Talk:if alphabetical order of numbers matched numerical order

Posted by brablonau on Sat 07 of Jan., 2006 23:46 GMT posts: 80

I very much like this idea, because it would simplify the sorting of Lojban numbers. Sorting any numbers (padded to the same number of digits) in ASCII order would render them in numerical order, as well. This would be of help to programmers writing Lojban software, and to anyone using "ls" in a directory with Lojban filenames. Having all 16 hex digits be represented with two-letter cmavo makes this possible.

But I might propose a slightly different sequence...

Option(1): (keep the AEIOU pattern of the current numerals), or Option (2): (make AEIOU sequences 0-based instead of 1-based).

Number	Option 1	Option 2
0	BU	BA
1	CA	CE
2	DE	DI
3	FI	FO
4	GO	GU
5	JU	JA
6	KA	KE
7	LE	LI
8	MI	MO
9	NO	NU
A	PU	PA
B	RA	RE
C	SE	SI
D	TI	TO
E	VO	VU
F	XU	XA
ALL(ro)	ZA or ZU (a kind of "infinity" digit)

Option (1) is like your sequence, but with BU for 0, XU for F, and ZU for "all" or infinity. This sequence does not exclude xy. because alternative orthographies (eg. Tengwar) are not guaranteed to sort in ASCII order at all.

Under Option (2), the places of selbri could be renumbered:

FA x0 BRODA GE x1 JI x2 KO x3 LU x4 ...

or something like that.

Of course, such a drastic reallocation of cmavo can only be looking forward to a time when Lojban is radically restructured.