Return-Path: LOJBAN%CUVMB.BITNET@vms.dc.LSOFT.COM Received: from SEGATE.SUNET.SE (segate.sunet.se [192.36.125.6]) by xiron.pc.helsinki.fi (8.7.1/8.7.1) with ESMTP id XAA27699 for ; Wed, 10 Jan 1996 23:31:32 +0200 Message-Id: <199601102131.XAA27699@xiron.pc.helsinki.fi> Received: from listmail.sunet.se by SEGATE.SUNET.SE (LSMTP for OpenVMS v1.0a) with SMTP id DB13EEA0 ; Wed, 10 Jan 1996 22:31:32 +0100 Date: Wed, 10 Jan 1996 14:19:19 -0700 Reply-To: Chris Bogart Sender: Lojban list From: Chris Bogart Subject: FAQ To: lojban@cuvmb.bitnet Content-Length: 22941 Lines: 536 Lojban List FAQ Dec 7, 1995 ============================== TECHNICAL 1a. Why do some texts use instead of <'>? 1b. Could I take a text with s and do a search & replace with <'> and end up with "standard" lojban? 1c. Why is one better than the other? 2. How do you borrow words from other languages? 3. Isn't it confusing that some rafsi are identical to cmavo? 4. What are those lojban word that you are using even in English text? What's all the other jargon and acronyms you use? =============================== RESOURCES 5. What's the best way to start learning Lojban? 6. How can I look up gismu, lujvo, and cmavo when I am translating from lojban? 7. Sources of text to read? 8. What messages are appropriate for the Lojban List? 9. What are the abbreviations used on the list's subject lines? 10. Are there archives? WWW site? ftp site? 11. What's available in languages other than English? 12. What software's available? =============================== GENERAL 13. Who is everybody? Who's in charge? 14. How many people are there in the Lojban community? How many can use Lojban, and how well? 15. What is LogFest? =============================== PROJECT STATUS 15. What parts of the language are well worked out, and which parts are in flux? 16. What are the most current revisions of each part of the language descriptions? 17. What projects are being worked on? When will they be done? 18. What can I do to help? ============================= HISTORICAL 19. How was the default place order of sumti in a selbri determined? (There does not appear to be any rhyme or reason for the order of sumti in many gismu.) 20. How did the gismu get made: discussion, etymology examples 21. What's the diff between Loglan, Lojban? How is Loglan-82 related? (it's not!) 22. Why does it have a special meaning when the verb comes first? 23. Why are there so many words for AND? Why not just let {.e} connect two sumti, bridi, bridi-tails, or anything else? ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ TECHNICAL 1a. Why do some texts use instead of <'>? Aesthetic reasons. And Rosta in particular thinks looks better in print than and uses it the hopes that he can influence the Lojban community to accept this other spelling convention. This is purely a difference in spelling; they are pronounced the same, and should be considered different ways of writing the same "letter". This alternate spelling also is somewhat closer to the spelling of TLI Loglan (see #@ below). There is another similar spelling system, which has never been used, designed to make Lojban look more familiar to potential converts from TLI. 1b. Could I take a text with s and do a search & replace with <'> and end up with "standard" lojban? Probably not, because And uses a number of non-standard spelling conventions: <'> is omitted altogether where the vowels couldn't possibly be stuck together; for example he'd write for , since is not a legal combination. He uses <.> as in English, to end a sentence, rather than as a pause. He capitalizes the first word of the sentence. 1c. Why is one better than the other? The standard usage is better because each letter corresponds to one sound and each sound corresponds to one letter. And's usage is better because <.> and <'> are ugly in the middle of words, and sentences ought to start with a capital letter to better conform to Roman alphabet spelling conventions. 2. How do you borrow words from other languages? There are four ways to borrow words. Only the most common method is covered here; see the web or ftp sites for more detail. Borrowed words are called {fu'ivla}, meaning approximately "copied words" (after all, "borrowing" implies we're going to give them back someday!) A fu'ivla consists of three parts: - the classifier - the glue - the borrowed part The quintessential example is {djarspageti}, meaning "spaghetti". {dja} is the classifier: it's the short form (rafsi) for {cidja}, meaning "food". {r} is the glue: its necessary to keep the word from falling into two parts. {spageti} is the Lojbanized version of "spaghetti". The classifier is glued on the front for two reasons: it helps identify strange borrowings, and it prevents borrowings that happen to coincide with things that are already Lojban words. For example if you borrowed the word "spageti" directly, it could lead to ambiguity in a phrase like *{ko bevri re spageti palta} which could mean "Bring two plates of spaghetti" or something like "Be a carrying reptile and a plate made of this" *{ko bevri respa ge ti palta}. In a natural language there would be no doubt which of the two was meant, but Lojban is constructed so that you shouldn't need to understand the sentence to know where one word ends and the next begins. 3. Isn't it confusing that some rafsi are identical to cmavo? Yes, it isn't. In theory you can tell completely from the neighboring syllables whether something is a cmavo or a rafsi. This is how the computer is able to parse Lojban without understanding its meaning. For example the {dei} in {bavlamdei} ("tomorrow") is a rafsi for "day", not the cmavo {dei}, a special pronoun meaning "this sentence". We know which is which because Lojban words can't end in a consonant, so {dei} *must* be a part of {bavlamdei}; {bavlam} can't be a whole word. (No, it can't be a name, either. Names end with a consonant followed by a pause, written as a ".") In practice you can also use your knowledge of the meanings of the words to help with this; it's possible to think up a sentence like {la .bavlam. dei cusku}, "Bavlam says this sentence.", but it's not likely in practice if you don't know anyone named "Bavlam"! 4. What are those lojban word that you are using even in English text? What's all the other jargon and acronyms you use? Here are APPROXIMATE definitions. Words in ALL CAPS on the Lojban list often refer to Lojban parts of speech. When this convention is used, the capitalization of {'} is {h}, so the capitalization of {la'e} would be {LAhE} attitudinal - A lojban interjection (Wow! Eeek!) audiovisual isomorphism - Spoken and written Lojban should be the same BAI - Lojban prepositions bridi - Lojban sentence - a "predicate" brivla - any word that can act like a verb in Lojban - a "predicate word" cmavo - a "little word" showing structure rather than carrying meaning evidential - Special word indicating how the speaker got their information fu'ivla - borrowed word gadri - Lojban article or determiner - signals the start of a sumti GEK GIhEk gismu - basic 5-letter lojban root word GUhEk JCB - James Cooke Brown, the inventor of Loglan JL - ju'i lobypli ju'i lobypli - an old Lojban newsletter le'avla - the old word for fu'ivla lo??an - lojban and loglan lujvo - compound word pe'i - in my opinion rafsi - building block(s) of compound words tanru - a phrase formed of two or more Lojban brivla selbri - the verb-like part of a sentence selma'o - part of speech slinku'i - a hypothetical borrowed word, which is not a legal only because it could be interpred as parts of other words TLI - The Loglan Institute =============================== RESOURCES 5. What's the best way to start learning Lojban? I would recommend: Work through the mini-lesson: http://xiron.pc.helsinki.fi/lojban/minilsn.html 1. Work through the Diagrammed Summary 2. Read through the Reference Grammar -- reading for concepts, not detail 3. Create a cheat sheet with lists of cmavo you're likely to need 4. Read and write Lojban text using the Ref Grammar and your cheat sheets for reference 5. If you get serious about it, use Logflash to bone up on your vocabulary 6. How can I look up gismu, lujvo, and cmavo when I am translating from lojban? Use one of these: - print yourself out some word lists - Keep the dictionary online and use a text editor with searching capability to find stuff in it - In UNIX, make an alias with the "grep" command. 7. Sources of text to read? o The FTP site has some things; an index is here: ftp://powered.cs.yale.edu/pub/lojban/text/README-text o The Lojban list will have discussion in Lojban from time to time o The web site has a few texts: http://xiron.pc.helsinki.fi/lojban/lojban.html o Stuff on paper can be ordered from the Logical Language Group; however at this time Lojbab is concentrating on other things and it's much better if you can retrieve stuff off the net. 8. What messages are appropriate for the Lojban List? Beginners are very encouraged to post. Anything's appropriate as long as the title approximately reflects the content, and you're not selling magazine subscriptions or mail-order brides (exeption: it's OK if it's in Lojban!) You can post on any subject in Lojban, or about Lojban in any language. You can post in any language you think people will understand. Postings in Lojban warm the cockles of Lojbab's heart. 9. What are the abbreviations used on the list's subject lines? A few different people are using different conventions for this purpose; you may see: TECH: technical discussion TEXT: lojban text JBO: or T: lojban text GEN: or G: grammar discussion PLI: or U: usage discussion LOJ: or L: logic discussion CLI: or B: beginner discussion RET: or Q: question to the experienced (not restricted to beginners) LIN: or W: whispers CPE: or R: request for translation SNU: or C: chat (bau la lojban. ju'o) VRC: or D: general discussion (anything that won't fit) (why doesn't vrici have a nice 3 zei lerfu rafsi .oi) TRO: or A: list administration and miscellanea 10. Are there archives? WWW site? ftp site? Web site: http://xiron.pc.helsinki.fi/lojban/lojban.html FTP site: powered.cs.yale.edu in directory /pub/lojban Archives: On the FTP site in /pub/lojban/list 11. What's available in languages other than English? There is a brochure in Esperanto. Jorge and Jose have translated the gismu list into Spanish; it's available by ftp from ftp.access.digex.net in the file /pub/access/lojbab/gismu.spa There are also brochures in French, Spanish, and Russian. 12. What software's available? Parser - on the FTP site Logflash 1 - on the FTP site; teaches gismu Logflash 3 - on the FTP site; teaches cmavo Prolog Semantic Analyzer http://xiron.pc.helsinki.fi/lojban/analyser.html Random Sentence Generator - currently only available by mail. Lujvo program - soon to be available on the FTP site. =============================== GENERAL 13. Who is everybody? Who's in charge? [Wanna be on this list? Write a paragraph in Lojban about yourself and I'll include it.] Scott Brickner sjb@universe.digex.net coi mi'e skat. .i mi se cnino la lojban. gi'e troci .o'nai lo penydjuxa'a .i mi nanca li cire gi'e speni .i mi se jibri le sampla di'o la ibubymym . sedi'o la ostyn. teksas. seka'i la merlyn. grup. .i mi ctuca mi fo la lojban. lenu samci'etid .i.o'acu'i mi xamgu birjyzbasu .i mi ca birjyzbasu lo ke kerfu bo grute bo vrusi ke'e ke galtu bo fusra birje .i mi sutra je zmadu tcidu .ije le cumymu'efi'a ralju James Cooke Brown The inventor of Loglan - not associated with Lojban now John Clifford aka pc pcliffje@CRL.COM A logician, specializing in tense logic, who's been involved with the project for a long time John Cowan cowan@LOCKE.CCIL.ORG Reference Grammar author Jose Ramon Gallo Vazquez gallo%galileo.fie@CS.US.ES coi mi'e. xoses. .i mi spano .i mi xabju la sevi,ias. ne le sangu'e .i mi ca nanca lireci .i mi se ctuca fo lo samske di'o le diklo ckule ni'o mi nelci le bangu .e le kulnu .e le lijda vu'o poi su'anai tcesau gi'a stuna gi'a cizra .iji'a mi nelci le nu tcidu loi cukta gi'e ciska .i mi tcenei tu'a la stanislav. lem. joi la tolki,en. joi la borxes. joi la robrt. greivz. joi so'i lo drata .i mi nelci lo drata noi nuncusku nandu mi bau la lojban. .i mi tcenei la lojban. ni'o be'ucu'i .i .a'o di'u na malspano vau zo'o .i co'o mi'e. xoses. Lojbab aka Bob LeChevalier lojbab@ACCESS.DIGEX.NET Head of the Logical Language Group. Cyril Slobin slobin@FEAST.FE.MSK.RU mi'e kir. .i lu ki,RIL. ar,KAD,ie,vitc. ZLO,bin. li'u mulno cmene mi .i mi jbena fi li pabi pi'e so pi'e pasoxaze .i mi rusko .i mi xabju la moskvas. .i mi skami certu .i la xelen. speni mi .i la serges. bersa mi .i la dinax. me le mi mlatu .i zo'o lo lojbo cmene cu cizra mi .i mi na ca kakne lenu zmadu cusku .i ri'a bo la lojban. ca fange mi .i ku'i mi pacna lenu ri ba slabu mi Goran Topic topic@STUDENT.MATH.HR mi'e goran. .i mi caki nanca lirepapisu'o .i le kerfa .e le kanla vu'o po'e mi manbu'e .i mi mitre lipazeji'imu gi'e ki'ogra lixaji'imu ni'o mi ba'o .uu mlicre lo xumske gi'e ku'i certu lo samske gi'ebo tadni lo banske .i mi pu tadni ca'o lo nanca remei lo cmacyske .iku'i mi steba gi'esemu'ibo sisti ca lenu mi co'a jimpe ledu'u mi selzdi lenu cilre le vrici bangu noi so'ecu'o tcefange gi'ebazibo co'a tadni lo banske ni'o mi pu jivna fi lenu dansu loi spano joi xispo joi merko gi'e pu remoi loi za'e remei pe le mi gugde .i ku'i le mi dansu kansa co'a kansa na'ebo mi .ije mi steba dukse fi'o fanta lenu mi ctuca lo drata ni'oji'a mi tcenei lo xarfi'a gi'e cmima lo diklo xarfi'agri .i mi nunxeldraco kelci .i mi kelci lo selcpa karda po'u la djixad. .i mi kelci loi drata ji'a karda ni'osu'a mi te jinvi ledu'u cizra .ije la'edi'u pluka mi ni'o pe'i dei banzu vau pei co'o mi'e. goran. 14. How many people are there in the Lojban community? How many can use Lojban, and how well? There are about 600 people on the hard-copy mailing list, most of whom have a rather low-level interest: they get the hard-copy newsletter "le lojbo karni", which hopefully will have a new issue in January. There are generally about 90 people on Lojban List. Maybe 15 people post regularly. 15. What is LogFest? LogFest is the annual gathering of the Logical Language Group. We are required by law to have an annual meeting, and have used that excuse to hold a "convention", "party", "social event". for any and all in the community who are willing to come. LogFest is held here at my house in asuburb of Washington DC. We have typically had around 20 people come for part or all of the weekend, and these are usually among the more committed Lojbanists. Usually at least one person has travellled a substantial distance in order to attend, and that person is often treated thereby as a guest of honor of sorts, being a little more "equal" than the others in choosing what activities we focus on. Chris Bogart came from Colorado last summer, and was very intent on Lojban conversation, so we tried much more of this in the last LogFest that at any previous gathering. Other than this focus, LogFest is largely unstructured, in part because we don't know who or how many are coming until a couple of days before things start, and by that time Nora and I are fully involved in preparing the house for lots of company. AS such, some have criticized Logfest fro being illplanned, and I intend next year to get the community via Lojban List to do more planning for the gathering. Next year's LogFest will take place in August. I don't have the exact date at my fingertips. Because of the "officialness" of the gathering, and the fact thatw e actually do have a "meeting" when people vote to set policy for the group, some of the more major decisions tend to get made at or as a result of the meeting. It is at those meeting where I feel most accountable to the whole community, because some people come who are NOT actively part of the net community, and they usually have a different persepctive on priorities than those who have the chance to inundate themselves in Lojban daily on this list. (I will also note here that some of our more substantial financial contributors are not active on this list, and we are somewhat beholden to them,especially on issues that result in income or expenditure). =============================== PROJECT STATUS 15. What parts of the language are well worked out, and which parts are in flux? John Cowan: The phonology, orthography, and morphology have been essentially stable since 1988, except for a slight change in what counts as a legal fu'ivla. The gismu list has been stable since 1988, except that about 25 gismu have been added and 2 gismu changed. This includes the words themselves and the English keywords. The rafsi have been stable since 1993, when they were radically changed. Much existing text has not been updated, although a program to do so has been written by LLG. The place structures have not been formally baselined, and a few changes are still occurring, but the vast majority of them are stabilized by human inertia. The grammar has been basically stable since 1993. A few marginal changes, essentially expanding what can be said, are now being considered prior to publishing the reference grammar. jimc: The basic semantics are stable. There are still ongoing disputes about "how to say it best in Lojban"; we expect these to continue indefinitely. As a matter of policy, changes to Lojban that would require people to re-learn things are resisted vigorously. Extensions may be accepted if very important. Almost anything that practical people (i.e. beginners) would actually use is well worked out, debugged and stable. Points of controversy include highly technical philosophical issues such as whether empty sets are or are not excluded as the candidate referent set of a sumti, or whether current grammar is adequate to represent lambda calculus. The answers are very important (no joke), but people have been speaking natural languages for years without knowing the answers, so don't worry about Lojban. And you don't have to know what lambda calculus is. The major point of controversy that is significant to beginners is a feeling in some quarters that the policies used to design the place (argument, sumti) structures of gismu (basic predicate words) were not exactly optimal. Mainly the rarely used places are at issue. Most likely, we'll go with what we have to preserve the investment people have made in learning the language. 16. What are the most current revisions of each part of the language descriptions? 17. What projects are being worked on? When will they be done? FTP site - maintained by Erik Rauch, who acts by requests from Bob or John Cowan. Reference grammar - John Cowan has written a draft of this book and it is currently being reviewed by the online Lojban community. Textbook - a draft of the textbook is available online, but it is out of date and incomplete. No one is working on it right now; it's considered fairly low priority. Dictionary - A draft is online, compiled primarily by Lojbab. It needs to have lujvo added to it; Jorge Llambias and Nick Nicholas are working on this project. Web site - Veijo Vilva maintains the web site. FAQ - Chris Bogart (cbogart@quetzal.com) maintains the FAQ. 18. What can I do to help? A few possibilities: Write in Lojban on the list Post beginner questions and don't be intimidated Write something in Lojban Come to LogFest in July/August in Fairfax VA (near Washington, DC), U.S.A. Try expressing yourself in Lojban Send money to LLG Keep a diary in Lojban ============================= HISTORICAL 19. How was the default place order of sumti in a selbri determined? (There does not appear to be any rhyme or reason for the order of sumti in many gismu.) They went through a lot of revisions; it's something in between planning and evolution. Some people continue to lobby for reforms. 20. How did the gismu get made: discussion, etymology examples Lojbab replies: I have put the full set of etymologies up on my ftp site ftp.access.digex.net /pub/lojbab file "finprims.ety" 282K. There isn;t a lot of explanation, but the etymogies in 6 languages and the scoring for each language are given, in order Chinese/English/Hindi/ Spanish/Russian/Arabic - a 0 score means that the language made no contribution to the word, and thus its etymological keyword did not matter. 21. What's the diff between Loglan, Lojban? How is Loglan-82 related? (it's not!) James Cooke Brown came up with the idea of Loglan in around 1960. It's been evolving ever since. In 1985 or so there was a disagreement and the Loglan community split into two efforts, with Brown at the head of one, The Loglan Institute (TLI), and Bob LeChevalier at the head of the other, the Logical Language Group (LLG). The latter is Lojban, which LLG (backed up by a court decision) considers a subcategory of Loglan. Loglan-82 is a completely unrelated computer language. 22. Why does it have a special meaning when the verb comes first? In Loglan it used to be a command, but now we use either {ko} or attitudinals. In a {poi broda} phrase it's likely that you'll want x1 to be {ke'a} and to explicitly state x2. If V-initial weren't special, and if syntax within a poi were consistent with sentence-level syntax, then you'd have to explicitly use {fe} or {zo'e} or {ke'a} to get to the x2. For example, now we say {le nanmu poi prami mi} and the x1 of {prami} is elided, and we can assume it's {ke'a}, which here equals {le nanmu}. Without this special treatment of V-initial, we'd have to say {le nanmu poi prami ke'a mi} or {le nanmu poi ke'a prami mi} or {le nanmu poi ke'a mi prami}. So: it saves 2 syllables in what's arguably the most common way of using {poi}. May or may not be worth it, depending on how you value word order flexibility vs. brevity. In general it lets you easily get to x2 in sentences without an x1. 23. Why are there so many words for AND? Why not just let {.e} connect two sumti, bridi, bridi-tails, or anything else? Lojbab replies: We use different connectives for different scopes. Doing so helps the listener keep track of what exactly the speaker wants connected. This is MUCH more important in speech than in text, because in text you can reread and ponder. If you have a multipart nested sumti joined to another multipart nested sumti, having clear indicatoirs of scope may make the sentence understandable when otherwise it is not. It is therefore hoped that spoken Lojban and written Lojban can be similar in level of complexity. (You know, audiovisual isomorphism)