History: Lojban Style

Source of version: 1 (current)

;:''This encompasses licit variation in the language community between variants of expressions whose grammaticality (and meaning) are not in dispute. For anything more controversial, see the rubric ''Tinkering with Lojban'' on the ((FrontPage)).''

Some think using ((Long tanru|large (multi-part) ''tanru'')) is more ''((lobykai))'' than trying to create a precise ''((lujvo))'' for every part of your (English) meaning. A minority opinion would go even farther, & assert that the ''lobykai'' utterance is that which most closely approximates the "four-word sentence" (''lo ji'ivomei jufra'')...

*''Some, of course, would assert ((the opposite)) -- that fully expanded predicates each with a single ((gismu)) ((bridi)) are the most Lojbanic, and ((tanru)) the least.'' -- nitcion, who uses tanru all the time, but considers them a necessarily evil, and a consequence of the fact that humans don't have infinite stack recall. :-)

* lo vomei jufra: do you mean ''lo broda cu brode''? In that case, it's five words, because of ''.i''. If you mean ''.i broda brode'', that's three. (''co'e le pamoi'')

* Isn't the "four-word sentence" something like ''kukte cidja zarci klama''? I find those sentences beautiful. -- Adam

It has been observed that the gismu are semantically broad, like Latin words , & that understood portions of an utterance can be elided (e.g. pronouns) like both Latin & Japanese; but attempts at ((a Lojbanic style based on this)) (i.e. asyndeton) have not met with unilateral approval among the community. Still, no alternatives to date have been offered...

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There is ((the philosophy)) that Colin Fine once
expressed which was to Lojbanically use the broad if more vague term where
possible.  He noted that English speakers are prone to being overspecific
about some things that are obvious, and that Lojban seems to make a bit of
art of being creatively vague or elliptical in leaving out things English
finds essential (like tense and number). The canonical example is ''bevri'', 'carrier' for "waitperson", instead of fadging some ''lujvo'' more exactly synonymous with the English word.

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An essay "((On Lojbanic Style))" from 1997.

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True for __tense__, but __number__? Lojban is far more pernickety about number than English. ''It's pernickety about set vs. mass vs. individuals; not about numbers --- singular vs. plural individuals are rarely if ever distinguished.''
That's the theory, but I'm not convinced it is at all followed in practice, unlike the case of tense, which is clearly ellipsized most of the time. I never see ''ro le broda'' being used for a single broda, for example, and it is rare to find ''le broda'' referring to more than one.

 Certain things are plural, certain things are singular, but the 'singular' can refer to a group. No one will ever say ''mi'a'' when they mean
 just themself, because it would be wrong. However, ''mi'' means 'I' or 'me', except that you may well be speaking for a group and thus use it
 to mean 'we'. All this is clarified by mi'e and doi, to set values of mi and do. - mi'e. ((kreig.daniyl.))

__-> ((only))__

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Am I the only one who prefers that lojban be in italics? I find the italicized comma and apostrophe more attractive. I also think that commas and periods in the middle of words such as for names or fu'ivla are less disruptive if the surrounding letters are italicized. But maybe I'm just off my rocker. - mi'e ((kreig.daniyl.))
History: Lojban Style

Source of version: 1 (current)

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