X-Digest-Num: 268 Message-ID: <44114.268.1461.959273825@eGroups.com> Date: Wed, 27 Oct 1999 12:45:05 PDT From: "Jorge Llambias" Subject: Re: lojban newbie: an outsider looking in X-Yahoo-Message-Num: 1461 Content-Length: 1679 Lines: 52 coi maikl ualys > My understanding is that while there are many root words (gismu) in >lojban, they don't account for every noun/verb/ >whatever you could say in a natural language. There are about 1500 gismu, they can't account for the millions or more nouns and verbs of natural languages. >So most things are described metaphorically >(tanru) by combining gismu. Usually things are not described metaphorically in the poetic sense, but yes as compound words. >If the tanru catches on, it gets cooked >down into a compound word (lujvo). Often, maybe most times, lujvo are used without a tanru having been used first. >There is some kind of magical trick >to this process that ensures that no two lojban words are ever the same. Not magical, but admittedly a little more complicated than it need have been. > I'm considering creating a 'bot to get the entire archive from >egroups, saving it to my site, setting up my own little search engine, >and putting it all on my website... Yes, please do! For example, someone just asked for the meaning of {ta'u}. I would love to be able to do a search to find out how many times {ta'u} has been used (if ever) and with which of the two alternative meanings. We have a pretty large corpus of Lojban text by now, but, as you say, very difficult to use. >The >lines and circles look kind of weak. Sickly, even. I haven't seen >anyone actually using it, so I kind of wonder if it ought to be >replaced. We're probably stuck with it as the official logo, but nothing stops you or anyone else from creating and using a better one, and if it catches on, it will become the unofficial logo... co'o mi'e xorxes