#1744
1:19 AM Fri 1 Oct 99
 Subject:  Re: Turkey  (Re: [lojban] cecla fanta flalu)
 From:  Bob LeChevalier (lojbab)

From: "Bob LeChevalier (lojbab)" lojba-@lojban.org

At 06:04 PM 9/30/99 -0700, Ivan A Derzhanski wrote:
> > > Still, even Turks are used to seeing "Turkey" (or "Turk*") in just
> > > about every other Latin-alphabet orthography.  That can't be a
> > > coincidence; /y/ is close to /i/ in other languages as well.
> >
> > No, it's not a coincidence; they all copied the spelling and not the
> > pronunciation. It's up to Lojban to set the world straight zo'o.
>
>What spelling did `they all' copy?  The Roman form _Trkiye_, which
>didn't exist until 1921?  The Ottoman <turkIyeH>, which uses the same
>diacritic for _u_ and __?  The spelling in Turkic runes, where the
>letter __ has nothing in common with either _i_ or _u_?
>
>(Btw, in Bulgarian and Russian, where Turkish __ is usually rendered
>as _ju_, Turkey is called _Turcija_, and a distinction is made between
>_tur(k)-_ `Turkish' and the more recent _tjurk-_ `Turkic'.)
>
>The point is that the form /turk/ as an alternative of /tyrk/ (IPA)
>in those languages where /y/ is not a separate phoneme is a good deal
>older than any spelling that `they all' could have copied.  It may
>have to do with the fact that in Arabic (and Semitic in general)
>/u/ does have front(ed) allophones, while /i/ has no rounded ones.
>In any case, it is a result of the objective conditions of the
>relevant linguistic environment.  Should Lojban's arbitrary
>conventions take precedence over that?

Which arbitrary conventions are these?  The determining factor should be
what the people want themselves to be called.  There is precedent for
Lojban emulating either the pronunciation and the common spelling with
people going different ways on the matter.  Robin can ask his native wife
and perhaps some others whether they would prefer to be called la turk or
la tirk or la trk (adding a lojbanization of one of the endings as
appropriate - I gather that up through the k is the essential root)

lojbab



----
lojbab                     ***NOTE NEW ADDRESS***           lojba-@lojban.org
Bob LeChevalier, President, The Logical Language Group, Inc.
2904 Beau Lane, Fairfax VA 22031-1303 USA               703-385-0273
Artificial language Loglan/Lojban:
   see Lojban WWW Server: href=" http://xiron.pc.helsinki.fi/lojban/ "
   Order _The Complete Lojban Language_ - see our Web pages or ask me.

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#1745
1:30 AM Fri 1 Oct 99
 Subject:  Re: order  of time elements in date-time groups
 From:  Bob LeChevalier (lojbab)

From: "Bob LeChevalier (lojbab)" lojba-@lojban.org

At 09:24 PM 9/30/99 -0400, bestat-@aol.com wrote:
> >  de'i li 29/09/99 ti'u li 8:34 la xorxes cusku di'e
>
>The order of the time elements in dates and times should be consistent, all
>increasing in size or all decreasing.  Thus if a date is given as 29/09/99,
>as in the above example, then the time after it should be given as 34:8.
>Conversely, if the time is taken as the standard, then the date should be
>99/09/29.
>
>I prefer the latter order, because all our place-value number systems give
>the largest elements first and decrease to the smallest.
>
>My understanding is that Lojban gives the smallest unit first because it's
>easier to leave off the others when they are unnecessary.  To me this is not
>a compelling reason to be inconsistent, especially in a language which is
>consistent to an extreme.

If Lojban were only a written language, that type of argument would be
fine.  But the conventions of spoken forms in most languages are to
ellipsize unneeded information whenever possible to save breath and
time.  Lojban's unambiguity requires that ellipsis be regularized, and that
regularization has been that trailing information is omitted.

To follow the ISO standard would condemn Lojbanists to having to state the
full year and month every time they want to give a date, and likewise the
time to the second whenever they want to give a time.  Imagine in English
having to say "I have a doctors appointment on One thousand Nine hundred
Ninety Nine, October first, at eleven hours and zero minutes and zero
seconds." vs. "I have an appointment on the first at eleven."

lojbab
----
lojbab                     ***NOTE NEW ADDRESS***           lojba-@lojban.org
Bob LeChevalier, President, The Logical Language Group, Inc.
2904 Beau Lane, Fairfax VA 22031-1303 USA               703-385-0273
Artificial language Loglan/Lojban:
   see Lojban WWW Server: href=" http://xiron.pc.helsinki.fi/lojban/ "
   Order _The Complete Lojban Language_ - see our Web pages or ask me.

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#1746
12:42 AM Sat 2 Oct 99
 Subject:  Joining the Lojban  webring
 From:  xod
From: xod xo-@bway.net





John Arley Burns asked me how to join the Lojban Webring, but his email address bounces. Therefore, for his benefit and yours too:




Start at http://decadezero.org/lojban_webring.html and click on the link to join! .i ko mrilu fo mi mu'i do se nabmi




ki'e co'o





-----
 Perpetual Progress, Self-Transformation, Practical Optimism, Intelligent Technology, Open Society, Self-Direction, and Rational Thinking.




http://extropy.com/










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#1747
11:10 AM Sat 2 Oct 99
 Subject:  mela senva tcadu  pavomo'o
 From:  michael helsem
From: "michael helsem" graywyver-@hotmail.com

tcadu cnita (Under the City) .i dzutubnu (there are tunnels.)
.i ko'axire goi le remna cu xabju (People dwell there.) .i
kakpa remna (Mole People.) .i ko'u cmima (Katr^ina ia one of
them.) .i gusycau nu badri (The sadness of the lightless ones.)
.i leko'axire mela rokci cinmo ku ko se skicu (Their despair,
tell it.) .i noroi xruti fi tu'a le ga'u vacri (Never to return
to the upper air.) .i se xebni je se terpa je se girvimcu
(Hated, feared, rejected.) .i gu'e se mipri nu jmive gi kusru
gau leka se bapli (A secret life, cruel in compulsion.) .i
gu'e remoi plita gi na djuno fa le pamoi (A second level,
unknown to the first.) .i na sipna snura (Unsafe to sleep.)
.i zu'o judytirna (You listen & listen.) .i renro zo'e jebabo
tirna le datni (Throw something & hear the knowledge.) .i
zu'o bevri lo nu'o se renro (Carrying things to throw.) .i
ca'o xagji je cortu je tatpi (All the time hungry, sore, tired.)
.i su'o remna co'a vreta mu'i lenu vo'a co'u troci (People
just lie down & give up.) .ije zo'e manku dzufarlu ri'a la'edi'u
(And you stumble across them in the dark.) .ije ru'inai
sarcu lemu'e zo'e damba (And sometimes you have to fight.)

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#1748
9:23 PM Sat 2 Oct 99
 Subject:  Joining the  Lojban webring
 From:  David Brookshire Conner

From: David Brookshire Conner nellard-@concentric.net

xod writes:
 > Start at http://decadezero.org/lojban_webring.html and click on the link
 > to join! .i ko mrilu fo mi mu'i do se nabmi

FWIW, I'll be adding my  own site to that ring, just as soon as I
finish something worth posting.

Half done: alpha release of lojban-mode.el with perhaps part of speech
identification, possibly lookup in dictionaries, basic movement,
optional font coloring.

Thought about, but not done: comparison of some non-standard
orthographies for lojban. First step - ESR/The Red Book Tengwar mode,
ad my own Tengwar mode.  Why the differences? Syllabaries and
alphabets. Basically slurp up past email, clean it up, organize it.

More thoughts: typography for lojban. See above - slurp, clean, org.


Brook

---------
% got a light?
No match.

---------
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http://www.concentric.net/~nellardo/

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#1749
10:00 PM Sat 2 Oct 99
 Subject:  Gender and relationship  words
 From:  David Brookshire Conner

From: David Brookshire Conner nellard-@concentric.net

So, spurred on by one of John's postings in conlang, I'm starting to
think about about words for relationships in lojban.

There's words to describe some orientations, rather logically laid out
(no surprise), such as pavycinglepre (monosexual) and relcinglepre
(bisexual). There's various chains for maternal grandfather and
whatnot.

What I've noticed recently (in English, talking with friends), is that
there's a whole lot of relationships (at least, for me) that I have or
friends of mine have that just don't have a good word in English.

Maybe it's my relative tyro status, but I'm having some difficulty
coming up with the lojban names for these relationships (clearly, I'm
not thinking in lojban yet).  Yet I have this gut feeling that lojban
can state these things, very precisely.

For example, "transsexual". Female to male? Male to female? Pre or
post-op? If pre, by choice or by situation? In English, some of these
get jargon terms in queer communities (e.g., transman, transwoman).

Another example, in English, the phrase "my wife's girlfriend" is perhaps
startling, but also unclear in meaning - is this just a friend who is
female? Or does my wife sleep with this friend? Is this something that
is part of our family structure? Or is it something clandestine?

Another example: my friend's child. There's no real way to express
(that I can think of) in English what your relationship is with this
child without a) sounding like a child molester or b) spending a
paragraph or two explaining what is intended. Is this someone I know,
but have no interaction with? Or someone who is a friend of mine as
well? Or someone I think of as a child of my own?


Thoughts? Comments? It seems lojban should be able to do better than
jargon, or lengthy explanations - it's cultural neutrality should
serve it well......


Brook

---------
The Definition of an Upgrade: Take old bugs out, put new ones in.

---------
Fancy. Myth. Magic.
http://www.concentric.net/~nellardo/

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#1750
12:11 AM Sun 3 Oct 99
 Subject:  Re: Gender and  relationship words
 From:  Bob LeChevalier (lojbab)

From: "Bob LeChevalier (lojbab)" lojba-@lojban.org

At 09:06 PM 10/2/99 -0400, David Brookshire Conner wrote:
>What I've noticed recently (in English, talking with friends), is that
>there's a whole lot of relationships (at least, for me) that I have or
>friends of mine have that just don't have a good word in English.
>
>Maybe it's my relative tyro status, but I'm having some difficulty
>coming up with the lojban names for these relationships (clearly, I'm
>not thinking in lojban yet).  Yet I have this gut feeling that lojban
>can state these things, very precisely.

Yes and no.  The question is whether you want to be precise.

>For example, "transsexual". Female to male? Male to female? Pre or
>post-op? If pre, by choice or by situation? In English, some of these
>get jargon terms in queer communities (e.g., transman, transwoman).

tanru basis: woman-become-man for male to female (or past-man-woman)
reverse the genders for the other direction.

>Another example, in English, the phrase "my wife's girlfriend" is perhaps
>startling, but also unclear in meaning - is this just a friend who is
>female? Or does my wife sleep with this friend? Is this something that
>is part of our family structure? Or is it something clandestine?

pendo does not indicate a sexual relationship no matter what genders are
involved.  If you wantto imply a sexual relationship you must explicitly
add cinse or when appropriate gletu.  So my spouse's female-friend is fine.

More complicated might be teenage "going-with" relationships.  My 13 year
old flirts and is flirted with by half the boys in her school, has at any
given time one "boyfriend", but this seems to change every few weeks, and
hopefully is well short of gletu.  I would probably use special-friend, or
special-boy-friend, or even special-sexual-friend.

>Another example: my friend's child.

If you are of the same generation as your friend, in Lojban you are a
metaphorical  uncle.  So he is a friend-nephew or friend-se-uncle

lojbab
----
lojbab                     ***NOTE NEW ADDRESS***           lojba-@lojban.org
Bob LeChevalier, President, The Logical Language Group, Inc.
2904 Beau Lane, Fairfax VA 22031-1303 USA               703-385-0273
Artificial language Loglan/Lojban:
   see Lojban WWW Server: href=" http://xiron.pc.helsinki.fi/lojban/ "
   Order _The Complete Lojban Language_ - see our Web pages or ask me.

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#1751
2:06 PM Thu 7 Oct 99
 Subject:  Parser/glosser software
 From:  Richard Curnow

From: Richard Curnow richar-@rrbcurnow.freeserve.co.uk


Well, the time has finally come to throw my parser/glosser software open
to public scrutiny.  It was developed on Linux and should be portable
amongst Unix-like systems with the following utilities available

  bison (yacc probably OK, edit the makefile)
  flex (lex probably OK, ditto)
  an ANSI C compiler (gcc recommended)
  perl
  gdbm
  make (GNU make recommended)

LaTeX will also be useful to format the better-styled versions of its
output.

This is a development completely independent of the 'official' tools - I
would be particularly interested in any interesting effects and anomalies
this throws up!

The current version can be downloaded at

  http://www.rrbcurnow.freeserve.co.uk/lojban/jbofihe-0.26.tar.gz

It is still very much 'work-in-progress' - things are still being tweaked
to make the glossed output come closer to English.  Most of the work is to
extend the dictionary further.

There are a few other goodies on my lojban page generally

  http://www.rrbcurnow.freeserve.co.uk/lojban/

I can't guarantee getting time to work on all bugs and suggestions that
get thrown back at me, but any thoughts and information would be welcome.

Enjoy!
Richard

--
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Richard P. Curnow                    richar-@rrbcurnow.freeserve.co.uk
Stevenage               Network time sync for Linux/Solaris/Dial-up at
United Kingdom                 http://www.rrbcurnow.freeuk.com/chrony/

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#1752
12:56 PM Fri 8 Oct 99
 Subject:  Change of URL
 From:  Robin Turner
From: Robin Turner robi-@bilkent.edu.tr

coi rodo

Just a note to say that my main website has moved to

http://neptune.spaceports.com/~words

and the introductory piece about Lojban is at

http://neptune.spaceports.com/~words/lojban.html

The beginners' course is still at

http://www.bilkent.edu.tr/~robin/lojbancourse.html

but I haven't done much with it recently.

co'o mi'e robin.

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#1753
1:13 PM Sat 9 Oct 99
 Subject:  mela senva tcadu pamumo'o
 From:  michael helsem
From: "michael helsem" graywyver-@hotmail.com

fo'u fo ko'exire goi lrbi'u jarbu noi milxe se mipri zi'enoi
se klaji co rapkru je jarki ku'o ge'u jbena (He was born in a
secluded suburb with winding, narrow streets.) .i cmacmana .i
traji salpo (Steep hills.) .i ricfu pagbu le tcadu (A rich
part of the city.) .i le po'u fo'u vertei cu ckaji leza'i ponse
roda ba'u (As a child he had everything.) .i nalgubni ckule
fo fo'u (Went to a private school.) .i cuntu lo'e mlizei (Got i
nto the usual trouble.) .i xukmi ja drata (Chemical or
otherwise.) .iseni'ibo fo'u facki fi lei dzutubnu .e ko'axire
(Which is how he heard about the tunnels & the Mole People.)
.i ko'ixire goi su'uko'axire xukmi cuntu cmima (Some of them
were drug associates.) .i ko'ixire fo'u na'o tavla leli'i
xabju lei dzutubnu (They would talk to him about life in the
tunnels.) .i tadji lenu ganzu ko'axire lei girzu leza'i renvi
(How the people down there were organized into bands for
survival.) .i ba'e rirni le verba (Even parents with children.)
.i ri ze'e gusycau renvi (Kids who spent their entire lives
without sunlight.) .i fo'u co'a cinmo lebi'u cizra nu se r
aktu (He began to feel a strange disquiet.) .i to'u pu'u
kucli (It was curiosity.)

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#1754
4:58 AM Tue 12 Oct 99
 Subject:  roleplay  story
 From:  Cyril Slobin
From: Cyril Slobin slobi-@ice.ru

ni'o kelci lisri
.i nu penmi
.i lu ni lifri li'u se pensi le xarpre
.i lu ni citka li'u se pensi la ni lifri
.i zo'o

play story
(observe!) encounter
"(observe!) amount-of experience" thinks character
"(observe!) amount-of eat" thinks Amount-of-Experience
;-)

Russian version of this story is very popular among local rpg fandom.

--
Cyril Slobin slobi-@ice.ru

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#1755
2:05 PM Wed 13 Oct 99
 Subject:  mela senva tcadu  paxamo'o
 From:  michael helsem

From: "michael helsem" graywyver-@hotmail.com

fo'u pugi gletu ko'u gi cpedu ledu'u vo'e ciroi sezlumci
(Before having sex, he made her shower three times.) .i leko'u
skapi ca'a skari cenba (Her skin actually changed color.) .i
le nilgusni ca'o milxe (They kept the lights low) .i na sutra
(& didn't hurry.) .ibabo ko'u bacru lu xu do mi ba lebna le
ni'a mabla li'u (Afterwards, she said, "Will you take me away
with you?") .i fo'u lu je'enu'e .ai li'u bacru ("Of course,"
he said.) .i ko'u bacru lu do na jimpe ledi'u mulno ("You don't
know what you're saying.") .i fo'u cinba (He kissed her.) .i
bacru lu ki'a .a'icu'i li'u ("So?") .i ko'u bacru lu zo'onaicai
.uinai .ii ju'i ("Listen!" she said gravely & fearfully.) .i
.au do vimcu le rinju be mi be'o goi ko'oxire li'u ("I want
you to get rid of my keeper.") .i fo'u lu .uesai .i xu mi'o
sa'u klama li'u bacru ("Can't we just leave?") .i ko'u bacru
lu .iisai .i ko'oxire bada'i kalte ku ju'o li'u ("He will hunt
us down. I know it.") .i fo'u nandu tunlo (He gulped.) .i denpa
.i lu .ai catra se'inai li'u se bacru co badri ("I'll kill him
for you," he said sadly.)

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#1756
1:28 PM Thu 14 Oct 99
 Subject:  Re:  li18nux.org charter needs lojban version
 From:  xod
Please find my attempt at translation enclosed. I am sorry that I took so long. I am not sure how good it is. I have some questionable areas, and some elegant spots, but I'm not sure of the ratio. This week has been hectic but I will give it another recursion as soon as I can. I don't have a parser for Mac so I can't check it that way. But I am releasing it "in beta" because of some deadline on 15 Oct that Pilch mentioned.










-----
 Perpetual Progress, Self-Transformation, Practical Optimism, Intelligent Technology, Open Society, Self-Direction, and Rational Thinking.




http://extropy.com/
ko'a Linux
ko'e i18n
ko'i local.
ko'o Glob.


ta'o vi pilno le nomoi samjvoste pe le jbomriste ti'u le nanca be pasososomoi ta'onai ni'o

1: An effort to make it easier for Linux application programmers to support all the world's languages

1: .i ti du le se gunka be fo le zmadu frili za'i le le mutymi'ipla pe la lainyks goi ko'a ku pilno le ro munje bangu (This is an effort...)

(easy for Linux application programmers to support all the world's languages: frili za'i le mutymi'ipla pe la lainyks goi ko'a ku pilno le ro munje bangu)

2: internationalisation

2: .i ko'e goi le pu'u galfi be fi le za'i jimpe be fa so'i le natmi bei le selcusku

3: Linux Internationalisation Initiative

3: .i le ko'a ko'e te snada

4: Linux Standard Base

4: le ko'a mulno pilno skicu (sorry, need a lujvo for describe?)

5: This is a voluntary working group, consisting of Linux-related contributors who are working on Globalization, which is composed of Internationalization and Localization.

5: .i le pu'u galfi be fo le za'i jimpe be fa so'i le cecmu bei le selcusku goi ko'i .i ti dunli le tolbilga bende be lei ko'a dunda bei fo le nu gunka be ko'o goi ko'e joi ko'i

6: The objectives of the working group are as follows:

6: .i le bende nu'o zukte fi di'e

7: Leverage collaborative efforts among contributors of Linux Internationalization.

7: .i pilno le girzu gunka be fa lei dunda be le ko'a ko'e

8: Provide a forum for contributors to have technical discussions about Internationalization.

8: .i dunda le jai tu'i cusku fai le ko'a dunda le ko'e ku'u le skami gunka

9: Perform necessary coordination among projects that are related to Linux Internationalization.

9: .i zukte le zu'o sarcu ganzu be lei pu'u gunka pe ko'a ko'e

10: Actively disseminate Linux Internationalization related information.

10: .i zukte fatri be fa ko'a ko'e selcusku

11: Provide specification of Internationalized APIs and components that every distribution should include to ensure application portability and interoperability among various Linux distributions.

11: .i dunda le mulno skicu be le ko'e mutymi'isfe joibo mutymi'iterci'e poi ro le ko'a fatri ca bilga le za'i ri kansa ke'a le za'i vrici ko'a fatri simpli

12: Develop a catalogue of Internationalized components of Linux (including documentation, message catalogues, etc).

12: .i zbasu joi ciska le liste be le ko'e ko'a mutymi'iterci'e .i mu'a cusku le pliski joi notci liste mu'anai

13: Establish necessary liaisons with various committees and organizations who are working on Internationalization

13: .i zbasu lei sarcu ke bende krati be fi le vrici ke kamni je bende be fo le pu'u ko'e gunka

14: Define a process for creation of and dissemination of a core set of Globalized documentation and localizable elements for Linux and applications that run on Linux

14: .i finti le pruce be fo le pu'u lei ko'o pliski joi ko'i mutymi'iterci'e ku zbasu je fatri

(ko'i mutymi'iterci'e = "localized component")

15: Produce documentation on how to globalize applications and other resources for Linux.

15: .i zbasu lei pliski fi'o selsku le pu'u galfi be le ko'a mutymi'i bei ko'o

(good tanru for Application is needed!)

16: Promote the universal translation of existing and future documentation by working with existing documentation and localization providers.

16: .i sarji le nu munje fanva le cajeba pliski sepi'o le ca pliski joi gasnu be fa ko'i

17: The scope of our activities will be focused on software/application portability and interoperability in the International context.

17: .i le nu mi zukte cu kuspe

18: The membership of this working group shall be open to anyone who is interested in contributing to Linux Internationalization.

18: .i le bende jorne kuspe pu'o gubni le da se cinri le nu dunda be fi ko'e ko'a

19: Home

19: le xabju (?)

20: Charter

20: le velbende skicu selsku

21: Subgroups

21: lei jutsi be le bende

22: Members

22: le selbende

23: Sponsors

23: le dunda

24: Call for participation to the Li18nux Working Group

24: le cpedu le nu jorne le ko'a gunka bende

25: We are pleased to inform you that the %{LII} (that may be abbreviated as Li18nux or LI18NUX) has been founded in September 1999, and calling for your participation into this activity.

25: .i pu'a mi ku mi cusku le sedu'u la %{LII} ba'o jbena be fi 09/99 kuku joi le cpedu le nu do jorne le ti nu zukte

26: or %{LI} when it becomes available

26: .ije la jai tu'i pilno gubni fai le ko'e ko'a

27: If you agree with the above objectives, and work with us together, please fill in the %(af:application form) and send it to %{ADR}.

27 .i ganai ge do tugni di'u gi do pilno jorne mi gi .e'o ko galfi la %(af:application form) goi ko'u le za'i mulno ciska seni'i le nu do benji ko'u la %{ADR}
#1757
9:06 AM Sat 16 Oct 99
 Subject:  Bounce problem cleared  up?
 From:  Bob LeChevalier-Logical Langu

From: Bob LeChevalier-Logical Language Group lojba-@lojban.org

This is a test to ensure that the bounce message from Andrew Smith that has
been plaguing posters for the last few weeks has been cleared up.

Just in passing, I will note that Lojban List is currently up to 163
subscribers, although some of these are duplicates.  This is more than
double the subscriber list when we moved to onelist last year.

lojbab
----
lojbab                     ***NOTE NEW ADDRESS***           lojba-@lojban.org
Bob LeChevalier, President, The Logical Language Group, Inc.
2904 Beau Lane, Fairfax VA 22031-1303 USA               703-385-0273
Artificial language Loglan/Lojban:
   see Lojban WWW Server: href=" http://xiron.pc.helsinki.fi/lojban/ "
   Order _The Complete Lojban Language_ - see our Web pages or ask me.

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#1758
11:31 AM Sat 16 Oct 99
 Subject:  mela senva tcadu  pazemo'o
 From:  michael helsem
From: "michael helsem" graywyver-@hotmail.com

su'ore'u penmi fa fo'u ko'u le maixra pesekai leka relstedu
(Theu met again at the two-headed sculpture.) .i fo'u lu .ue
tifstu xu li'u bacru ("Here?" he said in surprise.) .i ko'u
sedysli (She nodded.) .i bacru lu je'avi'e nerkla .i zifre le
mo'ini'a pluta li'u ("There are entrances everywhere. The way
down is free.") .i ko'u .e fo'u muvdu le se mipri kalri (They
moved into the secret opening.) .i ko'u bacru lu ku'i lemu'e
mo'iga'u sezyxru kei di'inai jursa je nandu ("But getting back,
that's sometimes a job.") ni'o fo'u .e ko'u smaji cpare
mo'ini'a le salpo noi cilmo joi lenku (They climbed down a
slope that was cold & damp, in silence.) .i co'a jdika fa leni
gusni (Lessening light.) .i vi le loldi ku fo'u co'a dasni le
poi zdile ku'o kalgai (At the bottom, he put on some funny-
looking goggles.) .i ko'u bacru lu ti mo li'u ("What are those?"
she asked.) .i fo'u spuda fi lu manviski'u li'u ("To see in
the dark," he said.)

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#1759
11:42 AM Sat 16 Oct 99
 Subject:  mela senva tcadu  pabimo'o
 From:  michael helsem
From: "michael helsem" graywyver-@hotmail.com

tcadu cnita (Under the City.) .i penmi fa le remna le remna
(Human meets human.) .i le pamoi ze'i tavla pensi di'e .itu'e
doi cizra se penmi do'u .o'i xu do nu'o sidju cmima lemi'a
dzutubnu cecmu tu'u (First one thinks: "Can this strange-one-
met be a useful member of our tunnel community?") .i le remoi
ze'i tavla pensi di'e .itu'e doi cizra se penmi do'u .iisai
xu mi nu'o gasnu ge lenu do se xrani ginai lenu vo'a se xrani
tu'u (The second one thinks, "Can I mangle this guy without
getting hurt myself?") ni'o le lenku te bradi cu naldunli (The struggle in
the dark is unequal.) .i role velre'e ractu pe'a
sei du le ratcu se'u cu judyzgana (All the "track rabbits"
(rats) watch with interest.) .i ko'u zu'ava terpa denpa
(Kater^ina fearfully waits off to one side.) .i ru'uvu kucli
denpa fa so'iko'axire (Back further, other Mole People too are
curious onlookers.) .ibabo fo'u zukte lebi'u celxa'i (Then
the Vicar is holding a gun.) ni'o ka'u roda ka'e se cikre lemu'e
pilno so'u ba'e danti (Everything can be fixed with a few bullets--they
say.)

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#1760
9:12 PM Mon 18 Oct 99
 Subject:  3 dogs, 2 men, many  arguments
 From:  xod
From: xod xo-@bway.net





I take issue with Chapter 16, section 7: Grouping of Quantifiers.





http://www.animal.helsinki.fi/lojftp/reference-grammar/chap16.html#s7





The meaning of "ci gerku cu batci re nanmu" is taken to mean "each of three dogs bite two men", leaving the number of men not necessarily 2 but any value between and including 2 and 6. The result is that the 2 is taken less literally than the 3 because it is declared later.




This is malglico, reflecting subject/object asymmetry in English. I suggest a more Lojbanic alternative.




Does "ci gerku" mean "each of three different dogs", or does it mean "3 dog instances", a condition which could just as easily be satisfied by one dog three times?




The statement "da broda de" should, by default, be symmetrical between da and de.




Unless further specified, "ci gerku cu batci re nanmu" can only be satisfied by a saturated relationship: each of exactly three dogs bites each of exactly two men at least once.





 -----
 Perpetual Progress, Self-Transformation, Practical Optimism, Intelligent Technology, Open Society, Self-Direction, and Rational Thinking.




http://extropy.com/











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#1761
6:39 AM Tue 19 Oct 99
 Subject:  Re: 3  dogs, 2 men, many arguments
 From:  Jorge Llambias

From: "Jorge Llambias" jjllambia-@hotmail.com

la xod cusku di'e

>The meaning of "ci gerku cu batci re nanmu" is taken to mean
>"each of three dogs bite two men", leaving the number of men not
>necessarily 2 but any value between and including 2 and 6. The
>result is that the 2 is taken less literally than the 3 because it is
>declared later.

I wouldn't say less literally. What happens is that the 2 has
in this case a narrower scope than the 3, because it is
declared later.

Number quantifiers can be understood in terms of the more
basic existential and universal quantifiers. For example,
2x: F(x) could be rewritten as Ex Ey: x<>y & F(x) & F(y).

This expansion will always involve both existential and
universal quantifiers (here the universal is in the form
of &). The order in which these quantifiers appear is
what determines their scope.

There are many ways in which 3x 2y F(x,y) could have
been given meaning. The one chosen is to take it as
3x G(x),  where G(x) = 2y F(x,y), and there we can see
why the scope of the second quantifier is narrower.

The way you propose would involve having a separate
expansion for the quantification (3x 2y) that could not be
reduced to the single variable case.

co'o mi'e xorxes

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#1762
7:18 AM Tue 19 Oct 99
 Subject:  Re: Conlang T-shirt
 From:  John Cowan

From: John Cowan cowa-@locke.ccil.org

Here's a Lojban rendering:

        le do bangu cu zvacu'i
        the of:you language is:at-possible

--
John Cowan                                   cowa-@ccil.org
       I am a member of a civilization. --David Brin

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#1763
7:52 AM Tue 19 Oct 99
 Subject:  Re: 3 dogs, 2 men, many  arguments
 From:  John Cowan

From: John Cowan cowa-@locke.ccil.org

xod scripsit:
>
> From: xod xo-@bway.net
>
> I take issue with Chapter 16, section 7: Grouping of Quantifiers.
>
> http://www.animal.helsinki.fi/lojftp/reference-grammar/chap16.html#s7
>
> The meaning of "ci gerku cu batci re nanmu" is taken to mean "each of
> three dogs bite two men", leaving the number of men not necessarily 2
> but any value between and including 2 and 6. The result is that the 2 is
> taken less literally than the 3 because it is declared later.

Not less literally, merely as a matter of distribution.
Quantifiers are implicitly understood left to right, which is a bias
in favor of the direction of the Latin alphabet, not in favor of
English particularly.  For each dog, there are two men bitten;
the two men must be distinct from each other, or they would be only
one man, but nothing is said about whether the two men are the same
or different from those bitten by other dogs.


> The statement "da broda de" should, by default, be symmetrical between da
> and de.

No, because it means su'oda su'ode zo'u da broda de, and the order
of quantifiers matters.  "For at least one X, there exists at least one
Y such that X bites Y."

--
John Cowan                                   cowa-@ccil.org
       I am a member of a civilization. --David Brin

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#1764
1:08 AM Wed 20 Oct 99
 Subject:  This list  is not as I expected
 From:  Paul Dufresne

From: Paul Dufresne dufr-@oricom.ca

Somehow, I am worry about if Lojban can really be used to think, in
day to day process. I guess the answer is, of course not. A language
is a communication tool, and you cannot use Lojban to write a report
to your employer, or listen to the TV, because your employer is not
speaking Lojban (most likely), and there is no Lojban TV channel, yet.

But then, at least it should be very usable to do personal thoughts in
your mind. But somehow I have the feeling few if any does that. The
fact that I only see translation of text, rather than people posting
their own ideas on a subject, without translation, make me think that
they don't see Lojban simply like a tool to communicate. Of course
translation of text is fine for people like me that would not
understand anything without translation. But sure not having the
translation would force me to try to decode the meaning, which would
be good from a pedagogical point of view (well maybe not because
I would give up very fast).

Of course I was expecting to see people
speak of Lojban itself on this mailing-list, but I was also expecting
people speak of just about anything, by using the Lojban language.
Something like... like the new 'coppermine' processors that will be
announce october 25.

I have seen some posts of very technical detail of Lojban, that seems
to show great knowledge of the language, but these posts were made in
english, which seems to indicate that even when people know well the
language and speak for people that should know it well too, they still
prefer to think and write it in english rather than Lojban. This make
me afraid that I am learning Lojban for nothing, since Lojban must
have some internal flaw that make it unusable for thinking.

Of course I could be wrong, and I would be please to get pointers to
Lojban text that have no translation in an other language, and that
are not about Lojban itself, somehow showing that there is people
who are able to think in Lojban.

P.S. Please, don't do what I am suggesting, and don't reply exclusively
in Lojban.


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#1765
3:00 AM Wed 20 Oct 99
 Subject:  lojbo se jicmu ke bangu
 From:  Arnt Richard Johansen

From: "Arnt Richard Johansen" enkefalo-@hotmail.com

coi rodo

do jinvi ma le bangu poi se jicmu la lojban zi'e poi mu'a la guaspis e la
voksigid e la tcengli

co'o mi'e tsali

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#1766
7:21 AM Wed 20 Oct 99
 Subject:  Re: This list is not  as I expected
 From:  Jorge Llambias

From: "Jorge Llambias" jjllambia-@hotmail.com


>Of course I could be wrong, and I would be please to get pointers to
>Lojban text that have no translation in an other language, and that
>are not about Lojban itself, somehow showing that there is people
>who are able to think in Lojban.

There have been some discussions exclusively in Lojban from
time to time.  You may want to check a thread from about a
month or so ago about gun control. There were several people
participating, maybe ten messages or so in all.

co'o mi'e xorxes

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#1767
7:35 AM Wed 20 Oct 99
 Subject:  mela senva tcadu  pasomo'o
 From:  michael helsem

From: "michael helsem" graywyver-@hotmail.com

ho'oxire da'i cusku di'e .itu'e (Her keeper speaks:) nicte ja
donri sanga cipni simsa mibypre ("I am like the bird that
sings by day & by night.) .i na vajni fa le rinka be le nu my.
pu nitkla (How I came Underground, is no matter.) .i cmene ji'a
(Nor my name.) .i puki bazi cilre lo te pilno pe le za'i lenku
(Soon I learned the uses of the dark.) .i ge tsali gi se nitcu
le drata (I was strong & needed by the others.) .i mo'u lidne
(I became their leader.) .i jdice fi ko'axire (I decided things
for them.) ni'o le varcinta pixra poi ka'e zgana ke'a fo le
nitcanko gasmau ku'o ba'o se finti my. (The spraypaint pictures
you see in the undergrate better-lighted places are mine.) .i
je ji'a ciskycusku le draci be fo ko'axire bei fu le remtai
cmalu (I also wrote puppet plays.) .i draci le se pacna .e le
se terpa vi'o pe le kakpa remna (These plays expressed the hopes
& fears of the Mole People.) .i .o'a draci (I'm proud of them.)
.i ku'i roroi cinmo le te bradi pe'a be fa da poi my. bilga le
nu cusku ke'a ku'o bei fe de poi se cusku ji'o le narpre nible p
e lo larcu (But I always felt a tension between what I had to
say & the cold requirements of Art.) .i roroi bilga co ciskycusku zmadu fi
le ka sampu kei fe di poi my. menxagji co ciskycusku
ke'a (Always I had to write more simply than I wanted.) .i je
ganai fu'epe'a galtu traji nunvoi fu'o zukte gi zu'i na jimpe
le mibypre tu'u (And when I made my "highest flights", I was
not understood.)

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#1768
7:52 AM Wed 20 Oct 99
 Subject:  kakpa draci
 From:   michael helsem
From: "michael helsem" graywyver-@hotmail.com

le voksybende cu bacru lu ma le solri ba'o lebna (Chorus: Who
has stolen the Sun?) .i ma le lunra ba'o mipri (Who has hidden
the Moon?) .i ma lei tarci ba'o ganlygau (Who has closed up
the Stars?) .i ma fi ma'a ba'o sabji nu'i ge lei le nu vasxu
nu'u gi lei festi le nu citka (Who has given us stenches to
breathe & garbage to eat?) .i ma rinka le ma'a se dunku li'u
(Who is the author of our sorrowws?) ni'o le pamoi cu bacru lu
mi na djuno na'e le du'u vo'a ba'o farlu pe'a li'u (First one
says: I only know I "fell".) .i le remoi cu bacru lu mi ba'o
zukte noda le nu rinka le bi'unai fasnu li'u (Second one says:
I did nothing to make it happen.) .i le pamoi cu bacru lu mi
ba'o zukte noda le nu fanta le bi'unai fasnu li'u (First one:
I did nothing to prevent it.) .i le voksybende cu bacru lu ko
mi'a kecti li'u (Chorus: Pity us!) .i le pamoi cu bacru lu mi
ge dzutubnu prije gi me la blanu drudi ku me'o bebna (First
one: I am tunnel-wise & "blue-roof"-foolish.) .i mi bevri le
dakli be lei rokci .i fi la'e di'u zu'i nu'o ckasu mi tu'i le
gapru li'u (I carry a bag of stones which they would ridicule
me for, up above.) .i le remoi cu bacru lu xu do noroi menxagji
le mu'e sezyxru li'u (Second one: Do you never desire to go back?)
.i le pamoi cu bacru lu mi mi lafti le ga'u lamji .i je jimpe
le nuntolmukti pe lo garkla zmadu li'u (First one: I rise one
level & at once I see the futility of further ascent.) .i le
remoi cu bacru lu mi na garkla ba'e le do lamji li'u (Second
one: I did not even go that far.) .i le pamoi cu bacru lu ti'e
ge le drata ba'o garkla je'a re lamji ginai vo'a facki le nu
gleki li'u (First one says: I have heard of those who went up
two levels even, & they did not find joy.) .i le voksybende cu
bacru lu na facki le nu gleki li'u (Chorus: They did not find joy.)
.i le pamoi cu bacru lu le nunpanpi cu se facki ji'u le nu na
djuno nitcu li'u (First one: There is peace in not having to
know.)

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#1769
8:04 AM Wed 20 Oct 99
 Subject:  mela senva  tcadu renomo'o
 From:  michael helsem

From: "michael helsem" graywyver-@hotmail.com

ko'u da'i cusku di'e .itu'e (Katr^ina speaks:) mi cagi pu penmi
fo'u vi le ckafybarja gi pensi ledu'u vo'e vo'a nu'o kurji
(When I first met the Vicar in a coffeehouse I thought: Here
is someone who can take care of me.) ,i mi pu makcybi'o secau
lo rirni ce'eva'o lei cunso mufyvlile (I had grown up parentless
in an environment of random violence.) .i li'a na'o sarcu stika
mi (Of course I'd made the necessary compromises.) .iku'i caku
mi co'a xenru leka platu prane (But now I'm beginning to rue the perfectness
of my plan.) .i xu ca'a krici ledu'u le se xabju be mi
cu zasti (Do I really think there's a place for me somewhere?)
.ije xu ka'e cpacu sepi'o lemu'e catryzei (And can I buy it with
a murder?) ni'o ko'oxire farlu .i mi ri bajra (He falls, & I run
to him.) .i klaku je'u (I cry, I really do.) .i fo'u bajra ji'a mo'ito'oku'i
(The Vicar also runs, but away.) .i mi fo'u ze'eba
noroi viska kupe'ida'i (I thought never to see him again.) ni'oki
ti'e fo'u so'uroi troci co facki fi mi (They say he asked about
me a few times.) .i mi cpedu fi ko'axire fe ledu'u vo'i spuda fo'u
le sedu'u vo'a mo'u lenku margu (I told them to say I was no more.) ni'oni'o
babo cadzu co jbini lei cmalu (Later I walk among the puppets) .i fagri
gusni tinsa (so still in the firelight.) .i condi
ke tcadu cnita (Far beneath the City--) .i ge'e morsi tcadu tu'u
(the City of the Dead!)

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#1770
8:08 AM Wed 20 Oct 99
 Subject:  mela senva tcadu  pasomo'o
 From:  michael helsem
From: "michael helsem" graywyver-@hotmail.com

ho'oxire da'i cusku di'e .itu'e (Her keeper speaks:) nicte ja
donri sanga cipni simsa mibypre ("I am like the bird that
sings by day & by night.) .i na vajni fa le rinka be le nu my.
pu nitkla (How I came Underground, is no matter.) .i cmene ji'a
(Nor my name.) .i puki bazi cilre lo te pilno pe le za'i lenku
(Soon I learned the uses of the dark.) .i ge tsali gi se nitcu
le drata (I was strong & needed by the others.) .i mo'u lidne
(I became their leader.) .i jdice fi ko'axire (I decided things
for them.) ni'o le varcinta pixra poi ka'e zgana ke'a fo le
nitcanko gasmau ku'o ba'o se finti my. (The spraypaint pictures
you see in the undergrate better-lighted places are mine.) .i
je ji'a ciskycusku le draci be fo ko'axire bei fu le remtai
cmalu (I also wrote puppet plays.) .i draci le se pacna .e le
se terpa vi'o pe le kakpa remna (These plays expressed the hopes
& fears of the Mole People.) .i .o'a draci (I'm proud of them.)
.i ku'i roroi cinmo le te bradi pe'a be fa da poi my. bilga le
nu cusku ke'a ku'o bei fe de poi se cusku ji'o le narpre nible p
e lo larcu (But I always felt a tension between what I had to
say & the cold requirements of Art.) .i roroi bilga co ciskycusku zmadu fi
le ka sampu kei fe di poi my. menxagji co ciskycusku
ke'a (Always I had to write more simply than I wanted.) .i je
ganai fu'epe'a galtu traji nunvoi fu'o zukte gi zu'i na jimpe
le mibypre tu'u (And when I made my "highest flights", I was
not understood.)

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#1771
8:11 AM Wed 20 Oct 99
 Subject:  mela senva  tcadu renomo'o
 From:  michael helsem
From: "michael helsem" graywyver-@hotmail.com

ko'u da'i cusku di'e .itu'e (Katr^ina speaks:) mi cagi pu penmi
fo'u vi le ckafybarja gi pensi ledu'u vo'e vo'a nu'o kurji
(When I first met the Vicar in a coffeehouse I thought: Here
is someone who can take care of me.) ,i mi pu makcybi'o secau
lo rirni ce'eva'o lei cunso mufyvlile (I had grown up parentless
in an environment of random violence.) .i li'a na'o sarcu stika
mi (Of course I'd made the necessary compromises.) .iku'i caku
mi co'a xenru leka platu prane (But now I'm beginning to rue the perfectness
of my plan.) .i xu ca'a krici ledu'u le se xabju be mi
cu zasti (Do I really think there's a place for me somewhere?)
.ije xu ka'e cpacu sepi'o lemu'e catryzei (And can I buy it with
a murder?) ni'o ko'oxire farlu .i mi ri bajra (He falls, & I run
to him.) .i klaku je'u (I cry, I really do.) .i fo'u bajra ji'a mo'ito'oku'i
(The Vicar also runs, but away.) .i mi fo'u ze'eba
noroi viska kupe'ida'i (I thought never to see him again.) ni'oki
ti'e fo'u so'uroi troci co facki fi mi (They say he asked about
me a few times.) .i mi cpedu fi ko'axire fe ledu'u vo'i spuda fo'u
le sedu'u vo'a mo'u lenku margu (I told them to say I was no more.) ni'oni'o
babo cadzu co jbini lei cmalu (Later I walk among the puppets) .i fagri
gusni tinsa (so still in the firelight.) .i condi
ke tcadu cnita (Far beneath the City--) .i ge'e morsi tcadu tu'u
(the City of the Dead!)

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#1772
9:23 AM Wed 20 Oct 99
 Subject:  Re: Digest  Number 260
 From:  John Arley Burns

From: John Arley Burns hezekia-@cs.utexas.edu


I tend to agree that lojban-only conversation is essential for really
testing and learning the language. It would be nice to have
lojban-only threads, or maybe a lojban-only mailing list.

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#1773
9:47 AM Wed 20 Oct 99
 Subject:  Re: Digest Number 260
 From:  Charles Hope

From: Charles Hope xo-@bway.net

>From: John Arley Burns hezekia-@cs.utexas.edu
>
>
>I tend to agree that lojban-only conversation is essential for really
>testing and learning the language. It would be nice to have
>lojban-only threads, or maybe a lojban-only mailing list.



.i tugni je'a .i ru'i stodi tolsiste lojbo casnu le ro selsku

ni'o .i mi di'i gasnu le nu jmaji be fa le re mi lojbo pendo tu'i la
nu,IORK .i le nu tirna be la lojban cu banro le ni jimpe

-----
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Technology,
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#1774
11:14 AM Wed 20 Oct 99
 Subject:  mabla  namcu selsku...
 From:  trevor hill

From: trevor hill thil-@quark.com


  I pe'ucai makau sampu ciksi le drani cusku tadji be lei simsa be lu ci lo
gerku cu batci re lo nanmu li'u.....  I mi pu tcidu _so'i_ le nundarlu .ije
na jimpe....................

  I la'e di'u jicmu la lojban .ija'enai .i'anai na se smuni jdice

co'o

--trevyr

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#1775
1:15 PM Wed 20 Oct 99
 Subject:  Re: kakpa draci
 From:  michael helsem
From: "michael helsem" graywyver-@hotmail.com

drani fa lu lei malpanci le nu vasxu li'u .enai lu lei le nu
vasxu li'u

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#1776
1:30 PM Wed 20 Oct 99
 Subject:  Re: 3 dogs, 2 men, many  arguments
 From:  xod

From: xod xo-@bway.net

>From: "Jorge Llambias" jjllambia-@hotmail.com
>
>I wouldn't say less literally. What happens is that the 2 has
>in this case a narrower scope than the 3, because it is
>declared later.
>
>Number quantifiers can be understood in terms of the more
>basic existential and universal quantifiers. For example,
>2x: F(x) could be rewritten as Ex Ey: x<>y & F(x) & F(y).
>
>This expansion will always involve both existential and
>universal quantifiers (here the universal is in the form
>of &).



What is the significance of this theorem?



The order in which these quantifiers appear is
>what determines their scope.
>
>There are many ways in which 3x 2y F(x,y) could have
>been given meaning. The one chosen is to take it as
>3x G(x),  where G(x) = 2y F(x,y), and there we can see
>why the scope of the second quantifier is narrower.
>
>The way you propose would involve having a separate
>expansion for the quantification (3x 2y) that could not be
>reduced to the single variable case.
>
>co'o mi'e xorxes


It seems to me that if G(x) = 2y F(x, y) then G is a function of (x, y) and
not (x) alone.

Making x, y asymmetrical makes one dependent on the other. For a function,
the variables should be free.



>From: John Cowan cowa-@locke.ccil.org
>
>xod scripsit:
>>
>Not less literally, merely as a matter of distribution.
>Quantifiers are implicitly understood left to right, which is a bias
>in favor of the direction of the Latin alphabet, not in favor of
>English particularly.  For each dog, there are two men bitten;
>the two men must be distinct from each other, or they would be only
>one man, but nothing is said about whether the two men are the same
>or different from those bitten by other dogs.


But why doesn't the sentence equally imply that "for each man, there are 3
dogs biting him."?


>
>
>> The statement "da broda de" should, by default, be symmetrical between da
>> and de.
>
>No, because it means su'oda su'ode zo'u da broda de, and the order
>of quantifiers matters.  "For at least one X, there exists at least one
>Y such that X bites Y."
>

"For at least"..."there exists" indicates a dependency of existence. I
think this fact should be made explicit, and without such a marking, it
should mean: "There exists exactly 3 dogs, and there exists exactly 2 men,
such that: each/any dog bites each/any man at least once."

This is the symmetrical interpretation, free of the malglico of default
restricted scope.


-----
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Technology,
Open Society, Self-Direction, and Rational Thinking.
http://extropy.com/

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#1777
2:13 PM Wed 20 Oct 99
 Subject:  Re: lojbo  se jicmu bangu
 From:  michael helsem

From: "michael helsem" graywyver-@hotmail.com

xu do tavla fi la purjbo

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#1778
2:25 PM Wed 20 Oct 99
 Subject:  Re: 3  dogs, 2 men, many arguments
 From:  Jorge Llambias

From: "Jorge Llambias" jjllambia-@hotmail.com

la xod cusku di'e

> >There are many ways in which 3x 2y F(x,y) could have
> >been given meaning. The one chosen is to take it as
> >3x G(x),  where G(x) = 2y F(x,y), and there we can see
> >why the scope of the second quantifier is narrower.
>
>It seems to me that if G(x) = 2y F(x, y) then G is a function
>of (x, y) and not (x) alone.

No, G does not depend on any value of y, it is only a
function of x. Replace y in that expression with any other
bound variable and you will see that G only depends on x.
y is not a free variable in the expression 2y: F(x,y)

>"For at least"..."there exists" indicates a dependency of existence. I
>think this fact should be made explicit, and without such a marking, it
>should mean: "There exists exactly 3 dogs, and there exists exactly 2 men,
>such that: each/any dog bites
>each/any man at least once."

That could have been the convention: take all the existentials
first and all the universals later when dealing with more than
one numeric quantifiers.

>This is the symmetrical interpretation, free of the malglico of default
>restricted scope.

I don't see that one interpretation is more or less malglico
than the other. What you gain in symmetry you lose in
the ease of formula reduction. You would also need to
specify what to do when you have for example {ro} and
a number in one expression, {ro} and {su'o} and a number,
etc.

In practical terms, I don't see how it matters much one way
or the other, since we hardly ever will want to say any of
those things. When speaking of groups of things it is much
more common to refer to them collectively, in which case
this problem doesn't even arise.

co'o mi'e xorxes

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#1779
4:50 PM Wed 20 Oct 99
 Subject:  Re: This list is not as  I expected
 From:  Adam Raizen
From: "Adam Raizen" araize-@newmail.net

Paul Dufresne wrote:

> But then, at least it should be very usable to do personal thoughts in
> your mind. But somehow I have the feeling few if any does that. The
> fact that I only see translation of text, rather than people posting
> their own ideas on a subject, without translation, make me think that
> they don't see Lojban simply like a tool to communicate. Of course
> translation of text is fine for people like me that would not
> understand anything without translation. But sure not having the
> translation would force me to try to decode the meaning, which would
> be good from a pedagogical point of view (well maybe not because
> I would give up very fast).
>
> Of course I was expecting to see people
> speak of Lojban itself on this mailing-list, but I was also expecting
> people speak of just about anything, by using the Lojban language.
> Something like... like the new 'coppermine' processors that will be
> announce october 25.
>

At present, the problem with gaining fluency in Lojban is that you
can't copy anyone. Most people who become fluent in a second
language have been around fluent speech extensively, but in Lojban
this has to be created without the benefit of fluent speech to
compare it to. The problem is compounded by Lojban's extreme
unnaturalness (actually non-Englishness). If a bunch of North-
Americans and Europeans in a hypothetical China-less world got
together and invented Chinese, and then wrote a grammar and
word-lists and tried to learn the language, I suspect that many of
them would think that it has many 'unnatural' features and isn't
conducive to normal human thought. However, if enough of them
kept at their project, they would eventually find that Chinese is as
natural as English, even though it didn't seem so at first. (I think
that Robin Turner said on auxlang a bit ago that there was a
French linguist who said that the greatest thing about French is
that the order of words is exactly the same as the order in which
one thinks.) There is such an astonishing diversity in language that
I would guess that very few (if any) features of Lojban are
necessarily 'unnatural' in some 'hard-wired' way, but it's inevitable
that we'd find it hard to express our thoughts in it in the beginning.

Personally, I say many phrases to myself in Lojban, just as I do
with any language I'm studying, and I suspect that others do too. I
haven't found any greater difficulty than with any other language.
Sometimes I don't know a word or a grammatical construct, but
that happens when I try to think in any natural language I'm not
fluent in.

Also, I think that sometimes it's not quite natural for people to just
start talking about a random topic in a mailing list not devoted to it,
in English or Lojban. Maybe we all should try to make more of an
effort to post thoughts which might start a discussion in Lojban and
to reply to posts like that.

co'o mi'e adam

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#1780
4:50 PM Wed 20 Oct 99
 Subject:  Re: lojbo se jicmu ke  bangu
 From:  Adam Raizen
From: "Adam Raizen" araize-@newmail.net

de'i li 20/10/99 ti'u li 3:03 la tsali cusku di'e

> do jinvi ma le bangu poi se jicmu la lojban zi'e poi mu'a la guaspis e la
> voksigid e la tcengli

.i mi na'e se slabu ro le di'u bangu goi ko'a .i pe'i le ka la lojban cu
logji je nalrarkai to je nandu zo'o toi cu banzu .i ma'a djica le nu
bangu cecmu finti .iseki'ubo le nu ro jbobau cilre cu cilre fi la lojban
cu xagrai .i caku mi tadni la lojban enai ko'a .i xu lo nalfi'i cu se
bangu pa ko'a

.i co'o mi'e adam

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#1781
5:20 PM Wed 20 Oct 99
 Subject:  Re: This  list is not as I expected
 From:  Mark E. Shoulson

From: "Mark E. Shoulson" mar-@kli.org

>Date: Wed, 20 Oct 1999 04:30:26 -0400
>From: Paul Dufresne dufr-@oricom.ca
>
>From: Paul Dufresne dufr-@oricom.ca
>
>Somehow, I am worry about if Lojban can really be used to think, in
>day to day process. I guess the answer is, of course not. A language
>is a communication tool, and you cannot use Lojban to write a report
>to your employer, or listen to the TV, because your employer is not
>speaking Lojban (most likely), and there is no Lojban TV channel, yet.
>
>But then, at least it should be very usable to do personal thoughts in
>your mind. But somehow I have the feeling few if any does that.

I won't say I do it every minute of every day, but I certainly have been
known to use Lojban to re-formulate thoughts in my head to clarify what's
going on.  Just breaking things up into what exactly are the participants
(arguments) to which relationship (predicate) and all can be a big help.
An really good anecdotal answer doesn't come to mind offhand, but a
slightly weaker one will do.  The only reason this one is weaker is because
I didn't happen to work it out myself, but rather wasn't thinking too
clearly that day and wound up asking on this list, and other people
supplied the answer.  I had been musing about two lines in a Raffi song my
son had been listening to.  One said, "I don't need a lumberjack to pour my
milk" (i.e. I can do that without a lumberjack; also "I don't need a radio
to sing a song), and the other was "I don't need a dinosaur to eat me up"
(i.e. I could really do without that happening at all).  The English uses
the same structure for both meanings.  What's going on here?  Obviously, we
have {mi na nitcu loi Lumberjack loi nu pour my milk} vs. {mi na nitcu loi
nu lo Dinosaur cu eat me} (Yes, I know I'm speaking macaroni; it's
followable, though).  This is the kind of thinking I use Lojban for, to
help get at the root of concepts properly.  In this respect, incidentally,
I think the {le nu} construct is an underappreciated hero of Lojban.

~mark

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#1782
11:03 PM Wed 20 Oct 99
 Subject:  Re: This  list is not as I expected
 From:  xod
From: xod xo-@bway.net





How many people on this list can converse in broken Lojban, or better? Not me, yet!





 -----
 Perpetual Progress, Self-Transformation, Practical Optimism, Intelligent Technology, Open Society, Self-Direction, and Rational Thinking.




http://extropy.com/










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#1783
7:19 AM Thu 21 Oct 99
 Subject:  ci batci gerku
 From:  michael helsem
From: "michael helsem" graywyver-@hotmail.com

la xorxes. pu cusku

zoi .gy. In practical terms, I don't see how it matters much one way
or the other, since we hardly ever will want to say any of
those things. When speaking of groups of things it is much
more common to refer to them collectively, in which case
this problem doesn't even arise. gy.

i mi di'u tugni

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#1784
7:35 AM Thu 21 Oct 99
 Subject:  Re: la  jboste co'ekau  ku .uenaidai
 From:  michael helsem
From: "michael helsem" graywyver-@hotmail.com

.uuse'i mi lobykai pensi xagmau lenu vo'a gismu morji

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#1785
8:18 AM Thu 21 Oct 99
 Subject:  Re: lojbo se jicmu bangu
 From:  michael helsem
From: "michael helsem" graywyver-@hotmail.com

ki'anai za'a tavla fi loi se galfi lojbo goi ko'a ni'o la
tcenglis. su'a  ge simsa la vorlin. leka gerna ginai simsa la
lojban. leka da poi na vlatai tadji .i ku'i tcy. pixra xagmau
ponse zo'o .i la volksigid. simsa po'o la lojban. leka bridi
logji ku .a'ucu'i .i la guaspis. simsa la lojban. joike le
sancytai tadji co mela jugban. ku .a'ucu'isai .i guy. milxe
ke gimdaski stura bangu ku.iuru'eku'i ni'o to'u simsa drata be'u bu'onai .i
drata prami ro'e ge lo bangu poi cizra fi de poi
frica beleka logji ginai.u'uru'e ko'a co'omi'e maikl.

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#1786
11:19 AM Thu 21 Oct 99
 Subject:  Re: Re:  Conlang T-shirt
 From:  John Cowan

xod scripsit:
>
> On Tue, 19 Oct 1999, John Cowan wrote:
>
> > From: John Cowan cowa-@locke.ccil.org
> >
> > Here's a Lojban rendering:
> >
> >     le do bangu cu zvacu'i
> >     the of:you language is:at-possible
> >
>
>
> Rendering of what? I can't possibly imagine what English phrase
> would translate into zvacu'i!

Sorry.  "Your Language Here", which I interpret as "Your Language
Could Be Here."

--
John Cowan                                   cowa-@ccil.org
       I am a member of a civilization. --David Brin#1787
12:18 PM Thu 21 Oct 99
 Subject:  jbotcidu terkancu
 From:  Jorge Llambias

From: "Jorge Llambias" jjllambia-@hotmail.com


coi rodo

puza lo nanca be li su'omu mi mrilu lo preti le liste
cmima i mi pu djica le nu djuno le du'u xokau prenu
ca'a tcidu lei lojbo selcusku i ji'ipanoda spuda i caku
mi krefygau le cipra i e'o va'o le nu do tcidu dei kei
ko mrilu lo notci le mi judri to naku fi le liste judri toi
i mi gubgau lei jalge baza lo jeftu be li pa

co'o ki'e mi'e xorxes

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#1788
2:03 PM Thu 21 Oct 99
 Subject:  Re: This list is not as  I expected
 From:  recipro-

From: recipro-@freenet.edmonton.ab.ca


la xod. pu ciska di'e

> How many people on this list can converse in broken Lojban, or better? Not
> me, yet!

i mi kakne co ciska gi'enai kakne co tavla vau bau la lojban.
(I can write but not speak in Lojban)

        co'omi'e xarmuj.

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#1789
3:31 PM Thu 21 Oct 99
 Subject:  la flalojban. [Legal  Lojban]
 From:  recipro-

From: recipro-@freenet.edmonton.ab.ca


coi flajerna

i mi puba ciska dei bau la glibau  .iku'ibo mi pu tcidu lei notci be le nu
cusku bau la lojban. .ije mi jdice le du'u ciska bau la bangu co logji ba'e

iku'ibo mi co'a cilre fi la lojban. pu lo masti ku ja'e ko fraxu lo mi
selsrera


ni'o mi cmima le cmalu selvenbe'e be fa la diskon. goi ko'a  .i ko'a ca
casnu le du'u makau tadji le nu ciska loi ko'a (legal information) goi
ko'e  .i no da poi ko'a zo'u le ka da banta'a la flaglibau kei tcinycru le
nu da kufra le nu ciska ko'e

i mi stidi le nu ciska ko'e bau la lojban. .i xu ri cumki gi'e selfla
.i xu ko'a ba (be arrested for practicing law without a licence)


i       co'omi'e xarmuj.

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#1790
3:51 PM Thu 21 Oct 99
 Subject:  the automatic glosser  page... where?
 From:  trevor hill

From: trevor hill thil-@quark.com


  le puza se viska be mi zoi .gy automatic glosser page .gy zvati ma??

ki'a co'o

mi'e trevyr.

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#1791
7:17 AM Fri 22 Oct 99
 Subject:  makfa  cimo'o
 From:  michael helsem

From: "michael helsem" graywyver-@hotmail.com

cagi le te makfa goi ko'a puki verba gi ko'a cilre ledu'u vo'a
carmi vlipa sekai leka jitro lo drata sepi'o lo valsi (When
the Magician was a child he learned he was intensely powerful
in being able to control others with words.) .i ko'a ka'e bapli
zu'i lenu vo'e zukte da poi vo'a djica tu'a ke'a (He could make
anyone do what he wanted,) .ije le zukte cu krici ledu'u le te
zukte pu sezyselfinti (& they would think it was their own idea.)
.i ku'i ze'ibaku ko'a jdice co troci lenu snada le remna te
bradi secau lebi'unai dukse sidju (But after awhile he decided
to try succeeding in life without that advantage.) .i se jalge
lenu ko'a na te dunda ro le xamgu jibri poi ko'a troci co jgari
pe'a ke'a (The result was, that he was refused every good job
he tried to "grasp";) .ije ko'a masno norcuxna le zasyjibri ce'o lezasyjibri
mu'anai (& gradually he drifted into temporary jobs,
one after the other.) .i ba'e tolmorji ledu'u pu vlipa ca'aku
(He even forgot that he had ever had that power.)

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#1792
1:06 PM Fri 22 Oct 99
 Subject:  zoi .gy  speed .gy
 From:  trevor hill

From: trevor hill thil-@quark.com


  ma smuni la'e zoi .gy speed .gy bau la lojban??


co'o

mi'e trevyr...

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#1793
1:22 PM Fri 22 Oct 99
 Subject:  Re: zoi .gy speed .gy
 From:  michael helsem

From: "michael helsem" graywyver-@hotmail.com

sutlai

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#1794
1:42 PM Fri 22 Oct 99
 Subject:  Re: Digest  Number 262
 From:  John Arley Burns

From: John Arley Burns hezekia-@cs.utexas.edu


Automatic glossar: http://www.cs.utexas.edu/users/hezekiah/lojban

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#1795
12:40 AM Sat 23 Oct 99
 Subject:  Re: EU  patent system lobbying next month
 From:  PILCH Hartmut

From: PILCH Hartmut ph-@a2e.de

mi pu ciska di'e:

> I will be in Brussels with a multi-company lobby delegation to talk to the
> people in charge of designing the "EU community patent" next month.
>
> Please see if you can sign the petition and possibly supply a Lojban
> version
>
>       http://swpat.ffii.org/lojban/
>
> That might give me the boost that is necessary for me to be able to bring
> up the subject of multilinguality and Logical Language.  Otherwise we will
> focus entirely on the threat of software patents.

Indeed, due to lack of support from the Lojban community, we had to focus
entirely on software patents.  See the report on

        http://www.eurolinux.org/news/

But, as the report points out, we will have more meetings and more
opportunities during the next months.

co'o mi'e pilxartmut

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#1796
6:47 AM Sat 23 Oct 99
 Subject:  Re:  li18nux.org charter needs lojban version
 From:  ph-
From: ph-@a2e.de





coi doi xod. .i do cu fanva la'e zo http://www.li18nux.org/indexen.txt fu di'e





> ko'a Linux
> ko'e i18n
> ko'i local.
> ko'o Glob.

.i xu la'e zo internationalisation selsinxa ga lo'u mujgau gi lo'u
gugripgau gi lo'u bingu'egau
.i xu zo localisation se fanva fu ga lo'u klogau gi lo'u nergu'egau
.i zo Linux se bacra lu la linuks. li'u

> ta'o vi pilno le nomoi samjvoste pe le jbomriste ti'u le nanca be pasososomoi ta'onai ni'o

.i mi na xamgu jimpe di'u

> 1: An effort to make it easier for Linux application programmers to support all the world's languages
>
> 1: .i ti du le se gunka be fo le zmadu frili za'i le le mutymi'ipla pe la linuks goi ko'a ku pilno le ro munje bangu (This is an effort...)

#1797
3:49 PM Sat 23 Oct 99
 Subject:  lisri  xijau
 From:  michael helsem

From: "michael helsem" graywyver-@hotmail.com

.i ckafybarja (The coffeehouse.) .i cerni (Morning.) .i le
mibypre ku joi ko'a joi la fange ku joi ko'oxire goi lebi'u
ninmu noi puzi jbutse ca'o casnu la makfa (Me & Djuna & The
Stranger & a woman who has just joined us, are discussing
Magic.) .i za'anai zo'e ba'o punji pa remtai cmalu co makfa le
jaivi jibri be my. (Apparently someone has left a voodoo doll
in the store where i work.) .i my. pu bacru lu .ionai le punji
cu nalckape naja se bapli fi lenu troci co pilno la makfa li'u
(I'd said, "He can't be very dangerous if he has to resort to
Magic.")  .i ko'a spuda fi lu ku'i da cabycedra ke makfa krici
zo'u da da'i ckape malfenki ku .o'iru'e li'u (Djuna says, "But
anyone nowadays who believes in such things could be a dangerous loon.") .i
ko'axire lu pe'icu'i ze'ucaku so'i prenu cu krici fi
tu'a le makfa li'u bacru (The  Stranger says, "In our time lots
of people believe in some sort of magic.") .i my. ranxi cmila (I snicker.)
.i bacru lu le'i bebna ca banli li'u ("Fools abound.")
.i ko'axire lu xu lo mafka krici ca'a bebna li'u ("Is everyone
who believes in magic a fool?" he asks.) .i my. pinxe gi'ebabo
bacru lu ca'e le so'omei cu tcita lo drata .iji'a le so'omei cu
tcita vo'a .i mintu li'u (I drink, & say, "Some deceive others;
some deceive themselves. It's the same thing.") .i ko'axire na
tugni (He doesn't agree.) .i bacru lu le pagbu be la makfa cu
jetnu je plikakne ("Parts of Magic are true & useful.) .i .e'o
ma'a ge tadni gi  ficygau cilre lo xamgu makfa li'u (We should
study & learn to distinguish good magic.") ,ibabo ko'oxire cusku
(Then the new person speaks.) .i ri bacru lu .e'icu'i ju'a roda
poi se cusku je srana le makfa larcu cu mulno jetnu ("Everything
that is said about the magic art is completely true.) .i go'i jo
krici (--Only if you believe in it.) .i na krici zo'u na jetnu (Otherwise
it's not.) .i vi le cabytei ku nabmi fa lenu ma'a
ka'enai krici fi lo tsali ja jursa (The trouble today is that
we can't believe anything strong or stern.) .i ja'e no carmi
makfa cu zasti (So no intense magic exists.) .i di'u li'a li'u
(It's obvious.") .i ko'a bacru lu .ue do junri xu (Djuna says,
"You can't be serious!) .i levi se jinvi genai logji ginai darlu
kakne li'u (Such a view is neither logical nor arguably
defensible.") .i ko'oxire spuda fi lu mi na logji .i ba'e na
sarcu fa lenu mi logji li'u (She says, "I'm not logical. I don't
have to be.")

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#1798
5:01 PM Sat 23 Oct 99
 Subject:  why are selbri  relations so arbitrary?
 From:  joshuaha-
From: joshuaha-@aol.com





In reading the literature about Lojban, I was very impressed with the theoretical perfection and harmony Lojban has (unbroken rules, unambiguous grammar and pronunciation, etc.), but in reading through a few chapters of the online book, I was disenchanted with how arbitrary the relationships are, and how much simple memorization they require.





ex. vencu    x1 (seller) sells x2 (goods) to x3 (buyer) for x4 (price)





Four completely arbitrary arguments which are somewhat specific to time and culture, and if nothing else, requre simple memorization. What's wrong with the prepositions this replaces?





I would envision the language being as consistant and simple as possible, requiring as little memorization as possible with the exception of the rules of grammar. Why so arbitrary with the selbri?





Thanks...





Joshua Haberman











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#1799
8:06 PM Sat 23 Oct 99
 Subject:  Re: why are selbri  relations so arbitrary?
 From:  recipro-
From: recipro-@freenet.edmonton.ab.ca





coi





la jocua. pu ciska di'e
 #1800
11:24 PM Sat 23 Oct 99
 Subject:  Re: why  are selbri relations so arbitrary?
 From:  Bob LeChevalier (lojbab)

From: "Bob LeChevalier (lojbab)" lojba-@lojban.org

At 09:09 PM 10/23/99 -0600, recipro-@freenet.edmonton.ab.ca wrote:
>From: recipro-@freenet.edmonton.ab.ca
>la jocua. pu ciska di'e
> > ex. vencu    x1 (seller) sells x2 (goods) to x3 (buyer) for x4 (price)
> >
> > Four completely arbitrary arguments which are somewhat specific to time
> and culture, and if nothing else, requre simple memorization. What's
> wrong with the prepositions this replaces?
> >
> > I would envision the language being as consistant and simple as
> possible, requiring as little memorization as possible with the exception
> of the rules of grammar. Why so arbitrary with the selbri?
>
>The argument for doing selbri the way they are is that prepositions like
>"to" and "for" have no real meaning outside the particular verb. "To" in
>English can be a receiver, a destination, or a result, for example. Even
>if one were to have various different preposition-like things to
>specifically, the point is that using them would require memorization
>of even more words, and the prepositions chosen would have a tendency be
>biased towards English.

Actually it is plausible that we could have come up with a preposition
system not biased towards English.  But it is not plausible that we could
come up with a preposition system that WORKS, with the unambiguity that
Lojban demands.

A preposition system with no biases, is effectively a "case grammar" - the
prepositions are serving as tags to indicate certain cases or roles in the
relationships of a sentence.  Linguists have been working on 'case grammar'
approaches to analyzing languages for a couple of decades now, and while
they can explain some of the semantic structure of languages, none of the
theories seems to work comprehensively.  In particular, I believe we found
that it is fairly easy under any reasonable set of semantically distinct
and unambiguous prepositions to come up with a predicate/sentence which
requires the same preposition twice.  At which point you are back where you
started, having to memorize some place structure paradigms to disambiguate
the multiple prepositions.

Meanwhile a proper preposition system would have to include prepositions on
all places including x1, so even the shortest 1-place sentences are
lengthened by at least one word.

And of course none of this would really prevent the kind of preposition
semantic drift that leads to languages having prepositions with multiple
meanings like "for" and "of" and "to" and "in".

As a response to Lojban, some people tried at one point several years ago
to design a Lojban-like conlang with prepositions/case tags for all
places.  The language proposal was called "Voksigid", and it never got
close to completion; you might be able to find traces of it on the Web and
especially in the Conlang mailing list archives.

>In any case, the syntax of any language's predicates is more or less
>arbitrary, and most of the places are ordered the same throughout similar
>gismu--I can't think of any gismu where the place for the sender follows
>the receiver, for example.

And indeed, in learning any natural language with prepositions, you have to
learn what prepositions are typically used with each verb/predicate and
what they specifically mean when attached to a prepositional phrase in a
sentence.  Easy example from colloquial English: "I am going in the store",
which can mean that "I am going INTO the store (from outside)", or that "I
am moving within the store (presumably to a new unspecified location)".

The Lojban preposition system ends up being no harder than that of any
other language.

And you can indeed use prepositions - the case tags of selma'o BAI are a
larger set than any natural language has, and will cover most needs, with
the possibility of creating new ones using fa'o if you manage to come up
with something that fits none of the words in BAI.  There is a plausible
dialect of Lojban that uses BAI tags as prepositions on every sumti of
every predicate; the important thing to remember is that if you use BAI
words as prepositions on standard place structure places, that all
succeeding places in the sentence after the first such usage need a
preposition as well (exceptions exist, but this is a first approximation to
the rule).

lojbab
----
lojbab                     ***NOTE NEW ADDRESS***           lojba-@lojban.org
Bob LeChevalier, President, The Logical Language Group, Inc.
2904 Beau Lane, Fairfax VA 22031-1303 USA               703-385-0273
Artificial language Loglan/Lojban:
   see Lojban WWW Server: href=" http://xiron.pc.helsinki.fi/lojban/ "
   Order _The Complete Lojban Language_ - see our Web pages or ask me.

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#1801
7:09 AM Sun 24 Oct 99
 Subject:  Re: why are selbri  relations so arbitrary?
 From:  PILCH Hartmut

From: PILCH Hartmut ph-@a2e.de

On 24 Oct 1999 joshuaha-@aol.com wrote:

> ex. vencu    x1 (seller) sells x2 (goods) to x3 (buyer) for x4 (price)

> Four completely arbitrary arguments which are somewhat specific to
> time and culture, and if nothing else, requre simple memorization.
> What's wrong with the prepositions this replaces?

The basic meanings in a language are best described by place structures.
Ordering of the places is less arbitary than assigning them prepositions.

There are underlying design principles for determining the sequence of
positions:

(1) all positions must be essential participants whose
    participation is implied by the meaning to be designed.
(2) what can be most easily left out comes last, what is most
    essential comes first.
(3) personal agents tend to come first, because that allows a
    handy use such as 'le vencu' for 'the seller'.

vencu is a very neat example for the advantages of not using prepositions.
It comprises the meaning of the English 'to buy' as well as 'to sell' in
one definition.

        zo'e vencu le gerku mi li renono

        mi te vencu le gerku li renono

would have to be expressed with two different verbs in most languages.
Also, prepositions can be formed from vencu.  This wouldn't be possible
if vencu itself needed prepositions to work.

-phm

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#1802
7:59 AM Sun 24 Oct 99
 Subject:  Re: why are selbri  relations so arbitrary?
 From:  Robin Turner

From: Robin Turner robi-@bilkent.edu.tr

la lojbab. cusku di'e

> >The argument for doing selbri the way they are is that prepositions like
> >"to" and "for" have no real meaning outside the particular verb. "To" in
> >English can be a receiver, a destination, or a result, for example. Even
> >if one were to have various different preposition-like things to
> >specifically, the point is that using them would require memorization
> >of even more words, and the prepositions chosen would have a tendency be
> >biased towards English.
>
> Actually it is plausible that we could have come up with a preposition
> system not biased towards English.  But it is not plausible that we could
> come up with a preposition system that WORKS, with the unambiguity that
> Lojban demands.
>
.iecai
A preposition system not biased towards English would be biased
towards some other language or be arbitrary, and either of this
options would as hard, or harder, than learning
place-structures.  Prepositions, like case-suffixes, can only
cover a limited number of possible relationships between the
elements of a sentence.  Natlangs solve this problem by having a
small number of "core" meanings of prepositions/cases and
deriving the rest through metaphorical extension.  The classic
example if this polysemic chaining is Lakoff's study of "over" (I
don't have it to hand, but can dig out the reference if anyone's
interested.)

This might not be such a problem for naturalistic pan-European
languages like Interlingua or even Esperanto, but given that
these metaphors are frequently culture-specific, we cannot afford
to have them in Lojban.
> And indeed, in learning any natural language with prepositions, you have to
> learn what prepositions are typically used with each verb/predicate and
> what they specifically mean when attached to a prepositional phrase in a
> sentence.  Easy example from colloquial English: "I am going in the store",
> which can mean that "I am going INTO the store (from outside)", or that "I
> am moving within the store (presumably to a new unspecified location)".
>

Tell me about it!  I once did an error-analysis of Turkish
students' essays, and mistakes with prepositions were right there
at the top with articles; similarly, most of my grammar mistakes
in Turkish involve case suffixes.  For example:

ENG:  I was afraid of her.
TUR:  On-dan kork-tu-m
      3d+ABL.  be-afraid+PAST+1st
      *I was afraid from her.

ENG:  I was angry with him.
TUR:  On-a kIz-dI-m
      3d+DAT. be-angry+PAST+1st
      *I was angry to him.

co'o mi'e robin.

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#1803
11:19 AM Sun 24 Oct 99
 Subject:  subscribe
 From:  Christopher Moody

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------=_NextPart_000_0007_01BF1E11.F222AFA0--#1804
1:41 PM Sun 24 Oct 99
 Subject:  Legal  Lojban
 From:  recipro-

From: recipro-@freenet.edmonton.ab.ca

coi flajerna .e jbotavla

Okay, I sent this before in Lojban, but either no-one read it or I was too
tired to speak Lojban properly or both, so here it is in English:

I'm a member of a small startup company called Discon. One of the things
we've been discussing is how to do our licences and that sort of thing.
None of us is familiar enough with Legal English to feel comfortable with
writing them hirself.

One thing I suggested was that we use Lojban for the official licence, and
then translate it unofficially into English, the way the Free Saftware
Foundation does with GNU. So, we were wondering:
        1) Whether it is in fact legal to use such a little-spoken
language as Lojban for this purpose, and
        2) Whether we have to get a lawyer to write the stuff anyway lest
we be arrested for practicing law without a licence.

        co'imi'e xarmuj.

But it uses Quantum Triple-Gate Memory Nitrate Doping technology! Who
cares if it works?

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#1805
2:26 PM Sun 24 Oct 99
 Subject:  Re: Legal  Lojban
 From:  xod
From: xod xo-@bway.net





On Sun, 24 Oct 1999 recipro-@freenet.edmonton.ab.ca wrote:






> One thing I suggested was that we use Lojban for the official licence, and
> then translate it unofficially into English, the way the Free Saftware
> Foundation does with GNU. So, we were wondering:
>       1) Whether it is in fact legal to use such a little-spoken
> language as Lojban for this purpose, and
>       2) Whether we have to get a lawyer to write the stuff anyway lest
> we be arrested for practicing law without a licence.#1806
3:19 PM Sun 24 Oct 99
 Subject:  perl and  lojban, sitting in a tree..
 From:  Michal Wallace (sabren)

From: "Michal Wallace (sabren)" sabre-@manifestation.com


Hey all,

  I just joined this list yesterday and have been reading through the
archives. I don't understand any lojban yet, but I'm interested in
learning.

  I'm also very interested in the AI and machine translation
possibilities of the language. I brought the issue up on the perl-AI
list, and thought perhaps it might be a good first post here, as well.

Looking forward to learning with everyone,

- Michal
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
http://www.manifestation.com/         http://www.linkwatcher.com/metalog/
-------------------------------------------------------------------------

---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Sun, 24 Oct 1999 18:15:26 -0400 (EDT)
From: "Michal Wallace (sabren)" sabre-@manifestation.com
To: perl-ai list perl-a-@netizen.com.au
Subject: perl and lojban, sitting in a tree..


This one's long. Synopsis: computers can't yet grok most human
concepts and languages, but they do just fine with computer science.
Why not tackle a slightly simpler problem: translating computer
languages, with lojban as the intermediary language?

Hey all,

  This talk about language has got me thinking. John Nolan made an
excellent point when he asked, why should a computer (AI robot) talk
to you at all? It seems to me that language doesn't make much sense
without something to communicate, and someone willing and able to
listen. It doesn't make sense for computers and humans to talk about
baseball, because computers don't really care about baseball in the
real world. However, given a virtual world, computers can *play*
baseball, keep score, and interact with humans. The Sapir-Whorf
hypothesis states that language limits experience. But isn't the
reverse also true?

  Consider the visible spectrum. I've been told that 24 bit RGB offers
more colors than the human eye can perceive. I'm not sure that it can
account for every color the eye can see, but it offers more shades of
"red", for example, than the human eye can visually distinguish. With
so many possible colors, most languages allow us to "see" only a
handful of colors. You can test this yourself. Just visit
http://www.lynda.com/hexh.html and see how many colors you can name. [*]

  The Sapri-Whorf hypothesis would suggest that, for the most part, we
usually only experience "red" - not the many individual shades of red,
because experience is shaped by our ability to code it in language.
But the opposite is also true: at one point in time, it would have
been outlandish to talk about "colors" we can't actually see. Yet,
once science delivered us a theory of electromagnetics, we can talk
about mirowaves, radio waves, infra-red, ultraviolet, X-rays.. all of
which are invisible "colors". We can talk abou these things now,
because we experience them. But those words would have been wasted on
the ancient greeks, because they never experienced the phenomena the
words describe.

  Computers don't normally experience the physical world. Yes, you can
attach a microphone, a couple quick-cams for binocular vision, a
robotic arm, and some motorized wheels - and with enough knowledge,
and work, it might even work its way around the room. :) But that's a
robot, not a computer. A "computer" entity would have experiences
completely different from your average human's, and therefore, an
"intelligent" computer's language would reflect that.

  That is, it would be far more natural for AI's to talk about
databases, algorithms, logic, and applications than to talk about the
Atlanta Braves. And in fact, we talk with computers about these things
all the time. We use languages such as perl, java, SQL, lisp... [**]

  The more I read about Lojban, the more I think that it makes sense
as a "native language" for computers. It's logic-based (and seems to
share a lot in common with lambda calculus / lisp / prolog - but I've
only a superficial understanding of any of those OR lojban, so don't
take my word for it).. It's got a well-defined YACC grammar, requires
no particular inflections or stress (for text-to-speech
readers).. It's supposedly always obvious where each word ends (for
speech-to-text listeners).. Requires only a handful of ASCII
characters.. It is said to be quite expressive and easy to learn
(although there's only a handful of resources for learning). Finally,
it has evolved over the past thirty or so years with input and
interest from the AI community.

  There's been talk on this list about translating natural language
with perl. I suggested esperanto or lojban as an intermediary
language. I've done some reading, and found out that others have had
that same idea: http://www.lojban.org/files/why-lojban/mactrans.txt

  The probem, of course, is that reliably parsing English or Japanese
is a long way off. The computer doesn't really even know what it's
translating. However, just about every computer on the planet can
parse source code. Perhaps an interesting project would be an
automated translator for computer programs.

  Right now, perl can be compiled into C, python can be compiled into
java bytecode or C source. Just about anything can be compiled into
assembly language.  In all of these cases, the interpreter chunks
downward, breaking the high level language into low level steps.

  There are also some lateral chunkers: programs that translate awk or
sed to perl, for example, or assemblers that convert opcodes into
machine language. For the most part, these are just search-and replace
methods. These work because the conceptual gap between the languages
is not large (at least in one direction). The translation article I
linked above compares this kind of thing to a first year language
student simply looking up words in a translating dictionary and
writing the translation down.

  But what about translating a lisp or python program into perl?  Or
(even with a perl grammar) doing the opposite? As long as the two
languages is turing-complete, it's possible. It simply requires an
understanding of what the programs are doing. The translator needs to
recognize the algorithm being used, and map that to the other
language. It needs to understand things like recursion, sorting,
function calls, loops, design patterns, and how to simulate them if
translating from an expressive language to a less expressive one, and
how to recognize the workarounds when going from a less expressive
language to a more expressive one.

  A universal source code translator would have to "chunk up" and make
comments about what a particuluar program was doing, then chunk back
down into a different language. If an intermediary language were used,
it would have to be expressive enough to handle any statement in any
other language. (Even weird stuff like regexps, or the cut ("!") in
prolog.) ... And perhaps (like a human translator) it might have to
be expressive enough to ask for help.

  No current computer language is expressive enough to account for all
the thought forms or experiences available in computer science.
Because they're turing complete, they *CAN* express any particular
operation, but often it's in the manner of someone taking ten
paragraphs to describe a single experience for which one's language
has no word. (Like me, right now! Imagine if there was a single word
that had the exact meaning of this entire message - including this
sentence!) But: all of these concepts could be described in a human
language, such as english, or even lojban.

  So, what would lojban buy or cost us as an intermediary language for
translating source code? If someone were to actually implement a
translator like this, would perl be a sensible implementation
language? Why or why not? How might we approach the issue of "chunking
up" and recognizing patterns?

  I've rambled enough. :)

------------
[*] Incidentally, I wrote a perl program that will take an RGB color
    value and give you an english description. It's the example
    program for AI::Fuzzy, and you can find it by grabbing "fuzco"
    and AI-Fuzzy-*.tar.gz at http://www.sabren.com/code/perl/

[**] Yes, we can look up the Braves on the net, but the computer
     doesn't have any clue who they are. It might not "understand"
     a perl script, either, but it reacts as if it understands.
     If humans spoke perl, the turing test would be a snap. :)


Cheers,

- Michal
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#1807
11:29 PM Sun 24 Oct 99
 Subject:  zoi .gy speed .gy
 From:  Arnt Richard Johansen

From: "Arnt Richard Johansen" enkefalo-@hotmail.com

>   ma smuni la'e zoi .gy speed .gy bau la lojban??

lu ni sutra li'u

co'o mi'e tsali

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#1808
11:52 PM Sun 24 Oct 99
 Subject:  Re: Legal Lojban
 From:  PILCH Hartmut

From: PILCH Hartmut ph-@a2e.de

On Sun, 24 Oct 1999, xod wrote:

> It's legal, and it's also legal to write your own legal contracts (in the
> US) but you might be surprised what loopholes a lawyer might be able to
> find and exploit in such an amateur document. Law is arcane and illogical.

There are many documents where hiring a lawyer won't help much.  A lawyer
will tend to screw up your document, putting a lot of abracadabra into it
and obscuring the contents.  Usually lawyers also tend to use bloated
syntax, freighted with lots of anti-loophole devices and full of syntactic
ambiguity.

> I would pay a real lawyer to do it right, and if he screws up you have
> somebody to sue.

He will love nothing more than being sued.

I still think for a lot of documents an unambiguous source version can be
helpful.  You can then translate it into English or other languages and
ask lawyers for advice.  This may force them to clarify where the real
loopholes are and work out a good version with you, rather than just bloat
the text.

-phm

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#1809
9:18 AM Mon 25 Oct 99
 Subject:  Re: perl  and lojban, sitting in a tree..
 From:  Robin Turner

From: Robin Turner robi-@bilkent.edu.tr

Why Perl, in particular?  I don't know much about languages, but
I would have thought Prolog would be more suitable for what you
have in mind.

co'o mi'e robin.

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#1810
9:36 AM Mon 25 Oct 99
 Subject:  Re: perl  and lojban, sitting in a tree..
 From:  Michal Wallace (sabren)

From: "Michal Wallace (sabren)" sabre-@manifestation.com

On Mon, 25 Oct 1999, Robin Turner wrote:

> From: Robin Turner robi-@bilkent.edu.tr
>
> Why Perl, in particular?  I don't know much about languages, but
> I would have thought Prolog would be more suitable for what you
> have in mind.

Well, I originally posted that to the perl-ai list.  Perl has some
really amazing pattern matching and text processing abilities. Yeah,
you're right though.. Prolog does seem to be a more sensible
choice. Of course, there is also a "Prolog" module for perl, which
lets perl execute prolog statements.

> co'o mi'e robin.

What does co'o mi'e mean?
Should I sign off as

  co'o mi'e maikyl.

??

Cheers,

- Michal
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#1811
2:27 PM Mon 25 Oct 99
 Subject:  Re: Digest Number 262
 From:  John Arley Burns

From: John Arley Burns hezekia-@cs.utexas.edu


.i le ci'epapri zoi .gy automatic glosser page .gy se cmene
zoi .gy http://www.cs.utexas.edu/users/hezekiah/lojban/glossary.cgi .gy
cu zvati

co'o mi'e djan.

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#1812
4:05 PM Mon 25 Oct 99
 Subject:  Re: zoi  .gy speed .gy
 From:  Iain Alexander

From: "Iain Alexander" i-@stryx.demon.co.uk

On 22 Oct 99, at 14:07, trevor hill wrote:

>   ma smuni la'e zoi .gy speed .gy bau la lojban??

.i pe'i lu ni sutra li'u va'o lenu srana lo klani
gi'e lu ka sutra li'u va'o lenu srana lo ckaji

(to .e'u lu se smuni li'u maptyzma zo smuni .ije zo fanva maptyzma ra toi)

co'o mi'e .i,n.
--
Iain Alexander               PGP 1024-bit key id B501A0AD
i-@stryx.demon.co.uk   i.alexande-@bra0105.wins.icl.co.uk

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#1813
4:40 PM Mon 25 Oct 99
 Subject:  Re: 3 dogs, 2 men, many  arguments
 From:  xod

From: xod xo-@bway.net

At 2:28 PM -0700 10/20/99, Jorge Llambias wrote:
>From: "Jorge Llambias" jjllambia-@hotmail.com
>
>No, G does not depend on any value of y, it is only a
>function of x. Replace y in that expression with any other
>bound variable and you will see that G only depends on x.
>y is not a free variable in the expression 2y: F(x,y)


I no longer understand this notation. Let me try:

3x 2y F(x, y)   ci da poi gerku re de poi nanmu zo'u da batci de
G(x) = 2y F(x, y)       broda cei re de poi nanmu zo'u da batci de

Now, by "G only depends on x " you mean broda has no place for da?


>>"For at least"..."there exists" indicates a dependency of existence. I
>>think this fact should be made explicit, and without such a marking, it
>>should mean: "There exists exactly 3 dogs, and there exists exactly 2 men,
>>such that: each/any dog bites
>>each/any man at least once."
>
>That could have been the convention: take all the existentials
>first and all the universals later when dealing with more than
>one numeric quantifiers.


That's not quite what I was getting at.


>>This is the symmetrical interpretation, free of the malglico of default
>>restricted scope.
>
>I don't see that one interpretation is more or less malglico
>than the other. What you gain in symmetry you lose in
>the ease of formula reduction. You would also need to
>specify what to do when you have for example {ro} and
>a number in one expression, {ro} and {su'o} and a number,
>etc.


Why is "formula reduction" a value? Is that the way we think and speak?


>In practical terms, I don't see how it matters much one way
>or the other, since we hardly ever will want to say any of
>those things. When speaking of groups of things it is much
>more common to refer to them collectively, in which case
>this problem doesn't even arise.


As for "collectively", what do you mean? Masses where a single member's
validity is enough? Where if at least one of the 3 dogs bites only one of
the 2 men, the sentence is true?

How would you state my sample sentence "There exist exactly 3 dogs, and
there exist exactly 2 men, such that: every dog bites every man at least
once." Do you really think this is an unlikely sentence to utter?

In these sentences we are defining a relationship between every element of
some sets. The prenex declares the composition of the sets; the bridi
defines the relationship. Why should there be another, implicit
relationship between the sets? And why handle sets enumerated by ro and
su'o differently?

The condition of element-set mapping (each element of a set listed in the
prenex in position n maps to a set of type listed as n+1) should be marked.
The implictness of this is malglico and needs to be made explicit in a
logical language.








-----
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#1814
9:16 PM Mon 25 Oct 99
 Subject:  FREE* 1 yr USA Magazine  Sub sent worldwide-200+ C
 From:  Tempting Tear-Outs

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#1815
6:12 AM Tue 26 Oct 99
 Subject:  Re: perl and lojban,  sitting in a tree..
 From:  Robin Turner

From: Robin Turner robi-@bilkent.edu.tr

coi maikl.
do cusku di'e


> > co'o mi'e robin.
>
> What does co'o mi'e mean?

co'o - goodbye
mi'e - this is (literally, "I am named")

> Should I sign off as
>
>   co'o mi'e maikyl.

You can if you want. {co'o mi'e} has come into use as an informal
way of signing off (there's another attitudinal meaning "end of
message" which some people have used, but I've forgotten it).
The 'y' may not be necessary, since 'l' can be a syllabic
consonant in Lojban.  {maikl.} would be fine, I think, though it
depends on your pronunciation.

co'o mi'e robin.

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#1816
2:29 PM Tue 26 Oct 99
 Subject:  Re: 3 dogs, 2 men,  many arguments
 From:  Jorge Llambias

From: "Jorge Llambias" jjllambia-@hotmail.com

la xod cusku di'e

>I no longer understand this notation. Let me try:
>
>3x 2y F(x, y)  ci da poi gerku re de poi nanmu zo'u da batci de
>G(x) = 2y F(x, y)      broda cei re de poi nanmu zo'u da batci de
>
>Now, by "G only depends on x " you mean broda has no place for da?

It has no place for de actually, because broda would be a
one-place predicate. (Your second line is not grammatical
Lojban, but I think I understand what you mean. The first
line is a full expression, a sentence, the second line is only
meant to be the definition of a predicate, G(x), it doesnt
state anything.)

>Why is "formula reduction" a value? Is that the way we think and speak?

I don't know and I don't think anybody knows just
what is the way we think and speak. What I called
"formula reduction" is just one way to analyse what
we say.

>As for "collectively", what do you mean? Masses where a single member's
>validity is enough?

No, that is definitely not my view of masses. For example,
when I say that a mass of three dogs weighs 20 kg I don't
mean that only one of the dogs may weigh that. I mean that
they weigh 20kg as a whole.

>Where if at least one of the 3 dogs bites only one of
>the 2 men, the sentence is true?

No, that's not what I mean. I mean that it would be under
extremely rare circumstances that we have a situation where
there are three dogs and two men such that each of the
dogs bites each of the men.

>How would you state my sample sentence "There exist exactly 3 dogs, and
>there exist exactly 2 men, such that: every dog bites every man at least
>once."

One of the suggestions in another round of this discussion
was {ci da poi gerku e re de poi nanmu zo'u da batci de}.
This is grammatical, but not with an officially sanctioned
meaning, as far as I know.

>Do you really think this is an unlikely sentence to utter?

Extremely unlikely. I don't think I have ever been in such
a situation, nor remember anyone ever telling me about
something like that.

>In these sentences we are defining a relationship between every element of
>some sets. The prenex declares the composition of the sets; the bridi
>defines the relationship.

Many bridi are not relationships between all members of one
set and all members of another set.

>Why should there be another, implicit relationship between the sets? And
>why handle sets enumerated by ro and
>su'o differently?

{ro} and {su'o} do not enumerate the sets. In fact all
sets have ro members, so ro is useless as an enumerator.
In their function as quantifiers, numbers are not primarily
enumerating either. I'm sure I'm using all the wrong
technical words, but if you don't agree that the order in
which ro and su'o appear is of great significance, then
we have a much more basic disagreement than with
numbers. {ro da prami su'o de} (everyone loves at least
someone) does not mean the same as {su'o de se prami
ro da} (at least someone is loved by everyone). This is
basic logic, not particularly Lojbanic.

co'o mi'e xorxes

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#1817
7:02 PM Tue 26 Oct 99
 Subject:  lojban newbie: an  outsider looking in
 From:  Michal Wallace (sabren)

From: "Michal Wallace (sabren)" sabre-@manifestation.com


.ui coi rodo

  I'm fairly new to lojban, curious, and confused. Over the
past few days I've been reading the lojban website and the
archives for this list, trying to decide whether or not to
learn lojban. I decided I want to... and so, I have a whole
bunch of questions! Some of these are kind of critical, so
forgive me if I step on some toes. :)

  First of all, the written materials. As far as I can tell,
www.lojban.org hasn't been updated in about a year.  Should I trust
it? I mean, the textbook is on hold until the dictionary comes
out.. But the dictionary is expected in late 1997! Was the dictionary
ever finished? If not, who's working on it?

  My understanding is that while there are many root words (gismu) in
lojban, they don't account for every noun/verb/whatever you could say
in a natural language. So most things are described metaphorically
(tanru) by combining gismu. If the tanru catches on, it gets cooked
down into a compound word (lujvo). There is some kind of magical trick
to this process that ensures that no two lojban words are ever the
same. (a sad attempt: xu valsi drata valsi [for: "is it true that any
given word is [means something] different from any other word?] )

  Other than that lojban sentence, am I right so far? And if so, is
the textbook simply waiting on an expanded list of lujvo so people
don't have to talk in tanru as much? Isn't that a chicken and egg
problem? What mechanisms are in place for collecting new lujvo?

  It seems to me that this list itself is the most up to date
resource. One problem I've had is that it's hard to search. Onelist
will only let me search digests, egroups just has a terrible search
engine... I haven't reached the point of wanting to do this yet, but I
would suspect that words with periods and apostrophes won't be indexed
correctly, so searching the lojban texts in these two archives would be
especially difficult. Is there any other searchable archive?

  I'm considering creating a 'bot to get the entire archive from
egroups, saving it to my site, setting up my own little search engine,
and putting it all on my website...

  What work has been done in mechanically translating lojban into
english? I found one article on the .org site, and of course the
glossary generator. But does anyone actually have code to suck up
lojban and spit out English?

  LogFlash: Um.. I downloaded this. I ran it. It made me cry. :)
Looking through the archives, I managed to find references to it being
written in Pascal back in the 80's. Also, that Eric Raymond tried
porting it to C/C++. I couldn't find source for either.  Basically, I
think this software was probably great back in the 80's, but it
obviously came out long before the dawn of the modern user interface.
Simply porting it to C really doesn't make much sense to me - but
making a web based version in flash, or a high level scripting
language does.  I'm a web programmer by trade, and also have quite a
bit of experience with tutoring and accelerated learning methods.. I'd
be more than happy to lead a project to revamp the software. Would
anybody else be interested in this? Where could I get the legacy code?

  Also on the topic of software, I saw references to a GUI lojban word
processor. This reminds me very much of some work being done with the
python scripting language.. There's an editor written in python for
writing python, and it does stuff like syntax highlighting and what
have you... Python in general is a really quick language to pick up,
and can be compiled to run on a Java virtual machine, and could be
easily tied in with the Java speech libraries. It might be a good
place to start.. I'm a big supporter of the emacs idea, too. Has
anyone done anything with these?

  On the LLG : I understand it's not well funded (yet), but is it
a full time operation, or mostly run by volunteers? What does it
actually _do_ on a day to day basis?

  I get the feeling that one thing it _doesn't_ do is advocacy.  I
realize Lojban isn't really out to take over the world, but surely,
the more people that speak it, the more valuable it will be. Is anyone
doing anything about spreading the word? (Outside of conlang and
auxlang circles, I mean).. "Advocacy" might involve informing teachers
of alternative schools, organizing classes, keeping the website(s) up
to date, and coming up with more user-friendly learning materials,
books, CD roms, a phrasebook, etc, published under some kind of open
license so that the materials could be freely modified, copied, and
sold. [From my understanding, the LLG lost quite a bit of money on the
reference grammar. Perhaps that was avoidable.]

  Finally: is the flag/logo really working? I hunted it down to put on
the lojban website that I'm making... And decided against it. No
offense to whoever created it, but it's not a very powerful logo. The
lines and circles look kind of weak. Sickly, even. I haven't seen
anyone actually using it, so I kind of wonder if it ought to be
replaced. Is there a specific meaning to the arrows and interlocked
circles?

  I guess that's about it. Like I said, sorry if I stepped on any
toes. The newbie throws himself on the mercy of the list. :)

co'o mi'e maikl
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#1818
7:08 PM Tue 26 Oct 99
 Subject:  Re: zoi .gy speed .gy
 From:  Mark E. Shoulson
From: "Mark E. Shoulson" mar-@kli.org

>From: trevor hill thil-@quark.com
>Date: Fri, 22 Oct 1999 14:07:47 -0600
>
>From: trevor hill thil-@quark.com
>
>
>  ma smuni la'e zoi .gy speed .gy bau la lojban??

.e'u lu "ni sutra" li'u

~mark

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#1819
8:04 PM Tue 26 Oct 99
 Subject:  iGive.com
 From:  Mark E. Shoulson
From: "Mark E. Shoulson" mar-@kli.org

mi puzi cilre fi la'o .gic. iGive.com .gic. .i mi krici ledu'u .ibu ka'e
sarji la lojbangirz. .i .ai mi ciksi .i .ibu te pluta so'o vecnu fo la
.intrnet. .i mu'i lenu lo'e pilno be .ibu cu te vecnu da loi .ibu vecnu kei
.ibu dunda je'u loi jdini le girzu poi le pilno pu cuxna ke'a .i mu'a la
klingon. zei bangu girzu pu se dunda loi jdini .i .e'u loi lobypli cu pilno
.ibu .i mu'i leinu do pilno lemi tcita kei .ibu dunda loi jdini kybycy. .i
do ka'e sarji la lojbangirz. sepi'o .ibu

Something that might be useful for LLG supporters, which you may not have
run across.  There's a website, www.igive.com, which is essentially a mall;
you have a bunch of links to a whole mess of internet vendors (mostly ones
I've heard of).  The deal is, you designate some charity with iGive, then
shop at the various places, tell iGive about it, and they give a cut (up to
15% of what you spend) to your chosen cause.  You can designate anything;
I found out about it because someone put down the Klingon Language
Institute as the beneficiary.  And guess what, they contacted us and found
out about us... but the question always remains, are they on the up and up?
The proof of the pudding's in the eating: they actually have coughed up
some dough for the KLI.  What more proof is there to be asked?  It's a
simple way to raise a little cash for worthy non-profits without costing
you (or the cause) anything.  I think the LLG could use this also; I think
especially small groups like the LLG and the KLI can benefit from modest
donations (because they're so strapped to start with).  Currently my
registered cause is the KLI (I can change any time, and I may switch to LLG
sometimes); if you sign up using my link and shop before the end of
November, the KLI gets an extra bonus.  Or one of you can sign up and
designate LLG and post YOUR link so the LLG can get the bonus from the
rest.  Go for it; it's an easy way to support Lojban.

The link is:

http://www.iGive.com/html/ssi.cfm?CID=3995&MID=102037

Every little bit helps.

~mark

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#1820
8:18 PM Tue 26 Oct 99
 Subject:  Re: lojban  newbie: an outsider looking in
 From:  xod

From: xod xo-@bway.net

At 10:06 PM -0400 10/26/99, Michal Wallace (sabren) wrote:
>From: "Michal Wallace (sabren)" sabre-@manifestation.com
>
>
>.ui coi rodo
>
>  I'm fairly new to lojban, curious, and confused. Over the
>past few days I've been reading the lojban website and the
>archives for this list, trying to decide whether or not to
>learn lojban. I decided I want to... and so, I have a whole
>bunch of questions! Some of these are kind of critical, so
>forgive me if I step on some toes. :)


Criticism is good! I look forward to hearing more from you in the future!


>  First of all, the written materials. As far as I can tell,
>www.lojban.org hasn't been updated in about a year.  Should I trust
>it? I mean, the textbook is on hold until the dictionary comes
>out.. But the dictionary is expected in late 1997! Was the dictionary
>ever finished? If not, who's working on it?


Yeah, ahem, this is why I have been agitating to make www.lojban.org
reflect what is NEW in Lojban! (Where is Veijo's new and improved
version??)

At present, lojban.org is the best reference site, but the best Lojban
portal is at http://euclid.pdmi.ras.ru/~sklyanin/lojban.html but it's in
Russia and goes down from time to time! (Like, at the time of this
mailing.) (Islamic bombs?)

We also have a lojban webring that I have been pressuring people to join!
(Robin and John: add those HTML fragments to your pages!) I host its main
page at http://www.decadezero.org/lojban_webring.html but my sites are
suffering growing pains this week.

More about the dictionary below.



>  My understanding is that while there are many root words (gismu) in
>lojban, they don't account for every noun/verb/whatever you could say
>in a natural language. So most things are described metaphorically
>(tanru) by combining gismu. If the tanru catches on, it gets cooked
>down into a compound word (lujvo). There is some kind of magical trick
>to this process that ensures that no two lojban words are ever the
>same. (a sad attempt: xu valsi drata valsi [for: "is it true that any
>given word is [means something] different from any other word?] )
>
>  Other than that lojban sentence, am I right so far? And if so, is
>the textbook simply waiting on an expanded list of lujvo so people
>don't have to talk in tanru as much? Isn't that a chicken and egg
>problem? What mechanisms are in place for collecting new lujvo?


In my opinion, most lujvo should be field-specific. So, a given lujvo might
have one meaning with respect to automobiles, and another with respect to
spaceflight. This is my own idea of the best solution to your above dilemma.

You see, a lujvo selects one of the many, many interpretations of a tanru.

Hence, I feel a general dictionary is a bad idea. Instead, specific
glossaries should be created (grown and evolved, rather than written at one
sitting). A document would refer to a glossary sort of the way source code
might import macros, or an XML file refers to a DTD.

I have initiated the formation of a computer-related glossary, but it's got
a ways to go. Robin, Twery, Nicholas - your input here would be greatly
appreciated. And yours too, Michal!

Once my own site gets stable (ISDN --> DSL woes) I will host it myself.


>  It seems to me that this list itself is the most up to date
>resource. One problem I've had is that it's hard to search. Onelist
>will only let me search digests, egroups just has a terrible search
>engine... I haven't reached the point of wanting to do this yet, but I
>would suspect that words with periods and apostrophes won't be indexed
>correctly, so searching the lojban texts in these two archives would be
>especially difficult. Is there any other searchable archive?

Not of this egroups list, I am afraid.

>  I'm considering creating a 'bot to get the entire archive from
>egroups, saving it to my site, setting up my own little search engine,
>and putting it all on my website...

Sounds good! Check out glimpse on lojban.org, which searches gismu. It
seems to work quite well.
http://xiron.pc.helsinki.fi/lojban/gismu-search-form.html



>  What work has been done in mechanically translating lojban into
>english? I found one article on the .org site, and of course the
>glossary generator. But does anyone actually have code to suck up
>lojban and spit out English?

I've seen parsers, but they all seem to barf incomprehensible diagrams
instead of sentences, even crappy sentences like babelfish.


>  LogFlash: Um.. I downloaded this. I ran it. It made me cry. :)
>Looking through the archives, I managed to find references to it being
>written in Pascal back in the 80's. Also, that Eric Raymond tried
>porting it to C/C++. I couldn't find source for either.  Basically, I
>think this software was probably great back in the 80's, but it
>obviously came out long before the dawn of the modern user interface.
>Simply porting it to C really doesn't make much sense to me - but
>making a web based version in flash, or a high level scripting
>language does.  I'm a web programmer by trade, and also have quite a
>bit of experience with tutoring and accelerated learning methods.. I'd
>be more than happy to lead a project to revamp the software. Would
>anybody else be interested in this? Where could I get the legacy code?


I considered doing a Java servlet version of Logflash. I haven't seen the
DOS version - the Mac version isn't all that bad. If you spearhead a
project, I will certainly consider joining.


>  Also on the topic of software, I saw references to a GUI lojban word
>processor. This reminds me very much of some work being done with the
>python scripting language.. There's an editor written in python for
>writing python, and it does stuff like syntax highlighting and what
>have you... Python in general is a really quick language to pick up,
>and can be compiled to run on a Java virtual machine, and could be
>easily tied in with the Java speech libraries. It might be a good
>place to start.. I'm a big supporter of the emacs idea, too. Has
>anyone done anything with these?

There was a spate of discussion a while back, but I don't know what really
exists. Others will know better than I.


>  On the LLG : I understand it's not well funded (yet), but is it
>a full time operation, or mostly run by volunteers? What does it
>actually _do_ on a day to day basis?
>
>  I get the feeling that one thing it _doesn't_ do is advocacy.  I
>realize Lojban isn't really out to take over the world, but surely,
>the more people that speak it, the more valuable it will be. Is anyone
>doing anything about spreading the word? (Outside of conlang and
>auxlang circles, I mean).. "Advocacy" might involve informing teachers
>of alternative schools, organizing classes, keeping the website(s) up
>to date, and coming up with more user-friendly learning materials,
>books, CD roms, a phrasebook, etc, published under some kind of open
>license so that the materials could be freely modified, copied, and
>sold. [From my understanding, the LLG lost quite a bit of money on the
>reference grammar. Perhaps that was avoidable.]


You know, a CD rom sounds like a dandy idea.

Although, if we had a decent Lojban --> English parser, which output on the
level of babelfish, I think that would be even dandier. However, I
personally know almost nothing about all that parsing stuff.

I figure a nearly direct translation from the parser, with all the weird
crap removed, and with maybe 20 - 50 rules for making the logician's
English sound more like Standard English might be enough. This is what I
REALLY want to see done!


>  Finally: is the flag/logo really working? I hunted it down to put on
>the lojban website that I'm making... And decided against it. No
>offense to whoever created it, but it's not a very powerful logo. The
>lines and circles look kind of weak. Sickly, even. I haven't seen
>anyone actually using it, so I kind of wonder if it ought to be
>replaced. Is there a specific meaning to the arrows and interlocked
>circles?
>
>  I guess that's about it. Like I said, sorry if I stepped on any
>toes. The newbie throws himself on the mercy of the list. :)
>
>co'o mi'e maikl


Thank you for your observations! .i mi djica le nu zmadu casnu



-----
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Technology,
Open Society, Self-Direction, and Rational Thinking.

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#1821
8:21 PM Tue 26 Oct 99
 Subject:  Re: lojban newbie: an  outsider looking in
 From:  Chris Double

From: Chris Double chri-@double.co.nz

>   First of all, the written materials. As far as I can tell,
> www.lojban.org hasn't been updated in about a year.  Should I trust
> it?

As far as I know it hasn't been updated because there has not been
much to update. Most things on it are still quite valid, apart from as
you point at the expected completion dates of things like the dictionary.

> I mean, the textbook is on hold until the dictionary comes out.. But
> the dictionary is expected in late 1997! Was the dictionary ever
> finished? If not, who's working on it?

No dictionary has been published as far as I'm aware. There is a nice
.pdf file at http://www.rrbcurnow.freeuk.com/lojban/index.html that I
use that serves as a good stand in. It lists gismu, rafsi, cmavo, etc
along with an english to gismu listing.

Another good place to look for information and links is
http://www.pdmi.ras.ru/~sklyanin/lojban.html.

>   LogFlash: Um.. I downloaded this. I ran it. It made me cry. :)

I quite like it. It works for its intended purpose and is quite
functional. My large, large dropback lists tend to be a problem for me
though :-).

One thing I dislike is the repetitive typing. I get aching hands (OOS,
RSI or whatever) with constant keyboard use and the typing in of the
corrections aggravates things. But it is an effective rote learning
tool.

> I'm a web programmer by trade, and also have quite a bit of
> experience with tutoring and accelerated learning methods.. I'd be
> more than happy to lead a project to revamp the software. Would
> anybody else be interested in this? Where could I get the legacy
> code?

I'd use it if it was available. Particularly if there was some sort of
'honesty' system, where I didn't have to type in the answer, rather I
could guess the answer silently and confirm whether I was right. The
less keyboard use the better for me. I've used Flash!, a flashcard
program on the Palm Pilot, which does this and it works quite well.

>
>   Finally: is the flag/logo really working? I hunted it down to put on
> the lojban website that I'm making... And decided against it.

It looks good printed on the cover of the reference grammer IMHO. In
fact, the reference grammer is a damn fine book both in usefulness and
in quality.

Perhaps it's the bitmap quality or the way it appears on a web page
that's the problem?

Chris.

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#1822
12:29 AM Wed 27 Oct 99
 Subject:  Re: lojban newbie: an  outsider looking in
 From:  Evgueni SKLYANIN
From: sklyani-@lpthe.jussieu.fr (Evgueni SKLYANIN)

la xod. cusku di'e

>At present, lojban.org is the best reference site, but the best Lojban
>portal is at http://euclid.pdmi.ras.ru/~sklyanin/lojban.html but it's in
>Russia and goes down from time to time! (Like, at the time of this
>mailing.) (Islamic bombs?)

Thank you for your kind words. It seems that the address should be changed to

http://www.pdmi.ras.ru/~sklyanin/lojban.html

For a while, "euclid" and "www" servers coexisted but now it seems that
"euclid" is obsolete.

co'o mi'e .evgenis.

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#1823
9:38 AM Wed 27 Oct 99
 Subject:  Re: iGive.com
 From:  Bob LeChevalier (lojbab)

From: "Bob LeChevalier (lojbab)" lojba-@lojban.org

At 03:06 AM 10/27/99 +0000, Mark E. Shoulson wrote:
>From: "Mark E. Shoulson" mar-@kli.org
>
>mi puzi cilre fi la'o .gic. iGive.com .gic. .i mi krici ledu'u .ibu ka'e
>sarji la lojbangirz. .i .ai mi ciksi .i .ibu te pluta so'o vecnu fo la
>.intrnet. .i mu'i lenu lo'e pilno be .ibu cu te vecnu da loi .ibu vecnu kei
>.ibu dunda je'u loi jdini le girzu poi le pilno pu cuxna ke'a .i mu'a la
>klingon. zei bangu girzu pu se dunda loi jdini .i .e'u loi lobypli cu pilno
>.ibu .i mu'i leinu do pilno lemi tcita kei .ibu dunda loi jdini kybycy. .i
>do ka'e sarji la lojbangirz. sepi'o .ibu
>
>Something that might be useful for LLG supporters, which you may not have
>run across.  There's a website, www.igive.com, which is essentially a mall;
>you have a bunch of links to a whole mess of internet vendors (mostly ones
>I've heard of).  The deal is, you designate some charity with iGive, then
>shop at the various places, tell iGive about it, and they give a cut (up to
>15% of what you spend) to your chosen cause.  You can designate anything;
>I found out about it because someone put down the Klingon Language
>Institute as the beneficiary.  And guess what, they contacted us and found
>out about us... but the question always remains, are they on the up and up?
>The proof of the pudding's in the eating: they actually have coughed up
>some dough for the KLI.  What more proof is there to be asked?  It's a
>simple way to raise a little cash for worthy non-profits without costing
>you (or the cause) anything.  I think the LLG could use this also; I think
>especially small groups like the LLG and the KLI can benefit from modest
>donations (because they're so strapped to start with).  Currently my
>registered cause is the KLI (I can change any time, and I may switch to LLG
>sometimes); if you sign up using my link and shop before the end of
>November, the KLI gets an extra bonus.  Or one of you can sign up and
>designate LLG and post YOUR link so the LLG can get the bonus from the
>rest.  Go for it; it's an easy way to support Lojban.
>
>The link is:
>
>http://www.iGive.com/html/ssi.cfm?CID=3995&MID=102037

I will note since this came up, that LLG has received approximately $100 in
donations through the iGive program.  I have been reluctant to promote it
since I know little about it, whether it is a front for some commercial
group for example, and because we have a history of strong offense taken to
spam.

But we will indeed be happy to take any money we can get from the program,
and if enough people think we should, we could consider adding a link on
the LLG page to their site to encourage others to do so (which they request).

lojbab
----
lojbab                     ***NOTE NEW ADDRESS***           lojba-@lojban.org
Bob LeChevalier, President, The Logical Language Group, Inc.
2904 Beau Lane, Fairfax VA 22031-1303 USA               703-385-0273
Artificial language Loglan/Lojban:
   see Lojban WWW Server: href=" http://xiron.pc.helsinki.fi/lojban/ "
   Order _The Complete Lojban Language_ - see our Web pages or ask me.

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#1824
10:11 AM Wed 27 Oct 99
 Subject:  Re: iGive.com
 From:  xod

From: xod xo-@bway.net

>From: "Bob LeChevalier (lojbab)" lojba-@lojban.org

>I will note since this came up, that LLG has received approximately $100 in
>donations through the iGive program.  I have been reluctant to promote it
>since I know little about it


It would certainly pay to spend the time needed to look into this.


>But we will indeed be happy to take any money we can get from the program,
>and if enough people think we should, we could consider adding a link on
>the LLG page to their site to encourage others to do so (which they request).

I don't do any online shopping, but what is the link for the LLG
registration with iGive?

-----
 Perpetual Progress, Self-Transformation, Practical Optimism, Intelligent
Technology,
Open Society, Self-Direction, and Rational Thinking.
http://extropy.com/

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#1825
11:30 AM Wed 27 Oct 99
 Subject:  zo ta'u
 From:  Adam Raizen

From: "Adam Raizen" araize-@newmail.net

.i ma se valsi zo ta'u .i le du'u finti le tanru ji le du'u pejgau le tanru
.i le ma'oste cu xusra frica le gerna cukta .i pe'i le du'u pejgau le
tanru cu ka'e selplimau

What is the meaning of "ta'u"? "making a tanru" or "expanding a
tanru"? The ma'oste and the grammar book say different things. I
think that "expanding a tanru" is more useful.

.i co'o mi'e adam

Adam Raizen
araize-@newmail.net
------------------------------------------------------------
"Government is not reason; it is not eloquence; it is force!
Like fire, it is a dangerous servant and a fearful master."
                                         --George Washington

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#1826
11:39 AM Wed 27 Oct 99
 Subject:  Re: Re: lojban  newbie: an outsider looking in
 From:  Bob LeChevalier (lojbab)

From: "Bob LeChevalier (lojbab)" lojba-@lojban.org

At 04:18 PM 10/27/99 +1300, Chris Double wrote:
> >   First of all, the written materials. As far as I can tell,
> > www.lojban.org hasn't been updated in about a year.  Should I trust
> > it?
>
>As far as I know it hasn't been updated because there has not been
>much to update. Most things on it are still quite valid, apart from as
>you point at the expected completion dates of things like the dictionary.

Confirmed.

 >   LogFlash: Um.. I downloaded this. I ran it. It made me cry. :)

>I quite like it. It works for its intended purpose and is quite
>functional. My large, large dropback lists tend to be a problem for me
>though :-).

You can use the parameter changes to set a maximum size on your dropback
lesson and/or stop adding new words until you reduce the pile some.

>One thing I dislike is the repetitive typing. I get aching hands (OOS,
>RSI or whatever) with constant keyboard use and the typing in of the
>corrections aggravates things. But it is an effective rote learning
>tool.

You can reduce the number of required corrections.  The number was set at 6
as a result of paper flash card experimentation that showed that number as
optimal.  But if the typing gets to you, cut the number down and live with
somewhat slower mastery of your dropback words.

I'd use it if it was available. Particularly if there was some sort of
>'honesty' system, where I didn't have to type in the answer, rather I
>could guess the answer silently and confirm whether I was right.

I'll ask Nora if this could be added as an option.  It sounds like a quick
and easy addition, and she has recently dug out the code.

>It looks good printed on the cover of the reference grammer IMHO. In
>fact, the reference grammer is a damn fine book both in usefulness and
>in quality.

John thanks you, I am sure.  And we could use a few more sales, if anyone
out there hasn't gotten the book.  LLG's bank balance is very low right
now, and we need around $800 at the end of the year for anuual ISP access
and Website charges.  Any donors out there?

The logo bitmap was created using a bit-twiddling tool for making Windows
icons.  You can only do so much with such a tool.

lojbab
----
lojbab                     ***NOTE NEW ADDRESS***           lojba-@lojban.org
Bob LeChevalier, President, The Logical Language Group, Inc.
2904 Beau Lane, Fairfax VA 22031-1303 USA               703-385-0273
Artificial language Loglan/Lojban:
   see Lojban WWW Server: href=" http://xiron.pc.helsinki.fi/lojban/ "
   Order _The Complete Lojban Language_ - see our Web pages or ask me.

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#1827
11:40 AM Wed 27 Oct 99
 Subject:  Re:  lojban newbie: an outsider looking in
 From:  Bob LeChevalier (lojbab)

From: "Bob LeChevalier (lojbab)" lojba-@lojban.org

At 10:06 PM 10/26/99 -0400, Michal Wallace (sabren) wrote:
>From: "Michal Wallace (sabren)" sabre-@manifestation.com
>   I'm fairly new to lojban, curious, and confused. Over the
>past few days I've been reading the lojban website and the
>archives for this list, trying to decide whether or not to
>learn lojban. I decided I want to... and so, I have a whole
>bunch of questions! Some of these are kind of critical, so
>forgive me if I step on some toes. :)

No toes stepped on that I can see.  Others have given you good answers to
which I object only to some side issues.  But I will give the "Lojban
Central" answer to your questions to confirm their comments, so you know
they can be believed %^)

>   First of all, the written materials. As far as I can tell,
>www.lojban.org hasn't been updated in about a year.

Answering your later question here, LLG is a VERY spare time organization,
and the main leadership has not had a lot of it since the book came out
(actively parenting takes a lot of time).  I am not HTML savvy and am not
too hot with Unix editors, and these are skills needed to manage the
lojban.org Web page effectively - I am afraid of playing around and
screwing things up for everybody.

The material on lojban.org is primarily archival and reference material,
legacy of what was only an ftp site up until a year ago.  The language was
baselined two years ago, and it is not going to change much, so there is
not much new reference stuff to post until we get some big jobs done like
the dictionary.  All we can therefore do is add material to the site, and
maybe weed out superfluous stuff if/when we get too much.  I have a lot of
material in my archives, and intend to upload it, but without knowing how
to add it to our page, uploading it is not worth much.  I expect to see
John Cowan the first weekend in November, and we may be able to get some
significant improvements in a hurry (not to mention he can give me the
knowhow to confidently keep making minor improvements while a volunteer
redesign continues).

Some have argued for a livelier reorganization of the page, and the job has
been delegated to a volunteer committee, but our volunteers have a record
of disappearing for weeks and months at a time after signing up for a job,
and nothing much has been done on this task.

Veijo Vilva, who runs the semi-official Finland site, has an update in
progress to his main page that will link to other sites.  As others have
noted, people have been building their own pages with new material on them,
links to other pages, and a webring has been set up.  All of these pages
are unofficial, but so far as I know, nothing posted on them is egregiously
nonstandard.  Use them and add to them if you wish; Lojban will grow only
if the community grows it - we can't do it here at the "center" any more.

>   Should I trust
>it? I mean, the textbook is on hold until the dictionary comes
>out.. But the dictionary is expected in late 1997! Was the dictionary
>ever finished? If not, who's working on it?

All reference material on the site in official, and except for schedules is
de jure correct because it is part of the baseline.  There is a draft
dictionary file on the site.  A little work has been done on it since it
was last uploaded, but not enough of a change to warrant a new upload.  No
one is actively working on it - every couple of months I spend an hour or
two to salve my conscience, but there is a LOT of work left to be done.

The textbook was put on hold in part because the reference book that has
been published is "good enough" for many people, and writing a sufficiently
better book that is more textbookish requires more elementary Lojban text
than currently exists.  And of course I was the one working on both projects.

Finally, both projects remain on low priority because even if they get
finished, we cannot publish them for financial reasons.  We have sold
roughly 260 copies of The Complete Lojban Language, which is about half of
what we need to sell in order to break even.  There remains a $5K
publishing loan to repay before we can consider a new book.  When we next
publish a book, it will probably be an intro to the language and project to
replace our "level 0" package, because, while our on-line site has not
changes in a year, our snail mail intro package has not been updated in 6
years.

>   My understanding is that while there are many root words (gismu) in
>lojban, they don't account for every noun/verb/whatever you could say
>in a natural language. So most things are described metaphorically
>(tanru) by combining gismu. If the tanru catches on, it gets cooked
>down into a compound word (lujvo). There is some kind of magical trick
>to this process that ensures that no two lojban words are ever the
>same.

No two different Lojban tanru end up forming the same lujvo.

>  (a sad attempt: xu valsi drata valsi [for: "is it true that any
>given word is [means something] different from any other word?] )

xu ro da poi valsi cu frica ro drata valsi le ka smuni
Is it true that for each given word, it is different from all other words
in meaningness?

go'i
Yes.

>   Other than that lojban sentence, am I right so far? And if so, is
>the textbook simply waiting on an expanded list of lujvo so people
>don't have to talk in tanru as much?

Among other things.  But much more.

>  Isn't that a chicken and egg problem?

Yes but the existing book is serving as a pretty good egg, even if it isn't
a true textbook.

>  What mechanisms are in place for collecting new lujvo?

All text that is posted on this list is archived, and irregularly I go
through all the posts, as well as any downloaded web material, looking for
lujvo to add to the collection.  Defining the lujvo that have been used is
a severe bottleneck.

>   It seems to me that this list itself is the most up to date resource.

Yes.  By intent.

>  One problem I've had is that it's hard to search. Onelist
>will only let me search digests, egroups just has a terrible search
>engine...

Up until the switch to onelist, we were putting an archive on the ftp site
that is now www.lojban.org.  There are zipped files there that you can
download and search.  Veijo Vilva also has a searchable partial-archive at
one point, that I presume is still available but also does not cover recent
postings.

At some point, someone will collect up the archives for the more recent
material and add it to the Web site.

>I haven't reached the point of wanting to do this yet, but I
>would suspect that words with periods and apostrophes won't be indexed
>correctly, so searching the lojban texts in these two archives would be
>especially difficult. Is there any other searchable archive?

As noted above - the best bet is to download and search it locally using
whatever tooks you have.  The archive is not excessively large.

>   I'm considering creating a 'bot to get the entire archive from
>egroups, saving it to my site, setting up my own little search engine,
>and putting it all on my website...

Feel free, and add the stuff from the zipped archives and you can go all
the way back to 1989 or whenever we started.

>   What work has been done in mechanically translating lojban into
>english? I found one article on the .org site, and of course the
>glossary generator. But does anyone actually have code to suck up
>lojban and spit out English?

There is a Lojban parser/glosser in Beta up on the web page, but not linked
in to the site.  Maybe someone can repost the URL or you can find it in the
archive from last spring or summer (I am writing this offline and cannot
check the address).

>   LogFlash: Um.. I downloaded this. I ran it. It made me cry. :)

Sorry.

>Looking through the archives, I managed to find references to it being
>written in Pascal back in the 80's.

Turbo Pascal, to be specific.

>  Also, that Eric Raymond tried porting it to C/C++.

It didn't successfully auto-port.  Got it 75% working and gave
up.  Debugging was too time consuming.  The problems were mostly in the
I/O, replacing Turbo library with curses.

>  I couldn't find source for either.

We have not posted the source.  It is several thousand lines of code, and
inadequately documented.  I've given copies to individuals who have
volunteered to port or recode it, and no one has managed to even get as far
as Eric Raymond did; the program is just too big.

Nora recently unwrapped her source archive for the first time in several
years and started working on the long-missing LogFlash 2 (which teaches
rafsi and maybe lujvo-making), but is working much overtime until after Y2K
stuff is ended, so do not expect anything soon.

>  Basically, I
>think this software was probably great back in the 80's, but it
>obviously came out long before the dawn of the modern user interface.

Nora has toyed rewriting it in Visual Basic, which she has some skill with,
but it isn't a high priority, especially since I suspect VB stuff will be
even less portable to Unix systems than the current code or executable.

>Simply porting it to C really doesn't make much sense to me - but
>making a web based version in flash, or a high level scripting
>language does.

Go for it.

>  I'm a web programmer by trade, and also have quite a
>bit of experience with tutoring and accelerated learning methods.

If you know that kind of stuff, then you won't want to use the existing
code, which is narrowly tailored to a particular learning method (one which
has worked outstandingly for everyone who has the willpower to stick with
it for the month or two of an hour a day that it takes -  Nora and I still
have 70-80% recall of words (and would recover to 90% plus in a week or two
at most) even though we almost never use the language and we used Logflash
over 10 years ago.

>. I'd
>be more than happy to lead a project to revamp the software. Would
>anybody else be interested in this? Where could I get the legacy code?

I can put it in my queue to send you the code, but don't expect that it
will help you (and I won't get it to you very quickly).  It would be better
to recode from the algorithm, which I think is online somewhere.

>   Also on the topic of software, I saw references to a GUI lojban word
>processor. This reminds me very much of some work being done with the
>python scripting language.. There's an editor written in python for
>writing python, and it does stuff like syntax highlighting and what
>have you... Python in general is a really quick language to pick up,
>and can be compiled to run on a Java virtual machine, and could be
>easily tied in with the Java speech libraries. It might be a good
>place to start.. I'm a big supporter of the emacs idea, too. Has
>anyone done anything with these?

Not officially.  It has been often talked about.

>   On the LLG : I understand it's not well funded (yet),

correct.

>  but is it a full time operation,

Not hardly.  Lately, other than email, it is more like a few hours a month
keeping up with book orders.

>  or mostly run by volunteers?

Entirely so.

>What does it actually _do_ on a day to day basis?

Manage this list.  Fill book orders.  Try to get the snail mail list
updated so we can finally send out something to those not on this list
announcing the book that was published 2 years ago.  Everything else is
either farmed out to volunteers or on a vary back burner, so: coordinate
where possible when volunteers are actually getting something done.

>   I get the feeling that one thing it _doesn't_ do is advocacy.  I
>realize Lojban isn't really out to take over the world, but surely,
>the more people that speak it, the more valuable it will be. Is anyone
>doing anything about spreading the word? (Outside of conlang and
>auxlang circles, I mean).. "Advocacy" might involve informing teachers
>of alternative schools, organizing classes, keeping the website(s) up
>to date, and coming up with more user-friendly learning materials,
>books, CD roms, a phrasebook, etc, published under some kind of open
>license so that the materials could be freely modified, copied, and
>sold. [From my understanding, the LLG lost quite a bit of money on the
>reference grammar. Perhaps that was avoidable.]

We have not lost money.  We have over 1000 copies left and they will
eventually sell - sales have trickled along at a steady and even slowly
increasing rate, but all we have is word of mouth since our only
advertising is on the net, and we refuse to spam.  When I send out a snail
mail announcement, we may get enough sales in a short time to bring us up
to break even, since the snail list has over 1000 addresses of people who
asked to be kept informed.  But there are several hundred addresses to be
typed in and checked.

There will be a CD ROM version of the lojban.org archive, rather more up
front than other things on the back burner, because frankly it will be a
file dump with nothing fancy added, and hence easy to do and relatively
cheap to publish.

>   Finally: is the flag/logo really working?

What does that mean?  It is a logo, and people recognize it.

>  I hunted it down to put on
>the lojban website that I'm making... And decided against it. No
>offense to whoever created it, but it's not a very powerful logo.

The logo was chosen by vote of subscribers to our snail mail journal among
all proposals submitted several years ago.  It took roughly 5 years after
the contest before we even had bit map drawing, so we have never made much
use of it, other than as icons for a Windows, and finally on the Lojban
reference book.

>  The
>lines and circles look kind of weak. Sickly, even. I haven't seen
>anyone actually using it, so I kind of wonder if it ought to be
>replaced.

Not likely, since it is a total non-priority and would render its use on
the book obsolete and confusing.

>  Is there a specific meaning to the arrows and interlocked
>circles?

Venn diagram (for logic) with superimposed coordinate axes, arrows pointing
outward to suggest infinite expansion (which has several positive
relevances to the language and the project %^)

lojbab
----
lojbab                     ***NOTE NEW ADDRESS***           lojba-@lojban.org
Bob LeChevalier, President, The Logical Language Group, Inc.
2904 Beau Lane, Fairfax VA 22031-1303 USA               703-385-0273
Artificial language Loglan/Lojban:
   see Lojban WWW Server: href=" http://xiron.pc.helsinki.fi/lojban/ "
   Order _The Complete Lojban Language_ - see our Web pages or ask me.

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#1829
11:55 AM Wed 27 Oct 99
 Subject:  Re:  lojban newbie: an outsider looking in
 From:  Bob LeChevalier (lojbab)

From: "Bob LeChevalier (lojbab)" lojba-@lojban.org

At 11:21 PM 10/26/99 -0400, xod wrote:
> >  First of all, the written materials. As far as I can tell,
> >www.lojban.org hasn't been updated in about a year.  Should I trust
> >it? I mean, the textbook is on hold until the dictionary comes
> >out.. But the dictionary is expected in late 1997! Was the dictionary
> >ever finished? If not, who's working on it?
>
>Yeah, ahem, this is why I have been agitating to make www.lojban.org
>reflect what is NEW in Lojban! (Where is Veijo's new and improved
>version??)

I asked you and a couple people to review his trial site.  If no one sends
him comments, he may never do anything.

>We also have a lojban webring that I have been pressuring people to join!
>(Robin and John: add those HTML fragments to your pages!) I host its main
>page at http://www.decadezero.org/lojban_webring.html but my sites are
>suffering growing pains this week.

Maybe when Cowan is here, we can get the archive site onto this.

>In my opinion, most lujvo should be field-specific. So, a given lujvo might
>have one meaning with respect to automobiles, and another with respect to
>spaceflight. This is my own idea of the best solution to your above dilemma.

That is contrary to the design philosophy.  A field specific lujvo, just
like a field specific fu'ivla borrowing, should have a field-tag on it.  A
given lujvo should have only one meaning and only one place structure.  If
this fails, much of the rudimentary semantic theory that has slowly been
built into the language could disintegrate.

>You see, a lujvo selects one of the many, many interpretations of a tanru.

Correct.  So a tanru on the other hand can have many field specific meanings.

>Hence, I feel a general dictionary is a bad idea. Instead, specific
>glossaries should be created (grown and evolved, rather than written at one
>sitting). A document would refer to a glossary sort of the way source code
>might import macros, or an XML file refers to a DTD.

No problem with this, except that the community WANTS a general dictionary
and has been expecting one Real Soon Now for 11 years.

> >  What work has been done in mechanically translating lojban into
> >english? I found one article on the .org site, and of course the
> >glossary generator. But does anyone actually have code to suck up
> >lojban and spit out English?
>
>I've seen parsers, but they all seem to barf incomprehensible diagrams
>instead of sentences, even crappy sentences like babelfish.

The parser/glosser does produce English glosses in addition to the
incomprehensible diagrams %^)

>You know, a CD rom sounds like a dandy idea.
>
>Although, if we had a decent Lojban --> English parser, which output on the
>level of babelfish, I think that would be even dandier. However, I
>personally know almost nothing about all that parsing stuff.

I don't know how the parser/glosser compares to babelfish, but the main
lack is that general dictionary of words and place structures that you said
above that we don't need.  You can't gloss it if the computer cannot look
it up.  The lack of a good dictionary is probably the next most serious
lack in the glosser capability (though prettier English would be nice).

lojbab
----
lojbab                     ***NOTE NEW ADDRESS***           lojba-@lojban.org
Bob LeChevalier, President, The Logical Language Group, Inc.
2904 Beau Lane, Fairfax VA 22031-1303 USA               703-385-0273
Artificial language Loglan/Lojban:
   see Lojban WWW Server: href=" http://xiron.pc.helsinki.fi/lojban/ "
   Order _The Complete Lojban Language_ - see our Web pages or ask me.

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#1830
11:58 AM Wed 27 Oct 99
 Subject:  Re: zo  ta'u
 From:  Bob LeChevalier (lojbab)

From: "Bob LeChevalier (lojbab)" lojba-@lojban.org

At 08:32 PM 10/27/99 +0200, Adam Raizen wrote:
>From: "Adam Raizen" araize-@newmail.net
>
>.i ma se valsi zo ta'u .i le du'u finti le tanru ji le du'u pejgau le tanru
>.i le ma'oste cu xusra frica le gerna cukta .i pe'i le du'u pejgau le
>tanru cu ka'e selplimau
>
>What is the meaning of "ta'u"? "making a tanru" or "expanding a
>tanru"? The ma'oste and the grammar book say different things. I
>think that "expanding a tanru" is more useful.

Given the apparent conflict between the two, the book is the later
publication and the harder to fix, so it will stand.

(Oops!)

lojbab
----
lojbab                     ***NOTE NEW ADDRESS***           lojba-@lojban.org
Bob LeChevalier, President, The Logical Language Group, Inc.
2904 Beau Lane, Fairfax VA 22031-1303 USA               703-385-0273
Artificial language Loglan/Lojban:
   see Lojban WWW Server: href=" http://xiron.pc.helsinki.fi/lojban/ "
   Order _The Complete Lojban Language_ - see our Web pages or ask me.

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#1831
1:41 PM Wed 27 Oct 99
 Subject:  Re: lojban newbie: an  outsider looking in
 From:  Jorge Llambias

From: "Jorge Llambias" jjllambia-@hotmail.com

coi maikl ualys

>   My understanding is that while there are many root words (gismu) in
>lojban, they don't account for every noun/verb/
>whatever you could say in a natural language.

There are about 1500 gismu, they can't account for the
millions or more nouns and verbs of natural languages.

>So most things are described metaphorically
>(tanru) by combining gismu.

Usually things are not described metaphorically in the
poetic sense, but yes as compound words.

>If the tanru catches on, it gets cooked
>down into a compound word (lujvo).

Often, maybe most times, lujvo are used without
a tanru having been used first.

>There is some kind of magical trick
>to this process that ensures that no two lojban words are ever the same.

Not magical, but admittedly a little more complicated
than it need have been.

>   I'm considering creating a 'bot to get the entire archive from
>egroups, saving it to my site, setting up my own little search engine,
>and putting it all on my website...

Yes, please do! For example, someone just asked for the
meaning of {ta'u}. I would love to be able to do a search
to find out how many times {ta'u} has been used (if ever)
and with which of the two alternative meanings. We have
a pretty large corpus of Lojban text by now, but, as you say,
very difficult to use.

>The
>lines and circles look kind of weak. Sickly, even. I haven't seen
>anyone actually using it, so I kind of wonder if it ought to be
>replaced.

We're probably stuck with it as the official logo, but nothing
stops you or anyone else from creating and using a better
one, and if it catches on, it will become the unofficial logo...

co'o mi'e xorxes

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#1832
3:56 PM Wed 27 Oct 99
 Subject:  lojban vs  loglan
 From:  Michal Wallace (sabren)

From: "Michal Wallace (sabren)" sabre-@manifestation.com


.ui coi rodo


  Someone suggested to me that I learn loglan instead of lojban.
I've read the LLG's account of the split... And I think I understand
the political differences (copyright, etc).. I tend to prefer the
more open spirit that seems to surround lojban.

  But: what is actually the difference? What are the advantages to
learning one over another?

  And: if the grammars are the same, and just the words are different
(??) ... does that mean a loglan-lojban translation program would be
fairly trivial?

Cheers,

- Michal
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
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#1833
6:08 AM Thu 28 Oct 99
 Subject:  Re: lojban vs loglan
 From:  Robin Turner

From: Robin Turner robi-@bilkent.edu.tr

la maikl. cusku di'e

>   Someone suggested to me that I learn loglan instead of lojban.
> I've read the LLG's account of the split... And I think I understand
> the political differences (copyright, etc).. I tend to prefer the
> more open spirit that seems to surround lojban.
>
>   But: what is actually the difference? What are the advantages to
> learning one over another?

Anything you read on this list will be biased!  Lojban phonology
& morphology seems to be much more systematic than Loglan, and
some of the tricky logical problems have been ironed out.  More
importantly, Lojban has been baselined, so that developments in
the language consist of actually exploring the potential of what
we have, rather than an endless series of bug-fixes.  Any future
changes will be the result of a consensus of Lojban speakers.
Finally, as far as I know, Lojban is going places and Loglan
isn't.  This is not to say that it can't - people are always
reviving moribund languages, as demonstrated by recent efforts to
promote Occidental.  "Newer" doesn't always mean "better" (look
at Windows '98!), but learning Loglan strikes me as somewhat
perverse, like people who prefer vi to emacs.

>
>   And: if the grammars are the same, and just the words are different
> (??) ... does that mean a loglan-lojban translation program would be
> fairly trivial?

AFAIK the grammars are no longer identical, but a translation
program would certainly be feasible. OTOH, I don't see that many
Loglan texts around to translate, so programming time would
probably be more profitably directed towards refining the
Lojban->English software that we have.

co'o mi'e robin.

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#1834
6:45 AM Thu 28 Oct 99
 Subject:  Re: lojban vs loglan
 From:  John Cowan

From: John Cowan cowa-@ccil.org

"Michal Wallace (sabren)" wrote:

>   But: what is actually the difference?

Primarily the different vocabulary.  The grammars were originally the same,
but have drifted apart a bit.

> What are the advantages to
> learning one over another?

Lojban has a larger community and (*cough*) a better reference grammar.

>   And: if the grammars are the same, and just the words are different
> (??) ... does that mean a loglan-lojban translation program would be
> fairly trivial?

Mostly but not entirely.  For example the word "blanu" which by chance
is the same in both languages means simply "x is blue" in Lojban, but
"x is more blue than y is" in Loglan; Lojban represents this more complex
concept with the compound word "blamau".  A truly accurate translation
program would have to take this into account.

Lojbanists are traditionally more careful in their writing, as well,
particularly in the creation of compound words.  It has been rather a
Loglan tradition to make up lots of compound words without carefully
determining their meanings and place structures.

--

John Cowan      http://www.reutershealth.com            jcowa-@reutershealth.com
Schlingt dreifach einen Kreis vom dies / Schliess eurer Aug vor heiliger Schau
Den er genoss vom Honig-Tau / Und trank die Milch vom Paradies.
                -- Coleridge (tr. Politzer)

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#1835
7:18 AM Thu 28 Oct 99
 Subject:  Lojban and the Turing  machine
 From:  PILCH Hartmut

From: PILCH Hartmut ph-@a2e.de

Lojban texts are parsable, and it should at least be possible to formulate
computer programs in some lojban-compatible syntax.

I wonder if Lojban texts themselves could be considered as programs, just
as postscript documents can be.

Lojban parsing is very similar to SGML parsing, but SGML, unlike
Postscript, isn't a full-fledged programming language

What is needed to make Lojban "turing-complete"?

I am just looking for more arguments to further confuse the debate about
software patentability, see also

        http://swpat.ffii.org/lojban/

--
phm

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#1836
10:06 AM Thu 28 Oct 99
 Subject:  Re: Lojban and the  Turing machine
 From:  John Cowan

From: John Cowan cowa-@ccil.org

PILCH Hartmut wrote:

> Lojban texts are parsable, and it should at least be possible to formulate
> computer programs in some lojban-compatible syntax.

Nick Nicholas wrote a Prolog program that takes a limited set of Lojban
sentences and translates them to Prolog, like this:

        roda zo'u ganai da ninmu gi da prenu
        prenu(X) :- ninmu(X).

--

John Cowan      http://www.reutershealth.com            jcowa-@reutershealth.com
Schlingt dreifach einen Kreis vom dies / Schliess eurer Aug vor heiliger Schau
Den er genoss vom Honig-Tau / Und trank die Milch vom Paradies.
                -- Coleridge (tr. Politzer)

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#1837
10:08 AM Thu 28 Oct 99
 Subject:  Re: perl and lojban,  sitting in a tree..
 From:  David Brookshire Conner

From: David Brookshire Conner nellard-@concentric.net

Robin Turner writes:
 > From: Robin Turner robi-@bilkent.edu.tr

 > Why Perl, in particular?  I don't know much about languages, but
 > I would have thought Prolog would be more suitable for what you
 > have in mind.

Basic Prolog is based on predicate calculus, which would make one
think that it would be a good match to "la lojban."

I'm of a mind that Prolog would be decent for programming in
lojban. I.e., you define a Prolog predicate for every gismu and then
can define each gismu in terms of each other (possibly).  You type in
Prolog but use the well-defined lojban gismu rather than ambiguous
English names of predicates. But this approach doesn't let you handle
e.g., lujvo or cmene the way you'd like to. You'd have to define every
lujvo explicitly. So what you really need is a good meta-object system
or else a new programming language (same thing, really).

For parsing, I'm of the opinion that a stream-based approach in a lazy
functional language is much easier to use (Haskell comes to
mind). What you want to parse becomes a list of characters, and you
can manipulate it like any list. In theory you don't worry about
reading in a character or that nonsense.  Here's some code that
outlines a parser for lojban at a high level. Note that this is pretty
much legit Haskell:

data Bridi = (Selbri, [Sumti]). -- A sentence is a preda and its args

type Discourse = [ Bridi ] -- paragraph is a list of sentences

-- take a string and open it as a file to parse
lojbanParseFromFile :: String -> LojbanDiscourse
lojbanParseFromFile file = lojbanParse openFile file


-- parse a string into a series of lojban statements
lojbanParse :: String -> Discourse
lojbanParse stuff =
   breakIntoBridi stuff >>=  -- Get back a list of strings that are
                             -- bridi
   map (\ oneBridi ->
          ( extractSelbri oneBridi,
            extractSumti  oneBridi)) -- for each bridi, pull out the
                                     -- selbri and sumti
                        >>=
    return -- and that's it

extractSelbri and extractSumti can be written for a simple case - they
know that they are only getting a single bridi - no
fluff. extractSelbri will look for a brivla of some sort and work out
from there to stick on anything that applies (e.g., for tanru and
such).


Long-winded perhaps, but much more likely to be readable the second
time than perl (the write-only language :-)....

Speaking of long-winded, that's enough from me.....

co'o mi'e brukcayr.

---------
% sleep with me
bad character

---------
Fancy. Myth. Magic.
http://www.concentric.net/~nellardo/

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#1838
12:27 PM Thu 28 Oct 99
 Subject:  Lojban and the Turing  machine
 From:  David Brookshire Conner

From: David Brookshire Conner nellard-@concentric.net

PILCH Hartmut writes:
 > From: PILCH Hartmut ph-@a2e.de

 > Lojban texts are parsable, and it should at least be possible to formulate
 > computer programs in some lojban-compatible syntax.

Sure - syntax is no big deal.

 > I wonder if Lojban texts themselves could be considered as programs, just
 > as postscript documents can be.

Yes, but like you do with Postscript, you need a machine to run them,
even an abstract one.

 > Lojban parsing is very similar to SGML parsing, but SGML, unlike
 > Postscript, isn't a full-fledged programming language
 >
 > What is needed to make Lojban "turing-complete"?

A (virtual) machine that interprets enough of the semantics of lojban
to get it over the Turing threshold. Something that understood lojban
math would put it over the hump.

Interestingly, interpreting variable assignment in the expected way is
enough - two integers is enough memory to provide Turing equivalence.

Without such a machine for the semantics, i.e., a syntax-only lojban,
lojban is not turing equivalent, as it is represented by a
context-free grammar (the reference grammar).

 > I am just looking for more arguments to further confuse the debate about
 > software patentability, see also
 >
 >      http://swpat.ffii.org/lojban/

I'm missing something - how does Turing equivalence confuse the issue
of software patentability? Are you suggesting that Turing equivalence
be a metric for determining whether a language can be patented? This
would suggest that Bjarne Stroustrop could have patented C++, which
seems a little silly.

Copyrighting a reference grammar, sure (but writing something that
conforms to that grammar would not violate the copyright).  You can
copyright a dictionary, but people could still use the words defined
in it freely ("small passages" and such), else Merriam-Webster would
have a doozy of a lawsuit against all sorts of people. You could even
copyright a word list, but using individual words from it would still
be legit. At least that's how I understand copyrights to work - being
an artist and a writer, I pay some attention to this. John Cowan may
have other insights based on the events of the Loglan/lojban split.

Trademarking a name used in business (i.e., trade), sure. This is part
of the reason Microsoft can trademark "Visual Basic", even though
Basic is a widely available language - the trademark covers the
product, technically.

But patents are broader beasts. I can make a copy of something
copywritten for personal use. I cannot (legally) make *any*
implementation of something patented, even if it never sees the light
of day. Being a software engineer, I pay some attention to this, as
well (and have technically violated the RSA patent like oh ten years
ago when I took an algorithms class where RSA was an assignment).

The hairy question of software patents is when does software change
from "speech" (covered by copyright law) to "implementation" (and thus
covered by patent law)?


Brook

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#1839
1:36 PM Thu 28 Oct 99
 Subject:  thanks
 From:  Michal Wallace (sabren)

From: "Michal Wallace (sabren)" sabre-@manifestation.com


Just wanted to say thanks to everyone who's answered my questions..
I'm going to go through and reply to each, but I just wanted to
thank everyone for the response.

I've been compiling all the lojban information I've found into a
quick-reference links page for learners, plus log of new stuff I find
as I'm learning:

  http://www.sabren.com/lojban/

Special thanks go to Robin Turner for helping me with the lojban words
and phrases. :)

Cheers,

- Michal
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#1840
1:59 PM Thu 28 Oct 99
 Subject:  Re: lojban newbie: an  outsider looking in
 From:  Michal Wallace (sabren)

From: "Michal Wallace (sabren)" sabre-@manifestation.com

On Tue, 26 Oct 1999, xod wrote:

> We also have a lojban webring that I have been pressuring people to join!
> (Robin and John: add those HTML fragments to your pages!) I host its main
> page at http://www.decadezero.org/lojban_webring.html but my sites are
> suffering growing pains this week.

Yeah, I keep seeing the URL, but I haven't gotten it to load.


> In my opinion, most lujvo should be field-specific. So, a given lujvo might
> have one meaning with respect to automobiles, and another with respect to
> spaceflight. This is my own idea of the best solution to your above dilemma.
>
> You see, a lujvo selects one of the many, many interpretations of a tanru.

Hmm... But from a computer perspective, that would make lojban harder
to use... :)

I wonder, though, how to avoid this.. I mean, I don't know every
word in the english language. How can you prevent two people from
coming up with the same lujvo for two slightly different tanru?


> I have initiated the formation of a computer-related glossary, but it's got
> a ways to go. Robin, Twery, Nicholas - your input here would be greatly
> appreciated. And yours too, Michal!

Out of curiosity, how are you tracking this? (Bob, too).. Perhaps
the dictionar(y|ies) could be database-driven and put on the web?

> I've seen parsers, but they all seem to barf incomprehensible diagrams
> instead of sentences, even crappy sentences like babelfish.

I think I might be able to manage a crappy sentence with a lot
of parentheses on my own.. And probably do a lot better after
studying YACC.


> I considered doing a Java servlet version of Logflash. I haven't seen the
> DOS version - the Mac version isn't all that bad. If you spearhead a
> project, I will certainly consider joining.

I'm interested. I run a self improvement website
(http://www.manifestation.com/) which I'm currently revamping into a
subscription service.. One of my plans has been a generic online
flashcard/learning system that allows for active learning like the
logFlash program, and "passive" learning inspired by various
superlearning techniques. You can see the current version at
http://www.manifestation.com/neurotoys/learnfast/ ...  I've been told
it doesn't work in netscape, so I've started reworking it in flash.


> You know, a CD rom sounds like a dandy idea.

Yeah.. I've got a little spanish CD rom.. there's almost no english
at all, except the manual. You just see little drawings and the text,
and can hear the actors.. It also has a feature that listens to you
and scores your pronunciation/accent... Except for the last bit,
simple stuff.. Yet it's really effective.

> Although, if we had a decent Lojban --> English parser, which output on the
> level of babelfish, I think that would be even dandier. However, I
> personally know almost nothing about all that parsing stuff.
>
> I figure a nearly direct translation from the parser, with all the weird
> crap removed, and with maybe 20 - 50 rules for making the logician's
> English sound more like Standard English might be enough. This is what I
> REALLY want to see done!

part of the reason I suggested a perl version was because the dictionary
looks like: "x1 eats x2 ..." and it would be fairly easy, once you know
which sumti are x1 and x2, to do a search and replace (at least with
perl's regular expressions)..


> http://extropy.com/

completely offtopic: I saw the foresight exchange a few months ago,
and thought it was a really cool idea.. :)

Cheers,

- Michal
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#1841
2:07 PM Thu 28 Oct 99
 Subject:  Re: Re: lojban newbie:  an outsider looking in
 From:  Michal Wallace (sabren)

From: "Michal Wallace (sabren)" sabre-@manifestation.com

On 27 Oct 1999, Chris Double wrote:

> No dictionary has been published as far as I'm aware. There is a nice
> .pdf file at http://www.rrbcurnow.freeuk.com/lojban/index.html that I
> use that serves as a good stand in. It lists gismu, rafsi, cmavo, etc
> along with an english to gismu listing.

Thanks!

> I'd use it if it was available. Particularly if there was some sort of
> 'honesty' system, where I didn't have to type in the answer, rather I
> could guess the answer silently and confirm whether I was right. The
> less keyboard use the better for me. I've used Flash!, a flashcard
> program on the Palm Pilot, which does this and it works quite well.

That makes the most sense to me as well. It only hurts the user if
they're dishonest, so why write a lot of code to prevent it?

> >   Finally: is the flag/logo really working? I hunted it down to put on
> > the lojban website that I'm making... And decided against it.
>
> It looks good printed on the cover of the reference grammer IMHO. In
> fact, the reference grammer is a damn fine book both in usefulness and
> in quality.
>
> Perhaps it's the bitmap quality or the way it appears on a web page
> that's the problem?

Well, now that I understand what the symbol means, I like it a little
better.. but I stil think it looks a little weak, with all the thin
lines. (I haven't seen the cover to the book)


Cheers,

- Michal
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#1842
2:34 PM Thu 28 Oct 99
 Subject:  Re: Lojban and the  Turing machine
 From:  recipro-

From: recipro-@freenet.edmonton.ab.ca

> Lojban texts are parsable, and it should at least be possible to
> formulate computer programs in some lojban-compatible syntax.

I was working on exactly that a while back... it never got
anywhere, but if anyone's interested, maybe it could.

The annoying thing about writing a program in Lojban would normally be all
the "ko"s and especially "ko gasnu le nu"s. My idea was, rather than
thinking of it in terms of ordering the computer to do something, you're
describing a world that the computer tries to imitate... it would look
something like this, only with better class names:

la .ap. cu ly'apra
i le bi'u ly'uindo cu ly'uindo la .ap.

=

App is-an-instance-of-LApp
the newly-introduced LWindow is-an-LWindow-belonging-to App

=

LApp app;
app.AddWindow(new LWindow)


Instead of gismu for classes, it would probably be better to have a gismu
meaning "x1 is an instance of x2 belonging to x3" and then handle classes
with cmene, but the basic idea stands.


        co'omi'e xarmuj.

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#1843
2:57 PM Thu 28 Oct 99
 Subject:  Re: lojban newbie: an  outsider looking in
 From:  Richard Curnow

From: Richard Curnow richar-@rrbcurnow.freeserve.co.uk


On Thu, 28 Oct 1999, Michal Wallace (sabren) wrote:

> From: "Michal Wallace (sabren)" sabre-@manifestation.com
>
>
> > I've seen parsers, but they all seem to barf incomprehensible diagrams
> > instead of sentences, even crappy sentences like babelfish.
>
> I think I might be able to manage a crappy sentence with a lot
> of parentheses on my own.. And probably do a lot better after
> studying YACC.

Given all the talk of parenthesis, I guess it's my jbofi'e program being
discussed.

To set the record straight, my aims were not so ambitious as to include
the production of reasonable English sentences as direct translations.
The goals were more :

1. To check syntax and subtle errors of meaning in Lojban I wrote myself.
2. To do the drudgery of looking up words in the dictionary when reading
other people's Lojban posted to this list.
3. To mark the sumti with a reminder of their meaning within the
definition of the main selbri within the sentence, to assist in the
interpretation once the individual words have been translated.

Goal (2) often fails to be realised, because so much published Lojban does
not in fact have the correct syntax :-(

Once you get used to the output format, it is a useful 'half-way house'
between the raw Lojban and a smooth English translation.

I'd bet that if you try doing a Lojban -> English translator more akin to
Babelfish, you'll find the front-end YACC/Bison stuff a piece of cake
compared to the back-end task of producing reasonable English with the
same meaning.  OK, you can probably do quite well for a limited range of
Lojban constructions, but I'm sure the task is very hard indeed in its
full generality.  One particularly dull aspect that I've jibbed at doing
is re-formulating all the gismu definitions depending on which of the
places has the 'focus' in the sentence (i.e. which of se, te etc precede
the selbri).

The parentheses in jbofi'e's output, incidentally, show how various
constructions nest within each other.  It's useful for seeing the nesting
order of connectives, the binding order of the brivla within tanru etc.
I agree they're a bit of a distraction as well, but they are useful for
checking subtle details of meaning that differ depending on binding order.

>
> part of the reason I suggested a perl version was because the dictionary
> looks like: "x1 eats x2 ..." and it would be fairly easy, once you know
> which sumti are x1 and x2, to do a search and replace (at least with
> perl's regular expressions)..

Fine for 'citka', however you need to generate templates for

se citka : x1 is eaten by x2
ctigau   : x1 feeds x2 with x3
te se ctigau : x1 feeds x2 to x3
citka jubme : dining table
ctijbu      : ditto

and so on, ad infinitum.  The construction of this template dictionary is
the really dreary part of the project.

Richard.

--
----------------------------------------------------------------------
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Stevenage               Network time sync for Linux/Solaris/Dial-up at
United Kingdom                 http://www.rrbcurnow.freeuk.com/chrony/

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#1844
4:19 PM Thu 28 Oct 99
 Subject:  Re: Lojban and the  Turing machine
 From:  xod
From: xod xo-@bway.net





On Thu, 28 Oct 1999 recipro-@freenet.edmonton.ab.ca wrote:





#1845
11:07 PM Thu 28 Oct 99
 Subject:  Re: lojban newbie: an  outsider looking in
 From:  Michal Wallace (sabren)

From: "Michal Wallace (sabren)" sabre-@manifestation.com

On Thu, 28 Oct 1999, Richard Curnow wrote:

> > I think I might be able to manage a crappy sentence with a lot
> > of parentheses on my own.. And probably do a lot better after
> > studying YACC.
>
> Given all the talk of parenthesis, I guess it's my jbofi'e program being
> discussed.

Well, *I* was talking about a hypothetical parser of my own.
I've seen your source, but haven't been able to get it to compile..
In reading about the ins and outs of parsing, I found a program
that does for perl what yacc/bison does for c. So I ran that against
the LLG grammar and produced a parser.

Unfortunately, I don't have a lexer, and I'm not really sure how to
create one.. I tried looking at your code, but the only lex file you
seem to have is for stripping out comments... (???) (without being
able to compile it, I can't run the perl debugger to step through
it..) I know less about parsing than I do about lojban.. but don't
you have to have a lexer in there somewhere?

Also, did you create your own version of the grammar?

(I'm still trying to make sense of the 6 steps listed in the LLG's
grammar)

> To set the record straight, my aims were not so ambitious as to include
> the production of reasonable English sentences as direct translations.

I hope you didn't think I was slamming your code! I was just imagining
what *my* parser might do, and I figured it would look mostly like
english but with parentheses around stuff like translated tanru.. hence,
crappy english with a bunch of parentheses.. :)


> 1. To check syntax and subtle errors of meaning in Lojban I wrote myself.
> 2. To do the drudgery of looking up words in the dictionary when reading
> other people's Lojban posted to this list.

> Goal (2) often fails to be realised, because so much published Lojban does
> not in fact have the correct syntax :-(

Perhaps a validating parser ought to be incorporated into a training
program...

> 3. To mark the sumti with a reminder of their meaning within the
> definition of the main selbri within the sentence, to assist in the
> interpretation once the individual words have been translated.

I like this idea very much. Looking at the html output on your
site, I think it might be somewhat easier on the eyes if it could
be done in multiple lines.. (lojban on one line, "engloj" on the
next..)


> Once you get used to the output format, it is a useful 'half-way house'
> between the raw Lojban and a smooth English translation.

That's pretty much my goal as well.

> I'd bet that if you try doing a Lojban -> English translator more akin to
> Babelfish, you'll find the front-end YACC/Bison stuff a piece of cake
> compared to the back-end task of producing reasonable English with the
> same meaning.  OK, you can probably do quite well for a limited range of
> Lojban constructions, but I'm sure the task is very hard indeed in its
> full generality.  One particularly dull aspect that I've jibbed at doing
> is re-formulating all the gismu definitions depending on which of the
> places has the 'focus' in the sentence (i.e. which of se, te etc precede
> the selbri).


> The parentheses in jbofi'e's output, incidentally, show how various
> constructions nest within each other.  It's useful for seeing the nesting
> order of connectives, the binding order of the brivla within tanru etc.
> I agree they're a bit of a distraction as well, but they are useful for
> checking subtle details of meaning that differ depending on binding order.

That's the other reason I was envisioning a bunch of parentheses in my
version.. :)

> > part of the reason I suggested a perl version was because the dictionary
> > looks like: "x1 eats x2 ..." and it would be fairly easy, once you know
> > which sumti are x1 and x2, to do a search and replace (at least with
> > perl's regular expressions)..
>
> Fine for 'citka', however you need to generate templates for
>
> se citka : x1 is eaten by x2
> ctigau   : x1 feeds x2 with x3
> te se ctigau : x1 feeds x2 to x3
> citka jubme : dining table
> ctijbu      : ditto
>
> and so on, ad infinitum.  The construction of this template dictionary is
> the really dreary part of the project.

Yeah. But I think that's overkill at the moment. I'd be perfectly happy
with:

se citka : x2 eats x1
ctigau   : x1 {to feed} x2  # since that's what's in the dictionary
te se ctigau : ????  # I don't yet understand how "te" and "se" interact
citka jubme : [eat-table]  # since it's just a tanru
ctijbu : [eat-table]  # since it isn't in the lujvo dictionary
ctijbu : dining table # if it were

[] might designate tanru
{} might designate unconjugated english.

for past tense, I'd even be happy with: x1 {past: eats} x2

At some point in the future, someone who wasn't me :) could do
all the messy work of creating hashes or tables to conjugate
the english verbs, pluralize nouns, etc..

Cheers,

- Michal
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#1846
8:47 AM Fri 29 Oct 99
 Subject:  Survey  Results
 From:  Jorge Llambias

From: "Jorge Llambias" jjllambia-@hotmail.com

Five years ago I sent a message in Lojban to the list
asking everyone who read it to respond to me privately.
There were then 10 responses.

Last week I repeated the experiment. This time I got
seven responses. I know there are more than 7 people
who CAN read in Lojban, but the number sounds right
for the number of people who actually DO read anything
posted in Lojban.

Here is the message and the responses:

> > coi rodo
> >
> > puza lo nanca be li su'omu mi mrilu lo preti le liste
> > cmima i mi pu djica le nu djuno le du'u xokau prenu
> > ca'a tcidu lei lojbo selcusku i ji'ipanoda spuda i caku
> > mi krefygau le cipra i e'o va'o le nu do tcidu dei kei
> > ko mrilu lo notci le mi judri to naku fi le liste judri toi
> > i mi gubgau lei jalge baza lo jeftu be li pa
> >
> > co'o ki'e mi'e xorxes

>From: "michael helsem" graywyver-@hotmail.com
>To: jjllambia-@hotmail.com
>Subject: notci
>Date: Thu, 21 Oct 1999 14:25:15 PDT
>
>je'emi'e masno tcidu .i mi so'oroi smuni smadi .ijebabo vlaste
>sisku le te smadi co'omi'e zirsno
>

>From: recipro-@freenet.edmonton.ab.ca
>To: Jorge Llambias jjllambia-@hotmail.com
>Subject: Re: [lojban] jbotcidu terkancu
>Date: Thu, 21 Oct 1999 15:41:17 -0600 (MDT)
>
>
>mi pu nandu ciska le do notci
>


>From: trevor hill thil-@quark.com
>To: "'Jorge Llambias'" jjllambia-@hotmail.com
>Subject: RE: [lojban] jbotcidu terkancu
>Date: Thu, 21 Oct 1999 17:27:28 -0600
>
>coi... .i mi ka'e jimpe piso'a le se mrilu be do... :)  .i ku'i pe'i le
>tadji be le nunpilno be fa do bei lu nanca li'u ku cu milxe cizra... .i
>ku'i
>mi ji'a na djuno le du'u makau drani pilno tadji...
>
>co'o
>
>mi'e trevyr...
>

>From: Arnt-Richard Johansen broc-@fix.no
>To: jjllambia-@hotmail.com
>Subject: lojbo tcidu nuncipra
>Date: 22 Oct 1999 08:32:48 GMT
>
>coi xorxes
>
>mi ja'a tcidu le lojbo notci pe le mriste
>
>Arnt Richard Johansen      |
>http://people.fix.no/arj/  | Javisst kan den tlte!
>ar-@fix.no                 |


>From: Goran Topic amada-@attglobal.net
>Reply-To: amada-@attglobal.net
>To: Jorge Llambias jjllambia-@hotmail.com
>Subject: Re: [lojban] jbotcidu terkancu
>Date: Sat, 23 Oct 1999 13:48:37 +0200
>
>coi. xorxes.
>
>.i mi puze'u na tcidu le jbosteselmri .i to lei lojbo ba'e .e lei glico
>cu se go'i toi .i lenu mi dapedo tcidu cu cunso .i le temci na banzu
>lenu mi zanco'e la lojban. .i cafne falenu .i'o.ui mi purci morji
>rolezu'o fanva gi'e vlaste sisku vau ca piso'a loi djedi ca'o za'u cacra
>.i ku'i la'edo'i ca nandu .u'u.uu
>
>co'o mi'e. goran.
>

>From: "Adam Raizen" araize-@newmail.net
>To: "Jorge Llambias" jjllambia-@hotmail.com
>Subject: Re: [lojban] jbotcidu terkancu
>Date: Sun, 24 Oct 1999 03:16:57 +0200

>
>.i mi tcidu di'u
>
>.i co'o mi'e adam


>From: "Iain Alexander" i-@stryx.demon.co.uk
>To: "Jorge Llambias" jjllambia-@hotmail.com
>Subject: Re: [lojban] jbotcidu terkancu
>Date: Tue, 26 Oct 1999 00:08:47 +0100

>
>.i mi tcidu di'u
>.iku'i so'uroi
>
>co'o mi'e .i,n.
>--
>Iain Alexander               PGP 1024-bit key id B501A0AD
>i-@stryx.demon.co.uk   i.alexande-@bra0105.wins.icl.co.uk
>

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#1847
10:58 AM Fri 29 Oct 99
 Subject:  jalge lemu'e lobysisku
 From:  michael helsem
From: "michael helsem" graywyver-@hotmail.com

ge'e na spaji mi .i ma'a ca'o cuntu dukse ku .a'enai .i cmalu
nu tavla .i cmalu nu cilre .i be'u .oi .i .i'acu'i .i barda
nu glico ku'izo'o .i naku la'edi'u gunka .i nu kelci .i da'i
xu so'i prenu cu djica lo poi finti ke'a ku'o bangu ko'a goi
lenu kelci ce'u .i pa'e ko'a milxe nu pilno .i la'a ba zmadu
ko'a ku .a'oru'e .i pe'i la'edi'u se sarcu le na'ebo skami
zazyzasti to'u

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#1848
11:37 AM Fri 29 Oct 99
 Subject:  Re: Re:  lojban newbie: an outsider looking in
 From:  Chris Double

From: Chris Double chri-@double.co.nz

"Michal Wallace (sabren)" sabre-@manifestation.com writes:

> > [...snip about logflash and typing of corrections...]
>
> That makes the most sense to me as well. It only hurts the user if
> they're dishonest, so why write a lot of code to prevent it?

While I don't like doing all the typing, I can see the reason for
it. By making me type the word I am far more likely to recall it
later. By just reading it I find it is a less effective method of
having me remember it.

>
> Well, now that I understand what the symbol means, I like it a little
> better.. but I stil think it looks a little weak, with all the thin
> lines. (I haven't seen the cover to the book)

{zo'o} Sending a small sum of money lojbab's way will solve that
problem.

Chris.

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#1849
8:14 PM Fri 29 Oct 99
 Subject:  Re:  lojban newbie: an outsider looking in
 From:  Bob LeChevalier (lojbab)

From: "Bob LeChevalier (lojbab)" lojba-@lojban.org

At 05:02 PM 10/28/99 -0400, Michal Wallace (sabren) wrote:
>I wonder, though, how to avoid this.. I mean, I don't know every
>word in the english language. How can you prevent two people from
>coming up with the same lujvo for two slightly different tanru?

You can't.  Some amount of this might happen.  But in practice, though I
might wish otherwise, people who make words up are rather unusual in the
community - most just use the tanru.

> > I have initiated the formation of a computer-related glossary, but it's got
> > a ways to go. Robin, Twery, Nicholas - your input here would be greatly
> > appreciated. And yours too, Michal!
>
>Out of curiosity, how are you tracking this? (Bob, too).. Perhaps
>the dictionar(y|ies) could be database-driven and put on the web?

Put briefly, no one is.  I am accumulating archives of Lojban text and
discussion on the list of Lojban, including word proposals.  At some point
we will analyze it (I hope).  If two people coin the same lujvo with
different meanings, we may decide amongst them which to enshrine in the
dictionary, or list both and let the community decide - we'll decide if it
happens.  It is the choice between being descriptive and prescriptive.  We
will probably err towards being prescriptive in the first dictionary
(because people want a prescription as a starting point)and descriptive
thereafter.  Thus words that are mismade from the standpoint of the
conventions found in the reference book will likely be remade in the first
dictionary so as to encourage the standard conventions.

> > You know, a CD rom sounds like a dandy idea.
>
>Yeah.. I've got a little spanish CD rom.. there's almost no english
>at all, except the manual. You just see little drawings and the text,
>and can hear the actors.. It also has a feature that listens to you
>and scores your pronunciation/accent... Except for the last bit,
>simple stuff.. Yet it's really effective.

We don't have people in one place and conversations, etc., written enough
to record such a CD ROM.  We have a tape, recorded to go with the old
textbook version, however.

lojbab
----
lojbab                     ***NOTE NEW ADDRESS***           lojba-@lojban.org
Bob LeChevalier, President, The Logical Language Group, Inc.
2904 Beau Lane, Fairfax VA 22031-1303 USA               703-385-0273
Artificial language Loglan/Lojban:
   see Lojban WWW Server: href=" http://xiron.pc.helsinki.fi/lojban/ "
   Order _The Complete Lojban Language_ - see our Web pages or ask me.

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#1850
8:14 PM Fri 29 Oct 99
 Subject:  Re: Survey Results
 From:  Bob LeChevalier (lojbab)

From: "Bob LeChevalier (lojbab)" lojba-@lojban.org

At 08:50 AM 10/29/99 -0700, Jorge Llambias wrote:
>Five years ago I sent a message in Lojban to the list
>asking everyone who read it to respond to me privately.
>There were then 10 responses.
>
>Last week I repeated the experiment. This time I got
>seven responses. I know there are more than 7 people
>who CAN read in Lojban, but the number sounds right
>for the number of people who actually DO read anything
>posted in Lojban.

Five years ago, I read everything on the list, and I think so did most
others.  Nowadays, Cowan and I read only cursorily, and several subscribers
have list traffic filter into a "to read someday" box.  This is one of the
perils of modern day mail software and too much spam - no one can afford to
read everything they get.

lojbab
----
lojbab                     ***NOTE NEW ADDRESS***           lojba-@lojban.org
Bob LeChevalier, President, The Logical Language Group, Inc.
2904 Beau Lane, Fairfax VA 22031-1303 USA               703-385-0273
Artificial language Loglan/Lojban:
   see Lojban WWW Server: href=" http://xiron.pc.helsinki.fi/lojban/ "
   Order _The Complete Lojban Language_ - see our Web pages or ask me.

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#1851
1:27 AM Sat 30 Oct 99
 Subject:  Re:  Survey Results
 From:  xod
From: xod xo-@bway.net





On Fri, 29 Oct 1999, Bob LeChevalier (lojbab) wrote:





#1852
2:00 AM Sat 30 Oct 99
 Subject:  Re: 3 dogs, 2 men, many  arguments
 From:  pycy-

From: pycy-@aol.com

In a message dated 10/26/99 3:33:19 PM CST, jjllambia-@hotmail.com writes:
 From: "Jorge Llambias" jjllambia-@hotmail.com
 <<la xod cusku di'e
>As for "collectively", what do you mean? Masses where a single member's
 >validity is enough?

 No, that is definitely not my view of masses. For example,
 when I say that a mass of three dogs weighs 20 kg I don't
 mean that only one of the dogs may weigh that. I mean that
 they weigh 20kg as a whole.>>

Masses have the *logical* sum of the properties of their members, according
to one standard view.  In the case of weight, this amounts to the arithmetic
sum, in most non-numerical cases it is the disjunction.  On that view, a mass
of three dogs would bite a mass of two men if one of the dogs bit one of the
men -- though we do need to know how/why they sets were massified.  The mass
form would be most useful for the case where we knew there were some bites
but not how many nor how distributed: all cases from one of each to all on
all would be covered.
pc

I think a message of mine went astray (replied to sender not source): I will
try to retrieve it and send it on or ask the recipient to foreward it to the
list.



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#1853
5:41 AM Sat 30 Oct 99
 Subject:  Re: 3  dogs, 2 men, many arguments
 From:  Jorge Llambias

From: "Jorge Llambias" jjllambia-@hotmail.com

la pycyn cusku di'e

>Masses have the *logical* sum of the properties of their members, according
>to one standard view.  In the case of weight, this amounts to the
>arithmetic sum, in most non-numerical cases it is the disjunction. On that
>view, a mass of three dogs would bite a mass of two men if one of the dogs
>bit one of the men -- though we do need to know how/why they sets were
>massified.

Yes, that makes sense. That at least one of the dogs bites
at least one of the men would be a necessary condition
for our description, but not sufficient. There would also
have to be a reason for taking the dogs as a unit and the
men as another unit.

In any case, that would be a more common situation than
the perfectly coordinated full distribution of bites.

co'o mi'e xorxes

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#1854
8:13 AM Sat 30 Oct 99
 Subject:  Re: Survey Results
 From:  Brook Conner

From: nellard-@concentric.net (Brook Conner)

Bob LeChevalier (lojbab) writes:
 > At 08:50 AM 10/29/99 -0700, Jorge Llambias wrote:

[...]

 > >Last week I repeated the experiment. This time I got
 > >seven responses. I know there are more than 7 people
 > >who CAN read in Lojban, but the number sounds right
 > >for the number of people who actually DO read anything
 > >posted in Lojban.

 > Five years ago, I read everything on the list, and I think so did most
 > others.  Nowadays, Cowan and I read only cursorily, and several subscribers
 > have list traffic filter into a "to read someday" box.  This is one of the
 > perils of modern day mail software and too much spam - no one can afford to
 > read everything they get.

Me, I've got most long posts in lojban filed away. I can't read well
enough yet, though I do seem to be getting better as time goes on - I
can at least get some of the sumti (though usually don't remember a
particular selbri).

lojbob is of couse right about email, though, now that I think of it,
five years ago I got at least as much email as I do now - ten years
ago I probably got more (I was a student in computer science - T1
access - lots more mailing lists - now it's a modem).

I haven't gotten around to downloading the Emacs flashcard stuff yet -
but that's just a solution for my own skill.

What lojbob left unanswered was the implicit question is how to
encourage use of lojban, even on the lojban list.  Some thoughts off
the top of my head:

* Change citations in email to be in lojban (e.g.,
"la zoi .kuot. Bob Chevalier (lojbob) .kuot. pu ciska:"

* Add lojban sigs ("co'o me'o brukcayr")

* using lojban words for more than just lojban grammatical terms
("cmavo", "bridi" et al), e.g., "le mi se pendo la .lojbob." (okay -
it's an example - I don't really know him that well :-)

* in the mail that includes both lojban and english glosses, putting
each on a separate line:

   la lojbob pu cicka zoi .kuot. I only read cursorily .kuot.

   Lojbob wrote "I only read cursorily."

 I find this easier to read. Similarly, in lojban-only, some simple
formatting can make things much easier - putting each sentence on a
line, well, it helps the beginner (like me)

Maybe this has all been discussed to death in the past. Maybe no one
else cares.  Just some thoughts.....

Brook

---------
C:\WINDOWS C:\WINDOWS\GO C:\PC\CRAWL

---------
Fancy. Myth. Magic.
http://www.concentric.net/~nellardo/

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#1855
8:13 AM Sat 30 Oct 99
 Subject:  Re: Lojban and the  Turing machine
 From:  Brook Conner

From: nellard-@concentric.net (Brook Conner)

[ I apologize ahead of time for any grievous errors of syntax, etc. -
not through the red book yet ]

recipro-@freenet.edmonton.ab.ca writes:
 > From: recipro-@freenet.edmonton.ab.ca
 >
 > > Lojban texts are parsable, and it should at least be possible to
 > > formulate computer programs in some lojban-compatible syntax.
 >
 > I was working on exactly that a while back... it never got
 > anywhere, but if anyone's interested, maybe it could.

I'm interested but for a different reason - spoken programming. I
suspect that speech recognition with lojban could be more accurate
than with English as well as faster. lojban sounds different enough
that you may even be able to automatically extract it from the speech
stream.  What's the result?

You can speak in English freely, but the computer is always
listening. It recognizes commands without a special command flag
("Computer, blow up the Klingons"). And best of all, the semantics are
substantially simpler. Each sentence means one thing and one thing
only (that thing may itself be vague or abstract, but that's different
from needing to decide among several possibly contradictory
meanings and *then* dealing with vagueness or abstraction).

 > The annoying thing about writing a program in Lojban would normally be all
 > the "ko"s and especially "ko gasnu le nu"s.

Not all the "ko"'s would come at the beginning, even in an imperative
style of programming.  Trivially:

le darcu cu se gasnu ko -- just swap x1 and x2 places
                        -- the file, cause it to be!

But what about database queries?

ta'i ma do gasnu le darcu -- by what method do you cause the file?
                          -- How did you make the file?
ma gasnu le darcu         -- Who made the file? Who caused the file?

 > My idea was, rather than
 > thinking of it in terms of ordering the computer to do something, you're
 > describing a world that the computer tries to imitate... it would look

Though it's not quite what you're suggesting below, there's the
declarative programming approach (typified by Prolog). The programmer
does not tell the computer how to do something, just what is to be
done.  For example, code for a fibonacci number in Haskell (while
Haskell is often called "functional", its nature makes it easy to be
declarative):

fib 0     = 0
fib 1     = 1
fib (n+2) = fib n + fib (n+1)

If you look at a math textbook definition, it looks essentially the
same - except you can typeset it better in a book.  Describe fibonacci
numbers in lojban and you get something similar, only readable aloud:

   le noboi pamoi la fibnatcis. -- Zero is first among the fibonacci
.i le paboi remoi la fibnatcis. -- One is second
.i la nyso'iremai fibnatcis. du le nyso'ipamai fibnatcis. so'i le
      nymai fibnatcis. -- The (n+2)th fibonacci equals the (n+1)th
                       -- fibonacci plus the n'th fibonacci.

Note that lojban's lack of ambiguity gives you a positional freedom
not usually found in programming languages. Since "la" is a name, we
know we're talking (implicitly) about a declaration.  If we've seen
the name before, we're continuing the description, statement,
whatever.  And this isn't even using lojban's built-in variable
assignment system.

 > something like this, only with better class names:

 > la .ap. cu ly'apra
 > i le bi'u ly'uindo cu ly'uindo la .ap.

Better class names indeed - if you're going to use lojban, I can't see
much point to prefixing things with letterals.  That trick is for
dealing with old programming languages that don't have modules or some
other sort of name scoping/renaming possibilities.  lojban can be
unambiguous with its name referents - so use that capability.

 > =
 >
 > App is-an-instance-of-LApp
 > the newly-introduced LWindow is-an-LWindow-belonging-to App

By using a fu'ivla ("uindo"), you're effectively creating new words
with their own place structure, aren't you?  That doesn't seem like
such a great idea, as memorizing place structure seems to be a real
pain. This is like memorizing argument order when learning a new
library in programming - with bigger libraries, even experts will sit
down with all the reference manuals next to them.

Note that people that *write* don't usually need to keep a dictionary
right on their desk.

 > =
 >
 > LApp app;
 > app.AddWindow(new LWindow)

Now the programmer's answer is that *this* is much more succinct and
legible. So what did you gain by using lojban? lojban is a full human
language - that means it is incredibly rich. Using it to duplicate C++
functionality seems like using a Steyr AUG assault rifle as a
flyswatter.  Yeah, you can do it, but your bare hand works better.

 > Instead of gismu for classes, it would probably be better to have a gismu
 > meaning "x1 is an instance of x2 belonging to x3" and then handle classes
 > with cmene, but the basic idea stands.

Well, that involves both instantiation and (dynamic) containment, if
you're using a C++-like object model. Your "AddWindow" example
presumes a certain kind of containment model, common to user interface
libraries. C++'s native containment model is instance variables.

But let's look at existing lojban words: mupli and mu'u.

Mupli is a gismu meaning x1 is an example with common property X2 of
set x3.  In c++ terms, an obvious programming semantics is:

X3 x1(x2); // new variable called x1 of class X3, with initialization
           // params x2

mu'u is a cmavo meaning "exemplified by", which suggests x1 mu'u x2 is
equivalent to "X2 x1;"


Even this strikes me as throwing good stuff (lojban) after bad
(C++). I think lojban can do better.

 >      co'omi'e xarmuj.


co'o mi'e brukcayr.
---------
24 hours in a day...24 beers in a case...coincidence?

---------
Fancy. Myth. Magic.
http://www.concentric.net/~nellardo/

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#1856
8:17 AM Sat 30 Oct 99
 Subject:  lojban  relationship words....
 From:  Brook Conner

From: nellard-@concentric.net (Brook Conner)

Friends of mine have found a lack of English words for different kinds
of relationships - I think I mentioned this before.  So in the spirit
of contributing, I'm posting some.

Please, for commentary/correction/whatever:

First, a few basic gismu.....
cinse [cin]      - sexual
gletu [let gle]  - copulate
pendo [ped pe'o] - friend
prami [pam pa'i] - love
mabla [mal]      - general derogatory

which leads to.....
glependo  - "fuck-buddy" (but no derogatory connotations)
            gletu pendo
pamypendo - "non-sexual lover/deep friend"
             prami pendo
cinyprami - "sexualove"
            cinse prami
pamygle - loving intercourse
          pamygletu - [same]
          prami gletu
pamycinse - loving sexuality
            prami cinse
pedygle   - friendly intercourse
            pe'ogle   - [same]
            pe'ogletu - [same]
            pedygletu - [same]
            pendo gletu


and some sentences....
mi pendo le mi glependo - "my fuckbuddy is my friend."
mi pamypendo - "I have a loving friend." (or more than one - not
               specific)
ko gletu mi    - Have sex with me
ko malype'o mi - Fuck me, dammit
ko malypendo mi - [same]
ko pendo .ijenai ko gletu - Be my friend, but don't have sex with me.


co'o me'o brukcayr.
---------
% man: why did you get a divorce?
man:: Too many arguments.

---------
Fancy. Myth. Magic.
http://www.concentric.net/~nellardo/

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#1857
11:13 AM Sat 30 Oct 99
 Subject:  banzu xipabi
 From:  michael helsem

From: "michael helsem" graywyver-@hotmail.com

lo jetnu cu zemei

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#1858
11:16 AM Sat 30 Oct 99
 Subject:  banzu xipaso
 From:  michael helsem

From: "michael helsem" graywyver-@hotmail.com

cimni vlalai janai munsatci

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#1859
11:28 AM Sat 30 Oct 99
 Subject:  Re:  lojban relationship words....
 From:  recipro-

From: recipro-@freenet.edmonton.ab.ca

la brukca,yr. pu ciska di'e

> Friends of mine have found a lack of English words for different kinds
> of relationships - I think I mentioned this before.  So in the spirit
> of contributing, I'm posting some.
>
> Please, for commentary/correction/whatever:
[...]
> mi pendo le mi glependo - "my fuckbuddy is my friend."
> mi pamypendo - "I have a loving friend." (or more than one - not
>                specific)

More accurately, "I'm my fuckbuddy's friend", and "I am a loving
friend", not that it particularly makes a difference in most contexts--but
"pendo" could theoretically also cover someone acting like your friend
even though you hate their guts.

> ko malype'o mi - Fuck me, dammit
> ko malypendo mi - [same]
Not malgletu?
no'i Both of those would be better expressed using attitudinals, e.g.

le'o ro'u ko gletu mi
[aggresive] [sexual] Fuck me!

or

.o'onai ko .ionai gletu mi
[anger] [you-imperative] [disrespect] fuck me
Fuck me, you whore!


Also, don't go ovorboard with the y-hyphen; as far as I know, "pampendo",
"cinprami", etc. are fine without it.


        co'omi'e xarmuj.


God is real, unless declared integer.

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#1860
12:13 PM Sat 30 Oct 99
 Subject:  John Arley Burns!
 From:  xod

From: xod xo-@bway.net

Your email address hezekia-@cs.utexas.edu has never worked for me.

Your web site is in limbo, waiting for you to add the HTML fragment
needed to link to the webring.

Thank you!
co'o mi'e xod

-----
During the initial period after Falon is installed, you may feel
a little unused to it being in your body, you may have abdominal pain,
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#1861
12:18 PM Sat 30 Oct 99
 Subject:  banzu xireno
 From:  michael helsem

From: "michael helsem" graywyver-@hotmail.com

termri so'imei zo'u so'umei co tcidu

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#1862
12:23 PM Sat 30 Oct 99
 Subject:  banzu  xirepa
 From:  michael helsem

From: "michael helsem" graywyver-@hotmail.com

gu'a fasnu gi ritli co tcati

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#1863
12:33 PM Sat 30 Oct 99
 Subject:  Re:  banzu xirepa
 From:  xod

From: xod xo-@bway.net

On Sat, 30 Oct 1999, michael helsem wrote:

> gu'a fasnu gi ritli co tcati


.e'o le nu tcati ritli cu fasnu



-----
During the initial period after Falon is installed, you may feel
a little unused to it being in your body, you may have abdominal pain,
or feel like something is moving and have the sense of warmth, etc.
http://www.uidaho.edu/student_orgs/falun/eng/flg_5.htm#e1

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#1864
12:39 PM Sat 30 Oct 99
 Subject:  Re: banzu xipaso
 From:  recipro-

From: recipro-@freenet.edmonton.ab.ca

.uanai

Okay... someone tell me whether I am translating these things right...

> lo jetnu cu zemei

Seems to mean

some truths are a mass of 7 members

Which does not make any sense, unless "lo" is replaced with "loi", which
should make it mean "there are 7 truths".

> cimni vlalai janai munsatci

infinite-type-of (word-quantity if meaning-type-of-exact-thing)

Look! Something which, if it is infinitely (exact in meaning), is an
infinite quantity of words.

> termri so'imei zo'u so'umei co tcidu

receives-mail-type-of many-membered set: few-membered set of-type-read

Of the many people who receive mail, few read it.

That syntax doesn't look right... shouldn't it be something like "le
termri so'imei zo'u lo'i tcidu cu cmalu"?

> gu'a fasnu gi ritli co tcati

(event or ceremony) of-type-tea

Look! A tea event or ceremony!


        co'omi'e xarmuj.

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#1865
12:59 PM Sat 30 Oct 99
 Subject:  Re: banzu xipaso
 From:  xod

From: xod xo-@bway.net

On Sat, 30 Oct 1999 recipro-@freenet.edmonton.ab.ca wrote:

> > lo jetnu cu zemei
>
> Seems to mean
>
> some truths are a mass of 7 members
>
> Which does not make any sense, unless "lo" is replaced with "loi", which
> should make it mean "there are 7 truths".


Using loi would imply that their truth is a collective property, possibly
not shared by each individual member. Is each fact true in isolation?
Then use "le, lo", which can be used for plurals too.

But x1 of n-"mei" is a mass! So, we might try

lo ze jetnu cu zasti

> > cimni vlalai janai munsatci
>
> infinite-type-of (word-quantity if meaning-type-of-exact-thing)
>
> Look! Something which, if it is infinitely (exact in meaning), is an
> infinite quantity of words.


.i ja'o le te notci cu ru'i xa'irenro le valsi le zasti

> > gu'a fasnu gi ritli co tcati

ko .e mi jorne



-----
During the initial period after Falon is installed, you may feel
a little unused to it being in your body, you may have abdominal pain,
or feel like something is moving and have the sense of warmth, etc.
http://www.uidaho.edu/student_orgs/falun/eng/flg_5.htm#e1

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#1866
1:07 PM Sat 30 Oct 99
 Subject:  Re: puzi  banzu
 From:  michael helsem

From: "michael helsem" graywyver-@hotmail.com

#18 is intended to approximate a Russian proverb: "The truth has seven
sides." ("A true thing is sevenfold.')

#19: "The price of infinite precision is infinite verbosity."

#20: (Echoing a Greek proverb: 'Many the thyrsus bearers, few
theinitiated.')

#21: "Not every tea-event is a tea-ritual."

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#1867
1:15 PM Sat 30 Oct 99
 Subject:  Re: re: puzi banzu
 From:  xod

From: xod xo-@bway.net

On Sat, 30 Oct 1999, michael helsem wrote:

> #18 is intended to approximate a Russian proverb: "The truth has seven
> sides." ("A true thing is sevenfold.')


pa lo jetnu cu fatci dunli ze lo jetnu


> #21: "Not every tea-event is a tea-ritual."


not every? I read that as "if, then". How about da poi ritli zo'u da na
tcati ritli



-----
During the initial period after Falon is installed, you may feel
a little unused to it being in your body, you may have abdominal pain,
or feel like something is moving and have the sense of warmth, etc.
http://www.uidaho.edu/student_orgs/falun/eng/flg_5.htm#e1

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#1868
2:55 PM Sat 30 Oct 99
 Subject:  lisri xirei
 From:   michael helsem

From: "michael helsem" graywyver-@hotmail.com

ko'oxire bacru lu su je'unai ge'enai .i ku'i .u'e mutce filmau
fa lenu krici ledu'u le tavla bedo cu na'e racli kei ledu'u
ty. do sampu frica le ve zgana pe'a befa le ty. ka racli
(She said, "But how much easier it is to believe that your
interlocuter is bereft of reason, than that they merely differ
from you in the jib of their reasonableness!) .i ka'e ba'e xamgu
skicu lepa se zgana fole so'imei (The same set of phenomena
can be equally well described in many ways;) .iseni'inaibo ma'a
te bradi co se mukti ba'e da poi mu'e jinga fa le'i po'u roma'a
ku'o valsi xu (& yet what do we struggle for, if not the
supremacy of our vocabularies?) .i sa'u mi co'a te lisri sepi'o
lei valsi poi na'e slabu (So I am going to tell a story using unfamilar
words,) ku'okuku gi'ecabo djuno ledu'u do pugi bilga
co fanva ko'e goi lemi lisri le slabu gi jimpe le smuni be ko'e (knowing you
must translate it into familiar ones before you
can understand what it means.) .itu'e to kakpa draci remo'o toi
.i le voksybende cu bacru lu la se jinku be noda ze'upuki daspo
le gugde (Chorus: The Plague had long devastated the country.)
.i leni mi'a manku xabju cu banzu leza'i gusycau viska li'u (We
had dwelt in the dark so long we could see without light.) .i le
pamoi cu bacru lu xekybla ja xekyxekri munje (First one said: Blue-black or
black-black world.) .i le mibypre cu fu'epe'a
pixra do fu'o doi xekri (I am a "picture of you", O Black One.)
.i fu'epe'a carvi fa my. fi do fu'o li'u (I am your "rain".) .i
vy. bacru lu xabju fa ko'a goi le nanmu poi te makfa zi'enoi
jinvi ledu'u vo'a ka'enai te jinga li'u (Chorus: There once was
a wizard who thought he could not be defeated.) .i py. bacru lu
ge badri fa le remre'u .uuzo'ocu'i gi my. ba'o tcidu role makfa
cukta li'u (First one: The flesh is sad, alas! & i've read all
the grimoires.) .i vy. bacru lu su'a lo te makfa ta'e drata te
makfa rivbi .i ku'i ko'a cinmo lenu vo'a mulno snura (Chorus:
Normally a wizard avoids other wizards. But this one felt safe.)
.i bakibo to'u ko'a penmi ko'e goi le ninmu poi te makfa li'a
li'u (Then the wizard met a witch.) .i le remoi cu bacru lu do ti cafne li'u
(Second one: Do you come here often?) fa'onai (To be continued.)

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#1869
3:18 PM Sat 30 Oct 99
 Subject:  Re: banzu  xirepa
 From:  michael helsem

From: "michael helsem" graywyver-@hotmail.com

pida'a drani vau .i stidi lu naku roda poi tcati fasnu zo'u da
tcati ritli li'u

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#1870
5:04 PM Sat 30 Oct 99
 Subject:  trees?
 From:  Michal Wallace (sabren)

From: "Michal Wallace (sabren)" sabre-@manifestation.com


.ui coi rodo

xod's idea about the computer-specific list of words got me
thinking... I have on my bookshelf one of the coolest books ever
created: Stephen Glazier's "Word Menu". It's like a dictionary, but
grouped by subject, much like yahoo is for websites.

(see http://www.randomhouse.com/catalog/display.cgi?isbn=0345414411 )

Anyway, I want to start reindexing the lojban dictionary this way.
I don't know what to call it though!

some gismu look promising:

   liste (list)
   girzu (group)
   jutsi (species/relationship between two layers of hierarchy)
   lanzu (family/clan)


so:

   valjut ?
   valsi liste ?
   valsi lanzu ?

I also thought about tricu, which is a "tree".. but after reading
the comment in the grammar about "social buterflies" always being
actual insects in lojban, I'd guess a {valsi tricu} would be a
one of those trees that someone carved their name in...

Any thoughts?


Cheers,

- Michal
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#1871
9:44 PM Sat 30 Oct 99
 Subject:  Re: 3 dogs, 2 men,  many arguments
 From:  xod

From: xod xo-@bway.net

Over the past several days I have been pondering this issue. Here's my
latest impression.

"Everybody loves somebody" does not imply that "somebody is loved by
everybody", because in the former case, "somebody" may refer to a
different somebody for each in the "everybody", while in the latter case
it refers for a single given individual.

Why? Because in English, the subject is stated first, and when enumeration
is given to a subject it is taken to be absolute, whereas when it is given
to the object, it is relative to the subject.

This is because English sentences tend to be statements about subjects.

The Lojban bridi is a statement made "from infinity", a clear description
of fact from a 3rd party perspective. All Lojban utterances are this way,
except ones with prenexes containing terms of different "scope"! Those are
the only bridi that violate that fact that "da broda de" implies "de se
broda da".

This is an affront to my Lojbanic intuition and aesthetic. These sentences
follow English subject/object biases, right down to their word ordering.

Consider an alternative scheme: mappings.

The prenex is constructed like: (set definition 1) (mapping) (set
definition 2) (mapping) ... (set definition m) zo'u bridi

where a set definition is a da poi phrase, and a mapping
specifies the topology of the relationship between the sets, such as 1:1,
cross product, at least one, unknown, etc.

I wanted to float this idea before I worked out more specific details of
the scheme.


-----
During the initial period after Falon is installed, you may feel
a little unused to it being in your body, you may have abdominal pain,
or feel like something is moving and have the sense of warmth, etc.
http://www.uidaho.edu/student_orgs/falun/eng/flg_5.htm#e1

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#1872
6:23 AM Sun 31 Oct 99
 Subject:  Re: banzu  xipaso
 From:  Adam Raizen

From: "Adam Raizen" araize-@newmail.net

la xod cusku di'e

> From: xod xo-@bway.net
>
> On Sat, 30 Oct 1999 recipro-@freenet.edmonton.ab.ca wrote:
>
> > > lo jetnu cu zemei
> >
> > Seems to mean
> >
> > some truths are a mass of 7 members
> >
> > Which does not make any sense, unless "lo" is replaced with "loi", which
> > should make it mean "there are 7 truths".
>
>
> Using loi would imply that their truth is a collective property, possibly
> not shared by each individual member. Is each fact true in isolation?
> Then use "le, lo", which can be used for plurals too.
>
> But x1 of n-"mei" is a mass! So, we might try
>

That doesn't mean that we can't have "individual" masses. We
could have several different masses, which we think of as
individuals, but whose internal structure is thought of as a mass.

> lo ze jetnu cu zasti
>

That implies that there are exactly 7 things which are true in the
universe; also, zasti is a bit vague. How about just

zemei jetnu

co'o mi'e adam

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#1873
6:25 AM Sun 31 Oct 99
 Subject:  x pronouciation from a  french guy
 From:  Paul Dufresne
From: Paul Dufresne dufr-@oricom.ca

I am beginning to learn Lojban, mainly by studying gismus.
But I never feel well when I see an 'x' because I am not sure
at all how to pronounce it. I tend to think it is pronounced
a bit like the 'k'.
Let's take french words in example. For me the 'c' of
"canot" would be lojbanize as "kano", and the 'c' of
"cougar", would be lojbanize as "xugar".

But like I said, I am not sure at all, and I like to have
feedback on this.

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#1874
7:35 AM Sun 31 Oct 99
 Subject:  Re: 3  dogs, 2 men, many arguments
 From:  Bob LeChevalier (lojbab)

From: "Bob LeChevalier (lojbab)" lojba-@lojban.org

At 12:46 AM 10/31/99 -0400, xod wrote:
>Over the past several days I have been pondering this issue. Here's my
>latest impression.
>
>"Everybody loves somebody" does not imply that "somebody is loved by
>everybody", because in the former case, "somebody" may refer to a
>different somebody for each in the "everybody", while in the latter case
>it refers for a single given individual.
>
>Why? Because in English, the subject is stated first, and when enumeration
>is given to a subject it is taken to be absolute, whereas when it is given
>to the object, it is relative to the subject.
>
>This is because English sentences tend to be statements about subjects.
>
>The Lojban bridi is a statement made "from infinity", a clear description
>of fact from a 3rd party perspective. All Lojban utterances are this way,
>except ones with prenexes containing terms of different "scope"! Those are
>the only bridi that violate that fact that "da broda de" implies "de se
>broda da".
>
>This is an affront to my Lojbanic intuition and aesthetic. These sentences
>follow English subject/object biases, right down to their word ordering.

Since the ordering rule of prenexes means that terms always have different
scopes (the first one includes the second in its scope), your "except one
with prenexes ..." means "except everything".  If there are sumti, there is
a prenex, though it may be ellipsized.

The bias in Lojban is NOT "English subject/object" - it is simple left to
right bias, because that is the order in which we read.  (It also happens
to be the bias of logical notation, which I believe was not particularly an
English invention, but pc could fill us in on this).  The bias you describe
is not subject/object for English either, I believe, because if you manage
to rearrange the sentence to be non-subject-initial, it still logically
groups from the left:

To somewhere, via some route, goes everyone. (stolen from a Book chapter title)
vs
Everyone goes somewhere via some route.

In both of these sentences, "everyone" is the subject, but in the first,
"everyone" does not have scope precedence.

That you find ordered scope an affront is something I can understand; I
felt the same way, having mastered the symmetry of SE conversion, when
scope reared its ugly head and spoiled that symmetry.

But the bottom line question is what you would have

roda prami de
and
de se prami roda

mean.

You have to choose meanings for both of these sentences, and they can
either mean the same thing or two different things.  The status quo using
logical scope is that they mean different things.  If you decide based on
symmetry that they must mean the same thing, then you still have a scope
issue in deciding whether x1 or x2 takes precedence.  If you decide that
ordering is based on place number, both mean "Everybody loves
somebody".  Let us hypothetically accept this.  Now what about "de selprami
roda".  By turning the tanru into a lujvo, the se conversion becomes
implicit and the place numbers x1 x2 are no longer as if it were a
conversion.  (You can try to keep numbering them in the order of "prami",
but this just makes confusion when you make even larger lujvo especially
those with more than one gismu being converted.)  Sooner or later something
breaks.  Alas.  Symmetry fails.

I'm not sure where you want to go with your set mappings, but even if you
can do that sort of thing in Lojban and have it make sense, you have to
deal with the above breakdown of symmetry.

lojbab
----
lojbab                     ***NOTE NEW ADDRESS***           lojba-@lojban.org
Bob LeChevalier, President, The Logical Language Group, Inc.
2904 Beau Lane, Fairfax VA 22031-1303 USA               703-385-0273
Artificial language Loglan/Lojban:
   see Lojban WWW Server: href=" http://xiron.pc.helsinki.fi/lojban/ "
   Order _The Complete Lojban Language_ - see our Web pages or ask me.

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#1875
7:53 AM Sun 31 Oct 99
 Subject:  Re: x  pronouciation from a french guy
 From:  Bob LeChevalier (lojbab)

From: "Bob LeChevalier (lojbab)" lojba-@lojban.org

At 03:58 AM 10/20/99 -0400, Paul Dufresne wrote:
>I am beginning to learn Lojban, mainly by studying gismus.
>But I never feel well when I see an 'x' because I am not sure
>at all how to pronounce it. I tend to think it is pronounced
>a bit like the 'k'.
>Let's take french words in example. For me the 'c' of
>"canot" would be lojbanize as "kano", and the 'c' of
>"cougar", would be lojbanize as "xugar".

My wife says that to her knowledge, French does not use the x sound, and no
French word would Lojbanize as x.  She wasn't aware that "canot" and
"cougar" would have different initial sounds, though.  Just as English
speakers (who also do not have an x sound) you have to go to another
language to get the x sound.  German "ch" as in "Bach" (hopefully you hear
that as something other than Lojban "bak") is the model I use most
often.  France having a lot of Arabic speakers can turn to Arabic as a
model - I believe the Arabic sound Romanized as q is a Lojban x.  The
voiced equivalent of x in Arabic is often Romanized as "gh", hence the
spelling of the name of the leader of Libya is sometimes Romanized as
Qadaffi or Ghadaffi.  The other models we use are the Russian sound
Romanized as "kh", and the Greek "chi" (which is the reason why we use x
for the sound).

Hope these examples help.

lojbab


----
lojbab                     ***NOTE NEW ADDRESS***           lojba-@lojban.org
Bob LeChevalier, President, The Logical Language Group, Inc.
2904 Beau Lane, Fairfax VA 22031-1303 USA               703-385-0273
Artificial language Loglan/Lojban:
   see Lojban WWW Server: href=" http://xiron.pc.helsinki.fi/lojban/ "
   Order _The Complete Lojban Language_ - see our Web pages or ask me.

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#1876
7:57 AM Sun 31 Oct 99
 Subject:  Re: lojban relationship  words....
 From:  Brook Conner

From: nellard-@concentric.net (Brook Conner)

la gio .kuot. recipro-@freenet.edmonton.ab.ca .kuot. pu ciska di'e:
 > la brukca,yr. pu ciska di'e
 >
 > > Friends of mine have found a lack of English words for different kinds
 > > of relationships - I think I mentioned this before.  So in the spirit
 > > of contributing, I'm posting some.
 > >
 > > Please, for commentary/correction/whatever:
 > [...]
 > > mi pendo le mi glependo - "my fuckbuddy is my friend."
 > > mi pamypendo - "I have a loving friend." (or more than one - not
 > >                specific)

 > More accurately, "I'm my fuckbuddy's friend",

Yep - I translated it to more idiomatic English - maybe I should have
used:

le mi glependo cu pendo mi
mi se pendo le mi glependo

which, come to think of it, are almost tautologies (switching to "lo"
and they would be). But would I describe someone as "le pendo goi ko'a"
if it wasn't the case that "ko'a pendo mi"?

 >  and "I am a loving
 > friend",

Yep.

 > not that it particularly makes a difference in most contexts--but
 > "pendo" could theoretically also cover someone acting like your friend
 > even though you hate their guts.

So question: If each lojban gismu has only one definition, which is
the definition for "pendo"?

x1 is a friend to x2

or

x1 acts like a friend to x2

The def I have in front of me says

x1 is|acts like a friend to x2

but it seems to me to be covering two distinctly different truth
statements - one is about a property (being a friend) while the other
is about behavior (acting like a friend, whether you are or not).  Or
is pendo inclusive? With abstraction allowing for more specificity?
Like "ka pendo" for the "is" version?

 > > ko malype'o mi - Fuck me, dammit
 > > ko malypendo mi - [same]
 > Not malgletu?

D'oh!

 > no'i Both of those would be better expressed using attitudinals, e.g.
 >
 > le'o ro'u ko gletu mi
 > [aggresive] [sexual] Fuck me!

But I see that as the speaker being aggressive, whereas "Fuck me!" (in
a sexual situation) is usually construed as a more submissive request
- demanding that something obscene be done to the speaker.  And this
version doesn't have the "dirtiness" of "malgletu" - "gletu" is more
neutral, e.g., "copulate".  It isn't necessarily "dirty talk."

 > or
 >
 > .o'onai ko .ionai gletu mi
 > [anger] [you-imperative] [disrespect] fuck me
 > Fuck me, you whore!

Yes, but again, it could also mean:

Argh! You trash, copulate with me.

or more "idiomatically":
Argh! Have sex with me, you trash!

I think .ionairo'u would be more of the sense of "whore," or maybe
"slut" or "dick," or somesuch (but no particular gender bias anywhere
- a nice change).

 > Also, don't go ovorboard with the y-hyphen; as far as I know, "pampendo",
 > "cinprami", etc. are fine without it.

Arg - yeah, I had the "no voiced/non-voiced pairs" lodged in my
brain. Of course, I'm using exactly the letters that can ignore
that.....



co'o mi'e brukcr. (okay, so I haven't settled on the cmene I like best
yet :-)

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http://www.concentric.net/~nellardo/

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#1877
8:59 AM Sun 31 Oct 99
 Subject:  Re: x  pronouciation from a french guy
 From:  TommyLee Whitlock
From: "TommyLee Whitlock" tommyle-@whitlock.org





Paul,
 C'est super bien de voir un francophone sur la liste!  Vous ets d'ou ?  Je me suis specialis a l'universit en la langue franaise.  But I'm going to respond in English because I have forgotten much of my French.




"x" is also the symbol used in the Internation Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) for a voiceless velar fricative.  The 2 versions of "c" that you refer to below are really allophones of "k".  There may be a slight difference between them, but most speakers, as far as I know, really consider them the same sound.  The "x" in lojban is sometimes seen romanized as "kh", sometimes "ch" (as in the German pronuciation of Bach) as Bob pointed out.  It is the modern Greek pronunciation of 'chi'.  The "Phonetic Symbol Guide" describes it as sounding a lot like the devoiced French 'r' as in some pronunciations of "lettre".   J'spre que cette explication vous donne une mieux ide du son !




Bob,
 the 'q' in Qadaffi represents a uvular "k" sound made deep in the back of the throat.  Gh is a dialetical difference, a voiced fricative in the same place.  Not the same sound at all.   co'o mi'e tomis




#1878
9:01 AM Sun 31 Oct 99
 Subject:  Last chance to  nit-pick
 From:  Robin Turner

From: Robin Turner robi-@bilkent.edu.tr

coi rodo

After a long period of inactivity, I have revised lessons 4-7 of
the beginners' course and linked to them from the contents page.
I've tried to take everyone's suggestions/corrections into
account, but may have overlooked a few.

Any last-minute corrections would be appreciated - I don't plan
to do any further work on these particular lessons, but of course
if there's any really bad Lojban, I'll correct it.

You can visit the lessons from

http://www.bilkent.edu.tr/~robin/lojbancourse.html

Oh yes, and I've finally got round to pasting in the webring
HTML!

co'o mi'e robin.

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#1879
10:02 AM Sun 31 Oct 99
 Subject:  Re: Lojban and the  Turing machine
 From:  Robin Turner

From: Robin Turner robi-@bilkent.edu.tr

la bruk. cusku di'e
>  > =
>  >
>  > LApp app;
>  > app.AddWindow(new LWindow)
>
> Now the programmer's answer is that *this* is much more succinct and
> legible. So what did you gain by using lojban? lojban is a full human
> language - that means it is incredibly rich. Using it to duplicate C++
> functionality seems like using a Steyr AUG assault rifle as a
> flyswatter.  Yeah, you can do it, but your bare hand works better.

Yes, unless you're someone like me who knows a bit of Lojban but
virutally no C++ (I bought the "C++ in 10 minutes" book several
months ago, and still haven't got further than "Hello World").
As someone who wrote their last program 15 years ago, I'd really
appreciate either a Lojban programming language or a Lojban
"front-end" to an existing language.

co'o mi'e robin.

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#1880
10:15 AM Sun 31 Oct 99
 Subject:  Don't be a wimp, get  with the Gimp
 From:  Robin Turner

From: Robin Turner robi-@bilkent.edu.tr

Re comments that the Lojban logo looks kind of wimpy ....

> > >   Finally: is the flag/logo really working? I hunted it down to put on
> > > the lojban website that I'm making... And decided against it.
> >
> > It looks good printed on the cover of the reference grammer IMHO. In
> > fact, the reference grammer is a damn fine book both in usefulness and
> > in quality.
> >
> > Perhaps it's the bitmap quality or the way it appears on a web page
> > that's the problem?
>
> Well, now that I understand what the symbol means, I like it a little
> better.. but I stil think it looks a little weak, with all the thin
> lines. (I haven't seen the cover to the book)

Get a good image manipulation program like the Gimp or Photoshop
and play around with it.  An example I just made for fun is

http://www.bilkent.edu.tr/~robin/lojban.jpg

co'o mi'e robin.

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#1881
10:59 AM Sun 31 Oct 99
 Subject:  Re: 3 dogs, 2 men,  many arguments
 From:  Robin Turner
From: Robin Turner robi-@bilkent.edu.tr

la xorxes. cusku di'e
>
> la pycyn cusku di'e
>
> >Masses have the *logical* sum of the properties of their members, according
> >to one standard view.  In the case of weight, this amounts to the
> >arithmetic sum, in most non-numerical cases it is the disjunction. On that
> >view, a mass of three dogs would bite a mass of two men if one of the dogs
> >bit one of the men -- though we do need to know how/why they sets were
> >massified.
>
> Yes, that makes sense. That at least one of the dogs bites
> at least one of the men would be a necessary condition
> for our description, but not sufficient. There would also
> have to be a reason for taking the dogs as a unit and the
> men as another unit.
>
This is also the way I look at it.  I conceptualise Lojban masses
like units in strategy games, so if the archers fire at the
spearmen, it doesn't need to be the case that every archer needs
to fire an arrow at every (or any) spearman.  Incidentally, in my
course I explain {lu'o} and {lu'i} by analogy to the "group" and
"ungroup" commands.

> In any case, that would be a more common situation than
> the perfectly coordinated full distribution of bites.

You bet!

co'o mi'e robin.

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#1882
2:07 PM Sun 31 Oct 99
 Subject:  Re: lojban relationship  words....
 From:  recipro-

From: recipro-@freenet.edmonton.ab.ca

>  > > mi pendo le mi glependo - "my fuckbuddy is my friend."
>  > > mi pamypendo - "I have a loving friend." (or more than one - not
>  > >                specific)
>
>  > More accurately, "I'm my fuckbuddy's friend",
>
> Yep - I translated it to more idiomatic English - maybe I should have
> used:
>
> le mi glependo cu pendo mi
> mi se pendo le mi glependo
>
> which, come to think of it, are almost tautologies (switching to "lo"
> and they would be). But would I describe someone as "le pendo goi ko'a"
> if it wasn't the case that "ko'a pendo mi"?

>  > not that it particularly makes a difference in most contexts--but
>  > "pendo" could theoretically also cover someone acting like your friend
>  > even though you hate their guts.
>
> So question: If each lojban gismu has only one definition, which is
> the definition for "pendo"?
>
> x1 is a friend to x2
>
> or
>
> x1 acts like a friend to x2
>
> The def I have in front of me says
>
> x1 is|acts like a friend to x2
>
> but it seems to me to be covering two distinctly different truth
> statements - one is about a property (being a friend) while the other
> is about behavior (acting like a friend, whether you are or not).  Or
> is pendo inclusive? With abstraction allowing for more specificity?
> Like "ka pendo" for the "is" version?

Good question. It would seem to me that "acts like a friend" ought to be a
tanru...

>  > > ko malype'o mi - Fuck me, dammit
>  > > ko malypendo mi - [same]
>  > Not malgletu?
>
> D'oh!
>
>  > no'i Both of those would be better expressed using attitudinals, e.g.
>  >
>  > le'o ro'u ko gletu mi
>  > [aggresive] [sexual] Fuck me!
>
> But I see that as the speaker being aggressive, whereas "Fuck me!" (in
> a sexual situation) is usually construed as a more submissive request
> - demanding that something obscene be done to the speaker.

Okay, I see. The "dammit" threw me off a bit.

> And this
> version doesn't have the "dirtiness" of "malgletu" - "gletu" is more
> neutral, e.g., "copulate".  It isn't necessarily "dirty talk."

.i'a

>
>  > or
>  >
>  > .o'onai ko .ionai gletu mi
>  > [anger] [you-imperative] [disrespect] fuck me
>  > Fuck me, you whore!
>
> Yes, but again, it could also mean:
>
> Argh! You trash, copulate with me.
>
> or more "idiomatically":
> Argh! Have sex with me, you trash!
>
> I think .ionairo'u would be more of the sense of "whore," or maybe
> "slut" or "dick," or somesuch (but no particular gender bias anywhere
> - a nice change).

Swearing in Lojban is so much *fun* :)!
In any case, I didn't intend to particularly signify "whore" with
".ionai", it's just that it seemed like a better translation, what with
the context.


        co'omi'e xarmuj.

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#1883
2:43 PM Sun 31 Oct 99
 Subject:  Re: 3 dogs, 2 men,  many arguments
 From:  Jorge Llambias

From: "Jorge Llambias" jjllambia-@hotmail.com


la xod cusku di'e

>The Lojban bridi is a statement made "from infinity", a clear description
>of fact from a 3rd party perspective. All Lojban utterances are this way,
>except ones with prenexes containing terms of different "scope"! Those are
>the only bridi that violate that fact that "da broda de" implies "de se
>broda da".

"da broda de" does mean the same as "de se broda da",
they mean the same as "da de zo'u da broda de" or
"de da zo'u da broda de". Remember that the default
quantifier for da is su'o (at least one), and the
order of two variables quantified by su'o is
always irrelevant.

But "ro da broda de" is not the same as
"de se broda ro da". The first one is
"ro da de zo'u da broda de", and the second one
is "de ro da zo'u da broda de".

What you are arguing is that they both should mean
"de ro da zo'u da broda de". In other words, you
want that when the variables are not explicitly
quatified in the prenex, their quantification
should be existentials first, universals second.

That was a possible way of choosing how to
interpret sentences without an explicit prenex,
but it is not what was decided. The chosen
interpretation was to export to the prenex
in the same order that the quantifiers appear
in the sentence. The advantage of this is that
you don't have to use the prenex as often as
you would with the other scheme.

>This is an affront to my Lojbanic intuition and aesthetic.

I know the feeling. I don't agree with you about
this particular affront, but lots of other times
I have argued along those lines, usually (but not
always) unsuccessfully.

>Consider an alternative scheme: mappings.
>
>The prenex is constructed like: (set definition 1) (mapping) (set
>definition 2) (mapping) ... (set definition m) zo'u bridi
>
>where a set definition is a da poi phrase, and a mapping
>specifies the topology of the relationship between the sets, such as 1:1,
>cross product, at least one, unknown, etc.

What you call mapping, at least in some cases, is the
job of the quantifier. The quantifier is not a part
of the set definition.

co'o mi'e xorxes

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#1884
3:19 PM Sun 31 Oct 99
 Subject:  Re:  Lojban and the Turing machine
 From:  recipro-

From: recipro-@freenet.edmonton.ab.ca


>  > > Lojban texts are parsable, and it should at least be possible to
>  > > formulate computer programs in some lojban-compatible syntax.
>  >
>  > I was working on exactly that a while back... it never got
>  > anywhere, but if anyone's interested, maybe it could.
>
> I'm interested but for a different reason - spoken programming. I
> suspect that speech recognition with lojban could be more accurate
> than with English as well as faster. lojban sounds different enough
> that you may even be able to automatically extract it from the speech
> stream.  What's the result?
>
> You can speak in English freely, but the computer is always
> listening. It recognizes commands without a special command flag
> ("Computer, blow up the Klingons"). And best of all, the semantics are
> substantially simpler. Each sentence means one thing and one thing
> only (that thing may itself be vague or abstract, but that's different
> from needing to decide among several possibly contradictory
> meanings and *then* dealing with vagueness or abstraction).
>
>  > The annoying thing about writing a program in Lojban would normally be all
>  > the "ko"s and especially "ko gasnu le nu"s.
>
> Not all the "ko"'s would come at the beginning, even in an imperative
> style of programming.  Trivially:
>
> le darcu cu se gasnu ko -- just swap x1 and x2 places
>                         -- the file, cause it to be!

Yes, but regardless of where they are, there'd be a lot of 'em. I for one
would like as little repetition as is reasonably possible.

>
> But what about database queries?
>
> ta'i ma do gasnu le darcu -- by what method do you cause the file?
>                           -- How did you make the file?
> ma gasnu le darcu         -- Who made the file? Who caused the file?

Hey, cool :)

>  > My idea was, rather than
>  > thinking of it in terms of ordering the computer to do something, you're
>  > describing a world that the computer tries to imitate... it would look
>
> Though it's not quite what you're suggesting below, there's the
> declarative programming approach (typified by Prolog). The programmer
> does not tell the computer how to do something, just what is to be
> done.  For example, code for a fibonacci number in Haskell (while
> Haskell is often called "functional", its nature makes it easy to be
> declarative):
>
> fib 0     = 0
> fib 1     = 1
> fib (n+2) = fib n + fib (n+1)
>
> If you look at a math textbook definition, it looks essentially the
> same - except you can typeset it better in a book.  Describe fibonacci
> numbers in lojban and you get something similar, only readable aloud:
>
>    le noboi pamoi la fibnatcis. -- Zero is first among the fibonacci
> .i le paboi remoi la fibnatcis. -- One is second
> .i la nyso'iremai fibnatcis. du le nyso'ipamai fibnatcis. so'i le
>       nymai fibnatcis. -- The (n+2)th fibonacci equals the (n+1)th
>                        -- fibonacci plus the n'th fibonacci.
>
> Note that lojban's lack of ambiguity gives you a positional freedom
> not usually found in programming languages. Since "la" is a name, we
> know we're talking (implicitly) about a declaration.  If we've seen
> the name before, we're continuing the description, statement,
> whatever.  And this isn't even using lojban's built-in variable
> assignment system.
>
>  > something like this, only with better class names:
>
>  > la .ap. cu ly'apra
>  > i le bi'u ly'uindo cu ly'uindo la .ap.
>
> Better class names indeed - if you're going to use lojban, I can't see
> much point to prefixing things with letterals.  That trick is for
> dealing with old programming languages that don't have modules or some
> other sort of name scoping/renaming possibilities.  lojban can be
> unambiguous with its name referents - so use that capability.
>
>  > =
>  >
>  > App is-an-instance-of-LApp
>  > the newly-introduced LWindow is-an-LWindow-belonging-to App
>
> By using a fu'ivla ("uindo"), you're effectively creating new words
> with their own place structure, aren't you?  That doesn't seem like
> such a great idea, as memorizing place structure seems to be a real
> pain. This is like memorizing argument order when learning a new
> library in programming - with bigger libraries, even experts will sit
> down with all the reference manuals next to them.
>
> Note that people that *write* don't usually need to keep a dictionary
> right on their desk.
>
>  > =
>  >
>  > LApp app;
>  > app.AddWindow(new LWindow)
>
> Now the programmer's answer is that *this* is much more succinct and
> legible. So what did you gain by using lojban? lojban is a full human
> language - that means it is incredibly rich. Using it to duplicate C++
> functionality seems like using a Steyr AUG assault rifle as a
> flyswatter.  Yeah, you can do it, but your bare hand works better.

:)
Re all of the above: I completely agree. As I said, I never went very far
with this.

> But let's look at existing lojban words: mupli and mu'u.
>
> Mupli is a gismu meaning x1 is an example with common property X2 of
> set x3.  In c++ terms, an obvious programming semantics is:
>
> X3 x1(x2); // new variable called x1 of class X3, with initialization
>            // params x2

Following what I came up with, it doesn't even have to be a new
variable--you could add a property to an existing object or variable using
just "x1 mupli x2".

> mu'u is a cmavo meaning "exemplified by", which suggests x1 mu'u x2 is
> equivalent to "X2 x1;"
>
>
> Even this strikes me as throwing good stuff (lojban) after bad
> (C++). I think lojban can do better.

.ie, but what kinds of things might we do with it, aside from the database
queries? I had thought of protocol definitions, something along the lines
of

le telmrilu ritli
.i do jorne le telmrilu samselfu goi ko'a
.i do benji zoi my.USER .my. ce'o le cmene
.i ko'a benji
        zoi my.+OK.my. .abo zoi my.-ERR.my.
        ce'o lo selcusku

=

The Mail-Receiving Rite [POP3]
You connect to the mail-receiving server.
You send "USER " then the name.
It sends ("+OK" or "-ERR") then any utterance.

        co'omi'e xarmuj.

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#1885
3:40 PM Sun 31 Oct 99
 Subject:  Re: 3 dogs, 2 men, many  arguments
 From:  recipro-

From: recipro-@freenet.edmonton.ab.ca


la xorxes. pu ciska di'e

> But "ro da broda de" is not the same as
> "de se broda ro da". The first one is
> "ro da de zo'u da broda de", and the second one
> is "de ro da zo'u da broda de".
>
> What you are arguing is that they both should mean
> "de ro da zo'u da broda de". In other words, you
> want that when the variables are not explicitly
> quatified in the prenex, their quantification
> should be existentials first, universals second.

I should let xod speak for hirself, but I had gathered that actually what
was intended was that they both should mean "de ro da zo'u da broda de
.ije ro da de zo'u da broda de", and that both of *those* bridi mean the
same thing as well. The current meaning of "de ro da zo'u da broda de"
would be expressed using a mapping cmavo between de and ro da.

Or maybe I misunderstood completely :).

        co'omi'e xarmuj.

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#1886
4:03 PM Sun 31 Oct 99
 Subject:  Re: 3  dogs, 2 men, many arguments
 From:  Jorge Llambias

From: "Jorge Llambias" jjllambia-@hotmail.com


la xarmuj cusku di'e

>I should let xod speak for hirself, but I had gathered that actually what
>was intended was that they both should mean "de ro da zo'u da broda de .ije
>ro da de zo'u da broda de",

The first one entails the second, so the second doesn't
add anything.

>and that both of *those* bridi mean the
>same thing as well.

I thought he admitted differences of scope by order
of appearance as long as they were explicited in
the prenex.

>The current meaning of "de ro da zo'u da broda de"
>would be expressed using a mapping cmavo between de and ro da.

The current meaning of "de ro da zo'u" is the one
he wants to keep. The one he argues with is
"ro da de zo'u".

>Or maybe I misunderstood completely :).

Or maybe I did. :)

co'o mi'e xorxes

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#1887
4:08 PM Sun 31 Oct 99
 Subject:  Re: x pronunciation from  a french guy
 From:  bestat-

From: bestat-@aol.com

In a message dated 10/31/1999 10:57:23 AM Eastern Standard Time,
lojba-@lojban.org writes:

> I believe the Arabic sound Romanized as q is a Lojban x.  The
>  voiced equivalent of x in Arabic is often Romanized as "gh", hence the
>  spelling of the name of the leader of Libya is sometimes Romanized as
>  Qadaffi or Ghadaffi.

The Arabic letter qaaf , the 21st letter of the Arabic alphabet, has a
variable pronunciation depending on dialect, but it is usually transliterated
as 'q'.  Most good English dictionaries have a table of alphabets under
'alphabet' that shows Hebrew, Arabic, Russian, Greek, and sometimes
Sanskrit/Devanagari. Anyway, the Arabic letter to use as a model for Lojban
'x' would be khaa, the 7th letter, and it's transliteration is 'kh', distinct
from 'q', 'k', 'h', '(dotted) h', "`", and 'gh'.
It's nice, and I'm sure no coincidence, that Lojban 'x' has the sound of the
IPA /x/.

Steven Lytle

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#1888
4:22 PM Sun 31 Oct 99
 Subject:  Re: lojban newbie: an  outsider looking in
 From:  Michal Wallace (sabren)

From: "Michal Wallace (sabren)" sabre-@manifestation.com

On Wed, 27 Oct 1999, Jorge Llambias wrote:

> >There is some kind of magical trick
> >to this process that ensures that no two lojban words are ever the same.
>
> Not magical, but admittedly a little more complicated
> than it need have been.

Having read a bit more... I think it makes a lot of sense..
I'm still not clear whether all gismu have the same patterns for
their rafsi or not. Given a gismu you've never seen, should you
be able to tell the rafsi?

> Yes, please do! For example, someone just asked for the
> meaning of {ta'u}. I would love to be able to do a search
> to find out how many times {ta'u} has been used (if ever)
> and with which of the two alternative meanings. We have
> a pretty large corpus of Lojban text by now, but, as you say,
> very difficult to use.

I'll see what I can do..

> We're probably stuck with it as the official logo, but nothing
> stops you or anyone else from creating and using a better
> one, and if it catches on, it will become the unofficial logo...

:) I don't know if it's any better, but I put a flag for an imaginary
country I made up for a story a few years ago on my lojban site.. I
kind of like the story behind the venn diagram and the arrows,
though.

Cheers,

- Michal
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
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#1889
5:08 PM Sun 31 Oct 99
 Subject:  Re: lojban newbie: an  outsider looking in
 From:  Jorge Llambias

From: "Jorge Llambias" jjllambia-@hotmail.com


>I'm still not clear whether all gismu have the same patterns for
>their rafsi or not. Given a gismu you've never seen, should you
>be able to tell the rafsi?

You can't tell the three letter rafsi. Every gismu
has a combining form made of its four first letters + y
for non-final positions, and a five letter combining
form which is the gismu itself for final position.
The short rafsi are made of three letters of the gismu,
but not all gismu have short rafsi, some have
more than one (up to three) and which three letters
conform it is not decided completely algorithmically,
there's only some restrictions as to which ones they
can be.

co'o mi'e xorxes

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#1890
6:33 PM Sun 31 Oct 99
 Subject:  Re: li18nux.org charter  needs lojban version
 From:  xod
From: xod xo-@bway.net





On Sat, 23 Oct 1999 ph-@a2e.de wrote:







#1891
10:26 PM Sun 31 Oct 99
 Subject:  Re: li18nux.org charter  needs lojban version
 From:  xod

From: xod xo-@bway.net

I don't understand why that was just "posted" to you all; I sent that on
24 Oct 99!

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#1892
10:43 PM Sun 31 Oct 99
 Subject:  Re: 3  dogs, 2 men, many arguments
 From:  xod

From: xod xo-@bway.net

At 10:40 AM -0500 10/31/99, Bob LeChevalier (lojbab) wrote:


>To somewhere, via some route, goes everyone. (stolen from a Book chapter
>title)
>vs
>Everyone goes somewhere via some route.
>
>In both of these sentences, "everyone" is the subject, but in the first,
>"everyone" does not have scope precedence.


The former sentence can easily be interpreted as the second; that everyone
goes someplace, but all those someplaces are not necessarily the same
place. So I think they can be read as having the same scope.


>That you find ordered scope an affront is something I can understand; I
>felt the same way, having mastered the symmetry of SE conversion, when
>scope reared its ugly head and spoiled that symmetry.


Thanks! I wasn't sure if I was completely out of line.


>But the bottom line question is what you would have
>
>roda prami de
>and
>de se prami roda
>
>mean.
>
>You have to choose meanings for both of these sentences, and they can
>either mean the same thing or two different things.  The status quo using
>logical scope is that they mean different things.  If you decide based on
>symmetry that they must mean the same thing, then you still have a scope
>issue in deciding whether x1 or x2 takes precedence.


If, by default, de refers to a single entity, and not a different entity
for each da in ro da, then we have symmetry.

"Everybody loves Jake." Thus, "Jake is loved by everybody." A mapping that
maps each da to its own de could (and I think, should) be explicitly
specified.


If you decide that
>ordering is based on place number, both mean "Everybody loves
>somebody".  Let us hypothetically accept this.  Now what about "de selprami
>roda".  By turning the tanru into a lujvo, the se conversion becomes
>implicit and the place numbers x1 x2 are no longer as if it were a
>conversion.  (You can try to keep numbering them in the order of "prami",
>but this just makes confusion when you make even larger lujvo especially
>those with more than one gismu being converted.)  Sooner or later something
>breaks.  Alas.  Symmetry fails.


I'm afraid I don't see how the symmetry can be broken by making a lujvo
with reordered places.

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#1893
10:48 PM Sun 31 Oct 99
 Subject:  Re: 3 dogs, 2 men, many  arguments
 From:  xod

From: xod xo-@bway.net

At 2:47 PM -0800 10/31/99, Jorge Llambias wrote:
>From: "Jorge Llambias" jjllambia-@hotmail.com

>What you are arguing is that they both should mean
>"de ro da zo'u da broda de". In other words, you
>want that when the variables are not explicitly
>quatified in the prenex, their quantification
>should be existentials first, universals second.

That's not quite what I am suggesting. Let me know if the post I sent a few
minutes prior to this isn't clear enough.



>What you call mapping, at least in some cases, is the
>job of the quantifier. The quantifier is not a part
>of the set definition.

Isn't it? What if I say "let set A include all the dogs that bark at
night", or "let set B be 3 fast cars".




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#1894
11:08 PM Sun 31 Oct 99
 Subject:  Re: 3  dogs, 2 men, many arguments
 From:  recipro-

From: recipro-@freenet.edmonton.ab.ca

la xorxes. pu ciska di'e

> la xarmuj cusku di'e
>
> >I should let xod speak for hirself, but I had gathered that actually what
> >was intended was that they both should mean "de ro da zo'u da broda de .ije
> >ro da de zo'u da broda de",
>
> The first one entails the second, so the second doesn't
> add anything.

.o'anai! I knew that!

> >and that both of *those* bridi mean the
> >same thing as well.
>
> I thought he admitted differences of scope by order
> of appearance as long as they were explicited in
> the prenex.

This would be where we *actually* disagree. I'm sure xod can tell us which
is right :).

> >The current meaning of "de ro da zo'u da broda de"
> >would be expressed using a mapping cmavo between de and ro da.
>
> The current meaning of "de ro da zo'u" is the one
> he wants to keep. The one he argues with is
> "ro da de zo'u".

.ie I think I got "de ro da" and "ro da de" mixed up for some reason... So
what I *meant* to say was that the current meaning of "ro da de zo'u"
would be expressed with a mapping. I think I'll shut up now :).


        co'omi'e xarmuj.

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