From @uga.cc.uga.edu:LOJBAN@CUVMB.BITNET Tue Nov 3 19:54:03 1992 Received: from uga.cc.uga.edu by MINERVA.CIS.YALE.EDU via SMTP; Wed, 4 Nov 1992 00:57:30 -0500 Received: from UGA.CC.UGA.EDU by uga.cc.uga.edu (IBM VM SMTP V2R2) with BSMTP id 1552; Wed, 04 Nov 92 00:54:24 EST Received: by UGA (Mailer R2.08 PTF008) id 5547; Wed, 04 Nov 92 00:54:23 EST Date: Wed, 4 Nov 1992 00:54:03 -0500 Reply-To: "(Logical Language Group)" Sender: Lojban list From: "(Logical Language Group)" Subject: GENERAL: Tuesday night in 3 languages X-To: lojban@cuvmb.cc.columbia.edu To: Erik Rauch Status: RO X-Status: Message-ID: Well. Tuesday night Lojban conversation sessions have continued in spite of two rambunctious kids who cannot tell English from Lojban, and probably don't much care. I will honestly admit that it is much harder to do conversations, what with a lot of distractions (kids climbing in laps, yelling and screaming -until I give up and say"zoi .rus. [appropriate Russian imperative] .rus."), and Nora and my having to constantly shoft language gears. (She gets home about an hour before people arrive for Lojban conversation, has to switch to Russian for that hour, since some 90% of the language use in this household is in that language -note that she has somewhat less than the equivalent of a semester course in Russian, so this isn;t easy for her. Then we both have to switch to Lojban for the 1-2 hours of our get-togethers, with any needed explanations in English. Since we are using a mentoring approach in bringing less experienced speakers up to Lojban speed, such explanations are frequent. But as I noted, we also have to keep jumping back to Russian, and the kids generally go to sleep right in the middle of the session, making for an extra bit of Russian. ) My what a mess. I'm sure that people will forgive Nora and I for our occassion al slips of the tongue, when "ya" replaces "mi", and all matter of other tri- lingual confusions enter our language use. I have indeed accidentally used all 3 languages in a single sentence a few times (and intentionally many more times - it is becoming a standing joke here). The kids don;t understand Lojban yet, but then it is not exactly our priority. (Actually, Angela actually seemed to respond to "xu do jimpe", probably being cued by tone of voice of body language - she shook her head "no". Avgust tried to say "jubme" when I said "ta jubme" and indicated he should try to echo. His speech isn't too clear in any language, and the result would certainly not pass the computer recognition test, but maybe some day... At l least he now pronounces Lojban fairly well (adds an 'a' on the end sometimes).) Best line of the night - Sylvia spotted Avgust poking his head around his bedroom door, and said "Avgust. pikabu", which prompted Nora and then me to query her on this new and unusual numerical variable (pi is the decimal point, and "kabu" is a lerfu - a letteral symbol in some way associated with the property abstract word 'ka'). I somehow doubt that Avgust is quite ready for abstract mathematical discussions yet, even if he does seem to be quite bright. No Lojban work being done yet, though I am getting a couple of hours a day to do things other than child-rearing already. I suspect it will take till one or both of the kids are in school, still a week or two away, before I get significant Lojban time other than mailreading. Things are improving, though. lojbab