Re: Two questions about Esperanto

Where is that "forbidden zone"? I don't see it. The "Fundamento de
Esperanto" itself allows you to use digraphs with h instead of the
circumflexed letters.

Did you know that, under recent versions of Windows, the "Canadian
Multilingual Standard" keyboard allows you to type ALL the supersigned
letters of Esperanto without adding any special program? You can see it at
http://www.microsoft.com/globaldev/reference/keyboards.aspx - select
"Canadian Multilingual Standard" in the list. I've just tried it and that
works with Windows XP. The circumflexed consonants can be obtained thanks to
the circumflex dead key and the breve dead key is Shift+Ctrl+à.
I think that after a couple of years, in further versions of the system,
other keyboard will get their "multilingual" driver from Microsoft. (Les
paris sont ouverts...)

You don't have a Canadian keyboard and/or you don't use Windows?
Well, there are many ways to solve the problem. I have a little list of them
but I won't develop it here (not enough time).

What I mean is that the diacritics are not a true problem. They are a
temporary technological problem which could be solved in the near future and
I don't know many books in Esperanto where the diacritics are not used.
Should you accept to NEVER use the letter u with grave in French because
it's used only in 1 word (où).

The problem is whether or not the sound which corresponds to the letter hx
(h with circumflex - I can type it very easily by two keystrokes - ĥ - but
I'm not sure it will pass through the server) has to be replaced by another
one.

You say that ĥoro (hxoro) comes from Russian хор (khor).
It seems true that Zamenhof spoke Russian fluently and that language could
have influenced his choice for that word.
But remember that in Greek, it's χορός (khoros) and in Latin, chŏrus
(chorus). In German, it's Chor. In Polish: chór (not sure about the
pronunciation). And the "ch" remains only in the spelling in French (chœur)
and in English (choir)     - Data from andré Cherpillod's Konciza Etimologia
Vortaro.

Ĥ can't be pronounced easily by French (although the Larousse and Hachette
dictionnaries I have at home don't mention any alternative spellings for
words such as khamsin /xamsin/ or jota /xOta/) and the speakers of English
who prefer /lQk/ to /lQx/. Let's suppress the ĥ.
L is difficult for Japanese and r, for Chinese. Let's suppress both l and r.
Many languages, such as classical Arabic, knows only 3 vowels. Let's
suppress e and o.
Ŝ can lead a Dutch to misunderstanding because in Dutch /S/ and /s/ are 2
allophones. Let's suppress the ŝ.
Let's suppress the ĵ for the same reason.
Many languages don't allow consonant clusters. Let's turn Esperanto into
Eperanto or Esuperanto.
Mandarin Chinese has no voiced consonants except the nasals. Let's suppress
the voiced stops, the voiced fricatives and the voiced affricate.
There's no /tS/ and no /u_X/ in Greek. Let's suppress the ĉ and the ŭ.
/h/ is unknown in French. Let's suppress the h.
Tagalog has no /t_s/. Let's suppress c immediately.
There are only 11 letters left: a f i j k m n p s t u. Not more than in
Rotokas!!!!!
If I suppress all the sounds unknown in some other languages, what will I
get? A language with 2 sounds? Aga agaga aaga a agaa...

Ĥ is still used in some everyday words and it is useful to avoid ambiguities
in a lot of scientific words of Greek origin.





----- Original Message -----
From: "Philippe Caquant" <herodote92@...>
To: <CONLANG@...>
Sent: Tuesday, July 06, 2004 10:13 PM
Subject: Re: Two questions about Esperanto


> I guess this letter h^ was introduced mainly because
> this phoneme is very common in Russian, and Zamenhof
> probably was influenced by Russian. A choir is
> actually "h^or" (xop) in Russian. Now, if there are
> very few Esperanto words using it, it's probably not
> absolutely indispensable.
>
> In French, "k" and "w" are also considered as
> "foreign" letters, used only to transcript foreign
> words: wagon, kilowatt, and so on. That's why there
> are of high value (10) at Scrabble.
>
> The problem in Esperanto is those letters with
> diacritics signs: h^, g^, c^, j^, s^. I think that
> when Zamenhof invented his language, those letters
> were rather easy to produce on typewriters (you just
> type the ^, then any letter; besides, several are
> quite usual in Slavian languages). But now we're
> working on computers. This is a huge progress: we
> cannot get those characters any more, or only with
> difficulty. How could Zamenhof have foreseen that ?
> That's why (I think), Ido tried to get rid of those
> special letters. But to me, this is not a huge
> problem. The real problem is to change mentalities and
> politics. [STOP ! YOU'RE ENTERING FORBIDDEN ZONE !]
>
> --- Jean-François_COLSON <fa597525@...> wrote:
> > ----- Original Message -----
> > From: "Mark J. Reed" <markjreed@...>
> > To: <CONLANG@...>
> > Sent: Tuesday, July 06, 2004 1:45 AM
> > Subject: Re: Two questions about Esperanto
> >
> >
> > > On Mon, Jul 05, 2004 at 08:27:53PM +0200, Andreas
> > Johansson wrote:
> > > > Since, apparently, no-one is ditching h^
> > completely, what's the point in
> > > > dropping in some words?
> > >
> > >
> > > Ease of pronunciation of at least those words,
> > plus enhanced
> > > recognizability  of those words by speakers of
> > languages such as English
> > > (others?  Italian maybe?) where /x/ -> /k/ in
> > their cognates.
> > >
> > > And I understand there are some Esperanto-speakers
> > who do ditch ĥ
> > completely,
> > > replacing it with either k or h depending on which
> > one is unambiguous.
> > > Though I don't know if there are any triples
> > distinguished solely by
> > > /h/ vs. /x/ vs. /k/, or what such speakers would
> > do when confronted by
> > > one.
> > >
> > > -Markos
> > >
> >
> > There's at least one such triple:
> >    hxoro = choir, chorus
> >    koro = heart
> >    horo = hour
> >
> > Perhaps the speakers you mention would replace hxoro
> > by koruso.
> >
> > The main problem with hx (h with circumflex, the
> > 11th letter of the
> > Esperanto alphabet, unvoiced velar fricative), as
> > explained in
> >
> http://esperantorama.free.fr/lingvo/gramatiko/elqbaz.html,
> > last section,
> > "Alternativoj de Ĥ-vortoj", is that that letter is
> > difficult to some
> > speakers AND that it's the less frequent letter of
> > Esperanto, therefore
> > those who can't pronounce it easily have not many
> > occasions to exercise.
> >
> > Replacement of hx by k (the other unvoiced velar
> > consonant) was officially
> > accepted by the Akademio in words such as
> > arhxeologio, where hx is preceded
> > by r. Some speakers replace hx by k in most of the
> > words where it appears
> > and use alternative words when such a replacement
> > could lead to ambiguity.
> > I was not aware that Cxinio was named Hxinio before.
> >
> > For those who can read Esperanto, there's an
> > interesting article by Bernard
> > Golden at
> > http://www.esperanto.hu/egyeb/litero-h.htm.
> >
> > In an article by Josef Kavka
> > (http://mujweb.cz/Kultura/malovec/FONEMOH.htm),
> > I read that the replacement of hx by k tend to be
> > generalized except in 2
> > occasions: the transliteration of person and place
> > names and the scientific
> > terminology, where the use of hx allow to avoid
> > ambiguity in words of Greek
> > origin.
> >
> > In the same text, the last paragraph of section 4
> > says: "We see that the
> > differences between languages are very important and
> > that, on the other
> > hand, author's subjectivity plays a relatively less
> > considerable role. This
> > fact should convince each esperantist that
> > radicalism, intending to
> > eliminate the phonem hx from everyday Esperanto,
> > would be fruitless. The
> > widely international composition of the language
> > users would simply not
> > allow the phonetic impoverishment."
> >
> > Jean-François Colson
> >
>
>
> =====
> Philippe Caquant
>
> "High thoughts must have high language." (Aristophanes, Frogs)
>
>
>
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