From nobody@digitalkingdom.org Sun Jun 26 22:11:01 2005 Received: with ECARTIS (v1.0.0; list lojban-beginners); Sun, 26 Jun 2005 23:37:58 -0700 (PDT) Received: from nobody by chain.digitalkingdom.org with local (Exim 4.50) id 1Dmltd-00068p-BV for lojban-beginners-real@lojban.org; Sun, 26 Jun 2005 22:11:01 -0700 Received: from rproxy.gmail.com ([64.233.170.197]) by chain.digitalkingdom.org with esmtp (Exim 4.50) id 1Dmltb-00068e-UB for lojban-beginners@lojban.org; Sun, 26 Jun 2005 22:11:01 -0700 Received: by rproxy.gmail.com with SMTP id j1so826265rnf for ; Sun, 26 Jun 2005 22:10:58 -0700 (PDT) DomainKey-Signature: a=rsa-sha1; q=dns; c=nofws; s=beta; d=gmail.com; h=received:mime-version:content-transfer-encoding:message-id:content-type:to:from:subject:date:x-mailer; b=oBIxANaVCd5lcP8exNsimgePcggI/cWp/pWAnsISIFx+tuFronGMygCOqh5NXsx0KJqwP/BBWtf5MjZBW6tAolQIG7skEvLQmocHPm50G5YGcqkBqO6l6JuJ/vhAkU5Q8u97da+PQFoZ5v7JMnb3Peu0/7+sq6tRXRbCZn0OSUU= Received: by 10.38.65.8 with SMTP id n8mr779303rna; Sun, 26 Jun 2005 22:10:58 -0700 (PDT) Received: from ?192.168.0.102? ([24.180.141.62]) by mx.gmail.com with ESMTP id z1sm6703490rne.2005.06.26.22.10.58; Sun, 26 Jun 2005 22:10:58 -0700 (PDT) Mime-Version: 1.0 (Apple Message framework v730) Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit X-MIME-Autoconverted: from quoted-printable to 8bit by Ecartis Message-Id: Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; delsp=yes; format=flowed To: lojban-beginners@lojban.org From: Mitch Tishmack Subject: [lojban-beginners] Hello from a new lojban learner Date: Mon, 27 Jun 2005 00:11:02 -0500 X-Spam-Score: -2.5 (--) X-archive-position: 1536 X-Approved-By: rlpowell@digitalkingdom.org X-ecartis-version: Ecartis v1.0.0 Sender: lojban-beginners-bounce@chain.digitalkingdom.org Errors-to: lojban-beginners-bounce@chain.digitalkingdom.org X-original-sender: idylls@gmail.com Precedence: bulk Reply-to: lojban-beginners@chain.digitalkingdom.org X-list: lojban-beginners Just thought I would take the time to say hello to everyone on the list. In addition I will let you all know the reason I am learning lojban. Be forewarned, this is somewhat long. I am just beginning my trek through this language. My reasons for learning lojban are somewhat odd. I was/still am in the process of creating an application that would help me in my trek to learn French and German (amongst others in the future). I had a huge problem trying to work one specific behaviour into the application. I wanted to enter text in all 3 languages and get quizzed on all 3, ie enter la chien, der Hund, and dog and have all possible combinations between the three (or more) languages get asked. Using English made my brain hurt. I ended up with a many to one and one to many relationship graph which made things overly complex. Quick, what is a bow? So once I realised English is the wrong language for the relationship between words, I looked for a better solution. After throwing out the idea of common, random, and unique strings linking each word in each language, I managed to stumble upon lojban. Lojban appears to have the single attribute my program requires for simplicity. Words don't have more than one meaning. I plan to use lojban as my glue language between the languages I am learning. So I will link words in different languages via lojban. To elaborate on the previous example, use gerku as the meaning of la chien, der Hund, and dog. This enables me to look for links from gerku to other languages and easily build lists of words to ask. If any fellow programmers have a better idea on how they would implement this I am more than happy to listen to them. Sorry for the length, but you will all hear more about this pet project of mine and, more likely, questions on proper lojban use. I can already tell lojban is a different beast than any language I have seen. I do plan to open source the program when it is actually in a useable state. But I have much to learn. Linguistic stuff is only my new- found hobby. I am just learning languages for fun. As Charles Baudelaire said: "Manier savamment une langue, c'est pratiquer une espèce de sorcellerie évocatoire." (To handle a language skillfully is to practice a kind of evocative sorcery.) Since my lojban skills are non existent, what would the above quote look like in lojban? That way I can pick apart the grammar of something I know. Mitch