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Samples of Lojban Etymologies

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Scott Horne

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Feb 27, 1991, 12:05:11 AM2/27/91
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In article <1ZbDDg#1tPF3k79dln93Lp2qs0FQgPX=co...@snark.thyrsus.com> Robert LeChevalier (loj...@snark.thyrsus.com) writes:
>
> kan kat kat kort kas kata
>
>[Lojbanized phonetic forms of the source language words - the order of
>words is Chinese, English, Hindi, Spanish, Russian, Arabic.

I've no idea which `kan' you have in mind for the Chinese for `to cut'; I
suspect that you just went through a character dictionary until you came
across one which looked enough like the others to satisfy you. As for the
rest of the words in your list: It's clear that you are of the mistaken
view that Chinese characters correspond to Chinese words. Please read
DeFrancis's _The Chinese Language: Fact and Fantasy_.

--Scott

--
Scott Horne ...!{harvard,cmcl2,decvax}!yale!horne
ho...@cs.Yale.edu SnailMail: Box 7196 Yale Station, New Haven, CT 06520
203 436-1817 Residence: Rm 1817 Silliman College, Yale Univ
Uneasy lies the head that wears the _gao1 mao4zi_.

Unknown

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Feb 26, 1991, 3:06:54 PM2/26/91
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Ivan Derzhanski asked about the Lojban etymologies, and gave 'cidja'
as an example word. It is halfway down this list.

The following are rough etymologies of a sampling of Lojban words.
These are being assembled for eventyual publication as a set, but we
have to manually reconstruct what the computer-run algorithm did for
each word. I'll schematically outline the information for the
first word:

714c katna 82.00 cut

[Algo run #] [Lojban word] [score (0-100)] [English keyword]
[This line is from a summary file of algorithm outputs, prepared manually
at the time we made the words.]

kan kat kat kort kas kata

[Lojbanized phonetic forms of the source language words - the order of

words is Chinese, English, Hindi, Spanish, Russian, Arabic. We have not
yet manually gone back to our paper originals to get the Romanized
natural language spellings. Note: some unstressed and declensional
word endings were systematically removed to get a true root. This was
to avoid getting a false recognition score solely from the declension.
The stop component of affricates were removed for the same reason.
There were a few other systematic a priori modifications to the source
language words that I can respond to if anyone has questions about a
word. Note that the source word may not be the best word for the
concept in the language. We aren't expert in all these languages, and
in any case wanted to have a memory hook for the word more than a cognate.

(cut )

[repetition of the English keyword from the algorithm output file]

katna 82.00 3 3 3 0 2 4

[Lojban word and score from the output file - there were occasional typos
in making the manual summary, which we are only now finding (about 3-4%
error rate - we were working quickly and didn't check ourselves well).
The 6 digits are scores for the 6 source words, in order. The numbers
represent phoneme matches, in order - a score of 1 was considered useless
for recognition, and a score of 2 required the phonemes to be adjacent
or separated by exactly one phoneme in BOTH source and Lojban. Thus
'kort' from Spanish gets a 0 score even though it has some cognate value.]


714c katna 82.00 cut


kan kat kat kort kas kata

(cut )
katna 82.00 3 3 3 0 2 4

714c klaku 60.90 weep (cry)
ku krai vilap ior plak baka
(weep )
klaku 60.90 2 2 2 0 3 2

714c krixa 61.30 cry out
xan krai cila grit kric sarax
(cry out )
krixa 61.30 2 3 2 2 3 2

714c kulnu 45.20 culture
uen kalcr sabiat kultur kultur takaf
uen kalcr sanskrit kultur kultur takaf
uen kalcr sabiat kultur kultur tarbut
uen kalcr sanskrit kultur kultur tarbut
(culture )
kulnu 45.20 2 2 0 4 4 0

714c mitre 89.40 meter
mi mitr mitar metr mietr mitr
(meter )
mitre 89.40 2 4 4 3 4 4

714c sanmi 62.90 meal
san mil bojan sen eda taam
(meal )
sanmi 62.90 3 2 2 2 0 2

714c sefta 60.00 surface/face
2/2o lower score no conflict [the highest score word was used]
se srfis satax kostad pavierxnast satxa
(surface )
sefta 60.00 2 2 3 3 0 3

714d bersa 57.00 son
er san beta ix sin ibn
er san beta ix sin najl
(son )
bersa 57.00 2 2 3 0 0 0

714d pruxi 53.00 spirit
guei spirit pret espiritu dux rux
(spirit )
pruxi 53.00 2 3 2 3 2 3

714d suksa 61.20 sudden
su sadn saxsa subit vdruk faja
su sadn saxsa subit vdruk bagta
(sudden )
suksa 61.20 2 2 3 2 2 0

714e cidja 61.45 food/feed
ci fid bojan komid pic gida
(food )
cidja 61.45 2 2 2 2 0 3

714e fetsi 62.14 female/fem-
si fem stri feminin jiensk uncau
(female )
fetsi 62.14 2 2 2 3 2 0

714e spoja 57.51 explode
ja iksplod vispot eksplo vzriv fajar
(explode )
spoja 57.51 2 3 3 3 0 2

714f catlu 45.05 look
ciau luk dek mir smatr tatala
ciau luk dek ve smatr tatala
(look at )
catlu 45.05 3 2 0 0 2 3

714f grake 80.70 gram
ke gram gram gram gram giram
(gram )
grake 80.70 2 3 3 3 3 3

714f krefu 57.53 recur
3/3o lower score no conflict affix
[the 3rd best word was taken to give the word a short affix]
fu rikr pir rekur pere takrar
(recur )
krefu 57.53 2 2 0 3 2 2

714f lijda 42.72 religion (relig-)
jiau rilij darm relixio religi din
(religious )
lijda 42.72 2 3 2 2 2 0

714f mlana 54.29 side/lateral
4/4o lower score no conflict affix
mian latrl satax lad starana janib
mian latrl bagal lad starana janib
(side )
mlana 54.29 3 2 2 2 3 2

714f rinju 49.08 restrain
ju ristrein pratiband refren abuzdiv kabax
ju ristrein pratiband refren sdierjiv kabax
(restrain )
rinju 49.08 2 3 3 2 0 0

Ivan Derzhanski

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Feb 28, 1991, 11:38:55 PM2/28/91
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In article <1ZbDDg#1tPF3k79dln93Lp2qs0FQgPX=co...@snark.thyrsus.com> Robert LeChevalier (loj...@snark.thyrsus.com) writes:
[re the creation of the Lojban vocabulary]

> some unstressed and declensional
>word endings were systematically removed

Only unstressed endings? This sounds a little bit ad hoc.

> to get a true root.

"A true root" is to be taken with a big grain of salt, of course. Several
of the Russian stems contain prefixes and suffixes.

>The stop component of affricates were removed for the same reason.

As well as the aspirations of consonants in Hindi. Okay.

> Note that the source word may not be the best word for the
>concept in the language.

Most frequently, I believe, there is no single best word. Since Lojban
works in quite a different way than NLs do, its words don't have to be
taken from anywhere.

> We aren't expert in all these languages,

Now this is bad news. :-)

I want to make a few comments and corrections. In most cases they don't
affect your choices (that is, you would have added up with the same Lojban
word even if you had asked me :-) ); just food for additional thought.

>714c katna 82.00 cut
> kan kat kat kort kas kata

Hm. We had a discussion about this one with Scott Horne some time ago.
Languages differ greatly in the way they divide the "cutting space": some
have a single word for almost all kings of cutting, breaking, interrupting
etc. (Hindi _ka:T_, Arabic _qaTa9_, Japanese "kir" - this one is not in
your sextet, but it can support the /k/); others have a big number of them
- e.g. the Russian root _kos_ means `mow GRASS with a SCYTHE', as opposed
to _zhn_ `mow CORN with a SICKLE', _rez_ `cut with a KNIFE', _sek_ `chop
with an AXE', _strig_ `shear HAIR/WOOL with SCISSORS'.

>714c klaku 60.90 weep (cry)
> ku krai vilap ior plak baka

This is a good one. It resembles the Greek _klai_. However, the verb `cry'
is _ro_ in Hindi: _vila:p_ means rather `complaint, lamentation'.

>714c kulnu 45.20 culture
> uen kalcr sabiat kultur kultur takaf
> uen kalcr sanskrit kultur kultur takaf
> uen kalcr sabiat kultur kultur tarbut
> uen kalcr sanskrit kultur kultur tarbut

Well, this concept has quite different contents in different cultures :-),
e.g., H. _saNskr'ti_ means `perfection' and _sabhyata:_ `politeness', but
both can also mean `culture, civilisation'; and so can A. _taqa:fa_
`education; refinement' and _tarbi:ya_ `breeding, raising, upbringing'.

>714c sanmi 62.90 meal
> san mil bojan sen eda taam
>

>714e cidja 61.45 food/feed
> ci fid bojan komid pic gida

Ooh. R. _pischa_ and _eda_ mean the same thing (`food, nurture'). They
differ only in style. Russian has no word for `meal'. H. _bhojan_ can
mean both, and so can A. _Ta9a:m_. And I think that S. "cena" is `dinner',
not just any meal.

>714c sefta 60.00 surface/face


> se srfis satax kostad pavierxnast satxa
>

>714f mlana 54.29 side/lateral


> mian latrl satax lad starana janib
> mian latrl bagal lad starana janib

H. _satah_ has been used for both words here. It means `plane, level,
surface', not `side'. I'd like to see the Russian _bok_ for `side'.

>714d bersa 57.00 son
> er san beta ix sin ibn
> er san beta ix sin najl

A. _najl_ is closer to `offspring, descendant'.

>714d pruxi 53.00 spirit
> guei spirit pret espiritu dux rux

H. _pret_ `deceased, ghost, villain'. Of course, different cultures have
different attitudes towards spirits.

>714d suksa 61.20 sudden
> su sadn saxsa subit vdruk faja
> su sadn saxsa subit vdruk bagta

You mean _vdrug_. _vnezapn[o]_ would also be worth including.

>714e fetsi 62.14 female/fem-
> si fem stri feminin jiensk uncau

As far as I know, "fem" is not a word of English. You have removed its
suffix, yet you have preserved the suffixes of the Spanish and the Russian
words. Not very consistent.
I don't quite understand the "c" in the Arabic word. I reckon it was a "th"
- interdental fricative - in the original, hence "s" in Lojban.

>714f catlu 45.05 look
> ciau luk dek mir smatr tatala
> ciau luk dek ve smatr tatala

Oh, no. S. "v" is `see', not `look'. It corresponds to _vid_ in Russian.
The Arabic word doesn't look like a good choice - _naZar_ would be closer.

>714f krefu 57.53 recur


> fu rikr pir rekur pere takrar

Oops. The Russian "word" here is not a word, just a prefix (a.k.o. "re").
H. _phir_ is usually pronounced closer to /fir/.

>714f lijda 42.72 religion (relig-)
> jiau rilij darm relixio religi din

Another cultural-dependent one. _dharm_ means a lot of things, among them
`duty, obligation'.
--
Ivan A. Derzhanski i...@chaos.cs.brandeis.edu
MB 1766 / Brandeis University How do you know that this life
P.O.Box 9110 / Waltham, MA 02254-9110 / USA isn't another world's hell?

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