From nobody@digitalkingdom.org Sun Sep 14 01:09:47 2008 Received: with ECARTIS (v1.0.0; list lojban-list); Sun, 14 Sep 2008 01:09:48 -0700 (PDT) Received: from nobody by chain.digitalkingdom.org with local (Exim 4.69) (envelope-from ) id 1Kemfy-0006uu-TT for lojban-list-real@lojban.org; Sun, 14 Sep 2008 01:09:47 -0700 Received: from wf-out-1314.google.com ([209.85.200.173]) by chain.digitalkingdom.org with esmtp (Exim 4.69) (envelope-from ) id 1Kemfi-0006pQ-UL for lojban-list@lojban.org; Sun, 14 Sep 2008 01:09:46 -0700 Received: by wf-out-1314.google.com with SMTP id 28so1804192wfa.25 for ; Sun, 14 Sep 2008 01:09:24 -0700 (PDT) DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha256; c=relaxed/relaxed; d=gmail.com; s=gamma; h=domainkey-signature:received:received:message-id:date:from:to :subject:in-reply-to:mime-version:content-type:references; bh=FixkCkOHmYfUVL2s0Ei2SyvugaiTES3kACk/kdPF/z4=; b=hkmtA5J5T8NAgLKwssyQJhx5quZI2UVZdUHnSisgGx9+jXIGf4o8R+9uucqiHB6YgZ 2nsduJNW/QNZIcD0MxN+ui3EB3RNQlNGhdKp3viCAAsyc7O3oD5qVvD2gsqJDuKGcWJb 9h+XutKvrOnC3jJTnHu2KggaOWjCCC416QVRQ= DomainKey-Signature: a=rsa-sha1; c=nofws; d=gmail.com; s=gamma; h=message-id:date:from:to:subject:in-reply-to:mime-version :content-type:references; b=ZA0ZuCp/wOT8c64xF91fyW0jA/IzFaPgUSGqLwfVqErgE86c5CIApvAebyi4AQwoFK FH51DVyLEJosuZNxOOHqsZmlKRrddSylXJit7s77Vsh0a5W3jTwVrBfRiQ+NlLFVI3aP tyG7ffQ0UCSSvyiQKHMv4qoi5mtMhEUCAWNEA= Received: by 10.142.229.4 with SMTP id b4mr2188750wfh.19.1221379763984; Sun, 14 Sep 2008 01:09:23 -0700 (PDT) Received: by 10.142.51.12 with HTTP; Sun, 14 Sep 2008 01:09:23 -0700 (PDT) Message-ID: Date: Sun, 14 Sep 2008 04:09:23 -0400 From: "Brett Williams" To: lojban-list@lojban.org Subject: [lojban] Re: How many fluent speakrs of Lojban are there? In-Reply-To: <975a94850809132244tdf5f00fm941ba3703635da34@mail.gmail.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: multipart/alternative; boundary="----=_Part_3127_22174861.1221379763979" References: <975a94850809132244tdf5f00fm941ba3703635da34@mail.gmail.com> X-Spam-Score: 0.0 X-Spam-Score-Int: 0 X-Spam-Bar: / X-archive-position: 14743 X-ecartis-version: Ecartis v1.0.0 Sender: lojban-list-bounce@lojban.org Errors-to: lojban-list-bounce@lojban.org X-original-sender: mungojelly@gmail.com Precedence: bulk Reply-to: lojban-list@lojban.org X-list: lojban-list ------=_Part_3127_22174861.1221379763979 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Disposition: inline On 9/14/08, joel@mentics.com wrote: > > To me, this type of ability for a language to create words on the fly > is a fascinating part of the language. Is this really something > someone could do mid-sentence? I mean, we do it in English: it's that > lemon-round-sweet-thing-with-fluffy-white-stuff-on-top. We use > hyphens, but lojban has something a little more sophisticated. > I've just lately gotten to the point where I'm able to invent or recognize lujvo on the fly. What I would say is that there is a lot of word-inventing going on all the time, but Lojban's vocabulary is so thin still that the words being invented are very basic. Swimming around in the wading pool of Lojban's few thousand active words has given me an appreciation for the capacities of a well-developed vocabulary. A whole team of many thousands of words work together to raise the level of communication, by making each word choice a more precise affair. You can't really invent-on-the-fly your way to that different level of precision; you just trade vaguenesses. The raw materials of lujvo-making are just the gismu, so a nonce lujvo is generally just vaguer than a suggestive phrase of the same gismu would be. So you can't just invent a bunch of words as you're trying to say things, and invent the language all at once. They sort of tried to do that once upon a time, it seems to me, and got really stuck in it, and the real active vocab of the language languished meanwhile. You can invent words for fun any time you want, but in order to invent a word and really get it to stick & become the language that we use, it has to be the right word at the right time. Lojban can't actually absorb a word for carburetor right now, because we don't have words for anything else in engines, we don't have that whole terrain. To expand the language into a new terrain, you have to first lay down a basic foundation, & gently lead the conversation to explore it. mu'o mi'e se ckiku ------=_Part_3127_22174861.1221379763979 Content-Type: text/html; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Disposition: inline

On 9/14/08, joel@mentics.com <joel@mentics.com> wrote:
To me, this type of ability for a language to create words on the fly
is a fascinating part of the language. Is this really something
someone could do mid-sentence? I mean, we do it in English: it's that
lemon-round-sweet-thing-with-fluffy-white-stuff-on-top. We use
hyphens, but lojban has something a little more sophisticated.


I've just lately gotten to the point where I'm able to invent or recognize lujvo on the fly.  What I would say is that there is a lot of word-inventing going on all the time, but Lojban's vocabulary is so thin still that the words being invented are very basic.  Swimming around in the wading pool of Lojban's few thousand active words has given me an appreciation for the capacities of a well-developed vocabulary.  A whole team of many thousands of words work together to raise the level of communication, by making each word choice a more precise affair.  You can't really invent-on-the-fly your way to that different level of precision; you just trade vaguenesses.  The raw materials of lujvo-making are just the gismu, so a nonce lujvo is generally just vaguer than a suggestive phrase of the same gismu would be.
 
So you can't just invent a bunch of words as you're trying to say things, and invent the language all at once.  They sort of tried to do that once upon a time, it seems to me, and got really stuck in it, and the real active vocab of the language languished meanwhile.  You can invent words for fun any time you want, but in order to invent a word and really get it to stick & become the language that we use, it has to be the right word at the right time.  Lojban can't actually absorb a word for carburetor right now, because we don't have words for anything else in engines, we don't have that whole terrain.  To expand the language into a new terrain, you have to first lay down a basic foundation, & gently lead the conversation to explore it.
 
mu'o mi'e se ckiku
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