From Ti@fa-kuan.muc.de Thu Jun 01 13:26:49 2000 Return-Path: Received: (qmail 21260 invoked from network); 1 Jun 2000 20:26:49 -0000 Received: from unknown (10.1.10.26) by m4.onelist.org with QMQP; 1 Jun 2000 20:26:49 -0000 Received: from unknown (HELO qg.egroups.com) (10.1.2.27) by mta1 with SMTP; 1 Jun 2000 20:26:49 -0000 Received: (qmail 32394 invoked from network); 1 Jun 2000 20:26:49 -0000 Received: from n11.onelist.org (HELO c3.egroups.com) (10.1.10.50) by iqg.egroups.com with SMTP; 1 Jun 2000 20:26:49 -0000 X-eGroups-Return: Ti@fa-kuan.muc.de Received: from [10.1.10.30] by c3.egroups.com with NNFMP; 01 Jun 2000 20:26:48 -0000 Date: Thu, 01 Jun 2000 20:26:41 -0000 To: lojban@egroups.com Subject: Re: rafsi - the Lakhota way? Message-ID: <8h6gu1+s54n@eGroups.com> In-Reply-To: User-Agent: eGroups-EW/0.82 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Content-Length: 2294 X-Mailer: eGroups Message Poster From: "=?iso-8859-1?q?Alfred_W._T=FCting?=" > JCB's official story, I remember, was that he got the idea from German, > where, he claims a German friend told him, no one needs a dictionary, because > all the words bear their meaning on their face. In German you can get away > with pretty much running two words (or twenty) together unchanged... In German, there are no rafsi-like pieces (i.e. smaller parts of root words). But like in Hungarian, one is able to add lots of different pre- and affixes to a root word, thus creating many different words - yet(!) usually you are not allowed to create *new* words using this method! - I'm talking of examples like: kommen (come), be-kommen (get), auf-kommen (get up, arise etc.), aus-kommen (come out, break out - animal etc., get along with - friends etc., do without ...), vorkommen (come infront, occur, it seems to me ...). You might realize that one has to learn each single expression to really get the meaning of it (so you indeed will have need of a dictionary). Creating *new* words and expressions is like in Chinese, Hungarian - but one only is allowed to connect entire words (because there aren't rafsi-like pieces!). What JCB's friend might have had in mind most probably referred to the homogeneous vocabulary of German (Hungarian and lots of other languages too): e.g. K=F6nig/kiraly (king), Koenigin/kiralyn=F6 (queen), k=F6niglich/kiralyi (royal) etc. All German words "bear their meaning on their face": Yes, if you know the word ;-) (like in every language you're familiar with!). There's a nice Yiddish joke: "Tate (Daddy), for what reason are Lokshe called by 'Lokshe' (kind of noodle dish)?" And the son's father replied: "'Yingele' (my little boy/son), they look like Lokshe, they smell like Lokshe, they taste like Lokshe - why shouldn't they then also be called by 'Lokshe'?!" But it's true: psycho-linguistically, every word you're familiar with in language, is bearing a special 'face'. E.g. pronouncing German 'Blitz' evokes a different picture in my mind than pronouncing the English word 'lightning'! (a sudden zig-zag vs. a short shine of light in the sky). co'o mi'e .aulun. BTW, like in Lojban, in Lakhota there is only I and you (mi, do), but he/she/it is expressed by different means.