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A list of sentences from [http://web.archive.org/web/20041012211715/http://www.xapia.com/sentences.php apia.com] web-site.
Estrangela is a real alphabet which is as exotic to most eyes as [[Tengwar|Tengwar]]. However, it has a more middle-eastern flavor rather than a fantasy flavor. I was motivated to pick Estrangela because I wanted to make the Emerald Tablet look right, and it is alleged to have been first written in Syriac, the language Estrangela is used to write. I'll post the tablet as a sample text when I've got it looking right, but that will be a while as I cannot get an estrangela font. If anyone happens to want to make one, some sample Syriac text and the two Syriac alphabets, estrangela and nestorian, are at [http://www.omniglot.com/writing/syriac.htm] - or, if you point me to a free font editor, I'll do it.


# ''Everyone except the king does not admire the king.''
''(Strictly speaking (though the online doco is a little confused) there seem to be three variants: Estrangela, the original Syriac, used now only in titles; Nestorian, Eastern Syriac; and Serta --- descended from Estrangela, and western Syriac.)''


**ro na'ebo le nolraitru naku sinma le nolraitru
Estrangela is a syriac script, written right to left like the related Arabic script. It has no vowels, but has traditionally used the mirror-images of the greek vowels. B/C it has no F, for my lojban Estrangela orthography I use the Arabic letter. Here are the correspondences.
**da'apa da enai le nolraitru naku sinma le nolraitru


# ''The tallest and smallest men in the world both joined the circus.''
[http://www.swdaniel.com/~craig/syriacorthog.gif]


**lo ke clarai joi toryrai ke'e be lo ro nanmu pe le munje cu cmibi'o le tigbe'e
*F - Syriac has no F, so I used the arabic letter. Arabic and Syriac scripts are related.
**ge lo clarai be lo'i nanmu gi lo toryrai be lo'i nanmu cu cmibi'o lo tigbe'e -- la tsani
**Could you use Syriac teth? Pretty please? If anyone actually uses this, mixing Arabic and Estrangela will be a typographic nightmare. '''Done. The sounds aren't the same, but it's good enough.'''


# ''Exactly two goblins hate every wizard.''
*J - The phonetic values are not the same, but it's closer than any other Syriac letter.
*O - Lowercase omega looks like heth (x), but omicron is indistinguishable from waw (v). I went with the lesser of two evils.


**re crida cu xebni ro termakfa
*' - This is actually a glottal stop, but I had used the H sound already and there wasn't a /T/
**But you've uses heth, not he. Right? '''Okay, I've replaced it with he. I had forgotten that one, I've only used syriac a few times.'''


# ''The Queen of England is related to the King of Sweden.''
* If anyone knows of a free font editor that lets me save my work, I'll make a lojban estrangela font.


**le nolraitruni'u be le glico cu tamne le nolraitrunau be le sfero
- la [[.kreig.daniyl.|.kreig.daniyl.]]


# ''Not every country belongs to the U.N.''
Btw, the sample text on the website above is in Nestorian (which I personal think looks cooler --- because of course it's closer to Arabic). Since they encode the same language, an Estrangela proposal is almost a Nestorian proposal (modulo getting the vowel diacritics down.) -- [[User:Nick Nicholas|nitcion]]


**me'iro gugde cu cmima la jonsi'u gugde
I don't know the vowels for Nestorian, which is why I've used Estrangela. I like the Nestorian consonants better also. - [[.kreig.daniyl.|.kreig.daniyl.]]


# ''The president of every country knows the president of every other country.''
http://www.assyrianlanguage.com is an online course on Assyrian [[= Syriac]], which uses Nestorian. The vowels are detailed there. Nestorian vowels are handled basically like Arabic ones --- with diacritics.


**ro jatna be lo gugde cu se slabu ro drata jatna be lo gugde
A question to both you and Adam ([[Hebrew Orthography|(Hebrew Orthography]]): what about final and initial variants of consonants? Does your transliteration of Lojban use them? Why/why not?


# ''The result of dividing the circumference of a circle by its diameter is equal to pi.''
Syriac, as defined on [http://www.omniglot.com/writing/syriac.htm] does not include them. This is where I learned the alphabet, so I don't know the final and initial forms. If you would care to educate me...


**li pai dilcu lo se mitre be lo korbi be lo cukla lo se mitre be lo ravysirji be cy li no
Like Arabic and Hebrew, Syriac letters vary depending on whether they are at the start, middle, or end of a word. The site posted above illustrates this copiously for Nestorian.


# ''No house has only one roach in it.''
''This is true for Arabic and Syriac (Estrangelo, Chaldaic, Malabar-Syriac Syriac-Peshito), but not for Hebrew: unlike those, Hebrew has no "ligatures", hence just has final-variants for a few characters which are kaph, mem, nun, pe (fe) and sade. It has no variants for initial, middle and isolate characters. That's one reason for Hebrew - if at all! - being a suitable script for Lojban. Maybe the Mandaic script, in use for Aramaic, is comparable to Hebrew (and also uses aleph, yud and vav to designate all vowels!). Don't think that vowels are the main problem with Syriac scripts (one could use the vocalizing system created by Jakob from Edessa - with dots above or below the consonant - as well as that of Theophilus from Edessa - with Greek vowels put beside the consonants' *written* in columns and, turned crosswise, *read* from  right to left). The problem is the four variants of each Syriac character! -- aulun''


**no zdani cu se nenri pa po'o jalra
*But, aulun, (since you actually know this stuff :-) --- it is true that Estrangela proper (as opposed to its offspring Serta) doesn't have positional variants, right? Or am I misreading things? The dot-system (which Nestorian uses) is what begat Hebrew vowel-pointing and Arabic vowel diacritics, right? -- [[User:Nick Nicholas|nitcion]]
**It does, though those variants don't look very differently. Yet, the problem being that they all will have to be used in order to make the script look right and pleasing - like e.g. the Arabic scripts. It is not a solution just to use the isolate types. (In Hebrew, even *not* using the couple of finals existing would be an aesthetic offense to the reader's eyes - the more with Arabic or Syriac scripts requiring the characters being tied together.) Maybe that Unicode Syriac "created" a merged font, didn't look at it, but I doubt whether that's the right way :( -.aulun.


# ''The Queen of Hearts' only daughter is loved by exactly three suitors.''
***Like I said below, the hoops Unicode has to jump through for Syriac are prodigious.


**lo ropa tixnu be la risna noltruni'u cu se prami ci spedji
Indeed, implementing the positional variants for Syriac has proven a nightmare for [[Unicode|Unicode]]. <nowiki>[On closer inspection, though, it looks like Estrangela did not have this kind of variation. '''Wrong: see above''']</nowiki> Nevertheless Unicode Syriac merges all three script variants into a single set of character codes; see [http://www.unicode.org/unicode/uni2book/ch08.pdf], section 8.3, for lots of details.
 
# ''At least two known terrorists are hated by everyone except themselves.''
 
**su'ore da poi misno tepri'apre cu se xebni da'apa de enai da
 
# ''The lord of the elves will cross the sea only if the lord of Mordor is defeated.''
 
**le nobli be lo elfe ba pagre le xamsi ijo le nobli be la mordor cu se jinga
**le nobli be lo elfe ba pagre le xamsi inaja le nobli be la mordor cu se jinga
 
# ''Anyone who respects someone who respects the current president of the United States is not respected by at least one person.''
 
**ro sinma be lo sinma be le ca jatna be le merko naku se sinma su'o prenu
 
# ''The wall from which Humpty Dumpty fell is not the Great Wall of China.''
 
**le bitmu poi la xamtidamtis cu farlu fi ke'a cu na du la banli bitmu pe le jungo
 
# ''The woman Argyle hoped to marry was the woman the man she hoped to marry hoped to marry.''
 
**le ninmu poi la argail pacna lo nu speni cu du da poi le nanmu poi da pacna lo nu speni cu pacna lo nu speni
 
# ''Something's happening here, and what it is ain't exactly clear.''
 
**da vi fasnu ije lo nu da mokau cu na klina
 
# ''This is the boy who played with the toy that scared the frog that splashed the dog that chased the cat that ate the rat that killed the mouse that lived in the house that Jack built.''
 
**ti du le nanla poi kelci le selkei poi tepygau le plipybanfi poi jacre'o le gerku poi jersi le mlatu poi citka le ratcu poi catra le smacu poi xabju le zdani poi la djak cu zbasu
 
# ''Jihad Against Islam's Call for Jihad.''
 
**e'u censa jamna lo muslo nu stidi lo nu censa jamna
 
# ''Every human envies the human admired by every Vulcan.''
 
**ro remna cu jilra le remna poi ro vulko cu jilra ke'a
**ro remna cu jilra le remna poi ro vulko cu sinma ke'a
 
# ''Someday the USA will elect a woman president, and it won't be pretty.''
 
**ca da le merko ba cuxna lo ninmu jatna i la'e di'u ba na melbi
 
# ''Nothing is the greatest positive integer.''
 
**noda zmarai lo ro nonzau mulna'u
**noda zmarai lo ro nonmau mulna'u
 
# ''Checkmate.''
 
** jinga
 
# ''Now that's a pretty little girls' school.''
 
** ta melbi ke cmalu ke nixli ckule
 
# ''They were attacking people, not peaceful people.''
 
**ko'a gunta lo prenu gi'enai lo panpi prenu
 
# ''"Bad hair day"''
 
**pe'a mabla kerfa djedi
 
# ''If at least two people are great, then no one is the one great person.''
 
**ganai su'ore prenu cu banli gi no prenu cu du lo ropa banli prenu
 
# ''The dog next door is dangerous.''
 
**le gerku pe le lamji cu ckape
 
# ''The fridge is not empty, unless the repairman took the last beer.''
 
**le lekmi'i na kunti ija le cikre prenu pu lebna le romoi birje
 
# ''Al is married to Betty's only daughter.''
 
**la al cu speni lo ropa tixnu be la betis
 
# ''The red house is the house that Jack built.''
 
**le xunre zdani cu du le zdani poi la djak ba'o zbasu ke'a
 
# ''Russell is not the only author of Principia Mathematica.''
 
**la'o zoi Russell zoi na se steci lo ka ce'u finti la'o zoi Principia Mathematica zoi
 
# ''The person who shot JFK worked for the CIA.''
 
**lo prenu poi ke'a catra JFK cu te pleji fi CIA
 
# ''If at least two people are great, then no one is the one great person.''
 
**ganai su'o re prenu cu banli gi no prenu cu ropamoi fi lo banli prenu
 
# ''Jeremy is Cory's oldest son.''
 
**la djerymis cu tolcitrai lo ro bersa be la koris
 
# ''All hail the king.''
 
**ei ro da rinsa le nolraitru
 
# ''The exam that every student failed is harder than the exam that every student passed.''
 
**le cipra poi ro tadni cu fliba ke'a cu nadmau le cipra poi ro tadni cu snada ke'a
 
# ''If you can't be with the one you love, love the one you're with.''
 
**ganai do na ka'e kansa le se prami be do gi ko prami le se kansa be do
**ga do ka'e kansa le se prami be do gi ko prami le se kansa be do
 
# ''The coach of the basketball team is looking for the tallest student.''
 
**le ctuca be le lankyboi selkei bende cu sisku lo clarai tadni ''(The coach doesn't know who the tallest student is.)''
**le ctuca be le lankyboi selkei bende cu sisku le clarai tadni ''(The coach is looking for a certain student, and the speaker describes that student as "the tallest student". The coach may not even know that that student is the tallest.)''
 
# ''The king of Sweden's only son is married to one of Herbert's daughters.''
 
**le ropa bersa be le nolraitru be le sfero cu speni pa le tixnu be la xerbert
 
# ''Carla is the one freshman who aced every course in which she enrolled.''
 
**la karlas cu du lo ropa cfatadni poi ke'a traji snada ro tercu'e be fi ke'a
 
# ''The CEO of IBM is the spouse of someone present.''
 
** le ralju be IBM cu speni lo zvati
 
# ''The former president of the United States is the only American who knows the president of every country.''
 
**lo pu jatna be le merko cu du lo ro merko poi se slabu ro jatna be lo gugde ''(Since there are more than one former presidents, I assume this is meant as a generic claim. Or is "the former president" just the immediate predecessor of the current one?)''
 
# ''This is the dog that chased the cat that stalked the mouse that lived in the house that Jack built.''
 
**ti du le gerku poi jersi le mlatu poi kalte le smacu poi xabju le zdani poi la djak zbasu
 
# ''The square of the length of the hypotenuse of any right triangle is equal to the sum of the squares of the lengths of its base and vertical sides.''
 
** lo sezypi'i be lo se mitre be lo xiptenuse be lo kurjga cibyselmla cu du lo simsumji be lo sezypi'i be lo se mitre be lo jicmu joi sraji mlana be kycy
 
# ''Bill hates George only if Pat hates Bill.''
 
**la bil xebni la djordj inaja la pat xebni la bil
 
# ''Being careful and diligent is necessary, but not sufficient for passing this course.''
 
**lo nu da kurji je tolylazni cu sarcu gi'enai ku'i banzu lo nu da snada le tercli
 
# ''Some professors don't understand this problem.''
 
**su'o ctuca naku jimpe fi le nabmi
 
# ''Danny DeVito and ferocious lions and tigers are best avoided.''
 
**la'o zoi Danny DeVito zoi e lo cilce cinfo joi tirxu zo'u xagrai fa lo nu rivbi
 
# ''Lawyers and real estate agents are rich or obnoxious.''
 
**lo flalu prenu e lo tumla vecnu cu ricfu gi'a rigni
 
# ''If all professors bore all of their students, then all professors are wasting their time.''
 
**ganai ro ctuca cu tolzdi ro se ctuca be ri gi ro ctuca cu malxaksu lo ri temci
 
# ''Some lion Bruce Willis is chasing is a formidable animal, but is not ferocious.''
 
**su'o cinfo poi la'o zoi Bruce Willis zoi jersi cu banli danlu gi'enai ku'i cilce
 
# ''The only students who pass are the ones who work.''
 
**lo tadni cu snada gi'o gunka ''(Or perhaps {nagi'a}. It is not clear to me if the English allows that a student may not pass even if they work.)''
 
# ''Only slackers fail if and only if the only unfair professors are on sabbatical.''
 
**ro fliba cu lazni ijo ro mabla ctuca cu na'arde'a ''(I don't really get this one.)''
 
# ''Someone is not respected by anyone.''
 
**su'o prenu naku se sinma su'o da
 
# ''Any professor who is bored by everything bores all of his or her students.''
 
**ro ctuca poi roda tolzdi ke'a cu tolzdi ro se ctuca be cy
 
# ''Some underpaid professors are also secretaries, and some overworked administrators are professors, but no administrator is a secretary.''
 
**su'o mobyterle'i ctuca cu jibri sidju ije su'o dusygu'a jitro cu ctuca ije ku'i no jitro cu jibri sidju
 
# ''If a student and his or her professor bore each other, then both are wasting their time.''
 
**ganai lo tadni joi lo ctuca be ty cu tolzdisi'u gi lo rore da cu malxaksu lo ri temci
 
# ''The end is nigh.''
 
**le fanmo cu jibni
 
# ''Everyone who respects oneself is respected by everyone who respects someone.''
 
**ro da poi ke'a sinma ke'a cu se sinma ro de poi ke'a sinma di
 
# ''Cicero is Tully''
 
**la kikeron cu du la tulius
**ro da go du zei kikeron gi du zei tulius
 
# ''Daniel is the only child of Jacob.''
 
**la daniel cu ropamoi panzi la iakob
 
# ''Rebecca has at least two daughters.''
 
**la rebekas cu se tixnu su'o re da
 
# ''Cain was not his brother's keeper.''
 
**la kain na kurji lo bruna be ky
 
# ''Carl is the tallest man alive.''
 
**la karl cu clarai lo ro jmive nanmu
 
# ''The only pear left on the tree is rotten.''
 
**lo ropa perli poi stali le tricu cu fusra
 
# ''There are exactly two primes between 10 and 14.''
 
**re namcrprimu cu jbini li pano bi'i li pavo
 
# ''Every affluent person owns at least two cars.''
 
**ro ricfu prenu cu ponse su'o re karce
 
# ''At most one Richmonder will win the lottery.''
 
** su'e pa xabju be la ritcmond ba jinga le cunso
 
# ''Every positive integer has exactly one successor.''
 
**ro nonmau mulna'u cu lamli'e pa da
 
# ''There are no more than two villains in Gotham.''
 
**su'e re da pacpre bu'u la gotam
 
# ''Batman and Robin are the only heros in Gotham.''
 
**la batman jo'u la robin se steci lo ka balpre bu'u la gotam
 
# ''Kay respects everyone but herself.''
 
**la keis cu sinma ro da enai ky
**la keis cu sinma da'apa prenu enai ky
 
# ''Everything is identical to something.''
 
**ro da du su'o de
 
# ''Exactly one student respects every professor.''
 
**pa tadni cu sinma ro ctuca
 
# ''No more than one professor is respected by every student.''
 
**su'epa ctuca cu se sinma ro tadni
 
# ''Aristotle and Descartes are the only philosophers who are smarter than all of their disciples.''
 
**la aristoteles jo'u la dekart cu se steci lo ka ke'a mencremau ro se ctuca be ke'a
 
# ''2 is the only prime whose successor is prime.''
 
**li re du lo ropa namcrprimu poi lamli'e lo namcrprimu
**li re se steci lo ka namcrprimu gi'e lamli'e lo namcrprimu
 
# ''No one respects anyone who respects everyone but him or herself.''
 
**no prenu cu sinma su'o prenu poi ke'a sinma da'apa prenu enai ke'a
 
# ''Everyone who respects exactly one classmate is respected by exactly two classmates.''
 
**ro da poi sinma pa selctukansa cu se sinma re selctukansa
 
 
 
mi'e [[User:xorxes|xorxes]]

Latest revision as of 16:19, 23 March 2014

Estrangela is a real alphabet which is as exotic to most eyes as Tengwar. However, it has a more middle-eastern flavor rather than a fantasy flavor. I was motivated to pick Estrangela because I wanted to make the Emerald Tablet look right, and it is alleged to have been first written in Syriac, the language Estrangela is used to write. I'll post the tablet as a sample text when I've got it looking right, but that will be a while as I cannot get an estrangela font. If anyone happens to want to make one, some sample Syriac text and the two Syriac alphabets, estrangela and nestorian, are at [1] - or, if you point me to a free font editor, I'll do it.

(Strictly speaking (though the online doco is a little confused) there seem to be three variants: Estrangela, the original Syriac, used now only in titles; Nestorian, Eastern Syriac; and Serta --- descended from Estrangela, and western Syriac.)

Estrangela is a syriac script, written right to left like the related Arabic script. It has no vowels, but has traditionally used the mirror-images of the greek vowels. B/C it has no F, for my lojban Estrangela orthography I use the Arabic letter. Here are the correspondences.

[2]

  • F - Syriac has no F, so I used the arabic letter. Arabic and Syriac scripts are related.
    • Could you use Syriac teth? Pretty please? If anyone actually uses this, mixing Arabic and Estrangela will be a typographic nightmare. Done. The sounds aren't the same, but it's good enough.
  • J - The phonetic values are not the same, but it's closer than any other Syriac letter.
  • O - Lowercase omega looks like heth (x), but omicron is indistinguishable from waw (v). I went with the lesser of two evils.
  • ' - This is actually a glottal stop, but I had used the H sound already and there wasn't a /T/
    • But you've uses heth, not he. Right? Okay, I've replaced it with he. I had forgotten that one, I've only used syriac a few times.
  • If anyone knows of a free font editor that lets me save my work, I'll make a lojban estrangela font.

- la .kreig.daniyl.

Btw, the sample text on the website above is in Nestorian (which I personal think looks cooler --- because of course it's closer to Arabic). Since they encode the same language, an Estrangela proposal is almost a Nestorian proposal (modulo getting the vowel diacritics down.) -- nitcion

I don't know the vowels for Nestorian, which is why I've used Estrangela. I like the Nestorian consonants better also. - .kreig.daniyl.

http://www.assyrianlanguage.com is an online course on Assyrian = Syriac, which uses Nestorian. The vowels are detailed there. Nestorian vowels are handled basically like Arabic ones --- with diacritics.

A question to both you and Adam ((Hebrew Orthography): what about final and initial variants of consonants? Does your transliteration of Lojban use them? Why/why not?

Syriac, as defined on [3] does not include them. This is where I learned the alphabet, so I don't know the final and initial forms. If you would care to educate me...

Like Arabic and Hebrew, Syriac letters vary depending on whether they are at the start, middle, or end of a word. The site posted above illustrates this copiously for Nestorian.

This is true for Arabic and Syriac (Estrangelo, Chaldaic, Malabar-Syriac Syriac-Peshito), but not for Hebrew: unlike those, Hebrew has no "ligatures", hence just has final-variants for a few characters which are kaph, mem, nun, pe (fe) and sade. It has no variants for initial, middle and isolate characters. That's one reason for Hebrew - if at all! - being a suitable script for Lojban. Maybe the Mandaic script, in use for Aramaic, is comparable to Hebrew (and also uses aleph, yud and vav to designate all vowels!). Don't think that vowels are the main problem with Syriac scripts (one could use the vocalizing system created by Jakob from Edessa - with dots above or below the consonant - as well as that of Theophilus from Edessa - with Greek vowels put beside the consonants' *written* in columns and, turned crosswise, *read* from right to left). The problem is the four variants of each Syriac character! -- aulun

  • But, aulun, (since you actually know this stuff :-) --- it is true that Estrangela proper (as opposed to its offspring Serta) doesn't have positional variants, right? Or am I misreading things? The dot-system (which Nestorian uses) is what begat Hebrew vowel-pointing and Arabic vowel diacritics, right? -- nitcion
    • It does, though those variants don't look very differently. Yet, the problem being that they all will have to be used in order to make the script look right and pleasing - like e.g. the Arabic scripts. It is not a solution just to use the isolate types. (In Hebrew, even *not* using the couple of finals existing would be an aesthetic offense to the reader's eyes - the more with Arabic or Syriac scripts requiring the characters being tied together.) Maybe that Unicode Syriac "created" a merged font, didn't look at it, but I doubt whether that's the right way :( -.aulun.
      • Like I said below, the hoops Unicode has to jump through for Syriac are prodigious.

Indeed, implementing the positional variants for Syriac has proven a nightmare for Unicode. [On closer inspection, though, it looks like Estrangela did not have this kind of variation. '''Wrong: see above'''] Nevertheless Unicode Syriac merges all three script variants into a single set of character codes; see [4], section 8.3, for lots of details.

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