We should translate the Sage UI into Lojban! That would probably solve our problems.
http://www.lojban.org/tiki/Lojban (Sorry for the top post, but I'm not responding to any particular sentence written below...) On Sat, 29 Aug 2009 at 05:25PM -0700, kcrisman wrote: > On Aug 29, 6:45 pm, Robert Dodier <robert.dod...@gmail.com> wrote: > > Minh Nguyen wrote: > > > Usually "an" comes before a word that starts with a vowel, i.e a, e, > > > i, o, u. So one would say "an eight o'clock meeting" or "an 8 o'clock > > > meeting". More examples: an amphibian, an egg, an igloo, an octopus, > > > an umbrella. However, there are situations when this rule doesn't > > > apply. In software engineering, one uses UML diagrams as part of the > > > design process. Although this acronym starts with a capital "u", it's > > > pronounced and written as "a UML diagram" not "an UML diagram", just > > > as in "a ewe" not "an ewe". > > > > In American English at least (I just don't know about other varieties) > > it is typical to change some vowels into diphthongs, in particular to > > change initial u into iu instead. In iu, i acts as a semivowel, > > and it's typical to use the article "a" in front of a word beginning > > with iu, e.g. a unicorn. But e.g. "urn" doesn't have the initial > > semivowel, > > so the article is "an", so "an urn". > > > > The other semivowel (there might be still others, but I can't think > > of them at the moment) is w as in "one". As with semivocalic i, > > the article for semivocalic w is "a", e.g. a one-time deal. > > > > Yes. And don't forget things like "an historical novel" versus "a > historical novel", depending on what part of the US you are from (no > idea for other parts). But at any rate, a versus an is purely > phonetic. At least in theory, there are also two pronunciations of > "the" (thee and thuh), depending on the same input. Thee angel, thuh > time. > > Well, whatever; definitely no good algorithm! Especially in the land > of abbreviations and letters that mathematics is. Should we maybe use > other articles for other alphabets, ό α or א ה or something? > > > In all varieties of English, there is a pretty broad gulf between > > orthography and pronunciation. (I don't know if the orthography was > > fixed ages ago and pronunciation continued to evolved, or if they > > were never really aligned to begin with.) In a fantasy world, you > > would see that urn has a different initial letter than unicorn, but > > for now you just have to listen to the pronunciation to figure out > > the appropriate article. > > Orthography is horrible because so much of the vocabulary is from > Anglo-Saxon or old French, but we barely pronounce anything like > Icelandic. For a great example, see > http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=enough > - a lot of initial "g"s became "y"s or disappeared, and I can only > assume the final g was originally pronounced that way since it still > is in German. Also, Isn't French another language whose pronunciation > is only related to orthography by very complicated or non-algorithmic > rules? Because it's still written like it was centures ago? I feel > like I've heard that somewhere. So English isn't unique like that, > though it's probably the only language you can really have a spelling > bee in :) > > Anyway, interesting thread. I assume that there are no algorithms for > Chomskian transformational grammars in Sage yet, but maybe someone > should volunteer. > > - kcrisman > --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ > To post to this group, send email to sage-support@googlegroups.com > To unsubscribe from this group, send email to > sage-support-unsubscr...@googlegroups.com > For more options, visit this group at > http://groups.google.com/group/sage-support > URLs: http://www.sagemath.org > -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~--- > Dan -- --- Dan Drake <drake at kaist dot edu> ----- KAIST Department of Mathematical Sciences ------- http://mathsci.kaist.ac.kr/~drake
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