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"lsulky" <lsulky@hidden.email> wrote:
>
> Can I suggest something? It seems to me that, more often than not,
> when letters are used in acronyms or in identification (like license
> plates), they are uppercase. Would it make sense for the uppercase
> letters to have the shorter names and lowercase the longer? And
> perhaps also to thereby establish that uppercase is in some sense
> the "default"?
>
These are spellings, not acronyms. Acronyms generally remain unchanged
in translation, and should be represented with bracketing. For example,
"Ka<IBM>sto", "Ka<NATO>sto", etc.
>
> Aren't "bwa" and "nya" potentially classifiers? And are they not
> consonant clusters, therefore prohibited from first position in a
> name (after the "ka" prefix)?
>
No. "Bwa" is based on semi-morph "ba" and "nya" is based on semi-morph
"na".
>
> Hangeul is more alphabet than syllabary in my mind, but Koreans that
> I have talked to seem to consider it a syllabary that follows a
> logical pattern of syllable character construction. Which opinion
> would govern in this case?
>
When it's time to deal with this problem, we'll ask some Koreans.
>
> Will your parser do something appropriate with the mechanism
> suggested above? If so, then I'd say no special classifier is needed.
>
The parser is not involved at all. The word translation software
handles it, and since it's not practical to have a unique dictionary
entry for every possible spelling, the software has to decompose the
semi-root and convert it to an appropriate form in the target language.
For the Katanda-to-English translator, I'll probably just put the
letters in double quotes with hyphens between letters.
---------------------------------------
Here's a (hopefully) improved version:
All spellings use the special classifier "-nxo".
All vowels are "baCV" for lower case and "biCV" for upper case
(mnemonic: "binsa"= 'big/large'), where C is the consonant that
immediately precedes the vowel in alphabetical order:
a = Ka-baza-nxo
e = Ka-bade-nxo
i = Ka-bahi-nxo
...
O = Ka-bino-nxo
U = Ka-bitu-nxo
Semi-vowels also use "ba-" and "bi-", as with vowels, plus "-Sa":
w = Ka-bawa-nxo
W = Ka-biwa-nxo
y = Ka-baya-nxo
Y = Ka-biya-nxo or Ka-bya-nxo
Consonants are CV, where V is either 'o' or 'u', whichever is not
reserved for prefixes and classifiers:
b = Ka-bu-nxo
d = Ka-do-nxo
h = Ka-ho-nxo
l = Ka-lu-nxo
q = Ka-qo-nxo
r = Ka-ro-nxo
t = Ka-tu-nxo
etc.
An upper case consonant is preceded by "bi":
B = Ka-bibu-nxo
D = Ka-bido-nxo
H = Ka-biho-nxo
etc.
Accented letters use a special C(S)V AFTER the letter:
acute accent = xe
grave accent = fo
umlaut = dwa
circumflex = su
tilde = twe
etc. Others can be allocated later using prefixes or unallocated and
unreserved CVs and CSVs.
� = Ka-bazaxe-nxo
� = Ka-nutwe-nxo
� = Ka-batudwa-nxo
� = Ka-bitudwa-nxo
etc.
Punctuation will use prefixes or unallocated, unreserved CVs and CSVs:
period = Ka-de-nxo (mnemonic: numeric "-de-" = decimal point)
hyphen = Ka-na-nxo (mnemonic: numeric "na-"= minus sign)
question mark = Ka-ki-nxo (mnemonic: prefix "ki-"= interrogative)
etc.
Here's an example of a complete word:
Nango? = Ka-binu-baza-nu-gu-ho-ki-nxo
N a n g o ?
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-nxo 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-baza-nxo xxx", where "xxx" is the Katanda adjective meaning
'Hiragana'. (Obviously, the modifying adjective "xxx" will not be
needed if the context makes it unnecessary.)
Chinese characters will be based on their Unicode descriptions, as
follows (TBD).
Let me know what you think.
Regards,
Rick Morneau
http://www.srv.net/~ram
http://www.eskimo.com/~ram