Level 0 Booklet part 2

These are resolved errata in the Level 0 book, chapter 4 and onward.

• Chapter 4
  • Lingistic Issues *with* Lojban? I think? -Robin
    • I'd have issues with that, Other votes?
      • Maybe "Linguistic Issues Pertaining to Lojban" — Adam
        • Works for me. -Robin

• <hr> between the questions. -Robin
• Question 1
  • "nderstanding the potential for Sapir-Whorf effects may lead to better inter-cultural understanding, promoting communication and peace." — Aaawww, what a cute fwuffy widdew bunny!! -Robin
    • I wanted this out, but John overruled me...
• Question 2
  • "Ambiguity can be judged on four levels: the phonological-graphical, the morphological, the syntactic, and the semantic." — Sounds wrong. syntactical and semantical? -Robin
    • And yet, that's completely correct. semantical does not exist, and syntactical is rare. Likewise, morphologic and phonologic do not exist. As I've always maintained, English is a whore... (You certainly can't pin this on Greek, because the -al bit is Latin; it took English to smoosh them together like this.)
  • "although pauses can be unambiguously identified in written text from the morphological rules alone." — although *required* pauses. -Robin
    • Don't quite get it, but am putting in anyway.
  • "produces a unique parse for every Lojban text." — produces a unique parse for all strictly correct/valid Lojban text. Or something like that. -Robin
    • for every Lojban text that follows its grammatical norms.
• Question 4
  • nanmu, meaning 'adult human male'. nanmu just means human male. The gismu list says that it is not necessarily adult.
• Question 10
  • lenu do jacysabji da cu nibli lenu da ba banro. That should probably be rinka instead of nibli, and the scope of each da ends when the subsentence it is a part of ends, and so both das could legitimately refer to different things, without a (ro)da zo'u before the sentence.
    • Well spotted. That's why we need a Lojban for Intermediates...
• Question 15
  • The question claims that Lojban has non-English diphthongs. I don't think that Lojban actually has any of those.
    • Loglan holdover. Struck.
  • Medial consonant clusters are also restricted, to prevent ... consecutive stops. Consecutive stops are in no way prohibited in Lojban.
    • Loglan holdover. Struck.
  • "How can a language be appropriate as an international auxiliary language when it is difficult to pronounce?" — I notice that "Who the hell said lojban was an int aux lang?" doesn't appear in the answer. 8) -Robin
    • Again, holdover from the 1969 discussion of Loglan. Any mention of auxiliary language is joyfully struck (exorcising my esperantic demons), and supplanted with 'culturally neutral', which is the real point of any such questions.
• Question 16
  • "The Logical Language Group has proposed formal tests of the algorithm, and is instrumenting its software used for teaching vocabulary to allow data to be gathered that will confirm or refute this hypothesis" — Long since has done, I think. -Robin
    • and has instrumented its software used for teaching vocabulary to allow data to be gathered that can confirm or refute this hypothesis.
• Question 22
  • "In a highly complex system (which any language, even an artificial one, is)," — Even a well-developed artificial one, anyways. -Robin
    • Any language is a highly complex system?even an artificial language, as long as it is non-trivial. (This certainly holds true for Lojban!) In such a system, the interaction of the design features displays properties that are more than the sum of its parts.
  • "insights that would then be tested in the natural languages." — s/in the/in/ -Robin
• Question 23
  • "we don't know what features of a language might be determining to a culture." — I fail to understand this sentence, and I don't know if it's the sentence or me. -Robin
    • Oddly enough, it looks to me like a calque from Greek, but I'm fairly sure it's John's. I'll make it "decisive".
• Question 24
  • Your math is dubious, as you never theorize how long it takes to learn a 4th language.
    • Am querying John.
      • Saith John, it should probably be worded more like this: "Assume that you can learn a second language in four years, and further languages in two more years each. If you can learn an artificial language (to the same degree) in only one year due to its greater simplicity and regularity, then you can save a year by learning the artificial language first and then spending only two years on further natural languages, even if you never use the artificial language again.
      • But while this argument may have some merit for E-o, it's complete shite for Lojban, IMO. I would be in favor of dropping this question altogether.
      • Heh. Until someone does a study proving it wrong... 8) --RobinLeePowell
  • The editors have spoken. I've commented the question out, and John is right that Lojban is a little too alien to serve as a good 'propaedeutic' (pre-teaching tool). We'll wait on the stats; Lojban propaganda doesn't really need more Gedanken, and this is an angle the Esperantists have been long pushing, with noone visible in Lojban to push back; it's too risky a move politically. Out it goes. — n
• Quesiton 25
  • zdane'ikemcmafagyso'ikemprununje'a: je'a is a rafsi for jecta, not jelca. — Adam
    • Middle Lojban holdover. Struck.

• Question 5: s/comparision/comparison/ -ScottW
• Question 13: s/necesssary/necessary/ -ScottW
• Question 16: s/occurence/occurrence/ (or is this a Commonwealth spelling?) -ScottW
• Question 19: s/sufficent/sufficient/ -ScottW

• [Moved from below because I have a comment. Move it back afterwards.] "Many Amerindian languages use these type of words." — Native American, please. Indians are from India. -Robin
  • Though Amerindian is utterly standard terminology in linguistics, this document is not intended for linguists; reluctantly changed.
    • "Native American" refers to anyone born in the Americas, no matter what their ancestry. Pragmatically, it refers to American aboriginals, but then pragmatically so does "Indian" and "American Indian". "Amerindian" is never used to refer to anything but American aboriginals, and such a contraction isn't a possible way to refer to an American of Bharat ancestry or origin in English, and so especially if that's the standard term in linguistics, I think that's what should be used. Certainly no non-linguist will be confused or even surprised by the usage of "Amerindian". (Also under Grammar->attitudinals) — Adam
    • Overruled; the denotation of 'Native American' is also clear, and less obviously jargonish than 'Amerindian'. As proven by Robin.

• Chapter 7
  • The title should be me le cipnrkorvo .e le lorxu
• Chapter 8
  • .i sei le selfu cucusku se'u vi'o Space missing between cu and cusku. — Adam
• Appendix A
  • Spanish g bato (plosive, not fricative) It should be 'g'ato.
  • (Note: these nits apply to the PDF version bearing file date 2002-12-03 15:56 +0100)
    • Talen bless you, filip. (for surely it is you).
      • Indeed it is (sorry for not signing my name to it) — mi'e filip
  • The Lojban letters in Chinese (the first column) inconsistently uses the "Lojban" (monospace) font — most letters are in a Times-like font.
    • Word got grievously confused by the alternation of Chinese and monospace in the generated RTF, and after three sleepless nights of trying to get it to work (Apple 16/600, Substitute Device Fonts, Optimize for Speed, Outline Fonts, Postscript Level 1), I didn't feel like tidying the document any more. I'll more likely remember to next time.
  • The first letter for "Hindi & Urdu" ("a") is also in a Times-like font, rather than in the "Lojban" font.
    • Same problem.
  • The example words for Arabic, Chinese, and Hindi/Urdu do not use boldface to indicate which sound of the example word exemplifies the pronunciation of the Lojban letter
    • They were intended to, but the font I've used for the transliterations (Gentium) doesn't come in bold; not many good freeware Unicode fonts do. The deal breaker is Latin Extended Additional, that I've been using for Arabic. I have two choices: underline Gentium (which will look revolting), or have a less pedantic Arabic transliteration. I will probably go with the latter.
  • Some of the Chinese example words don't carry accents (for example, Datong, fei long wu feng, pinyin, Aolóng (first syllable), Tang, hen hao, Feizhou, Meiguo, Beijing, Yazhou, Yingguo, wu ye, Puyi, Luoma.
    • aulun gave them without accents here, so that's how I put them. If anyone knows the accents, let me know them, because it's hard enough for me to navigate Hindi dictionaries...
      • I don't think it's necessary with well-known proper names or phrases (nor, in general, providing pinyin tone marks along with the characters!), but okay: Da4tong2, fei1 long2 wu3 feng4 (the dragon's flying and the phoenix's dancing), Ao4long2, Tang2, hen3 hao3, Fei1zhou1, Mei3guo2, Bei3jing1, Ya4zhou1, Ying1guo2, wu3ye4 (if I remember it right: midnight?), Pu3yi2 (the last emperor!), Luo2ma3 (Rome) — coi mi'e .aulun.
      • I'll see what I can do. No promises, though.
  • Does alif-waw-heh really spell "vah" in Urdu? I would have guessed that the initial alif should go.
    • Oops. Should have been waw alef heh.
      • That makes more sense to me.
  • Is "el-kor'a:nu" supposed to be "the Koran"? I'm pretty sure that's "al-Qur'a:n", spelled alif-lam-qaf-ra-(alif with madda)-nun. That is, with qaf not kaf and with alif-with-madda (looks like a tilde above) rather than two alifs in a row.
    • The textbook must have spelt it like that to emphasise the hiatus. Spelling normalised per yours; no idea where the k came from...
  • You use "d-with-underline" to transliterate both dhal (in "ha:da:") and tha (in "kadira"). Is the tha in the latter word a typo, or the transliteration d-with-underline?
    • The latter
  • Should the Arabic for "giddan/jiddan" use fathatan (two high slanted lines representing "an") before the final alif?
  • Should "has.s.atan" use fathatan at the end?
    • Bugger. You mean, fathatan and the other -atan's are not optional like the other vowel points? That makes sense, actually, because I don't know how you'd disambiguate them. Inserted.
      • Um, I don't know — and I don't really know Arabic. I think they're just as optional as the other vowel points. However, I would write them if "an" is represented by alif. I don't know what Arabic practice is; I can imagine that the alif by itself is sufficient clue to the reading (and in spoken language, the endings generally get lost anyway, don't they?). IOW, don't take my word as authority here. Oh, and the has.s.atan I just thought should have it for consistency with the others. See next comment about the "fully pointed" bit.
  • Should the Arabic for "mas-'alatun" use dammatan (representing "un") at the end over the ta marbuta, for consistency with "s.aifun", "haufun", and "buneiyun" in the following examples, both of which use dammatan? (And also "merkebun" and "motun" earlier.) And "sih.run" should probably also have dammatan.
    • I'm blindly following, but you did notice the vowel example words are fully pointed, and the rest aren't, right?
      • No, I didn't notice. Hence some of my suggestions for consistency's sake are for a false consistency. I noticed some words were pointed and some not but didn't bother to look at the pattern. So I just figured "most words transliterated -un have dammatan, why not all?". I suppose the answer may be "only this which demonstrate vowel pronunciations have explicit dammatan", which is fair enough. Similar with has.s.atan, which is also not fully pointed and, by that token, should probably not have any -atan.
    • All the exx you mention are fully pointed. If the dammatan is not normally used in written Arabic, it doesn't belong in mas-'alatun, because as a consonant example that word is not pointed.
    • The tanween are not included in normal unpointed Arabic, just like the vowel letters. So out they go again...
  • Should there be a space between the Arabic for "mata:r" and the following comma, for readability?
    • I don't like typographical tricks. The sensible thing to do instead is to make the comma part of the Arabic text, which it isn't currently.
      • Well, some Arabic words appear (on my screen) to have a space between word and comma and some don't. In some case, the no-space variant has the comma smudged right against the rightmost Arabic letter, which looked a bit ugly.
  • The sukun in the final example "wufu:d" looks as if it's between the waw and the dal; can it be moved further to the left in order to be firmly over the dal or possibly even a bit to the left of it?
    • I've currently got the sukun modifying the waw; I take it it should be modifying the dal instead (so not wufuw0d, but wufuwd0). Done.
      • Oh, was that supposed to be there? *thinks* I suppose it has a point. I'm not sure whether waw or ya take sukun when they serve as long vowel marker; I suppose they might. I'd've written them without any point if they just mark long vowel, but don't take my word on that. I just went by the transliteration (which has no final vowel) to suggested the sukun on the dal.
      • My textbook has sukun on consonantal y,w, and considers the diphthongs to be aw, ay. So sukun on the w and the d.

I obviously had no idea what I was doing; do keep checking on me! — n.

• (Note: these nits are from filip and apply to the PDF version bearing file date 2002-12-10 15:50 +0100)
• Chinese — "Nanking", should be "Nanning", underlined as "Nanning"
• Chinese — "nongren", should also underline the ng and the final n.
• Chinese — "gongfu", should also underline the o since it's pronounced /u/ (compare Wade-Giles spelling "kung fu")
• Chinese — "shénme", could also underline the first e if you wish (IMO). (This is also how it's marked on Pronunciation Guide Putonghua - with character code BIG5, i.e. both vowels are boldface on that page.)
• Chinese — "liefeng" has lie underlined, should only be ie.