[lojban] Re: Request For Help; non-urgent research request to help Lojban.

[Lindar <lindarthebard@yahoo.com>]

My absolutely fantastic idea that donri/kribacr started and never
finished (or never even started, but definitely came up before I
thought of it [but it's still my idea]) is/was/will be to have groups
of people select topics, and then go through and come up with as many
words related to that topic as possible. I got this idea one day as I
was sticking masking tape to pretty much everything around my
apartment and writing the Lojban word for it in sharpie. I came across
the simple fact that jvs didn't have words for "pot", "kitchen",
"frying pan", etc., so I came up with words for them, and I think at
least "kitchen" (jupku'a) is up there. I tried this again with
computer terminology and it completely failed as nobody could agree
properly on things (like "window", on which I still harshly/
obnoxiously/rudely/insultingly disagree with xorxes).

Rather than having one person sit through some big gehorsenshitfesten
(parden my German) trying to pick out the most common concepts in the
universe, why don't we use the wiki idea and create "conversational
categories" under which we can place words (probably a lot of fu'ivla
and lujvo) relevant to the topic. This will generate a much larger and
relevant body of information, and it's a -much- less daunting task.
For example, I am a recording engineer, so I would be likely to start
a "recording technology" topic, and possibly contribute to the "music"
topic as I would be more likely than anybody else to need/use words
like "Hertz"/"kHz", "microphone", "nearfield monitors", "synthesizer",
"MIDI", "mixing console", "bass", "treble", and I would probably be
more qualified to determine what kind of terminology in Lojban is the
most suitable. I'd also be fairly interested in the "kitchen and
cooking" topic, and I think a great many a newbie would be very
interested in the "household objects" topic, which would probably
include a pointer to the "kitchen and cooking" topic and maybe even a
"bathroom and hygiene" topic. This way people find what interests them
and contribute to topics that they enjoy, which doesn't necessarily
give an accurate picture of common usage based on an average through
world cultures, but definitely gives a good sampling of words to use
in conversation for the types of conversation that people learning
Lojban would have. It works as a double edged sword (of handiness) in
that we have people that are going to enjoy working because they're
learning how to talk about things that interest them by contributing
(which means things are more likely to get added, being that it's fun
and not a chore) -AND- that we have quick 'topic reference'
dictionaries so you can just leave the list open and peak through to
make it easier to carry on conversations about what an arse your
government leader is without having to poke through a list for ten
minutes while the conversation has already passed because you wanted a
word for "idiot" and jvs only had "stupid" as a gloss word for
tolmencre. (Bad example, you get the picture.)

Perhaps we can quickly brainstorm a few major topics just to have
something up on a wiki?

household items
kitchen and cooking
bathroom and hygiene
sports and spectating
automotive and driving
computer ((hot topic, prone to arguments))
music
politics and law
school and education
work and the workplace
friends and family

The idea would be to have a big list of topics (and possibly
subtopics), and on the pages of each we have brief glosses with Lojban
words, with links to a page detailing the place structure, examples of
usage, actual usage example if available, and potentially a relevant
image (for those that learn by seeing and not reading).

Perhaps under "household items" is "garage", and on the page for that
it includes a little link for "see section: automotive and driving",
and perhaps even "garage" is also located under "automotive and
driving" or somesuch.

Neatonifty idea, right?

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