From nobody@digitalkingdom.org Mon May 11 10:06:23 2009 Received: with ECARTIS (v1.0.0; list lojban-beginners); Mon, 11 May 2009 10:06:24 -0700 (PDT) Received: from nobody by chain.digitalkingdom.org with local (Exim 4.69) (envelope-from ) id 1M3YxK-0004Rk-D2 for lojban-beginners-real@lojban.org; Mon, 11 May 2009 10:06:23 -0700 Received: from mail-qy0-f108.google.com ([209.85.221.108]) by chain.digitalkingdom.org with esmtp (Exim 4.69) (envelope-from ) id 1M3Yx6-0004Os-BT for lojban-beginners@lojban.org; Mon, 11 May 2009 10:06:22 -0700 Received: by qyk6 with SMTP id 6so5769221qyk.28 for ; Mon, 11 May 2009 10:05:56 -0700 (PDT) DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha256; c=relaxed/relaxed; d=gmail.com; s=gamma; h=domainkey-signature:mime-version:received:in-reply-to:references :date:message-id:subject:from:to:content-type :content-transfer-encoding; bh=ii4dwRxNGRWYdxFMLG7AQSgf827Gv8aqgtbcyaGABQY=; b=cdX9K13Lq0QwgcTJLDEJX8MqnW4g8AcYGVOOzojOAGmJMERnRkFY4ZJrGs8Wlf7whV LVrsuUq7nvYPHE3agelaMTqinUa435jainrtjzRiPcLG1ucrJECWuJXHbpmE3O8DwHxt U7Tbd3e0UwGF61UCVLpU3lqZOFs4fBhUpu6BM= DomainKey-Signature: a=rsa-sha1; c=nofws; d=gmail.com; s=gamma; h=mime-version:in-reply-to:references:date:message-id:subject:from:to :content-type:content-transfer-encoding; b=Uzawqo/WL8/DgRXxjdRB2hMkJJIcRIYz/1AmQHPeDeBfEbLrU4Z8mFfv3eda0t9kHW Mzw75fp+NwkVzO9AeKtm7x2KdqmSGh3qIxGioVZURUE7XrJ+Q3eGX2bzgbo5jq1aIQXv Ycnjp62v07Eng7/D/z/vZdamcn2ReNAHJRKK4= MIME-Version: 1.0 Received: by 10.231.11.197 with SMTP id u5mr1207946ibu.9.1242061556610; Mon, 11 May 2009 10:05:56 -0700 (PDT) In-Reply-To: <7f1d42860905102124w19b14ec4r28888539db0a7157@mail.gmail.com> References: <4de8c3930905020511n3bf62935v5683047f979c509d@mail.gmail.com> <425e4ac20905101103sc13d93bl5db329d08f72cdb8@mail.gmail.com> <7f1d42860905102124w19b14ec4r28888539db0a7157@mail.gmail.com> Date: Mon, 11 May 2009 13:05:56 -0400 Message-ID: <425e4ac20905111005p5d1fb46aj8d9bf1ffb5552a9c@mail.gmail.com> Subject: [lojban-beginners] Re: pei UI From: Stela Selckiku To: lojban-beginners@lojban.org Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-archive-position: 1653 X-ecartis-version: Ecartis v1.0.0 Sender: lojban-beginners-bounce@lojban.org Errors-to: lojban-beginners-bounce@lojban.org X-original-sender: selckiku@gmail.com Precedence: bulk Reply-to: lojban-beginners@lojban.org X-list: lojban-beginners On Mon, May 11, 2009 at 12:24 AM, Ryan Leach wrote: > Why isn't it used? It seems like a concise and clear construction? Most of Lojban hasn't been used much. It seems like in making it there was a sort of more-the-merrier approach: Everything was included. Lojban has several co-existing tense systems, for instance. Or as I said on the other thread, it has like a dozen different connective systems, many of which are redundant. There was argument for a long time about whether to put a prepositional system, I've heard, but in the end what we got was selma'o BAI, which is huge. We have more gadri than we know what to do with. Etc. The process of Lojban evolving into a living, social language while still holding steady to the language definition has of course been a process of selecting which of those tools in that massive toolbox we would collectively become most familiar with. Because we've done a mediocre job of creating a systematic pedagogy, most of that selective process has been unconscious: What's used is learned; what's learned is used. So it's hard usually to give a concrete reason why some feature is avoided. It might just be that no one's noticed it and brought it to life. Often threads like this one remind us all of some feature, and lead to it suddenly being used much more-- nintadni think they're asking simple innocent questions, but they're actually transforming the language. :) In this case I think we've found that ".o'u pei" (how relaxed are you) is a perfectly reasonable way to ask whether someone is relaxed or not, as "nai sai" (meaning "quite stressed", in context) is one of the available answers. Relying on this form of question as our usual way of asking about emotions allows or produces some interesting questions (and answers) that are different from other languages in their meaning as well as their form, and often for instance difficult to translate naturally into English ("How humorously afraid are you that it is the banana with which I am attacking you?!") but personally at least I find that quirkiness Lojbanic and I enjoy it. la .lojban. .iu pei cizra .a'u pei ("Lojban, how much do you love it or hate it?, is weird, how interesting or repulsive do you find that?") mu'o mi'e la stela se ckiku