From lojbab@lojban.org Fri Feb 18 11:23:18 2000 X-Digest-Num: 368 Message-ID: <44114.368.2008.959273826@eGroups.com> Date: Fri, 18 Feb 2000 14:23:18 -0500 From: "Bob LeChevalier (lojbab)" Subject: Re: RE: Re[2]: Dr. James Cooke Brown At 05:26 PM 02/18/2000 +0300, Vjacxeslav' Ivanov' wrote: > > > From: Vjacxeslav' Ivanov' >.. > > > Yes, uniting WOULD BE... But how is it possible? The only way > > > is to absorbe one community by another, but this way is close, > > > because ekzemple me - I will hardly relearn from the very > > > beginning to Lojban - the same will say most of lojbanists, I > > > think. > > > > > > So, uu, our ways are parallel... >.. > > choosing some appropriate lexical indicator at the start of the text > > one could indicate whether one were writing Loglan in classical or Lojban > > mode. A stage beyond that would be to define word-for-word equivalences > > between the Lojban and classical Loglan lexicons. > >Can such equivalents be found, if the classical and lojban grammars have >differences, as I understand? The classical and lojban grammars have some minor differences, but in the direction of classical to Lojban the differences can be dealt with very simply and mechanically. There are several features in Lojban that have not yet been added to TLI Loglan, both lexicon and grammar, and thus translating from Lojban to classical grammar is not always easy. For example, the direct word for word substitution: Hue Slavik ja lentaa la Loglan mi'e slavik noi banta'a la loglan is identical in meaning. Lojban on the other hand has optional aspectual tenses (like Russian) as well as simple tenses, and no doubt Slavik can understand that there can be difficulties in translating both perfective and imperfective tenses into the simple tenses of the classical language. Lojban also has a large number of attitudinals beyond the classical ones. TLI Loglan adopted the same solution as did Lojban for ad hoc attitudinals: soi crano sei cisma But Lojbanists usually use "zo'o" to express humor, with optional modifiers for intensity (as in %^), "ROTL", and "ROTLMAO" for varying intensities of Usenet humor) > The idea is rather interesting. For example, I can start my speeches by > smth. like "Hue Slavik ja lentaa la Loglan" :)) Or we shall invent a > "little word" for this... Though in Loglan most l-initial little words > are already "articles". The classical language has limits in the number of little words/cmavo, which Lojban overcame serendipitously with the diphthong splitting apostrophe. (The apostrophe was originally added because we felt that the ambiguous diphthongs were an unacceptable feature - this is the question as to whether a compound like "laglii" would be pronounced /lag,LI,i/ or /LAG,lii/, as well as whether there was a meaningful difference between "eo" and "ei,o" - we used the comma to distinguish glided syllables the latter as does TLI in pronunciation guides, but raised it above to an apostrophe to indicate a devoiced glide, which sounds like "h" to English speakers. The fact that it increased the number of VV pairs when nearly all possible little words were in use was a pleasant side effect.) Incidentally, the latter discussion points out the one problem with the "hoa" and "xo'a" introducers of the other language/dialect - while the two words look different in print, in speech they would likely be heard as the same word in either version, and thus be ineffective at indicating a change in dialect. Indeed, in our alternate orthography originally established to make rapprochement based on Lojban more attractive to the TLI Loglan community, the alternate orthography form of "xo'a" is exactly "hoa". lojbab >Hue Slavik, ji le ruski. >============= >Spopa rana! >http://loglan.chat.ru ---- lojbab lojbab@lojban.org Bob LeChevalier, President, The Logical Language Group, Inc. 2904 Beau Lane, Fairfax VA 22031-1303 USA 703-385-0273 Artificial language Loglan/Lojban: http://www.lojban.org (newly updated!)