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[lojban] Draft update of Lojban FAQ
From: Bob LeChevalier-Logical Language Group <lojbab@lojban.org>
Following is the non-HTML text of my revision to the Lojban-List FAQ, now
titled the Lojban FAQ. Please send comments.
lojbab
===================
Lojban FAQ
updated January 19, 2000
Most bold faced words are defined under Question 4.
==============================
TECHNICAL
1a. Why do some texts use <h> instead of <'>?
1b. Could I take a text with <h>s and do a search & replace with <'> and
endup with "standard" Lojban?
1c. Why is one better than the other?
2. How do you borrow words from other languages?
3. Isn't it confusing that some rafsi are identical to cmavo?
4. What are those Lojban word that you are using even in English text?
What's all the other jargon and acronyms you use?
===============================
RESOURCES
5. What's the best way to start learning Lojban?
6. How can I look up gismu, lujvo, and cmavo when I am translating from lojban?
7. Sources of text to read?
8. What messages are appropriate for the Lojban List?
9. What are the abbreviations used on the list's subject lines?
10. Are there archives? WWW site? ftp site?
11. What's available in languages other than English?
12. What software's available?
===============================
GENERAL
13. Who is everybody? Who's in charge?
14. How many people are there in the Lojban community? How many can use
Lojban, and how well?
15. What is LogFest?
===============================
PROJECT STATUS
16. What parts of the language are well worked out, and which parts are in
flux?
17. What are the most current revisions of each part of the language
descriptions?
18. What projects are being worked on? When will they be done?
19. What can I do to help?
=============================
HISTORICAL
20. How was the default place structure order of sumti in a selbri
determined? (There does not appear to be any rhyme or reason for the order
of sumti in many gismu. )
21. How did the gismu get made: discussion, etymology examples
22. What's the difference between Loglan and Lojban? How is Loglan-82
related? (it's not!)
23. Why does it have a special meaning when the selbri comes first in a
sentence?
24. Why are there so many words for AND? Why not just let {.e} connect two
sumti, bridi, bridi-tails, or anything else?
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
TECHNICAL
1a. Why do some texts use <h> instead of <'>?
Aesthetic reasons. And Rosta in particular thinks mohi looks better in
print than mo'i and sometimes uses it the hopes that he can influence the
Lojban community to accept this other spelling convention. This is purely a
difference in spelling; they are pronounced the same, and should be
considered different ways of writing the same "letter". This alternate
spelling also is somewhat closer to the spelling of TLI Loglan. There is
another similar spelling convention, which has never been used, designed to
make Lojban look more familiar to potential converts from TLI. This
alternate convention may be found in the Lojban Reference Grammar
1b. Could I take a text with <h>s and do a search and replace with <'> and
end up with "standard" lojban?
Probably not, because people like And have used a number of non-standard
spelling conventions:
<'> is omitted altogether where the vowels couldn't possibly be stuck
together; for example, he'd write coe for co'e, since <oe> is not a legal
combination. He has used <.> as in English, to end a sentence, rather than
as a pause. He has capitalized the first word of the sentence.
1c. Why is one better than the other?
The standard usage is better because each letter corresponds to one sound
and each sound corresponds to one letter. And's usage is better because
<. >and <'> are ugly in the middle of words, and sentences ought to start
with a capital letter to better conform to Roman alphabet spelling conventions.
2. How do you borrow words from other languages?
There are four ways to borrow words. Only the most common method is covered
here; see the Lojban Reference Grammar for more detail. Borrowed words are
called fu'ivla, meaning approximately "copied words" (after all,
"borrowing" implies we're going to give them back someday!)
The use of tanru or lujvo is not always appropriate for very concrete or
specific terms (e. g. 'brie', or 'cobra'), or for jargon words specialized
to a narrow field (e. g. 'quark', 'integral', or 'iambic pentameter').
These words are in effect 'names' for concepts, and the names were invented
by speakers of another language. The vast majority of names for plants,
animals, foods, and scientific terminology cannot be easily expressed as
tanru. They thus must be 'borrowed' (actually 'taken') into Lojban from the
original language, forming words called fu'ivla.
The word must be Lojbanized into one of several permitted fu'ivla forms. A
rafsi is then attached to the beginning of the Lojbanized form, usually
using a vocalic consonant as 'glue' to ensure that the resulting word
doesn't fall apart. The rafsi categorizes or limits the meaning of the
fu'ivla; otherwise a word having several different jargon meanings in other
languages (such as 'integral'), would require a choice made as to which
meaning should be assigned to the fu'ivla.
fu'ivla, like other brivla, are not permitted to have more than one definition.
Summarizing the most common method to make fu'ivla:
Lojbanize the word to be 'borrowed' by the methods used for cmene.
Convert all y's to some other vowel or to a vocalic consonant.
Modify the ending to be a vowel, either by dropping a final consonant or by
adding an extra vowel.
Modify the beginning to be a consonant, either by adding a extra consonant
or dropping an initial vowel.
Choose a gismu (not a rafsi) that categorizes the fu'ivla into a "topic
area". Replace the final vowel of the gismu with a vocalic 'r'.
Prefix the modified gismu to produce the final fu'ivla.
Examples:
spaghetti -> cidjrspageti or djarspageti
maple tree -> tricrmeipli
maple sugar -> saktrmeipli
mathematical integral -> cmacrnintegra or cmacrntegra
brie -> cirlrbri
cobra -> sincrkobra
quark -> saskrkuarka
iambic -> pemcrniambo
A fu'ivla thus consists of three parts: the classifier - the glue - the
borrowed part
The quintessential example is djarspageti, meaning "spaghetti". dja is the
classifier: it's the short form rafsi for cidja, meaning "food". {r} is the
glue: it's necessary to keep the word from falling into two parts. spageti
is the Lojbanized version of "spaghetti". The classifier is glued on the
front for two reasons: it helps identify strange borrowings, and it
prevents borrowings that happen to coincide with things that are already
Lojban words. For example if you borrowed the word "spageti" directly, it
could lead to ambiguity in a phrase like
*ko bevri re spageti palta
which could mean "Bring two plates of spaghetti" or something like "Be a
carrying reptile and a plate made of this"
*ko bevri respa ge ti palta.
In a natural language there would be no doubt which of the two was meant,
but Lojban is constructed so that you shouldn't need to understand the
sentence to know where one word ends and the next begins.
3. Isn't it confusing that some rafsi are identical to cmavo?
No, it isn't. In theory you can tell completely from the neighboring
syllables whether something is a cmavo or a rafsi. This is how the computer
is able to parse Lojban without understanding its meaning. For example the
dei in bavlamdei ("tomorrow") is a rafsi for "day", not the cmavo dei, a
special pronoun meaning "this sentence". We know which is which because
Lojban words can't end in a consonant, so dei must be a part of bavlamdei;
bavlam can't be a whole word. (No, it can't be a name, either. Names end
with a consonant followed by a pause, written as a ".") In practice you can
also use your knowledge of the meanings of the words to help with this;
it's possible to think up a sentence like
la .bavlam. dei cusku,
"Bavlam says this sentence.", but it's not likely in practice if you don't
know anyone named "Bavlam"!
4. What are those lojban words that you are using even in English text?
What's all the other jargon and acronyms you use?
Here are APPROXIMATE definitions. Words in ALL CAPS on the Lojban list
often refer to Lojban parts of speech. When this convention is used, the
capitalization of {'} is {h}, so the capitalization of la'e would be {LAhE}
attitudinal - A Lojban interjection (Wow! Eeek!)
audiovisual isomorphism - Spoken and written Lojban should be the same
BAI - Lojban prepositions/adverbs
bridi - Lojban sentence - a "predicate"
brivla - any word that can state a relationship among several objects or
concepts, and thus be the core word in a Lojban bridi - a "predicate word"
cmavo - a "little word" showing structure rather than carrying meaning
cmene - Lojban names
evidential - special word indicating how the speaker got their information
fu'ivla - borrowed word
gadri - Lojban article or determiner - signals the start of a sumti
gismu - basic 5-letter lojban root word; more information
JCB - James Cooke Brown, the inventor of Loglan
JL - ju'i lobypli
ju'i lobypli - a Lojban newsletter/journal. Publication is currently
suspended, but we are hoping to resume publication in the near future.
le lojbo karni - a Lojban newsletter intended to keep our lowest level of
supporters informed as to what is going on (in hopes of inspiring greater
activity).
le'avla - the old word for fu'ivla
LK - le lojbo karni
lujvo - compound word
pe'i - in my opinion
place structure - the specified canonical order of sumti in a Lojban bridi,
so that you know who is doing what to whom.
rafsi - building block(s) of lujvo compound words
selbri - the part of a Lojban sentence that expresses the relationship
between the various objects (sumti)
selma'o - part of speech
slinku'i - a hypothetical borrowed word, which would not be legal because
it could be interpred as parts of other words in some contexts.
sumti - an object or idea which may be related to others, that relationship
being expressed in a Lojban bridi
tanru - a phrase formed of two or more Lojban brivla
TLI - The Loglan Institute
===============================
RESOURCES
5. What's the best way to start learning Lojban?
We recommend
Work through the Lojban mini-lesson and/or Robin Turner's mini-course
(better but incomplete; 7 lessons so far).
Work through the Diagrammed Summary. The mini-lesson and diagrammed summary
were merged and abridged into Chapter 2 of the Reference Grammar.
Read through the Reference Grammar -- reading for concepts, not detail.
Create a cheat sheet with lists of gismu and cmavo you're likely to need.
Read and write Lojban text using the Reference Grammar and your cheat
sheets for reference. Post your text to Lojban List for feedback.
If you get serious about it, use Logflash to bone up on your vocabulary.
If some concepts in any of the above resources seem unclear, the Draft
Textbook lessons may help. Or post your questions to Lojban List.
A source of further resources for learning Lojban is Evgueni Sklyanin's
Lojban Links page.
6. How can I look up gismu, lujvo, and cmavo when I am translating from Lojban?
Use one of these: - print yourself out the gismu, lujvo, and cmavo word
lists as well as the rafsi list - Keep the dictionary online and use a text
editor with searching capability to find stuff in it. In UNIX, make an
alias with the "grep" command.
7. Sources of text to read?
The Lojban file server has texts, some annotated and translated.
The Lojban List will have discussion in Lojban from time to time. Subscribe
at www.onelist.com, keyword lojban
Old issues of ju'i lobypli usually have several examples of commented text,
though early issues may have some obsolete words or usages.
Other Lojbanists publish Web pages, some with Lojban texts and some
entirely in Lojban. Here are some interesting sites.
Stuff on paper can be ordered from the Logical Language Group; however at
this time Lojbab is concentrating on other things and it's much better if
you can retrieve stuff off the net.
8. What messages are appropriate for the Lojban List?
Beginners are very encouraged to post. Anything's appropriate as long as
the title approximately reflects the content, and you're not selling
magazine subscriptions or mail-order brides (exception: it's OK if it's in
Lojban!) You can post on any subject in Lojban, or about Lojban in any
language. You can post in any language you think people will understand.
Postings in Lojban warm the cockles of Lojbab's heart.
9. What are the abbreviations used on the list's subject lines?
A few different people are using different conventions for this purpose,
usually only when list traffic is heavy. You may see:
TECH: technical discussion
TEXT: lojban text
JBO: or T: lojban text
GEN: or G: grammar discussion
PLI: or U: usage discussion
LOJ: or L: logic discussion
CLI: or B: beginner discussion
RET: or Q: question to the experienced (not restricted to beginners)
LIN: or W: whispers
CPE: or R: request for translation
SNU: or C: chat (bau la lojban. ju'o)
VRC: or D: general discussion (anything that won't fit)
TRO: or A: list administration and miscellanea
10. Are there archives? WWW site? ftp site?
Web site: http://www.lojban.org
European Web site: http://animal.helsinki.fi/lojban/lojban.html
11. What's available in languages other than English?
There are brochures in Spanish, French, Esperanto, and Russian. Jorge and
Jose have translated the gismu list into Spanish.
12. What software's available?
Lojban Parser - the definitive standard of Lojban grammar, verifies the
grammaticality of text
Lojban Parser/Glosser (includes the parser, roughly glosses text to English)
Logflash 1 - teaches gismu; Turbo-Pascal source (not well-documented) here
Logflash 3 - teaches cmavo
Prolog Semantic Analyzer
Random Sentence Generator - updated version in progress, the available
version has somewhat obsolete grammar definitions
Lujvo-maker program
===============================
GENERAL
13. Who is everybody? Who's in charge?
[Wanna be on this list? Write a paragraph in Lojban about yourself and I'll
include it.]
Scott Brickner - sjb@universe.digex.net
coi mi'e skat. .i mi se cnino la lojban. gi'e troci .o'nai lo penydjuxa'a
.i mi nanca li cire gi'e speni .i mi se jibri le sampla di'o la ibubymym.
sedi'o la ostyn. teksas. seka'i la merlyn. grup. .i mi ctuca mi fo la
lojban. lenu samci'etcidu .i.o'acu'i mi xamgu birjyzbasu .i mi ca
birjyzbasu lo ke kerfu bo grute bo vrusi ke'e ke galtu bo fusra birje .i mi
sutra je zmadu tcidu .ije le cumymu'efi'a ralju
James Cooke Brown - The inventor of Loglan - not associated with Lojban now
John Clifford aka pc - pycyn@aol.com - A logician, specializing in tense
logic, who's been involved with the project since the 1970s
John Cowan - cowan@CCIL.ORG - Reference Grammar author
Jose Ramon Gallo Vazquez - gallo%galileo.fie@CS.US.ES
coi mi'e. xoses. .i mi spano .i mi xabju la sevi,ias. ne le sangu'e .i mi
ca nanca lireci .i mi se ctuca fo lo samske di'o le diklo ckule ni'o mi
nelci le bangu .e le kulnu .e le lijda vu'o poi su'anai tcesau gi'a stuna
gi'a cizra .iji'a mi nelci le nu tcidu loi cukta gi'e ciska .i mi tcenei
tu'a la stanislav. lem. joi la tolki,en. joi la borxes. joi la robrt.
greivz. joi so'i lo drata .i mi nelci lo drata noi nuncusku nandu mi bau la
lojban. .i mi tcenei la lojban. ni'o be'ucu'i .i .a'o di'u na malspano vau
zo'o .i co'o mi'e. xoses.
lojbab aka Bob LeChevalier - lojbab@lojban.org - President of the Logical
Language Group.
Cyril Slobin - slobin@ice.ru
mi'e kir. .i lu ki,RIL. ar,KAD,ie,vitc. ZLO,bin. li'u mulno cmene mi .i mi
jbena fi li pabi pi'e so pi'e pasoxaze .i mi rusko .i mi xabju la moskvas.
.i mi skami certu .i la xelen. speni mi .i la serges. bersa mi .i la dinax.
me le mi mlatu .i zo'o lo lojbo cmene cu cizra mi .i mi na ca kakne lenu
zmadu cusku .i ri'a bo la lojban. ca fange mi .i ku'i mi pacna lenu ri ba
slabu mi
Goran Topic - amadan@ibm.net
mi'e goran. .i mi caki nanca lirepapisu'o .i le kerfa . e le kanla vu'o
po'e mi manbu'e .i mi mitre lipazeji'imu gi'e ki'ogra lixaji'imu ni'o mi
ba'o . uu mlicre lo xumske gi'e ku'i certu lo samske gi'ebo tadni lo banske
.i mi pu tadni ca'o lo nanca remei lo cmacyske .iku'i mi steba gi'esemu'ibo
sisti ca lenu mi co'a jimpe ledu'u mi selzdi lenu cilre le vrici bangu noi
so'ecu'o tcefange gi'ebazibo co'a tadni lo banske ni'o mi pu jivna fi lenu
dansu loi spano joi xispo joi merko gi'e pu remoi loi za'e remei pe le mi
gugde .i ku'i le mi dansu kansa co'a kansa na'ebo mi .ije mi steba dukse
fi'o fanta lenu mi ctuca lo drata ni'oji'a mi tcenei lo xarfi'a gi'e cmima
lo diklo xarfi'agri .i mi nunxeldraco kelci .i mi kelci lo selcpa karda
po'u la djixad. .i mi kelci loi drata ji'a karda ni'osu'a mi te jinvi
ledu'u cizra .ije la'edi'u pluka mi ni'o pe'i dei banzu vau pei co'o mi'e.
goran.
14. How many people are there in the Lojban community? How many can use
Lojban, and how well?
There are about 1500 people on the hard-copy mailing list, most of whom
have a rather low-level interest: they get the hard-copy newsletter le
lojbo karni. Around 130 have paid subscriptions to ju'i lobypli, the more
technical journal. As of January 2000, around 275 people have purchased the
Lojban Reference Grammar, but there are large numbers on our mailing list
who have yet to be notified of its publication (a long story). Aso, as of
that date, there are about 180 people on Lojban List, with the number
rising slowly (about 30% of Lojban List subscribers are from outside the
US, and their ages appear to average under 30). Over 100 people have posted
text in Lojban; a couple dozen have demonstarted ability to converse in
Lojban in real time, and one person, Nick Nicholas, is considered to be
completely fluent in Lojban. (Nick developed his fluency solely through
self-study and translation work - he was able to converse at near-fluent
speed the very first time he spoke to anyone else in Lojban).
15. What is LogFest?
LogFest is the annual gathering of the Logical Language Group. We are
required by law to have an annual meeting, and have used that excuse to
hold a "convention", "party", "social event" for any and all in the
community who are willing to come. LogFest is held at lojbab's house in
Fairfax VA, a suburb of Washington DC, usually over a weekend in July or
August. We have typically had around 20 people come for part or all of the
weekend, and these are usually among the more committed Lojbanists (though
around half the attendees typically are at beginner skill levels). Usually
several people travel a substantial distance in order to attend, and those
people are often treated thereby as a guest of honor of sorts, being a
little more "equal" than the others in choosing what activities we focus
on. Chris Bogart came from Colorado one summer, and was very intent on
Lojban conversation, so we tried much more of this in that last LogFest
than at any previous gathering. Other than this focus, LogFest is largely
unstructured, in part because we don't know who or how many are coming
until a couple of days before things start As such, some have criticized
Logfest for being ill-planned, but it is what the community chooses to make
it. Because of the "officialness" of the gathering, and the fact that we
actually do have a "meeting" when people vote to set policy for the group,
some of the more major decisions affecting the Lojban community tend to get
made at or as a result of the meeting. It is at those meeting where the LLG
leadership feels most accountable to the whole community, because some
people come who are not actively part of the Lojban List net community, and
they usually have a different perspective on priorities than those who have
the chance to inundate themselves in Lojban daily on this list. (We also
note that some of our more substantial financial contributors are not
active on Lojban list, and we are somewhat beholden to them, especially on
issues that result in income or expenditure).
===============================
PROJECT STATUS
16. What parts of the language are well worked out, and which parts are in
flux?
As of 1997, the language design has been baselined for a minimum of 5 years
after the puboication of the three books: the reference grammar, the
dictionary, and the textbook. Since the latter two are not near
publication, this means that no changes to the language will even be
considered until at least 2006. This baseline is non-negotiable, even if we
enter into discussions with The Loglan Institute to reunite the Loglan
community after JCB's retirement.
The phonology, orthography, and morphology have been essentially stable
since 1988, except for a slight change in what counts as a legal fu'ivla.
The gismu list has been stable since 1988, except that about 25 gismu have
been added and 2 gismu changed. This includes the words themselves and the
English keywords; place structures for the gismu had minor changes up until
1994, but since then only clarifications of confusing wording have been
made to the official baseline gismu list, and they are now considered
baselined. The rafsi have been unchanged since 1993, when around 20% were
changed in a final tuning before baselining them. Much existing text was
not been updated after the rafsi change, so texts dated before 1993 may be
confusing. The grammar has been basically stable since 1993, was under
careful documented control after that date, and frozen with the publication
of the Reference Grammar in 1997. The cmavo list has been baselined since
1997, though new compounds may be defined through usage. The only area not
frozen is the addition of new words to the lexicon through borrowing
(fu'ivla) or compounding (lujvo). Those two productive areas are
open-ended; a primary limitation on the language definition is the
inability to record and define new coinings as fast as they are invented.
The basic semantics of the language are stable. There are still ongoing
disputes about "how to say it best in Lojban"; we expect these to continue
indefinitely. As a matter of policy, changes even to Lojban non-baselined
usages, if they would require people to re-learn things, are resisted
vigorously. Almost anything that practical people (i.e. beginners) would
actually use is well worked out, debugged and stable. Points of controversy
include highly technical philosophical issues such as whether empty sets
are or are not excluded as the candidate referent set of a sumti, or
whether current grammar is adequate to represent all possible forms of
indirect questions. The answers are very important (no joke), but people
have been speaking natural languages for years without knowing the answers,
so don't worry about Lojban. And you don't have to know what lambda
calculus is. The major point of controversy that is significant to
beginners is a feeling in some quarters that the policies used to design
the place (argument, sumti) structures of gismu (basic predicate words)
were not exactly optimal. Sometimes the semantics of the less-used places
are at issue. Officially, we'll go with what we have to preserve the
investment people have made in learning the language, and after the
baseline period is over, those who are actually speaking the language will
be allowed to discuss changes in Lojban. There are no plans to ever
seriously discuss changes to the language other than in Lojban.
17. What are the most current revisions of each part of the language
descriptions?
The versions found on the Lojban File Archive are definitive, except that
the printed version of the Reference Grammar takes precedence over the HTML
version. Working drafts of books in preparation are maintained on lojbab's
home computers, and may be slightly updated from the on-line versions.
18. What projects are being worked on? When will they be done?
The Reference Grammar is of course complete and published.
Dictionary - The draft Lojban dictionary is online, compiled primarily by
lojbab. It needs to have lujvo and cmavo added to it. Volunteers are
welcome at all levels of expertise for lujvo definition work; there are
thousands of words to be defined with more created all the time. Nora
LeChevalier serves as lead on the lujvo definition project. The set of
working files for additions to the dictionary, as of January 2000, may be
found here.
Introduction - John Cowan is leading the effort to produce a new set of
introductory materials that can be published as a cheap book, much less
expensive than our current printed introductory material.
Web site - Veijo Vilva maintains the Helsinki web site. lojbab maintains
the Lojban File Archive and associated web site. xod maintains the Lojban
Web ring, which has sites created by several other Lojbanists. Evgueni
Sklyanin maintains a set of links to Lojban Web pages created by several
others in the Lojban community; copies of this page of links will be kept
on the Lojban File Archive and the Helsinki site because of occasional
connectivity problems to the home site in Russia.
FAQ - lojbab now maintains this FAQ, but wants to delegate the job.
Textbook - a draft of the textbook is available online, but it is out of
date and incomplete. No one is working on it right now; it's considered
fairly low priority until the dictionary is done. The main limitation in
the existing draft is that a lot of beginner texts are needed which are
both interesting and without use of esoteric features of the language.
People tend to move beyond the beginner stage very rapidly once they start
trying to use the language non-trivially, and gew therefore end up able to
confine themselves to the most basic features of the language.
JL and LK - these will resume publication as soon as the LLG address data
base is brought up to date, hopefully sometime during the year 2000.
Changes and additions were recorded on paper for around 6 years without
being entered onto the computer, and we are obliged to account to people
for their money balances. This process will start with the completion of
the Web page update.
Random Sentence Generator - this is being updated to be consistent with the
baselined grammar. The existing program on this site dates back to grammar
2.08, about 8 years old. The update is low priority.
LogFlash 2 - Nora LeChevalier is working on a version of LogFlash for
learning rafsi and lujvo-making. The prior version became unmaintainably
obsolete in 1989.
LogFlash Language Learning research - lojbab gathers data from all
Lojbanists willing to use LogFlash on a systematic basis for a few months.
This data will help prove or disprove the meaningfulness of the recognition
scores used to create Lojban gismu, and may lead to publishable general
research in the field of 2nd language learning. Contact lojbab if interested.
Lojban Adventure - Nick Nicholas translated the text portion of the classic
Colossal Cave text adventure game into Lojban several years ago. At the
time there were plans to update an old Adventure program to support thie
new text, but the current state of adventure game design suggests that
someone use the game engine called Inform (which has a specific manual for
writing adventure games in translation). See the
rec.arts.interactive-fiction FAQ, http://www.davidglasser.net/raiffaq/ and
the interactive.
Eaton Interface - Helen Eaton's 1930s era list of the most frequently used
concepts in 4 European languages has long been a benchmark for completeness
of the Lojban lexicon. Volunteers are welcome to translate 1 or more pages
of words from this list to Lojban. The file eaton.zip contains word lists
by page and proposed TLI Loglan words for each concept (the tanru metaphors
for the proposed TLI words are often very poor, but could spark ideas).
Chrestomathy - This is a collection of translated and original writings
designed to show a wide sampling of a language. We will want to produce one
of these for Lojban after the core language description books are written.
We need translations of texts generally a bit longer than the typical
effort (1000-10000 words), and as wide a variety of texts and styles, from
as many different source languages as possible.
TLI Loglan Interface - If there is ever to be a reunification of the two
Loglan language communities, the first step will necessarily be a
translation interface mapping words and grammar from TLI Loglan to Lojban
(the other direction may also be desirable, but would be more difficult,
and we intend to coalesce the community around the Lojban baseline in any
event). The first step in this, a mapping of gismu and cmavo, has been
done, although there has been no accounting for place structures of the TLI
Loglan gismu, and the work may be slightly outdated. See oldlog.txt for the
work that has been done.
WHEN?
Projects are all being done by volunteers, and therefore will be done when
people finish them. We've promised dates in the past and invariably been
wrong. The priorities are for the dictionary and the introductory materials
book, with the latter more likely to come out earlier than the former.
Publication of books is severely hampered by finances (anyone with money is
welcome to donate!), and the lack of ability to publish in the short term
has tended to hurt motivation and productivity of those working on those
publications.
A News page will contain updates to this list of projects, updated every
1-2 months.
19. What can I do to help?
A few possibilities:
Write in Lojban on the list
Post beginner questions on Lojban List and don't be intimidated
Tell about yourself and your interests (in Lojban preferably, but English
is OK) on Lojban List
Write something in Lojban (Try to write something new - translation of
literature is not generally a good or easy beginner exercise).
Study Lojban vocabulary using LogFlash or flashcards
Come to LogFest in July/August in Fairfax VA (near Washington, DC), USA.
Try expressing yourself in Lojban
Invite others to join a live IRC chat in or about Lojban
Send money to LLG
Keep a diary in Lojban
=============================
HISTORICAL
20. How was the default place structure order of sumti in a selbri
determined? (There does not appear to be any rhyme or reason for the order
of sumti in many gismu. )
They went through a lot of revisions; it's something in between planning
and evolution. There is a considerable amount of system there, but it is
ill-documented.
The nice thing to know is that you don't have to memorize the place
structures. Just using the language, you will come to have a feel for which
places are present, and in what order.
21. How did the gismu get made: discussion, etymology examples?
The full set of etymologies is on the File Server . There isn't a lot of
explanation, but the etymogies in 6 languages and the scoring for each
language are given, in order Chinese/English/Hindi/Spanish/Russian/Arabic -
a 0 score means that the language made no contribution to the word, and
thus its etymological keyword did not matter. The languages were weighted.
While new gismu are not being made, lojbab updates the weighting based on
estimated numbers of first and second language speakers every couple of
years. The original and 1999 weights may be found here.
22. What's the difference between Loglan and Lojban? How is Loglan-82
related? (it's not!)
James Cooke Brown (JCB) came up with the idea of Loglan in the 1940s, and
starting inventing the language around 1955. It's been evolving ever since.
In 1982-4 or so there was a political disagreement and the Loglan community
fell apart. A couple of years later, Bob LeChevalier (lojbab), then working
with JCB, attempted to resurrect the community. This led to a falling out
based on JCB's proprietary intellectual property claims on the language.
The community split into two efforts, with JCB at the head of of the rump
effort, The Loglan Institute (TLI), and (lojbab) at the head of the other,
the Logical Language Group (LLG). The latter is Lojban, which LLG (backed
up by a court decision) considers a subcategory of Loglan. JCB has recently
retired as leader of TLI - he is 79 years old, and it is unclear if the
rump organization has leadership capable of sustaining the effort. A more
lengthy discussion of the issues can be found here, and in older issues of
ju'i lobypli
lojbab makes occasional efforts to spark discussion that would lead to
reunification of the efforts behind Lojban (no consideration will be given
to abandoning the Lojban baseline).
Loglan-82 is a completely unrelated computer language developed in Poland
by people unaware of the existence of the Loglan/Lojban project.
23. Why does it have a special meaning when the selbri comes first?
In Loglan it used to be a command, but now we use either ko or
attitudinals. In a poi broda phrase it's likely that you'll want x1 to be
ke'a and to explicitly state x2. If V-initial weren't special, and if
syntax within a poi clause were consistent with sentence-level syntax, then
you'd have toexplicitly use fe or zo'e or ke'a to get to the x2. For
example, now we say
le nanmu poi prami mi
and the x1 of prami is elided,and we can assume it's ke'a, which here
equals le nanmu. Without this special treatment of V-initial, we'd have to say
le nanmu poi prami ke'a mi
or
le nanmu poi ke'a prami mi
or
le nanmu poi ke'a mi prami.
So: it saves 2 syllables in what's arguably the most common way of using
poi. May or may not be worth it, depending on how you value word order
flexibility vs. brevity. In general it lets you easily get to x2 in
sentences without an x1.
24. Why are there so many words for AND? Why not just let {.e} connect two
sumti, bridi, bridi-tails, or anything else?
We use different connectives for different scopes. Doing so helps the
listener keep track of what exactly the speaker wants connected. This is
much more important in speech than in text, because in text you can reread
and ponder. If you have a multi-part nested sumti joined to another
multi-part nested sumti, having clear indicators of scope may make the
sentence understandable when otherwise it is not. It is therefore hoped
that spoken Lojban and written Lojban can be similar in level of
complexity. (You know, audiovisual isomorphism).
----
lojbab ***NOTE NEW ADDRESS*** lojbab@lojban.org
Bob LeChevalier, President, The Logical Language Group, Inc.
2904 Beau Lane, Fairfax VA 22031-1303 USA 703-385-0273
Artificial language Loglan/Lojban:
see Lojban WWW Server: href=" http://xiron.pc.helsinki.fi/lojban/ "
Order _The Complete Lojban Language_ - see our Web pages or ask me.
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