Re: Projects

["reverendzow" <reverendzow@yahoo.com>]

--- In lojban@yahoogroups.com, Maggie Turner <lojban-out@l...> wrote:
> Philip Newton wrote:
> 
> > On Fri, 23 Jul 2004 08:27:16 -0000, reverendzow
> <reverendzow@y...> wrote:
> > 
> >>Lastly, a set of ideograms for gismu.
> > 
> > 
> > There've been a couple of attempts at this before;
> one of mine (based
> > on Japanese) is at
> http://shavian.org/lojban/gismu-jap.html , for
> > example. (At least one other is based on Chinese,
> IIRC). Not as
> > official projects, though; more as fun, as I
> understand it.
> > 
> > 
> >>This requires the potential to
> >>make a simple visual system for making lujvo, else
> the phonetic
> >>alphabet could be used for gismu and lujvo as well.
> > 
> > 
> > It would certainly need to allow people to
> differentiate between lujvo
> > and tanru; "glibau" is not the same as "glico
> bangu". (It *is* the
> > same as "gicybau" or "glicybangu", though, by
> definition, so one
> > notation could conceivably represent either.)
> > 
> > 
> >>For instance, what shall we call words that possess
> brivla?
> > 
> > 
> > What do you mean with that? How can a word possess a
> brivla? There are
> > words, some of which are Lojban words, some of which
> are brivla.
> > 
> > 
> >>I have come up with ka'eserafsi, although my
> construction may
> >>be flawed,
> > 
> > 
> > That falls apart into the three words "ka'e se
> rafsi". "da ka'e se
> > rafsi" seems to me to mean something like "X can be
> a word which has
> > rafsi". But only gismu and some cmavo have rafsi;
> brivla in general do
> > not. (The lujvo composed of "ka'e se rafsi" would be
> "ka'erselrafsi",
> > FWIW.)
> > 
> > 
> >>Similarly, it seems the selma'o are named
> >>after the most commonly used elemental cmavo, rather
> than a Lojban
> >>meaning of their function.
> > 
> > 
> > *nods* Those are conventional English names, though.
> > 
> > I do not believe there are any official Lojban names
> for cmavo;
> > indeed, I seem to recall some saying that they hope
> that the Lojban
> > name for e.g. selma'o GOhA does not contain the word
> "go'a".
> > 
> > 
> >>The point is:  it is quite likely that the
> vocabulary needs
> >>serious optimization/reform if widespread adoption
> of
> >>Lojban is to occur.
> > 
> > 
> > The point is: many people have put a lot of effort
> into learning
> > Lojban in its current form. Reforming or optimising
> would render that
> > effort largely useless.
> > 
> 
> It is also hard to see what reforms would be useful.
> It is true that 
> there were glitches in the original gismu generation,
> largely because 
> the lack of a native Chinese speaker lojbanist at the
> time meant that 
> some of the Chinese vocabulary was incorrectly
> lojbanised, but this is a 
> minor issue; the gismu "hooks" are meant to be aids to
> memorisation, not 
> recognition. To give an example of where the process
> worked well, I can 
> remember "cukta" easily because of Chinese "shu",
> English "book" and 
> Arabic "kitap", but none of these would be any help if
> I hadn't seen the 
> word before. There might also have been a case for
> giving English a 
> higher weighting, given that the number of
> second-language English 
> speakers is rising, and seems set to do so for the
> conceivable future, 
> but as Philip points out, it's too late to start
> mucking around with the 
> language for what would probably be very minor gains
> in learnability.
> 
> The only reforms that would significantly increase
> ease of vocabulary 
> learning would also, I think, break the morphology. If
> you want a 
> language with easily recognisable vocabulary, you
> can't have such strict 
> morphology, and if you want to go down that route, you
> may as well 
> choose Esperanto, Interlingua or (God help us)
> Occidental.
> 
> robin.tr
> 

I certainly don't want a recognizable vocabulary at any expense to 
any other aspect of the language.  What I'm pulling for is a 
pronouncable and distinguishable vocabulary, and I'd prefer to avoid 
any association with Esperanto (as I'm sure is a big enough "problem" 
already).  "What's Lojban?"  "Well, it's kinda like Esperanto..."