So it is only by coincidence that nanmu, ninmu, and nanla seem to have this pattern. I agree, it would be nice if nixli fit the accidental pattern though. In fact, I kind of wish that something less arbitrary in general had been used for the gismu list. Not using the metric that we used might have helped with other little problems as well like similar sounding gismu for similar concepts (which can be confusing). :(
On Tue, Nov 30, 2010 at 7:18 AM, Pan Mistwood
<panmistwood@gmail.com> wrote:
Back when I first dove into learning Lojban, I noticed an apparent
inconsistency with four gismu. And as far as I can tell, there's no
reason for it, but I could be mistaken. So, after much
procrastination, I'm asking about it here. (And as far as I could find
with Google Web search and a search within this group, it hasn't been
brought up before, which is rather surprising to me.)
The gismu "nanmu" virtually means the English "man" or, more
generally, "male humanoid". The gismu "ninmu" virtually means the
English "woman" or "female humanoid". The gismu "nanla" virtually
means the English "boy". Now, I understand that they are not preferred
over the gismu "verba", "remna", and "prenu", but they do exist and
are recognised as Lojbanic gismu.
From those gismu, I can see a pattern. "nanmu" and "nanla" share "na-"
while "nanla" and "nanmu" share "-mu". Following this pattern, the
gismu virtually meaning the English "girl" would be "ninla"; "ni-" as
in "ninmu" and "-la" as in "nanla". However, the gismu is actually
"nixli". My question: as "ninla" is valid gismu syntax, is consistent
with "nanmu", "nanla", and "ninmu", and is not already used to mean
something else, why is "nixli" used instead?
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