From mark@kli.org Tue Jul 31 08:18:49 2001 Return-Path: X-Sender: mark@kli.org X-Apparently-To: lojban@yahoogroups.com Received: (EGP: mail-7_2_0); 31 Jul 2001 15:18:48 -0000 Received: (qmail 88608 invoked from network); 31 Jul 2001 15:17:43 -0000 Received: from unknown (10.1.10.26) by l10.egroups.com with QMQP; 31 Jul 2001 15:17:43 -0000 Received: from unknown (HELO pi.meson.org) (162.33.229.2) by mta1 with SMTP; 31 Jul 2001 15:17:42 -0000 Received: (qmail 22613 invoked by uid 1000); 31 Jul 2001 15:17:49 -0000 Date: 31 Jul 2001 15:17:49 -0000 Message-ID: <20010731151749.22612.qmail@pi.meson.org> To: lojban@yahoogroups.com Subject: Speaking Lojban From: "Mark E. Shoulson" >From: Invent Yourself >Date: Tue, 31 Jul 2001 10:41:22 -0400 (EDT) > >On Sun, 29 Jul 2001, Bob LeChevalier-Logical Language Group wrote: > >> Finally, xod DID succeed in making it through the full two days here >> speaking only Lojban, and many others took up the more limited challenge of >> conversing with him in the language. Lojban definitely works! Our >> compliments to xod; may there be more like him next year, now that we know >> it can be done. > >Nora also spoke only Lojban at at Logfest, using English only where her >hostess and Secretary duties forced her to speak to the jbonalka'e. > >It hurt my head, but my intuitive knowledge tripled! I think Nora & I were >at about the same level but Nick was still ahead of us both, speaking so >quickly that I often could not comprehend the sentences. Robin Powell kept >up very well, especially considering that it was his first Logfest. A >great deal of my extended conversation with Nick occurred away from >Logfest when we went at ate dinner at an Ethiopian spot in DC. > >All of us were stumbling along with a literary style of Lojban, >over-formal and over-complex, that would never be applied in conversation. >I am convinced now that spoken Lojban (which, optimally, is used on irc >too) busts the main selbri down to an attitudinal. This is usually >possible. For instance, "mi na birti le du'u" --> "ju'ocu'i". "mi djica le >nu" --> ".au". Our lack of facility with these attitudinals made our >spoken utterances pedantic and imposed that our listeners usually parse >one more set of cmavo pairs they wouldn't otherwise have needed to. I had been practicing mostly the attitudinals, so if you recall I had more trouble with gismu than you, but I think I did a lot of compressing bridi (and whole jufra) down to attitudinals. And we managed to have a decent discussion in Lojban with whole jufra as well. Still, you're right. We were making extremely deeply-nested sentences about {mi jinvi le nu do xusra le nu...} where a few well-placed attitudinals would have done the trick (pe'i, etc). ~mark