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

[Pan Mistwood <panmistwood@gmail.com>]

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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