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

[Michael Turniansky <mturniansky@gmail.com>]

On Tue, Nov 30, 2010 at 12:16 PM, Pan Mistwood <panmistwood@gmail.com> wrote:
> You know, I had my suspicion these were generated using some
> algorithm. I have to admit that while I'm still intrigued by Lojban's
> syntax, I'm less thrilled about this particular aspect of the
> language. Don't get me wrong; I suppose I can understand the reasoning
> behind trying to generate words in that way seeing as Lojban aims at
> being an international auxiliary language. Still, my interest in the
> syntax will keep me encouraged to learn the language, despite several
> words I'd propose for a change if I was in charge. Thank you for your
> feedback!
>

   About 18 years ago,  during the many many many many (where was I?
Oh yes) nights sitting in the dark in a rocking chair, trying to get
my crying baby to sleep (and during the 11 years after, with his 4
siblings), I crafted the hypothetical language "Langun", which was
basically identical to Loglan (I hadn't yet heard of lojban, but I had
learned Loglan in the mid 70s) in its grammar and "little words"
(called "cmavo" in lojban), but whose primitives ("gismu" in lojban)
were derived from the four languages I was at least semi-fluent in --
English, Yiddish, Hebrew and Spanish, all being given equal weighting
(later I tried also adding in ASL (using ASCII-Stokoe notation), but
it changed only a single vocabulary word, and lowered the "recognition
scores" for all the words, so I dropped it).  Anyhow, the six primary
sanguinous familial relationships -- mother, father, sister, brother,
daughter, son -- ended up being MATRA, FATRA, SATRA, BATRA, XATRA [1]
and BINSO respectively.  Now, admittedly, there were many other words
that scored identically (the side-effect of equal weighting), so I was
influenced in no small degree to choose those alternatives that fit
the pattern, but there was no way I could lever a word for "son" into
it.  *shrug*

  (As long as I'm hijacking this thread for Langun, a few more
interesting (?) factoids about it:
* The word for queen is KINGA, but the word for king is MELKI
* The word DATKA means exactly the same as it does in lojban, the only
Langun word which has this property
* The word KATSO has the highest recognition score.  You guess what it
means.  (This was also the only word that changed when I tried adding
in ASL  -- to GATSO)
 * The vocabulary was never considered "finished", as it was just an
exercise to do in the dark, and  my command of three of the base
languages was limited, such that I would often be able to think of how
to say word X in say, two of them, but not the third (which one varied
depending on the word in question), which I would sometimes look up
later, after putting the kid in his crib, but sometimes not.  All
told, there was, I think about 125 words crafted.
 )
             --gejyspa
[1] Yes, I did have X, despite Loglan not having it when I learned it.
 As 3 of my four base languages had the sound, I thought it necessary.
 Plus I had heard anecdotally through my brother that Loglan had added
X for the sound at some point in the past.

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