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30

First Steps in Lojban

Lesson 30. Advanced name words: stress and forbidden clusters

Sora
Sora

You know what bugged me about Lesson 3? Koshon said cmevla can have stress somewhere other than the second-to-last syllable, and then Sora just yelled "let's ignore that!" and we moved on.

Sevan
Sevan

Classic Sora. Okay, let's fix it. This lesson is about two things: marking non-default stress, and the consonant clusters that are never allowed anywhere in Lojban.

Non-default stress in cmevla

Sevan
Sevan

You know the default: stress the second-to-last syllable, ignoring y.

But names from other languages don't always fit that pattern. Lojban lets you override it: capitalize the letters of the stressed syllable.

la .akasakas. → akaSAkas (stress falls naturally on second-to-last: -sa-) la .aKAsakas. → AKAsakas (stress on the first syllable, marked explicitly) la .iaTSUxacin. → iaTSUxacin (八つ橋 — stress on the second syllable)

Sora
Sora

Just capitalize the whole stressed syllable?

Sevan
Sevan

Technically it's enough to capitalize just the vowel, but capitalizing the whole syllable is easier to read. Either way is valid.

Some writers also use diacritical marks — like la .akásakas. — but that's non-ASCII and not everyone can type it. Capitals work everywhere.

Sora
Sora

So the two forms la .akasakas. and la .aKAsakas. represent the same name with different stress placements, not two different words.

Sevan
Sevan

Exactly. It's an accent record, not a spelling distinction.

One practical point: whether to preserve the original accent is up to personal taste. Some people think Lojbanization should change the accent (it's part of adapting the word). Others want to keep the original as close as possible. Both views are reasonable.

Forbidden consonant clusters

Sevan
Sevan

Now the important list. Lojban avoids certain sound combinations — usually because they're easy to mishear or because they don't fit the word-boundary system. Here are the key forbidden patterns:

Never allowed in Lojban (at word junctions or within a word):

  1. Double consonants — kk, dd, pp, ss … any consonant repeated back-to-back.
  2. Mixed voice in obstruents — e.g. pv, gs, td, gk … pairing a voiced obstruent (b d g v z j) with an unvoiced one (p t k f s c x). (r l m n are not obstruents and can mix freely.)
  3. The sibilant cluster — cs, sc, jz, zj — these sounds are too similar and blend together.
  4. Specific forbidden pairs: cx, kx, xc, xk, mz
  5. Specific forbidden triples: ndj, ndz, ntc, nts
Sora
Sora

That's a lot. Do I have to memorise all of those to make a cmevla?

Sevan
Sevan

For everyday Lojbanization you mostly need rules 1 and 2 — they cover the vast majority of cases. The others are rarer. And the fix is always the same: insert a y between the two problem consonants.

Problem: London → nd is allowed, but the final n would give us .londyn. — wait, that's fine actually. Problem: Marx → rx is fine. But Marx + s at the end: .markss. — double-s! Fix: .markyss. or simply .marks.

Sora
Sora

So y is the universal lubricant between stuck consonants.

Sevan
Sevan

Exactly. And two more vowel rules to watch when making name words:

Vowel rules in cmevla:

  • i and u become semivowels (y-glide and w-glide) when they appear after a consonant and before another vowel. To avoid this if you don't want it, double the vowel: giia for ぎゃ, niio for にょ.
  • Any two non-i/u vowels in a row need an apostrophe between them: o'u, e'a, etc.
Sora
Sora

So "Tokyo" (東京 = Toukyou) would be .tokiion. to avoid the kyo glide becoming a semivowel?

Sevan
Sevan

Yep, or .tokion. if you're fine with the kyo-glide. Either is defensible. The point is that the parser can still tell the words apart.

Try a few yourself:

Exercise

Sevan
Sevan

Lojbanize the following names. Remember: the word must end in a consonant, no forbidden clusters, apostrophes between non-i/u vowel pairs.

  1. Kyoto (京都 — Kyouto)
  2. Miku (ミク)
  3. Zhang (张 — the Chinese surname, approximately "Djang")
Sora
Sora

Okay:

  1. .kiioton. — kio would make ki a semivowel before o, so I doubled the i. Or just .kiioton. / .kioton. if I'm okay with the glide.
  2. .mikun. or just .mik. — straightforward.
  3. .djans. or .djang. wait, final ng → I need a consonant… .djangn. — hmm, gn is allowed (voiced+nasal). Actually just .djans. or .djan. is fine too.
Sevan
Sevan

All reasonable. Option variety is a feature, not a bug. The community will converge on popular forms for well-known names.

True or false

Pick whether each statement is true or false according to the lesson.

  1. In Lojban, cmevla stress must always fall on the second-to-last syllable — no exceptions.

  2. To mark stress on the first syllable of .soran., you write .SOran..

  3. The consonant cluster pv is permitted in Lojban.

  4. If a forbidden consonant cluster appears in a cmevla, the standard fix is to insert y between the two consonants.

  5. The cluster cs is forbidden in Lojban.