Speaking Lojban (was: LogFest news

[Invent Yourself <xod@sixgirls.org>]

On Sun, 29 Jul 2001, Bob LeChevalier-Logical Language Group wrote:

> Finally, xod DID succeed in making it through the full two days here
> speaking only Lojban, and many others took up the more limited challenge of
> conversing with him in the language. Lojban definitely works!  Our
> compliments to xod; may there be more like him next year, now that we know
> it can be done.



Nora also spoke only Lojban at at Logfest, using English only where her
hostess and Secretary duties forced her to speak to the jbonalka'e.

It hurt my head, but my intuitive knowledge tripled! I think Nora & I were
at about the same level but Nick was still ahead of us both, speaking so
quickly that I often could not comprehend the sentences. Robin Powell kept
up very well, especially considering that it was his first Logfest. A
great deal of my extended conversation with Nick occurred away from
Logfest when we went at ate dinner at an Ethiopian spot in DC.

All of us were stumbling along with a literary style of Lojban,
over-formal and over-complex, that would never be applied in conversation.
I am convinced now that spoken Lojban (which, optimally, is used on irc
too) busts the main selbri down to an attitudinal. This is usually
possible. For instance, "mi na birti le du'u" --> "ju'ocu'i". "mi djica le
nu" --> ".au". Our lack of facility with these attitudinals made our
spoken utterances pedantic and imposed that our listeners usually parse
one more set of cmavo pairs they wouldn't otherwise have needed to.



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