From phma@phma.optus.nu Mon Dec 21 10:27:46 2009 Received: from cdptpa-omtalb.mail.rr.com ([75.180.132.120]) by chain.digitalkingdom.org with esmtp (Exim 4.69) (envelope-from ) id 1NMmyo-0004gx-18 for lojban-beginners@lojban.org; Mon, 21 Dec 2009 10:27:46 -0800 X-Authority-Analysis: v=1.0 c=1 a=hHaQiHlQS-EA:10 a=8YJikuA2AAAA:8 a=JOqGzP_Umr5c3SztpYcA:9 a=mfoN4lBJOISRhkhSkSAA:7 a=eqoGRwlZo4QpedEQguSpSL4KyrMA:4 a=Xy1d2M_JUfAA:10 X-Cloudmark-Score: 0 X-Originating-IP: 71.71.198.100 Received: from [71.71.198.100] ([71.71.198.100:46940] helo=chausie) by cdptpa-oedge02.mail.rr.com (envelope-from ) (ecelerity 2.2.2.39 r()) with ESMTP id DB/8A-04641-21EBF2B4; Mon, 21 Dec 2009 18:27:31 +0000 Received: from localhost (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by chausie (Postfix) with ESMTP id 16DF9EC56 for ; Mon, 21 Dec 2009 13:27:39 -0500 (EST) From: Pierre Abbat To: lojban-beginners@lojban.org Subject: Re: [lojban-beginners] Site for beginners was: vlatai and logflash Date: Mon, 21 Dec 2009 13:27:35 -0500 User-Agent: KMail/1.9.6 (enterprise 0.20070907.709405) References: <230918.3024.qm@web88005.mail.re2.yahoo.com> <33073.79.75.29.254.1261327629.squirrel@mailgate.denbridgemarine.com> <27513e550912201755p5b49a95dg224f022e030644ed@mail.gmail.com> In-Reply-To: <27513e550912201755p5b49a95dg224f022e030644ed@mail.gmail.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Content-Disposition: inline Message-Id: <200912211327.37550.phma@phma.optus.nu> On Sunday 20 December 2009 20:55:49 Oren wrote: > Category 1: Experienced people. They're likely not fluent in lojban, > but they're literate. They may be amateur or professional linguists, > programmers or just self-motivated, and so they treat lojban very > differently; more like a programming language; i.e. a tool or > resource. So it's completely natural that there be an online place to > post builds, projects, ideas and esoteric debates for lojban. > > Category 2: New people. They hear about lojban and see lojban.org and > think "Hey, maybe I'll try to learn this." And then they go view one > of the several endorsed learning materials. But they treat lojban like > a human language, and there's nowhere to ask questions on the site, > and no user forum (so no way of knowing that others are studying too). > So when they come back to visit and try to find more materials, they > see a bunch of seemingly non-functional 'works in progress' mixed in > with vocabulary lists-- and they don't come back a third time. >li'o > What I think is missing: > beginner website -> Beginner's resources, discussion, intro to lojban > development I agree that for the new people, we should treat Lojban like any other huma= n=20 language. It (or rather the Loglanic languages, including Loglan also) has= =20 features found in no other (AFAIK) language family, such as a potentially=20 infinite number of arguments instead of an accusative or ergative alignment= =2E=20 But then, Afro-Asiatic languages have templatic morphology, and Mayan=20 languages have a unique part of speech. There's a standard sentence-glossing format among linguists: You write a=20 sentence in the language being studied, then translate each morpheme, putti= ng=20 cmavo and their rafsi in caps. I'd like to see this done to Lojban sentence= s,=20 or in Lojban to sentences of other languages. E.g.: i le nu se citka cu funca le tordu sastu'u lacpu SENT.SEP DEF EVENT PASS2 eat PRED.MARK luck.of DEF short grass-tube pull The event of being eaten is the luck of the short straw puller. On ?tiras =E0 la courte paille pour savoir qui serait mang=E9. INDEF.PRON pull-PAST.2SING at/to DEF-FEM short-FEM straw for know-INF who=20 be-COND-3SING eat-PP-MASC Someone pull the short straw to know who would be eaten. The second word in the French is ungrammatical, but that's the way it's sun= g. Useful material for newbies would be lots of examples of use of preposition= s=20 and tense markers, both with and without objects. In particular, the=20 relationship between tense markers used as such, tense markers used in=20 the "ica'obo" construction as sentence connectors, and tense markers used a= s=20 prepositions is a bit confusing. Also some examples of, if I have an=20 interjection in English or some other natlang, how to say it in Lojban, wou= ld=20 be useful. Also try to explain Lojban without using Lojban grammatical terms, using=20 standard linguistic terms. It's impossible to do this completely (even in=20 =46rench one uses terms like "pass=E9 compos=E9" when explaining the gramma= r in=20 English), but we should call prepositions "prepositions", not "modals", whi= ch=20 is what "ka'e" is. Pierre =2D-=20 When a barnacle settles down, its brain disintegrates. J=E1 n=E3o percebe nada, j=E1 n=E3o percebe nada.