[lojban-beginners] Re: Greetings, and commands

[Rob Speer <rspeer@MIT.EDU>]

On Sat, Feb 01, 2003 at 06:28:32AM +0200, robin wrote:
> Or e'u, if you want to be really polite.

You've just hit on my ranting topic.

Lojban words do not have politeness levels built in (unless the word in
question is "ga'i"). As usage of the language increases, some words may
acquire polite or impolite connotations, but it's wrong to assume that
"e'u" is more polite than "ei" just because their English translations
work that way.

The phrasebook backs me up here when it points out that "ko vecnu mi ti"
is not considered impolite. You could translate it literally as "Sell
this to me", but "I'd like to buy this" would be an equally good
translation.

-- 
mu'o mi'e rab.spir