Greetings!

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jan kuto
Posts: 27
Joined: Thu Mar 03, 2016 2:50 pm
Location: UK, England nr London

Re: Greetings!

Post by jan kuto »

Well, the 5 vowels are as most European languages (and Esperanto) pronounce them (Cardinal vowels?).
So maybe the vowels can stand on there own, using the way we pronounce them as the name?
letter | pronounced as in
===================
a | father
e | met
i | peel
o | more
u | food
(taken from your updated (March 1, 2016) lessons)

The mnemonic: "are their three or two?" is stuck in my head after reading Margaret Schlauch's The Gift of Tongues.
(it is from a story she tells with a mother asking her son how many sweets he has left in his hand, as they journey across Europe on a train. ) A tokipona mnemonic would be nice.

A suggestion for the consonants, is to use one of the 5 vowels to voice the consonant-letter name. So we have a 2 letter word for each consonant (and a 1 letter word for each vowel). Instead of using a system like in Esperanto where an "o" is added to the consonant to give the letter name, why not use the AEI (ah-eh-ee) picture as inspiration, to make:

j = ja, k = ka, l = li, m = mu, n = ne, p = pi, s = su, t = to, w = wa

So the names of each letters are:

a, e, i, ja, ka li, mu, ne, o, pi, su, to, u, wa
janKipo
Posts: 3064
Joined: Fri Oct 09, 2009 2:20 pm

Re: Greetings!

Post by janKipo »

As noted, tp names try to avoid existing official tp words, so this scheme fails that test. But it does work with the hieroglyph system somewhat. I think the naming rules are probably more primary than the ieroglyphs.
jan kuto
Posts: 27
Joined: Thu Mar 03, 2016 2:50 pm
Location: UK, England nr London

Re: Greetings!

Post by jan kuto »

I thought about existing words, and from the dictionary could only find a couple. But this is tokipona after all - i don't see any problem calling a 'letter' pi, or a 'phoneme' mu etc.. whilst using pi or mu etc.. for another thing. Surely every word will have more than one meaning in tokipona? I like it! It sounds good, to me. It would be nice to hear any other suggestions for this.
jan kuto
Posts: 27
Joined: Thu Mar 03, 2016 2:50 pm
Location: UK, England nr London

Re: Greetings!

Post by jan kuto »

Maybe we can come up with something better?
Is there any mention of the letter-names in the official book?
janKipo
Posts: 3064
Joined: Fri Oct 09, 2009 2:20 pm

Re: Greetings!

Post by janKipo »

Nothing about letter names in pu or any other that I know of. The hieroglyphs use acronymic keywords ('akesi' for /a/, say -- though any /a/ word, including 'a', would do as well and so on). I assume for the moment that the support word for letters would be 'sitelen' but any noun would cause problems with 'pi' if anything followed, and possibly with 'mu' (and I do have my eye on 'ka' for future use). If you just cycle the vowels you actuall get a better set 'ja, ke, li*, mo, nu, pa, se, ti, wo*' So swap the vowels for /l/ and /w/ to 'lo' and 'wi' and you have a clean set, The vowels still need something , since three of them are words which could turn up after 'sitelen' to some purpose. The /-n/ solution only creates a problem with 'en', which, alas, can definitely come after 'sitelen' and in a spelling situation. But no natural solution is obvious.
jan kuto
Posts: 27
Joined: Thu Mar 03, 2016 2:50 pm
Location: UK, England nr London

Re: Greetings!

Post by jan kuto »

What about using using two vowel letters for each vowel? The vowels are all long/prolonged sounds anyway.
a = aa, e = ee, i = ii, o = oo, u = uu
janKipo
Posts: 3064
Joined: Fri Oct 09, 2009 2:20 pm

Re: Greetings!

Post by janKipo »

But that is not legit tp.
jan kuto
Posts: 27
Joined: Thu Mar 03, 2016 2:50 pm
Location: UK, England nr London

Re: Greetings!

Post by jan kuto »

oops! Please forgive my ignorance.- :)
jan kuto
Posts: 27
Joined: Thu Mar 03, 2016 2:50 pm
Location: UK, England nr London

Re: Greetings!

Post by jan kuto »

Right: i can see now there are nearly one hundred possible syllables in tokipona at the moment (?). So words, and syllables, can end only with a vowel, and -n.
Is there really any good reason why the vowel letter-names cannot stand for themselves: a, e, i, o, u ? I know the rules should be followed, if there are going to be any exceptions, however, couldn't we make one for the actual letter-names? The names of the letters are unlike any other tokipona names; and maybe it would not be so confusing, or unnatural to people?

... and, if we can live with one exception* for the consonant names, your suggestion of cycling the vowel endings is an elegant solution:

ja
ke
li*
mo
nu
pa
se
ti
wo

We would rarely be naming the alphabet in conversation. Could we live with 'li' being the name of a letter?
Last edited by jan kuto on Sun Apr 17, 2016 6:41 pm, edited 1 time in total.
jan kuto
Posts: 27
Joined: Thu Mar 03, 2016 2:50 pm
Location: UK, England nr London

Re: Greetings!

Post by jan kuto »

toki!


Using the tokipona word list as inspiration, here is a suggestion for
a word-name scheme:(see my +++ edited scheme +++ at the end of this post)

ake, esu, ina*, jak, kal, lap, mam, nam, oli, pak, sam, tas, una*, wal

Each word is made up from the first word beginning with that letter, a = akesi, so "a" is "ake".
Each name has three letters.
Vowels made up with the first three: Vowel+consonant+vowel, VCV, combination.
Consonants are made up with the first three: Consonant+vowel+consonant, CVC, combination.

I use the first possible word in the word list to form the letter-names, but maybe one of the other words from the
list might be a better choice ( i am thinking yak sounds like a " dirty word",so maybe "jel" is better, and "pak" is a bad word, so maybe "pal" would is better?) ?.


So my +++ edited scheme +++ is:

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

ake, esu, ina*, jel**, kal, lap, mam, nam, oli, pal**, sam, tas, una*, wal

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Maybe someone could come up with something more pleasing to the ear, or easier to remember?

* i used the first available VCV combination in each of these two words (ina and una)
** jak i change to jel, pak i change to pal
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