From nobody@digitalkingdom.org Wed Jan 02 17:23:23 2008 Received: with ECARTIS (v1.0.0; list lojban-list); Wed, 02 Jan 2008 17:23:24 -0800 (PST) Received: from nobody by chain.digitalkingdom.org with local (Exim 4.68) (envelope-from ) id 1JAEnq-0000HP-RF for lojban-list-real@lojban.org; Wed, 02 Jan 2008 17:23:23 -0800 Received: from eastrmmtao107.cox.net ([68.230.240.59]) by chain.digitalkingdom.org with esmtp (Exim 4.68) (envelope-from ) id 1JAEnk-0000Gu-4i for lojban-list@lojban.org; Wed, 02 Jan 2008 17:23:22 -0800 Received: from eastrmimpo02.cox.net ([68.1.16.120]) by eastrmmtao107.cox.net (InterMail vM.7.08.02.01 201-2186-121-102-20070209) with ESMTP id <20080103012308.ZVJJ8815.eastrmmtao107.cox.net@eastrmimpo02.cox.net> for ; Wed, 2 Jan 2008 20:23:08 -0500 Received: from [192.168.1.100] ([72.192.234.183]) by eastrmimpo02.cox.net with bizsmtp id YRNZ1Y00E3y5FKc0000000; Wed, 02 Jan 2008 20:22:35 -0500 Message-ID: <477C38E2.80400@lojban.org> Date: Wed, 02 Jan 2008 20:22:42 -0500 From: Bob LeChevalier User-Agent: Mozilla Thunderbird 1.0.7 (Windows/20050923) X-Accept-Language: en-us, en MIME-Version: 1.0 To: lojban-list@lojban.org Subject: [lojban] Re: Lojban-English full dictionary effort- request for assistance References: <702226df0801021635h1e3f1cd1q8e9f848ae1e2a427@mail.gmail.com> In-Reply-To: <702226df0801021635h1e3f1cd1q8e9f848ae1e2a427@mail.gmail.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Spam-Score: 0.0 X-Spam-Score-Int: 0 X-Spam-Bar: / X-archive-position: 14068 X-ecartis-version: Ecartis v1.0.0 Sender: lojban-list-bounce@lojban.org Errors-to: lojban-list-bounce@lojban.org X-original-sender: lojbab@lojban.org Precedence: bulk Reply-to: lojban-list@lojban.org X-list: lojban-list Jon "Top Hat" Jones wrote: > I have been working on creating a full dictionary between English and > Lojban, excepting place names. > I'm using "Webster's New World Dictionary-Thesaurus" 2nd Edition, > (c)2002 to do this. > > Basically, what I am doing is going through the book, and listing every > entry with it's various meanings, then ascribing the following: > 1: a gismu/ tanru with equivalent meaning, as precise as possible > 2: a lujvo if applicable, built from the tanru from (1) > 3: a fu'ivla for those of who that like such things > > When I have finished the "a"s, I will be formatting it into a > HTML-compatible table and posting it onto my geocities account, or the > Lojban wiki, or both(?). 1) as you describe it, you are asking for serious copyright trouble from the dictionary publisher. I suggest you use a dictionary that is out-of copyright and online. Then you avoid copyright issues and can use software tools or editing tricks to save having to retype the whole dictionary, which it sounds like you are proposing. 2) it falsely presumes that Lojban words will map exactly to English definitions (the "equivalent meaning, as precise as possible"). It also presumes that Lojban(ists) would necessarily WANT a lujvo for each English meaning. Sometimes an English word will better map to a Lojban phrase. Sometimes more than one Lojban word will map to a single English definition based on contextual features not found in the English definition. 3) it does not address place structures for the proposed words. Many English words are represented by places of other Lojban words. Thus klama represents origin, destination, route. One CAN represent these as distinct words selkla, terkla, velkla, but only because the place structure of klama is defined and stable. If you coin a lujvo without determining its place structure, you miss out on the possibility that sel[xxxxxx] might be the best lujvo for an English concept. 4) likely your project ends up being a form of encoded English. There have been earlier efforts to build vocabulary systematically based on Helen Eaton's multilingual concept list, which at least makes the attempt to give weight to words in other languages. 5) The experience of those Eaton efforts should be instructive. It took several people months to cover even 1000 concepts, and the results were extremely controversial, with very few of them making it into actual usage. JCB's original language attempted to cover the first 3000 concepts, but it actually took 25 years to get that far. I suggest that you tackle the complete effort for just one page of your dictionary (including having it reviewed by other Lojbanists) to have some idea of the actual scope of what you are trying, before you invest more time in typing in large quantities of dictionary definitions. lojbab To unsubscribe from this list, send mail to lojban-list-request@lojban.org with the subject unsubscribe, or go to http://www.lojban.org/lsg2/, or if you're really stuck, send mail to secretary@lojban.org for help.