Lojban
The Logical Language
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History: LojbanSlang
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Source of version: 4
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There is a tension in Lojban, as in natural & other artificial languages, between the need for brevity & the desire for accuracy. In addition, the whole concept of ((figurative language)) has an uneasy place in both Lojban theory & Lojban practice. Probably the ((hardliners)) who would limit metaphorical usage to those phrases marked by ''pe'a'' (or the cartouche ''fu'epe'a...fu'o'') are doomed to be defeated in the long run by the inherent fuzziness of human semantic space, but there is something ''lobykai'' & even noble in the attempt to draw this distinction with rigor. In defense of the stricter view, there is quite a lot of latitude in wielding the ''gismu'' themselves, so long as the thing referred to does indeed have the features indicated by the ''sumti''-slots... But the amount of poetry in calling a ''gerku'' a ''danlu'' or a ''se kerfa'' will not, after all, carry us very far. *First, there are those idioms which are more or less sanctioned by repeated usage: **''skudji'' 'express-desire' for "want to say", is common & almost orthodox. **''ciskycusku'' 'writingly express', once frequent, seems to be losing out to ''finti'' 'invent'. **''noryru'i'' 'semi-spirit' for "ghost" & ''xa'unro'a'' 'dweller-prose' for "diary", are useful coinages that have not yet been approved by the community at large. **''le ((jboste))'' 'Lojban-list' is, although clearly a ((calque)) of the worst sort, now the canonical name for the internet mailing list, which might more properly be made from ''mrilu'', ''benji'', or ''judri''. **That goes for ''((jbofi'e))'' too (e.g. ''jbofanva minji''); a ((calque)) on Babelfish... **''ji'anai'' for "except" is difficult to find a better alternative to, but not quite what the original meaning of ''ji'a'' 'also' would entail. **''mibypre'' as a ''lujvo'' substitute for ''mi'', allowing certain literary effects not possible with a ''cmavo''. ***Since English personal pronoun ''one'' means "a me-ish sort of person", ((And|I)) have used ''mibypre'' to render ''one''. The two usages are not incompatible, though, since changing English ''me'' to ''one'' does not destroy the meaning too much. **''selma'o'' was coined as a word for "((lexeme))" when ''dikyjvo'' did not exist and it is thoroughly ensconced in our literature with that meaning. I think it is now a little too late to do to selma'o what we did to ''kunbri'' (now ''selbri'', and the former is long forgotten) and ''le'avla'' (now ''fu'ivla'', but you can still find the former sometimes). ***''dikyjvo'' itself is oldfashioned, ''jvajvo'' being the 'received' synonym. ****((pne|I)) had heard ''seljvajvo''. ****You may be right. We don't hear about them much now that they have become canonical. --((And)) ****The jvoste has an entry for jvajvo, but not seljvajvo. -mi'e ((.djorden.)) ****Ah well. With lujvo, you can play fast and free to a certain extent with places (as in: the places of the lujvo, as well as their order, need not correspond to the places or order of places of the multiple selbri making up the ''ve lujvo''), though I thought the idea of dikyjvo/jvajvo/seljvajvo/(your favourite name here) was to have the places more or less corresponding to those of the base tanru. And seljvajvo aren't rules; they're things governed by rules (so x1 of ''broda'', whatever you want to call it, is x2, not x1, of ''javni''). At any rate, ''se javni lujvo'' sounds more plausible as a base tanru to me than ''javni lujvo''. For what it's worth, since I'm not all that proficient in Lojban. --mi'e ((pne|filip)) **''guzme stasu'', 'watermelon soup', "mild nonsense"; something you can say correctly in Lojban but doesn't really mean anything '''Why is watermelon soup such a ridiculous idea? If it's cold it might not be so bad.''' ** ((hunting unicorns|danmo zalvi)), among others, for 'beating a dead horse.' *Then there are isolated suggestions, for which this place must be thought a kind of limbo pending the creation of a body of fluent speakers who can dispense with both prescriptive & descriptive interference of this sort... **''besna je betfu'' 'brain & belly' for something like "body & soul". **''ko febvi je se zalvi'' 'boilingly grind you (at once)!' for a very serious pejorative. **''ko ko kruji'': a veiled pejorative (be creamed-you!) **''datytsani'', 'other-sky', for "[http://66.111.43.200/~jkominek/nuzban/wiki/index.php?Dreamtime|Dreamtime]". **''lenku margu'', 'cold mercury', for "dead". Used in this kenning-like way, without being bracketed with a ''fu'epe'a...fu'o'', it must be considered a residual ''jbozi'u'' although far outlasting that era... **''finti je facki'', 'invent and discover'. **''cfipyboi'', 'confuser-ball', for ''terdi''. '''Ball of Confusion, that old Love and Rockets song.''' **''vonpaso'', x1 (who is West African, generally but not necessarily Nigerian) swindles x2, causing him to lose x3; hence ''do se vonpaso'' "you've been 419ed", "you've been had" *The "unofficial ''gismu''" are a third category: [http://people.fix.no/arj/lojban/unofficial-gismu.html (When] we become more comfortable coining ''fu'ivla'' spontaneously, these will probably fall into disuse. E.g. zo gugrnorge basti zo norgo zo gugrtalia basti zo talno zo gugrturki,e basti zo turko zo gugrxrvatska basti zo xorvo zo kri'ibe basti zo kribo ) **Except that ''le norgo'' can refer to a person, a language, a country, a culture, etc, just like ''le glico'', whereas ''le gugdrnorge'' would always tend to be a country. *As another variation of Lojban slang, we have words like __zirpu__ as a description of a literary style (see ((Michael Helsem))'s ((la bertcad.|opera)) prima ''((ziryroi))'' __opus primus [[unless there's a musical setting I'm unaware of zo'o... ''Jbozgi provides a musical setting to everything'']__), or __tilju__ with the meaning ''x1 is pedantic by standard x2'', which arose from the lujvo __tilju'idu'e__. **This use of ''zirpu'' alludes to the English phrase ''purple prose'', properly meaning florid and turgid writing. **(Properly speaking, the words were ''zirjbo'' and ''jbozi'u'', and the intention was to designate a practice where ((figurative language)) usage might be considered optional, like natural languages'. He has since become one of the ((hardliners)), but the name might as well stand for that anti-''pe'a'' position...) ---- ''besna je betfu, a very nice idiom! Thank you! I would consider it an idiom and not slang.'' *Profanity in Lojban does not officially exist outside "mabla". However, Lojbanifications of non-native curse words exist, as described in the article ((Profanity)).
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