Subject: RE: sts- [was: RE: [lojban] Brochure updates

From: Nick NICHOLAS <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 22 Aug 2001 17:26:12 -0700 (PDT)

cu'u la kreig.

>I wasn't actually looking to learn an artificial language, but lojban seemed
>to offer more than even any natural languages - and esperanto seemed like
>another natural language that happened not to be natural.

To a hell of a lot of people, of course, that naturalness of Esperanto is
a feature, not a bug.
That's their quite valid choice, and denigrating it is pointless: Lojban
is not in competition with Esperanto, in any sane sense of the word.

And buffer vowel or no buffer vowel, the fact that we can have clusters
as crunchy as ml- and mr- and -rnl- in the first place means Lojban is
hardly well-equipped for a urination competition with Esperanto. After
all, who on earth would be primarily attracted to Lojban because of
*euphony* --- and then not run screaming the first time they see a {ce'u}?

>Question for Esperantists: Is a female eunuch a neutrino?

(a) Esperanto tries to cut down on such ambiguity, and discourages it far
more than natural languages, but hasn't eliminated it, and is under no
pressing compulsion to. If you want Lojban... uh, looks like you already
found it. :-)

(b) {neuxtro} is {lo ka nutli}, not {lo nutli}; while {neuxtrino} could be
construed as "female neutral", anyone who actually uses the language would
insert the personal suffix -ul- first:
{neuxtrulino}. ({Virgino} is not a counterexample, it is 'poetical',
experimental, and daft.) So no, a female eunuch is not a neutrino. Joke
won't work; sorry.

Nicxjo Nicholas, diplomito de la Klereca Diplomo de la Auxstralia
Esperanto-Asocio, kaj ekssekretario de la Junulara Auxstralia Grupo
Esperantista.

-- 
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Nick Nicholas, Breathing {le'o ko na rivbi fi'inai palci je tolvri danlu}
[email-masked] -- Miguel Cervantes tr. Jorge LLambias