From nobody@digitalkingdom.org Wed Feb 28 20:23:07 2007 Received: with ECARTIS (v1.0.0; list lojban-beginners); Wed, 28 Feb 2007 20:23:08 -0800 (PST) Received: from nobody by chain.digitalkingdom.org with local (Exim 4.63) (envelope-from ) id 1HMcot-0002a1-BO for lojban-beginners-real@lojban.org; Wed, 28 Feb 2007 20:23:07 -0800 Received: from smtp.mail.umich.edu ([141.211.14.81] helo=hackers.mr.itd.umich.edu) by chain.digitalkingdom.org with esmtp (Exim 4.63) (envelope-from ) id 1HMcom-0002Zq-VU for lojban-beginners@lojban.org; Wed, 28 Feb 2007 20:23:07 -0800 Received: FROM [192.168.123.137] (66-227-151-160.dhcp.bycy.mi.charter.com [66.227.151.160]) BY hackers.mr.itd.umich.edu ID 45E654E6.E739C.15986 ; 28 Feb 2007 23:21:59 -0500 Mime-Version: 1.0 (Apple Message framework v752.3) In-Reply-To: <20070301030125.6E2717DC1@bender.tigertech.net> References: <20070228053052.DB4437DAE@bender.tigertech.net> <511FAF64-FAAB-4F36-9D7B-05F743E6F2DA@umich.edu> <20070301030125.6E2717DC1@bender.tigertech.net> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; delsp=yes; format=flowed Message-Id: Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit X-MIME-Autoconverted: from quoted-printable to 8bit by Ecartis From: Alex Martini Subject: [lojban-beginners] Re: learning lojban Date: Wed, 28 Feb 2007 23:21:57 -0500 To: lojban-beginners@lojban.org X-Spam-Score: -2.6 X-Spam-Score-Int: -25 X-Spam-Bar: -- X-archive-position: 4061 X-ecartis-version: Ecartis v1.0.0 Sender: lojban-beginners-bounce@lojban.org Errors-to: lojban-beginners-bounce@lojban.org X-original-sender: alexjm@umich.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-to: lojban-beginners@lojban.org X-list: lojban-beginners On Feb 28, 2007, at 10:01 PM, Carl Lumma wrote: >> Neither of these are interactive, but they are more or less the >> standard way to learn the language. A project called ICSL (Intensive >> Course in Spoken Lojban) was working on making a more interactive >> course based on conversations in comic strip format, but it's been >> stalled since December or so. > > It would be great to have a Pimsleur-style audio course. One > of the existing courses could be simply translated into lojban > and released as mp3 on the web. How hard could this be, I wonder... Pretty difficult. It's not just a matter of translating the material. Each course is different and takes into account the grammatical differences between the target and native languages, as well as the differences in what sounds are used and how. For example, if we were to prepare a Pimsleur style course in Lojban we would have to introduce the Lojban concept of sentence structure (as relations or brivla) in comparison to the English structure (as nouns with verbs and modifiers). What I'm saying is that it's not just a matter of teaching vocabulary. That would be trivial. And not that useful. The Pimsleur method also teaches how to put the words together -- I wouldn't quite call it grammar because they don't ever say the rules right out, you just sort of pick them up. That's the hard part in teaching a language. I would love to see such a CD made, since the biggest hurdle to learning Lojban at the moment (I opine) is the lack of good learning and practice material for the beginner. pe'i doi rodo ?? > > I must say, I find the sounds I've heard so far rather uninspiring. > I don't know whether to chalk that up to poor speaking or poor- > sounding language, or maybe just internal resistance I need to get > over. The process of taking phonemes from the World's languages > smacks bogus to me, but I'm not aware of any concrete model/example > of phoneme sets being fine-tuned in natural languages, so I can't > make much of a case yet. My understanding is that Lojban uses sounds that are just pretty common across the source languages. Nothing special about them, they just happen to exist in many of the worlds major languages. As for the sound, I expect this is because there's not terribly much fluent Lojban recorded out there. My go at recording Lojban is at my website http://www-personal.umich.edu/~alexjm/reader0.html I'm not at all fluent in Lojban, but I like to think I can read my own writing out loud pretty well. A lot of the better Lojbanists tend to be working on byfy* stuff, like writing out exactly how the cmavo are supposed to be used, so they don't do a lot of recording. Also, most Lojbanists are solo students so it's a written language for them -- not a spoken one. * byfy or BPFK is short for baupla fuzykamni (language-planner type of responsible-committee) the committee of people that are "expanding the current documentation". A little like a steering committee. See also http://www.lojban.org/tiki/tiki-index.php?page=baupla +fuzykamni&bl > > I'm also a bit put out at the use of traditional punctuation marks > for something else. I'm about to try and read about what that > something else is. > > Thanks everyone for the pointers so far, > > -Carl > It's not that complex -- the full stop (period) is a mandatory pause and the comma is a syllable break. What it usually comes down to is that you stick a comma into names when the syllable rules wouldn't break it up how you want it. And the full stop is mostly just there for automated parsing to mark the end of a name and to keep words that start with vowels from being "eaten" by their neighbors. It has to do with how the words are broken up in a stream (like when you speak), instead of when you write them out all nicely with spaces in between them. It's also ok to omit all the full stops in a text. I'm pretty sure the translation of "Alice in Wonderland" does, and I know xorxes (Jorge Llambías) tends to write that way and he's a pretty well respected Lojbanist. I personally think it looks less cluttered that way, and they are obvious from context if you use spaces when you write. In practical terms, just remember that - any word that starts with a vowel must have a full stop before it - any cmene must end with a full stop Any time you read a full stop, you have to at least make a glottal stop, which is a sort of tic in your throat. Most of the time the pause comes naturally because we put a little space in the word boundary as it is, and don't have to worry about it. mu'o mi'e .aleks.