Subject: Re: [lojban] Onomatopoeia?

From: Ivan A Derzhanski <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 01 Oct 2000 09:39:48 +0300

Rob Speer wrote:
> le bakni cu cusku zo mu
> (The cow says "Five")

Careful with {cusku}. It means `express', and we don't really know
what it is that the cow expresses.

> But if the sound doesn't sound like a Lojban word or if it needs
> to be used as a different part of speech than a quote, it seems
> that it wouldn't work. Here are some things that I don't think
> could be expressed the same way in Lojban - correct me if I'm wrong:
> 
> The fireworks went off with a bang.
> He slammed the door.
> The bow twanged when the archer shot the arrow.

Things like _bang_, _slam_, _twang_ are words (nouns and verbs)
of English first and conventional (!) approximations of natural
sounds afterwards. Or do you perhaps mean nonce onomatopoeia?

> The angry dog said 'Grrr'.
> 
> The last one is interesting because everything works except
> actually quoting 'Grrr'. In Lojban, you can quote [...] text
> from another language and its corresponding sound (zoi).
[...]
> But what language are miscellaneous sounds?

Does it matter? I think {zoi} should work for them also.

--Ivan