Subject: RE: [lojban] Bible translation style question

From: And Rosta <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 28 Jan 2002 15:53:04 +0000

Jay:
#On Mon, 28 Jan 2002, And Rosta wrote:
#> Where I do see a SAE bias is, say, in the choice among the following:
#>
#> 1. lo broda cu brode
#> 2. da broda gi'e brode
#> 3. da ge broda gi brode
#>
#> These are equivalent, but the first is the most favoured and the last the
#> least. Why is that?
#
#Because 3 is the longest option, and anyone with sense is as lazy a typist
#as possible?
#
#And 2 and 3 are another full syllable longer than 1, so I doubt they'd
#even manage to win if you start speaking them.
#
#I am, by the way, only partially serious. Do you happen to have another
#example of SAE bias handy where syllable count or character length or
#simplicity of the cmavo used can't be the cause?

I am rather tuned out of Lojban matters, so don't have other examples
to mind. 

Regarding syllable counting, I think we have to bear in mind the
following:
(1) the phonology of Lojban is such that only a very limited number of 
monosyllabic words were available;
(2) it was impossible for the language designers to know in advance of usage which locutions would be the most favoured and to accordingly
ensure that those locutions would be the shortest

As a result, the choice of which locutions got the shorter forms was to
some extent arbitrary. If usage is then guided by syllable counting then
those arbitrary decisions will get entrenched.

I fully understand the imperatives of brevity, but the mode of usage that
most respects the Lojban design is one that ignores issues of brevity
(for the reasons given above). On the basis of such usage (hopefully not all 
from SAE-speakers) it would eventually become possible to discern which 
locutions SHOULD have had the shortest forms (zipfeanly, being the most 
favoured). According to Lojbab, at such a point it would be possible to 
reassign cmavo and make other revisions, but I personally can't believe that
would ever happen.

--And.