From reverendzow@yahoo.com Fri Jul 23 13:06:37 2004 Return-Path: X-Sender: reverendzow@yahoo.com X-Apparently-To: lojban@yahoogroups.com Received: (qmail 56532 invoked from network); 23 Jul 2004 20:06:36 -0000 Received: from unknown (66.218.66.216) by m23.grp.scd.yahoo.com with QMQP; 23 Jul 2004 20:06:36 -0000 Received: from unknown (HELO n5.grp.scd.yahoo.com) (66.218.66.89) by mta1.grp.scd.yahoo.com with SMTP; 23 Jul 2004 20:06:36 -0000 Received: from [66.218.67.172] by n5.grp.scd.yahoo.com with NNFMP; 23 Jul 2004 20:06:33 -0000 Date: Fri, 23 Jul 2004 20:06:33 -0000 To: lojban@yahoogroups.com Message-ID: In-Reply-To: <20040723162026.58966.qmail@web25106.mail.ukl.yahoo.com> User-Agent: eGroups-EW/0.82 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Length: 4128 X-Mailer: Yahoo Groups Message Poster X-eGroups-Remote-IP: 66.218.66.89 From: "reverendzow" X-Originating-IP: 66.241.86.72 Subject: Re: Projects X-Yahoo-Group-Post: member; u=193074467 X-Yahoo-Profile: reverendzow X-Yahoo-Message-Num: 22729 --- In lojban@yahoogroups.com, Maggie Turner wrote: > Philip Newton wrote: > > > On Fri, 23 Jul 2004 08:27:16 -0000, reverendzow > wrote: > > > >>Lastly, a set of ideograms for gismu. > > > > > > There've been a couple of attempts at this before; > one of mine (based > > on Japanese) is at > http://shavian.org/lojban/gismu-jap.html , for > > example. (At least one other is based on Chinese, > IIRC). Not as > > official projects, though; more as fun, as I > understand it. > > > > > >>This requires the potential to > >>make a simple visual system for making lujvo, else > the phonetic > >>alphabet could be used for gismu and lujvo as well. > > > > > > It would certainly need to allow people to > differentiate between lujvo > > and tanru; "glibau" is not the same as "glico > bangu". (It *is* the > > same as "gicybau" or "glicybangu", though, by > definition, so one > > notation could conceivably represent either.) > > > > > >>For instance, what shall we call words that possess > brivla? > > > > > > What do you mean with that? How can a word possess a > brivla? There are > > words, some of which are Lojban words, some of which > are brivla. > > > > > >>I have come up with ka'eserafsi, although my > construction may > >>be flawed, > > > > > > That falls apart into the three words "ka'e se > rafsi". "da ka'e se > > rafsi" seems to me to mean something like "X can be > a word which has > > rafsi". But only gismu and some cmavo have rafsi; > brivla in general do > > not. (The lujvo composed of "ka'e se rafsi" would be > "ka'erselrafsi", > > FWIW.) > > > > > >>Similarly, it seems the selma'o are named > >>after the most commonly used elemental cmavo, rather > than a Lojban > >>meaning of their function. > > > > > > *nods* Those are conventional English names, though. > > > > I do not believe there are any official Lojban names > for cmavo; > > indeed, I seem to recall some saying that they hope > that the Lojban > > name for e.g. selma'o GOhA does not contain the word > "go'a". > > > > > >>The point is: it is quite likely that the > vocabulary needs > >>serious optimization/reform if widespread adoption > of > >>Lojban is to occur. > > > > > > The point is: many people have put a lot of effort > into learning > > Lojban in its current form. Reforming or optimising > would render that > > effort largely useless. > > > > It is also hard to see what reforms would be useful. > It is true that > there were glitches in the original gismu generation, > largely because > the lack of a native Chinese speaker lojbanist at the > time meant that > some of the Chinese vocabulary was incorrectly > lojbanised, but this is a > minor issue; the gismu "hooks" are meant to be aids to > memorisation, not > recognition. To give an example of where the process > worked well, I can > remember "cukta" easily because of Chinese "shu", > English "book" and > Arabic "kitap", but none of these would be any help if > I hadn't seen the > word before. There might also have been a case for > giving English a > higher weighting, given that the number of > second-language English > speakers is rising, and seems set to do so for the > conceivable future, > but as Philip points out, it's too late to start > mucking around with the > language for what would probably be very minor gains > in learnability. > > The only reforms that would significantly increase > ease of vocabulary > learning would also, I think, break the morphology. If > you want a > language with easily recognisable vocabulary, you > can't have such strict > morphology, and if you want to go down that route, you > may as well > choose Esperanto, Interlingua or (God help us) > Occidental. > > robin.tr > I certainly don't want a recognizable vocabulary at any expense to any other aspect of the language. What I'm pulling for is a pronouncable and distinguishable vocabulary, and I'd prefer to avoid any association with Esperanto (as I'm sure is a big enough "problem" already). "What's Lojban?" "Well, it's kinda like Esperanto..."