Subject: Re: [lojban] la constructions

From: "Bob LeChevalier (lojbab)" <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 20 Feb 2001 19:21:06 -0500

At 11:50 AM 02/20/2001 +0200, Avital Oliver wrote:
>It took me a while to understand why lojban and LLG are called la lojban.
>and la lojbangirz.
>
>I didn't understand why not la lojbau and la lojbaugri, which are the
>'official' lujvo.

That would be valid.

> But now I realized, that since la constructs must end
>with a consonant and pause,

Not quite correct. "Names" (cmene) must end in a consonant. But it is 
perfectly possible to "call" something via a description, and "la" can be 
used with descriptions to show that they are being used as names. Indeed, 
I would be equally likely to use a description or a proper name, as a 
nickname, if there was a convenient Lojban word for it.

But historically, both the organization name and the language name came 
from English names, and before the details of the language design were yet 
worked out. So we emulated the patterns of TLI Loglan which we were 
replacing. Both "Loglan" and "Lojban" are abbreviations of "logical 
language", the first being derived from English, the second from 
Lojban. lojbangirz is a straight translation of "Logical Language Group" 
which is the legal name of the organization.

>the 'longer' lujvo was chosen.

But the name could have been "lojbangir" to be the same length as a lujvo, 
but at that point the rafsi had not been finalized.

>My question, is if this method is standard for building names?

There is no standard or convention. Do what sounds good to you and your group.

>Would the Israeli Lojban Group be {la brojbogirz.} ?

That would be a valid name and sounds OK to my ear. But I am a native 
English speaker, and may have different aesthetics.

lojbab
--
lojbab [email-masked]
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