From arj@nvg.org Sun Sep 14 04:38:20 2003 Received: with ECARTIS (v1.0.0; list lojban-list); Sun, 14 Sep 2003 04:38:20 -0700 (PDT) Received: from sabre-wulf.nvg.ntnu.no ([129.241.210.67] ident=[4XVxiKG0IyXRZw2s6KEbKQEGLbgjT8KA]) by digitalkingdom.org with esmtp (Exim 4.12) id 19yVCn-0007ao-00 for lojban-list@lojban.org; Sun, 14 Sep 2003 04:38:13 -0700 Received: from hagbart.nvg.ntnu.no ([IPv6:::ffff:129.241.210.68]:57267 "EHLO hagbart.nvg.ntnu.no" ident: "NO-IDENT-SERVICE[2]" whoson: "-unregistered-") by sabre-wulf.nvg.ntnu.no with ESMTP id ; Sun, 14 Sep 2003 13:38:03 +0200 Date: Sun, 14 Sep 2003 13:36:57 +0200 (CEST) From: Arnt Richard Johansen X-X-Sender: arj@hagbart.nvg.ntnu.no To: lojban-list@lojban.org Subject: [lojban] Re: la tam, la meris In-Reply-To: Message-ID: References: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII X-MailScanner-Information: Please contact the ISP for more information X-MailScanner: Found to be clean X-archive-position: 6144 X-ecartis-version: Ecartis v1.0.0 Sender: lojban-list-bounce@lojban.org Errors-to: lojban-list-bounce@lojban.org X-original-sender: arj@nvg.org Precedence: bulk Reply-to: lojban-list@lojban.org X-list: lojban-list On Sun, 14 Sep 2003, xah wrote: > why is Tom translated to "la tam." not "la tom.", and Mary to "la > meris." not "la meri."? The former because the Am. E. long 'o' lies auditively closer to the Lojban 'a' than the Lojban 'o'. A British Tom, on the other hand, would be "la tom." in Lojban. The latter because the word formation rules of Lojban dictates that all words belonging to the name-class ends with a consonant, and 's' has arisen as a convention in cases where there are no final consonants in the original language. "la meri" breaks up as "la me ri", and is actually a valid name, albeit a rather strange one. It translates as something like "One Of Them". -- Arnt Richard Johansen http://arj.nvg.org/ Information wants to be antropomorhized!