Re: [lojban-beginners] Lojban attempt: please correct

On Mon, Aug 24, 2015 at 9:50 PM, Timothy Lawrence <timothy.lawrence@connect.qut.edu.au> wrote:

I posted my Lojban attempt on #ckule yesterday:

.za'a lo bangu cu tolxregau ma'a.i
.ja'o lo nu remna cu gumgau ma'a.i
.ei ma'a cilre ma'a

Could someone correct it? I was trying to say the following:

(I observe that) language separates you and me.
(I deduce that) humanity unites you and me.
We must learn one another.

I am doubtful that my Lojban is correct (especially the last sentence). I used some vocabulary I found on jbovlaste but there's probably better words?

You probably don't really want "tolxregau" here, although from a poetic sense, it can work. It means to separate something into its component parts. But I expect you are looking for something more along the lines of "za'a lo bangu cu te sepli mi do" (I observe that language is a barrier between me and you) (if you want a more universal me and you, use "za'a lo bangu cu te sepli lo prenu lo [bi'u] prenu"

For your second sentence, I expect you really want "ka" not "nu", because you are talking about our quality of being human (our humanity, not our event of being human). Also, if you really want "me" and "you", not "me" and "you" and "others", use mi'o, not ma'a. That being said, mi'o and ma'a are already masses, so don't really belong as the second argument of gumgau. Try this: "ja'o lo ka remna cu gumgau mi jo'u do mio"

As for your last sentence, "ma'a (or mi'o)" are not facts. You can't cilre them. But you can learn about them, so they go in the third argument of cilre. Now, since you want mutually, you will find "simxu" is your friend: "ei mi'o cu simxu lo nu cilre zo'e"

One other small point. ".i" is traditionally conceptualized as the beginning of second and subsequent sentences, not the end, so the more typically orthography would be (with your original sentences):

za'a lo bangu cu tolxregau ma'a
.i.ja'o lo nu remna cu gumgau ma'a

.i .ei ma'a cilre ma'a:

Note also that your pause (".") before za'a and ja'o, while not grammatically incorrect, is unnecessary and odd-looking.

deltab thought my attempt reads as "You know, languages unmix us. Therefore, being human aggregates us. We have to learn us."

Does "ja'o" definitely translate to "therefore"? Because I wasn't intending on using it to link the two sentences.

Absolutely not. If you wanted to link them like that, you would have used a construction like ".i ja'e bo" deltab seems confused.

A few more questions:

- How does one say "Does that make any sense?" in Lojban?

Well, "xu di'u se smuni lo seldji be mi" means "does that last utterance mean what I wanted"? Or you could try "ki'a pei" ("are you confused by what I said?")

- How does one say "How does one say (English) in Lojban?" in Lojban?

ma xe fanva zoi gy (put English here) gy la lojban ("what is a translation of ____ in lojban?")

--gejyspa

Thanks

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