[lojban-beginners] Re: mi'e rai'n

[Pierre Abbat <phma@phma.optus.nu>]

On Thursday 15 June 2006 23:34, lastaidkit@aim.com wrote:
> mi'e rai'n

{rai,n}. {rai'n} is not possible in Lojban; the apostrophe occurs only between 
two vowels.

> not likely? **** How much work is invloved in learning the language? It
> sounds as if its just a matter of learning vocabulary

It isn't. The grammar is completely different from that of any other language 
(except, of course, Loglan). It has parts of speech such as terminators and a 
predicate marker; it has a peculiar way of making compound words. But it's 
smaller than that of any natural language and doesn't have exceptions that 
grew up over centuries (e.g. in Spanish a feminine noun takes "la" unless - 
Jorge, correct me - it begins with a stressed vowel: el alma, el agua).

> But I'll try to help with the vocabulary. What do I have to know?

What he meant is that there aren't enough words to say everything. For 
instance, take the birds. The gimste has names for two galliforms (zo 
jipci .e zo xruki) and two anseriforms (zo datka .e zo gunse) and that's it. 
If you want to say "A flock of warblers flew overhead", you have to make up a 
word. "The whippoorwill is a nightjar" - there's a word for nightjar 
(ctecmocpi) but none yet for whippoorwill.

phma