From iad@math.bas.bg Mon Feb 22 11:56:40 1999
X-Digest-Num: 70
Message-ID: <44114.70.381.959273824@eGroups.com>
Date: Mon, 22 Feb 1999 11:56:40 -0800
From: Ivan A Derzhanski <iad@math.bas.bg>
Subject: Re: live cultures (was: Promoting Lojban)

Robin Turner wrote:
> Ivan A Derzhanski wrote:
> > [...] it would be damn hard to get [rhyme and scansion]
> > in Lojban.
>
> {.ienaicai} Metre is not a problem because you can insert
> or delete cmavo as you see fit!

Well, not quite as you see fit.

> Rhyming is easier in Lojban than in English.

Actually, many years ago I did make a rhyming dictionary
of Lojban gismu with the express purpose of trying some
Lojban poetry, but didn't get around to using it at the
time, and then I got into Elvish and Klingon. I suppose
what I found inconvenient about Lojban as a vehicle for
poetry was its verbosity, the number of syllables it takes
to say a simple thing. 'Course, Lojban makes up for that
by providing concise ways of saying things that can take
paragraphs to explain in a typical natlang.

> > We can't reconstruct the exact sound of Latin, but that
> > doesn't mean that we have no idea what it wasn't like.
> 
> The point is that because we can't reconstruct the exact sound,
> people aren't so bothered about what you sound like (at least
> at secondary school!).

Though perhaps they should.

> No native speaker can criticise or make fun of your accent
> (same goes for Lojban in spades, of course).

It doesn't take a native speaker to criticise, or even make fun
of, an accent. I'm never inclined to be kind to the habit that
some (?) English speakers have of pronouncing open-syllable /o/
as [oU], whether they do it in Bulgarian, Italian, Hawai`ian,
Latin or Quenya.

> > > [English] is certainly expressive, having more words
> > > than any other language
> >
> > What exactly does that mean, and how do you know that it is so?
> > I don't see how it can make sense to say that one language has
> > more words than another.
[...]
> I think English has a larger total vocabulary than most
> other languages, [...]

`Ruhbân, "Şu benim sakalımın kaç kılı var?" deyince, Hoca
"say benim eşeğimin kuyruğunda kaç kıl var ise, ol kadardır".
Ruhbân razı olmaz. Hoca "Eğer razı olmazsan gel bir kıl
sakalından bir kıl eşeğin kuyruğundan koparalım. Nasıl gelir?"
dedikte, ruhbân gördü ki olur iş değil.'

(Feel free to translate this into Lojban.) I see that you
have added `I think' and substituted `most' for `any', so I
won't press the issue, although I still don't think that the
statement is a particularly meaningful one.

> Also, the students I teach have to learn speacialised
> vocabulary (for Political Science and International Relations)
> and I'm pretty sure English has a lot more of this.

Possibly. Otoh, Nivkh certainly has more words related to fish
and fishing than English has ever dreamt of.

--Ivan