Why do PA are such?
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Question
Why PA have the consonants they have:
no pa re ci vo mu xa ze bi so |
With vowels it's well known that they follow AEIOU pattern but what about consonants? Why these, not other consonants were chosen?
Answer
- la lojbab:
- They had to be different from each other.
- They had to be strongly contrasting against other numerals with the same vowel (hence pa/xa ci/bi and not pa/ba ci/ji or pi/bi).
- They could not disrupt other paradigms (systems of cmavo) that had good claims to either history or practicality:
- Once those constraints were set, there weren't all that many contrasting CV choices that also allowed the vowel pattern. Certainly not any that allowed a consonant pattern (as there is with hex digits where the consonants are contrasting and alphabetical). There is a visible trace of an attempt to make them alphabetical no/pa/re vo xa/ze but there were too few uncommitted CVs to make it work.