From LOJBAN@CUVMB.BITNET Sat Mar 6 22:53:12 2010 Reply-To: Logical Language Group Sender: Lojban list Date: Sun Jan 1 00:20:53 1996 From: Logical Language Group Subject: Re: SNU: ki'e doi skot. X-To: lojban@cuvmb.cc.columbia.edu To: John Cowan Status: OR X-From-Space-Date: Sun Jan 1 00:20:53 1996 X-From-Space-Address: LOJBAN%CUVMB.BITNET@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU Message-ID: >From 1974-1984, perhaps a couple hundred new gismu were proposed by the community. To put it simply, most of the proposals were pure malkalci. But they were proposed, and they were often used. Unfortunately, almost no one hadd the resources to do a proper 8 language analysis (corresponding to Lojban's 6 languages), so most words were calques based on the 2 or 3 languages that the proposer knew. Many of the proposals had no business in gismu space - i think theremay have been several dozen computer words proposed as gismu. A few had no counterpart in any natural language - one person with a politico-moral agenda proposed a gismu for "space" - the personal quasi-territory that Americans refer to with the idiom "keep outta my space". Someone else, at least thinking of International language issues, proposed a gismu corresponding to krokodilo (or whatever the Esp-o word is to not use Esperanto when it is appropriate). The TLI community is still heavily biased towards adding gismu right and left. Every issue they have a "new words" column with many malglico lujvo and a few poorly thought out gismu. One other danger in such haphazard addition of gismu is that the recurrent arguments over gismu place structure would be noisier and more justifiable. I cna say that we have analyzed the WHOLE set of gismu for place struture consistency twice since the last gismu was added. If we were constantly adding gismu, i could not say this, of course, and such analysis would be getting harder and harder as the list grew longer. Yes there is saome fear that the language could stagnate if it is frozen while incomplete. But I don;t think that any incompleteness lies in the gismu list, or that this would be where we would face stagnation. I also think that the ability to add words with lujvo and fu'ivla argues that the language vocabulary will never truly stagnate. As for "software" - why should Latin have any more problem than English, which clearly used a two-part lujvo. Latin surely has a root for "soft" and another for "ware". So does Lojban, not that we would want to do a loan translation - such are not too Lojbanic, though Latin and most natlangs have no trouble with them. (For Lojban, something like commanded-system - I wouldn't even include the "computer" - would handle the concept nicely.) lojbab