[lojban] Re: Question about apparent inconsistency with "nixli".

[Pan Mistwood <panmistwood@gmail.com>]

OK, your detailed explanation shows why the algorithm would have
resulted in the words it did. A pity such patterns were overlooked
with the method used to generate the gismu. Anyway, thank you!


On Nov 30, 8:03 am, Oren <get.o...@gmail.com> wrote:
> coi pan,
>
> The patterns weren't designed that way. Gismu were all generated to
> approximate common words (with weights for more spoken languages) from the
> six original source languages. It just so happens that:
>
> English:"man", Chinese"nanren", Arabic: "nsan" etc..-> { nanmu }
> Chinese"nanhai", Spanish "ninio," Arabic: "uladn" etc.. -> { nanla }
>
> I guess the abundance of "nan"-like syllables in natural languages was in
> part to the (weighted) chinese character "nan" (男) that's in both of them,
> in conjunction with similar coincidental syllables in other heavily weighted
> languages.
>
> The female counterpart "ni" (女) character seems to have also influenced the
> female gismus, but without as much agreement on that second consonant.
>
> Hope that clears it up a little!
>
> co'o
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> On Tue, Nov 30, 2010 at 07:18, Pan Mistwood <panmistw...@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?
>
> > --
> > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups
> > "lojban" group.
> > To post to this group, send email to lojban@googlegroups.com.
> > To unsubscribe from this group, send email to
> > lojban+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com<lojban%2Bunsubscribe@googlegroups.com>
> > .
> > For more options, visit this group at
> >http://groups.google.com/group/lojban?hl=en.
>
> --
> Oren Robinson
> (315) 569-2888
> 102 Morrison Ave
> Somerville, MA 02144

-- 
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "lojban" group.
To post to this group, send email to lojban@googlegroups.com.
To unsubscribe from this group, send email to lojban+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com.
For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/lojban?hl=en.