper
name. In other words, if "ka" appears, then 'h' is treated like any
other consonant. Here's the result:
All vowels are 'h' plus V:
a = Ka-ha-bea
e = Ka-he-bea
i = Ka-hi-bea
etc.
An upper case letter is preceded by "bi" (mnemonic: "binsa"=
'big/large'):
A = Ka-biha-bea
E = Ka-bihe-bea
etc.
Consonants other than 'h' are CV, where V is either 'o' or 'u',
whichever is not reserved for prefixes and classifiers:
b = Ka-bu-bea
d = Ka-do-bea
D = Ka-bido-bea
etc.
The letters 'h', 'w', and 'y' are somewhat irregular:
h = Ka-naha-bea
H = Ka-niha-bea
w = Ka-bwa-bea
W = Ka-bibwa-bea
y = Ka-nya-bea
Y = Ka-binya-bea
Accented letters use a special semi-morph AFTER the letter:
acute accent = xe
grave accent = fo
umlaut = dwa
circumflex = su
others can be allocated later using prefixes.
� = Ka-haxe-bea
� = Ka-hudwa-bea
� = Ka-bihudwa-bea
etc.
Punctuation will use unallocated, unreserved CVs and CSVs:
period = full stop = Ka-myo-bea
question mark = Ka-ke-bea
etc.
Complete words will use "le" as you suggested:
Nango? = Ka-le-binu-ha-nu-gu-ho-ke-bea
N a n g o ?
However, is "le" really needed? Do we really need to make a distinction
between individual letters and complete words?
Non-Roman alphabets and syllabaries can use the closest equivalent of
the above with an appropriate modifier. For example, Greek "kappa" will
be "Ka-ko-bea xxx", where "xxx" is the Katanda adjective meaning
'Greek'. Syllabic scripts, such as Japanese Hiragana and Katakana, can
use two or more semi-morphs. For example, Hiragana "ba" will be
"Ka-bu-ha-bea xxx", where "xxx" is the Katanda adjective meaning
'Hiragana'.
Does anyone know how the Chinese and Japanese name the Chinese
characters? We'll need to do something for them also.
Finally, would it be better to allocate a different classifier just for
spellings?
Let me know what you think.
Regards,
Rick Morneau
http://www.srv.net/~ram
http://www.eskimo.com/~ram