WikiDiscuss

Posted by bancus on Wed 28 of May, 2008 17:26 GMT posts: 52

On Wed, May 28, 2008 at 9:09 AM, atmuijis <wikidiscuss@lojban.org> wrote:

>
> re rei
>
> Author: atmuijis
>
> coi rodo
>
> I am new here and am trying to learn Lojban. Here is one thing that seems
> difficult for me...
>
> It is very hard for me to distinguish the pronunciation between these two
> sounds.
> re and rei
> which seems to be quite a problem since they both represent digits of
> numbers
> 2 and 14(E)
> so there is often no way i can guess from context which one the person is
> saying.
>
> Perhaps it would be better to choose a sound that is not so similar such as
> te'i instead of rei
>
> It seems there is no cmavo te'i yet and there is no other digit with the
> letter t
>
> This does not match the patern of the digits 10-15
> but it seems more important to me to be able to distinguish between digits
>
> tei would match the pattern but it seems that is already being used...
>
> Is this a problem for anyone else?
>

I sometimes have problems with pronouncing re as re and not rei at the end
of words, but I never have problems distinguishing them in others.

--
Theodore Reed (treed/bancus)
www.surreality.us

On 5/28/08, atmuijis <wikidiscuss@lojban.org> wrote:
>
> both represent digits of numbers 2 and 14(E)
> so there is often no way i can guess from context which one the person is saying.

> Is this a problem for anyone else?

Is this an actual problem or a hypothetical one? I think {rei} was
a very bad choice for a digit, given {re}, but is anyone actually
already having problems with it. In what context are hex digits
being used?

One way to sort it out could be to pronounce {rei} as two syllables:
{re,i} or even {reii}, which are more distinct from {re} and can't be
confused with anything else.

mu'o mi'e xorxes

Posted by atmuijis on Wed 28 of May, 2008 20:15 GMT posts: 3

> On 5/28/08, atmuijis wrote:
> >
> > both represent digits of numbers 2 and 14(E)
> > so there is often no way i can guess from context which one the person is saying.
>
> > Is this a problem for anyone else?
>
> Is this an actual problem or a hypothetical one? I think {rei} was
> a very bad choice for a digit, given {re}, but is anyone actually
> already having problems with it. In what context are hex digits
> being used?
>
> One way to sort it out could be to pronounce {rei} as two syllables:
> {re,i} or even {reii}, which are more distinct from {re} and can't be
> confused with anything else.
>
> mu'o mi'e xorxes
>
>
>

This is a hypothetical one, as I have not actually been communicating with other people in lojban. My background is mostly in math and some computer science, and I do use hex some times, but actually english has a similar problem because 8 and A sound similar.

Using te'i instead would not actually change the number of cmavo being used. Are people already used to using rei? If so I wonder what you think of it? Is there some way to go about changing the definitions of words?

On 5/28/08, atmuijis <wikidiscuss@lojban.org> wrote:
>
> Using te'i instead would not actually change the number
> of cmavo being used. Are people already used to using rei?

I don't think hex numbers have been used much, no.
Some people use them for october, november and
december sometimes, but that doesn't include {rei}.

> If so I wonder what you think of it? Is there some way to
> go about changing the definitions of words?

This wouldn't involve changing any definition, just introducing
a new cmavo. The way to do this is just using it and hope that
others follow suit. In general, very few new cmavo have had any
success, for that to happen the proposed cmavo has to fill some
real need. There is no established way to make any new proposed
cmavo official.

Personally, I never actually have had use for hex cmavo, so I have
no opinion one way or the other. The heavy users of such cmavo
(if there ever hapen to be some) will end up being the ones who
decide.

mu'o mi'e xorxes

Posted by atmuijis on Wed 28 of May, 2008 20:44 GMT posts: 3

> coi rodo
>
> I am new here and am trying to learn Lojban. Here is one thing that seems difficult for me...
>
> It is very hard for me to distinguish the pronunciation between these two sounds.
> re and rei
> which seems to be quite a problem since they both represent digits of numbers
> 2 and 14(E)
> so there is often no way i can guess from context which one the person is saying.
>
> Perhaps it would be better to choose a sound that is not so similar such as
> te'i instead of rei
>
> It seems there is no cmavo te'i yet and there is no other digit with the letter t
>
> This does not match the patern of the digits 10-15
> but it seems more important to me to be able to distinguish between digits
>
> tei would match the pattern but it seems that is already being used...

>
> Is this a problem for anyone else?

Well I was not actually interested in introducing a new cmavo, just changing the spelling of one that already exists to avoid confusing it with another cmavo

On 5/28/08, atmuijis <wikidiscuss@lojban.org> wrote:
>
> Well I was not actually interested in introducing a new
> cmavo, just changing the spelling of one that already
> exists to avoid confusing it with another cmavo

Same thing, it can only happen through usage.

mu'o mi'e xorxes

Posted by stevo on Wed 28 of May, 2008 23:32 GMT posts: 381

"Rei" is not a very common cmavo, so the problem of distinguishing between
the two would not be a common or major one for a beginner.
If this really is a problem, then there are probably lots of other cmavo
pairs, not to mention gismu pairs, where similarities like these occur. Cmavo
space is densely populated, so changes are difficult, and the baseline makes them
even less likely.
With practice, I think speakers would learn to distinguish between "re" and
"rei" with no difficulty.

stevo </HTML>