The Complete Lojban Language
- Example 4.62
- kat,r,in.
- Catherine
(Note that syllabic r is skipped in determining the stressed syllable, so Example 4.62 (p. 64) is stressed on the ka.)
- Example 4.63
- katis.
- Cathy
- Example 4.64
- keit.
- Kate
Names may have almost any form, but always end in a consonant, and are followed by a pause. They are penultimately stressed, unless unusual stress is marked with capitalization. A name may have multiple parts, each ending with a consonant and pause, or the parts may be combined into a single word with no pause. For example,
- Example 4.65
- djan. braun.
and
- Example 4.66
- djanbraun.
are both valid Lojbanizations of “John Brown”.
The final arbiter of the correct form of a name is the person doing the naming, although most cultures grant people the right to determine how they want their own name to be spelled and pronounced. The English name “Mary” can thus be Lojbanized as meris., maris., meiris., merix., or even marys.. The last alternative is not pronounced much like its English equivalent, but may be desirable to someone who values spelling over pronunciation. The final consonant need not be an s; there must, however, be some Lojban consonant at the end.
Names are not permitted to have the sequences la, lai, or doi embedded in them, unless the sequence is immediately preceded by a consonant. These minor restrictions are due to the fact that all Lojban cmene embedded in a speech stream will be preceded by one of these words or by a pause. With one of these words embedded, the cmene might break up into valid Lojban words followed by a shorter cmene. However, break-up cannot happen after a consonant, because that would imply that the word before the la, or whatever, ended in a consonant without pause, which is impossible.
For example, the invalid name laplas. would look like the Lojban words la plas., and ilanas. would be misunderstood as .i la nas.. However, NEderlants. cannot be misheard as NEder lants., because NEder with no following pause is not a possible Lojban word.
There are close alternatives to these forbidden sequences that can be used in Lojbanizing names, such as ly, lei, and dai or do'i, that do not cause these problems.
Lojban cmene are identifiable as word forms by the following characteristics:
- They must end in one or more consonants. There are no rules about how many consonants may appear in a cluster in cmene, provided that each consonant pair (whether standing by itself, or as part of a larger cluster) is a permissible pair.
- They may contain the letter y as a normal, non-hyphenating vowel. They are the only kind of Lojban word that may contain the two diphthongs iy and uy.
- They are always followed in speech by a pause after the final consonant, written as ..
- They may be stressed on any syllable; if this syllable is not the penultimate one, it must be capitalized when writing. Neither names nor words that begin sentences are capitalized in Lojban, so this is the only use of capital letters.
