Use fu'ivla more (was Re: [lojban] Supporting Lojbanic babies.)

[Robin Lee Powell <rlpowell@digitalkingdom.org>]

On Tue, Nov 01, 2011 at 10:06:38AM -0600, Jonathan Jones wrote:
> On Tue, Nov 1, 2011 at 3:57 AM, Robin Lee Powell <
> rlpowell@digitalkingdom.org> wrote:
> 
> >
> > 3.  The birth story is somewhat unusual and interesting.  Would
> > you be interested in hearing it, in Lojban?  I was thinking of
> > doing it on IRC, so it could be preserved for posterity; would
> > someone be willing to turn it into something readable?  I would
> > need a variety of vocab, in particular words for "labour" and
> > "labour contraction" and "cervical dilation".  fu'ivla seem like
> > decent choices there. Or, hell, cmevla.  We don't use cmevla
> > enough for highly technical things around here.
> >
> 
> I'm rather busy with college right now, so I can't help in either
> of those areas currently, but I am interested, and considering
> this is a long-term deal, my ability, time constraints, etc. will
> no doubt change. I don't see why you think fu'ivla or cmevla are
> preferable to lujvo, though.

Lujvo should only be used, IMO, when you need more than one place
from the relevant gismu.  If all you *actually* want is "x1 is a
foobie [of type x2]", that's a fu'ivle or cmevla.  I can imagine
that a word for "labour contraction" with an actual interesting
place structure could be made ("x1 is having contractions x2 minutes
apart lasting for x3 minutes each" OSLT), but it's far from
necessary, and none of those places leap out to me as being gismu
places *anyways*.

IOW, if you can't look at the *place structure* and say "that's a
place from gasnu, and that's two places from krici, and that's two
places from kubli", then what you have is not naturally a lujvo
style place structure, and you should consider not using lujvo.

Many many many specific/technical terms people try to make lujvo for
shouldn't be, IMO.  Pretty much all computer stuff, for starters;
"x1 is a motherboard" is all you want out of a word for
"motherboard", which means you're not going to use any of the places
of the 5 gismu you tacked together to make a lujvo for that, so it
shouldn't be a lujvo.

When you only expect to need the word for this current conversation,
you can and should (IMO) use cmevla instead.  "ry lifri pa la
kyntraktcyn" is (if that's a legal cmevla) perfectly fine for one
conversation; unless we're starting the Lojban obstetrical
department, who fucking cares?

Those of you who have known me for a long time, xorxes especially,
will note that this is a significant reversal of my previous stance.
I think it's about how much time you've spent trying to actually
spin whole sentences in Lojban in real time; IME most people who
have done a lot of that start to develop a fondness for fu'ivla.

I also think we, as a community, need to have less of a bug up our
ass about picking the "right" natlang word for fu'ivla.  First off,
who cares if there's a bunch of English-based words floating around?
The won't sound like English after the conversion, and if it bothers
you, make your next fu'ivla from german, or swahili.  Secondly, why
not do it based on Lojban?  Look at a few relevant gismu or lujvo,
and make it sound like them.  Avoids the whole problem very
effectively.

-Robin

-- 
http://singinst.org/ :  Our last, best hope for a fantastic future.
Lojban (http://www.lojban.org/): The language in which "this parrot
is dead" is "ti poi spitaki cu morsi", but "this sentence is false"
is "na nei".   My personal page: http://www.digitalkingdom.org/rlp/

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