What is the source of gismu *definitions*?

[la gleki]

Every Lojbanist understands that gismu denote predicates that are highly practical.

e.g. {pilno} includes a goal as pilno3. Indeed, how can we imagine using something without a goal?

My question is who collected those definitions? Was it JCB? How was this gimste formed? Is there a changelog of modifications to gismu definitions starting from the first edition of loglan?

My particular interest here is with the recent discussion of a possible new gismu meaning "qua". The corresponding word is of high frequency in Mandarin but in European languages it is often confused with words meaning {simsa}.

e.g.

"as" means both "like" and "qua".

Russian "как" [kak] means both "like" and "qua".

Were Mandarin predicates taken into consideration while constructing gismu definitions?

[Remo Dentato]

Section 4.14 of CLL gives a description of the gismu creation process (http://dag.github.com/cll/4/14/).

However, it would be very interesting to ear the story directly from Bob and the other fathers of Lojban.

remod

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[Bob LeChevalier, President and Founder - LLG]

la gleki wrote:
> Every Lojbanist understands that gismu denote predicates that are highly
> practical.
> e.g. {pilno} includes a goal as pilno3. Indeed, how can we imagine using
> something without a goal?
>
> My question is who collected those definitions?

Me.

> Was it JCB?

> How was this gimste formed?

JCB set the place structures for the TLI Loglan words. His general
philosophy of doing so was set forth in his books Loglan 1 and Loglan 2,
though he didn't always follow his own principles.

I started with JCB's list, but greatly modified it, both adding and
deleting words. As such, there are half-again as many gismu as there
were in TLI Loglan of the time. In very few cases can I tell you for
certain the specific reason I added certain words, though for the
culture words I made an attempt to be systematic. A large chunk was
added in 1988 as a result of Athelstan doing a thorough analysis based
on Roget's thesaurus, to make sure that we had good coverage of all
semantic domains.

During the period from about 1990-1994, I subjected all change proposals
to the LogFest attendees, representing the community, for approval. In
the latter two years, a faction emerged favoring the elimination of some
gismu and thus keeping the total number constant, in the face of new
proposals, if not shrinking. One last group of new ones was approved,
and the list was frozen. Many years passed before any word was proposed
with significant justification, thus suggesting that this decision was
correct. (If no one has really needed a word in 25 odd years of use, it
is hard to argue that it is fundamental, even if it might be useful.)

Place structures started with JCB's general pattern. I attempted to
find patterns, and then to make words of similar semantic domain
consistent. Thus all plant and animal gismu were to have a species
place. I eventually got things fairly systematic, though I made some
mistakes. At that point, pretty much no one besides me was looking that
closely.

I strongly avoided one-place predicates.

But at one point, I realized I was going too far, ascribing to any
possible tool a purpose, and to any object both material and form
places. I backed off from this somewhat. I thus avoided >5 place
predicates. At about this point, the current concept of BAI started to
emerge, and it was realized that a large number of places were
superfluous. I made one last pass, generally reducing many of the
excess places I had added.

Is there a changelog of modifications to gismu
> definitions starting from the first edition of loglan?

Not hardly. I introduced the concept of configuration management in the
1988-1994 period, starting to document all changes once a chunk of the
language was baselined. Before it was baselined, documentation was
rarely attempted, though there are some cases. In only a few cases do
we even have good copies of the evolving word lists - this was still a
primarily paper and pencil project.

> My particular interest here is with the recent discussion of a possible
> new gismu meaning "qua". The corresponding word is of high frequency in
> Mandarin but in European languages it is often confused with words
> meaning {simsa}.
> e.g.
> "as" means both "like" and "qua".
> Russian "как" [kak] means both "like" and "qua".

I have no comment on the merits of this, other than to merely observe
that many of the world's languages seem to do fine without making a
distinction.

The gismu list is baselined. New gismu are not being considered, and
there is no plan to do so in the future, though this could be revisited
AFTER the existing language is fully documented.

> Were Mandarin predicates taken into consideration while constructing
> gismu definitions?

Not that I know of. I did the Mandarin work for Lojban, and I don't
know Mandarin.

More importantly, almost no consideration of semantics was involved in
gismu-making. If the basic meaning was generally covered, that was good
enough. It was expected that the meanings and place structures would
evolve with usage. (But by 1997, the community was tired of my and
other senior Lojbanists changing the language by fiat. The community
wanted the language to stop changing in that matter. Completely. I
agreed with them. We don't change the language by fiat anymore. The
only exception, adopted for byfy use, is that stuff which is so broken
as to prevent good documentation of the status quo language, could be
changed so as to allow that documentation. (Since then, sentiment seems
to have grown against "usage-based change" which is the other
alternative, and one that cannot really be prevented. People generally
are biased against change in language. They want books that are
prescriptive and unchanging, whereas lexicographers strongly consider
dictionaries by nature to be descriptive rather than prescriptive.)



I did use some systematic techniques to try to be sure I was picking the
correct root, and for a brief time, we had a native Mandarin speaker who
looked over what I had done with approval. (A couple of Mandarin
speakers since then have also said that the work I did was more than
adequate, but they were generally comparing us to Esperanto and other
Euroclone languages). I also used 3 different dictionaries in the case
of Mandarin in order to be more certain, since Mandarin has such a high
weight in Lojban word-making. Still, there are flaws, and I think my
choice for Lojbanization of Mandarin was especially bad, being based
solely on the quasi-official Chinese description of the IPA
pronunciation of Chinese particles, and the system I used for mapping
IPA in other languages. As a result, Mandarin inputs had too many "a"s
representing schwa, and too many fricatives were mapped to s and c,
leading to Lojban having a "she sells sea shells" quality that is hard
for some speakers, including me, to speak the language quickly and
accurately.

But I don't know enough Mandarin grammar to have any clue what subjects
and objects any given Mandarin word might require (if any) I did enough
comparative linguistics study to be reasonably confident that my
approach was "good enough".

(Arabic is the other language where my word-making rules were systematic
but led to a relatively poor result. And since Arabic has the lowest
weight of the 6 source languages, this meant that Arabic influenced
relative few words, and its inputs were less useful to Arabic speaking
Lojbanists.

JCB may have had some native speaker inputs in the early days, but my
general observations on his choices for word-making suggest that they
were even more limited and flawed than my efforts. I know that we had
much better dictionaries by 1987 than JCB had in 1955.

lojbab
--
Bob LeChevalier loj...@lojban.org www.lojban.org
President and Founder, The Logical Language Group, Inc.

[Ian Johnson]

This really only covers morphology in significant detail, the actual choice of the words from the source languages as well as the way in which the place structures of the words were created are rather undocumented, to my knowledge.

[Ian Johnson]

(In "official" writing like the CLL or BPFK pages)

[Bob LeChevalier, President and Founder - LLG]

Ian Johnson wrote:
> This really only covers morphology in significant detail, the actual
> choice of the words from the source languages as well as the way in
> which the place structures of the words were created are rather
> undocumented, to my knowledge.

The choice of the words from source languages is fully documented, but
not in a net-available form. I have a thick binder with one handwritten
form page per 1 to 4 words showing precisely what the etymologies were
that we considered, and that were actually used. An abbreviated form
showing what was finally used is in a file on the Lojban web site somewhere.

The handwritten pages could in theory be scanned, but it would take
forever, and many pages have notes on the back-side that would be hard
to correlate with the separate front-side pages if they got separated.

There are also page summaries of the Lojbanization rules.

I also have all of the dictionaries we used and could therefore probably
reconstruct what I did for four of the six languages. I cannot read the
Hindi and Arabic alphabets, and hence would have to rely on Tommy
Whitlock for those languages, since again we still have the dictionaries
and he lives locally.



The place structure evolution is undocumented, except to the extent that
we have the TLI word lists and some of the early Lojban word lists.
showing what the status quo was at those times. (I probably have many
more word lists archived in backup files on hundreds of old 5" floppy
disks, but I don't have the backup program, even if the disks are still
readable.)

There is probably more stuff in the archives than I can specifically
recall, because my policy as archivist has been to try to save
everything that was written in a savable form. But at this point 25
year old unindexed archives are probably of little use. It would take
someone hundreds of hours to put the archives in a form where they could
be productively used to research, and the desire for such comes up too
infrequently to make it anyone's priority.

I did leave one other source of place structure evolutionary changes in
my last post. Relatively late in the process, in the early 90s
(probably there is a trace on Lojban List), the concept of sumti-raising
arose. This problem was originally discussed in snail mail letters
between pc and me (much early Lojban design is documented in those snail
mails, all of which I kept - but finding which ones are important to any
given concept is rather difficult). I did a thorough review looking for
gismu places that relied on raised sumti, and that is when so many x2
and x3 places were changed from a simple description to an abstraction
(such as has been discussed with sisku). Probably a couple hundred
place structures were changed in that review, and they can be found be
looking for explicit mentions of abstraction places in the list. Before
that review, very few gismu were expressed in terms of abstractions.

[Pierre Abbat]

On Sunday, January 13, 2013 15:31:22 Bob LeChevalier, President and Founder -

LLG wrote:
> Ian Johnson wrote:
> > This really only covers morphology in significant detail, the actual
> > choice of the words from the source languages as well as the way in
> > which the place structures of the words were created are rather
> > undocumented, to my knowledge.
>
> The choice of the words from source languages is fully documented, but
> not in a net-available form. I have a thick binder with one handwritten
> form page per 1 to 4 words showing precisely what the etymologies were
> that we considered, and that were actually used. An abbreviated form
> showing what was finally used is in a file on the Lojban web site somewhere.

If you look up a gismu in the English Wiktionary, you'll see which words from
the source language contributed to it (words that didn't are left out), often
with a link to the Wiktionary entries for those words. The data came from that
file.

I would be interested in knowing the etymologies of words that were deleted
from the official gimste, such as "gumri" and "sicpi". As to the place
structures, I'd find the choice of the irregular ones, such as "mitre" and
"lanme", interesting.

Pierre
--
loi mintu se ckaji danlu cu jmaji

[Jonathan Jones]

On Sun, Jan 13, 2013 at 7:12 PM, Pierre Abbat <ph...@bezitopo.org> wrote:

As to the place structures, I'd find the choice of the irregular ones, such as "mitre" and "lanme", interesting.

Really? Because I just find them annoying. (The irregularity, that is.)

--
mu'o mi'e .aionys.

.i.e'ucai ko cmima lo pilno be denpa bu .i doi.luk. mi patfu do zo'o
(Come to the Dot Side! Luke, I am your father. :D )

[MorphemeAddict]

On Sun, Jan 13, 2013 at 9:36 PM, Jonathan Jones <eye...@gmail.com> wrote:

On Sun, Jan 13, 2013 at 7:12 PM, Pierre Abbat <ph...@bezitopo.org> wrote:

As to the place structures, I'd find the choice of the irregular ones, such as "mitre" and "lanme", interesting.

Really? Because I just find them annoying. (The irregularity, that is.)

And the sooner they're fixed, the better. 

stevo 

--
mu'o mi'e .aionys.

.i.e'ucai ko cmima lo pilno be denpa bu .i doi.luk. mi patfu do zo'o
(Come to the Dot Side! Luke, I am your father. :D )

[Ian Johnson]

I never even noticed mitre3 (what the hell does that even mean?), and I pretty much pretend lanme3 doesn't exist.

mi'e la latro'a mu'o

[Pierre Abbat]

On Sunday, January 13, 2013 19:36:20 Jonathan Jones wrote:
> On Sun, Jan 13, 2013 at 7:12 PM, Pierre Abbat <ph...@bezitopo.org> wrote:
> > As to the place structures, I'd find the choice of the irregular ones,
> > such as "mitre" and "lanme", interesting.
>
> Really? Because I just find them annoying. (The irregularity, that is.)

The *source* of the irregularity is what I'd find interesting. The irregularity
itself is annoying.

Pierre
--
gau do li'i co'e kei do

[la gleki]

doi lojbab mi ckire do .io lo ka ciksi so'a da

As usual this topic is turning into a rant. But that was predictable and unavoidable.

[Robert Slaughter]

On Mon, 2013-01-14 at 06:50 -0800, la gleki wrote:

doi lojbab mi ckire do .io lo ka ciksi so'a da

As usual this topic is turning into a rant. But that was predictable and unavoidable.

Reading lojbab's email, I find it a detailed and informative look at how the gismu list was started and the initial gismu were formed, including warts. If you consider this a "rant", then it appears there really isn't much need for me to read any more emails from you. I would be willing to consider otherwise, if you can demonstrate useful work you have contributed. The "lojban berries" is almost the most useless thing I can think of -- *of course* "ckule" looks and sounds like "school" -- it was derived from "school / schule" and the other words from the target languages for *maximum phonetic recognition*.

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-- Bob Slaughter, rslau...@WHATmindspring.com http://www.facebook.com/robert.s.slaughter  "The price good men pay for indifference to public affairs is to be ruled by evil men." -- Plato "All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing." -- Edmund Burke "The world is a dangerous place, not because of those who do evil, but because of those who look on and do nothing." -- Albert Einstein

[la gleki]

On Tuesday, January 15, 2013 2:28:01 AM UTC+4, Bob Slaughter wrote:

On Mon, 2013-01-14 at 06:50 -0800, la gleki wrote:

doi lojbab mi ckire do .io lo ka ciksi so'a da

As usual this topic is turning into a rant. But that was predictable and unavoidable.

Reading lojbab's email, I find it a detailed and informative look at how the gismu list was started and the initial gismu were formed, including warts. If you consider this a "rant",

I consider the following messages as "rant".

then it appears there really isn't much need for me to read any more emails from you. I would be willing to consider otherwise, if you can demonstrate useful work you have contributed. The "lojban berries" is almost the most useless thing I can think of -- *of course* "ckule" looks and sounds like "school" -- it was derived from "school / schule" and the other words from the target languages for *maximum phonetic recognition*.

This is only one tab of Lojban berries. Look at the other tabs. 

[Jonathan Jones]

On Mon, Jan 14, 2013 at 9:19 PM, la gleki <gleki.is...@gmail.com> wrote:

On Tuesday, January 15, 2013 2:28:01 AM UTC+4, Bob Slaughter wrote:

On Mon, 2013-01-14 at 06:50 -0800, la gleki wrote:

doi lojbab mi ckire do .io lo ka ciksi so'a da

As usual this topic is turning into a rant. But that was predictable and unavoidable.

Reading lojbab's email, I find it a detailed and informative look at how the gismu list was started and the initial gismu were formed, including warts. If you consider this a "rant",

I consider the following messages as "rant".

then it appears there really isn't much need for me to read any more emails from you. I would be willing to consider otherwise, if you can demonstrate useful work you have contributed. The "lojban berries" is almost the most useless thing I can think of -- *of course* "ckule" looks and sounds like "school" -- it was derived from "school / schule" and the other words from the target languages for *maximum phonetic recognition*.

This is only one tab of Lojban berries. Look at the other tabs. 

Two things:

1) Rants are typically lengthy paragraphs about a particular subject for which the author has strong feelings for, not two sentences about an observation which is accurate and calmly delivered.

2) I've looked at all the tabs, and I share his viewpoint on the uselessness of it. When you wonder why nobody helps you in your endeavors, think back on what he said.

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msg/lojban/-/XjZ68ZouJf4J.

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--

[Jonathan Jones]

On Mon, Jan 14, 2013 at 11:17 PM, Jonathan Jones <eye...@gmail.com> wrote:

On Mon, Jan 14, 2013 at 9:19 PM, la gleki <gleki.is...@gmail.com> wrote:

On Tuesday, January 15, 2013 2:28:01 AM UTC+4, Bob Slaughter wrote:

On Mon, 2013-01-14 at 06:50 -0800, la gleki wrote:

doi lojbab mi ckire do .io lo ka ciksi so'a da

As usual this topic is turning into a rant. But that was predictable and unavoidable.

Reading lojbab's email, I find it a detailed and informative look at how the gismu list was started and the initial gismu were formed, including warts. If you consider this a "rant",

I consider the following messages as "rant".

then it appears there really isn't much need for me to read any more emails from you. I would be willing to consider otherwise, if you can demonstrate useful work you have contributed. The "lojban berries" is almost the most useless thing I can think of -- *of course* "ckule" looks and sounds like "school" -- it was derived from "school / schule" and the other words from the target languages for *maximum phonetic recognition*.

This is only one tab of Lojban berries. Look at the other tabs. 

Two things:

1) Rants are typically lengthy paragraphs about a particular subject for which the author has strong feelings for, not two sentences about an observation which is accurate and calmly delivered.

2) I've looked at all the tabs, and I share his viewpoint on the uselessness of it. When you wonder why nobody helps you in your endeavors, think back on what he said.

Make that three:

3) What you say you consider a rant in this thread is the /reply/ to saying this thread has turned into a rant, which is like claiming the effect comes before the cause. I'm sure I'm not the only one who sees the profound error in that.

[la gleki]

On Tuesday, January 15, 2013 10:17:17 AM UTC+4, aionys wrote:

On Mon, Jan 14, 2013 at 9:19 PM, la gleki <gleki.is...@gmail.com> wrote:

On Tuesday, January 15, 2013 2:28:01 AM UTC+4, Bob Slaughter wrote:

On Mon, 2013-01-14 at 06:50 -0800, la gleki wrote:

doi lojbab mi ckire do .io lo ka ciksi so'a da

As usual this topic is turning into a rant. But that was predictable and unavoidable.

Reading lojbab's email, I find it a detailed and informative look at how the gismu list was started and the initial gismu were formed, including warts. If you consider this a "rant",

I consider the following messages as "rant".

then it appears there really isn't much need for me to read any more emails from you. I would be willing to consider otherwise, if you can demonstrate useful work you have contributed. The "lojban berries" is almost the most useless thing I can think of -- *of course* "ckule" looks and sounds like "school" -- it was derived from "school / schule" and the other words from the target languages for *maximum phonetic recognition*.

This is only one tab of Lojban berries. Look at the other tabs. 

Two things:

1) Rants are typically lengthy paragraphs about a particular subject for which the author has strong feelings for, not two sentences about an observation which is accurate and calmly delivered.

2) I've looked at all the tabs, and I share his viewpoint on the uselessness of it. When you wonder why nobody helps you in your endeavors, think back on what he said.

It's just  a continuation of Lojban Functional List.

If no one wants to fill gaps in lojbanic lexicon, even in computer terminology, well then no fluent speakers will appear soon. Otherwise how can we discuss anything on the internet?

[Jonathan Jones]

On Tue, Jan 15, 2013 at 12:27 AM, la gleki <gleki.is...@gmail.com> wrote:

On Tuesday, January 15, 2013 10:17:17 AM UTC+4, aionys wrote:

On Mon, Jan 14, 2013 at 9:19 PM, la gleki <gleki.is...@gmail.com> wrote:

On Tuesday, January 15, 2013 2:28:01 AM UTC+4, Bob Slaughter wrote:

On Mon, 2013-01-14 at 06:50 -0800, la gleki wrote:

doi lojbab mi ckire do .io lo ka ciksi so'a da

As usual this topic is turning into a rant. But that was predictable and unavoidable.

Reading lojbab's email, I find it a detailed and informative look at how the gismu list was started and the initial gismu were formed, including warts. If you consider this a "rant",

I consider the following messages as "rant".

then it appears there really isn't much need for me to read any more emails from you. I would be willing to consider otherwise, if you can demonstrate useful work you have contributed. The "lojban berries" is almost the most useless thing I can think of -- *of course* "ckule" looks and sounds like "school" -- it was derived from "school / schule" and the other words from the target languages for *maximum phonetic recognition*.

This is only one tab of Lojban berries. Look at the other tabs. 

Two things:

1) Rants are typically lengthy paragraphs about a particular subject for which the author has strong feelings for, not two sentences about an observation which is accurate and calmly delivered.

2) I've looked at all the tabs, and I share his viewpoint on the uselessness of it. When you wonder why nobody helps you in your endeavors, think back on what he said.

It's just  a continuation of Lojban Functional List.

If no one wants to fill gaps in lojbanic lexicon, even in computer terminology, well then no fluent speakers will appear soon. Otherwise how can we discuss anything on the internet?

A languages lexicon has little to nothing to do with a person's fluency, and we /currently/ have fluent speakers (granted not many, but that's neither here nor there). As far as my assessment of your lists as useless: there are two places where jbopre look when they want to know the Lojban word: vlasisku and jbovlaste. If it doesn't exist there, they either make one up, ask jbocertu to make one up for them, or use a different word that does exist.

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msg/lojban/-/cYAnnv-erOkJ.

To post to this group, send email to loj...@googlegroups.com.
To unsubscribe from this group, send email to lojban+un...@googlegroups.com.
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[la gleki]

On Tuesday, January 15, 2013 12:41:18 PM UTC+4, aionys wrote:

On Tue, Jan 15, 2013 at 12:27 AM, la gleki <gleki.is...@gmail.com> wrote:

On Tuesday, January 15, 2013 10:17:17 AM UTC+4, aionys wrote:

On Mon, Jan 14, 2013 at 9:19 PM, la gleki <gleki.is...@gmail.com> wrote:

On Tuesday, January 15, 2013 2:28:01 AM UTC+4, Bob Slaughter wrote:

On Mon, 2013-01-14 at 06:50 -0800, la gleki wrote:

doi lojbab mi ckire do .io lo ka ciksi so'a da

As usual this topic is turning into a rant. But that was predictable and unavoidable.

Reading lojbab's email, I find it a detailed and informative look at how the gismu list was started and the initial gismu were formed, including warts. If you consider this a "rant",

I consider the following messages as "rant".

then it appears there really isn't much need for me to read any more emails from you. I would be willing to consider otherwise, if you can demonstrate useful work you have contributed. The "lojban berries" is almost the most useless thing I can think of -- *of course* "ckule" looks and sounds like "school" -- it was derived from "school / schule" and the other words from the target languages for *maximum phonetic recognition*.

This is only one tab of Lojban berries. Look at the other tabs. 

Two things:

1) Rants are typically lengthy paragraphs about a particular subject for which the author has strong feelings for, not two sentences about an observation which is accurate and calmly delivered.

2) I've looked at all the tabs, and I share his viewpoint on the uselessness of it. When you wonder why nobody helps you in your endeavors, think back on what he said.

It's just  a continuation of Lojban Functional List.

If no one wants to fill gaps in lojbanic lexicon, even in computer terminology, well then no fluent speakers will appear soon. Otherwise how can we discuss anything on the internet?

A languages lexicon has little to nothing to do with a person's fluency, and we /currently/ have fluent speakers (granted not many, but that's neither here nor there). As far as my assessment of your lists as useless: there are two places where jbopre look when they want to know the Lojban word: vlasisku and jbovlaste. If it doesn't exist there, they either make one up, ask jbocertu to make one up for them, or use a different word that does exist.

OK. I'm asking once again. Here is the list of computer terms.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0Ahngu1CNj7wddDZBRzgwMm1EWlpKUEJRcTQtUGNCMFE#gid=4

I need all of them translated to stop talking in English. 

Please, help.

[Sebastian]

Although you can be fluent with a restricted vocabulary, you're not a master of that language before you can speak of all kind of things without long metaphors or on-the-spot lujvo/fu'ivla no one else ever heard of before (in my opinion).

I've been trying to translate parts of Ubuntu Linux to lojban, and for that you need a lot of specific computer terms. 

Skickat från min iPhone

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msg/lojban/-/2JLsL3MmUIIJ.

[la gleki]

Back to the first message.

I just wanted to get an answer on gismu definitions and places in particular.

And the next message by lojbab was an excellent reply which surprisingly answered all of my questions i had previously had.

As for the next messages that appeared here I have no particular interest here.

If lojban is to be changed then only through usage, logic and decrees. But we all know reasons why this won't happen anytime soon.

So asking to fix something is useless now (now!).

P.S. doi lojbab Thanks once again for your comprehensive reply.

[Jonathan Jones]

On Tue, Jan 15, 2013 at 7:23 AM, Sebastian <so.co...@gmail.com> wrote:

Although you can be fluent with a restricted vocabulary, you're not a master of that language before you can speak of all kind of things without long metaphors or on-the-spot lujvo/fu'ivla no one else ever heard of before (in my opinion).

I've been trying to translate parts of Ubuntu Linux to lojban, and for that you need a lot of specific computer terms. 

Yes. and jbovlaste is the place to put them, not some useless list.
 

[Robert LeChevalier]

Pierre Abbat wrote:
> I would be interested in knowing the etymologies of words that were deleted
> from the official gimste, such as "gumri" and "sicpi". As to the place
> structures, I'd find the choice of the irregular ones, such as "mitre" and
> "lanme", interesting.

They likely are in the etymology text file. If they aren't, I can
probably manually look them up, though it is non-trivial.

mitre should be obvious. The word "meter" is officially international.
The choice of the final "e" was arbitrary, but probably was chosen in
part to respect the British spelling convention for visual word recognition.

lojbab

[Bob LeChevalier, President and Founder - LLG]

I just realized that this part of the question was about place
structures and not about etymologies. Apologies.

The source of the irregularity is that there wasn't a lot of concern
with regularity when words were first coined. I made several passes
over several years attempting to find and fix irregularities. I did
this on my own, not seeking or needing any approval, since places
structures were not baselined. Then, I think in 1997, the
community/membership voted to baseline place structures and specifically
said that they no longer wanted me to make changes, even corrections.
So there have been no such fixes, and none are anticipated.

[Robert LeChevalier]

> It's just a continuation of Lojban Functional List.

Whatever that is.

> If no one wants to fill gaps in lojbanic lexicon, even in computer
> terminology, well then no fluent speakers will appear soon. Otherwise
> how can we discuss anything on the internet?

If someone wants to fill gaps, then they will coin words for those gaps
and add them to jbovlaste or some other repository of Lojban coinings.
If they've done it well, then others are likely to use their coinings
rather than making their own coinage.

Words are added to English and other natural languages *naturally*,
merely by people coining them, whether systematically or arbitrarily.
It works.

If Lojban aspires to be a natural language (or to emulate one) it will
have to accept the processes that act upon natural languages. Indeed it
is impossible to prevent those processes. (look how successful the
French Academy has been at preventing "le weekend", and I just read that
Russian now has a variety of words derived from "Pussy Riot", probably
despite the strong disapproval of Leader Putin).

lojbab

[Robert LeChevalier]

la gleki wrote:
> OK. I'm asking once again. Here is the list of computer terms.
> https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0Ahngu1CNj7wddDZBRzgwMm1EWlpKUEJRcTQtUGNCMFE#gid=4
>
> I need all of them translated to stop talking in English.

Then translate them.

No one else has your idiosyncratic list as their priority. Probably we
all have our own idiosyncratic lists, if we in fact are trying to
speak/write Lojban. I doubt if you need ALL of those words to
communicate in Lojban.

As any example of how to deal with this, I suggest looking at the
threads on Lojban List labeled "baby words" where Robin needed a LOT of
new and specialized vocabulary in a hurry. And pretty much got that help
AS HE NEEDED IT. If he didn't get the help in time, he dealt with it
and coined usages on the fly. The jbocifnu seem to be surviving %^)

lojbab

[Pierre Abbat]

On Tuesday, January 15, 2013 15:21:01 Robert LeChevalier wrote:
> mitre should be obvious. The word "meter" is officially international.
> The choice of the final "e" was arbitrary, but probably was chosen in
> part to respect the British spelling convention for visual word recognition.

The question is about the place structure, not etymology, of "mitre". It has a
place that no other measure word has.

[la gleki]

On Wednesday, January 16, 2013 12:35:17 AM UTC+4, lojbab wrote:

> It's just  a continuation of Lojban Functional List.

Whatever that is.

That is a list created by Lindar. 

> If no one wants to fill gaps in lojbanic lexicon, even in computer
> terminology, well then no fluent speakers will appear soon. Otherwise
> how can we discuss anything on the internet?

If someone wants to fill gaps, then they will coin words for those gaps
and add them to jbovlaste or some other repository of Lojban coinings.
If they've done it well, then others are likely to use their coinings
rather than making their own coinage.

jbovlaste is fine. The main problem with e.g. computer terminology is that there should be one style while creating those terms.

if e.g. "log in" is {co'a se jaspu} and "log out" {co'u pilno lo jaspu} then there is something wrong.

jbovlaste will turn into a mess.

When we decide on the only style for most computer terms then we'll add them and any spreadsheet temporary lists will be removed.

Note that the wiki has plenty of pages with proposals for such terms (not only computer terms).

Nobody developed them. And still nobody complained that those pages existed.

If there is really strong rejection of spreadsheet lists and nobody gonna add such terms into jbovlaste (I really don't know how {pilno lo jaspu} can be added into it) then I'll finish the list myself anyway and present it just here in mriste. If still nobody is interested then i'll just start using it myself without asking anyone to check the list.

[Jonathan Jones]

On Tue, Jan 15, 2013 at 9:39 PM, la gleki <gleki.is...@gmail.com> wrote:

if e.g. "log in" is {co'a se jaspu} and "log out" {co'u pilno lo jaspu} then there is something wrong.

My two cents:

"log in": ko'a gasnu lonu ko'a catni ko'e to lo skami toi ko'i to lo selci'a be lo samplicme joi samjapyvla toi -> ko'a samca'igau ko'e ko'i
"log out": ko'a gasnu lonu ko'a na catni ko'e to lo skami toi ko'i to lo selci'a be lo samplicme toi -> ko'a samnarca'igau ko'e ko'i

I've put these into jbovlaste. Sorry to everyone who gets jbovlaste emails. I didn't mean to spam you all.

[Bob LeChevalier, President and Founder - LLG]

la gleki wrote:
> jbovlaste is fine. The main problem with e.g. computer terminology is
> that there should be one style while creating those terms.

Why?

There are no stylistic rules for Lojban.

> if e.g. "log in" is {co'a se jaspu} and "log out" {co'u pilno lo jaspu}
> then there is something wrong.

not necessarily.

It merely means that whoever conceived the two words/expressions (which
may or may not have been the same person) did not happen to conceive of
their relationship in the systematic dichotomy that is implied by those
two English phrases.

I note that alternative English phrases "log on" and "log off" are also
used, and I have no doubt that there are people who "log in" and "log
off", while still others "gain access" and "log off".

> jbovlaste will turn into a mess.

Language semantics is messy, in this sense, so we would expect any
dictionary to be a mess.

> When we decide on the only style for most computer terms then

... people will ignore that style.

In particular, >I< will ignore that style. One of the few things I
still actively do with Lojban is to think of alternative ways to say
things, not seeking the ONE TRUE WAY, but simply a different way.

And there is no plan for byfy to decide stylistics, and no one else has
the authority to decide anything about the language design, so "we" will
not decide on "the only style".

It was never intended that there be only one formally approved term for
a given semantic concept. If technical people in one field or project
want to pragmatically restrict themselves to a jargon subset of the
language vocabulary for purposes of rigor, that is their choice, but the
rest of us will not be so-limited.


> we'll add themand any spreadsheet temporary lists will be removed.

I have no idea how the concept "spreadsheet temporary lists" fits jbovlaste.

ANYONE can add words to jbovlaste, so far as I know. And they need not
follow any particular style.

> Note that the wiki has plenty of pages with proposals for such terms
> (not only computer terms).
> Nobody developed them.

??? Pages don't just appear out of thin cyberspace. Someone had to
write them.

> And still nobody complained that those pages existed.

I am sure that someone somewhere has complained about them. EVERYTHING
gets complained about at some point. zo'o

But I have no problem with them.

> If there is really strong rejection of spreadsheet lists and nobody
> gonna add such terms into jbovlaste (I really don't know how

I don't know how to use jbovlaste either, or any other online Lojban
tool. I don't think in terms of online tools, and forever procrastinate
on learning to use them. (If I used a cell phone, which I don't, I
likely wouldn't use apps either).

But those who want to add to that particular dictionary need to learn
how to do so. If they don't, then their words might not get added.

> then I'll finish the list myself anyway and

> present it just here in mriste.If still nobody is interested then i'll

> just start using it myself without asking anyone to check the list.

That is perfectly acceptable, and indeed somewhat preferable for jargon.

Lists of jargon will always be specific to a particular field or
application, and won't be understood/used correctly by those not
involved in that field or application. But of the words are in
jbovlaste, people will presume that they are usable. And they likely
won't use them with the semantic precision that a jargonist would expect.

Even more likely, slightly different fields might use the same jargon
word with slightly different semantic intent. I suspect that the
definitions of specific computer jargon has somewhat different meaning
to a Javascript programmer than to someone like me who last
significantly programmed in TurboPascal some 15-20 years ago (I've done
a couple of short macros in Excel since then, but no real programming).

[la gleki]

On Wednesday, January 16, 2013 5:55:17 PM UTC+4, lojbab wrote:

la gleki wrote:
> jbovlaste is fine. The main problem with e.g. computer terminology is
> that there should be one style while creating those terms.

Why?

There are no stylistic rules for Lojban.

> if e.g. "log in" is {co'a se jaspu} and "log out" {co'u pilno lo jaspu}
> then there is something wrong.

not necessarily.

It merely means that whoever conceived the two words/expressions (which
may or may not have been the same person) did not happen to conceive of
their relationship in the systematic dichotomy that is implied by those
two English phrases.

I note that alternative English phrases "log on" and "log off" are also
used, and I have no doubt that there are people who "log in" and "log
off", while still others "gain access" and "log off".

> jbovlaste will turn into a mess.

Language semantics is messy, in this sense, so we would expect any
dictionary to be a mess.

> When we decide on the only style for most computer terms then

... people will ignore that style.

In particular, >I< will ignore that style.  One of the few things I
still actively do with Lojban is to think of alternative ways to say
things, not seeking the ONE TRUE WAY, but simply a different way.

I completely agree. Then you can say that i created that list in order to sort words by styles, not to find one style.

It'd be strange to see in one lojbanised app {co'a se jaspu} in one GUI element and {co'u pilno lo jaspu} in another element.

Use either {co'a/co'u se jaspu} or {co'a/co'u pilno lo jaspu} or what aionys just suggested but don't mix them.

 

And there is no plan for byfy to decide stylistics, and no one else has
the authority to decide anything about the language design, so "we" will
not decide on "the only style".

Sure. Otherwise it wouldn't be a live language.

 

It was never intended that there be only one formally approved term for
a given semantic concept.

I understand that. Surprisingly many people think that lojban is not only syntactical unambiguous.

Even Wikipedia and the CLL lie in that regard a bit.

 

 If technical people in one field or project
want to pragmatically restrict themselves to a jargon subset of the
language vocabulary for purposes of rigor, that is their choice, but the
rest of us will not be so-limited.


> we'll add themand any spreadsheet temporary lists will be removed.

I have no idea how the concept "spreadsheet temporary lists" fits jbovlaste.

ANYONE can add words to jbovlaste, so far as I know.  And they need not
follow any particular style.

> Note that the wiki has plenty of pages with proposals for such terms
> (not only computer terms).
> Nobody developed them.

??? Pages don't just appear out of thin cyberspace.  Someone had to
write them.

> And still nobody complained that those pages existed.

I am sure that someone somewhere has complained about them.  EVERYTHING
gets complained about at some point. zo'o

But I have no problem with them.

> If there is really strong rejection of spreadsheet lists and nobody
> gonna add such terms into jbovlaste (I really don't know how

I don't know how to use jbovlaste either, or any other online Lojban
tool.  I don't think in terms of online tools, and forever procrastinate
on learning to use them.  (If I used a cell phone, which I don't, I
likely wouldn't use apps either).

^ ^ I think most lojbanists should think of that. Where were computers when Pāṇini and Zamenhof were creating their projects ? (Sanksrit and Esperanto for those who don't know these names).