simon.franova | Re: La letera H / The letter H

• Autor: simon.franova
• Tema: Re: La letera H / The letter H
• Data: 2008-12-12 13:54
• Mesaje: 2979 (a supra, presedente, seguente)

> i'm only new to LFN, but in general i reckon changes other
> than those serving to significantly improve a created
> language are not a good idea.

I agree. We don't want to change things for change's sake.
There has to be a really good reason.

> ideally a language should only have as many letters, root
> words and rules of grammar as are absolutely necessary to
> ensure it can function as well as any other living
> language for the purpose of accurately conveying thoughts
> and ideas, while keeping the work-load of learning grammar
> and vocab to a minimum for the novice.

LFN certainly has very few rules of grammar, and I've been
trying to tighten up the way they're defined.

LFN also tries to eliminate redundant vocabulary. For
example, I've just suggested that we don't need "aumenta"
(to increase) because the idea can be adequately just as
well by "crese" (to grow).

But you will find quite a large number of technical words
in the dictionary: medical terms, scientific jargon, and
culture-specific concepts such as "haicu" and "zagruta".

We could eliminate such words and use longer phrases instead,
but that would make things cumbersome when technical words
are actually called for. The technical words are all very
international, and there's no problem with having them there
for use in the right context. Most people don't need to
know most of them, as in any language.

LFN retains the letter H in certain technical words and
proper names to make these more consistent with the form
they have in many other languages, and hence easier for
people to recognize - given that they're not words you'd see
every day.

Sometimes an H is retained purely to help with pronunciation.
For example, "Sahara" without the H would be an invalid
word according to the rules of LFN spelling, because you
can't have the same vowel twice in a row.  "Sahara" would
have to become "Sara", and that would be crazy.

So the question is: given that we have to have the letter
H in a few words, do we accept it as a "proper letter", and
do we allow it to be pronounced (so that "Sahara" works in
speech too)? The pronunciation needs to be optional, because
the sound of [h] is difficult for many people.

It's not a big change; just a tweak of the definition.

Simon