Lojbanic mythology: Difference between revisions

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==== Chapter 3 Errata ====
The [[jbocre: Lojban Creation Poem|Lojban Creation Poem]], though perilously obscure, is thought to embody some crucial aspects of ''[[jbocre: lobykai|lobykai]]'' reality...


== Completed ==
----


* The Lojban sentence structure
There is some carry-over from Loglan Mythology in Lojbanic Mythology, though it is not as widely known as it should be, and tends to be mentioned only by those old enough in the community to remember both. For example:
** Conventions


*** s/Word modifying other words/Words modifying other words/
==== The four gods ====
* The Basic Components


** tanru ("modifier-selbri modified-selbri")
Loglan has four gods:
*** s/That there is/Note that there is/


* Complex sumti
*'''[[jbocre: Jeeg|Jeeg]]''' and '''[[jbocre: Talen|Talen]]''', who featured in an early Loglan [[jbocre: Jeeg and Talen necdote|Jeeg and Talen necdote]]
** sumti descriptions with internal sumti
*'''[[jbocre: The god R|The god R]]''', the Loglan equivalent of ''.y.'' (English ''er...'')


*** Why did "(in a tanru embedded..." become "(In a tanru embedded..."  (note capital I)?
*'''Zipf''', after the formulator of [[jbocre: Zipf's Law|Zipf's Law]]
**** You've missed the period just before it: this is a new sentence.


***** Heh! So I have.  Sorry.
----
* Attachments to sumti, selbri and sentences


** Adding a new sumti place to a bridi relationship
The history of Lojban is already becoming shrouded in myth. If Loglan is ''purjbo'', 'old-Lojban' (or in the gismu list, ''dzejbo'', 'elder Lojban'), the Lojban that existed prior to the Great Rafsi Shift of 7/93 is already partly unintelligible (including the poembook ''[[jbocre: ziryroi|ziryroi]]'' {by [[jbocre: Michael Helsem|Michael Helsem]]}--whose very title now means something different) & must be considered ''mijyjbo'', '[[jbocre: Middle Lojban|Middle Lojban]]'. Here are some tales from ''lapoi pelxu ku'o trajynobli'' that pertain to the Loglan-Lojban split:
*** s/The modal tags, or sumti tcita, allow specify relationships/The modal tags, or sumti tcita, specify relationsips/ (at least I ''think'' that's what was intended, it's hard to tell)


** Evidentials
*[[jbocre: In the Mountains|In the Mountains]]
*** s/behaving like as indicators/behaving as indicators/
*[[jbocre: In the Pit #1]]


*Logical Connectives
*[[jbocre: In the Pit #2]]
** s/invoked in th definition/invoked in the definition/


** Attitudinals -- s/a enormous/an enormous/ -ScottW
''What did "[[jbocre: ziryroi|ziryroi]]" originally mean? "zirpu troci"? "zirpu rokci"?'' (''le remoi'')


=== From very old backup. ===
----


** Basic Structure of an Utterance
There are also instances of mythos built up through metaphors bandied about on the [[jbocre: Lojban mailing list|Lojban Mailing List]]:
*** Spelling error: ''peson'' should be ''person''.


** The Lojban Sentence
*The [[jbocre: Jimbob Mythos|Jimbob Mythos]] was quite popular in the early 1990s.
*** General Note: there's some wierdness in some of the diagrams; there as xu that has <- underneath it instead of an underline, a fo and a fa with .>, and at one point I saw a ppp>, although I can't find it right now.  Furthermore, a lot of sumti translations wrap to two lines where that really doesn't seem necessary:  goods-sold-\nx2. -Robin
*So was the [[jbocre: ckafyzda Mythos|ckafyzda Mythos]], which motivated the first concerted effort in original Lojban writing.


**** The weird symbols are original to the diagrammed summary; there was a method to their madness, but I'm still thinking about how strategic use of arrows or brackets may make them more perspicuous. (If you work out what they mean and have suggestions, I'm all ears.) The wrapping, uh, tables, mumble-mumble; I don't get any wrapping or even a threat of it, but from your previous comments, you obviously use a narrower browser window. Since the primary formatting object has to be the print output, I think this is an acceptable risk.
----
**** The symbols have been de-weirded for the most part; please have a re-look through them.


*** In the first diagram under Sentence Examples, it's on two lines for no apparent reason, with -- between the first and second lines.  -Robin
Flora and fauna of Lojbanistan.
*** Note, BTW, that I'm aware that some of these issues may be artifacts of the HTML conversion, but I'm going to keep pointing them out anyways just in case.  Just remove them if it's not relevant; you don't even need to respond. -Robin


**** The real reason for that one is that the same source document is generating the paperback Word file, which has quite narrow margins; the maximum width enforced for tables is a lowest common denominator.
* ''[[jbocre: ti'ocpi|ti'ocpi]]''
*** The second diagram has the same problem.  -Robin
* ''nalci since''


*** So do many others; I will stop mentioning it, as I assume it's a DocBook HTML thing.  (toldja to use LaTeX or TeXInfo 8)  -Robin
* ''le toldi poi jmive ti'u le cimni''
**** :-P :-)
* ''morji [[jbocre: Elephant anto|Elephant anto]]''


*** "sumti are not specific as to number (singular or plural), nor gender (masculine/feminine/neuter). Such distinctions can be optionally added." -- Heh.  That's what we need.  mu'ai, of selma'o WTF; marks a sumti as grammatically masculine.    zo'osai  -Robin
(see also [[jbocre: dragon|dragon]])
*** "(Other Lojban spelling versions are possible for names from other languages.)" spelling variations, imported from.  -Robin


*** "There are some optional conventions that allow certain punctuation symbols to appear to clarify printed text, making it easier to read."  -- Please, *please* say something about how these are non-standard and may not be well recieved.  -Robin
----
**** Whole thing becomes a tip (smaller font); added "Such punctuation is not considered part of the standard Lojban orthography, and are not accepted by all Lojbanists." I don't like adding this, since I am one of the few Lojbanists who likes this punctuation; but at least I'm in the majority view on dots...


** The Basic Components (sumti and selbri)
The following near-mythical exchange occurred on WikiImprovement, in which the language was arguing with itself:
*** Again with the masculine and feminine sumti.  -Robin


**** This isn't a call for a masculine gender experimental cmavo, though. It simply means you can say ''noi nakni'' if you really feel the urge to.
* Most of the features you want are present in TWiki (http://www.twiki.org). It has user authentication, allows you to upload files and has other improvements over the traditional Wiki Model
*** "Any variety of selbri may be placed in a sentence, or in another substructure below that mentions selbri.","Likewise, any variety of sumti may be placed in a sentence, or in another substructure below that mentions sumti."  -- s/mentions/allows/  ?  -Robin


**** s/mentions/contains
-- Lob
*** 'pronoun' sumti -- Should mention that these are also call pro-sumti.  That was very confusing to me at first.  -Robin


**** These expressions (usually called pro-<foreignphrase lang="art-lojban"><emphasis role="term">sumti</emphasis></foreignphrase> in Lojban)
** I must say, signing as if you were the language (even if most people only recognize the ''jbo'' rafsi) seems rather arrogant, when most of its speakers are satisfied with this wiki.
*** "ri is a quick back-reference sumti. It can have a new ad-hoc meaning every time it occurs."  -- I don't think it's ad hoc at all; the rules are quite specific. -Robin


**** "It can have a new meaning, depending on the context, every time it occurs."
-- Lo'os
*** There are some wierd free-floating {} in the last example.  -Robin
 
**** I've made them a structure span as with the other examples on this page; it'll be easier to understand.
*** The formatting of the examples in "tanru with internal sumti" is *really* bad.  -Robin
 
**** I'm attempting to do bracketting with table boundaries to indicate structure; this works a smidgeon better in the rtf, but I'm going to start playing with colours on the HTML.
*** Starting with "selbri grouping in tanru", the underlining stops working. -Robin
 
**** OK now?
*** In all but the last example in ''The Basic Components'' at least one of ''ku'' or ''cu'' is mandatory. (Putting square brackets around both implies that both can be elided.)
 
** Complex sumti
*** The examples in "sumti descriptions with internal sumti" have scary formatting again.  -Robin
 
**** De-scarified
*** "cmavo are generally written as one word when they together equate to a concept that is written in other languages as one word."  -- They are?  I thought it was just frequency of the cmavo appearing together.  -Robin, who isn't a big fan of compound cmavo anyways.
 
**** That's been the rationale; Bob is thinking in these terms to this day, I submit, by asking that compound cmavo be defined in the dictionary. This is the historical reason it's happened, and I think it's honesty to keep it in; we could hardly have based it on Lojban stats in 1988, or on anything but a natlang-derived notion of what counts as a single concept.
** Attachments to sumti, selbri and sentences
 
*** .> under pu, ....> under secau, < under pe, bad underlining.  Many other such problems. -Robin
**** De-scarified; please check.
 
*** "specifically communicating how the speaker came to make the statement." --  I think it's more like 'how the speaker acquired the information expressed in the statement'.  -Robin
**** specifically communicating what kind of knowledge the speaker is basing the statement on
 
*** "Many Amerindian languages use these type of words." -- Native American, please.  Indians are from India.  -Robin
**** Though Amerindian is utterly standard terminology in linguistics, this document is not intended for linguists; reluctantly changed.
 
*** In "Short possessive sumti ("le possessor-sumti selbri [[jbocre: ku|ku]]")", I think it would be good to show that le mi broda == le broda pe mi.  It's a bit unclear.  -Robin
**** Added: "this sentence is completely equivalent to ''le bajra [[jbocre: ku|ku]] pe ti cu tavla''.
 
*** Many, many uses of the word 'modal'.  I *hate* the word 'modal' in this usage, because it is so non-standard.  sumtcita is my friend.  -Robin
**** Has been defended by my co-editor,  and is still prominent in CLL. On first mention, I say "or sumti tcita". (The same happens in the overview.) I am not especially enamoured of the term, but people will see it in CLL, and need to be prepared for it.
 
** Logical connectives
*** +'s underlining.  -Robin
 
**** Left in, because they're meant to be understood as connectives (a + b). Let me know if this is still confusing.
*** Capitalize 'connectives' in the title.  -Robin
 
*** "(na.a/conditional, not a OR b, if a then b; anai/a or not b, a if b)."  -- Very hard to read.  Allow me to reccommend colons.  -Robin
**** Commas should be enough, by parallel with foregoing ''a'' and ''e''
 
*** "<= (a if b)" -- I'd put If b then a in here too.  -Robin
*** I think it would be better to do bridi-tail than tanru as your second example; I used to do a lot of tanru compounds when I really should have been doing bridi-tail stuff.  Especially since you use gi'e in an example.  -Robin
 
**** Not with you: there are no tanru examples, until you get to ''blari'o joi pelxu''.
** Glossary of words
 
*** I did not go through the glossary.  -Robin
*** ''fu'ivla'': The place structure is listed as ''x1 is a loanword copied from foreign word x2 into language x3''. That seems to follow the place structure of ''fukpi'' better  that that of ''valsi'', and so I would think that it is more likely to be the place structure of 'vlafu'i'. The place structure of ''fu'ivla'' should follow that of ''valsi'' more closely, i.e. something like ''x1 is a loanword meaning x2 in language x3 copied from source word x4''. That is also the place structure given in the old jvoste that I have (loan-word: v1=f1 v2 v3 f2). Both are good words for 'loanword', but I think that the place structure should best reflect the last gismu in cases like this (which is also what the book recommends, I think). The actual place structure of the word ''fu'ivla'' is not used anywhere else in the book. -- [[jbocre: Adam|Adam]]
 
**** Thank you for keeping me honest.
*** ''titnanba'': The given place structure, ''x1 is sweet-bread/cake'', is missing the x2 of both ''nanba'' and ''titla''. The definition in the jvoste is ''cake, sweetbread: t1=n1 n2''.
 
****made from grains/raw material x<subscript>2</subscript>

Revision as of 17:04, 4 November 2013

The Lojban Creation Poem, though perilously obscure, is thought to embody some crucial aspects of lobykai reality...


There is some carry-over from Loglan Mythology in Lojbanic Mythology, though it is not as widely known as it should be, and tends to be mentioned only by those old enough in the community to remember both. For example:

The four gods

Loglan has four gods:


The history of Lojban is already becoming shrouded in myth. If Loglan is purjbo, 'old-Lojban' (or in the gismu list, dzejbo, 'elder Lojban'), the Lojban that existed prior to the Great Rafsi Shift of 7/93 is already partly unintelligible (including the poembook ziryroi {by Michael Helsem}--whose very title now means something different) & must be considered mijyjbo, 'Middle Lojban'. Here are some tales from lapoi pelxu ku'o trajynobli that pertain to the Loglan-Lojban split:

What did "ziryroi" originally mean? "zirpu troci"? "zirpu rokci"? (le remoi)


There are also instances of mythos built up through metaphors bandied about on the Lojban Mailing List:

  • The Jimbob Mythos was quite popular in the early 1990s.
  • So was the ckafyzda Mythos, which motivated the first concerted effort in original Lojban writing.

Flora and fauna of Lojbanistan.

(see also dragon)


The following near-mythical exchange occurred on WikiImprovement, in which the language was arguing with itself:

  • Most of the features you want are present in TWiki (http://www.twiki.org). It has user authentication, allows you to upload files and has other improvements over the traditional Wiki Model

-- Lob

    • I must say, signing as if you were the language (even if most people only recognize the jbo rafsi) seems rather arrogant, when most of its speakers are satisfied with this wiki.

-- Lo'os