[lojban-beginners] Dialects

[Adam COOPER <adamgarrigus@gmail.com>]

On Wed, 9 Feb 2005 12:59:34 -0800, Robin Lee Powell
<rlpowell@digitalkingdom.org> wrote:
> On Wed, Feb 09, 2005 at 09:57:31AM -0500, Adam COOPER wrote:
> > I understand Lojban.
> >
> > {mi jimpe fi lo jbobau} - doesn't quite seem to cut it, as it
> > could just as well mean that the speaker understands the ideas
> > behind Lojban, how it was devised, its history, (x3 = subject)
> > without necessarily understanding what's being said. So...
> 
> Well, of course it's inspecific.  So is the English.  "I understand
> Lojjban" could mean any of those things too.
> 
> If what you meant is "I am able to understand most things expressed
> in Lojban", that's something like "mi ka'e jimpe lo smuni so'e
> selsku be bau la .lojban.".
> 

ki'e do This leads to my other question, which is how to translate
"dialects", as in "The dialects of Catalan include Majorcan and
Valencian". I was going to try to devise a lujvo or tanru that
included this concept of mutual intelligibility, which is to the
point. But that seems too unwieldy and I wonder whether a less
rigorous lujvo such as {mlicnebau} would be the way to go. -- I have
written a brief essay (1100 words) on the history of English and am
translating it into Lojban; that's what's driving these questions.
Thanks again, all.