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

You're not crazy, but most articles I've seen on this topic restrict claims to 'semantic primitives' or 'baby talk.' This paper proposes something along these lines:

http://www.jstor.org/pss/223394

It's not surprising that one of the most 'primitive/baby talk' gismu score among the highest: matma. This is perhaps one of the most universally similar words. (I recall that labial consonants often replace the "m" for father in most languages. In English "m" becomes "f" or "p" (papa, pop), chinese "mama" becomes "baba" etc.)

Another one I recall hearing but can't cite is that concepts relating to light often has a "gl," "lu" or "gu" phoneme; English has lots of "glint/glimmer/glow/gleam/glitter" words, chinese is "guang," latin is "lum" etc. ...and lojban is { gusni } !

co'o

On Tue, Nov 30, 2010 at 16:12, Zifre <kmicklas@gmail.com> wrote:

I am actually very glad that the gismu were generated as they are
(although in this case, consistency in the accidental pattern would
have been nice). Knowing English, a lot of Spanish, and a fair amount
of Chinese, I constantly see these words in the gismu. I don't think
it has ever thrown me off, but it has definitely helped me a lot. I
don't think I would remember {jarco} if it didn't have {co} in it,
along with a number of other words. I think {prenu} is by far the
easiest to remember gismu, because I can see "person", "persona", and
人 ("rén") in there. :-)

Also, for some reason I think the sound of the Lojban gismu fit nicely
with how I think of the words. It's kind of hard to explain, but it's
sort of like how some people have names that really seem to fit their
personality, and others don't. I have a hypothesis that this
understanding is somewhat universal, and that by combining words from
various languages, Lojban has extracted the sounds that fit well with
each concept. Maybe I'm completely wrong and it's just confirmation
bias, though. ;-)

mu'o mi'e zif

On Nov 30, 12:38 pm, John E Clifford <kali9pu...@yahoo.com> wrote:
> The original reasoning behind the gismu construction program was that this would
> give words that were easier for a greater number of people to learn, since they
> would see bits of their own language in them. Though this was a proposal by a
> social psychologist, it was never tested. Anecdotal evidence all over the place
> on the topic, with a tendency, however, to note that the "seeing a familiar word
> in a gismu" led as often as not to the *wrong* association. This result has
> also never been tested, of course, but is a familiar problem in rote
> memorization. The familiar solutions of grouping attern recognition, and the
> like have never had much traction in Logjam.
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> ----- Original Message ----

> From: Pan Mistwood <panmistw...@gmail.com>
> To: lojban <lojban@googlegroups.com>
> Sent: Tue, November 30, 2010 11:18:36 AM
> Subject: [lojban] Re: Question about apparent inconsistency with "nixli".
>
> 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?
>
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> > --
> > Oren Robinson
> > (315) 569-2888
> > 102 Morrison Ave
> > Somerville, MA 02144
>
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