Cmevla How-to

Phonemes in Lojban

• vowels:
  • a e i o u y
  • au ai ei oi
• consonants:
  • b d g v z j (voiced)
  • p t k f s c x (unvoiced)
  • l m n r
  • i u. They are consonants when put between two vowels or in the beginning of a word. .iaua - i and u are consonants here. .iai - here is the consonant i with a vowel ai after it.
  • ' (apostrophe). It is put only between two vowels: .e'e, .u'i
  • . (dot serves as a word break)

Rules for lo cmevla

1. they start and end in consonants except ' . Additionally they are wrapped by a dot from each side: .lojban. It's quite common to omit word breaks in informal texts.
2. vowels can be put only between two consonants: .sam., .no'am.
3. double consonants are merged into one: dd becomes d, nn becomes n etc. Or a y is out between them: .nyn.
4. if a voiced and a unvoiced consonants are next to each other then y is inserted inside: kv becomes kyv. Or you can remove one of the letters instead: pb can be turned into a single p or a single b.
5. if one of c, j, s, z are next to each other then y is inserted inside: jz becomes jyz. Or you can remove one of the letters instead: cs can be turned into a single c or a single s.
6. if x is next to c or next to k then y is inserted inside: cx becomes cyx, xk becomes xyk. Or you can remove one of the letters instead: kx can be turned into a single x.
7. the substrings mz, nts, ntc, ndz, ndj are fixed by adding y inside or deleting one of the letters: nytc or nc, .djeimyz.
8. double ii between vowels is merged into a single i: .eian. (but not .eiian.)
9. double uu between vowels is merged into a single u: .auan. (but not .auuan.)