History: Making type-4 fu'ivla

Source of version: 1 (current)

When a word is used enough, or well-enough known, that you don't need to be told that a ((vombatu)) is a mammal, a ((merlanu)) a fish, or a ((santuri)) a stringed instrument, then you can drop the prefix (mabrn-, finpr-, jgitr-) and use a type 4 fu'ivla. Creating type 4 fu'ivla is more art and less procedure than type 3, because the foreign language phonology interacts not only with the Lojban phonology, but also with the rules of well-formed fu'ivla. Sometimes a foreign word refuses to be fit into the fu'ivla mold. Often, but not always, the type 4 fu'ivla for a plant or animal is the common name, while the type 3 is the word used by scientists. What is mabrnmakropode to the zoologist, to the common man is just ((kanguru)). But not always: a finprgado is a finprgado. To make a type 4 fu'ivla, start with the transliterated form of the foreign word, and do the following steps in no particular order until you get a well-formed fu'ivla. You can test words for kamfu'ivla with the vlatai program, which is part of the jbofi'e suite. * If the word ends in a consonant, drop it or add a vowel. * If the word begins in a vowel, drop it or add a consonant. But if the vowel is followed by a non-initial consonant pair, as in ''antimoni'', keep it. * If the word begins with a non-initial consonant pair, change it, prepend a vowel, insert a vowel, or exchange them. * If there is no consonant pair in the first five letters (not counting apostrophes), put another consonant in or drop a vowel. * If the word falls apart or has lujvo form because the second consonant cluster is an initial pair, exchange the two consonants or change one of them. * If the word is not a well-formed fu'ivla for any other reason, fiddle around with it. There are several short word forms that are well-formed fu'ivla forms: * VC/CV: alga. ((otpi)) was proposed for a lidless bottle. * VCCV: iglu. * CCVVCV: Many of these words denote nationalities or regions, such as tci'ile, tce'exo, kri'ibe, and bre'one, but glauka is an owl. * CCVCVCV: platesa, krotalu, spinaki * CVC/CVCV: kanguru, vombatu, zirkoni, vultura, falkone, salmone, magjaro, tinceme, kapsiku, laktuka, polgosu * CCVC/CVCV: mlongena, skalduna, mlibdena, tcimpazi * CVVC/CVCV: bauksita Here is how I formed some of these words: tcimpazi: I started with "chimpanzee", which transliterates as "tcimpanzi", but that is a slinku'i: "pa tcimpanzi" lexes as "patcimpanzi", which might mean a child who wets himself every time he complains. "cimpanzi" is no better; it's a lujvo meaning a wet child. "tcipanzi" is a tool-child, whatever that might be. "tcimpazi" is a well-formed fu'ivla. skalduna: The Basques call their language Euskera or Euskara, depending on dialect, and a Basque speaker (they define membership in their people by speaking the language) euskaldun. I dropped "eu" from the beginning and added "a" (the Basque definite article) to the end to get "skalduna".