Subject: RE: [lojban] Bible translation style question

From: "Craig" <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 28 Jan 2002 18:55:14 -0500

>There are more languages in the world than SAE and Hopi!

Of course. However, Hopi is the standard example of a non-SAE language. And
one of the big defining characteristics of SAE, as Whorf explains it, does
seem to be (IMVHO) being unlike Hopi.

>If I remember rightly (and I may not), oligosynthesis is when a language
>possesses a very small and closed morpheme inventory, which morphemes
>may be combined together to form compounds. If that is correct, then
>- ironically - Lojban is probably one of the world's most oligosynthetic
>languages, oligosynthesis being relatively rare, cross-linguistically.

Not at all! The term 'Oligosynthesis' with regard to languages originally
refers to Nahuatl - which, if we accept Whorf's view (the one that first
describes oligosynthesis) has only 35 elements - which is two less then the
number of gismu has for specific animals!

>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?

Might it have something to do with it being the most succinct?

>Or, similarly, while Lojban grammar makes VSO order inherently marked,
>SVO and SOV orders are equally unmarked, yet there is a widespread
>preference in current usage for SVO,

I use SOV whenever it would be as clear as the SVO (there are times when it
wouldn't, but they are not all that frequent)

> even though SOV is (IIRC) the
>most common order, cross-linguistically. Again this is because we are
>all accustomed to SVO order.

Interestingly, I have been reading about 'implicational universals' among
languages, and Lojban is similar to both SVO and SOV languages in other
aspects, but slightly closer to SVO.