[lojban-beginners] gismu abbreviations?

[MaryJo Wood <jurjyfrort@yahoo.com>]

Hi everybody!  I'm very new to Lojban, but one of the
things I wanted early on as I started looking through
the beginner lessons and getting my head around the
grammar was a big word list.  I wanted to have all the
vocabulary I could at hand so I could learn by making
sentences about whatever the heck I wanted, or was
thinking about at the time.

I found a good one on the Wiki here:
http://www.lojban.org/publications/wordlists/gismu_english_order.txt

...but I also noticed some extra columns of what
looked like 3-letter abbreviations of most of the
gismu.  At first I thought I was getting it ("oh, so
THAT'S how they made the word malglico!"), but I'm
actually getting worried right now.  Not only do many
of the gismu have multiple abbreviations, which I'm
guessing are alternates, but the method of deriving
the abbrevations don't seem to stick to any set
pattern.

One of the key selling points for Lojban that got me
interested in learning it was that it doesn't have a
bunch of exceptions to the rules and all like English
does.  But these abbreviations just remind me of
English's rampant messy irregularities.

I know I'm treading out into deep water here, where I
don't really have a clue what I'm talking about, but
I'm hoping you more knowledgable types can reassure me
and help explain what's going on.  

(Incidentally, I'd like to suggest that a big gismu
list like this *without* any of these abbreviations
and extra things would be a great thing to make
available for beginners.)

Thanks,
MJ  (still debating on my Lojbanized name, but I'm
leaning towards "midj" right now)


		
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