Re: [lojban] Alice essay

[Wuzzy <almikes@aol.com>]

I don’t know how to write an essay but I am halfway through reading the
text in Lojban.

From what I can say so far is that the text has many, many mistakes. I
have made a personal list of this while reading the text; At some
point, I think, I just gave up counting.

Here is a summary of what I’ve found so far:
- A few simple spelling mistakes.
- “sai” is used in awkward places sometimes, like after a “na”. It
  parses, but the meaning is undefined according to CLL
- the strange construction “po'onai” is used somewhere, its meaning is
  undefined AFAIK
- The ungrammatical construction “ka'enai” is used several times
- There are multiple cases of sumti raising:
    “oiro’a oiro’a mi lerci”
      x1 is for an event, not a rabbit
    “ko ko ciksi”
      x2 does not allow a person
    “ei mi mi kajde lo’e since (…)”
      x1 and x3 are for events, not for persons or animals
    “oi ko mi na fanza”
      x1 expects an event, not a person
      Suggestion: “oi ko fi mi na fazgau”
    “le reda fenki”
      Not sure, probably “two crazy ones” are meant, but “fenki” is for
      crazy events, not for crazy persons
    “i la alis nasai jinvi le du’u la’e di’u cu je’urja’o”
      x1 should be an agent. You also see the awkward “nasai”
      construction in action here.
- It seems the word “da” was sometimes intended to be used over a
  sentence’s border, which is not directly allowed in Lojban
- the quotation marks for the songs in chapter xa are missing
- “krefu” is written “KREFU” (in all-caps) on two occasions. Lojban
  does not allow writing like that
- a LOT of lujvo (see appendix) were coined, many of them do not have
  dictionary entries yet and are not declared nonce words with “za'e”.
  Sorry, this is NOT the sane way to introduce lujvo into the language.
  Lujvo are intended to have a fixed definition as contrast to tanru.
  But a lujvo is pointless if it isn’t defined; you could as well have
  used a tanru. Things become complicated if someone not knowing about
  the alis text writes a definition for one of these lujvo; it may or
  may not be in the sense of the text. Sadly, that may already have
  happened for some lujvo. This problem has a quick fix: Add “za'e” in
  front of all lujvo in question. If that seems awkward to you, fall
  back to tanru. And no, I am not talking about obvious lujvo with SE,
  NAhE, NA, etc.
- I found 3 undefined fu'ivla so far. The same problems as for undefined
  lujvo apply.
- For some reason, the text uses “’” instead ob “'”. The CLL says “'”
  is used and never uses “’”.

Additionally, some experimental words are used: I noticed “gumri” and
“mu'ei” so far. You may think about experimental words what you want,
but you can’t truthfully call your text to be in Lojban if you use any,
but rather in a dialect of Lojban (maybe call it “experimental
Lojban”?).


So long,
Wuzzy.

== Appendix ==
Incomplete list of undefined brivla:
- jivni			(“jinvi”?)
- titpa			(???)
- pikca			(“pikci”?)
- sarju			(???)
- tordi			(“tordu”?)
- damre			(???)
- dorni			(“donri”?)
- jukpe			(“jukpa”?)
- gunkybifce
- re'azbil
- kakcmo
- cfafanmo
- benxai
- flara'a
- kixsku
- xersku
- jetsku
- cfacku
- dzikla
- clazengau
- sipygau
- fegygau
- galvi'a
- titydja
- geirkrixa
- zbikre
- dricmo
- ricmei
- gerpanzi
- proki'u
- nolpratra
- cabycerni
- sezmerli
- jaurjanci
- jmaji'o
- vruva'u
- gapfa'a
- purcedra		(sounds like “history”; not sure)
- kalsygau
- tolmo'izu'e
- xersmadi
- daupro
- tolmilxe
- tolfadni
- tolmorji
- dutselfarbi'o
- karbi'o
- brebi'o
- xrebi'o
- sipfru
- fagystizu
- gerpanzi		(dog-child?)
- posycu'a
- sincycau		
- fityti'i
- stuzrlongitudi	(longitude?)
- stuzrlatitudi		(latitude?)
- rirxyxirma		(hippo? but which species?)
- cipnrxakuila		(eagle? but which species?)
- tcicymlatu		(obviously that’s the chesire cat, this one
			may be an exception)

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