Lojban In General

On 8/5/08, Michael Turniansky <mturniansky@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
> je'e mi jimpe lo du'u do pilno zo jbocevni lo nu jibni se smuni lo
> mutce be lo ka certu be tu'a la lojban .iku'i mi na mutce be lo ka
> certu .i mi ta'e bilga lo nu facki fi lo lojbo valsi fi'o se sitna la
> jbovlaste .ijebo mi na jimpe so'e lojbo se bacru

.i do li'a djuno lei smuni lei valsi
.i do vlaste je ti'e masno djuno .i je ku'i je'u djuno za'a
.i do clani citri ka'u djuno .i do sevzi pensi ru'a djuno .i do rapli jinvi
za'a djuno
.i ko nu frili pilno kei ji'a djuno

Lojban was for a long time a literary language. No one spoke it and no one
was expected to speak it. There are a lot of different ways a language can
be used, equally valid ways. For instance if you're writing & reading not
in real time and no one's fluent in the language, then it makes sense to
come up with interesting new words all the time to exactly fit what you're
trying to say, since the reader
is going to be looking up the words either way.

There's now a second Lojban (the Lojban of IRC) growing up in addition to
the literary Lojban, a Lojban which is much simpler and much
more fluent. It's not nearly as far as
being a distinct dialect, but there are a lot of words and idioms
always making the rounds on IRC which then seem unfamiliar here. Literary
Lojban has always been a serious language, precisely plotted, fearing any
wrong moves. Living Lojban is writhing with jokes, novelties, inaccuracies,
sloppiness, playfulness.

If we're serious about keeping Lojban from dialectizing, then I believe we
should start bringing these two worlds together, making this
conversation here more bilingual and more casual, so that the sounds and
character and fluency of IRC's Lojban can connect with those who know Lojban
more in its static form. I think that the main way to bring fluency is to
speak less carefully, to let ourselves say the same words, the same idioms,
the same pleasantries even. People who learn Lojban on IRC learn "de'a"
from the phrase "de'a jundi" and these days have started to learn the place
structure of "li'i" from the phrase "lo melbi ko li'i cerni". Strong
patterns emerge & reinforce themselves, becoming the models that
allow a more casual entrance into the language. Sometimes it's
better to not always reinvent the wheel.

No one that I know of is fluent in all of Lojban as formally defined-- I'm
certainly not-- but there is a small community of people who are fluent in a
particular, unconsciously defined subset of Lojban. I don't think it would
be that hard at all for you, Gejyspa (or the other jbocei who I have heard
say similarly humble things about their own fluency), to bring into your
conscious & active mind those parts of your latent & passive knowledge of
Lojban that correspond with Lojban as it is now spoken
by those of us who are speaking it. It's just a matter of being
exposed regularly enough to that particular *style*, those
particular worn pathways through the cicricfoi (jungle) of
Lojbanic possibility.

I've been tending to use speaking at leisure on the list to talk more in my

• own* style (towers of tanru, free word order, abundant evidentials &

attitudinals), but since I'm seeing this disconnect between IRC-ese and
mailing-list-ese, I'm going to try to remember to talk more IRC-style around
here too. I'm going to say ".ui zei coi" and "zo'oi" and "cakla ckakla" and
"makfa pinji". I was even thinking of using Class-0 fu'ivla! When's the
last time you saw a Class-0 fu'ivla round these parts?!

ki'a ko'a .i do noroi smugau fi zo ko'a .iji'a mi na jimpe fi lo smuni
> be lo'u ca'i ko'e le'u .i la'e lu la teris po'u lo tirxu li'u cu
> catni ma .i ji'a ("It is a sentence and the reason for me better
> learning the word "ne'a"?????)
>

.u'u .i lo ve lisri be la .teris. bei do cu te cusku lu "
.i le finpe cu spuda ty ko'a goi lu ko cadzu mo'i ne'a le rirxe fi'o seldei
li ci .ibabo do viska ru li'u
.i la teris. se gidva ko'a
" li'u

.i zo ko'a cu traji vrici se smuni ka'u

mu'o mi'e se ckiku