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''For a full list of issues, see '''[[zo'ei la'e "lu ju'i lobypli li'u"]]'''.''<br/>
''Previous issue: '''[[me lu ju'i lobypli li'u 16 moi]]'''.''<br/>
''Next issue: '''[[me lu ju'i lobypli li'u 18 moi]]'''.''
__TOC__
<pre style="text-align: center">
Number 17 - January 1993
Copyright 1993, The Logical Language Group, Inc.
2904 Beau Lane, Fairfax VA 22031 USA (703)385-0273
Permission granted to copy, without charge to recipient, when for purpose of promotion of Loglan/Lojban.
Lojban International Conversation
New Lojban Writing Project Starts
DETAILS IN NEWS SECTION
</pre>
ju'i lobypli (JL) is the quarterly journal of The Logical Language Group, Inc., known in these pages as la lojbangirz. la lojbangirz. is a non-profit organization formed for the purpose of completing and spreading the logical human language "Lojban - A Realization of Loglan" (commonly called "Lojban"), and informing the community about logical languages in general.
la lojbangirz. is a non-profit organization under Section 501(c)(3) of the U.S. Internal Revenue Code. Your donations (not contributions to your voluntary balance) are tax-deductible on U.S. and most state income taxes. Donors are notified at the end of each year of their total deductible donations.
For purposes of terminology, "Lojban" refers to a specific version of a logical human language, the generic language and associated research project having been called "Loglan" since its invention by Dr. James Cooke Brown in 1954. Statements referring to "Loglan/Lojban" refer to both the generic language and to Lojban as a specific instance of that language. The Lojban version of Loglan was created as an alternative because Dr. Brown and his organization claims copyright on everything in his version, including each individual word of the vocabulary. The Lojban vocabulary and grammar and all language definition materials, by contrast, are public domain. Anyone may freely use Lojban for any purpose without permission or royalty. la lojbangirz. believes that such free usage is a necessary condition for an engineered language like Loglan/Lojban to become a true human language, and to succeed in the various goals that have been proposed for its use.
Press run for this issue of ju'i lobypli: 150. We now have about 750 people receiving our publications, and 250 more awaiting textbook publication.
''' Your Mailing Label '''
Your mailing label reports your current mailing status, and your current voluntary balance including this issue. Please notify us of changes in your activity/interest level. Balances reflect contributions received thru 31 December 1992. Mailing codes (and approximate balance needs) are:
<pre>
<pre>
                                                                     
Activity/Interest Level:                        Highest Package       
                                 
Received (Price Each)                          Other flags:         
                                 
B - Observer    0 - Introductory Materials ($5)  JL JL Subscription 
                                 
($28/yr)                                                             
                                 
C - Active Supporter                            1 - Word Lists and   
                                 
Language Description ($15)                      (followed by         
                                 
expiration issue #)                                                   
                                 
D - Lojban Student                              2 - Language Design   
                                 
Information ($10)                              * indicates           
                                 
subscription prepaid                                                 
                                 
E - Lojban Practitioner                        3 - Draft Teaching   
                                 
Materials ($30)  LK LK Subscription ($5/yr)                           
                                 
                                                R  Review Copy (no   
                                 
charge)                                                               
                                 
                                                UP Automatic Updates 
                                 
(>$20)                                                               
                      Number 17 - January 1993
 
          Copyright 1993, The Logical Language Group, Inc.
</pre>
          2904 Beau Lane, Fairfax VA 22031 USA (703)385-0273
 
  Permission granted to copy, without charge to recipient, when for
Please keep us informed of changes in your mailing address, and US subscribers are asked to provide ZIP+4 codes whenever you know them.
                purpose of promotion of Loglan/Lojban.
 
''' Contents of This Issue '''
 
Important: Your mailing label indicates the last issue of your subscription. If that issue is JL17, we need to hear from you, preferably with money for another year's subscription (US$28 North America, US$35 elsewhere). For overseas subscribers, this is the last grace issue before our subscription policy takes effect for you - we need to hear from you soon if you want to keep receiving JL; we will be far more likely to support a subscription for an interested overseas Lojbanist than a US Lojbanist, but we cannot do so unless you request to keep receiving JL.
 
This issue features a discussion of the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis, including a fairly detailed explication of how it is understood and interpreted by linguists by Bruce Nevin. Also featured is a long section on the new effort to start creating an original Lojban literature. We invite all Lojbanists to participate in defining this project, which involves a group writing against a shared common setting which is predesigned. Several writings in both Lojban and English appear in this issue to kick off the project. Not all of the writings are translated into English.
 
Also included in this issue is a longer story translated by Ivan Derzhanski from a Bulgarian original. Extensive footnotes in commentary are provided, discussing some of the stylistic issues in translating, but also showing how you can get an understandable and interesting story even if some of the details of your language use are not understood as you intended.
 
Technical discussions include debates on Lojban's suitability as an intermediate language for machine translation, and a discussion of types of ambiguity found in language, and how Lojban avoids them.
 
As will usually be the case, this issue contains much material derived from the Lojban List computer mailing list on the Internet. Nearly all such material has been edited, revised, and corrected from the original.
 
Note the new network address below for the Planned Languages Server if you wish to obtain electronic copies of our materials.
 
<pre>
                          Table of Contents                           
                                                                     
Brief Glossary of Lojban Terms                                ---3   
News                                                                 
  Status of JL, Subscriptions                                ---3   
  Finances, Athelstan's Status, Bob and Nora's Adoption      ---4   
  LogFest 92 - Activities, Business Meeting, Negotiations with TLI,   
    Forthcoming Books, Baseline Status/Language Design, Next Year   
    ---5                                                             
  Other News - DC Class, Bradford Group, First International         
  Conversation, Phone Game, News from TLI                    ---7   
Language Development Status - gismu, lujvo, Grammar, Morphology, rafsi
                          ---8                                       
Structural Ambiguity in English and Lojban                    ---9   
Lojban Fluency?                                              ---11   
Lesson from Another Constructed Language                    ---13   
A Lojban Pangram                                            ---13   
An Alternative Orthography for Lojban                        ---14   
Criticisms of Lojban as a Tool for Machine Translation      ---15   
Discussions on the Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis (several pieces, note       
  especially:)                                              ---21   
  Summary of Linguistic Attitudes on Sapir-Whorf, by Bruce Nevin---22 
  Additional Sapir-Whorf Bibliography                        ---29   
                                                                     
The Lojban Kalevala Project                                  ---30   
  Veijo's Summary                                            ---31   
  Condensed Papers - Collected Significant Writings on the Project   
  ---32                                                               
  Text and comments elucidating further description of Scenario #2   
  (Lojban and English texts)                                ---46   
le lojbo se ciska - Ivan's Translation le lisri be le serti, Nora's   
  Operettina le ci cribe                                    ---52   
Translations and Commentary for ckafybarja writings and le lojbo se   
  ciska                                                      ---57   
  Veijo's First Text (57), Nick's Text (58), Veijo's Second Text (60),
  Iain's First Text (61), Mark Shoulson's Text (62), Iain's Second   
  Text (commentary only - 64), le lisri be le serti (65)             
</pre>


                  Lojban International Conversation


                  New Lojban Writing Project Starts
''' Computer Net Information '''
                      DETAILS IN NEWS SECTION
                                 
    ju'i lobypli (JL) is the quarterly journal of The Logical
Language Group, Inc., known in these pages as la lojbangirz.  la
lojbangirz. is a non-profit organization formed for the purpose of
completing and spreading the logical human language "Lojban - A
Realization of Loglan" (commonly called "Lojban"), and informing the
community about logical languages in general.
    la lojbangirz. is a non-profit organization under Section
501(c)(3) of the U.S. Internal Revenue Code.  Your donations (not
contributions to your voluntary balance) are tax-deductible on U.S.
and most state income taxes.  Donors are notified at the end of each
year of their total deductible donations.
    For purposes of terminology, "Lojban" refers to a specific
version of a logical human language, the generic language and
associated research project having been called "Loglan" since its
invention by Dr. James Cooke Brown in 1954.  Statements referring to
"Loglan/Lojban" refer to both the generic language and to Lojban as a
specific instance of that language.  The Lojban version of Loglan was
created as an alternative because Dr. Brown and his organization
claims copyright on everything in his version, including each
individual word of the vocabulary.  The Lojban vocabulary and grammar
and all language definition materials, by contrast, are public domain.
Anyone may freely use Lojban for any purpose without permission or
royalty.  la lojbangirz. believes that such free usage is a necessary
condition for an engineered language like Loglan/Lojban to become a
true human language, and to succeed in the various goals that have
been proposed for its use.
    Press run for this issue of ju'i lobypli: 150.  We now have about
750 people receiving our publications, and 250 more awaiting textbook
publication.


                          Your Mailing Label
Via Usenet/UUCP/Internet, you can send messages and text files (including things for JL publication) to la lojbangirz./Bob at:


                                  2
lojbab@grebyn.com (This supersedes the prior "snark" address.)
Your mailing label reports your current mailing status, and your
current voluntary balance including this issue. Please notify us of
changes in your activity/interest level. Balances reflect contri-
butions received thru 31 December 1992.  Mailing codes (and
approximate balance needs) are:


Activity/Interest Level:                        Highest Package
You can also join the Lojban List mailing list (currently around 70 subscribers). Send a single line message (automatically processed) containing only:
Received (Price Each)                          Other codes:
B - Observer    0 - Introductory Materials ($5)  JL  JL Subscription
($28-$35/yr)
C - Active Supporter                            1 - Word Lists and
Language Description ($15)                        (followed by
expiration issue #)
D - Lojban Student                              2 - Language Design
Information ($10)                               *  indicates
subscription prepaid
E - Lojban Practitioner                        3 - Draft Teaching
Materials ($30)  LK                            LK Subscription ($5-
$6/yr)
                                                R  Review Copy (no
charge)
                                                UP    Automatic
Updates (>$20 balance)


Please keep us informed of changes in your mailing address, and US
"subscribe lojban yourfirstname yourlastname" to: listserv@cuvmb. cc.columbia.edu
subscribers are asked to provide ZIP+4 codes whenever you know them.


                                  3
If you have problems needing human intervention, send to: lojban-list-request@snark.thyrsus.com
                        Contents of This Issue


    Important: Your mailing label indicates the last issue of your
Send traffic for the mailing list to: lojban@cuvmb.cc.columbia.edu
subscription.  If that issue is JL17, we need to hear from you,
preferably with money for another year's subscription (US$28 North
America, US$35 elsewhere).  For overseas subscribers, this is the last
grace issue before our subscription policy takes effect for you - we
need to hear from you soon if you want to keep receiving JL; we will
be far more likely to support a subscription for an interested
overseas Lojbanist than a US Lojbanist, but we cannot do so unless you
request to keep receiving JL.
    This issue features a discussion of the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis,
including a fairly detailed explication of how it is understood and
interpreted by linguists by Bruce Nevin.  Also featured is a long
section on the new effort to start creating an original Lojban
literature.  We invite all Lojbanists to participate in defining this
project, which involves a group writing against a shared common
setting which is predesigned.  Several writings in both Lojban and
English appear in this issue to kick off the project.  Not all of the
writings are translated into English.
    Also included in this issue is a longer story translated by Ivan
Derzhanski from a Bulgarian original.  Extensive footnotes in
commentary are provided, discussing some of the stylistic issues in
translating, but also showing how you can get an understandable and
interesting story even if some of the details of your language use are
not understood as you intended.
    Technical discussions include debates on Lojban's suitability as
an intermediate language for machine translation, and a discussion of
types of ambiguity found in language, and how Lojban avoids them.
    As will usually be the case, this issue contains much material
derived from the Lojban List computer mailing list on the Internet.
Nearly all such material has been edited, revised, and corrected from
the original.
    Note the new network address below for the Planned Languages
Server if you wish to obtain electronic copies of our materials.


Please keep us informed if your network mailing address changes.


                          Table of Contents
Compuserve subscribers can also participate. Precede any of the above addresses with INTERNET: and use your normal Compuserve mail facility. If you want to participate on Lojban List, you should be prepared to read your mail at least every couple of days; otherwise your mailbox fills up and you are dropped from the mailing-list. FIDOnet subscribers can also participate, although the connection is not especially robust. Write to us for details if you don't know how to access the Internet network.


Brief Glossary of Lojban Terms                                ---3
A good portion of our materials are available on-line from the Planned Languages Server (PLS). See JL16, or send the messages "help" and "send lojban readme" to the server address:  
News
  Status of JL, Subscriptions                                ---3
  Finances, Athelstan's Status, Bob and Nora's Adoption      ---4
  LogFest 92 - Activities, Business Meeting, Negotiations with TLI,
    Forthcoming Books, Baseline Status/Language Design, Next Year   
    ---5
  Other News - DC Class, Bradford Group, First International
  Conversation, Phone Game, News from TLI                    ---7
Language Development Status - gismu, lujvo, Grammar, Morphology, rafsi
                          ---8
Structural Ambiguity in English and Lojban                    ---9
Lojban Fluency?                                              ---11
Lesson from Another Constructed Language                    ---13
A Lojban Pangram                                            ---13
An Alternative Orthography for Lojban                        ---14
Criticisms of Lojban as a Tool for Machine Translation      ---15
Discussions on the Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis (several pieces, note
  especially:)                                              ---21
  Summary of Linguistic Attitudes on Sapir-Whorf, by Bruce Nevin---22
  Additional Sapir-Whorf Bibliography                        ---29


                                  4
langserv@cunixf.cc.columbia.edu
The Lojban Kalevala Project                                  ---30
  Veijo's Summary                                            ---31
  Condensed Papers - Collected Significant Writings on the Project   
  ---32
  Text and comments elucidating further description of Scenario #2
  (Lojban and English texts)                                ---46
le lojbo se ciska - Ivan's Translation le lisri be le serti, Nora's
  Operettina le ci cribe                                    ---52
Translations and Commentary for ckafybarja writings and le lojbo se
  ciska                                                      ---57
  Veijo's First Text (57), Nick's Text (58), Veijo's Second Text (60),
  Iain's First Text (61), Mark Shoulson's Text (62), Iain's Second
  Text (commentary only - 64), le lisri be le serti (65)


                      Computer Net Information
    Via Usenet/UUCP/Internet, you can send messages and text files
(including things for JL publication) to la lojbangirz./Bob at:     
                    lojbab@grebyn.com    (This supersedes the prior
"snark" address.)
    You can also join the Lojban List mailing list (currently around
70 subscribers).  Send a single line message (automatically processed)
containing only:
"subscribe lojban yourfirstname yourlastname"  to:    listserv@cuvmb.
cc.columbia.edu
If you have problems needing human intervention, send to:  lojban-
list-request@snark.thyrsus.com
Send traffic for the mailing list to:  lojban@cuvmb.cc.columbia.edu
    Please keep us informed if your network mailing address changes.
    Compuserve subscribers can also participate.  Precede any of the
above addresses with INTERNET:  and use your normal Compuserve mail
facility.  If you want to participate on Lojban List, you should be
prepared to read your mail at least every couple of days; otherwise
your mailbox fills up and you are dropped from the mailing-list.
FIDOnet subscribers can also participate, although the connection is
not especially robust.  Write to us for details if you don't know how
to access the Internet network.
    A good portion of our materials are available on-line from the
Planned Languages Server (PLS).  See JL16, or send the messages "help"
and "send lojban readme" to the server address:
langserv@cunixf.cc.columbia.edu
This is a new address since JL16 was published.
This is a new address since JL16 was published.


                                  5
The following explicitly identifies people who are referred to by initials in JL. Note that 'Athelstan' is that person's real name, used in his public life, and is not a pseudonym.
  The following explicitly iden-      lujvo - compound words built
 
tifies people who are referred to   from rafsi;
'pc' - Dr. John Parks-Clifford, Professor of Logic and Philosophy at the University of Missouri - St. Louis and Vice-President of la lojbangirz.; he is usually addressed as 'pc' by the community.
by initials in JL. Note that         le'avla - words borrowed from
 
'Athelstan' is that person's real   other languages;
'Bob', 'lojbab' - Bob LeChevalier - President of la lojbangirz., and editor of ju'i lobypli and le lojbo karni.
name, used in his public life, and   brivla - Lojban predicate words,
 
is not a pseudonym.                 consisting of gismu, lujvo. and
'Nora' - Nora LeChevalier - Secretary/Treasurer of la lojbangirz., Bob's wife, author of LogFlash.
                                    le'avla;
 
  'pc' - Dr. John Parks-Clifford,     tanru - Lojban metaphors, the
'JCB', 'Dr. Brown' - Dr. James Cooke Brown, inventor of the language, and founder of the Loglan project.
Professor of Logic and Philosophy   most productive and creative
 
at the University of Missouri -     expression form of the language;
'The Institute', 'TLI' - The Loglan Institute, Inc., JCB's organization for spreading his version of Loglan, which we call 'Institute Loglan'.
St. Louis and Vice-President of la   sumti - the arguments of a
 
lojbangirz.; he is usually         logical predicate;
'Loglan' - This refers to the generic language or language project, of which 'Lojban' is the most successful version, and 'Institute Loglan' another. 'Loglan/Lojban' is used in discussions about Lojban where we wish to make it particularly clear that the statement applies to the generic language as well.
addressed as 'pc' by the commu-      selbri - Lojban predicates which
 
nity.                              indicate a relation among one or
'PLS' - The Planned Languages Server, a no-charge computer-network-accessed distribution center for materials on Lojban (and other artificial languages). See pg. 2 for email address.
  'Bob', 'lojbab' - Bob             more sumti.  A selbri is most
 
LeChevalier - President of la loj-  often a brivla or tanru; formerly
== Brief Glossary of Lojban Terms ==
bangirz., and editor of ju'i       called "kunbri" in error in some
 
lobypli and le lojbo karni.         of our publications;
Following are definitions of frequently used Lojban terms. More complete explanations are in the Overview of Lojban.
  'Nora' - Nora LeChevalier -         bridi - Lojban predications, the
 
Secretary/Treasurer of la lojban-  basic grammatical structure of the
cmavo - Lojban structure words
girz., Bob's wife, author of       language; a bridi expresses a
<br />gismu - Lojban root words; currently 1342;
LogFlash.                           complete relationship: the selbri
<br />rafsi - short combining-forms for the gismu;
  'JCB', 'Dr. Brown' - Dr. James   expresses the relation and the
<br />lujvo - compound words built from rafsi;
Cooke Brown, inventor of the       sumti express the various things
<br />le'avla - words borrowed from other languages;
language, and founder of the       being related;
<br />brivla - Lojban predicate words, consisting of gismu, lujvo. and le'avla;
Loglan project.                       selma'o - grammatical categories
<br />tanru - Lojban metaphors, the most productive and creative expression form of the language;
  'The Institute', 'TLI' - The     of Lojban words; the basis of the
<br />sumti - the arguments of a logical predicate;
Loglan Institute, Inc., JCB's       unambiguous formal grammar of the
<br />selbri - Lojban predicates which indicate a relation among one or more sumti. A selbri is most often a brivla or tanru; formerly called "kunbri" in error in some of our publications;
organization for spreading his     language.  Traditionally and
<br />bridi - Lojban predications, the basic grammatical structure of the language; a bridi expresses a complete relationship: the selbri expresses the relation and the sumti express the various things being related;
version of Loglan, which we call   erroneously called "lexeme" in the
<br />selma'o - grammatical categories of Lojban words; the basis of the unambiguous formal grammar of the language. Traditionally and erroneously called "lexeme" in the Loglan community. These categories typically have a name derived from one word in that grammatical category; the name is all capitals, except that an apostrophe is replaced by a small letter 'h'.
'Institute Loglan'.                 Loglan community.  These
 
  'Loglan' - This refers to the     categories typically have a name
== News ==
generic language or language       derived from one word in that
 
project, of which 'Lojban' is the   grammatical category; the name is
=== Status of JL ===
most successful version, and       all capitals, except that an
 
'Institute Loglan' another.         apostrophe is replaced by a small
Well, I (Lojbab) seem to be late again in getting ju'i lobypli out the door, though not quite as late as last issue. I do have a bit of an excuse. On very short notice, I had to go to Russia to become a father (more on this later). Now back, and somewhat settled down, I've gone back to work, and have taken steps to make it more likely that JL will be able to come out on time in the future. This issue is hopefully out the door around the first of January. I will be preparing JL18 starting on 5 March, with an intended publication date of 1 April. Issue #18 is already more than half done, using material that would not fit in this issue.
'Loglan/Lojban' is used in         letter 'h'.
 
discussions about Lojban where we  
JL17 more Lojban text and commentary on the text than previous issues; from now on, the portion of each issue devoted to Lojban text will continue to grow. Starting with this issue, I have adopted a new editorial policy whereby other Lojbanists who have demonstrated competence in the language will be reviewing and editing Lojban text that is submitted. No longer will I (Lojbab) be the bottleneck in getting Lojban text in print. Instead I will putting my time into getting the Lojban books published, and keeping JL coming out consistently on time.
wish to make it particularly clear                 News
 
that the statement applies to the             Status of JL
A result of this policy is that published Lojban text may have varying degrees of quality. All text will have been verified by the Lojban parser to assure that it is grammatical. However, we all know that not all grammatical text is easily understood (anyone who has read legal documents or tax forms can testify to this). Instead of me checking all texts for a consistent level of quality, published text will have been approved by two Lojbanists who have demonstrated competence in the written language. This will presumably mean that at least they understood the text. These editors, labelled by Nick Nicholas as "editors de jour", are described in more detail in the ckafybarja papers below.
generic language as well.          
 
  'PLS' - The Planned Languages       Well, I (Lojbab) seem to be late
Because I won't be checking and preparing the text, there will no longer be detailed translations of the sort that I have prepared for Lojban text in JLs prior to now, unless the authors or one of the editors prepares them. We will be trying to include a list of any special vocabulary words, and will include any translations that are provided.
Server, a no-charge computer-       again in getting ju'i lobypli out
 
network-accessed distribution       the door, though not quite as late
On the other hand, the increased volume of Lojban text, some of it original writings, will hopefully convince more of you to join the ranks of those who have learned enough Lojban to try to read the texts without translations. And maybe those who try to write such texts.
center for materials on Lojban     as last issue.  I do have a bit of
 
(and other artificial languages).   an excuse.  On very short notice,
=== Subscriptions ===
See pg. 2 for email address.       I had to go to Russia to become a
 
                                    father (more on this later).  Now
If you are receiving this, then probably you either have returned a subscription form, you have a large balance and were already receiving JL, or you have ordered a package of Lojban materials that includes a sample issue, or you are an overseas subscriber receiving your last grace issue.
  Brief Glossary of Lojban Terms   back, and somewhat settled down,
 
                                    I've gone back to work, and have
If you have paid for a subscription, this is the first issue under the subscription policy, and the issue will have cost you either US$7 (US/Canada) or US$8.75 (other countries). Those receiving JL via Major in Australia are doing so by arrangement with him at a price that he is setting.
  Following are definitions of     taken steps to make it more likely
 
frequently used Lojban terms.       that JL will be able to come out
If you did not return a subscription form and pay for a subscription, then this issue is being charged to your voluntary balance at a higher price than for paid subscribers: US$9 for US/- Canada and US$10 for other countries. If you were a JL subscriber and had enough balance to pay for this issue at this higher price, then you are receiving it even though you haven't returned the form.
More complete explanations are in  on time in the future.  This issue
 
the Overview of Lojban.             is hopefully out the door around
If you did return a form, but did not have enough money in your balance to pay for a subscription, you are receiving this issue anyway, in reward for having responded. We hope that you will eventually contribute to your balance to offset the price. If not, you will probably be switched to receiving le lojbo karni as of issue #18.
  cmavo - Lojban structure words   the first of January.  I will be
 
  gismu - Lojban root words;       preparing JL18 starting on 5
Having received only $170 in donations earmarked for the support of those who cannot afford subscriptions, we have allocated some of that money to supporting a few nonpaying volunteers who have been particularly active. Priority was given to people who have shown evidence of having tried to learn Lojban, and to non-US Lojbanists. This money has been allocated in the form of prepaid 2-issue subscriptions. We did not have enough money to support subscriptions for all who requested assistance.
currently 1342;                     March, with an intended publi-
 
  rafsi - short combining-forms     cation date of 1 April.  Issue #18
As of the publication date, we have 122 prepaid subscribers, and another 13 are receiving this issue as a grace issue. Since some people did not send money with subscription forms, the number of subscribers will drop to around 100 for JL18 (unless we hear from those listed as expiring this issue), and seems likely to stabilize at around that level until books are published. This is not enough to qualify for reduced postal rates, so our costs are higher than they have been for recent issues. However, US recipients are getting their issue by first class mail and hence probably far more quickly than previous bulk mail issues.
for the gismu;                     is already more than half done,
 
=== Finances ===
 
We lost money in 1992, as in previous years, a net loss for the year of around $1300. End-of-year cost savings, including delaying JL17 and LK17 until 1993, reduced this from an earlier deficit of $3000. We will need to have a fund-raising drive in 1993 in order to have money to publish the new Lojban books (as well as to support our continuing operations).
 
As of the end of December, income for the year was $8646.54 and expenses were $9999.01. This leaves about $2500 in the bank, of which somewhat over $1000 will go for JL17 and LK17. ($5500 of income was donated by Jeff Prothero and Lojbab, and went for legal fees. Thus, actual project income and expenses were only a fraction of previous years', around $3100 and $4500, respectively.)
 
Our IRS 501(c)(3) provisional status, authorizing us as a tax-free non-profit organization (and making your donations tax-deductible), is up for review as of the end of 1992. We expect that your support has been
 
sufficient to make our non-profit status permanent.
 
We are now paying some $30 per month to maintain Master Card/Visa processing capability, though we are looking for a cheaper way to offer this service. Our Master Card/Visa fee to you is being raised to 10% pending our finding an alternative. If finances get any worse and we have not found a cheaper alternative, credit card ordering services will be dropped.
 
With the successful ending of the legal battle with The Loglan Institute, we are getting close to paying off our legal bills, and expect to do so sometime in 1993. Since Lojbab and Jeff Prothero have been donating funds to cover those bills, the money has not come out of other la Lojbangirz. funds; thus paying the bill off won't really improve our financial situation (though we will have a good credit reference, at least). Legal costs have totalled over $12,000.
 
=== Athelstan's Status ===
 
There has been a good deal of support and sympathy expressed about Athelstan's accident. Early in December, he completed a course of recuperative therapy, and has moved out from his parents' house, is working part-time, and is starting to rebuild a life of his own. This will take some considerable time, and Athelstan will have to live a fairly structured life for a while to have his best chances for long-term recovery. He also continues to need major dental work, since he has lost nearly all of his teeth.
 
Athelstan attended the LogFest in August of 1992, for a few hours, and participated in a couple activities, and is doing some studying of the language on his own. However, it is clear that he will not be up to his pre-accident skill with the language for quite a while, and we do not expect him to resume his leadership role in the community at any time soon. Projects that he was working on, including the Lojban mini-lesson, continue to be delayed indefinitely.
 
=== Bob and Nora's Adoption ===
 
The biggest news out of Bob and Nora's house has little to do with Lojban except to help explain why so little is getting done.
 
On extremely short notice (an hour after they told me it might take 6 months), the adoption agency called in late August to tell me that they had found a pair of children for us to adopt from Russia, and that they wanted us to travel immediately. All of September was taken up with rushed travel preparations for a trip that seemed continually to be scheduled for "next week some time". These preparations were complicated by previously-scheduled surgery for Nora (who came through quite fine and is fully recovered, but the surgery meant that she could not go to Russia).
 
Finally I left for Russia on October 2, returning on October 18 with 2 beautiful and healthy children, brother and sister. Angela is 6 1/2 and Avgust is 5. They are energetic, intelligent, and there have been almost no problems in their adaptation. However, from late August until the kids started school in November, we got almost no Lojban work done, hence the delayed appearance of ju'i lobypli.
 
I've resumed work, but at a somewhat lower pace. It took most of a month then to get caught up on mail and paperwork that had lagged during that time; hopefully the last of the backlogged orders are going out in the mail with this issue. I expect a lag of some 3-4 months in the publishing of Lojban books, but John Cowan, Nick Nicholas and others have made tremendous efforts to keep the ball rolling on book preparation.
 
These days, we mostly speak Russian at home, despite the fact that neither Nora nor I speak it nearly as well as we speak Lojban. The kids are learning English very slowly (and Lojban even more slowly - they do spontaneously use "coi" and "co'o" to Lojban-oriented guests, though). Being forced to use a language in this way has been a real education in language acquisition, and I have much more recognition of what things help in self-teaching a language.
 
This will no doubt improve the teaching quality of our materials when they come out. I know that it has certainly changed my ideas what needs to go into the textbook. The proto-textbook that we've been working on won't be affected, and indeed nothing I've written for this draft of the textbook will need significant rewrite, but new sections to be written in the future will incorporate the lessons in language learning that I've acquired the hard way.
 
Lojban got a bit of a boost from my trip: Ivan Derzhanski did a high quality translation of the Lojban brochure into Russian on short notice (copies available on request); while in Russia, I was able to arrange to have it published in a journal in Russia, probably next autumn; the title is something like the "Transactions of the Society of Eastern and Oriental Languages". This will be the first academic publication about the Loglan project other than book reviews, which don't really count (Scientific American is considered insufficiently academic to have it count in Loglan's favor, and having an academic publication record is important in seeking grants). Special thanks are given to my Russian linguist consultant, Mikhael Maron, of the Institute for Russian Language in Moscow.
 
On Friday, October 16, I presented a 'seminar' on Lojban (basically a short talk with question-answering) to about 20 people at Moscow State University Dept. of Philology and Linguistics. These included three professors, Mikhail Maron (who arranged the talk with department chairman Professor Polikarpov), and several graduate students who are studying theoretical linguistics and also taking a 'practical English' class (Their teacher saw this as a good opportunity to practice, but the students seemed genuinely interested). A couple of students and the professors as well, especially department chairman Polikarpov, seemed particularly interested, and I made arrangements to continue discussions by electronic mail. There were many regrets that I could not stay longer in Moscow, arrange further discussions and visit laboratories, but the purpose of the trip was primarily for the kids, and they most certainly had to come first in my planning.
 
I also had discussions with the Academician leading Russia's efforts in machine translation. There was some interest, but his group right now must put financial concerns first - they have to find a way to commercialize (i.e. attract Western money), and there is little likelihood that we are going to be able to help in that.
 
=== LogFest 92 ===
 
The second (and main) LogFest 92 took place the weekend of 14-17 August 1992, and included the annual meeting of la lojbangirz. 16 people attended. As usual, Friday night was arrival night, with socializing and people coming in the door until well after midnight. Lojban-related activities started on Saturday and continued through Monday.
 
On Saturday, the Lojban community welcomed the return of Athelstan, who was able to attend for a few hours with the assistance of his parents. It will be a while yet before Athelstan can resume the major contributions to the Lojban effort that he was making before the accident, but having him show up at LogFest was a real morale booster for us, and probably also for him.
 
Athelstan was able to stay and serve as 'critic' while the summer '92 DC Lojban class and John Cowan helped present Nora's operettina "le ci cribe" (text in le lojbo ciska below), for lojbo verba of all ages. As with the previous effort of this kind, Cinderelwood (1989), our low budget, low practice, production group set a new standard for lojbo draci, but aren't about to hit Broadway in the near future. The Lojbanic lyrics went well with the collections of children's songs to which the playlet was set, and some hasty but serious practice efforts before the presentation meant that the actors sang their lines without stumbling. Athelstan the critic gave it a thumbs up before departing; we'll be looking forward to his next visit.
 
Another Saturday activity was the discussion of the Lojban Kalevala project (see separate article). All in all, we tried to keep Saturday a little bit light, knowing that Sunday's business meeting was likely to be long and emotionally draining (as have all of our annual business meetings). Thus, discussions stayed in English, and ranged over a wide variety of topics related to the Lojban effort.
 
==== Business meeting ====
 
The business meeting started at 9:30AM Sunday morning. We had several key people missing, as pc had business matters in Arizona to take care of, John Hodges' car broke down at the last minute, and Art Wieners was called back to work from vacation for a crisis that made him unavailable all weekend. However, all of these people had made their positions clear on the issues at hand, and the meeting proceeded surprising well. The following summarizes the results of the meeting:
 
==== Organizational ====
 
Nick Nicholas and Colin Fine were elected as the first non-US voting members of LLG. We consider all of the Lojban community to be part of LLG, but we have to have a clearly defined voting membership for legal purposes to manage organizational matters. Also added were David Young, Sylvia Rutiser, and David Twery. Jeff Taylor, who hasn't actively participated for the last couple of years, was dropped as a voting member. To make clear the nature of voting membership, a resolution was passed explicitly stating on the record that voting members should consider themselves as representing the community at-large, and not just themselves, in matters that are decided.
 
Several bylaw changes were made, all relating to procedures involved in holding members' and Board of Directors' meetings when we are so geographically dispersed and several members cannot be physically present for the meeting, especially the overseas members; we do not want inability to attend LogFest to prevent people from participating in the LLG decision-making, especially such major technical contributors as Nick and Colin. These bylaw changes are an evolving process, as we adapt to LLG's continuing growth and international spread; every year, we seem to need a few more changes to meet new problems that have arisen. Copies of the current LLG Bylaws are available at cost to any member of the community.
 
Bob and Nora LeChevalier, John Cowan, and pc were re-elected to the LLG Board of Directors, and in a brief meeting of the Board after the members' meeting, Bob was reelected President of LLG, pc as Vice President, and Nora as Secretary/Treasurer.
 
==== Negotiations with TLI ====
 
The major political issue at the meeting was the determination of LLG policy towards The Loglan Institute and JCB, now that the legal battle over trademark status of the name 'Loglan' is over. There have been some initial efforts towards a negotiation between the two groups, with both sides expressing an interest in reuniting the effort behind a single version of the language.
 
The efforts haven't gone far, since TLI wants LLG to disband and merge into TLI behind its version of Loglan. la lojbangirz. is committed to Lojban, which is a much superior version of the language, and we have a larger group of people actually doing something with the language. The membership showed extreme distrust towards TLI, voting to insist on two key preconditions to further negotiations:
 
a) Both organizations must sign a binding agreement preventing legal action resulting from further negotiations; the members want to be sure that TLI's offers to negotiate are bona fide and not an attempt to set us up for a lawsuit.
 
b) TLI must drop its 'trade secret' protection on all aspects of its design for its version of the language. LLG being committed to the freedom of the Loglan community to freely use the language howsoever they choose, the members felt that a 'secret' grammar is anathema to the concept of a large community of people using a constructed language, especially one intended for scientific research. It is felt that no real progress can be made on possible merger of the two languages while TLI continued to keep theirs secret where neither TLI nor LLG supporters could see the language details and evaluate them on their merits.
 
The voting membership seems open to negotiations provided that TLI demonstrated bona fide intent by meeting the preconditions. However, there is little sentiment for significant change in Lojban as part of a merger of languages; we collectively believe that the Lojban design is far superior to anything the TLI designers might have come up with in the past couple of years since the last good information about their version of the language.
 
I proposed a strategy for remerger of the efforts starting with the adoption of alternative ways of writing the two language versions so that they resemble each other in appearance, thus making cosmetic appearance not an issue (as it appears to be for JCB) when the two languages are essentially the same in the structures that determine how the language looks on paper. John Cowan has proposed an alternate orthography for Loglan/Lojban, allowing it to look in print very much like TLI Loglan. (see separate article).
 
Following such an initial step, each organization would study in depth the two language versions looking for similarities and differences. We would try to convince TLI to adopt our changes into their language, and they presumably would try to convince us to adopt their design where we differ. Vocabulary lists are likely to be the major unresolvable issue under this approach. When the review is completed, the decision of which vocabulary list and which version of any unresolved differences to go with would be voted on by the supporters of each version. If one version wins the vote in both organizations, then the language versions have remerged. Otherwise, the two organizations go their separate ways, but with languages presumably much closer together.
 
It is the collective belief of the LLG membership that if no merger takes place, that TLI will fade away eventually. LLG members expressed an unwillingness to accept changes in Lojban that in any way detract from the current design - any evolution of Lojban would have to be a positive one, and we have no reason to believe that there are any differences between the two languages wherein changing Lojban to match TLI Loglan would enhance the language.
 
Faced with lengthy negotiations even if TLI meets our necessary preconditions, the voting membership reiterated its intent that we publish the books defining the Lojban design that are currently in preparation, noting that as each book is published it will further cement us in a position wherein we cannot accept changes to the language in concession to TLI. Thus the ball is in TLI's court and they will have to move fast if they wish to have any significant chance of influencing the direction of a future combined effort.
 
(Initial signs are not optimistic for further reduction in hostilities. TLI formed a public mailing list similar to Lojban List on the computer networks, but then apparently went to considerable lengths to prevent Lojbab from participating, eliminating the public nature of the list and virtually shutting it down - apparently for fear that some of their trade secrets will get to me.)
 
==== Forthcoming Books ====
 
There was lengthy and emotional debate on the continuing delays in getting the prototype and baseline books out. Many Lojbanists are waiting for the books, convinced either that they cannot learn the language without the books, or that the language will change after they've learned it, if they learn the language before it is set down in the books. Our very conservative baseline approach does not satisfy these people; only the books will do.
 
The voting membership thus forced John Cowan and me to more strongly commit to getting the books done as quickly as possible, and to avoid changes to the language definition except insofar as glitches come to light during book writing. We expected to have the proto-dictionary done before the end of the year, with the proto-textbook and introductory book following soon after. (This was before the kids came along, forcing a few more months delay). John Cowan's papers will be assembled into a reference grammar to conclude the initial design documents. We are trying to have all 4 books done within a year, though John's book will be the slowest to be completed.
 
John believes that after these books are completed, there will likely be no further changes to the language, and we will go immediately into the long-term design-ending baseline. I (Lojbab) continue to intend to produce a real textbook and dictionary (of which the first two books are indeed 'prototypes') that will define the baseline, but John and others doubt that this will happen in a timely manner, and that the proto-books will be the ones used in the baseline. I have agreed that the bottom line on the book publication will be how fast we can get them written, coupled with the finances of publishing, and not my goals to produce more 'perfect' non-proto versions of the books. This, and a renewed commitment to stop fiddling with the language design, mollified some very frustrated and impatient Lojban supporters.
 
The conclusion is that the community very strongly wants the language to be done, and usable, and does not care whether the language is any closer to perfect than it currently is. I stand on record as recognizing that sentiment of the community as expressed by the membership, that has elected me to lead the effort.
 
==== Baseline Status/Language Design ====
 
The membership voted to update the grammar baseline as of the proto-dictionary publication, to include changes approved by the technical committee that has been reviewing those changes (which are all considered relatively minor by the members). The rafsi and cmavo lists will also be baselined when the book is published, incorporating the current reviews, and the intent is to baseline the morphology algorithm published in JL16 after updating it for wording errors found when we coded it up - John Cowan wants to have the algorithm fully coded and verified before making a baseline commitment, and we are still working on this. With all of these baselines, the only significant language feature that will not be baselined are the gismu place structures, although it is believed that the simple fact of putting those into the book will effectively baseline them as well (the difference to me is that I don't want to feel obligated to defend a stupidity that we missed in the place structure simply because we made a promise not to change. There are known weaknesses in other aspects of the Lojban design, but no major ones, and those known are not considered open for change because of our baseline commitment to avoid change where possible.
 
The two gismu proposed in JL16, vukro and slovo, were added to the gismu baseline, along with four new gismu for metric prefixes reflecting their addition to the international metric standard.
 
As part of the rafsi review in progress, there emerged strong feeling that the gismu for "daytime" as distinct from "day" (= 24 hours) should have good rafsi, which was not possible without severe tradeoffs given the word (dinri) that resulted when the word was generated last year using the word-making algorithm. As was done in the case of "less than", which was changed last year from "ckamu" to "mleca" because of the need for a good rafsi, the membership approved that this word be changed, disregarding the scoring algorithm if necessary. This was considered acceptable only because the word is a new one added just last year and is neither in common use yet nor even reflected in our published lists. To minimize relearning difficulty, John Cowan and I opted to change only a single letter, and the gismu for 'daytime' is now "donri", with rafsi "dor" and "do'i". The membership approved this change.
 
That was it for the members meeting. We also had two committee meetings, one to correlate the results of the rafsi review, and the other to allocate the $142 received last winter in donations specifically to support active, non-paying Lojbanists who cannot afford to pay for materials. The money was allocated toward 2-issue subscriptions for several people, with the hope that our finances have improved after 2 issues and more money is available to help such people out at that point.
 
John Cowan has put together a new parser based on the current set of proposed grammar changes, which are expected to be approved, and it will hopefully be tested thoroughly in coming weeks by some key people who write a lot of Lojban text.
 
Sunday night and Monday were spent in more Lojbanic activities, a little conversation, and going over a writing effort by David Twery. By then everyone was exhausted, as another busy and successful Logfest came to an end.
 
==== Next Year ====
 
We're not sure what LogFest will be like in 1993, given the patter of little feet around here, and haven't set a date for LogFest 93. We hope that there'll be more in-language activities, and at least one of the books should be out by then. Given the addition to our family, we're hoping others coming to LogFest will bring their families too.
 
There's a possibility for a weekend gathering in 1993 which will be an all-Lojban affair, with no English permitted. This is an ambitious undertaking - the language is ready for it though. The major factor will be the effect of our kids on our time. At the moment, Nora and my Lojban skills have deteriorated in favor of Russian.
 
But the critical factor in such a weekend is vocabulary, vocabulary, vocabulary. The summer Lojban class here covered most of the grammar in seven 2-hour sessions, but no one had nearly enough vocabulary command to converse. Hopefully with this weekend gathering as a goal, those of the community who want to see the language brought to life will get to work on their word lists and LogFlash, and try to be here if we can put this weekend together. If we don't manage it in 1993, we will surely try in 1994, when Nick Nicholas has threatened to visit from Australia.
 
=== Other News ===
 
==== DC Class ====
 
During the summer we held a weekly class in Lojban here in Fairfax. Five students participated, although two of them, Sylvia Rutiser and Tommy Whitlock, were primarily freshening up their skills. Of the other three, two completed the class and have continued actively participating in Lojban weekly conversations.
 
==== DC Weekly Group ====
 
After the conclusion of the summer class, the DC conversation group resumed weekly meetings, continuing even through Nora's recovery from surgery and Lojbab's trip to Russia. Typically, activities split 50/50 between conversation each session and discussions of texts written by the group members or on Lojban List. When less experienced Lojbanists are present, we assign one-on-one "mentors" who aid them by coaching them in what people are saying, and helping them say what they would like in the language. Thus everyone gets to participate.
 
More recently, since Lojbab's return from Russia, some (rather light-hearted) efforts have been made to introduce our two kids to Lojban; this is necessitated by their domination of everyone's attention until bedtime. We suspended meetings for the December holiday season, partly in order to get the kids better settled so that we can focus more on the language during weekly sessions, and partly to try to arrange a more convenient schedule for participants. After the first of the year, weekly sessions will resume, probably on Monday or Tuesday evenings. Lojbanists in the DC area may contact Lojbab at 703-385-0273 if you would like to visit or start regular participation in this group - you need not have significant skill in the language to gain from participation, but you should in that case be planning some self-study at other times during the week.
 
==== Bradford Group ====
 
Colin Fine has started a study group in Bradford, England, the first regularly meeting Lojban group outside of the US. I don't have many details on numbers of participants, but the group has produced a significant amount of Lojban text.
 
==== First International Conversation ====
 
I am pleased to report a major milestone in the Lojban project - a most surprising one indeed at the time it happened.
 
One Monday evening in September, I received a telephone call. I had been studying Russian about 10 hours straight at the time I got this call. And what do I hear on the line but a collection of traji cizra (superlatively strange) beeps and clicks and this unusual bunch of words coming at me. They weren't Russian (and this itself was baffling, because I'd already gotten 2 calls today from people with heavy Russian accents who were offering me information and advice related to my forthcoming trip, in response to a computer network posting).
 
It finally dawned on me that someone was talking Lojban at me. Except for intermittent sentences in an otherwise English conversation, no one has ever spoken conversational Lojban to me on the telephone except Nora, and she was sitting next to me.
 
Alas, I was attempting to understand, and my Lojban totally failed me, partly from shock, and partly from the fact that as I attempted to form Lojban sentences, Russian words kept creeping into them in my mind, and this hodgepodge of jborusko (Lojbanic-Russian) just wouldn't be communicative; but I couldn't tune out the Russian. Finally I asked the other end of the line to repeat, and I made out the words nik. nikolas. and sralo, and I suddenly understood all the clicks and beeps. The first international telephone call in Lojban, and I was talking to Nick Nicholas in Australia.
 
I'm afraid we never got more than a couple of sentences exchanged - my brain just would not click into Lojban mode. But I can testify that Lojban now has people who have demonstrated conversational competence with the spoken language on two continents. There is no doubt in my mind that the sralo accent on the other end of the line was speaking quite good Lojban, and at a fluency that would stand him well in our weekly sessions in Washington DC. (Nick has promised to visit us in 1994, when he completes his degree work in college.)
 
After the shock slowly ebbed from my mind, I got enough presence to suggest that this would have worked better if the call had been the following night, when the weekly DC group met. So I was told that I should prepare people for just such a call.
 
Here is Nick's recollection of the actual conversation, with commentary:
 
<blockquote>
Robert LeChevalier? Yah. [Lojbab: A good answer in all three languages.] .i mi'e nitcion. nikolas. i mi fonxa tavla ra'i la australias. mu'i lenu rinsa do pu lenu do cliva la rusko.
 
(The "cliva" is wrong, obviously, and "ra'i" isn't very smart, but hey, I'd been walking a lot :)
 
Thereupon Goodman LeChevalier said "... a couple of words of that sound vaguely familiar; please repeat." I did; this time I was la nik. nikolas, ra'i la sralo...
 
Ladies and Gentlemen, Robert has learnt his cmavo well: his ".ua" was as good as any exclamation James Brown (let alone James Cooke Brown) could come up with :) Duckcall-like, in fact :)
 
I started chuckling ("hehehehe"), then quickly corrected myself: ".u'i.u'i.u'i"
 
A good thing too that Bob's brain wouldn't click into Lojban mode, because, as I said to him (er... four times, the fourth in English :), mi na djuno da poi mi bilga lenu cusku ke'a (once more, in writing that would be a "ledu'u mi bilga lenu cusku dakau", but whatever).
 
Stunned silence followed, then a bit of small talk, then I talked to Nora, and it went a little bit like this:
 
coi coi noras .i ?xu do kanro [an IDIOT question in Lojban, but cut me slack already, I'm new at speaking the damn language :) ]
 
.i mi kanro .i ?xu DO kanro
 
.i pe'i go'i
 
[I really aspirated them apostrophes; I can't remember if Bob or Nora did.] .i mi jinvi lenu do xagmau mi lenu cusku [I think it was "cusku"; I remember at being surprised, not so much at the lujvo, as at the fact that it was followed immediately by a pronoun, without a preposition. Two years of written Lojban, and now I notice the absence of "than"?!] .i .u'i ?xu go'i .i mi ruble go'i
 
[I'm trying to be a smartass in Lojban, and it's not quite working. The word I was looking for was "ru'e".]
 
Mind you, the bad acoustics and my lack of familiarity with spoken Lojban meant that I had to search a bit to determine what was being said (by Bob, at least). From what I remember though, I got through all right.
 
Lojbab, I believe, farewelled me with a "co'o" (ah yes, he does aspirate them heavily), and I responded with a "co'osai". I didn't mean by that that I was glad to be rid of you, honest! :)
 
We'll have to have something to talk about for me to be convinced that we can converse intelligibly. I can see why the differences between Washington and net Lojban exist though: good phrasing just doesn't come to you spontaneously, much less good bracketing. I'm not going to let this worry me about the future of the language yet, mind you...
 
The kind of halting Lojban I was getting from Fairfax reminded me of the Esperanto beginners I occasionally tutor. The kind of Lojban I was getting out of myself reminded me of the aplomb with which I used to face Esperanto when finding myself in a position of linguistic expertise, but minus the actual expertise... :)
 
Oh yeah, that's the other thing I said, when he mentioned the Russian on the mind: "Ya ne gavaryu pa-ruskii" :)
</blockquote>
 
The following night, Colin Fine joined in the act, calling about an hour before Nick made his second call (which was considerably more communicative than the first one. Thus in one night we had three continents speaking Lojban. Again, international beeps and whistle gummed up the conversation, but Colin was quite understandable (if a bit briefer than Nick, who seemed to be feeling rich to want to talk so long). I have to say that Nick has a jump on Colin in fluency of speech, but nothing a little practice won't make up for, and Colin does have some people local to him to practice with.
 
[On aspiration of ': in some words I heavily aspirate it, like co'o, and other vowel pairs with matching vowels. In others I aspirate a bit less. Nick enunciates his vowels far more clearly than most of us speaking the language.]
 
I didn't feel so bad at not parsing Nick's sentences after he confessed the mistakes he made. I am particularly bad at correcting others' errors in spoken Lojban, especially at conversational speed. This is one major failing I have at teaching the language. If you screw up, I don't understand you, because I am parsing in my head, translating to Lojbanized English and then understanding. The wrong cmavo, or even one no one has used in speech to me before (which Nick did several of), brings the parser in my head to a screeching halt, but Nick kept going. (I have the same trouble with spoken Russian: I hear a word I don't recognize right off, and I completely lose the next 2 sentences trying to figure it out.)
 
Colin Fine offered that any Lojbanist who wanted to try a call was welcome to call him. His telephone number is currently (+044) 0274-503168. Nick Nicholas noted that those with access to the Internet can effectively practice conversational Lojban by computer, using a software system called "IRC" (Internet Relay Chat). For those with such access, it might be useful practice; the speed of conversational typing is far less than the speed of talking, and not as prone to errors in hearing. Contact us by e-mail at the address on page 2 if you are interested in IRC 'conversation and have access to that service on the networks.
 
==== Phone Game ====
 
The "phone game", a computer network Lojban activity described last issue, made it through three rounds, but then stalled on the fourth round - one person who signed up dropped out after the game started, and several of the more experienced people participating in previous rounds had other activities to occupy them in summer. By the end of August, we decided to suspend the game, since a replacement activity, the Lojban coffeehouse project described below, had captured everyone's imaginations. We may start new rounds at some future time when we get some new people interested in participating.
 
==== The Loglan Institute ====
 
After our victory in the appeals court in LLG's trademark dispute with The Loglan Institute (see last issue), there remained the possibility that TLI would continue the legal battle. We are happy to report that this seems not to be the case, and the trademark issue is dead. People may use the word "Loglan" freely in talking about all aspects of our 37 year old project, including Lojban, without needing permission from TLI. Indeed, it seems that both organizations will now be able to turn away from the legal system as a method of resolving our disagreements over the course of the Loglan Project.
 
Preliminary discussions have led to a "truce" in our disputes, with a possibility that there will be future interest in negotiating an active reconciliation and remerger of our efforts. Unfortunately, at this time both sides remain far apart on how such a reconciliation might be accomplished.
 
Details on la lojbangirz. policy with regard to negotiations were discussed at LogFest and can be found in the article on that meeting.
 
We intend to continue to fairly report on what we hear from TLI, and hope that our non-hostile demeanor will cause TLI's people to more actively seek reunification within the Loglan community.
 
== Language Development Status ==
 
=== gismu ===
 
Six gismu were added at LogFest, as described in the article on that meeting. Other than these changes, there have been no new gismu proposals, and indeed, the draft set of revised place structures has generated little criticism. Thus, we consider the gismu list stable enough for book publication.
 
=== lujvo ===
 
Nick Nicholas has spent a lot of time in the last 6 months doing a thorough review of some 2700 lujvo that have been used or proposed for use in Lojban text. He has analyzed these by origin, indicated their quality (and occasionally proposed better replacements), and analyzed them to determine probable place structures based on analysis and actual usage. As a result, the proto-dictionary will likely have many more entries than we had originally planned, since I intend to incorporate as much of Nick's work as possible.
 
=== Grammar ===
 
The grammar is of course baselined and frozen until we make updates and republish it in the Lojban books. Because we want the books to reflect the grammar after the books are done, we do our writing based on that next revision of the grammar. Indeed, most of the change proposal come out of the detailed analysis that John Cowan does in writing his reference grammar essays.
 
There are now 27 minor changes planned for that revision, all but 5 being extensions to the language. Because of the delays in publishing books and the fact that many active Lojbanists are incorporating new features in their Lojban writings, JL18 will include a revised E-BNF and a complete summary of all the changes since the last baseline. John Cowan believes that only a couple more changes of even this minor scale are likely prior to baselining for book publication; his estimates are reasonable, since he is the one who has proposed almost all of the ones in this set of changes. Of the changes listed, only one was considered by experienced Lojbanists to be important. However, even that change was easily taught to students last summer within one class session.
 
=== Morphology ===
 
Last issue, we printed the draft Lojban formal morphology algorithm. Nora has been working to implement and text the algorithm in software, and has found several errors in the algorithm as printed in the issue. The problems are not with Lojban, but rather are errors in the way various steps are worded. The dictionary/reference book will have a version of the algorithm that passes Nora's software analysis. Meanwhile, we print a short discussion that gives a simpler, plain-English rendition of the algorithm:
 
And Rosta asks:
 
<blockquote>
Has anyone conducted an experiment to verify that word-boundaries are identifiable, even if you don't know what the words mean? If I were to hear a recording of rapid spoken Lojban, could I, equipped only with the word segmentation rules, identify all the word boundaries?
</blockquote>
 
Yes you could. Ideally a computer could. If you cannot, it is due to human limitations in analysis, not to ambiguity in the algorithm. These limitations might prove to be real, since there are some obvious ways to concoct utterances that will lead a listener down a primrose path:
 
mi viska le prenu is a valid sentence /miVISkalePREnu/ miviskaleprenus is a name /miVISkalePREnus/
 
but you can't distinguish them till the end.
 
No we haven't tested the algorithm in any rigorous or experimental sense. There have been informal analyses, and of course we have people conversing who have no problems.
 
The short form of the algorithm is:
 
# Pauses are word breaks.
# Identify names by going backwards from 'consonant + pause' to preceding "la" or "doi" or "lai" or word break/start of text.
# Among remaining text, start from the left looking for consonant clusters which mean that you are in a brivla (predicate word). Any number of leading CV and CVV syllables fall off a permissible initial cluster, each forming separate cmavo. In a brivla, find the stressed syllable, then, since that is penultimate, take one syllable more, ending in a vowel.
 
=== rafsi ===
 
The analysis of Lojban rafsi, mentioned in the discussion of LogFest above, was not completed until just before publication of this issue, primarily due to Bob's travels. We intend to publish a lengthy article and the revised list with JL18, so that all people can switch to the new baseline at that time.
 
== Structural Ambiguity in English and Lojban ==
by Dan Maxwell and John Cowan
 
[Dan is an Esperantist, linguist, and programmed on the DLT machine translation project. John Cowan is an LLG leader, and responds to Dan with the indented notes.]
 
It is obviously true that words which never change their form are easier to handle than ones which do change their form, but at the level of the sentence it is often the case that the forms of words are useful indicators of the relationships between the words. Here are some examples of structural ambiguity in English, some of which could be solved by more "signposts" on the words.
 
:: Here are various Lojban translations, showing how Lojban resolves the ambiguities of the English examples. Lojban words never change in form for grammatical purposes, although many root words have shortened forms for use in making compounds (the underlying roots can be uniquely reconstructed from the compound).
 
1. I saw the linguist with the binoculars ('with the binoculars' can be taken with either 'saw' or 'linguist'.). This problem comes up quite often, although context or the meanings of the words often serve to disambiguate for human beings but not for computers.
 
1.1) mi viska le banskeju'o sepi'o le reldanvistci
      I see the language-science-knower using the two-far-see-tool.
 
1.2) mi viska le banskeju'o pe sepi'o le reldanvistci
      I see the language-science-knower which-is using the two-far-see-tool.
 
:: In 1.1, the prepositional phrase (tagged sumti, in Lojban jargon) is attached to the entire predication. In 1.2, the relative-phrase particle "pe" glues the prepositional phrase to the preceding noun phrase. Of course, other interpretations are possible, each with its Lojban expansion:
 
1.3) mi viska le banskeju'o joi le reldanvistci
      I see the language-science-knower joined-with the two-far-see-tool.
 
:: This denotes seeing the two objects jointly.
 
1.4) mi viska le banskeju'o poi kansa le reldanvistci
      I see the language-science-knower who accompanies the two-far-see-tool.
 
:: Here the linguist is "with" the binoculars in the sense of carrying them or being near them, not using them.
 
2. Old men and women ('old' can be taken with either 'men' or 'men and women'). This is perhaps the second most frequent type of structural ambiguity in languages like English. Signposts on the words can solve some classes of this problem, i.e if the two nouns are singular and the adjective when taken with both is plural.
 
:: Since Lojban is a predicate language, I will recast this example as a predication, which involves changing the "and" to an "or", thus: "The soldiers are old men or women." Using "and" would limit the soldiers to such individuals as are both old men and women; since no individual is both a man and a woman, that translation would be incorrect.
 
2.1) le sonci cu to'ercitno nanmu ja ninmu
      the soldiers are-anti-young men or women
 
2.2) le sonci cu ke to'ercitno nanmu ke'e ja ninmu
      the soldiers (are-anti-young men) or are-women
 
2.3) le sonci cu to'ercitno bo nanmu ja ninmu
      the soldiers are-anti-young-men or are-women
 
:: Normally, logical connection binds more tightly than simple modification in Lojban, so 2.1 means "old (men or women)". To change this rule, we may use the explicit parenthesis words "ke" and "ke'e" as in 2.2, or the high-precedence infix marker "bo" as in 2.3. Lojban often allows both forethought and afterthought forms of expression; parentheses are more general but require more preplanning and may be more difficult to use in colloquial speech.
 
3. Army demands change (Is 'demands' a noun or a verb?). This problem comes up in all languages in which words do not have different forms for different parts of speech or a given marker like English 's' is ambiguous.
 
:: I would star this example as dubious English: it is really "headlinese" and depends on omitting the article. But even after revision to "The army demands change", it is still ambiguous. The Lojban versions are:
 
3.1) le jenmi cu cpedu lo nunbinxo
      the army requests an event-of-change
 
3.2) le jenmi se cpedu cu binxo
      the army-type-of requested-thing changes
 
:: "binxo" signifies a transformative change, as when ice changes to water. A mere change in the amount or intensity of a property, on the other hand, is "cenba".
 
:: "cpedu" is "A requests/demands B" and "se cpedu" is "B is requested/demanded by A", so "se cpedu" is needed in 3.2 to refer to that which is requested rather than the requester.
 
4. Flying planes can be dangerous (Does 'flying' modify 'planes', or is 'planes' the object of the gerund 'flying'?).
 
4.1) lo vofli vinji ka'e ckape
      some flyer-type-of airplanes can-be perilous
 
4.2) lenu vofli be lo vinji ka'e ckape
      the event-of flying some airplanes can-be perilous
 
:: Lojban's careful distinction between concrete and abstract arguments pays off here.
 
5. The hunting of the tigers (Are the tigers the hunters or the hunted?).
 
5.1) lenu le tirxu cu kalte
      the event-of the tiger(s) hunting
 
5.2) lenu le tirxu cu se kalte
      the event-of the tiger(s) being hunted
 
:: These may be collapsed to compounds:
 
5.3) le nuntirxykalte
 
5.4) le nuntirxyselkalte
 
6. The picture of the student that I liked (Does the relative clause go with 'picture' or 'student?') Languages with inflected relative pronouns might be able to avoid this type, at least if the two nouns are not in the same class.
 
6.1) le pixra be le tadni poi mi nelci ke'a
      the picture of (the student such-that I like him)
 
6.2) le pixra be le tadni be'o poi mi nelci ke'a
      the (picture of the student) such-that I like it
 
:: Note that Lojban relative clauses are of the Hebrew type, with a marker at the beginning of the clause ("poi") and a pronoun within the clause referring back to the relativized argument ("ke'a").
:: 6.1 and 6.2 differ by the presence of the right-bracket word "be'o". An omitted right-bracket word acts as if it appears as far to the right as possible; thus 6.1 is equivalent to:
 
6.3) le pixra be le tadni poi mi nelci ke'a be'o
 
:: In both 6.2 and 6.3, the "be"..."be'o" construct indicates the subordinated argument of the subordinated predication "is a picture of". In 6.1/6.3, the argument is "the student such-that I like him" whereas in 6.2, the argument is merely "the student" and the subordinated argument is then cut off, leaving "such-that I like it" to modify the whole (top-level) argument.
 
Sentence 1 would not be ambiguous in Esperanto, since there happen to be two different prepositions ('kun' and 'per') in this case. But this general type of ambiguity is found in Esperanto as well.
 
As I show above, the 'per' interpretation is possible even if "linguist" is taken to be the attachment point, giving something like "I see the linguist who is doing something with (using) the binoculars".
 
Sentence 2 would indeed be ambiguous in Esperanto, at least in the most usual translation. Sentence 3 would definitely not be ambiguous, because different parts of speech are marked by different endings. Sentence 4 would also not be ambiguous, because participles have different endings than nominalized verbs. In 5, it depends on how careful the speaker is being. There is a tendency to use the same preposition in both cases, but there is also a commonly used alternative for the subject reading. The translation of 6 would be ambiguous in Esperanto as well.
 
:: As shown above, none of these are ambiguous in Lojban, and all of the Lojban forms given above are natural unstrained forms.
 
Inflection-based grammar developed in historical times; it is probably an example of the way the human mind seeks complexity. Any language, including Esperanto, that developed prior to the emergence of Information Technology, is 'historical' in this sense. The formal grammar and agreement present in such pre-computer-era languages has proved to be almost impossible to process.
 
Esperanto, especially our modified version of it in DLT, was much easier to parse than English, due largely to the ways of avoiding ambiguity in sentences like the ones mentioned above, among others, even though English is presumably less inflection-based than some consider Esperanto to be. Actually, Esperanto is not inflection-based in the sense that Latin, Russian, and German are. There are certain morphemes which are written as one word with the root, but these morphemes do not vary according to noun class, etc. and the form of the root never changes. So it would be more accurate to say that Esperanto is an agglutinative language like Turkish or Japanese. The essential difference between Esperanto and Glosa [ed.: another artificial language] is that in Esperanto many of the signposts are written as part of the same word, whereas in Glosa they are always written as a separate word. But in both languages the signposts have exactly one form.
 
:: Lojban function words may be written free or compounded as a mere matter of orthography. Lojban content words (predicates) may be compounded and taken apart again unambiguously, but the compounds are not identified with their underlying word sequences, although there is naturally a close semantic relationship.
 
Parsing algorithms started out with a simple L-R sequential approach, because this is the way language works, at its basic level.
 
I guess it's usually true that programming languages operate sequentially, but they also have braces and so on to tell us what goes with what.
 
:: Lojban has braces of various sorts, but achieves naturalness (unlike most programming languages) by a systematic mechanism for eliding right terminators where no ambiguity (as rigorously tested by a parsing algorithm) can result.
 
Function words in natural languages are not generally as specific as the devices used by programmers. "that" (if you know it's not the pronoun) tells us that a new clause is beginning, but doesn't tell you what this clause goes with or where it ends. I think this kind of problem can be found to varying degrees in any constructed language invented so far.
 
<pre style="text-align: center">
Except Lojban, where there is never any doubt.
</pre>
 
This is nevertheless not a serious problem for speakers, because they have context and meaning to help disambiguate (most of the time). But if we are constructing languages which can be used by computers as well as humans, then we have to make our signposts more explicit or we have to wait until computational linguists like me, the AI people who work on human language, and our programmer colleagues find ways to make computers understand meaning and context as well as humans do. These are the real stumbling blocks for computers much more than complex declensions and conjugations.
 
:: Agreed. Lojban provides an unambiguous syntax to clear away questions of syntax early, thus allowing the effort to be spent on semantics, the true heart of language.
 
[In response to further comments that English and Esperanto can also make disambiguations parallel to the Lojban versions, it was explained that the key point is that not only are the Lojban versions unambiguous, but that these are the simple and natural expressions to be used and that furthermore there are NO versions of these sentences in Lojban that DO express the ambiguities of the original sentences.]
 
== Lojban Fluency? ==
 
Ken Miner (a linguist at the University of Kansas) made the following comment about Lojban on the computer news-group "sci.lang". Lojbanist Ivan Derzhanski, also a linguist, responded [indented]:
 
A friendly comment: this project [Lojban] ought also to be of interest to linguists concerned with universals.
 
<pre style="text-align: center">
It ought, oughtn't it?
</pre>
 
It would be of interest if human beings could learn to speak and understand it fluently; it would be of even greater interest if children could acquire it from their parents.
 
:: If it is true that natural (and planned but natural-like, such as Esperanto) human languages are learnable only because they are built upon a hardwired structure (Universal Grammar), then Lojban should not be learnable in the natural way, as it violates much if not most of what is currently thought of as being universal. I'm afraid that we won't get away with running an experiment, though, as its side effects may include a few language-impaired kids, if my expectations are correct.
 
I dunno - consider A. N. Prior, a guy who has written a lot on tense logic: he uses symbolic logic in the Polish notation, which is sort of like Japanese syntax backwards. With a little practice, you can start thinking in it in a sense - you become "fluent" in it, as he is. (You have to, to read his works.)
 
No natural language has a syntax like an SOV language backwards (go ahead, somebody, pounce; note that it wouldn't be like the rare VOS type at all). Yet you can learn to process it. Ditto for master programers. All that's lacking is a spoken form...
 
:: Certainly you can learn to think in it (and you can become fluent in it), but the kind of learning it takes is quite different, isn't it, from a child's acquisition of his first language. I'm not convinced that you could have learned symbolic logic in your mother's lap, using the same miraculous language acquisition mechanism that you used to learn English ("for although we've been talking since we were three, / how anyone can is a big mystery"). Neither am I convinced that you couldn't; I'm just wondering.
:: And it just might be the case that you must use the first few years of your life to acquire some natural or natural-like language, and if you don't, you'll never be able to learn any later on. I'm not sure that a child whose only native language is symbolic logic won't grow up as a live computer, fluent in that system, but unable to deal with natural language. Again, I'm not sure of the opposite either. Project "Mowgli", anyone?
 
Maybe some people have learned to speak Lojban fluently. That alone would be interesting. It certainly ought to be worth fooling around with.
 
:: So far all of those who can generate and understand Lojban text have learnt it as a foreign language, moreover, as an incarnation of predicate logic, to which all have had a prior theoretic exposure. That's not how we learnt our respective first languages.
 
[Bruce Gilson then noted that Lojban is not actually spoken fluently by anyone, even by Lojbab. Ken commented:]
 
That's a very interesting datum. I wonder if anyone or any group became fluent in the earlier Loglan? When you consider that this project has been around since 1955, and that some of its primary goals sort of depend on this very thing...
 
I'd like to hear more about this. Does LeChevalier himself say he does not really qualify as fluent, or is that your judgment, and if the latter, roughly what criteria for fluency were you applying?
 
[I responded with the following:]
 
Bruce is correct that no one is fluent in Lojban, and that I am the most fluent in the language, but not really 'fluent' in the sense that linguists use the term.
 
:: The state of the art improves all of the time, of course. I can state rather categorically that there was no real fluency in any previous version of Loglan. Indeed, Lojban is the first version to really support the needs of conversation. JCB reports having had conversation sessions back in the late 70s, but I've talked to participants in those 'conversations', and I think heard some tapes once or was told about them. Basically a lot of dead silence with sounds of paper shuffling, because no one other than JCB had enough vocabulary solid to even make a sentence without looking up one or more words in a word list. There was 'conversation' only that there was no resort to English. The bulk of the sessions was groping, in Loglan, to find the right words that someone could understand.
:: That was 15 years ago.
:: In 1987, after only 6 months, my wife and I reached the same point with the then-budding Lojban version. On our honeymoon, without word lists, and each of us knowing around 300 words (but often not overlapping), we were able to 'converse' for about an hour with no word lists, using repetition, pointing, and paraphrase to get across the words we didn't know. It seemed very much like the process whereby one might learn a language my total immersion. But we tried it only once.
:: In 1989, 5 of us sustained conversation, with word lists, for about 4 hours. By that time I knew the vocabulary well enough that I rarely used the word list. A couple of months later, we had several such sustained conversations, while driving from Washington to Boston, but with Nora and I both not using word lists. Early in 1991, we started having weekly conversation sessions in Lojban, typically 1-2 hours, in which relatively little use of word lists occurred by the 4 main participants. However, we usually had at least one less skilled person present, and not using word lists did not mean that people didn't have to stop typically once or twice in each sentence to think of the word they wanted, and repeat things once or twice for those who missed something. These conversations lasted until one of the 4 was injured in an auto accident last Feb., leaving us with only 3 regulars, which we have found makes for too sparse a conversation. We have just finished a new Lojban class, which will add another couple of conversation participants to the weekly group for fall 1992.
:: Basically the reason why there is no fluent Lojban speech yet is two-fold:
:: 1) for almost no one is there an opportunity to use the language often enough to gain fluency; only here in DC have we gotten people to even try to sustain conversation, much less do so regularly. My wife and I probably could run our household in Lojban and quickly become fluent, but I have some specific reasons for avoiding this - I don't want our usage, already rather dominating in the community learning the language, to become a de facto idiom; instead I want several people able to speak the language and write in it, thus developing a more natural idiom, even if it takes longer. There is also the emotional and mental drain to be considered - I'm already putting most of my time into the language, and I need a break once in a while, at least until others have gotten up to the level where I am at.
:: 2) because there has been relatively little advanced usage, Lojban remains a pidgin. We have about 2000 solid vocabulary words, which is enough to converse and communicate, but not to converse fluently. We have the means to make any additional words for concepts that we need, but making up words is not a fluent language activity. I am quite skilled at coming up with communicative and productive usages on the fly, but not at fluent speeds. Hence my working vocabulary is 2000 words, though I probably have used perhaps 3000-4000 different words in my Lojban speaking career. These words are going to have to be recorded in dictionaries, and in written usages for the mass of Lojbanists (most of whom are not local to me) to learn about. In addition, I suspect that vocabulary level needs to reach more like 5000-10000, with most of the words on spontaneous recall, before fluent conversation will be sustainable. Given the great amount of technical and specialized vocabulary that pervades most conversation that I experience (and which is necessary to keep a conversation going for hours - you can only say so much about the weather today zo'o), I could not comfortably talk for hours without having such a vocabulary on tap. English speakers vocabularies are estimated as being much larger than this, of course, but Lojban gains some considerable efficiency from its predicate structure wherein words serve as nouns, verbs, and adjectives interchangeably.
:: The obvious question is "why is it taking so long?" The answer is that it hasn't been a high enough priority for very many people. Secondary reasons for this include the geographical dispersion of Lojbanists (our best writers are Nick Nicholas in Australia, Ivan Derzhanski in Scotland, Iain Alexander and Colin Fine in England, Veijo Vilva in Finland, John Cowan in New York, and myself in Washington DC).
:: But another key point is that there are no fluent speakers because there are no fluent speakers to learn from. Those of us bootstrapping the language are the examples for everyone else, but who do we learn from. In writing we can learn from each other, which is why Lojban writing has progressed far beyond speech in skill level, but until we have a cluster of people in one location who are willing to make the commitment to use Lojban at a much higher level than 1 hour a week, we won't achieve fluent speech.
:: We are in the process of publishing the first books about Lojban, and when those are available, I suspect that there will be people willing to make that commitment. So this situation may change within the next year or two. Our experience 5 years ago on our honeymoon has convinced me that there is no reason that Lojban itself is insufficient or incapable of being spoken fluently.
:: (By the way, to avoid the inevitable comparison, I should note that Esperanto also did not catch on until there was a book to learn from. It grew much faster because its vocabulary is so strongly derivative of the European word stock, whereas Loglan/Lojban by intent must not be so derivative. Even so, I have heard that the watershed moment when Esperanto really 'succeeded' did not come until something like 1904, when people at their international conference discovered to both pleasure and surprise that the language was finally well enough known to such a degree that the meeting could be conducted in spontaneous and fairly fluent Esperanto. That was 17 years after Zamenhof's book, and I've heard that Esperanto was in formation for at least 8 years before the book was published. While Lojban has recaptured all of the research benefits of the earlier Loglan developments, we basically started the language definition process from scratch in 1987. I don't think we will be waiting 17 years for spontaneous fluent speech.)
 
[Ken responded, leading to the following exchange:]
 
... I ... probably will have further reaction, but for the moment: while comparisons with Esperanto (which I have spoken fluently since my youth, but not natively) are indeed inevitable, a better comparison would be with Volapk, Esperanto's predecessor, which while naturalistic was less so than Esperanto, having I think more case endings than Finn-ish yet allowing Germanic-type compounding.
 
This whole area of how new languages "get going" is fascinating. It relates to modern Israeli Hebrew as well. Re what you said about not wanting a small group to fix usage too soon: that seems to be what happened to Esperanto, maybe on a larger scale. I don't know whether you're an Esperantist but I and others have often been impressed by the extent to which Esperanto became "a real European language" when it had the potential, and the theoretical underpinnings, to develop along completely different lines. I see that as the problem with Lojban. You need speakers, early in the game, with diverse linguistic backgrounds. Otherwise it's going to develop along the lines of "standard average European."
 
:: Exactly, and even worse, given that I myself have been monolingual English speaker (whereas Zamenhof and his associates were predominantly polyglots to start with), I recognize that relying on my usage to set the patterns is particularly risky for cultural neutrality.
:: In written usage, we seem to be meeting your goals. With the major people writing in the language including a Greek-Australian, a Finn, and a Bulgarian polyglot with professional linguistics training, our stylistics is developing somewhat independent of myself. Further, by recognizing the importance of cultural neutrality, I am very forward about indicating which of my usages are tentative, and in screening myself for cultural bias. "malglico" (damnably-English-like) was one of the first compounds to gain widespread use, and I'm proud of having coined and pushed it.
 
== Lesson from Another Constructed Language ==
 
[The following, translated from Esperanto by Don Harlow from the referenced article, indicates the dangers of uncontrolled change and/or change in a constructed language controlled by "people who were linguistically very undisciplined". Novial was a major artificial language invented by one of the most noted linguists of his time, and for a while attracted a significant following (it basically supplanted Ido, the major splinter from Esperanto), but it apparently died from uncontrolled change.]
 
The following comes from Carlevaro, Tazio: "Mondlingvaj akademioj", in Haupenthal, Reinhard (ed.): "Li kaj ni", Antwerp-La Laguna: Stafeto, 1985, pp. 389-390:
 
<blockquote>
The well-known Danish linguist Jespersen, who had already collaborated in the creation of Ido, in 1928 proposed a new neo-Latinoid language project Novial (Nov International Auxiliari Lingue). In 1929 a handful of ex-Idists joined it, along with the otherwise well known Ido magazine Mondo. In 1934 Jespersen decided to radically reform the language to bring it nearer to Occidental. But it became obvious that the Novialists were people who were linguistically very undisciplined, and for this reason, and perhaps also because Jespersen didn't have the time to get very deeply occupied in his project, the Lingual Jurie del Novalistes was founded (1937) and proposed new improvements and changes. This did not, however, reduce the linguistic chaos in the movement itself, because this committee's decisions were not mandatory but only indicative. Novial, together with its language committee, disappeared during the second world war.
</blockquote>
 
== A Lojban Pangram ==


                                  6
[Mark Shoulson issued a challenge on Lojban list for a Lojban 'pangram', a sentence as short as possible that contains all of the letters of the Lojban alphabet. Examples from English include "The quick brown fox slyly jumped over the lazy dog." and "Pack my box with five dozen liquor jugs." Mark wrote:]
using material that would not fit  maybe those who try to write such
in this issue.                      texts.
  JL17 more Lojban text and       
commentary on the text than                  Subscriptions
previous issues; from now on, the 
portion of each issue devoted to      If you are receiving this, then
Lojban text will continue to grow.  probably you either have returned
Starting with this issue, I have    a subscription form, you have a
adopted a new editorial policy      large balance and were already
whereby other Lojbanists who have  receiving JL, or you have ordered
demonstrated competence in the      a package of Lojban materials that
language will be reviewing and      includes a sample issue, or you
editing Lojban text that is        are an overseas subscriber
submitted.  No longer will I        receiving your last grace issue.
(Lojbab) be the bottleneck in        If you have paid for a
getting Lojban text in print.      subscription, this is the first
Instead I will putting my time      issue under the subscription
into getting the Lojban books      policy, and the issue will have
published, and keeping JL coming    cost you either US$7 (US/Canada)
out consistently on time.          or US$8.75 (other countries).
  A result of this policy is that  Those receiving JL via Major in
published Lojban text may have      Australia are doing so by
varying degrees of quality.  All    arrangement with him at a price
text will have been verified by    that he is setting.
the Lojban parser to assure that      If you did not return a
it is grammatical.  However, we    subscription form and pay for a
all know that not all grammatical  subscription, then this issue is
text is easily understood (anyone  being charged to your voluntary
who has read legal documents or    balance at a higher price than for
tax forms can testify to this).    paid subscribers:  US$9 for US/-
Instead of me checking all texts    Canada and US$10 for other
for a consistent level of quality,  countries.  If you were a JL
published text will have been      subscriber and had enough balance
approved by two Lojbanists who      to pay for this issue at this
have demonstrated competence in    higher price, then you are
the written language.  This will    receiving it even though you
presumably mean that at least they  haven't returned the form.
understood the text.  These edi-      If you did return a form, but
tors, labelled by Nick Nicholas as  did not have enough money in your
"editors de jour", are described    balance to pay for a subscription,
in more detail in the ckafybarja    you are receiving this issue
papers below.                      anyway, in reward for having
  Because I won't be checking and  responded.  We hope that you will
preparing the text, there will no  eventually contribute to your
longer be detailed translations of balance to offset the price.  If
the sort that I have prepared for  not, you will probably be switched
Lojban text in JLs prior to now,    to receiving le lojbo karni as of
unless the authors or one of the    issue #18.
editors prepares them.  We will be    Having received only $170 in
trying to include a list of any    donations earmarked for the
special vocabulary words, and will  support of those who cannot afford
include any translations that are  subscriptions, we have allocated
provided.                           some of that money to supporting a
  On the other hand, the increased  few nonpaying volunteers who have
volume of Lojban text, some of it  been particularly active.  Pri-
original writings, will hopefully  ority was given to people who have
convince more of you to join the    shown evidence of having tried to
ranks of those who have learned    learn Lojban, and to non-US
enough Lojban to try to read the    Lojbanists. This money has been
texts without translations.  And    allocated in the form of prepaid


                                  7
Here comes the quest for the Lojban pangram. Guidelines should be:
2-issue subscriptions.  We did not  sufficient to make our non-profit
have enough money to support sub-  status permanent.
scriptions for all who requested      We are now paying some $30 per
assistance.                        month to maintain Master Card/Visa
  As of the publication date, we    processing capability, though we
have 122 prepaid subscribers, and  are looking for a cheaper way to
another 13 are receiving this      offer this service.  Our Master
issue as a grace issue.  Since      Card/Visa fee to you is being
some people did not send money      raised to 10% pending our finding
with subscription forms, the       an alternative.  If finances get
number of subscribers will drop to  any worse and we have not found a
around 100 for JL18 (unless we      cheaper alternative, credit card
hear from those listed as expiring  ordering services will be dropped.
this issue), and seems likely to      With the successful ending of
stabilize at around that level      the legal battle with The Loglan
until books are published.  This    Institute, we are getting close to
is not enough to qualify for        paying off our legal bills, and
reduced postal rates, so our costs  expect to do so sometime in 1993.
are higher than they have been for  Since Lojbab and Jeff Prothero
recent issues.  However, US        have been donating funds to cover
recipients are getting their issue  those bills, the money has not
by first class mail and hence      come out of other la Lojbangirz.
probably far more quickly than      funds; thus paying the bill off
previous bulk mail issues.          won't really improve our financial
                                    situation (though we will have a
            Finances              good credit reference, at least).
                                    Legal costs have totalled over
  We lost money in 1992, as in      $12,000.
previous years, a net loss for the 
year of around $1300.  End-of-year          Athelstan's Status
cost savings, including delaying   
JL17 and LK17 until 1993, reduced    There has been a good deal of
this from an earlier deficit of    support and sympathy expressed
$3000.  We will need to have a      about Athelstan's accident.  Early
fund-raising drive in 1993 in      in December, he completed a course
order to have money to publish the  of recuperative therapy, and has
new Lojban books (as well as to    moved out from his parents' house,
support our continuing              is working part-time, and is
operations).                       starting to rebuild a life of his
  As of the end of December,        own.  This will take some
income for the year was $8646.54    considerable time, and Athelstan
and expenses were $9999.01.  This  will have to live a fairly
leaves about $2500 in the bank, of  structured life for a while to
which somewhat over $1000 will go  have his best chances for long-
for JL17 and LK17.  ($5500 of      term recovery.  He also continues
income was donated by Jeff          to need major dental work, since
Prothero and Lojbab, and went for  he has lost nearly all of his
legal fees.  Thus, actual project  teeth.
income and expenses were only a      Athelstan attended the LogFest
fraction of previous years',        in August of 1992, for a few
around $3100 and $4500,            hours, and participated in a
respectively.)                      couple activities, and is doing
  Our IRS 501(c)(3) provisional    some studying of the language on
status, authorizing us as a tax-    his own.  However, it is clear
free non-profit organization (and  that he will not be up to his pre-
making your donations tax-          accident skill with the language
deductible), is up for review as    for quite a while, and we do not
of the end of 1992.  We expect      expect him to resume his
that your support has been          leadership role in the community
                                    at any time soon.  Projects that


                                  8
* No cmene or le'avla. Cop-out.
he was working on, including the    slowly - they do spontaneously use
* All Lojban symbols except "," (which only happens in cmene and le'avla) must appear (not counting such optionals as ";" or ":", but counting ".", even though it's optional. "." may only be placed at a required pause, though.)
Lojban mini-lesson, continue to be  "coi" and "co'o" to Lojban-
* It must be a grammatical utterance.
delayed indefinitely.               oriented guests, though).  Being
* No fair using zoi (non-Lojban quotes) or lo'u/le'u (ungrammatical text quotes) to throw in nonsense to get tough letters.
                                    forced to use a language in this
* No experimental or unknown cmavo, of course.
    Bob and Nora's Adoption        way has been a real education in
                                    language acquisition, and I have
  The biggest news out of Bob and  much more recognition of what
Nora's house has little to do with  things help in self-teaching a
Lojban except to help explain why  language.
so little is getting done.            This will no doubt improve the
  On extremely short notice (an    teaching quality of our materials
hour after they told me it might    when they come out.  I know that
take 6 months), the adoption        it has certainly changed my ideas
agency called in late August to    what needs to go into the
tell me that they had found a pair  textbook.  The proto-textbook that
of children for us to adopt from    we've been working on won't be
Russia, and that they wanted us to  affected, and indeed nothing I've
travel immediately.  All of        written for this draft of the
September was taken up with rushed  textbook will need significant
travel preparations for a trip      rewrite, but new sections to be
that seemed continually to be      written in the future will
scheduled for "next week some      incorporate the lessons in lan-
time".  These preparations were    guage learning that I've acquired
complicated by previously-sched-    the hard way.
uled surgery for Nora (who came      Lojban got a bit of a boost from
through quite fine and is fully    my trip: Ivan Derzhanski did a
recovered, but the surgery meant    high quality translation of the
that she could not go to Russia).   Lojban brochure into Russian on
  Finally I left for Russia on      short notice (copies available on
October 2, returning on October 18  request); while in Russia, I was
with 2 beautiful and healthy        able to arrange to have it
children, brother and sister.       published in a journal in Russia,
Angela is 6 1/2 and Avgust is 5.    probably next autumn; the title is
They are energetic, intelligent,    something like the "Transactions
and there have been almost no      of the Society of Eastern and
problems in their adaptation.       Oriental Languages".  This will be
However, from late August until    the first academic publication
the kids started school in          about the Loglan project other
November, we got almost no Lojban  than book reviews, which don't re-
work done, hence the delayed        ally count (Scientific American is
appearance of ju'i lobypli.        considered insufficiently academic
  I've resumed work, but at a       to have it count in Loglan's
somewhat lower pace. It took most  favor, and having an academic
of a month then to get caught up    publication record is important in
on mail and paperwork that had      seeking grants).  Special thanks
lagged during that time; hopefully  are given to my Russian linguist
the last of the backlogged orders  consultant, Mikhael Maron, of the
are going out in the mail with      Institute for Russian Language in
this issue.  I expect a lag of      Moscow.
some 3-4 months in the publishing    On Friday, October 16, I
of Lojban books, but John Cowan,    presented a 'seminar' on Lojban
Nick Nicholas and others have made  (basically a short talk with
tremendous efforts to keep the      question-answering) to about 20
ball rolling on book preparation.   people at Moscow State University
  These days, we mostly speak      Dept. of Philology and
Russian at home, despite the fact  Linguistics.  These included three
that neither Nora nor I speak it    professors, Mikhail Maron (who
nearly as well as we speak Lojban. arranged the talk with department
The kids are learning English very  chairman Professor Polikarpov),
slowly (and Lojban even more        and several graduate students who


                                  9
are studying theoretical            helped present Nora's operettina
linguistics and also taking a      "le ci cribe" (text in le lojbo
'practical English' class (Their    ciska below), for lojbo verba of
teacher saw this as a good          all ages.  As with the previous
opportunity to practice, but the    effort of this kind, Cinderelwood
students seemed genuinely          (1989), our low budget, low
interested).  A couple of students  practice, production group set a
and the professors as well,        new standard for lojbo draci, but
especially department chairman      aren't about to hit Broadway in
Polikarpov, seemed particularly    the near future.  The Lojbanic
interested, and I made arrange-    lyrics went well with the
ments to continue discussions by    collections of children's songs to
electronic mail.  There were many  which the playlet was set, and
regrets that I could not stay      some hasty but serious practice
longer in Moscow, arrange further  efforts before the presentation
discussions and visit              meant that the actors sang their
laboratories, but the purpose of    lines without stumbling.
the trip was primarily for the      Athelstan the critic gave it a
kids, and they most certainly had  thumbs up before departing; we'll
to come first in my planning.      be looking forward to his next
  I also had discussions with the  visit.
Academician leading Russia's          Another Saturday activity was
efforts in machine translation.    the discussion of the Lojban
There was some interest, but his    Kalevala project (see separate
group right now must put financial  article).  All in all, we tried to
concerns first - they have to find  keep Saturday a little bit light,
a way to commercialize (i.e.        knowing that Sunday's business
attract Western money), and there  meeting was likely to be long and
is little likelihood that we are    emotionally draining (as have all
going to be able to help in that.  of our annual business meetings).
                                    Thus, discussions stayed in
            LogFest 92              English, and ranged over a wide
                                    variety of topics related to the
  The second (and main) LogFest 92  Lojban effort.
took place the weekend of 14-17      Business meeting - The business
August 1992, and included the      meeting started at 9:30AM Sunday
annual meeting of la lojbangirz.    morning.  We had several key
16 people attended.  As usual,      people missing, as pc had business
Friday night was arrival night,    matters in Arizona to take care
with socializing and people coming  of, John Hodges' car broke down at
in the door until well after        the last minute, and Art Wieners
midnight.  Lojban-related activi-  was called back to work from
ties started on Saturday and        vacation for a crisis that made
continued through Monday.          him unavailable all weekend.
  On Saturday, the Lojban          However, all of these people had
community welcomed the return of    made their positions clear on the
Athelstan, who was able to attend  issues at hand, and the meeting
for a few hours with the            proceeded surprising well. The
assistance of his parents.  It      following summarizes the results
will be a while yet before          of the meeting:
Athelstan can resume the major        Organizational - Nick Nicholas
contributions to the Lojban effort  and Colin Fine were elected as the
that he was making before the      first non-US voting members of
accident, but having him show up    LLG.  We consider all of the
at LogFest was a real morale        Lojban community to be part of
booster for us, and probably also  LLG, but we have to have a clearly
for him.                            defined voting membership for le-
  Athelstan was able to stay and    gal purposes to manage
serve as 'critic' while the summer  organizational matters.  Also
'92 DC Lojban class and John Cowan  added were David Young, Sylvia


                                  10
Desiderata:
Rutiser, and David Twery.  Jeff    committed to Lojban, which is a
Taylor, who hasn't actively        much superior version of the
participated for the last couple    language, and we have a larger
of years, was dropped as a voting  group of people actually doing
member.  To make clear the nature  something with the language.  The
of voting membership, a resolution  membership showed extreme distrust
was passed explicitly stating on    towards TLI, voting to insist on
the record that voting members      two key preconditions to further
should consider themselves as      negotiations:
representing the community at-        a) Both organizations must sign
large, and not just themselves, in  a binding agreement preventing
matters that are decided.          legal action resulting from
  Several bylaw changes were made,  further negotiations; the members
all relating to procedures          want to be sure that TLI's offers
involved in holding members' and    to negotiate are bona fide and not
Board of Directors' meetings when  an attempt to set us up for a law-
we are so geographically dispersed  suit.
and several members cannot be        b) TLI must drop its 'trade
physically present for the meet-    secret' protection on all aspects
ing, especially the overseas        of its design for its version of
members; we do not want inability  the language.  LLG being committed
to attend LogFest to prevent        to the freedom of the Loglan
people from participating in the    community to freely use the
LLG decision-making, especially    language howsoever they choose,
such major technical contributors  the members felt that a 'secret'
as Nick and Colin.  These bylaw    grammar is anathema to the concept
changes are an evolving process,    of a large community of people
as we adapt to LLG's continuing    using a constructed language,
growth and international spread;    especially one intended for
every year, we seem to need a few  scientific research.  It is felt
more changes to meet new problems  that no real progress can be made
that have arisen.  Copies of the    on possible merger of the two
current LLG Bylaws are available    languages while TLI continued to
at cost to any member of the        keep theirs secret where neither
community.                          TLI nor LLG supporters could see
  Bob and Nora LeChevalier, John    the language details and evaluate
Cowan, and pc were re-elected to    them on their merits.
the LLG Board of Directors, and in    The voting membership seems open
a brief meeting of the Board after  to negotiations provided that TLI
the members' meeting, Bob was      demonstrated bona fide intent by
reelected President of LLG, pc as  meeting the preconditions.
Vice President, and Nora as        However, there is little sentiment
Secretary/Treasurer.                for significant change in Lojban
  Negotiations with TLI - The      as part of a merger of languages;
major political issue at the        we collectively believe that the
meeting was the determination of    Lojban design is far superior to
LLG policy towards The Loglan      anything the TLI designers might
Institute and JCB, now that the    have come up with in the past
legal battle over trademark status  couple of years since the last
of the name 'Loglan' is over.      good information about their
There have been some initial        version of the language.
efforts towards a negotiation        I proposed a strategy for
between the two groups, with both  remerger of the efforts starting
sides expressing an interest in    with the adoption of alternative
reuniting the effort behind a      ways of writing the two language
single version of the language.    versions so that they resemble
  The efforts haven't gone far,    each other in appearance, thus
since TLI wants LLG to disband and  making cosmetic appearance not an
merge into TLI behind its version  issue (as it appears to be for
of Loglan.  la lojbangirz. is      JCB) when the two languages are


                                  11
* It should be a bridi (a complete Lojban sentence), not just a bare sumti or a string of exclamations.
essentially the same in the        move fast if they wish to have any
* It should not have sumti in undefined places, if possible (e.g. nothing in the x6 place of "prenu" or whatnot, even though that parses).
structures that determine how the  significant chance of influencing
* It should have some sort of comprehensible meaning, though it may be nonsense (i.e. the meaning needn't be reasonable, but it should be capable of being understood in some fashion).
language looks on paper.  John      the direction of a future combined
* It should be as short as possible.
Cowan has proposed an alternate    effort.
* It shouldn't use letterals just to get letters in cheaply. In fact, avoid letterals if you can, except maybe to get "y".
orthography for Loglan/Lojban,       (Initial signs are not
* lujvo should be used sparingly, and if used, should make sense somehow. You can get "y" using hesitation or letterals, but don't turn down an otherwise good sentence because of a lujvo.
allowing it to look in print very  optimistic for further reduction
much like TLI Loglan. (see          in hostilities. TLI formed a
separate article).                 public mailing list similar to
  Following such an initial step,  Lojban List on the computer
each organization would study in   networks, but then apparently went
depth the two language versions    to considerable lengths to prevent
looking for similarities and        Lojbab from participating,
differences.  We would try to      eliminating the public nature of
convince TLI to adopt our changes  the list and virtually shutting it
into their language, and they      down - apparently for fear that
presumably would try to convince    some of their trade secrets will
us to adopt their design where we  get to me.)
differ. Vocabulary lists are        Forthcoming Books - There was
likely to be the major              lengthy and emotional debate on
unresolvable issue under this      the continuing delays in getting
approach.  When the review is      the prototype and baseline books
completed, the decision of which    out.  Many Lojbanists are waiting
vocabulary list and which version  for the books, convinced either
of any unresolved differences to    that they cannot learn the lan-
go with would be voted on by the    guage without the books, or that
supporters of each version. If    the language will change after
one version wins the vote in both  they've learned it, if they learn
organizations, then the language    the language before it is set down
versions have remerged.            in the books.  Our very
Otherwise, the two organizations    conservative baseline approach
go their separate ways, but with    does not satisfy these people;
languages presumably much closer    only the books will do.
together.                             The voting membership thus
  It is the collective belief of    forced John Cowan and me to more
the LLG membership that if no      strongly commit to getting the
merger takes place, that TLI will  books done as quickly as possible,
fade away eventually. LLG members  and to avoid changes to the
expressed an unwillingness to       language definition except insofar
accept changes in Lojban that in    as glitches come to light during
any way detract from the current    book writing. We expected to have
design - any evolution of Lojban    the proto-dictionary done before
would have to be a positive one,   the end of the year, with the
and we have no reason to believe    proto-textbook and introductory
that there are any differences be-  book following soon after.  (This
tween the two languages wherein    was before the kids came along,
changing Lojban to match TLI Log-  forcing a few more months delay).
lan would enhance the language.    John Cowan's papers will be assem-
  Faced with lengthy negotiations  bled into a reference grammar to
even if TLI meets our necessary    conclude the initial design
preconditions, the voting          documents. We are trying to have
membership reiterated its intent    all 4 books done within a year,
that we publish the books defining  though John's book will be the
the Lojban design that are          slowest to be completed.
currently in preparation, noting      John believes that after these
that as each book is published it  books are completed, there will
will further cement us in a po-    likely be no further changes to
sition wherein we cannot accept    the language, and we will go
changes to the language in conces-  immediately into the long-term
sion to TLI.  Thus the ball is in  design-ending baseline. I
TLI's court and they will have to  (Lojbab) continue to intend to


                                  12
The desiderata are roughly in order of importance. I'd imagine it's a little easier to find a pangram in Lojban than in English, although finding a good one (where "good" is defined something like above) isn't easy in almost any language.
produce a real textbook and        that we missed in the place
dictionary (of which the first two  structure simply because we made a
books are indeed 'prototypes')      promise not to change.  There are
that will define the baseline, but  known weaknesses in other aspects
John and others doubt that this    of the Lojban design, but no major
will happen in a timely manner,    ones, and those known are not
and that the proto-books will be    considered open for change because
the ones used in the baseline. I   of our baseline commitment to
have agreed that the bottom line    avoid change where possible.
on the book publication will be      The two gismu proposed in JL16,
how fast we can get them written,  vukro and slovo, were added to the
coupled with the finances of        gismu baseline, along with four
publishing, and not my goals to    new gismu for metric prefixes
produce more 'perfect' non-proto    reflecting their addition to the
versions of the books.  This, and  international metric standard.
a renewed commitment to stop          As part of the rafsi review in
fiddling with the language design,  progress, there emerged strong
mollified some very frustrated and  feeling that the gismu for
impatient Lojban supporters.        "daytime" as distinct from "day"
  The conclusion is that the        (= 24 hours) should have good
community very strongly wants the  rafsi, which was not possible
language to be done, and usable,    without severe tradeoffs given the
and does not care whether the      word (dinri) that resulted when
language is any closer to perfect  the word was generated last year
than it currently is.  I stand on  using the word-making algorithm.
record as recognizing that          As was done in the case of "less
sentiment of the community as      than", which was changed last year
expressed by the membership, that  from "ckamu" to "mleca" because of
has elected me to lead the effort.  the need for a good rafsi, the
  Baseline Status/Language Design  membership approved that this word
- The membership voted to update    be changed, disregarding the
the grammar baseline as of the      scoring algorithm if necessary.
proto-dictionary publication, to    This was considered acceptable
include changes approved by the    only because the word is a new one
technical committee that has been  added just last year and is
reviewing those changes (which are  neither in common use yet nor even
all considered relatively minor by  reflected in our published lists.
the members).  The rafsi and cmavo  To minimize relearning difficulty,
lists will also be baselined when  John Cowan and I opted to change
the book is published,              only a single letter, and the
incorporating the current reviews,  gismu for 'daytime' is now
and the intent is to baseline the  "donri", with rafsi "dor" and
morphology algorithm published in  "do'i".  The membership approved
JL16 after updating it for wording  this change.
errors found when we coded it up -    That was it for the members
John Cowan wants to have the        meeting.  We also had two
algorithm fully coded and verified  committee meetings, one to
before making a baseline            correlate the results of the rafsi
commitment, and we are still        review, and the other to allocate
working on this.  With all of      the $142 received last winter in
these baselines, the only          donations specifically to support
significant language feature that  active, non-paying Lojbanists who
will not be baselined are the      cannot afford to pay for
gismu place structures, although    materials.  The money was
it is believed that the simple      allocated toward 2-issue sub-
fact of putting those into the      scriptions for several people,
book will effectively baseline      with the hope that our finances
them as well (the difference to me  have improved after 2 issues and
is that I don't want to feel        more money is available to help
obligated to defend a stupidity    such people out at that point.


                                  13
Have fun with it!
  John Cowan has put together a      DC Class - During the summer we
new parser based on the current    held a weekly class in Lojban here
set of proposed grammar changes,    in Fairfax.  Five students
which are expected to be approved,  participated, although two of
and it will hopefully be tested    them, Sylvia Rutiser and Tommy
thoroughly in coming weeks by some  Whitlock, were primarily
key people who write a lot of Loj-  freshening up their skills.  Of
ban text.                          the other three, two completed the
  Sunday night and Monday were      class and have continued actively
spent in more Lojbanic activities,  participating in Lojban weekly
a little conversation, and going    conversations.
over a writing effort by David        DC Weekly Group - After the
Twery.  By then everyone was        conclusion of the summer class,
exhausted, as another busy and      the DC conversation group resumed
successful Logfest came to an end.  weekly meetings, continuing even
  Next Year - We're not sure what  through Nora's recovery from
LogFest will be like in 1993,      surgery and Lojbab's trip to
given the patter of little feet    Russia.  Typically, activities
around here, and haven't set a      split 50/50 between conversation
date for LogFest 93.  We hope that  each session and discussions of
there'll be more in-language        texts written by the group members
activities, and at least one of    or on Lojban List.  When less
the books should be out by then.    experienced Lojbanists are
Given the addition to our family,  present, we assign one-on-one
we're hoping others coming to      "mentors" who aid them by coaching
LogFest will bring their families  them in what people are saying,
too.                                and helping them say what they
  There's a possibility for a      would like in the language.  Thus
weekend gathering in 1993 which    everyone gets to participate.
will be an all-Lojban affair, with    More recently, since Lojbab's
no English permitted.  This is an  return from Russia, some (rather
ambitious undertaking - the        light-hearted) efforts have been
language is ready for it though.    made to introduce our two kids to
The major factor will be the        Lojban; this is necessitated by
effect of our kids on our time.    their domination of everyone's
At the moment, Nora and my Lojban  attention until bedtime.  We
skills have deteriorated in favor  suspended meetings for the
of Russian.                        December holiday season, partly in
  But the critical factor in such  order to get the kids better
a weekend is vocabulary,            settled so that we can focus more
vocabulary, vocabulary.  The        on the language during weekly
summer Lojban class here covered    sessions, and partly to try to ar-
most of the grammar in seven 2-    range a more convenient schedule
hour sessions, but no one had      for participants.  After the first
nearly enough vocabulary command    of the year, weekly sessions will
to converse.  Hopefully with this  resume, probably on Monday or
weekend gathering as a goal, those  Tuesday evenings.  Lojbanists in
of the community who want to see    the DC area may contact Lojbab at
the language brought to life will  703-385-0273 if you would like to
get to work on their word lists    visit or start regular
and LogFlash, and try to be here    participation in this group - you
if we can put this weekend to-      need not have significant skill in
gether.  If we don't manage it in  the language to gain from par-
1993, we will surely try in 1994,  ticipation, but you should in that
when Nick Nicholas has threatened  case be planning some self-study
to visit from Australia.            at other times during the week.
                                      Bradford Group - Colin Fine has
            Other News              started a study group in Bradford,
                                    England, the first regularly meet-
                                    ing Lojban group outside of the


                                  14
[Colin Fine responded with the following admirably-complete analysis:]
US.  I don't have many details on  spoken language on two continents.
numbers of participants, but the    There is no doubt in my mind that
group has produced a significant    the sralo accent on the other end
amount of Lojban text.              of the line was speaking quite
  First International Conversation  good Lojban, and at a fluency that
- I am pleased to report a major    would stand him well in our weekly
milestone in the Lojban project -  sessions in Washington DC.  (Nick
a most surprising one indeed at    has promised to visit us in 1994,
the time it happened.              when he completes his degree work
  One Monday evening in September,  in college.)
I received a telephone call.  I      After the shock slowly ebbed
had been studying Russian about 10  from my mind, I got enough
hours straight at the time I got    presence to suggest that this
this call.  And what do I hear on  would have worked better if the
the line but a collection of traji  call had been the following night,
cizra (superlatively strange)      when the weekly DC group met.  So
beeps and clicks and this unusual  I was told that I should prepare
bunch of words coming at me.  They  people for just such a call.
weren't Russian (and this itself      Here is Nick's recollection of
was baffling, because I'd already  the actual conversation, with
gotten 2 calls today from people    commentary:
with heavy Russian accents who
were offering me information and      Robert LeChevalier?    Yah.
advice related to my forthcoming      [Lojbab:  A good answer in all
trip, in response to a computer      three languages.]  .i mi'e
network posting).                    nitcion.  nikolas.  i mi fonxa
  It finally dawned on me that        tavla ra'i la australias.  mu'i
someone was talking Lojban at me.    lenu rinsa do pu lenu do cliva
Except for intermittent sentences    la rusko.
in an otherwise English                (The "cliva" is wrong,
conversation, no one has ever        obviously, and "ra'i" isn't very
spoken conversational Lojban to me    smart, but hey, I'd been walking
on the telephone except Nora, and    a lot :)
she was sitting next to me.            Thereupon Goodman LeChevalier
  Alas, I was attempting to          said "... a couple of words of
understand, and my Lojban totally    that sound vaguely familiar;
failed me, partly from shock, and    please repeat."  I did; this
partly from the fact that as I        time I was la nik. nikolas, ra'i
attempted to form Lojban              la sralo...
sentences, Russian words kept          Ladies and Gentlemen, Robert
creeping into them in my mind, and    has learnt his cmavo well:  his
this hodgepodge of jborusko          ".ua" was as good as any
(Lojbanic-Russian) just wouldn't      exclamation James Brown (let
be communicative; but I couldn't      alone James Cooke Brown) could
tune out the Russian.  Finally I      come up with :)  Duckcall-like,
asked the other end of the line to    in fact :)
repeat, and I made out the words      I started chuckling
nik. nikolas. and sralo, and I        ("hehehehe"), then quickly cor-
suddenly understood all the clicks    rected myself: ".u'i.u'i.u'i"
and beeps.  The first                  A good thing too that Bob's
international telephone call in      brain wouldn't click into Lojban
Lojban, and I was talking to Nick    mode, because, as I said to him
Nicholas in Australia.                (er... four times, the fourth in
  I'm afraid we never got more        English :), mi na djuno da poi
than a couple of sentences            mi bilga lenu cusku ke'a (once
exchanged - my brain just would      more, in writing that would be a
not click into Lojban mode.  But I    "ledu'u mi bilga lenu cusku
can testify that Lojban now has      dakau", but whatever).
people who have demonstrated          Stunned silence followed, then
conversational competence with the    a bit of small talk, then I


                                  15
Assuming Mark's rules, but avoiding letterals or hesitation:
  talked to Nora, and it went a      a position of linguistic
  little bit like this:              expertise, but minus the actual
  coi    coi noras .i ?xu do        expertise... :)
  kanro [an IDIOT question in          Oh yeah, that's the other thing
  Lojban, but cut me slack            I said, when he mentioned the
  already, I'm new at speaking the    Russian on the mind:  "Ya ne
  damn language :) ]                  gavaryu pa-ruskii" :)
  .i mi kanro .i ?xu DO kanro     
  .i pe'i go'i                        The following night, Colin Fine
  [I really aspirated them        joined in the act, calling about
  apostrophes; I can't remember if  an hour before Nick made his
  Bob or Nora did.] .i mi jinvi    second call (which was
  lenu do xagmau mi lenu cusku [I  considerably more communicative
  think it was "cusku"; I remember  than the first one.  Thus in one
  at being surprised, not so much  night we had three continents
  at the lujvo, as at the fact      speaking Lojban.  Again,
  that it was followed immediately  international beeps and whistle
  by a pronoun, without a pre-      gummed up the conversation, but
  position.  Two years of written  Colin was quite understandable (if
  Lojban, and now I notice the      a bit briefer than Nick, who
  absence of "than"?!]      .i      seemed to be feeling rich to want
  .u'i ?xu go'i .i mi ruble go'i    to talk so long).  I have to say
  [I'm trying to be a smartass in  that Nick has a jump on Colin in
  Lojban, and it's not quite        fluency of speech, but nothing a
  working.  The word I was looking  little practice won't make up for,
  for was "ru'e".]                  and Colin does have some people
  Mind you, the bad acoustics and  local to him to practice with.
  my lack of familiarity with        [On aspiration of ': in some
  spoken Lojban meant that I had    words I heavily aspirate it, like
  to search a bit to determine      co'o, and other vowel pairs with
  what was being said (by Bob, at  matching vowels.  In others I
  least).  From what I remember    aspirate a bit less.  Nick
  though, I got through all right.  enunciates his vowels far more
  Lojbab, I believe, farewelled    clearly than most of us speaking
  me with a "co'o" (ah yes, he      the language.]
  does aspirate them heavily), and    I didn't feel so bad at not
  I responded with a "co'osai".  I  parsing Nick's sentences after he
  didn't mean by that that I was    confessed the mistakes he made.  I
  glad to be rid of you, honest!    am particularly bad at correcting
  :)                                others' errors in spoken Lojban,
  We'll have to have something to  especially at conversational
  talk about for me to be          speed.  This is one major failing
  convinced that we can converse    I have at teaching the language.
  intelligibly.  I can see why the  If you screw up, I don't
  differences between Washington    understand you, because I am
  and net Lojban exist though:      parsing in my head, translating to
  good phrasing just doesn't come  Lojbanized English and then
  to you spontaneously, much less  understanding.  The wrong cmavo,
  good bracketing.  I'm not going  or even one no one has used in
  to let this worry me about the    speech to me before (which Nick
  future of the language yet, mind  did several of), brings the parser
  you...                            in my head to a screeching halt,
  The kind of halting Lojban I    but Nick kept going.  (I have the
  was getting from Fairfax          same trouble with spoken Russian:
  reminded me of the Esperanto      I hear a word I don't recognize
  beginners I occasionally tutor.  right off, and I completely lose
  The kind of Lojban I was getting  the next 2 sentences trying to
  out of myself reminded me of the  figure it out.)
  aplomb with which I used to face    Colin Fine offered that any
  Esperanto when finding myself in  Lojbanist who wanted to try a call


                                  16
There are 17 consonants and only 5 vowels. All brivla are more consonant-rich than all cmavo. So use as many brivla as possible.
was welcome to call him.  His        Preliminary discussions have led
telephone number is currently      to a "truce" in our disputes, with
(+044) 0274-503168.  Nick Nicholas  a possibility that there will be
noted that those with access to    future interest in negotiating an
the Internet can effectively        active reconciliation and remerger
practice conversational Lojban by  of our efforts.  Unfortunately, at
computer, using a software system  this time both sides remain far
called "IRC" (Internet Relay        apart on how such a reconciliation
Chat).  For those with such ac-    might be accomplished.
cess, it might be useful practice;    Details on la lojbangirz. policy
the speed of conversational typing  with regard to negotiations were
is far less than the speed of      discussed at LogFest and can be
talking, and not as prone to        found in the article on that
errors in hearing.  Contact us by  meeting.
e-mail at the address on page 2 if    We intend to continue to fairly
you are interested in IRC          report on what we hear from TLI,
'conversation and have access to    and hope that our non-hostile
that service on the networks.      demeanor will cause TLI's people
                                    to more actively seek
  Phone Game - The "phone game", a  reunification within the Loglan
computer network Lojban activity    community.
described last issue, made it                       
through three rounds, but then        Language Development Status
stalled on the fourth round - one
person who signed up dropped out                  gismu
after the game started, and sev-  
eral of the more experienced          Six gismu were added at LogFest,
people participating in previous    as described in the article on
rounds had other activities to      that meeting.  Other than these
occupy them in summer. By the end  changes, there have been no new
of August, we decided to suspend    gismu proposals, and indeed, the
the game, since a replacement      draft set of revised place struc-
activity, the Lojban coffeehouse    tures has generated little
project described below, had        criticism.  Thus, we consider the
captured everyone's imaginations.  gismu list stable enough for book
We may start new rounds at some    publication.
future time when we get some new
people interested in                              lujvo
participating.                     
                                      Nick Nicholas has spent a lot of
  The Loglan Institute - After our  time in the last 6 months doing a
victory in the appeals court in    thorough review of some 2700 lujvo
LLG's trademark dispute with The    that have been used or proposed
Loglan Institute (see last issue),  for use in Lojban text.  He has
there remained the possibility      analyzed these by origin,
that TLI would continue the legal  indicated their quality (and occa-
battle.  We are happy to report    sionally proposed better
that this seems not to be the      replacements), and analyzed them
case, and the trademark issue is    to determine probable place
dead.  People may use the word      structures based on analysis and
"Loglan" freely in talking about    actual usage.  As a result, the
all aspects of our 37 year old      proto-dictionary will likely have
project, including Lojban, without  many more entries than we had
needing permission from TLI.        originally planned, since I intend
Indeed, it seems that both          to incorporate as much of Nick's
organizations will now be able to  work as possible.
turn away from the legal system as
a method of resolving our dis-                  Grammar
agreements over the course of the 
Loglan Project.


                                  17
Ignoring, ".'y", the best ratio you can get in a sentence with gismu only is 3 consonants/2 vowels; 17 consonants requires 6 words, for a total length of 30. Using 2 CV cmavo instead of one gismu improves this to 29.
  The grammar is of course            Has anyone conducted an
baselined and frozen until we make    experiment to verify that word-
updates and republish it in the      boundaries are identifiable,
Lojban books. Because we want the    even if you don't know what the
books to reflect the grammar after    words mean?  If I were to hear a
the books are done, we do our        recording of rapid spoken
writing based on that next revi-      Lojban, could I, equipped only
sion of the grammar.  Indeed, most    with the word segmentation
of the change proposal come out of    rules, identify all the word
the detailed analysis that John      boundaries?
Cowan does in writing his         
reference grammar essays.            Yes you could.  Ideally a
  There are now 27 minor changes    computer could.  If you cannot, it
planned for that revision, all but  is due to human limitations in
5 being extensions to the lan-      analysis, not to ambiguity in the
guage.  Because of the delays in    algorithm.  These limitations
publishing books and the fact that  might prove to be real, since
many active Lojbanists are          there are some obvious ways to
incorporating new features in       concoct utterances that will lead
their Lojban writings, JL18 will    a listener down a primrose path:
include a revised E-BNF and a com-
plete summary of all the changes    mi viska le prenu  is a valid
since the last baseline.  John      sentence /miVISkalePREnu/
Cowan believes that only a couple  miviskaleprenus    is a name
more changes of even this minor    /miVISkalePREnus/
scale are likely prior to
baselining for book publication;   but you can't distinguish them
his estimates are reasonable,       till the end.
since he is the one who has          No we haven't tested the
proposed almost all of the ones in  algorithm in any rigorous or
this set of changes.  Of the        experimental sense.  There have
changes listed, only one was        been informal analyses, and of
considered by experienced          course we have people conversing
Lojbanists to be important.        who have no problems.
However, even that change was        The short form of the algorithm
easily taught to students last      is:
summer within one class session.
                                    1.  Pauses are word breaks.
            Morphology
                                    2.  Identify names by going
  Last issue, we printed the draft  backwards from 'consonant + pause'
Lojban formal morphology            to preceding "la" or "doi" or
algorithm.  Nora has been working  "lai" or word break/start of text.
to implement and text the
algorithm in software, and has      3.  Among remaining text, start
found several errors in the        from the left looking for
algorithm as printed in the issue.  consonant clusters which mean that
The problems are not with Lojban,  you are in a brivla (predicate
but rather are errors in the way    word).  Any number of leading CV
various steps are worded.  The      and CVV syllables fall off a
dictionary/reference book will      permissible initial cluster, each
have a version of the algorithm    forming separate cmavo.  In a
that passes Nora's software analy-  brivla, find the stressed
sis.  Meanwhile, we print a short  syllable, then, since that is
discussion that gives a simpler,    penultimate, take one syllable
plain-English rendition of the      more, ending in a vowel.
algorithm:                         
                                                  rafsi
And Rosta asks:                                     


                                  18
dzipo gluta fe re baxso ckini jmive
  The analysis of Lojban rafsi,      Structural Ambiguity in English
<br />(They're) antarctic gloves of two Malay-relative living things.
mentioned in the discussion of                  and Lojban
 
LogFest above, was not completed      by Dan Maxwell and John Cowan
To add the missing symbols:
until just before publication of   
 
this issue, primarily due to Bob's  [Dan is an Esperantist, linguist,
"." uses up one or two vowels - either [selma'o] I or UI
travels. We intend to publish a   and programmed on the DLT machine
 
lengthy article and the revised    translation project. John Cowan
"'" uses up two vowels. We can combine these in UI, or in a cmavo or lujvo.
list with JL18, so that all people  is an LLG leader, and responds to
 
can switch to the new baseline at  Dan with the indented notes.]
"y" requires a lujvo (if we are not using letterals or hesitation).
that time.                         
 
                                    It is obviously true that words
1) Minimising use of lujvo:
                                    which never change their form are
 
                                    easier to handle than ones which
Two strategies suggest themselves for this goal. Either use a (single) consonant-rich lujvo of the form "CVCyCCV" and use UI for the other two. Inserting (a single instance of the form) ".V'V CVCyCCV" covers 4C, 4V at a cost of 11 characters altogether, or use a (single) CVCyCV'V-form lujvo and a V cmavo: ".V CVCyCV'V" covers 3C, 4V at a cost of 10 characters altogether. The latter approach is shorter, but since the total number of different consonants is 2 mod 3, would require two cmavo, giving a total length of 34, against 33 for the first strategy. Therefore the minimal solution with only one (two-element) lujvo is of form ".V'V CVCyCCV CV gismu gismu gismu gismu" (with the order of these elements completely free)
                                    do change their form, but at the
 
                                    level of the sentence it is often
.e'u zadyfra pa baxso ckini jmive gluta (33 characters)
                                    the case that the forms of words
<br />Let's react more to a Malay-related living thing's glove!
                                    are useful indicators of the
 
                                    relationships between the words.
2) Allowing free use of lujvo CVC rafsi have the highest consonant/vowel ratio possible in the language, so the answer is clearly going to involve one or more long lujvo with lots of CVC's. An obvious strategy is (CVC)n-CV'V = 2n+1 consonants, n+2 vowels, Thus with ".i" at the beginning (we can't use any other V word unless we have some sumti), and one juncture requiring "y", we get:
                                    Here are some examples of
 
                                    structural ambiguity in English,
.i CVCCVCCVCCVCCVCCVCCVCCVCyCV'V (31 chars.)  
                                    some of which could be solved by
<br />e.g.
                                    more "signposts" on the words.
<br />.i cabjagnixtulroskazdempafyva'i
                                     
<br />The currently-resulting girl's-leg prose has the quality of dense father value" (or something)
                                        Here are various Lojban
 
                                            translations, showing how
Once you've got the structure, they're easy to concoct, and I've no doubt somebody can come up with better ones.
                                            Lojban resolves the
 
                                            ambiguities of the English
[The challenge to the community is to propose some better pangrams using any of these forms. I know of at least one Lojban poet (Michael Helsem) who will probably have a field day with this kind of challenge. We will print the best submittals in a future issue of JL.]
                                            examples. Lojban words
 
                                            never change in form for
== An Alternative Orthography for Lojban ==
                                            grammatical purposes,
by John Cowan
                                            although many root words
 
                                            have shortened forms for
[Editor's note: This is an optional alternative to the current Lojban writing system, not a change or replacement. In short, this proposal is a way to write Lojban so that it looks more like any other version of Loglan, and hence be more palatable to JCB.
                                            use in making compounds
 
                                            (the underlying roots can
I don't think that any Lojbanist considers the alternative more desirable than what we do now - we made the current Lojban orthography in order to better reflect the way people will learn and speak the language (although the use of doubled consonants for syllabics might actually be an improvement if used throughout the language - TLI Loglan uses this convention only for syllabic consonants in borrowings, and not in lujvo.)
                                            be uniquely reconstructed
 
                                            from the compound).
However, having an orthography that looks more 'normal' to JCB is an advantage in trying to reach a long term solution to our differences - something that we have long sought. By having a set of standard mappings between the two orthographies, it becomes relatively trivial for someone to write a program that can convert text written in one orthography to the other form. Thus TLI Loglanists would have to do a minimum of relearning to be able to start participating in the Lojban community, should such an orthography option be part of the resolution of our differences.
                                   
 
                                    1. I saw the linguist with the
The alternate orthography is thus a mapping from Lojban back to the original orthography of Loglan, with a couple of things that JCB added after the split like the doubled letters for syllabic consonants. Thus, JCB used "ao" for the diphthong that we write in Lojban as "au". JCB doesn't use apostrophes in non-diphthong VV pairs. (He has never addressed the problem that we resolved through the devoiced glide). He uses 'h', but 'x' as a distinct phoneme is found only in names, whereas historically, Loglan considered our 'x' to be an allophone of 'h'.]
                                    binoculars ('with the binoculars'
 
                                    can be taken with either 'saw' or
 
                                    'linguist'.). This problem comes
NOTE: This document is not an official policy of the Logical Language Group and has not been endorsed by the LLG or its Board (to which, for my sins, I belong). Still less is it endorsed by any other non-profit organization concerned with the development of logical languages.
                                    up quite often, although context
 
                                    or the meanings of the words often
This note proposes an alternative orthography for Lojban. The orthography here described is not intended to replace the existing standard orthography. Nothing in this note is intended as a proposal for change either in Lojban's orthography or its phonology. The purpose of the alternative orthography is to provide a way of writing Lojban which visually resembles the conventions used by earlier versions of the Loglan language, including the version proposed in the 4th edition of Loglan 1 (1989).
                                    serve to disambiguate for human
 
                                    beings but not for computers.
The standard Lojban orthography makes use of 23 letters of the Roman alphabet, viz. a b c d e f g i j k l m n o p r s t u v x y z, plus the three signs:
                                   
 
                                      1.1) mi viska le banskeju'o
apostrophe "'" for a voiceless intervocalic glide roughly similar to English /h/;
                                          sepi'o le reldanvistci
 
                                          I see the language-science-
comma "," for a voiced intervocalic glide;
                                          knower using the two-far-
 
                                          see-tool.
period "." for a pause or glottal stop.
                                     
 
                                      1.2) mi viska le banskeju'o pe
Capitalization is used to represent abnormal non-penultimate stress in names: the syllable to be stressed is capitalized in its entirety.
                                          sepi'o le reldanvistci
 
                                          I see the language-science-
The letters i and u are used in three ways: as full vowels, in the falling diphthongs ai ei oi au, and in the rising diphthongs ia ie ii io iu ua ue ui uo uu. The rising diphthongs appear only as stand-alone words and in names and borrowings.
                                          knower which-is using the
 
                                          two-far-see-tool.
The letters r l m n are used as normal consonants and as syllabic consonants (in names and borrowings only).
                                     
 
                                        In 1.1, the prepositional
Double letters are never used for any purpose.
                                            phrase (tagged sumti, in
 
The alternative orthography [approximating the TLI system] makes the following substitutions.
 
# The letter "x" is replaced in all uses by "h". It is useful to emphasize here that this does not represent a change in pronunciation.
# The diphthong au is replaced by ao.
# The apostrophe, which in the standard orthography is used only between vowels, is replaced in the following ways:
## In a'a a'e a'u e'a e'e e'o e'u o'a o'e o'o o'u, it is dropped, producing aa ae au ea ee eo eu oa oe oo ou.
## In a'i a'o e'i o'i, it is replaced by comma (symbolizing the syllable break that accompanies the glide) producing a,i a,o e,i o,i.
## In i'a i'e i'i i'o i'u u'a u'e u'i u'o u'u, it is dropped, producing ia ie ii io iu ua ue ui uo uu; except that when these diphthongs appear standing alone (as cmavo of selma'o UI), or in names and borrowings, it is replaced by comma, producing i,a i,e i,i i,o i,u u,a u,e u,i u,o u,u.
# Capitalization is used for the first letter of names, and for the cmavo ".i", which is written "I".
# Periods before words are dropped.
# Periods after words are replaced by comma. This comma cannot be confused with the comma of 3b and 3c, because that cannot appear at the end of a word. However, periods at the end of names are dropped.
# Syllabic r l m n are written rr ll mm nn, and need not be set off by comma.
# Other uses of comma are retained. When doubt arises whether a comma represents a voiced or a voiceless glide, the voiceless glide is preferred.
# Stress is indicated by an apostrophe following the vowel of the stressed syllable.
 
Obviously, the alternative orthography is much more "context-sensitive" than the standard orthography. Two consecutive vowels in the standard orthography always represent a diphthong; in the alternative orthography, they may represent a diphthong, two syllables with a voiceless glide, or two syllables with a voiced glide, depending on the particular two vowels and on the kind of word in which they appear. On the other hand, the difference between syllabic and consonantal r l m n is clearly marked in the alternative orthography.
 
Here is a passage of Lojban (written by Nick Nicholas) in both orthographies:
 
mi na certu le se zajbrnatleta .iku'i mi co'a jimpe lenu mi poi xelso cu no'e snada tu'a le la olimpik. nunjvi pe vi la tokios. .isa'unai mi nu'o zmadu zo'epeca'aku leni snada .iti'e le mulno nizyji'a cu te zmadu mi le gugdrkore'a kuce'o le gugdrnafganistana kuce'o le gugdrkenia kuce'o le gugdrtrinidada kuce'o le xanto denci xaskoi gugde .iku'i mi zmadu .u'a le gugdrlixtenctaine .i lenu go'i cu pluka nuzba .i zmadu pluka fau le nu'o nu le gugdrlixtenctaine cu se nunjvi la olimpik.
 
mi na certu le se zajbrrnatleta I kui mi coa jimpe lenu mi poi xelso cu noe snada tua le la Olimpik nunjvi pe vi la Tokios I saunai mi nuo zmadu zoepecaaku leni snada I tie le mulno nizyjia cu te zmadu mi le gugdrrkorea kuceo le gugdrrnafganistana kuceo le gugdrrkenia kuceo le gugdrrtrinidada kuceo le xanto denci xaskoi gugde I kui mi zmadu u,a le gugdrrlixtenctaine I lenu go,i cu pluka nuzba I zmadu pluka fao le nuo nu le gugdrrlixtenctaine cu se nunjvi la Olimpik
 
 
== Criticisms of Lojban as a Tool for Machine Translation ==
 
[Rick Morneau posted some criticisms of Lojban as a language for machine translation (MT). John Cowan responded to these, which led Rick to try to clarify his objections. John Cowan then responded to the clarifications. The result is an excellent summary of a number of the most common criticisms of Lojban, and the arguments that we believe refute them.]
 
Here are the reasons why I feel that Lojban is poorly suited for use as an interlingua in machine translation:
 
1. Lojban claims that its words are self-segregating. Obviously, this feature is not needed for the analysis of written language, but it can greatly simplify the analysis of continuous speech. Unfortunately, Lojban requires the use of pauses in certain places in order to fully implement this feature. Enforced pauses are unnatural and, should Lojban ever attain a community of native speakers, these pauses will be one of the first things to disappear.
 
: Lojban pauses need not be the kind of pauses used by separated-word speech recognizers; a glottal stop is a sufficient equivalent of pause. The two main uses of pauses are after names and before words beginning with a vowel. In the first case, nothing will be able to do much better; existing speech-recognition systems simply punt on names in general, unless the name has been hard-wired into the system as a word.
 
:: Glottal stops before words beginning with a vowel are common enough in the world's languages: consider German, which does not notate such glottal stops but whose speakers (of the standard dialect, anyway) invariably produce them. Not everybody speaks like anglophones - "English is the language you speak without moving your mouth", as my mother (native German, near-native English) used to say.
 
: In some cases this is true, especially when one word ends in a vowel and the next starts in a vowel. However, there are some cases where a glottal stop will not work:
 
: 1. if a word ends in a voiced nasal and the following word starts in an unvoiced fricative, stop or affricate.
 
: 2. if a word ends in an unvoiced fricative and the following word starts in an unvoiced fricative, stop or affricate.
 
: In these situations a glottal stop will either be impossible to detect, or will be eliminated through normal phonological processes. If, however, these juxtapositions can not occur in Lojban then I withdraw my criticism.
 
: These juxtapositions can occur only if the first word is a name, and (as I said earlier) names are notoriously intractable. They can violate the phonotactics of the language in which they are embedded in random ways, and existing word-based speech processors simply punt on them.
 
: Lojbab adds: This item seems irrelevant to the issue that Rick says he is arguing. If he is solely concerned in his criticism with Lojban's suitability as an interlingua for machine translation of other languages, then recognizability of pauses in a Lojban speech stream is irrelevant because a machine translator would not be processing Lojban speech. Mandatory phonemic pauses affect how humans speak the language and not on how difficult it is to translate it.
 
: Answering the issue for the case of a machine attempting to understand spoken Lojban, I note that our statement is that a glottal stop is a sufficient allophone of the phoneme "pause". If phonological processes cause a glottal stop to disappear, then under those circumstances a Lojban speaker will need a more exaggerated 'pause'. A proper Lojban speaker will have sufficient pause in his or her dialect to separate the words. But errors in speech will occur. To say that such errors in speech are a burden on the machine is a truism; we can also say that it is a burden on the machine if the speaker lisps, slips in voiced consonants that are unvoiced, or speaks with stops that are insufficiently distinguished, all things that often happen in natural human speech.
 
2. Lojban syntax is too complex. Regardless of the syntactic formalism you swear by (transformational grammar, government/binding theory, generalized phrase structure grammar, lexical functional grammar, home-brew grammar, ad nauseam), a natural language minus its idioms and irregularities can be represented with an equivalent of fewer than three dozen production rules. If I remember correctly, Lojban syntax requires about ten times that number. Lojbanists claim that it is machine-parsable, and I'm willing to take their word for it. However, an MT interlingua (IL) should have a syntax that is as simple as possible. A simple syntax not only makes it easier to parse the IL, but more importantly, it makes translating from the source language to the IL much easier.
 
: As simple as possible, but no simpler. The Lojban grammar is a phrase structure grammar - it does not have any transformation (T) rules or their more modern equivalents. Chomsky introduced T rules, way back in Syntactic Structures, because he didn't want to have to deal with phrase structure grammars with (by guesswork) 104 to 105 rules. Lojban's 600-odd rules look pretty simple by comparison.
 
:: The existing parser generates a complete parse of a 1600-word short story (with some pretty hairy grammar - it's a deliberately complex translation of a Saki short story) in about 15 seconds on a '386 machine. The existing program is not optimized for speed worth a damn - I concentrated on maintainability. On a 'Real Computer', parsing effort will be absolutely negligible.
 
: Your response puzzled me. A fast computer is not adequate justification for creating inefficient code, especially when the MT application itself will be grasping greedily for every cpu cycle it can get. Also, Lojban's 600-odd rules (twice as many as I thought!) is still almost twenty times as much as needed. So, compared with a syntax designed explicitly for an MT IL, Lojban's parser requires only 20 times as much code as minimally necessary. This is quite a selling point!
 
:: 600 rules is for the full language. A pure interlingua application would be unlikely to generate the full language. A "core subset" could be constructed that would be far more rigid but far smaller, and yet truly be a subset.
:: However, I would also point to an argument given in The Elements of Programming Style. A tricky way of initializing a identity matrix in FORTRAN is given, and the text explains why it works. However, it then points out that the time taken to initialize such a matrix is always insignificant. In a program with small matrices, the time is insignificant in an absolute sense; in a program with large matrices, the time is insignificant relative to the time spent in all other matrix operations, which are typically n2 to n3 expensive.
:: Furthermore, for IL applications there is no real need to keep the Lojban in text form; the conversion from tree form to text form is absolutely trivial. (Lojban has no "obligatory transformations" in the sense of early Chomsky, so you print out the tree and strip the parentheses.)
:: [Lojbab adds: Rick is making a big issue out of rule counts that are specific to the format in which they are presented - the language of input to the YACC processor that verifies their unambiguity. Another rule format describing the same language, the E-BNF included with this issue of JL, has only about 80 rules. Of the E-BNF rules, 15 are associated with the grammar of mathematics (MEX), and 12 are associated with the tense system (described in John Cowan's paper that accompanied JL16), leaving perhaps 50 to cover the whole remainder of the grammar.
:: By comparison, Rick in a separate posting gave a sample E-BNF set of rules for what he considered an extremely "simple" grammar for a constructed language which has at least 40 E-BNF rules, but not specifying any MEX or tense grammar, even though all language has at least some rudiments of each.
:: For an interlingua translation system, mathematical text would be translated notationally, not in words, and hence MEX would not need to be part of a machine translation system. Thus MEX is an example of John's statement that machine translation using Lojban would implement only a subset of the Lojban grammar.
:: Tense is an example of one of the many features of natural language that are not easily represented in a very simple language. You might end up with an optimal language for internal data processing, but it is so cumbersome to use for humans that they cannot significantly input or read the internal texts. Lojban tenses, expressing relationships in space and time about the referents of the sentences they occur in, could easily be expressed using expanded predicates (and the conversion from tense to predicate is probably trivial for most cases that would occur in natural language), but the resulting text would be longer and no easier to convert to the tense structure of another language.
:: Clearly. Lojban is not "20 times what is needed", but rather is probably fairly close in size to Rick's 'minimal' grammar.
:: Rick also misinterprets John's statement that he did not design the parser for speed, and he jumped to a false conclusion. John's parser was designed for maintainability, to minimize programming time, which is our critical resource these days. "Inefficient code" has plenty of "excuse" when it gets the job done without affecting critical resources. But Lojban can have faster processing: Jeff Taylor's earlier parser, limited in text capacity, could do 1/4 of Saki in about 5 seconds on a much slower 286 machine.
:: Finally, of course, Lojban has the advantage of being usable both for internal processing as well as by the linguists/natural language processing people who are building the knowledge engine (see our DARPA proposal in JL16).
 
3. Lojban's predicate logic is not very "logical" in the way it is used to represent natural language. (It may be "logical" for testing the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis, but this has no bearing on its use as an MT IL.) It's assignment of place structures is too arbitrary and inflexible for use as an MT IL. In most natural language processing applications, a sentence is represented using case frames or a close equivalent. (In brief, case frames are a practical and elegant implementation of basic X-bar theory, which, in my opinion, gives tremendous credibility to its claim of crosslinguistic applicability.) Lojban's inflexible place structures and [selma'o] BAI bandaids are not only counterintuitive, but they force the computer to treat language structures differently when they are essentially the same. Each predicate, in effect, has a built-in irregularity which requires extra processing by the computer.
 
: The present list does not do the fact justice, but there are in fact cross-predicate patterns of place structures. Furthermore, it was believed to be more important to get each word as nearly right as possible than to shoe-horn the words into some existing framework. There is simply a lot more complexity in the Real World (TM) than typical Schankian frames allow for; lots and lots of idiosyncrasy. Still and all, 1300 place structures is simply not a whopping amount: even given that we don't believe it's possible to derive the place structures of compounds algorithmically from the place structures of the underlying roots, those roots do constrain the resultant place structures to a marked degree.
 
:: John interpreted my use of "case frames" as synonymous with Schankian scripts. Actually, the two are not related at all. My mention of X-bar theory should have clarified the matter, except, of course, to those who are unfamiliar with X-bar theory. My apologies.
:: In a case frame representation, each node can be represented by a head and its modifiers. This is the essence of X-bar theory. Thus, a frame representing a noun phrase would have the main noun as its head and the modifiers as adjuncts that follow the head in the frame. (A modifier can also be a complete relative clause, in which case it would be represented by the equivalent of a separate sub-frame). A sentence would have the main verb as its head, and noun phrases that are arguments of the verb would, in effect, be its modifiers. These structures, of course, are recursive. Note that, syntactically, all elements in a frame that modify their heads are treated equally. Note also, that these case frames are simply an easy way to represent syntactic trees in a computer. Lojban predicates and their designer-selected, pseudo-thematic place structures force arguments to be treated differently when they are essentially the same. In other words, some branches of the tree will require different code to handle than other branches. Nothing is gained except counter-productive complexity.
:: So, although Lojban's predicate structures do not make the job impossible, they do make it much more difficult than it has to be.
 
::: I do not understand this argument. There seems to be a shift between talk of syntax and talk of semantics. The arguments of a Lojban predicate are syntactically all equal; semantically, each one plays a specified role. Which role can be determined by looking in the dictionary, or if the word is a compound which is not in the dictionary, by applying a set of heuristics. (Despite several efforts, those heuristics have not yet been defined.)
::: To take an English example, "I see the dog" involves a predicate "see" and two arguments "I" and "the dog". The definition of "see" determines which of these is the seer and which the seen, but Lojban treats them as syntactically identical.
 
4. Lojban's list of concept primitives (gismu) is inadequate and lacks semantic motivation. Now, I've read hand-waving arguments claiming that the gismu are not semantic primitives. Yet that is exactly the way they are used. The fact is, an awful lot of work has been done in both computational and theoretical linguistics in the search for a meaningful set of semantic primitives. A few examples are Silvio Ceccato's semantic hierarchies (circa 1950-1960), Yorick Wilks semantic primitives (circa 1977), Roger Schank's primitive ACTs (circa 1977), Donald Fass's comprehensive genus classification (mid 1980's), Anna Wierzbicka's semantic primitives (1970-1980), and, most recently, Kathleen Dahlgren's knowledge representation work (1989). Any one of these systems could be used as is, or modified for use in the design of an AL. And any one of them would have provided a solid foundation for the semantics of an AL. Now, I realize that Loglan got its start before most of the work I mentioned above. However, Loglanists and Lojbanists have been modifying and repairing their languages since then, and, as far as I'm concerned, if something is broken it should be fixed. This is especially true if Lojban is to be suitable for use as an MT IL, and if its semantics are to be as "logical" as its other features.
 
: The best indication that none of these "semantic primes" systems is fully adequate for mapping the real world is the very fact that there are so many of them. The empirical derivation of the gismu list is admitted. Some of the words do not belong in any list of semantic primes, and others exist for historical reasons only. We do repair things, but only when they are demonstrably broken; there has been no effort to reduce the number of gismu en masse. We in Lojbanistan (he said) simply do not believe that there exists any truly comprehensive semantic system for mapping the immense variety of real-world predicates into a categorical or hierarchical system. Instead, the gismu are meant to blanket semantic space, ensuring that what needs to be expressed can be expressed. Even so, large areas of semantically "shallow" but "broad" space are underserved: foods, cultures, materials, living organisms. These semantic areas will be covered by borrowings from natural languages.
 
:: Of course there isn't a system, otherwise linguists wouldn't be working on it. What I failed to make clear was that there's no need for a comprehensive, unchallenged theory on which one could base the design of an AL. Keep in mind that linguists are trying to develop a theory that will correctly describe and explain the totality of human language. An AL designer needs only a single, simple system that can be applied rigorously and that is sufficiently robust to allow any human language statement to be accurately converted into the AL.
 
::: "A single, simple system [of semantics]" - ah, there's the rub. How can you be sure that your "single, simple system", presumably designed a priori, really does cover everything? Lojban's gismu list is a posteriori and merges semantic lists from several different sources. It may not be the most tractable possible list, but it is a usable list in a deep sense. Furthermore, the same consideration mentioned under syntax applies here. There is no reason to suppose that the IL generator will have sufficient smarts (or resources) to generate text that involves every one of the 1300-odd root words.
 
::: [Lojbab adds: That there is no semantic theory in our selection of basic roots need not be a failing - one has to show that some semantic theory is universally enough true to give a better result. But since we contend to be able to express most any concept within Lojban, it doesn't really matter what our set of roots are.]
 
:: If you're still not convinced, then consider this: there is not yet a single comprehensive theory of syntax. Did this lack of a comprehensive theory prevent the Lojban designers from designing a rigorous, machine-tractable syntax?
 
::: The history of the Loglan Project shows that the rigorous machine-tractable syntax was not actually achieved until a systematic re-design of the grammar was undertaken using YACC as an indispensable tool. I do not mean that the language was changed to make YACC-ing easier; the only changes made were those forced by the goal of "0 shift-reduce, 0 reduce-reduce conflicts found".
::: If the theory and practice of LALR(1) parsing was not so well understood, I doubt that Lojban would have a "rigorous, machine-tractable syntax". There is simply nothing comparable in the semantic domain for checking the correctness and completeness of a design.
 
5. Lojban's process of creating compound words from its set of primitives seems to depend on contextual disambiguation for proper understanding. In other words, it is as "illogical" as the same process in natural languages. (I believe that Jim Carter has criticized Loglanists for this lack.) In computer translation, the computer will often run into a situation where a compound word in the IL does not have a counterpart in the target language. In this situation, the computer must be able to break up the word into an equivalent phrase or clause. In other words, the computer must be able to generate a paraphrase of the relationship between the more primitive components of the compound. You can, of course, put this information in the dictionary, but this solution is not at all practical if you want to keep your dictionaries simple, and if you want to have one dictionary per natural language usable for both source and target translation. I could say much more on this extremely important topic, but to do so would take more time than I have, and this thing is already too long. In summary, though, an IL designed for use in MT must be maximally and reversibly compositional.
 
: There are two separate points to sort out here: the mapping of compounds to phrases, and the explication of phrases. Every compound can be mapped to a phrase, and potentially every phrase to a compound, unambiguously and reversibly. What is left ambiguous is the precise set of compositional rules. Does "blanu zdani" (blue house) mean a house that is blue, a house part of which is blue, a house for inhabitants who are blue, a house that is blue in the appropriate way for houses, a house for people who are slowly turning blue,... Since the first requisite of Lojban is that it be speakable (it is a human language, not a code), not all ambiguity can be weeded out. Lojban works on removing structural ambiguity so that the real problems of semantic ambiguity can be openly faced.
 
:: lo cimni ka satci cu se jdima
:: lo cimni ni valsi
:: the-thing-which-is-an infinite type-of quality-of preciseness has-as-price the-thing-which-is-an infinite type-of quantity-of words
:: The price of infinite precision is infinite verbosity.
 
:: I failed to make clear that such a compromise can be achieved along with the reversible compositionality that is needed in machine translation. For example, the English compound "houseboat" can be decomposed as "boat which functions as a house". The compound "windowpane" can be decomposed as "pane which is part of a window". In a machine translation application, the relationships "which functions as" and "which is a part of" must be explicitly stated in the compound word. This can always be done with the addition of a single morpheme which would, in effect, link the component morphemes and indicate the relationship that exists between them. This would normally mean an additional syllable (and, of course, an appropriately designed morphology), and apparently many people would object to this for esthetic reasons. However, one additional syllable is a small price to pay when the potential reward is so high.
 
:: Without this simple "sacrifice", your AL will be useless as an IL.
 
::: Lojban compounds (whether closed or open) are by design semantically ambiguous. However, there are always paraphrases which disambiguate them. An IL generator would presumably not generate ambiguous compounds.
 
6. Finally, a logical language is inherently unsuitable for representing natural language. Lojban is called a logical language for good reason. It forces a speaker to express himself according to various rules of logic. Natural languages do not require a speaker to be logical in the same way. As a result, when translating from a natural language into Lojban, the computer will often have to fully understand what the speaker is saying (to "fill in the gaps", so to speak), which is well beyond the capabilities needed for normal disambiguation. It is also well beyond the capabilities of computers.
 
: But is it "well beyond the capabilities needed" in all cases? It seems to me that given two languages A and B, and three meanings a, b, c, that language A expresses a and b with an ambiguous sentence, whereas language B expresses b and c with an ambiguous sentence. If meaning b is intended, then translating ambiguity with ambiguity is a safe procedure - but in translating a from A into B, or c from B into A, the ambiguity must be tackled and resolved. A system that does not "fully understand what the speaker is saying" will inevitably make blunders of this type.
 
:: The neutral framework of predicate logic which Lojban employs, being equally foreign to all natural languages, forces ambiguity to be squeezed out before a correct translation can be generated. (I am not referring here to the problem of translating intentional ambiguity, as in poetry, which is surely far beyond the state-of-the-art of any computer-based technique.) If all languages without exception deviated from predicate logic in the same ways, then the need for a neutral medium would not exist - but they don't. For example, Lojban can be neutral among languages that affirm a negative question with "No" (like English), with "Yes" (like Russian), and that repeat the negated verb (like Irish).
 
: How can "being equally foreign to all natural languages" be anything but an impassible barrier? An interlingua designed for use in machine translation must be, as much as humanly possible, a reductive and fundamental distillation of the essential features of natural language. Not even the slightest degree of "foreignness" can be tolerated.
 
:: "The" essential features? Which are those? Unless you have a theory (or at least a set of heuristics) telling you the essential features, your project will be inherently parochialized by the particular case you choose to debug it with. Lojban is intended to provide a framework which minimizes metaphysical assumptions; thus S/W is assumed as a hypothesis (its falsity is the null hypothesis to be rejected). Therefore, the assumptions of the original must be spelled out in the Lojban version, which can then be interpreted and reduced by the process that composes the translation.
 
: John wrote the Lojban for "The price of infinite precision is infinite verbosity."
: This is such a simple statement in English (and equally simple in Swahili and French and Indonesian and how many others?), yet how complex and convoluted it is in Lojban! I shudder at the thought of designing software that is smart enough to know that "infinite precision" must be paraphrased as "the-thing-which-is-an infinite type-of quality-of preciseness", and that "infinite verbosity" must be paraphrased as "the-thing-which-is-an infinite type-of quantity-of words". I'm not even sure it's possible. The degree of understanding needed to generate these paraphrases may be required by natural language understanding systems, but not by machine translation systems.
 
:: It is an aphorism of Lojbanic culture (such as it is), making use of the full resources of the Lojban language. The literal gloss is complex and convoluted, but that is because Lojban is not encoded English.
:: Somewhere or other, Jespersen has translations of "First come, first served", an aphorism which is simple and terse in English, into French and Danish. The French isn't bad, but the Danish is incredibly verbose and downright baroque. I can just imagine what the Danish (Swahili, Bahasa Indonesia, ...) for "The more the merrier, but the fewer the better fare" looks like!
:: Anyhow, I meant to use the aphorism rather than mentioning it; I was pointing out that if Lojban is confined to fully explicit semantic forms, it will be unspeakable because too verbose. Even your glosses like "boat which functions as a house" are not really enough. Precisely which of the "functions" of the house are provided by the houseboat, and which are not? For example, one of the functions of a house may be to serve as a recipient of mail, but a houseboat typically does not. So you need something like "boat which functions as a house in that it provides shelter and a fixed platform for engaging in normal domestic behavior". Each word in this expansion itself requires further expansion; in particular, "fixed" with respect to what? Obviously not the shore of the river!
:: [Lojbab adds:] In case the motivation for John's last point isn't clear, I want to point out that there may not be a word corresponding to "houseboat" in every natural language - or that might be more than one, with significant minor denotation differences based on exactly which functions are performed. Would the Chinese word for the boats that people live on in the rivers and ports of China be an accurate translation for English "houseboat" in every instance of the latter's occurrence.
:: I'm not sure that a successful machine translation system can be anything less than a full-featured natural language system, unless you intend to have substantial human translator verification of every single word choice made.
 
: In summary, I feel that an interlingua for use in machine translation must be as close as we can come to the elusive "universal grammar". In attempting to provide a test for the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis, Loglan designers have had no choice but to go in exactly the opposite direction.
 
By the way, most of the claims I've heard about Lojban's suitability for use as an MT IL seem to be based on its underlying predicate structure. Now, many (most?) linguists and logicians are of the opinion that predicate logic is not suitable for representing natural language. Some, however, disagree and have created a school of semantics usually called Montague semantics (other names and minor variations are model-theoretic semantics, truth-conditional semantics and possible-worlds semantics). These linguists are attempting to do what Loglanists claim to have already done; i.e., developing a formal and unambiguous method for representing natural language. So, if you do in fact make this claim, then you might want to test it on the people who count the most - the Montague semanticists. Show them how predicate logic and its accessories can be used to represent natural language. If it means learning their lingo (and it probably will if you want to get their attention), then do it! The burden of proof, however, is on you.
 
: [Lojbab responds: pc studied semantics under Montague at UCLA, and is quite capable of speaking the lingo. But Loglan does not claim to unambiguously handle semantics of natural language; indeed I claim that semantics is impossible to handle unambiguously because it is dependent on the whole of the speaker's and listener's background experiences as well as on the current context, and thus a virtually infinite amount of data is needed to capture the "total" meaning of a statement.]
 
In summary, I do not feel that Lojban (or Glosa, or Esperanto, or Vorlin) is suitable for use as a machine translation interlingua, in spite of claims to the contrary. Most importantly, I see nothing in Lojban that would facilitate the most difficult aspect of machine translation: translating from a natural language to the interlingua. What I do see is an AL that has so little in common with natural languages, that translating between it and a natural language will be considerably more difficult than translating directly between natural languages. And this does not surprise me at all, considering that Loglan/Lojban was designed to test the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis. Such a language, by its very nature, would be the antithesis of what is needed for an MT IL, no matter how "logical" it is.
 
Finally, I realize that much of what I've said is potentially flammable. However, I'd like to make it clear that I have no intention of angering anyone, and, if I have, please accept my apologies. I can even admit the possibility that I've misunderstood some of the features of Lojban that I've criticized (although I doubt it). Also, please keep in mind that I've only criticized one aspect of Lojban - its claimed suitability for use as a machine interlingua. In most other respects I find Lojban to be a fascinating language, and, if I were not committed to learning other languages as part of my MT hobby, I would probably be studying Lojban (in spite of its ugly consonant clusters :-).
 
: Lojbab: I would not be angry with Rick Morneau for what appears to be an honest difference of opinion. Nor do I say that Rick's arguments are ones that cannot or should not be raised. I believe that some of them do not apply to Lojban, some do not apply to Lojban as it would be used in an MT application, and some are simply irrelevant, or at best matters of opinion.
 
:: In some matters of opinion, there is not always an 'ironclad' method of refuting them. The rule-counting game is an example, since comparing rule counts is so dependent on how they are stated, and what features of the language are included in the not-yet-designed Lojban machine translation system. Which rules would be used is going to be determined by the MT system designer based on factors that are not knowable now.
:: Lojban features such as the tense system each reflect things that occur in natural languages, and to eliminate one means that the translator will have to use software to simplify or paraphrase in translation into Lojban, though it might then simplify the processing out of Lojban thereafter, when the Lojban has to be processed.
:: Indeed in writing this last sentence, I realize that I believe the opposite of Rick. The basis of an interlingua-based MT system is to minimize language-specific processing for source and target languages, which processing expands at a higher degree polynomial of the number of languages in a non-interlingua system. An interlingua which is ultra-simplified requires that the source language be paraphrased in an ultra-simplified manner which may lose significant information that could be important to the translation.
:: For example, the English phrase "ship which is faster than light", which may also be expressed as "faster-than-light ship". Does an interlingua for MT need the capability to separately distinguish the two forms, which probably mean almost identical things, if not totally identical in meaning? This is a design decision, not a theory decision. If the target language offers equivalent forms to the two English variations, then preserving the form of the original is valuable in achieving a natural-seeming style in the output of the translation. If merely the information is to be transferred, then such stylistic preservation is wasted. Lojban has rules that support both forms. An MT system designer that did not care to support both forms could easily leave out one rule from the Lojban interlingua. But in a 10-language system, this potentially means that you must write 10 input processors to decide that such ordering information is to be simplified out into the single remaining Lojban (or other interlingua) form, and then you need 10 output processors that will decide based on some criteria which of two or more output forms in the target language will reflect the single Lojban form. Clearly, in such a situation, an oversimplified Lojban or other interlingua increases the processing required. The better interlingua is the one that can convey the maximum amount of complex information across the language boundaries.
:: As an example of one of Rick's claims that is an irrefutable argument, look at the claim that natural languages are too complex to be modelled by a logical language. If there is more that I am missing, I apologize. But this is an argument by assertion, since Rick has not posed any specific natural language feature that cannot be modelled by a logical language - he has merely argued from assumptions. That these assumptions are plausible does not mean that they are correct. While Rick states that logical analysis has failed in the case of Montague grammar semantics, another poster noted that Montague grammars have been used in MT systems.
:: Whether natural languages are too complex to be modelled by a logical language is probably indeterminate. For every example Rick poses, I may be able to find a counter, but this does not stop him from claiming that there are many more that I have not covered.
:: Since Lojban does not embed any particular semantic theory into its design, attacking Montague grammars doesn't say much about Lojban anyway. To say that our design is inadequate, you have to show how it fails. Rick has not. I would contend that he cannot, without getting much deeper into the Lojban design than he probably cares to.
 
== Discussions on the Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis ==
 
In a discussion of Sapir-Whorf on the Linguist List linguistic mailing list "linguist@tamsun.tamu.edu", Lojbab wrote:
 
Michael Kac says:
<blockquote>
On the basis of unsystematic observation and impressionistic judgements which are confirmed by all other linguists I've consulted, it would appear that the view that one's world view is determined by the language one speaks is nearly universally accepted by educated people who aren't linguists.
</blockquote>
I'll concur, as well, and my primary interaction is with such people. The exceptions to this are correlated with politics, with some people (usually 'left') considering linguistic relativism to be racist. However, even these people are inconsistent, since the arguments about gender and pronouns/language-gender (including the recent one on Linguist List) inherently assume some form of language effect on world-view, or it wouldn't make any difference. Note that the occasionally emotive arguments in this latter discussion shows that even linguists may to some extent assume what they claim they don't.
 
Factors in the continuing belief include:
 
 
a) what people mean by 'world view' and 'determined' is different. Sapir-Whorf is generally understood to have strong and weak versions, with the strongest form almost certainly false because translation IS possible, and the weakest form true to the point of triteness.
 
b) the field of semiotics is heavily dependent on assuming linguistic relativism, and most educated people are more exposed to literary criticism than linguistic theory.
 
c) the continuing identification of political issues with the linguistic relativity assumption. As such, people are continually exposed to the assumption in daily life without it being explicitly identified as a hidden assumption.
 
d) I believe certain areas of anthropological linguistics still accept Sapir-Whorf to some extent, especially where the researcher is in the anthropology department rather than the linguistics dept. My source of this is Reed Riner at U. of No. Arizona, but I think I heard something similar from John Atkins who was at U. of Washington.
 
I've used the phrase 'linguistic relativity' because when actually pinned down, many people will say that they aren't sure whether language determines world-view or vice versa, but that there is obviously a relation.
 
<blockquote>
I guess I don't find that particularly strange (a lot of my friends, however, consider ME extremely strange for being skeptical on this point);
</blockquote>
 
The Loglan (artificial language) project has the goal (among others) of testing the 'Sapir-Whorf hypothesis'. Those of us working on the project, linguists or not, are assumed by many to 'believe in' the SWH, though we are predominantly agnostic or skeptical like you. I think it is again an unquestioning assumption that the concept holds, with little analysis of the implications, that leads to this assumption.
 
<blockquote>
I do find it somewhat odd that people who accept this view seem to think that it is (a) obviously correct, and (b) profound, a contradiction in terms. I welcome further data and insights.
</blockquote>
 
Again, I think people assume the concept to be obviously correct in some 'weak' form and also intuitively realize that it breaks down in some stronger form.
 
The profundity is due to the never-ending political and philosophical implications of the assumed-true concept. That the hypothesis isn't even well stated means that none of the tests conducted in the 50s truly settled the issue. Supporters of the hypothesis seem to think that linguists abandoned the issue either because they could not prove it one way or the other, or because the idea became unfashionable or even non-P.C. with the rise of Chomsky's ideas.
 
If unambiguously true, the hypothesis itself is uninteresting. Until the bounds of its truth are explored, the philosophical implications will continue to be profound.
 
I think there is some considerable correlation in attitude on linguistic relativity and language prescriptivism. In the latter area as well, linguists tend to have a considerable disagreement with the educated-populace-at-large, who consider it a truism that there is a right way to speak and use a language and other usages are wrong. This assumption is also considered 'obvious', and when its fallacies and philosophical implications are pointed out, also considered profound.
 
----
 
A lively debate ensued, partly in response to these comments.
 
Niko Besnier, Department of Anthropology, Yale University <UTTANU@YALEVM.BITNET> replied:
 
The reason why linguistic anthropologists "still" believe in some version of the Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis (SWH) is not that they know less about language than mainstream linguists (many fields have much to say about language, and it is a delusion to think that any one field has a monopoly on the subject), but that they focus on language in a different way from linguists. The prototypical anthropological paradigm focuses on diversity, on the particular, and builds theory on the particular, looking at, for example, relational patterns between the particular in language and the particular in society and culture. This contrasts with the avowed universalism extant in most linguistic paradigms. Having been "brought up" in the latter paradigm, to then move to some version of the former, I am at a loss to decide that one is "better," more intellectually worthwhile, etc., than the other. I doubt that mud-slinging ("butterfly collector!" "universalist-schmuniversalist!") will get either field very far.
 
There is room for the SWH in a particularistic approach to language. But what it has to be grounded on is a careful reading of poor Whorf, who must be on the most misread (unread?) thinkers of the century. Interpretations of Whorf extant amongst mainstream linguists have little to do with what Whorf actually wrote, and this had led linguists to call the man by all sorts of names (e.g. "weekend linguist" - Geoffrey Pullum in NLLT). It is telling, for example, that in my linguistic training at two institutions I was never required to read a single original text by Whorf. To a certain extent this is understandable, since Whorf wrote in an opaque, dense style.
 
John Lucy ("Whorf's view of the linguistic mediation of thought," in Semiotic Mediation, ed. by Elizabeth Mertz & Richard Parmentier, Academic P, 1985) shows that one of the important aspects of the SWH missing from laypersons' accounts (i.e. accounts by those who have not read Whorf) is that Whorf is not talking about determinism by all of language of all aspects of world view. Rather, fashions of speaking determine habitual thought. Fashions of speaking are broad patternings of grammatical categories and discourse strategies in a language, across what Whorf calls overt and covert categories. Areas of language where one should seek "weak" determinism (the strong version of determinism was never advocated by Whorf, but by subsequent linguists who never seem to have read Whorf) are in fact very different from areas that Whorf is usually said to have claimed to be deterministic. I'd point to work like that of Elinor Ochs as example of where determinism is to be found between language and habitual thought: the shape of, even the presence/absence of baby talk in a speech community, provides a pretty strong deterministic "lesson" to language acquirers about the relationship between structure (= institutions) and agency (= person) extant in the society, i.e. about the type of things that social theorists worry about.
 
This posting is already too long, but I'd like to point to Alan Rumsey's (1990) paper, "Wording, Meaning, and Linguistic Ideology," American Anthropologist 92:346-361, for an excellent discussion of where Whorfianism works.
 
----
 
=== Summary of Linguistic Attitudes on Sapir-Whorf ===
 
[Bruce Nevin gave a very detailed and informative discussion of the Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis. He has given us permission to publish the entire text which is part of a longer work-in-progress. The I, II, and III perspectives listed in the text are not his but as cited. Following is Bruce's relevant background.
<br />Bruce Nevin received his AB and AM degrees in linguistics from the University of Pennsylvania in 1969 and 1970. From 1970 through 1974 he did extensive fieldwork on Achumawi, a Hokan language spoken in the northeastern corner of California. He resumed PhD matriculation at the University of Pennsylvania in 1987, intending to use the Achumawi material in the dissertation. He has been employed as a writer by Bolt Beranek and Newman (BBN) in Cambridge, Massachusetts since 1982.
<br />The following is Copyright 1991 by Bruce Nevin, <bn@bbn.com>.]
 
 
I want to outline the views of Sapir and of Whorf on linguistic and cultural relativism as I understand them and survey some of what has been done with these ideas, both as deriving explicitly from their writings and as arising from less clearly articulated cultural and intellectual antecedents that it is difficult for any of us not in some measure to share as we grapple with universals and idiosyncrasies of language and culture.
 
These ideas arose for Sapir in the context of his work on language typology on the one hand and psychology on the other. In the background lay social Darwinism, or at least the pervasive evolutionist perspective of 19th-century anthropology, and in this respect Sapir's interest here was a continuation of Boas' restitution of "primitive" languages as on an equal footing with the languages of familiar literate cultures, and an all-important entree into "the network of cultural patterns of a civilization," which "In a sense ... is indexed in the language which expresses that civilization." (1929:162)
 
In his conception of the relation of language, personality, culture, and "the world," Sapir distinguished between social reality:
 
<blockquote>
"Language is a guide to `social reality.' ... it powerfully conditions all our thinking about social problems and processes ... the world of social activity as ordinarily understood"<ref name=pa />
</blockquote>
 
and objective reality, as had Durckheim and others, and affirmed of the former that:
 
<blockquote>
"No two languages are ever sufficiently similar to be considered as representing the same social reality. The worlds in which different societies live are distinct worlds, not merely the same world with different labels attached."
</blockquote>
 
It was in this sense that he made his famous assertion "The fact of the matter is that the 'real world' is to a large extent unconsciously built up on the language habits of the group." (Preceding quotations all loc. cit.)
 
The core of the matter for Sapir, however, was an identification of language, specifically grammatical categories, with thought:
 
<blockquote>
"I quite frankly commit myself to the idea that thought is impossible without language, that thought is language." (In a letter of 8 April 1921 keeping Lowie abreast of progress on the manuscript of Language; quoted in Darnell 1990:99.)
</blockquote>
 
In other places, Sapir severely divorces language from culture, but in this he appears to mean material culture, the "inventory" of cultural artefacts. The correlation of these things with associated vocabulary he regarded as trivial.<ref name=re />
 
Whorf may have been a Theosophist. His philosophical interests attracted him to Sapir and to linguistics, and his fascination with the "hidden metaphysics" of languages remained always the central thing for him, for which the tools of linguistics were subordinate means. From the point of view of an emerging profession, then, he was quite literally eccentric, in that specific sense. His ideas began to crystallize with preparation to teach a course at Yale during Sapir's leave in 1937-38. His intention was to "excite [students'] interest in the linguistic approach as a way of developing understanding of the ideology of other peoples" (letter to Spier). He would focus on "a psychological direction, and the problems of:
 
<blockquote>
"meaning, thought and idea in so-called primitive cultures," aiming to "reveal psychic factors or constants" and the "organization of raw experience into a consistent and readily communicable universe of ideas through the medium of linguistic patterns" (to Carroll; both quoted in Darnell 1990:381).
</blockquote>
 
<blockquote>
Whorf developed his ideas about linguistic relativity during Sapir's illness and elaborated it after his death, so Sapir never had a chance to comment. Whorf died in 1941 at the age of forty-four, leaving less sympathetic colleagues to pursue the implications of his work. (Darnell 1990:375)
</blockquote>
 
Sapir had confined the constitutive role of language to social reality. Whorf went farther, and developed the claim that:
 
<blockquote>
"It is the grammatical background of our mother tongue, which includes not only our way of constructing propositions but the way we dissect nature and break up the flux of experience into objects and entities to construct propositions about." (1956:239)
</blockquote>
 
The identification of language and thought takes an adversative twist:
 
<blockquote>
"[T]hinking ... follows a network of tracks laid down in the given language, an organization which may concentrate systematically upon certain phases of reality, certain aspects of intelligence, and may systematically discard others featured by other languages. The individual is utterly unaware of this organization and is constrained complete within its unbreakable bonds." (256)
 
</blockquote>
 
: Since:
 
<blockquote>
"if a rule has absolutely no exceptions, it is not recognized as a rule or as anything else; it is then part of the background of experience of which we tend to remain unconscious.
</blockquote>
 
In the background always is Theosophy, as in The Voice of the Silence:
 
<blockquote>
The mind is the great slayer of the real." (Quoted on p. 253)
</blockquote>
 
His views were recast in terms more acceptable to prevalent conceptions of operational test and verification, as by Eric Lenneberg in 1953, summarized by Roger Brown (Reference: In Memorial Tribute to Eric Lenneberg, Cognition 4:125-153):
 
<blockquote>
I. Structural differences between language systems will, in general, be paralleled by nonlinguistic cognitive differences, of an unspecified sort, in the native speakers of the two languages.
 
II. The structure of anyone's native language strongly influences or fully determines the world-view he will acquire as he learns the language. (p. 128)
</blockquote>
 
Behind this was the assumption (presumably "part of the unconscious background" of every student in the Boas-Sapir tradition, and indeed of virtually everyone as has been argued on the LINGUIST list) that:
 
<blockquote>
III. Languages, and hence cognitive systems, can vary without constraint.
</blockquote>
 
Proposition II has generally been presumed to be untestable because of the identification of language and any means of communicating one's world-view. Attempts to verify or falsify the hypothesis have concerned themselves either with I or III (with indirect evidence for II sought from III). It would be interesting to see a resumption of attention to II; e.g. employing techniques developed for study of non-human communication.
 
A conference organized by Robert Redfield in 1953 drew together a relatively small number of linguists and anthropologists with the aim of defining problems related to the hypothesis, reviewing work undertaken and plans for future work relating to it, and attempting to establish a minimal framework of institutional support for these research interests. Their proposals concerned mostly methods for getting at I. Their conclusions were cautious, as noted above, in keeping with the temper of the times.
 
Kay and Kempton (AA 86:66), perhaps somewhat parochially but truthfully as regards empirical research, claim that most of this research has been in the domain of color. They give citations of work bearing on III beginning about the time of the Redfield conference (Ray 1952, Conklin 1955, Lenneberg and Roberts 1956, Gleason 1961, Bohannan 1963), and probably the best known study, their own (Berlin and Kay 1969). They remark that "studies before 1969 tended to support III; those since 1969 have tended to discredit III" (loc. cit.) They accept the finding of Kay and McDaniel (1978) explaining universal constraints in color classification in terms of the neurophysiology of human color vision, and discrediting III with respect to color. They affirm of course that research into II and III is an open matter for domains other than color perception, in particular domains (they mention religion) where characteristics of peripheral neural mechanisms like those of color perception have no bearing.
 
A parallel tradition of research into aspect I of the hypothesis has been carried out primarily by psychologists, and Kay and Kempton (1984) is a continuation of this. They cite Brown and Lennebert 1954, Burnham and Clark 1955, Lenneberg 1961, Lantz and Stefflre 1964, and Stefflre, Castillo, and Morely 1966. This line of research seeks a correlation between a linguistic variable (codability and communication accuracy) and a nonlinguistic cognitive variable (memorability) within a single language, and is thus a weak form of I.
 
After initial claims of success in finding a positive correlation between the memorability of a color and its value on a linguistic variable, Rosch showed that both memorability and the combined variable of codability and accuracy of communication is determined universally by focality or perceptual salience. The assumption that the linguistic variables of codability and communication accuracy differ across languages (III again) was falsified by this research, and therefore any correlation between memorability and a linguistic variable was not relevant to the hypothesis. Lucy and Shweder determined that the problem of focality or salience was an artefact of how the color chips were presented, and devised an array by repeatedly re-randomizing chips from the initial array so that there is no relation between focality and findability. By this means they have reinstated the earlier correlation in favor of I with respect to color categories. There remain problems of interpretation and relevance to the broader aims of the enterprise, as unfortunately often happens in narrowly empirical work.
 
Research of a broader sort has gone on in many fields. In social and cultural anthropology it is difficult to find anything that is absolutely irrelevant to the Whorf-Sapir hypothesis, though the latter can be made irrelevant to some forms of anthropological work essentially by legislating a rather narrowly realist, anti-constructivist perspective for science. Among clearly relevant issues I name questions of symbolism, including especially money and symbols of political and/or religious stature, magic and cargo cults, studies of kinship systems and their role in the construction of interpersonal and social relations, and work in social categories. To this must be added work of more obviously linguistic nature, such as projection of prehistoric cultures from reconstructed proto-languages, Studies of the bases of prejudice, of stereotyping, and of national character in a more genuine sense (as pioneered by Gregory Bateson) ... the list is seemingly endless.
 
The fields of ethnolinguistics and sociolinguistics, themselves extremely broad and diversified (and themselves polarized rather as the right and left hemispheres of the brain of the archetypal anthropological linguist), have obvious bearing on the hypothesis. Hymes has urged a reinterpretation of the hypothesis, investigating patterns of language use rather than of language structure per se.
 
The perhaps contentiously named field of cognitive linguistics has a strong constructivist bent. Work in psycholinguistics in general often has clear bearing, though the direction of interest (and funding) to linguistic universals has tended to obscure investigation of linguistic idiosyncrasies that might correlate with cognitive differences.
 
From Bateson's work on communication and learning and in particular the discovery of the double bind in relation to these have developed lines of clinical research that have developed practical techniques of reframing and use of metaphor, and an understanding of human systems in cybernetic terms, as therapy (particularly the field of family therapy).
 
Lastly, I must mention the resurgence of feminism in all its many forms, especially as a scholarly concern in anthropology.
 
I will describe in a little more detail a new test of aspect I of the hypothesis devised by Kay and Kempton (1984) so as not to be so restricted in interpretive scope as the previous communicability/- codability studies had been. Speakers of Tarahumara (a Uto-Aztecan language of northern Mexico) lack the basic lexical distinction between green and blue (as do various other languages, including Achumawi). Aspect I of the hypothesis predicts that speakers of English will polarize their perceptions near the border of green and blue, but speakers of Tarahumara will not.<ref name=ci /> In the first experiment, English-speaker's judgements reflected the division of green against blue in 29 trials out of 30; Tarahumara speakers responded even-handedly with 13 out of 24, extremely close to a 50-50 split, vindicating the hypothesis.
 
These experiments involve discriminating among three chips. In the first experiment, the subject had an opportunity to assign a color name to the intermediate chip, and this may have prejudiced the later step of the experiment, when the alternate comparison was made. The second experiment made the comparisons with the three chips adjacent in a box with a sliding cover that covered the chip on one end. In the setup stage, the subject agrees that the middle chip is greener with respect to one chip, and then that it is bluer than the other. It thus has both names associated with it when the subject is invited to alternate views as often as desired, and judge which difference is greater. In this experiment the polarization effect disappears.
 
This accords with an interpretation by categorization (experiment 1) versus an interpretation by discrimination (experiment 2). An exact parallel could be made with the fact that people can discriminate differences between sounds with indeterminate fineness (phonetics), but discriminate relevant differences that make a difference in small numbers of categories (phonemes, contrasts, distinctions) and displaying characteristic polarization effects at the boundaries. A culturally/linguistically determined contrast can be repeated, a difference requiring perceptual discrimination can only be imitated.
 
Kay and Kempton interpret these findings as disconfirming what they call radical linguistic determinism, in which "human beings ... are very much at the mercy of the particular language" (Sapir, quoted previously). Because the polarization associated with naming can be made to disappear simply by not naming, we are not hopelessly at the mercy of our language. To this I would add that it is difficult to do many sorts of things cooperatively with other human beings or with social consequence and recognition without employing the categories inherent in language. The exceptions, it seems to me, are in the realms of art, of religion, of play and creativity. These are the domain of the pleroma in Bateson's terms, the realm of cybernetic explanation, as opposed to the creatura, the realm of forces and impacts dealt with in the conventional categories of one's shared language and culture.
 
In formal linguistics, Zellig Harris and his co-workers have come full circle to the work on information structures in discourse that opened the whole field of transformational grammar. Harris, Ryckman, Gottfried et al. The Form of Information in Science (1990) develops a representation of the information immanent in a body of texts written over a span of years in the history of a subfield of a science (immunology). Changes in this structure correlate transparently with historically well-documented changes and developmental stages of the science during that period, although the structure was determined by clearly defined formal means and without reference to any knowledge of that historical context. In this way, they have demonstrated strongly that structures found in the sub-language of that science (and not imposed a priori on it) correlate on the one hand with aspects of the social reality of the science and on the other with the structure of the real-world domain which is the concern of that science.
 
The latter correlation is reflexive, however, in the sense that, as the structure changed, it (and the understanding of the scientists writing the original research reports on which the analysis was done) over time came into closer conformity with a reality whose nature was in process of being discovered. Before that change and that concurrent discovery, certain characteristics of reality could not be stated or thought; afterward, they could. But the discovery and the change in structure were simultaneous (though of course the writing down for publication was not). No better confirmation of Sapir's intuition of the essential unity of language and thought could be offered by one of his students.<ref name=vo />
 
To illustrate this point further, I should like to adduce a recent contribution to the enormous literature in the study of kinship categories, always a favorite topic in anthropological linguistics. Wierzbicka, in Semantics and the interpretation of cultures: the meaning of 'alternate generations' devices in Australian languages, proposes a new set of metalanguage terms for discussing the alternate sets of pronouns used in many Australian languages. She urges that the terminology of "generation harmony" and "disharmony" that has become traditional in anthropology is arcane and psychologically arbitrary, does not capture native speakers' meaning and does not make that meaning accessible to people from other cultures, and claims that her new terminology provides a better fit. This work illustrates a Whorfian effect in the sub-language of a specialization within the science of anthropology. With the traditional terminology, aspects of aborigine culture are difficult to come to recognize and understand, and not possible to communicate; she claims that with the proposed new terminology it is.<ref name=mu />
 
Thus, while providing an illustration of Whorfian effects within a sub-field of a science, she proposes to overcome such effects by devising a perfect metalanguage for that sub-field. Since the sub-field concerns an area that is by nature a matter of social convention and so in social reality rather than physical reality (to make that Durckheimian distinction again), she may be able to get away with it. I do not doubt the creativity of human cultures, however, and would build in means for the sub-language to evolve.
 
An abiding interest of Harris, as of his teacher Sapir, has been the question of refinements and possibly extensions of natural language that foster international scientific communication. In his analysis, language-particular characteristics due to the reduction system (extended morpho-phonemics) of one language or another are partitioned from operator-argument structures that `carry' information, which are remarkably uniform from one language to another. This uniformity becomes very close indeed in the grammar of a science sub-language, where classifications and selection restrictions are much more closely constrained than in other domains. But even in nontechnical domains Harris has a great deal to say about linguistic universals,<ref name=xa /> and about the distinctions between what is universal in language and culture and what is idiosyncratic and therefore pertinent to the Whorf-Sapir Hypothesis.
 
''' Footnotes '''
<references>
<ref name=pa>Hoijer, in the 1953 conference proceedings, adduces passages of a similar sort in the writings of Boas.</ref>
<ref name=re>Darnell (1990:434 n) says: Sapir's strongest relativity statement was a brief note titled "Conceptual Categories of Primitive Languages," an abstract of a paper read to the National Academy of Sciences in 1931. This was published only after his death. Her bibliography lists it as appearing in Science 74:578. I have not seen it and cannot comment.</ref>
<ref name=ci>This phenomenon of polarization, by the way, is the reason speakers of English can disagree so strongly about the assignment of marginal colors to either green or blue. A slight difference in idiosyncratic placement of the boundary makes a large difference in categorization. This would provide the basis of an interesting study relating to I.</ref>
<ref name=vo>The confirmation is equivocal, however, since the work clearly demonstrates (as Harris stated at the end of Mathematical Structures of Language (Wiley, 1968)) that language is not identical with thought but instead provides a rather rigid channel for thought. This corresponds precisely to the observation above that the discovery and the language for talking about it co-evolved. By using this term I refer specifically to the common misperception regarding biological evolution that e.g. eohippus evolved into the horse in response to environmental changes, when one must instead acknowledge eohippus and its pre-grasslands environment co-evolved into the horse and its grasslands environment. Synec-doche is fallacious in both cases. The claim, then, is of the unity, but not identity of language and thought. </ref>
<ref name=mu>This is part of Wierzbicka's ongoing work on natural language semantics based, ultimately, on a proposed set of universal semantic primitives, including: I, you, this, someone, something, want, don't want, say, think of, imagine, know, become, part, place, and world (Wierzbicka, Semantic Primitives (1972), Lingua Mentalis (1980). Be it noted that Harris denies there can be a lingua mentalis or any metalanguage external to natural language. For one thing, were there such one would need to account for the grammar and semantics of that metalanguage, and off we go in an infinite regress of grammatical and semantic metalanguages. For another, Harris has demonstrated that the information structures immanent in texts account precisely for the information that the texts report, so that, like LaPlace, he has no need for this additional hypothesis. But Wierzbicka's proposal here, however it may be guided by her broader theoretical interests, concerns only a sub-language of English serving as metalanguage for a sub-field of anthropology, and as such is unobjectionable. The semantics of this sub-language inhere in its informational structures, per Harris, rather than in its use of vocabulary from a supposedly universal lingua mentalis.</ref>
<ref name=xa>See e.g. Language and Information (Columbia 1989) and A Theory of Language and Information (Oxford, 1990), which is a more philosophical companion volume to A Grammar of English on Mathematical Principles (Wiley 1982).</ref>
</references>
----
 
[One of the researchers on color terms mentioned above then posted some additional notes on his research:]
 
Willett Kempton
<br /><willett@Princeton.EDU>:
 
I'm a coauthor of the Kay and Kempton study discussed in several earlier messages. (I don't follow this newsgroup regularly, but a colleague passed on the thread.) As pointed out earlier, from the tangled cluster of hypotheses referred to as the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis, we tested only one question: Do the lexical categories of a language affect non-linguistic perceptions of its speakers to a non-trivial extent? (P. Kay & W. Kempton, "What is the Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis?", American Anthropologist, vol 86, No. 1, March 1984.)
 
Considering the complexities of prior research efforts, our primary experiment was simple: Present three color chips (call them A, B, C) to speakers of two languages, such that colors A and B are slightly more different in terms of (universal) human visual discriminability, whereas B and C have a linguistic boundary separating them in one language (English) but not the other (Tarahumara, a Uto-Aztecan language). As noted earlier, the English speakers chose C as most different, whereas the Tarahumara chose A or split evenly (there were actually eight chips and four sets of relevant triads).
 
I'll add a couple of points of interest that were either buried in that article, or have not appeared in print. First, as the speaker of a language subject to this perceptual effect, I would like to report that it is dramatic, even shocking. I administered the tests to informants in Chihuahua. I was so bewildered by their responses that I had trouble continuing the first few tests, and I had no idea whether or not they were answering randomly. In subsequent analysis it was clear that they were answering exactly as would be predicted by human visual discriminability, but quite unlike the English informants.
 
An informal, and unreported, check of our results was more subjective: I showed some of the crucial triads to other English speakers, including some who had major commitments in print to not finding Whorfian effects for color (several of the latter type of informants were available on the Berkeley campus, where Kay and I were). All reported seeing the same effects. We tried various games with each other and ourselves like "We know English calls these two green and that one blue, but just looking it them, which one LOOKS most different?" No way, the blue one was REALLY a LOT more different. Again, the Tarahumara, lacking a lexical boundary among these colors, picked "correctly" with ease and in overwhelming numbers. The article includes the Munsell chip numbers, so anyone can look them up and try this on themselves.
 
Some of the triads which crossed hue and brightness were truly unbelievable, as it was perceptually OBVIOUS to us English speakers which one was the most different, yet all the visual discriminability data were against us. (The article did not mention the hue/brightness crossovers for the sake of simplifying the argument in print.)
 
Our second experiment, like the original visual discrimination experiments, showed only two chips at a time. We additionally made it difficult to use the lexical categories. And we got visual discrimination-based results, even from English speakers. So there are ways to overcome our linguistic blinders. (Which we knew already, or the original visual discriminability work could not have been done in the first place.) I don't feel that the differences across these tasks was adequately explored, and represent a golden opportunity for a research project or thesis.
 
I didn't expect to find this. The experiment was a minor piggy-back on another project. I believed the literature and the distinguished scientists who told me in advance that we wouldn't find anything interesting. The experiment was going to be dropped from the field research, saved by a conversation at a wine party with a "naive" sociologist (Paul Attewell) who had read Whorf but not the later refutations.
 
A simple experiment, clear data, and seeing the Whorfian effect with our own eyes: It was a powerful conversion experience unlike anything I've experienced in my scientific career. Perhaps this all just goes to affirm Seguin's earlier quote, as applying to us as both natives and as theorists:
 
<blockquote>
"We have met the natives whose language filters the world - and they are us."
</blockquote>
 
----
 
[One linguist on Linguist List added comments to those of Bruce Nevin, specifically noting that Sapir and Whorf did not necessarily believe in the 'Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis'. As noted in JL16, Alexis Manaster-Ramer has become interested in potential linguistics research applications for Lojban. This interest derived in part as a result of these discussions.]
 
Alexis Manaster-Ramer writes <Alexis_Manaster_Ramer@MTS.CC.WAYN E.EDU>:
 
In several recent messages there are references to Whorf or Sapir and Whorf together as having originated the idea of "human thinking patterns being relative to the inventory of the available language system" (to quote one contributor). However, like the story of the Eskimo words for snow, this story about Whorf and Sapir is not factually correct.
 
First of all, it was Sapir who fought against such simplistic language-thought claims of earlier scholars such as Uhlenbeck (one of the guys who claimed that certain "primitive" folks don't have the same perception of action as we do because they speak ergative languages and that some of them also have trouble distinguishing between themselves and their body parts because they speak languages in which possessors of subjects or objects are sometimes treated as subjects and objects).
 
Second, it is true that Whorf took for granted (as did almost everybody else at the time) the idea that the structure of a language can be taken literally as giving the underlying ontology (not that it causes it, mind you, but that it does reveal it). We know for example that Whorf was much impressed with the claims (I forget whose at the moment) that Chinese has no relative clauses, only things that were rendered as Jack build-ish house (i.e., the house that Jack built).
 
Third, all of Whorf's claims about Hopi are quite explicitly of this same variety: He does not assert that the structure of the language causes the world view, merely that it reveals it. He also does not claim this connection between the ontology and the language to be a new idea. He presupposes it. That is a big difference, of course, because Whorf is often accused of claiming such a connection without giving any independent evidence about the ontology. But in fact he did not make any such claims, he merely assumed that there was such a connection because everybody around him assumed it also. His contribution (as he saw it) was entirely different: it was to show that the way people view time, events, quantities, etc., can be culture- and hence language-specific.
 
What I find particularly surprising about the need to reiterate all this is that the relevant writings of Whorf's are all reprinted in a widely available collection, and that Sapir's writings are hardly obscure either.
 
----
 
 
At another point, Alexis also wrote:
 
I am very grateful to those who have written in to note that the so-called Sapir-Whorf hypothesis was NOT what Whorf (or a fortiori Sapir) maintained. And also to those who have written in reminding us of the results, such the Berlin and Kay ones, that seem in fact to support the Un-Sapir-Whorf hypothesis. However, it should be noted that these results do NOT show a causal relation going from language to cognition. Indeed, the often-noted fact that color terminologies seem to become more and more complex as the speakers' material culture becomes more and more complex would argue for precisely the opposite causality: People find they need to distinguish more colors because of material, nonlinguistic reasons, and then devise the necessary linguistic means to formalize the distinctions.
 
I would also like to address briefly the question of a connection with Humboldt. As I noted in my first message on the subject of Whorf, Whorf (like most of his contemporaries) PRESUPPOSED the existence of a connection between language and cognition, a connection which Humboldt was one of the first (if not the first) to make. The issue is very simple, really. Before Humboldt and others like him, the standard way of describing languages was in terms of how they would be glossed in some Western metalanguage like Latin or Spanish. This is why people were perfectly happy to describe ergative constructions (in e.g. Greenlandic) or "active" ones (e.g., in Huron and Guarani, see Mithun's recent Language article) without noticing anything odd. They would just say that the subject and the verb had different forms in transitive as opposed to intransitive constructions. People like Humboldt came up with the revolutionary idea of describing languages in their own terms, which meant that the superficial patterns of each language had to be taken at face value.
 
Hence, Humboldt's argument that Malayo-Polynesian verbs are really nouns, for example. Or later arguments by various people that ergatives are really passives (or other things). But that then made it imperative to explain why exotic peoples say things that we would not, e.g., why do they use "nouns" instead of verbs or "passives" instead of actives. And the explanation, of course, was that they THINK differently from us as well. Whorf, like almost all his contemporaries, was steeped in this way of thinking, but certainly did not originate it. As I noted before, his point to show just HOW EXOTIC languages could get, and this he tried to do by discussing the Hopi treatment of time, events, and quantities.
 
----
 
Alexis provided evidence for his claims in the following:
 
Since many of the readers of LINGUIST are from Missouri, I thought I would provide some evidence for my recent assertions that Whorf's position has been widely misunderstood.
 
In "The relation of habitual thought and behavior to language", Whorf says among other things:
 
<blockquote>
"That portion of the whole investigation here to be reported may be summed up in two questions: (1) Are our concepts of 'time', 'space', and 'matter' given in substantially the same form by experience to all men, or are they in part conditioned by the structure of particular languages? (2) Are there traceable affinities between (a) cultural and behavioral norms and (b) large-scale linguistic patterns? (I should be the last to pretend that there is anything so definite as "a correlation" between culture and language, and especially between ethnological rubrics such as 'agricultural, hunting', etc., and linguistic ones like 'inflected', 'synthetic', or 'isolating'."
</blockquote>
 
In a footnote on the same page (p. 139 of the Language, Thought, and Reality book), he says emphatically that "The idea of "correlation" between language and culture, in the generally accepted sense of correlation, is certainly a mistaken one" and he cites some arguments.
 
Thus, I believe that Whorf made a clear distinction between culture (behavior) and language, but he did not make such a distinction between language and thought. As I said before, he presupposed as did almost everyone else at the time that if people speak a certain way then that reflects the way they think. He took it for granted for example that if the Hopis pluralize the word for cloud (oomaw) the way that they normally pluralize animate nouns, then they must think of the clouds as animate.
 
Of course, this view is naive, as Joseph Greenberg pointed out in the fifties, since languages make all sorts of arbitrary distinctions (or fail arbitrarily to make them in certain environments) without any apparent conceptual consequences.
 
Essentially, I think the connection works one way, namely, if a language makes a distinction which cannot be described in purely structural terms, then we must ascribe to the speakers the ability to perceive or imagine or whatever the corresponding distinction in the world. Thus, when Greenberg points out that nothing important hinges on the fact that the French use an ordinal in Napoleon Premier but a cardinal in Napolean Deux, that's OK, because the choice here can be made w/o reference to the world. The rule is purely linguistic. And, of course, this could be the case with the Hopi word for cloud and its plural.
 
On the other hand, if we find that speakers of Polish systematically use a different genitive ending for place-names in Poland (and other Slavic countries) than they do for other place-names, and do so PRODUCTIVELY, then it IS reasonable to conclude that they are capable of a conceptual distinction between Poland (or Slavdom) and the rest of the world.
 
The distinction between these two kinds of cases is what seems not to have been entirely clear to Whorf, and that, as far as I can see, is where he came to sometimes came to grief.
 
It is also quite clear that he was not claiming any originality about the relation of language and thought per se, rather he was trying to show just how different the language/thought of one culture could be from that of another in the case of such basic ideas as that of time, although he points out (p 158) that there is not a comparable difference between Hopi and Standard Average European regarding space.
 
As to culture, Whorf was faithfully following Sapir in claiming that there is no more than an "affinity" between language and culture, but no "correlations or diagnostic correspondences" (p 159). For, as I noted earlier, Sapir was one of the staunchest critics of the late 19th century and early 20th century linguists who propounded such theories as the "passivity" of peoples whose languages use the ergative constructions, and such like drivel.
 
Incidentally, much of what I have said about Whorf's intent in bringing the Hopi vs. the SAE treatment of time and matter can also be said about Sapir's work on the psychological reality of phonemes. Today, we emphasize the psychological reality part, but actually in his time, the novelty was the phoneme. Claims about psychological reality about in the second half of the 19th century and later (and we find them in all of Sapir's as well as Bloomfield's early writings). The idea of the psychological vs. the grammatical subject after all originated in that period. And, to take one example our of thousands, when Platt wrote in the 1870's that the Urdu speakers perceive certain constructions in their language as active even though they look passive (these are, of course, ergatives again!), he was expressing himself in a way which was quite typical for the time (though not for the 17 or the 18th century).
 
----
 
Finally Alexis wrote, in a fourth posting:
 
Setting aside for the moment the question of why so many people continue to insist on attributing to Whorf and Sapir views they did not hold (or at least did not express), I would like to say something about the results which are claimed to support the hypothesis that language and non-linguistic behavior (behavior, for short) exhibit certain close connections (which people seem to want to interpret as involving causality going from language to behavior).
 
(1) Even if we find certain correlations between language structure and patterns of behavior, this does NOT (as I think I noted earlier) indicate the direction of causality (as indeed Whorf himself noted at one point). The color terminology business shows, if anything, that the complexity of a color terminology seems to depend on the complexity of the culture, there being, for example, no industrial or post-industrial cultures whose languages use two or three color terms. There has also been speculation about the fact that the lateness of terms for 'blue' may be connected with the relative scarcity of blue objects (other than the ubiquitous sky) in nature.
 
This would suggest very strongly that the linguistic pattern comes second, as a reflection of a culture's need to make certain distinctions.
 
(2) All the studies that claim to show a connection between language and behavior that I have seen mentioned seem to deal with two or at any rate a small number of languages, e.g., Tarahumara and English. Likewise, I have seen studies by Alexander Guiora on Hebrew and English and other such small sets, which I don't think have been cited on LINGUIST so far. Yet, since the claim being tested is correlation between linguistic structure and nonlinguistic behavior, the relevant population is languages (not individual speakers), and you cannot seriously talk about correlations for populations of two (or three or whatever small number is involved). What we require is a study involving a dozen or a hundred languages that have the Tarahumara color system and a dozen or a hundred that have the English one before we can say anything at all about correlations and things.
 
Having said this, I would predict that we will find such correlations but I would also predict that at least some of them will turn out to have the opposite causality from that suggested (or a more complex one than either of the simple unidirectional ones).
 
Is there anybody out there who would like to collaborate on putting together such a mass cross-linguistic study?
 
----
 
 
Lojbab responded privately to Alexis's last message with the following:
 
You write:
 
<blockquote>
Setting aside for the moment the question of why so many people continue to insist on attributing to Whorf and Sapir views they did not hold (or at least did not express) ...
</blockquote>
 
Note that when we talk about the Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis in Lojban writings, we are using the common name for the hypothesis, not in particular attributing the formulation of that hypothesis that we use to either Sapir or Whorf. That formulation is of course more complex than simple 'cultural relativism', and there seems to be no other good name, much less one that is known to people.
 
From this end of your postings, I'd say that you've made your case that the two did not believe in 'their' hypothesis, at least insofar as it is generally understood by others.
 
<blockquote>
(which people seem to want to interpret as involving causality going from language to behavior).
</blockquote>
 
I agree that this is not evidenced in the writings. I note by the way that Jim Brown, who invented Loglan, also cites F. S. C. Northrop (1946) The Meeting of East and West as proposing a cultural effect of language independently of the presumed interpretation of S and W, but he never cites quotes. I also have read a book in the 80s, The Alphabet Effect, by a follower of McLuhan, that claims cultural effects from orthography. Certainly the concept "the medium is the message" significantly underlies most interpretations of the SWH. Perhaps it should be call the SWMcH %^).
 
I do not know where John Carroll fits in the historical setting of the SWH, whether he knew Whorf or Sapir, etc. Carroll WAS involved in Jim Brown's formulation of Loglan throughout the 60s and 70s, and presumably found Brown's assertions to not be inconsistent with his own writings on SWH. So I would ask you whether you believe that Carroll has said anything (presumably in his comments on the collection of Whorf's essays or elsewhere) that misinterprets those writings? Although he is retired, I could ask Carroll to respond. It seems that the issue is ripe for such discussion.
 
<blockquote>
(1) Even if we find certain correlations between language structure and patterns of behavior, this does NOT (as I think I noted earlier) indicate the direction of causality (as indeed Whorf himself noted at one point).
</blockquote>
 
Agreed. One reason we are working very hard on Lojban before proposing a specific test is that we want to be able to predict a causal effect of language that is clearly not part of the cultural milieu. The drastic differences between Lojban and natural languages make it more likely that we can identify a way to determine both a relation and a causal effect, if one exists. This may then tell us how to look for confirming data in the natural languages.
 
<blockquote>
The color terminology business shows, if anything, that the complexity of a color terminology seems to depend on the complexity of the culture, there being, for example, no industrial or post-industrial cultures whose languages use two or three color terms. There has also been speculation about the fact that the lateness of terms for 'blue' may be connected with the relative scarcity of blue objects (other than the ubiquitous sky) in nature.
</blockquote>
 
I think that color terminology is the worst place to look for a SW effect, since it seems patently obvious that color recognition is going to be dominated by the basic biological process of recognizing color which would mask more subtle linguistic effects. Indeed, if one presumes that biology was directed by evolutionary requirements, there may be some environmental reason that we are not aware of that causes certain colors to seem more basic or important than others.
 
<blockquote>
This would suggest very strongly that the linguistic pattern comes second, as a reflection of a culture's need to make certain distinctions.
</blockquote>
 
I agree that this also occurs in language, and in constructing new artificial languages, especially a language like Lojban where nonce new word creation is easy and favored, the scope of this direction of response should be easy to measure.
 
<blockquote>
Is there anybody out there who would like to collaborate on putting together such a mass cross-linguistic study?
</blockquote>
 
I obviously would be interested (especially if funding can be obtained) but note that I can't contribute much in understanding of the other languages. I also would like to see such a study, even if it must include colors due to the popular associations of colors with SWH, find one or two other areas of language that are more believably independent of biology. I've heard that kinship terms is another area of comparison that might be considered. My own preference would be an analysis of words for emotions, emotional expressions, and linguistic and para-linguistic ways of expressing emotions, as well as perhaps on time and spatial relations (e.g. do languages with 2 distinctions of distance in demonstratives this/- that have any correlations in culture not found in those having three this/that/that yonder?)
 
<blockquote>
Essentially, I think the connection works one way, namely, if a language makes a distinction which cannot be described in purely structural terms, then we must ascribe to the speakers the ability to perceive or imagine or whatever the corresponding distinction in the world. Thus, when Greenberg points out that nothing important hinges on the fact that the French use an ordinal in Napoleon Premier but a cardinal in Napolean Deux, that's OK, because the choice here can be made w/o reference to the world. The rule is purely linguistic. And, of course, this could be the case with the Hopi word for cloud and its plural. On the other hand, if we find that speakers of Polish systematically use a different genitive ending for place-names in Poland (and other Slavic countries) than they do for other place-names, and do so productively, then it is reasonable to conclude that they are capable of a conceptual distinction between Poland (or Slavdom) and the rest of the world.
</blockquote>
 
This sounds like you would see value in finding out what types of productive distinctions are made in an artificial language where structure and concept are strongly separated and it is relatively easy to recognize native language reflections (pollutions?) because of the drastic structural differences. The obvious question is where you would look for such distinctions.
 
Lojban is only one language, but perhaps we might detect correlations between native language features and conceptualization in Lojban when those people learn Lojban. Do people with AN structures lose that pattern in a language where the AN distinction is blurred (I find myself in Lojban often expressing things in the form of house-big, as well as big-house, but would not presume to try to find any correlations yet?) My wife and I have devised several possible experiments related to this concept, but have long figured that it will be a while before there's an opportunity to even do a detailed plan, much less conduct the experiments.
 
----
 
 
Alexis responded:
 
Thank you for your extensive and thoughtful responses. ... I would love to be in touch with Carroll. He certainly knew Whorf, but is not a linguist. How he interprets Whorf is not always clear from his intro to Whorf's selected writings (which is his only contribution (I mean the only contribution of his) I know on this subject). Let me reemphasize: Whorf and Sapir did NOT argue for a correlation between linguistic and nonlinguistic behavior (although they saw connections) and they simply did not see the question of a correlation between language and thought in the way that we do. This is NOT to say that, like in the case of language and non-linguistic behavior, they held there was no correlation. Rather, they did not see clearly that there was anything to correlate, since they assumed that language and thought go hand-in-hand. And this they almost certainly did because the same idea was generally accepted at the time. So, I would not say that Sapir and Whorf did not believe in the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis. Rather they did not consider it a hypothesis.
 
----
 
[Note: We will endeavor to pass along to the respective authors any comments on the above discussions that readers may send us.]
 
----
 
=== Bibliography ===
 
During the course of the discussion of the Sapir-Whorf Discussion, several references were mentioned, which can be added to bibliographies on Sapir-Whorf, such as those which have appeared in previous issues of ju'i lobypli. I've collected these together, sometimes including the comments of the person who mentioned the work:
 
John Lucy ("Whorf's view of the linguistic mediation of thought," in Semiotic Mediation, ed. by Elizabeth Mertz & Richard Parmentier, Academic P, 1985).
 
Alan Rumsey's (1990) paper, "Wording, Meaning, and Linguistic Ideology," American Anthropologist 92:346-361, for an excellent discussion of where Whorfianism works.
 
There's a nice discussion by Roger Brown of the Brown & Lenneberg work in his old book Words & Things, in 2 different chapters separated by another chapter. There is one article I know of that provides some evidence for the strong version of the hypothesis, by Carroll & Casagrande on object classification by Navaho vs. Boston suburban kids. It's in an early psycholinguistics anthology (Saporta's??)
 
Berlin & Kay's (1969) study of color-term universals was indeed a real breakthrough, although I also believe again that it attacked what Whorf did not maintain, but rather what was imputed to Whorf. However, there has been work since then which has examined Berlin & Kay (1969) closely, and has come up with some pretty damning evaluations. One of the main problems with the study is the inaccurate data that it used (but then again Whorf has been shown to have misunderstood the structure of Hopi), and the criteria used in determining when a color term is basic and when it's not, and when a color is focal or not. Chapter 4 of Geoffrey Sampson's (1980) School of Linguistics, (Stanford University Press) is one reference that comes to mind.
 
There are also pretty careful experimental studies on the recognition of and memory for color terms which have come out in favor of both Whorfian relativism and determinism. See:
 
Lucy, John and Richard Shweder. 1979. Whorf and his critics: Linguistic and nonlinguistic influences on color memory. American Anthropologist 81:581-615.
 
Lucy, John and Richard Shweder. 1988. The effect of incidental conversation on memory for focal colors. American Anthropologist 81:923-931.
 
The first paper was critiqued by Linda Garro (reference below), and the second paper is an answer to Garro:
 
Garro, Linda. 1986. Language, memory, and focality: A reexamination. American Anthropologist 88:128-136.
 
Another attempt at an empirical test is Alfred Bloom's book The Linguistic Shaping of Thought. He found that Chinese speakers had more difficulty comprehending a text full of counterfactual conditionals than English speakers, and attributed this to the lack of explicit coding of counterfactuals in Chinese. However, Terry Au and Lisa Garbern Liu in Cognition (1985?) replicated the experiment trying to avoid cultural bias, and found no significant difference.
 
A more recent reference on Whorf and color terms is a paper by Paul Kay and Willet Kempton called What is the Sapir Whorf hypothesis? in American Anthropologist vol. 86, 1984.
 
Brown, R. L. (1967). Wilhelm Von Humboldt's Conception of Linguistic Relativity. The Hague: Mouton.
 
Rheingold, H. (1988). They Have A Word For It, Los Angeles: Jeremy P. Tarcher, Inc.
 
Saporta, S. (1960) (Editor) Psycholinguistics : A book or readings, Holt Rinehart.
 
Newcombe, etc. ?? (1958??) (Editors) Readings in Social Psychology.
 
Vygotsky, Language and Thought
 
Kuhn, T. (1960?), Structure of Scientific Revolutions (2nd Edit.).
 
Aarsleff, H. (1982). From Locke to Saussure. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
 
G. Pullam's book, The Great Eskimo Vocabulary Hoax, essays by Sir William Jones and by W. D. Whitney, Carter and Nash's Seeing Through Language, Coupland's Styles of Discourse, and Freeborn's Varieties of English, and works by philosophers such as Austin, Searle, Grice, and Stalnaker.
 
Helmut Gipper, whose office sported an oversized poster of Einstein formulated an explicit link between the principle of relativity in theoretical physics and a similar principle in linguistics (Helmut Gipper, Gibt es ein sprachliches Relativitaetsprinzip?: Untersuchungen zur Sapir-Whorf-Hypothese, Fischer 1972).
 
== The Lojban Kalevala Project ==
 
A most exciting project has commenced, starting at the first LogFest this year, crystallizing at the second one, and evolving thereafter on Lojban List.
 
This project is an attempt to develop a work of coherent original Lojban literature, one which would have the formative and perhaps normative effects on the language and its style that various epic works have had on the languages that they were written in.
 
For several years, I've used a reference to Chaucer and his Canterbury Tales in describing the context for such a project (Chaucer's work effectively defined the change from the era of 'Old English' to what is now called 'Middle English), though I've also mentioned Shakespeare (whose plays similarly gave birth to Modern English) in the same context.
 
These might serve as good exemplars of the goal of such a project: to make the Lojban language come 'alive', but it is unlikely and probably undesirable for one single author in one single work to set the norms for Lojban. We are trying to avoid embedding the ideas of only one person or of only one culture as the basis of Lojban.
 
Thus, when I spotted a better exemplar, I started using it. The Finnish Kalevala, the sagas of the Nordic nations, and the myths of the Greeks, were not written by one person at one time. (Indeed, these stories and poems were not originally written, but probably transmitted for centuries as oral tradition.) Instead, these are collections of stories with a more-or-less common context.
 
But as with Chaucer and Shakespeare, these collections are more than stories; they are among the oldest works in their respective languages and hence serve to define the earliest memory for most speakers of the language: of how the language was at its earliest known formation.
 
As a modern example of how collective authorship in a common context can work, the successful science fiction/fantasy series Wild Cards edited by George R. R. Martin, shows how people can write such stories using each other's characters as well as a common context (later volumes of the series show how editing can weave stories written by many individuals into a seamless novel which bears the stylistic elements of the contributors, but in a way where you cannot clearly tell what pieces were written by which authors).
 
Lojban would be better off with such a body of stories (indeed it would become, in a sense, alive, at that point), and would be better served by having the stories written by a collective authorship composed of people from as broad a cultural spectrum as possible.
 
At the August LogFest, a concept for such a project was developed, along with a basis or methodology for common authorship. Lojbab assembled the concept into a proposal, and posted it to Lojban List, getting several people to express active interest.
 
The project since has taken off on its own, though possibly in some ways changing from what was originally envisioned at LogFest. Lojbab has pretty much stayed out of the discussion since then, except to try to point out the interests of people who had no access to the computer networks, and hence could not defend their own interests. This must be a project of the community, and not his project.
 
The people discussing the project, have chosen to use more prosaic names that reflect the specifics of the effort, rather than the paradigmatic goals. We will let the project continue with the several names it has acquired, remembering the multi-authored, multi-faceted, multi-cultural spirit in which it is envisioned.
 
We want all of you who might be interested in this project to speak up. Now! You do not need to be a original, creative, writer - another hallmark of these ancient collections is that many of their stories are retellings of earlier legends and tales, sometimes of a different culture (examples: some scholars think that the Bible story of Noah and the flood is a retelling of an earlier story, that of Gilgamesh, Shakespeare's Julius Caesar was obviously built on the legends that the Romans evolved about that leader, and most of his other plays had plots plagiarized from other plays of the Middle Ages - plays since forgotten because they did not have the literary power and influence of Shakespeare.)
 
But you don't need to be a Shakespeare either in quality or in volume of work, in order to make a contribution. You just need to do the best you can on a piece of the whole - a piece whose size and nature you can determine, whether it be a paragraph, a poem, a page, or a longer work. Indeed, there is some room for contribution from people who haven't yet learned Lojban, in contributing ideas for the common setting. (But we hope that most people who participate will do so with the intention of eventually writing some Lojban text in contribution to the project.)
 
The following several pages define the state the project has reached in the last few months.
 
* First, Veijo Vilva, a Finnish Lojbanist who has taken a leadership role in the project, briefly summarizes what he sees the project to be, its current status, and where he thinks it should go in the future.
* Then follows a longer compendium, assembled by Veijo (with some additions by Lojbab), that embodies the essential discussions that have taken place in the last several months.
* Then follows the first submissions for a collection of English language texts written by people to serve as descriptions of the common context for the writings of the project. These may serve as examples of what we'd like to see from people proposing additional descriptions of characters or setting (though please don't feel that you have to match the sometimes elaborate style of these writings).
* Mingled with the English texts (in the order in which they were originally posted, since some of the stories rely on 'earlier' texts for information, or react to things mentioned in the earlier texts) are the most recent revisions of all Lojban writings written by people in conjunction with this phase of the project. Some of these writings have been attempts to help develop the common context in Lojban rather than in English, some experiments in trying to write within the context as it is known, and of course, all are attempts by the authors to improve their own Lojban abilities in the best way: by writing in the language.
 
Currently the goal is to define the common context, and we want as many inputs as possible for this. As noted in the longer discussions, we are looking for text (in English, or in Lojban with English translation for those who can't easily read Lojban text yet) that a) further elaborates the common setting of the stories, a 'coffeehouse' that will be defined with rich enough detail that people can tie their stories into the common context by referencing these hooks, and b) to define the major common characters that can be used (so long as nondestructively and consistently with the provided details) by any writer who wants to contribute.
 
We need you to act immediately and send us your ideas (on paper, diskette, or via email). JL18 (current deadline March 5) will contain as many additional writings and character descriptions, in either language, as we can fit. We will hopefully have more character descriptions submitted than we intend to actual use, in which case there will be a period of comment and voting until JL19 (current deadline June 5). (Additional ideas and proposals may also be submitted for this issue, but they will be at a handicap in any voting.)
 
Hopefully by the time JL19 comes out with the results of this voting, the dictionary will have been published, and people will have a common language definition with which do begin writing. The extra 6 months and the large volume of Lojban writings that will hopefully be appearing will also help more people learn of enough of the language to be willing to try to write in the language.
 
There is a proposal for a separate publication to contain only Lojban writings. As this proposal evolved, it grew away from the concept of the Kalevala project, expanding to be a journal of in-Lojban writing. The merits of this proposal are also for the community to decide, but I have taken this proposal more immediately to be a criticism of the excessive backlog in getting Lojban text printed in ju'i lobypli, the relative infrequency of ju'i lobypli, and perhaps a sense that text appearing in ju'i lobypli represents an over-centralized attitude of what the language should be like.
 
I have thus taken action to change JL's editorial policy to reflect these implied criticisms (as well as get its publication frequency up to the intended quarterly rate). This may make the proposal moot, or may cause it to be a longer-term milestone that will occur only when the Lojban community is large enough that people write enough text to support a separate journal, and enough people are interested in reading such text to make a journal economically viable.
 
Where this project goes after JL19 is up to the community. A separate publication may be spun off. Someone may choose to try to edit the best writings into a publishable book. Or ... - well, you decide!
 
Here's Veijo.
 
=== Veijo's Summary ===
 
==== The Purpose of The Ckafybarja Project ====
 
The purpose of the project is to encourage people to create original Lojban stories which have the following common features:
 
* as already stated the stories are original Lojban stories, not translations from other languages;
* they are closely connected with a coffeehouse which is described in detail in a set of English documentation available to all;
* the stories either take place or are told in the Cafe.
 
The proposed Cafe Newsletter would widen the scope of material eligible for publication and make it easier for the beginning Lojban writers to produce something worthwhile.
 
==== History ====
 
The project has gone through several stages during the last few months. There were some preliminary postings concerning the lack of Lojban text - especially original text, not translations from other languages. It was noted that actually very few people did produce Lojban text or use Lojban in communicating with other Lojbanists. The ideas culminating in the project were formulated during the summer LogFests and the ensuing discussions on the net.
 
==== The Lojban Canterbury Tales ====
 
The first [1992] LogFest formulated the idea of encouraging people to write original Lojban stories with some common features. The basic idea was that there would be a place were people would gather to tell stories to each other like in the original Canterbury Tales or in The Decameron. The Finnish national epic Kalevala was also mentioned as a possible source of ideas and there were some discussions concerning the possibilities. The parts of these conversations which affected the development of the Project are included in the Papers. The discussions were at a very general level and nothing concrete was done at this stage. The name 'Kalevala' was used in the headers of most of the postings which gave rise to the first name of the project proper.
 
==== The Lojban Kalevala Project -> The Ckafybarja Project ====
 
At the second LogFest the Cafe idea was adopted and also the idea of having a detailed description of the locale and the personnel. This description would be in English in order to be readily accessible to everybody. It would serve two main purposes:
 
1) the stories by various writers would obviously describe the same Cafe;
 
2) the less creative writers would be able to concentrate on the plot instead of also having to invent the settings.
 
Three different settings were described but description #2 was the favourite already before the plan was posted and there was actually no further discussion on the net.
 
There were differences of opinion concerning various aspects of the description. Most of these have been resolved but some are in limbo and some are waiting comment from the non-netters.
 
The 'Kalevala' was quite soon dropped from the name of the project as there was no actual reason for the reference. I proposed the name 'la jbotur' instead but it was never adopted by anybody else. The name of the Cafe was 'la *jbolaz' for a while but this has turned out to be an invalid form [hence marked with an asterisk whenever it occurs herein].
 
==== Controversies ====
 
When the Cafe Project proposal (The Lojban Kalevala Project) was posted on the net there was some disagreement concerning various aspects of the plan. The main reason for this was the fact that none of the most active netters had participated in the initial formulation. Some of the ideas presented on the net contradicted the original plan so some non-netters might feel that the very active netters were trying to dominate. The views of the netters (or of the most vocal of them) are being presented to non-netters in JL17; there has been no response yet. The conversation on the net has quieted down.
 
The most controversial question was the characterization of the Cafe personnel - especially the proposed national heterogeneity. The main views presented are included in the 'Condensed Papers' [found afterwards] and I am not going to reiterate them here. As far as I can see this question is still open - in all the others at least some kind of a consensus was achieved.
 
==== Basic Settings ====
 
A more detailed description of the settings is included in the Condensed Papers.
 
The Cafe - A small cafe in rural surroundings (not visible from the inside). Predominantly Lojbanic clientele gathers there to tell stories. Some netters have already arrived. Nick advises to avoid interaction for the time being (cf. Condensed Papers)
 
The Personnel - Multinational personnel, Chinese manager and 5 others representing the source languages of Lojban. Detailed characterization isn't available yet so avoid adding details in the stories. All the views presented on the net concerning the characterization ought to be studied most carefully by all potential writers. We need well thought-out characterizations which take into account the views presented by Ivan and others concerning the difficulty of realistically portraying national characteristics and the need to have recognizably non-American characters as desired by Lojbab and some non-netters. Mark pointed out that the characters must be such that later writers can live with them. They are basically background characters but writers may want to use them in their stories. Others may choose to ignore them in which case the characterizations don't really matter very much.
 
==== Accumulated Material ====
 
English Descriptions - There isn't very much new descriptive material as the project hasn't actually started yet - in spite of the posting of the first preparatory Lojban texts. Nick Nicholas has added detail to the original Description #2 of the locale, David Bowen has described a Cafe manager, and I (Veijo) have proposed a Cafe worker.
 
Lojban Text - Altogether 6 Lojban stories have been posted - a proper story by Mark Shoulson, a longish 'rant' by Nick Nicholas, 2 short 'etudes' by Veijo Vilva and a 'rant' and a short tale by Iain Alexander. [A 7th piece, a 3-part character sketch by Nick, was posted but Nick has indicated that he intends to substantially rewrite it], Only the stories by Mark and Iain contain storytelling along the lines indicated in the plan, the others are more preparatory.
 
These stories have resulted in a very active conversation on the net concerning various linguistic aspects - grammar, semantics, and pragmatics. One very challenging task for the future is the collection, editing and publication of the accumulating theoretical material so that the results of these conversations can be used by the whole Lojban community.
 
==== The Newsletter Proposal ====
 
Nick Nicholas posted a proposal concerning a Cafe Newsletter which would publish all kinds of Lojban text connected with the Cafe. The proposal is included in the Condensed Papers.
 
The newsletter would actually widen the scope of the Lojban texts compared to the original plan. The original plan called for stories about the Cafe or stories told at the Cafe - the Newsletter would accept all kinds of original Lojban text connected with the Cafe, e.g. small studies like my 'etudes' would be eligible for publication. This would be the first purely Lojban journal - all the theoretical material with English explanations and glosses would be published in ju'i lobypli as would selected Lojban writings not connected with the Cafe.
 
The main purpose of the Newsletter would be to encourage and help beginning writers. The second raison d'etre would be to show that we have advanced so far that Lojban can be used without English glosses. Perhaps the most advanced stories wouldn't be accessible to everybody but there would probably be a much greater number of easy and intermediate articles. I also think that having the stories without English glosses would be advantageous as the structure of Lojban - especially 'Lojbanic' Lojban - is so different that providing an English version may actually hinder understanding or at least slow down the learning.
 
==== To would-be writers ====
 
# Start writing NOW!
# Don't set goals that are too ambitious. Remember that the published stories do not set a standard which you ought to match. Your first stories can be very short and use simple sentences. As an example, my first attempt, after minor corrections, may be found below [page 46].
# Start with simple things, do experiments with the language. Try to avoid formulating the ideas in English - otherwise you may have difficulties with astonishingly simple expressions.
# You may find to your surprise that it is often actually easier to express something in Lojban because you don't have to cope with the relatively free structure of English. Just drop the words to the proper slots and the unambiguous grammar of Lojban takes care of the rest.
# Don't force yourself to invent a story - it doesn't work. The story either comes or not. Pick up something and start writing about it - but do it now.
# The story isn't very important at this stage. It may be quite banal or even non-existent - if you find a Lojbanic way of expressing something, write it down.
# There is no stylistic tradition, you are completely free - within the dictates of the grammar, of course. If you end up expressing your thoughts in a way which doesn't resemble anything you ever read, it's quite alright.
# Don't be afraid of simple sentences. Lojban IS different. Writing a complex sentence which doesn't fall apart doesn't prove you know Lojban well - it is just a trivial exercise. Don't write a sentence which you can't readily understand yourself - even next week. You ought to be able to understand your sentences without parsing/analyzing/translating - at least the structure even if you don't remember all the words you had to pick from the word lists.
# It doesn't matter if you can't find a natural English way of expressing the idea of a sentence. Lojban IS different. A tanru, a lujvo, a sumti with attachments, a "ko" at a unaccustomed position may all be very difficult to express naturally in English. Just accept it. Utilize it.
# Start writing.
 
=== The Condensed Papers ===
 
This is a record of the Development of the Ckafybarja Project, the Main Ideas, the Conversations and Differences of Opinion concerning the Characterization of the Cafe Personnel.
 
This is not a straight record of the conversations on the net. I have deleted a lot of material - either redundant or not essential for the project at the present stage. I have also taken the liberty of making some minor changes to the text following the deletions so that the resulting joints are more natural.
 
Sometimes only first names appear in identifying comments. Full names for these people are Veijo Vilva, Nick Nicholas (alias la nitcion.), Iain Alexander, Lojbab (Bob LeChevalier), Colin Fine, Mark Shoulson, Nora LeChevalier, Andrew Smith, Ivan Derzhanski. We've tried to spell everyone else's name out in full.
 
----
 
==== A. Lojbab's original Lojban Canterbury Tales proposal ====
 
Lojbab: This LogFest was a fun gathering, and not one for work. Nothing really accomplished except to teach people a bit more of the language, use it a little, and socialize, learning more about each other. One topic of discussion was how to get more people doing something with the language. The topic segued into literature, original Lojban literature. One long thought-about idea that was discussed again was an interactive role playing project of the type often conducted at science fiction conventions, based on a Lojban-related scenario. Learning a little Lojban would give actor/players of the scenario an advantage.
 
But a better idea surfaced, one that can get more involved.
 
The germinal start of English as a literary language was Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, and someone mentioned that Italian has a similar medieval literary landmark, the Decameron. Perhaps other languages as well. The essence of the Canterbury Tales is that they are a bunch of 1st person tales, rich and colorful, often bawdy. Why not write something similar for Lojban, or at least start to do so. We can get a lot of people involved, who need only commit to writing a single short tale - a page long would be fine. A couple of the more expert Lojbanists - Nick, Ivan, and Mark, for example, might do some longer tales, perhaps about characters that might have a more complex story.
 
One charm of the Canterbury Tales is the variety of personalities of the characters - we can achieve that by having many authors. Stylistic consistency isn't necessary, since different people have different ways of talking. If you are relatively unskilled, you might want to choose a less-well educated character, but even this might not be a constraint.
 
The question is how to devise a scenario around which people can write these short-short stories. Canterbury Tales takes place where travellers gather - an inn or bar. Do we tell tales of the people of mythical Lojbanistan? Or do we presume a modern or post-modern society, with people much like the spectrum found in the world today? One possibility proposed would be people on a space station, thus appealing to the SF fans among us - an international space station, wherein people like Ivan and Nick can bring in tales from other cultures. Some could be tales of earth, while others could be high adventure in space.
 
One rule - if you have a specific story idea, whether you want to write it or not: don't talk about it in English. The stories are to be Lojban stories, and whatever appeal they have, as the first Lojban literature, will be emphasized by their not existing in English first. If you have trouble with the language, you can ask how-to-say-it questions on Lojban List, or send messages privately to Nick, Ivan, Colin, John Cowan, Mark Shoulson, or me.
 
Less experienced Lojbanists might team up on a story, in which case you can talk privately with each other in whatever language about your story, or if necessary, with one experienced Lojbanist that you interact with from the above list.
 
 
Chris Handley: Some points to remember about both Canterbury Tales and the Decameron:
 
# They were written by one person (and a genius at that);
# They were written fairly well into the flowering of the language.
 
In my opinion neither of these conditions apply to Lojban at the moment, which should not stop us doing something. Certainly a collection of stories along a central theme would be a great start to the language.
 
Another suggestion would be another parlour game. One person starts off and writes part of a story (a para, a sentence, whatever). This is then passed to the next person in the list to continue, and so on. (In the normal version, you stop in mid sentence, but that may be a tad difficult).
 
 
Lojbab: I think the continued story idea is a good one, but you need really cooperative people to have it work. We did try it once with Lojban, but a certain person (who shall remain nameless) made a point of striving for truly strange twists in the story at every opportunity - strange enough that there was no possibility that the result could be interesting (as opposed to the process - which can be interesting in spite of strangeness, or because of it).
 
 
Randall Helzermann: So is Lojban going to be the first language in which the "classic novel" was defined by a committee?
 
Before going to the "great lojbanian novel" why not build a lojbanic tradition from the roots up? The first thing that should be written in my opinion is a primer on logical and critical thinking.
 
Lojbab: This might be nice, but:
# people seem to want to write creatively, and I will encourage any writing in Lojban for any reason
# I don't know anyone competent to write a primer on logical and critical thinking in English, much less in Lojban. Maybe Lojban will lead to the development of such a genius (if the Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis is true), but right now all we have is rather normal mostly-English native speakers writing non-fluently in a not quite living language.
 
 
Randall: What?!? you yourself must have done an incredible amount of thinking about "logical and critical thinking" when designing Lojban, a language ostensibly made to encourage such.
 
How about a tractus on elementary logic then?
 
 
Lojbab: I did surprisingly little thinking about "logical and critical thinking". Remember that I didn't design Lojban from scratch, but built on the original design by JCB. John Parks-Clifford (pc) and others have contributed significantly to the 'logical' aspects of the language, and pc is probably the most competent in the intersection of logic and Lojban. As for myself, I nearly flunked logic in college, and rely on my wife and others when logic issues come up in Lojban, which frankly isn't often. People have felt almost no urge to use Lojban for logical expression, any more than they feel the urge to use English for it. Usually the ones want to do so use symbolic logic.
 
I understand your point, but there really is no one who would write the book, and more importantly, probably no one who would read it. It seems like the same kind of idealistic project as the occasionally proposed Lojban dictionary, written entirely in Lojban. Such a book could be written, I think, but would be an exercise to prove a point and would probably not be very good, or much-used. Maybe some day, but not nearly yet.
 
But thanks for the compliment. I'm glad someone thinks I do things logically and clear-thinkingly around here zo'o.
 
 
My main reason for suggesting the Canterbury Tales approach is that we are currently being flooded with translations of a variety of materials from other languages, but almost no one (except Michael Helsem) has attempted significant original writing in Lojban. Since translation always involves some amount of interlingual compromise (as we've seen in the phone game), only original writing in the language will lead to the development of true Lojban stylistics - something near and dear to Nick's heart, if not others'.
 
By making the length be at the writers' options, we can get people like Nick, who could probably write a good, longer story, but also maybe encourage Chris, who has never posted longer than words and sentences, to contribute something. The advantage of having a common context for the stories, is that it is possible in such a context to tell a little anecdote in as little as a paragraph or two that can form part of the compendium as well as a longer story.
 
 
Lojbab (paraphrased): Those who have trouble coming up with plot lines can take stories from the great mythologies, and use their plots as the basis for Lojban stories. There are many little-known such stories. For example, Veijo, could we use stories from the Finnish epic, the Kalevala, as the basis for Lojbanic stories.
 
 
Veijo: ... about the possibility of using The Kalevala as a starting point for the Lojban Canterbury Tales. It has taken me a while to sort things out as I didn't want to give a hasty answer. It's been quite a while since I read Kalevala - and not a total edition at that - and I had to do a quick sampling of it. I also read through a few reviews. I feel it's not much use taking an odd plot from Kalevala and trying to elaborate on that as Kalevala covers the whole spectrum of human life and the stories are not very unique.
 
One outstanding feature of Kalevala is, however, the way mythos permeates everything in an almost pantheistic way. The scale is continuous from an almost imperceptible presence to personified entities - not quite Olympian in power but more on par with the main characters of the story who themselves cannot always be distinguished from the mythos. There is also a strong faith in the power of words - not any single, magic ones but prolonged singing which can drive an opponent up to his armpits into a swamp or build a boat, singing of real men, not mere boys nor of those feeble in body or character. Words do not offer a quick way out of a tight spot and at a crucial moment the vital words may be missing and must be sought for. Words are the key to the duality of the world - or even more as the metalevel of the poems is sometimes quite tightly interwoven with the subject matter. It's a world which is very difficult to portray convincingly in a different language - or even in present-day Finnish which isn't any more so rich in metaphor.
 
I don't think the way to founding original Lojban literature can be found in emulation. It takes great literary talent to transform an existing story into something worthwhile - not a mere imitation. A literature arises from an existing cultural and linguistic background and the only thing we have at hand is a half-baked language. This is the fact we must start from. If we are to lay the foundations of a literature we must look at the world - the language - we have. What is the world of Lojban like? What sets it apart from the rest? If you take Lojban sans tanru, lujvo and le'avla it presents a remarkably Platonian view of the world. The most distinguishing feature of gismu and many cmavo is that they describe a very ideal world, every word brings out the essence, the underlying principle of a class of phenomena. In most natural languages the general is described in terms which are either alien or complex, in Lojban the opposite prevails. This makes it possible to present a distilled view of the surrounding world without resorting to unnatural expressions and also to contrast the general and the particular in a single utterance or even a single bridi. The avoidance of tanru and lujvo can be thought of as another form of controlled and recognizable ellipsis - only the essential is expressed and the particular is suppressed. Other areas where Lojban excels are the tense system, the attitudinal and emotional indicators and of course the connectives. We have a very rich apparatus offering unprecedented opportunities for expression but do we have something to say?
 
I think we mustn't hurry. We need the stories, the literature, but we must not push things. We must first try to see the world - a slice of the present, some particular past, the future - through Lojban 'glasses'. The literary world we eventually create must have a distinct Lojban flavour to it, it mustn't be a mere re-representation of some other world. It doesn't suffice to avoid translation, the world must be conceptualized in a Lojban way from the ground up. I don't think the stories need much of a plot, the settings give enough opportunities for fruitful utilization of the language. Even quite ordinary things can form the scaffolding around which the story unfolds. If you read the stories by e.g. Ray Bradbury, quite many of them have a negligible plot. The something hangs in the atmosphere, in many little things. That, of course, takes great talent. I don't know whether any of us can muster that but we ought to be able to utilize Lojban for the necessary special effects - with due constraint. The thing mustn't be overdone, we are not aiming to produce a linguistic fire-works. The language ought to be utilized subtly to produce a mosaic of shadow and sun-light, soft generalizations against which sharp detail can be engraved, the dull monotonous every-day or whatever described in a few, quick indicators and the richer moments of life in ever increasing detail using the full array of tools available for the task. If we don't try to reproduce the world in the way we are accustomed to see it, to use the imagery of our respective native languages - or our secondary languages - but try to see our surroundings through the Lojban glasses I think we may find quite many things worth depicting.
 
Perhaps we don't need the past or the future to provide the alienating background but can contemplate the present in the stories. It may even be more fruitful to start with something small. I once read a book called 'Writing the natural way' where the author told about a student of hers who had trouble in writing an essay about her home town. She told the student to concentrate on successively smaller and smaller details until finally they were down to an individual brick in the wall of a specific building at which point the student suddenly started to write and produced a quite respectable essay about the brick in no time flat. We may have to take a similar route to get started. But for now - let's start looking around.
 
 
Nick:
 
Wow.
 
I mean that quite sincerely.
 
I mean, when I bemoan Lojban stylistics, I usually see the trees - the complexities of nesting, the uncertainties of place structures in flux (lujvo and gismu), the markedness of attitudinals. You, Veijo, seem to have struck at the essence. It is absolutely true that Lojban (and any language) sustain their own world (it is also true that one should not be too flashy in pursuing the manifestations of this world, as happens often in Esperanto literature); it is also true that exploring this world is the great task awaiting Lojban literature. And it is even more true that my translations so far have not done any such exploration (interestingly enough, David Twery's ckafyzda diary did - not just because it was original writing, but because it looked at the cafe in the staccato, explicit way we will come to expect of Lojban...).
 
 
John Cowan: On substantive matters, I associate myself with everything that Veijo says, and I express my immense admiration for the way that he says it. I, too, believe that language naturally leads to mythology, and that mythologies are not really transferable. (Tolkien started inventing his conlangs for the pure "philological" pleasure of it, and found that they led him inexorably to mythopoetic.)
 
 
Lojbab (written in December): Notwithstanding Veijo's excellent points, the idea I intended in raising the Kalevala as an example is that plot ideas for short stories of classic interest are easy to find. Many of the plots of stories in classic literature are not original plots; for example, most of Shakespeare's plays are unoriginal plots, based on either on history, or on retellings of tales that were already set into plays or verse. The intent is not to encourage translation of the untranslatable epic of a national culture, but to point out that anyone who reads can take a story they've seen in another language, in another form, and retell the plot in their own words, perhaps inventing some new characters. For example, one of my kids just brought home a children's book, retelling the classic fairy tale of Jack and the Beanstalk from the first person point of view of Jack (who sees things perhaps a little differently and from a more childlike perspective than the impersonal narrator of the classic version). The story, even while being told in a simplistic children's "see Spot run" manner (and not very well, in my opinion), conveys a sense of Jack's motivations that would seem out-of-place in a third-person narrative.
 
Thus, one suggestion, for someone who feels that they cannot come up with a plot idea to write about: take a story, perhaps a fairy tale or legend, that you have read or heard, figure out some way that the events of the story, or something akin to them, might take place in a modern or post-modern environment, and attempt to retell it as a first person narrative, conveying some sense of the emotions experienced by the storyteller using Lojban attitudinals.
 
The story will not be a simple English (or Finnish) story anymore, nor necessarily a mere imitation of the original, because you will have added some original point-of-view. And if the result is not great literature, but merely "a pale imitation" anyway, because your writing skill isn't that great, I say that even a pale imitation of some of the greatest of literature is likely to be a better-than-average yarn.
 
On the other hand, I am recommending this primarily to people who think they cannot come up with something more "original". Original stories are fine, and indeed are especially encouraged. If you develop a story naturally out of simply narrating in a Lojbanic manner, you will have achieved what we are seeking from this effort, and bring Lojban alive as a language.
 
 
Veijo: One of the first things we'll have to do when we start to use Lojban creatively is to chart the most obvious ways of twisting it in our quest for expressive ability. Although a language has an unambiguous grammar and words with but a single meaning, it must somehow allow for linguistic surprise - otherwise something is lost.
 
The regularity of the language will force us to find the materials for the element of surprise in the choice of words and metaphors - and also in some kind of contrapunctive juxtaposition of syntactical structures, perhaps in a wise choice of modals or imaginative personal tenses. Quantification of expressive power in a language is probably something quite unattainable. Even though we can make sure that the Lojban grammar covers all the necessary aspects and are pretty convinced that tanru and lujvo can expand the vocabulary to the required extent, we cannot have any short term certainty in this respect.
 
Expression is a two-way process. It is no use having an elegant expression if no one can really feel what you are trying to say. In English - or any other living language - we build our expressions to rest on the solid foundation of the linguistic imagery which forms large parts even of the unconscious mind of the potential readers. In Lojban we have nothing like this available. Even the most advanced of us will have to struggle - probably for years to come - to attain a level of competency where reading is no more an intellectual exercise but a living experience. To really feel the language requires that it flows in you relatively effortlessly. You must have a background against which to contrast the author's way of saying things. Esperanto is so much like the mainstream Indo-European languages that the early literary efforts could build on the existing imagery. Lojban is conceptually so different that we have no such easy way out of our predicament. The imagery will have to be different otherwise we may end up using modals to rebuild the alien imagery. At this stage translations may contain seeds of peril as we don't yet have a living tradition to protect the language from the dominance of external influences. I don't implicate that we ought to exclude these influences totally. The language needs the common imagery of the whole mankind and perhaps even large sections of the heritage of the main cultures but this imagery must trickle in in a controlled way, not as an avalanche.
 
----
 
==== B. The Lojban Kalevala Project => The Ckafybarja Project ====
 
Lojbab: On Lojban List, there has been discussion for the last month on what I once called the Lojban Canterbury Tales. Several major cultures trace their earliest cultural and linguistic identity to a collection of stories written in the language. These include Chaucer's Canterbury tales, which basically defined the birth of Middle English, Shakespeare, who did the same for Modern English, the Decameron for Italian, the tales of the Arabian Nights for Arabic. Veijo Vilva's moving comments about the necessary birth of a Lojban stylistics through original literature, written under the subject title of "The Kalevala", seems to have shifted the focus of comparison to that relatively unknown mythic collection. I'll leave it to people to come up with a suitably jingling name to supplant "The Kalevala Project".
 
With the impending completion of the first Lojban dictionary, it is time for people to write originally in Lojban (rather than in translation from other languages) and hence to explore the unique point-of-view and style that Lojban's unusual nature might bring to narrative (the assumption of the uniqueness of this point-of-view actually assumes Sapir-Whorf is true, but we'll ignore that problem for now).
 
We had a long discussion at LogFest, and Veijo's comments about basing the story(s) on a uniquely Lojbanic world-view, coupled with Nick Nicholas's identification of what writings seemed to him to best represent a budding Lojban culture, underlay much of the discussion and its current resolution.
 
The goal is Lojban stories written from a common narrative starting point, written by as many different people as possible, each of varying Lojban skill levels.
 
Quickly ruled out was a scenario involving medieval times, which would severely restrict the scope of stories that could be told, and a space travel scenario, with people travelling together telling stories of their home worlds. Unfortunately, this type of scenario would require a lot of what SF people call "world-building" - every story would need the added baggage of devising a believable 'world' wherein it takes place, and making that unique world come alive. Even the better SF writers often fail at the 'world-building' game, and it seems too much to ask of the non-expert writers who will be trying to bring Lojban to life, to ask them to bring totally new worlds to life as well.
 
Still the idea is to bring people together in a situation where they will tend to tell stories, a process that takes time when a lot of stories are to be told. In modern society, people are simply not thrown together in numbers sufficient for such storytelling. There was a suggestion of a scenario involving a story-telling contest of some type, but this didn't fire people's imagination. In retrospect, I think such a competition would have caused problems in that some of the short-shorts that beginning Lojbanists might write won't be in the same story-telling league as longer stories told by more experienced Lojbanists. I'd rather see people write well what they feel comfortable at writing about, and not try to compete with other Lojbanists, better or worse, which I think a competition theme would naturally lead to. The goal is Lojban stories written from a common narrative starting point, written by as many different people as possible, each of varying Lojban skill levels.
 
We came up with a scenario that allows, and even encourages, a motley collection of stories of varying lengths. We decided to draw on the limited range of 'Lojban culture' that exists today. The first such element identified was the "Jimbob" 'rant' (as David Twery labelled it) that we published in JL16. We talked of the stories that the Jimbobs might tell each other while "working in the sandpits" while the Esperantists climbed their wall and the apes came abseiling down. Several people liked this idea, but others objected violently. To them, the Jimbob allegory makes for a distracting setting for telling a story - it is a story in itself and not a setting; it is also a humorous, indeed ridiculous setting, and might ruin a story with a serious tone.
 
Then we turned to David Twery's coffee-house (ckafyzda) text [hopefully to be published in JL18], which Nick has identified as the first authentic-seeming "Lojban world-view" text. It also allows Lojbanists, many of whom are SF fans, to get inspiration from a variety of similar ideas used in SF stories, including the "White Hart" tales of Arthur C. Clarke, and the Callahan's Bar tales of Spider Robinson. For a brief while we had the compromise situation of a coffee house on the edge of the sand pits, allowing both indoor and outdoor settings for storytelling, but the anti-pit people eventually came up with a better approach.
 
We devised an interesting, Lojban-allegorical coffeehouse which is interesting enough to serve as the subject of stories, as well as a backdrop for the telling of stories. The concept is a coffeehouse with an international flavor in which Lojban is spoken. The atmosphere is vaguely contemporary, but somewhat timeless. Indeed, one idea was to leave the outside of the coffeehouse, i.e. its locale, essentially unspecified.
 
Description #2 below, the current strong favorite, is probably in a rural or mountainous setting, since it suggests that the sandpits are nearby if not immediately present, but unlike our starting premise, the sandpits are not essential to the description (though they clearly inspired the climbing equipment). But people voting for description #2 in many cases specified that they wanted the windows removed from the description, so that the outside remains undefined. What will likely happen is that we will see how things develop from what we have, and add more details as needed by specific authors as the culture of the coffeehouse becomes further defined.
 
The coffeehouse has 6 employees, each a representative of a culture using one of the source languages for Lojban (There was a lot of debate over whether to use a British or American representative for English, and I would have suggested Australian in honor of Nick, but people settled on American because unfortunately the majority of Lojbanists, who are mostly Americans, may be familiar only with American culture, and we don't want to shut people out of this effort for cultural blindness.)
 
We were able to identify a number of "roles" to be filled in a coffeehouse: manager, cook, waiter/waitress, busboy, cashier. [clarification: the American English word 'busboy', or perhaps 'bus-person' cleans tables at the end of a meal and prepares them for new patrons.]
 
But some of these are seen as of a lower, subservient nature as compared with others. Rather than risk association of some culture being seen as stereotypically sub-servient by tying a character of that culture to a particular role (e.g., the Chinese busboy), the workers rotate jobs, giving the job of cook to a different person each night, with the effect that the menu is both international, exotic, and a bit unpredictable. The manager was assigned to the Chinese character, based on Chinese as the most populous of the Lojban languages.
 
A friend of Karen Stein's who came to LogFest, Phil, wrote up three descriptions based on this concept. Description #2 was favored provided that the windows were removed from the description, and thus the need to describe what is outside the windows.
 
Meanwhile there is further work to be done, some of which requires knowledge of Lojban, some that requires only imagination. More details of the setting need to be worked out, eventually giving enough information that a detailed floor plan of the coffeehouse can be drawn, with locations of everything marked, so that people writing stories can be consistent in describing the scene wherein the story is told (given that the exterior environment is undefined, there is no particular need for consistency, or even implied truth, in the stories themselves, but it was felt that this collection, being written by a large number of authors of varying styles, needed to have some one thing that all authors could share and rely upon to the finest detail.
 
Indeed the coffeehouse description will be described and finalized in English, to make sure that everyone understands all the details in a consistent manner. It also allows people to use a variety of Lojban expressions and forms to describe the English-defined setting. Thus the descriptions by various authors will not read exactly the same, yet the place they are describing will obviously be the same place.
 
We welcome and indeed encourage people to write descriptions in Lojban, recognizing that the description will have to be translated into clear English. But this gives people something to write about in Lojban, and you can if you choose use your Lojban text as a starting point for an eventual story for the collection.
 
The third phase of the scenario definition is to define the six characters in enough depth that people can include them in the backdrop to their stories and have them recognizably be the same people. The details should range from gender, age, and appearance, to personality, distinctive mannerisms, and outside interests that might serve as jumping off places for a story when the indicated person comes up to the table with a tray of food, or coffee.
 
This phase will be conducted in the manner of a contest followed by a vote. Write a character sketch of one of the characters, putting as much or as little detail into your description as you care to. The contest will be announced in JL17 (but I'd like to have a couple of samples by then), and thus people have plenty of time to write good descriptions before a voting a couple of months later, with the results of all phases of this introductory work appearing in JL18, I hope. All those who submit any ideas, text, description, or otherwise indicate definite interest in participating in the project will be eligible to vote. Again, character descriptions can be written in Lojban, but we will also need English translations.
 
However, the polycultural polylinguistic background of the characters has led me to identify a fourth task that the more skilled Lojbanists can start on now, independent of the actual descriptions of the characters (or at least it may be so). Each of our 6 cultural representatives will be a native speaker of their own language - Lojban is the lingua franca that all share, and the lingua franca of those who patronize the coffeehouse as well (hence stories told in Lojban therein). But Lojban has many possible styles, and some of these styles will be dependent on the native language of the speakers. Thus, the Hindi speaker may be prone to SOV-order sentences, the Chinese speaker to strange-to-English-speakers tanru, and the Arabic speaker to flowery metaphor. The Russian speaker may choose lujvo forms that are heavy in consonant clusters, whereas the Chinese speaker will minimize clusters and maximize vowels.
 
I don't pretend to know enough of the non-English source languages to try to describe them in any detail, but some Lojbanists like Ivan Derzhanski probably do; others might be willing to research. The result will be perhaps a short sample of Lojban "conversation" and of "narrative" styles for each of the six characters (perhaps each of them describing the same scene to make for ready comparison), along with an English language description of the essential linguistic ingredients that comprise the style, so that others can try to emulate the styles when writing. The ideal will thus be, along with distinctive personalities for the 6 characters, a distinctive style of Lojban speech that will identify the characters and also lend authenticity to the style.
 
Here are the proposed descriptions. For #1, the offending-to-some picture sentences are bracketed. Someone suggested the carpet might be made brown to hide coffee stains.
 
===== Description #1 =====
 
My eyes had to adjust to the difference in lighting. The light in the place came from the twelve stain glass tiffany lamps which hung from the ceiling over a table. Low wattage bulbs cast a pale light around a place which measured some 10 meters in length and some 5 meters across. The tables have four chairs set around each of them, and as I sat down in the green cushioned chair I was shown, I had a chance to survey the rest of this place I found myself. The table settings had white linen napkins with an embroidered design of a type unfamiliar to me. The silverware was of a plain though excellent in quality, in addition there was a set of chopsticks incorporated into the traditional place setting. There were no coffee cups set out on the tables. [Along the walls hung pictures, and many of these were of people whom I did not recognize, and always with the same person, presumably the manager of this establishment.] Each picture had a gold frame, and the expressions in the pictures ranged across every known emotion. The floor was carpeted with a green shag of similar shade to the chairs, as a result the only sounds that one hears is the gentle flapping to the door going into the kitchen, and the whispers of conversations occurring at the nearby tables. [The place was quiet, still, at peace, as the man in all the pictures is approaching me. ...]
 
----
 
Description #2 is the current favorite, having references to existing Lojban texts that might somehow be worked into the stories-to-be-told, possibly with modification. The main objection is to the windows, that would require a description of the outside. (The outside might, but need not, be in a mountainous rural area where rock climbing is done - or sand pits. We didn't want to be stuck with Don Harlow's El Capitan reference of the original Jimbob story - not everyone knows what Yosemite looks like, and who says that the coffeehouse is even anywhere in America.) A possible modification would be to make the windows high up, or frosted so that people can't see through them. This provides the light without the undefined scenery.
 
[Note: This is not the original text prepared by Phil. The stairs from Ivan's story printed in this issue were originally misunderstood to be a ladder, and a ladder was therefore added to the description. Though we've learned that the ladder in the coffeehouse bears no resemblance to the marble stairs of Ivan's story, the concept in a room furnished in climbing equipment, of using a climbing ladder to access a trap door (presumably leading to the attic, wherein other artifacts may be found that could inspire more stories) fits the scenario even if the specific association with Ivan's story is excluded. Indeed, someone of Ivan's culture might see the ladder, and use it as a lead-in to tell that story. That is the purpose of having detailed decor with potential heavy symbolism - it allows people hooks to hang a story on, either a new story or one from their native culture.]
 
===== Description #2 =====
 
As I walked under the crossed climbing axes, and into the coffeehouse, I felt I was in a place designed to give one the feeling of putting on an old comfortable pair of shoes. [The large arched windows filled the dining area with light, and since all of the booths were lined along the outside, every booth had a superb view of the .] The benches were made of old soft oak, in which many tales and symbols had been carved. On the bench I was seated was the inscription: "Members of the first sandpit expedition to find the first digger, or traces thereof - 198?" The table also bore other marks of former patrons who had drank their selections and transcribed their feelings with pitons. The walls were littered with climbing apparel and debris in what might charitably have been termed a collage. There were the rusting remains of pitons and hooks abutting practically new lengths of the latest high test rope. Opposite the door from which I had entered was a ladder - a climbing ladder, of course. The ladder reached to the ceiling, and a solid-looking trap door that made me wonder of the unknown relics that lay beyond, and the stories they might hold. Underneath these visible artifacts were the dour reminders of the primary business of this establishment-coffee. There were full wooden bins of coffee from just about every place in the world, with or without caffeine. The cook was visible to all and in the process of developing the latest creation on the current menu, and not without some debate about the amount of spice the particular dish required. This happy riot provided the counterpoint to the hissing, and boiling of a near endless stream of coffee beans in response to the always cold, often frustrated, and very determined clientele.
 
----
 
#3 is a distinctly unsavory place, or savory indeed if that is the type of place you like. People seemed to feel strongest about this one, in both positive and negative directions.
 
===== Description #3 =====
 
The current dart game was in progress, with its normally furious dispute about scoring from its very stressed participants. I had walked in for my usual pot of Jamaican Blue Mountain, this being the only place I could get it every day, and I sat down in my usual table, one of the few which had a level table, and reasonably sound chairs. I reviewed the familiar surroundings. Aside from the dart game, which had a wall in which the number of dart holes appeared to compromise the structural integrity of the building, there was the varnished hardwood floor, which was again showing the effects of the heavy traffic of the numbers and shoes of the customers. The place closes for a week once every three years, just so the management can refinish the floor. The other tables were showing their wear from the customers. Some of the tables were still in good shape, but most were worn out from the life that seemed to pour out of the customers and into the furniture, the poor furniture was not designed for this. As a result, these old maple and pine pedestal tables had not only seen better days, they had seen better years. However, like the dart game, the often refinished floor, and the old sunbeam coffee machines, and cast iron cooking utensils I have often seen cleaned, they are irreplaceable. There is an identity to this place, that while the customers may come and go, this place will be what they share in common.
 
----
Chinese - Manager; Russian - Cook/Wait/Bus/Dishwasher; American - Cook/Wait/Bus/- Dishwasher; Arabic - Cook/Wait/- Bus/Dishwasher; Hindi - Cook/- Wait/Bus/Dishwasher; Spanish - Cook/Wait/Bus/Dishwasher.
<br />Rotating Menu, With Chinese overtones because of manager
<br />International Menu
 
===== Discussion =====
 
Nick: This is a most capital suggestion. I'm for it full throttle. I mean, sure, the unsympathetic outsider would find our scampering for any hint of cultural imagery self-conscious and flimsy. But this project is just perfect for us. We can get cosy in it; we can all write like Twery :), in that detached, detail-seeking chain of sumti I find so endearing; we can concentrate on the tiniest details (Lojban is ideally suited for that tutorial application Veijo mentioned - start writing about a town by writing about a single brick in a building in the town).
 
We should not be afraid to put into the story that which we are, either. No need to exoticise or aggrandise our late-20th-century mundaneness and splinter interests (the exotic is not unwelcome, of course).
 
The unsympathetic outsider might also scoff at our attention to detail (the colour of the carpet?!) - but no, this all matters.
 
It's right to reject Jimbobs as a story basis; a bit too selfconscious, and intended as a cliquey thing. Still, veiled references to current pitwork wouldn't help, and would allow a lot of therapeutic mutual ego massaging :) What with the allegory really being Don Harlow's brainchild, I wonder what reference we make to the Esperantists going up the mountain - and in general, how much we let the outside world (including merko) impinge on the Cafe goings on.
 
I have a couple of thoughts on the Cafe personnel and the decor; I'll get back to you. My jimbobism makes me go for #2, with #3 as an alternative. Do we go for equal ratios of men and women? Do we have any minorities or "deviations" in the personas, or keep them mainstream? [Clarifying later: Actually, I was thinking sexual minorities. I expect we can also assume homophobia to have been eradicated in Lojbanistan.] Hm. We shall see.
 
Dang, this WILL be fun :)
 
The names will have to be native Lojban (rafsi):
 
.u'isai.u'uru'e mi pu nalmorji lenu cusku lei se stidi cmene. We could have
<br />{cic.} ("Wildman")
<br />{cis.} ("Hot Pants")
<br />{cit.} ("Kid")
<br />{ciz.} ("Wierdo")
<br />{dar.} ("Daredevil")
<br />{dib.} ("Darl")
<br />{din.} ("Moneybag")
<br />{dir.} ("Mr. Kibbitz")
<br />{duk.} ("Worrywart")
<br />{fad.} ("Norm")
<br />{fad.} ("Mr Attitude")
<br />{faz.} ("Dennis the Menace")
<br />{fun./xaufun.} ("Lucky")
<br />(these are all #3 names, eh?)
 
- or for less unsavoury:
<br />{sax.} ("Harmonia")
<br />{glek.} ("Felicia")
<br />{vir.} ("Carl")
<br />{nol.} ("Adolf")
<br />{tir.} ("Ferris") ...
 
 
Ivan: Whoever wants to write a story with Chinese, (Hindu) Indians, or Arabs among the characters had better be very familiar with the corresponding cultures. I wouldn't venture anything of the sort, and therefore make the following
 
Counterproposal. Don't specify any national identity or cultural background for the characters. Make them representatives of an abstract, undetermined, or fictitious nation. In this case they might be Lojbanis by birth, for example. Assume, for the purpose of the game, that everyone's skin is the same colour.
 
Otherwise you risk to end up with a story that no Arab (say) would find plausible.
 
[Later clarifying:] When I proposed that, I was mainly thinking of the stories of Alexander Grin, one of my favourite authors. The events in his stories happen in a country which doesn't exist in the real world, and even no hint is given as to its location on the map (though it is clear that it is a warm area :- )). The characters, natives of that country, are not associated with any of the existing cultures. Yet they are by no means colourless - in fact, they are as colourful as anything - and they are not in the least Russian in culture (that is Grin's own nationality).
 
[On sexual minorities:] ... Now I'm going to milxe disagree. We aren't going to break all existing conventions at once, are we? We're in an imaginary land, our characters talk in Lojban, that's about enough. I think I could do with three men and three women, all of them heterosexual.
 
[On staffing:] I don't see why we need the staff to be rotating. That's not how coffeehouses in the real world are anyway.
 
[Nick: Mmm... OK, don't have 'em rotating shrug. Cuts the numbers down to five.]
 
 
Veijo: As a quick first comment I support these opinions. It's better to make these 'background' characters as neutral as possible so that the writers don't get into unnecessary problems. The characters and the storytellers/- observers in the actual stories are another matter. A visitor dropping into the cafe isn't observing the 'common' world when in the cafe. His story or the story he is listening to while in the cafe may describe various ethnic/national/linguistic groups but the narrator's relationship to the cafe ought to reflect his relationship to the Lojbanic culture. He may be a full-blown lojbo or still have one foot in his original culture which will affect the way he describes the settings, the balance between superficial and essential details. Maybe even the male/female dichotomy is superfluous in this context.
 
 
Nick: Neutral, yes, but not characterless. Exploring stylistic stereotypes (the sledgehammer JL15 I'm prone to) should be fun. I already had in mind a tanru-ist, an attitudinalist, an anaphorist and an SVO-ist, as well as the obligatory Prolog speaker :)
 
I think the monomania of exploring every facet of familiar objects in a familiar surrounding (the old brick thing) is highly pertinent to this do. Plots and tales aren't essential; a laidback, look-at-what-everyone-else-is-doing-and-how-that-crack-on-the-wall-runs attitude is just as appropriate here.
 
In a boisterous environment like #2, given we've taken out the cultural differences, I'd prefer it if the boisterousness were sustained by some heterogeneity amongst the cafe personnel.
 
 
Mark: Remember, guys, these are the background characters. It'd be fine to give them some flavor and all, but don't think they're the only ones around, nor the key ones (except perhaps in some rare "Cook's Tale" or something).
 
... [Gender] doesn't make a whole lot of difference, really. Bear in mind that this is Lojban we're dealing with; you needn't know anyone's sex unless it becomes important. I could see the waiter's sex never mentioned until five stories down the line when somehow it makes a difference. It'd be nice to keep it equal, so bear that in mind if it becomes necessary to specify someone's gender.
 
Your own characters, that's something else. Remember, these characters are not the ones doing most of the story-telling. The ones doing that are the patrons whom you bring in. They may have their own idiosyncrasies, culture, bias, whatever. In fact, I imagine the chief method of finding out people's sex/color/- accent/whatever might be seeing things from the point of view of a patron who happens to be particularly concerned about such things.
 
Keep them neutral. I don't think you have to go out of your way to try to convince me they're native lojbananas, and I always feel funny about overusing the rafsi-as-name bit; you just can't trust it. I like the idea of giving them distinct, but distinctly lojbanic, speaking styles, but perhaps it would be better not to go too carefully this route, and play with that in one of your own stories with a few patrons you bring in (if you think you can do it and still make the story work, which Ivan fears wouldn't happen). Remember: If you want something in a character, it can walk in the door. The patrons, over which each writer has more or less complete control, are the ones which make the stories click. The staff is background.
 
Your plan might be a good idea, Nick, but it may make writing a real challenge for normal folk. Remember, the staff are characters that everyone has to live with. If you want a few characters that you can deal with that have such speech styles, the door's right over there, and here they come. It's unfair to ask a beginning speaker to incorporate such clevernesses into his writings by making characters common to all the stories have these traits.
 
Tell me, when was the last time you could tell at a glance the sexual orientation of your waiter? Um, badly put (wedding rings are a giveaway). I mean, that's not something anyone would notice or care about unless it chanced to become important in a story. If you want someone with orientation X, have him/her/it/them walk in the front door, under the climbing axes. If you feel a need to attach that kind of info to a staff member, make sure nobody has beaten you to it, and then think twice before doing it.
 
Remember, though, that when you tweak the background or the staff, you're messing with something that all the writers have to live with. Don't build your world and force everyone else to live in it; bring your world into everyone else's. In fact, if you really need the waiter to be a certain way, you might even consider having a replacement waiter that day, just to be on the safe side.
 
 
Nick: Oh, ok. Still, these'll be the people we come home to in every episode; they do have to be "character actors". It seems I missed the point of these characters, nevertheless, for which I duly apologise.
 
While I want them to be boisterously different from each other, I also want them to have common reference points - I want them, as a mass, to provide a feeling of home (Lojbanistan?) against which the protagonists are foregrounded. Of course, since we don't know what being a native Lojbani would entail, we can't exaggerate this.
 
... best is to keep [differences in speech] subtle (not whack whack zo'u VSO); since that'll take a lot of finesse (which I'm not sure I have), we might as well play this one down. Still, a vague guideline (this character prefers tanru, this one expands) won't hurt overmuch.
 
[As for backgrounds,] I won't mess with what's there, but I would like something reasonably explicit there to build on. I am going to describe a particular crack in a wall :)
 
 
Lojbab: Ivan asks for several changes, all of which remove detail from the persons and scenery details. To write a good story, the details must be present. If we do not specify the culture of the characters, they will have no culture; i.e. they will be colorless, which is exactly what we don't want.
 
: (Ivan: Not necessarily. They simply won't be identified with any one of the existing cultures.)
 
Actually they won't be - with mostly Americans in the Lojban community, they will all end up as nondescript American in culture. I would rather attempt and fail to capture hints of a foreign culture than not to attempt at all, and have the result seem too American. We may not succeed in capturing a true Arabic or Hindi culture (but then we might come close), but we will get a somewhat non-American culture. One would expect in any case that with people representing 6 cultures interacting on a constant basis that none of the characters would be 'pure' in representing their culture - after all, they do not live with their own people (at least not likely).
 
: (Ivan: Getting a non-American culture is great, but calling it Arabic or Hindi (by the way, what is Hindi culture? I've never heard of such), without having a close familiarity with the real ones, would be way too bold.)
 
:: (Nick: Agreed. But not inappropriate details, which will lead us to embarrassment. Your Hindi-speaking co-owner will either be: US (or Australian) assimilated, to some extent or other (just like all the Hindi-speakers I know), or a caricature. We need some character and colouring in the owners. But talking about cultures we don't know enough about (I mean, gee, what do I come up with as a character trait for a Hispanic?) is plain too risky. Seek diversity elsewhere, in that which we are familiar with, and that which everyone is familiar with. Having them come out Americans is not the ultimate problem (besides, there are enough of us outside the States to avoid that); you don't need to hunt down the exotic. There is little more mundane and more Anglo-cultural than la tuerp.'s [David Twery] or la .andruc.'s [Andrew Smith] writing; and yet their work has the immediate charm of being comfortably Lojbanic that we seek.)
 
The setting must be well-developed and self-consistent. The stories told indeed must stand on their own, but if we are to have any cohesiveness to a set of stories written by a a variety of people, many with no particular talent for literary writing, we need some common setting that is well enough developed that the stories hang together. Otherwise we just have an anthology of random stories, which loses the joint-ness of the project.
 
The effort of those who worked hard to come up with the scenario, and the rather inspirational effect it seemed to have as the coffeehouse came together in peoples minds, is just the type of consensus work that we lojbo do well, and I want to see more of it.
 
Indeed, the better writers can invent stories and worlds of their own, and characters as well. Others may choose to have their story rest in an interaction between patrons and staff in the coffeehouse, which itself is a basis for a lot of powerful story imagery, and, given some preparatory work in character development of the staff, allows people with perhaps less skill or imagination to still tell a reasonable story, concentrating on the Lojban and not on the creative work that not all of us do so well.
 
The better writers can invent stories and worlds of their own, and characters as well. Others may choose to have their story rest in an interaction between patrons and staff in the coffeehouse, which itself is a basis for a lot of powerful story imagery, and, given some preparatory work in character development of the staff, allows people with perhaps less skill or imagination to still tell a reasonable story, concentrating on the Lojban and not on the creative work that not all of us do so well.
 
 
Veijo: There are many facets to creativeness. It is, of course, quite difficult to create truly flesh-and-blood characters. But telling about a person known to everybody may be equally difficult. To be consistent with the characterization without merely copying, to add something or just to express it somewhat differently takes skill at many levels. Actually, it might be much more difficult than making a quick sketch of a stranger or adding depth to some your own creation - even in your own native language. Fitting a limited expressiveness in Lojban to a detailed microcosm may be in fact harder than creating the details on the fly from the bits and pieces of the Lojban you do master.
 
Brainstorming in English at a LogFest may give you quite a skewed view. There people are using the imagery of their native English to create the ckafyzda and everything flows smoothly. A detailed English plan is, however, a double-edged sword. It helps, as you said, people to visualize this microcosm. On the other hand people must get rid of this visualization not to be hampered by it (jumping from English - or Finnish or what so ever - to Lojban already requires a certain amount of flexibility of mind). It will also be quite necessary to transform the plan into a Lojban plan to help the less experienced Lojbanists to handle the basic premises. I used the word 'transform' quite intentionally instead of the word 'translate' as I feel that a translation isn't sufficient, it is quite necessary to try to remove the 'alien' imagery. At another - simpler - level it is necessary to give the required lujvo and the ways of describing certain quite elementary things: distances, relationships, the way things hang together. It might be useful to have a kind of workshop (on the List) where the novice lojbo would be taught to navigate in this verbal VR (virtual reality). There might be teams of two or more people working on a person or even a table to get it just so.
 
: (Nick: Because I have only vague suspicions about how this might work, I propose that we, as an example, navigate on [Lojban List] around, oh, the leftmost bench nearest the kitchen. I'm not being facetious; I want to see how one would go about this. The tables are made of old soft oak, on which many symbols and inscriptions have been carved.)
 
This kind of process might help people to find their own voice and to cultivate the innate creativity each one of us is sure to possess.
 
 
Nick: And with what you (Veijo) say about characterisation, too, the solution is a broad-brush sketch that allows us room to maneuver in; not too detailed, not too vague. Well, that can certainly be handled.
 
I think a Lojbanisation of the brush-stroke plan will not be limiting at all; people do really need that help in simply keeping a narrative going.
 
As the mass of writers becomes more familiar with Lojban, the Cafe will be sketched out in greater detail in the story, and more successfully, with the end result possibly quite distant from what we'd anticipated at the start. The more expert of us reinforce those less expert in the describing.
 
 
Lojbab: The plan is that there be 1 coffeehouse, and that the description be suitably refined in English. People will develop refined descriptions of 6 characters (or some other number if we abandon the 6 cultures idea - but I don't think you can have a 'cultureless person' and have the character detail that I think the others want in the shared characters), which will then be voted on, which means the characters must also be defined in English.
 
: (Nick: I think it's perfectly possible, but then, I think we're also looking for different things in character definition. What maketh a Hindi speaking character? I know personally 3 native Hindi speakers Now what do I extract from them to create, say, la jbosanjiv., and what am I missing by virtue of the fact that I talk with these people in English, within an Anglo culture? If these characters aren't assimilated into some medium we're familiar with (regrettably or not, this'll have to be a more or less Anglo cultural medium - leave the "or less" part to us na'e glico) they'll be caricatures. And of course, as background, they don't have to be that detailed anyway.
 
If we're to avoid a palace coup, sure, keep them Hindi and Arabic in name; but don't expect the character description to be too adamant about their cultural identity. Exoticising these people is unsatisfactory. They will be somewhat assimilated, into be it merko or jbomerko. This is nothing to be ashamed of. Talking about the Arab's fiery temperament or the Russian's cool intellect as cultural traits would be.)
 
After we have the basic scenario settled, the material can be translated into Lojban, and people can set up teleconferences of whatever kind to help each other in writing, or whatever, but while the project is still in the formative stage, we must make provision for those who want to learn Lojban but haven't yet done so, and for those who do not have net access (which is 90% of the community).
 
Be that as it may, I recognize that most of the work will be done by people on net, and we should take advantage of the opportunity for rapid communication. But please be considerate of those who want to participate but cannot.
 
If people think they can develop interesting culture-free characters, I for one will await the first posted character description meeting the challenge.
 
: (Nick: Cool. Veijo's navigation of virtual reality can be done once the description is in place, and the description should not be exhaustive.)
 
 
Veijo: I certainly understand those of us who were at the LogFest and now feel that the net-people are trying to take over the whole Project utilizing their technological 'supremacy'. On the other hand, we who are, due to external factors unsurmountable, unable to attend the LogFests and are limited to electronic contacts, which - though fast - cannot compete with face-to-face contacts and classes, feel left out of the initial phase of the Project.
 
Actually we were left a quite limited say in the formulation of the framework. The views I did present in my previous postings were ones I should have liked to present at the LogFest, I should have liked to have had my say at that time. Perhaps it would have made no difference in the outcome, but I should have felt differently. When I was writing the postings I recognized I was - at least to an extent - writing post facto. The writing was, however, necessary to find out just how much elbowroom I had. These postings (as quite many of my previous ones) must be taken with a pinch of salt. They are in a way a substitute for the process of thinking out loud in a class or a group working on a problem. The postings do contain errors and false starts which in a class would be corrected immediately. I am at least as much talking to myself as to others on the net - but the process only works if I do send the messages out.
 
I do hope that the people who feel left out of all the fun we on the net do have would try - once in a while - to imagine themselves sitting a couple of thousand kilometers from the nearest active fellow lojbo and having only the messages on the screen and the inevitable problems caused by widely differing time zones - it's like being a semi-cyborg.
 
I can imagine, on the other hand, the limitations of meeting others only, say, once a week and keeping all the ideas to yourself in the meantime and not hearing from the others or the goings-on (too few of us are still accustomed to writing real letters - and remembering the state of postal services to-day I guess it wouldn't much help). I can think of being without the List (shudder). Of course it is a slightly different matter for me here in the middle of a figurative nowhere. The blip of an arriving message envelope is also a symbol of the contact with you others.
 
 
Lojbab: In this case the people in question who are not on-net live 250 miles from here and have no contact with any Lojbanists except at LogFest, and when JL comes out. We may all be in the same country over here, but that doesn't necessarily mean that we are close to each other. On the other hand, I see your point of view too. Your ideas will be presented to them, and the decision process will just take a little longer. I just wanted people to try to think of ways to keep everyone working towards the same goals, when some people are stuck with paper mail rates. This is not intended to stifle the lively and entertaining debate that has occurred.
 
I don't think that the people off net are necessarily locked into the 6 cultures idea. But they did sound very committed to the idea of these common characters being defined is considerable detail, in English, before people started to write in Lojban. The desire for detail and for English, as well as the clear desire for people to go beyond philosophy and into specific detailed descriptions of people and the coffeehouse itself, is what I was trying to urge.
 
It was my idea, not theirs, that the best way to show Hindi culture is my having some Hindi-inspired Lojban stylistics, etc. I think the original people posing the idea were thinking more along the lines of having the chef of the day specialize in cooking foods of his/her native culture (for which we would need lots of lujvo and le'avla in order to have the foods recognizable, if then). Thus I thought that stylistics of Lojban would be a more creative way to go, people will recognize the exoticness of the non-standard forms, and maybe even learn a little linguistics about the differences in the languages based on the Lojban forms. But I do not see that we have to go too extreme to bona fide culture, especially if people don't think they can pull it off.
 
If people don't want to use the 6 culture labels, I suspect this will fly, but only if the characters are defined well enough that people writing feel they 'know' the characters either fully, or in terms of any cultural features/stereotypes/whatever that would be most noticed by your everyday lojbo wandering in for a cup of coffee.
 
I don't think that there is a 'splintering' between the non-netters and the netters. But my responsibility is to see that one doesn't come about. I fully feel Veijo's isolation in not being able to come to LogFest. But there are plenty of people in the U. S. who feel just as distant as you do, though they may be only 250 miles away instead of 8000.
 
 
Veijo: [On] the name of the Project: The Kalevala got to the name of the project more by way of accident than by volition. It is in a way quite fitting as the Kalevala (or the epic poems/songs on which it is based) was created by numerous anonymous people during several centuries. The '-la' at the end of the name corresponds roughly to the '-ia' of 'Lojbania'. Most of the action, however, takes place outside this land/domain of Kaleva which actually remains quite vague and so, in a way, the name tells nothing of the contents - it just kind of sets the reference point. So I think we might as well replace 'The Kalevala' with 'la jbotur.' (lojbo tutra = the domain of Lojban) and call the project 'The Jbotur Project' (le la jbotur. fitpla) or something like that (for the time being). Here I am thinking of tutra in quite a figurative sense, more as a mental territory/domain/sphere of influence than as a geographical territory. I also thought of various other possibilities but none were as concise or descriptive.
 
Again a couple of figurative names:
 
la *jbolaz. ( < lojbo lanzu) = the people tied together by Lojban
la jbonat. ( < lojbo natmi) = the people with a Lojbanic cultural background
 
I can't tell why I prefer 'jbo' to 'loj' in this context. Perhaps it gives the lujvo a certain distance from concreteness. Lojban is something quite concrete and 'la lojnat.' would feel too near to 'Lojbanic nation'. Theoretically, of course, there is no difference and the two are interchangeable. I'll leave it to others to decide whether these particular forms are preferable and whether these names are worth adoption to name the abstract entities in our writings. I think we have/will have the entities.
 
: [Lojbab: "*jbolaz" is an invalid name, because it contains a syllable starting with "la". However, it is permissible, and perhaps even more Lojbanic, to leave the name as a brivla "la jbolanzu". brivla, of course, do not have the "la" restriction. Perhaps we should save name morphology for words Lojbanized from other languages.
: Another alternative that works is to use a different rafsi condensation that avoids the problem. In this case "la loblaz." is legal because the "b" before the "la" prevents a morphology problem. This is a solution here, but won't always be possible, so I favor the selbri approach in general.
: Since there has been no agreement among the participants as to the name of the cafe, in editing this issue I have left all names, including this invalid one, as stated by the authors. Ideas for names are welcome from all of the community.
 
==== C. The Cafe *Jbolaz Newsletter proposal ====
 
Nick: Every two months, an electronic and snailmail [i.e regular postal mail] set of Cafe descriptions gets mailed out - this is necessary to allow the off-net participants to keep up to date. For net participants, a month after posting their cafe article on the net, they must submit a revision incorporating all comments made. For those off net, the newsletter editor forwards all comments (net and snail), allowing the contributor to post a revision, say, four months later. The newsletter is all-Lojban, and people (preferably on the net, and preferably grammar-competent) can take turns editing it. The newsletter is cafe only, other literature being forwarded as usual for JL consideration. Cafe articles need not be tales at all - any piece to do with the cafe (like Veijo's navigation or my Fraktur rant) is legit, as is any genre. If we all approve on this, the newsletter can be announced in JL. Some central on-net personage should be nominal editor (forwarding mail to the editor de jour who must commit him/herself to passing all articles through the current parser, and glossing lujvo as appropriate.)
 
 
Lojbab: I see no problem with such a newsletter, but feel that it is appropriate after the getting started period of the first two issues of JL, which will serve to give more people a chance to decide to participate who are in the snailmail set.
 
After the next two issues of JL, I suspect that there will be enough people motivated by the project and skilled enough at Lojban, that there will be more than just Nick and Veijo trying to write stuff that is appropriate, including some people not on net. When the non-netters feel comfortable in participating, then I personally will have no qualms in letting the project go where it will, including letting whatever leaders have emerged at that point assume both control and responsibility. I would hope of course that LLG would be offered first publication rights on the results, as well as to get as much archival data as possible on this, the first organized-and-skilled creative writing effort in what is obviously about to become a living language.
 
 
Veijo: The original plan called for stories told at the Cafe. We have already had differences of opinion concerning background details. Now Nick is proposing that we widen the scope to include also other kinds of related literary works. (My srinuntroci or navigations as Nick calls them are just kind of etudes, not meant to be the stories, though widening the scope will make them eligible for publication.) In principle I am for this change of policy as it makes it possible also for the less advanced lojbo to participate in the creative process. It is much less demanding to produce a snapshot of a few lines than to produce something like Nick's Fraktur rant. We could have many more people contributing if this were an acceptable option. I think the non-netters would profit most from this change as longer stories do need more rounds of feedback from others.
 
The question of the editorship and of a possible editorial board must be solved. Although technical reasons seem to indicate an on-net board, other possibilities must also be considered. The board might also be something quite informal. In practice we would have a wide open peer review system where in principle all the lojbo on the net would be doing the reviewing. For the netters this works fine but I think Nick's proposal concerning the non-netters would require some fine-tuning.
 
This issue must be handled with the greatest sensitivity.
 
The division of work between the board and the Lojban Central must be agreed on. There are technical questions like handling of the snailmail if the editors are mainly outside the USA (most of the non-netters are in the USA) and converting source text to text files suitable for e-mail.
 
Last but not least are the financial questions. I think the ideal would be if we could find independent ways of funding the newsletter and the related editorial mail so that we don't strain the limited resources of the Central. We need some estimate of the volume of the mail and the circulation of the newsletter. This concerns mainly the section of the community which doesn't have net access. An option might be to circulate the newsletter as an appendix to JL.
 
 
Nick: In creating a virtual world such as this, we must be afforded full freedom in our ways of exploring it, and full scope for Lojbanists of all interests and capabilities to work with it. Extended narrative is one alternative; others would not only be a relief from what could get a bit stodgy in Lojban, but would also help explore Lojban's capacities more. A catechism or an Encyclopedia reference (I know I've got Joyce's Ulysses in mind here, but bear with me) are just as valid modes of expression, and just as helpful to the language. A fixed kind of narrative is unduly constrictive, and can discourage many would-be participants. In fact, I'd be discouraged from producing a straightforward narrative.
 
Plus, I think the opportunity of using this as a springboard for some satire of the Lojban movement is too good to pass up :)
 
Certainly the editorship need not be formal. Let me attempt to refine my proposal: the editor du jour is entrusted with the typographic preparation of the journal, the style preferred in his/her number (namely, subjective minor issues of expression - lujvo phrasing, optional punctuation and spelling, minor grammatical errors - can be left to them). They also do the chasing up of correspondence and editing of discussions eventuating from articles published in their issue, adjusting the work accordingly and resubmitting it on the expiry date to the current editor for publication. What I'm saying is that a given ed du jour is responsible for all articles first published by him. For example: suppose I, Mark, and Colin are eds du jour, and, oh, Nancy Lebovitz (say) submits an article that gets corrected and published during my editorship. I then, and not Mark, follow up any subsequent discussion and correspondence about Nancy's article, I make the suitable adjustments, and hand the finished result, and only the more interesting highlights of the discussion, to Colin (say) for republication. I suppose that means that my norms, rather than Colin's, go for the republished article; but at least work gets shared out that way.
 
The reviewing of text is of course carried out by all subscribers to the newsletter, on net or off. But one person has to tie all the threads together at the end, and take responsibility for touching up the text in accordance with the criticisms made; let that person be the first publication's ed du jour.
 
The editor in chief takes care of the editorial; his/her address appears in the newsletter as the address to which all correspondence is directed; has a certain amount of veto as to article content (checking for consistency and so forth), vetts the newsletter just before publication, and reports to the wider community through JL as needed.
 
I see no reason why stories should not be mailed for submission and entered into text files directly by the editor in chief, who is after all just one address (if this is a forbidding responsibility for an ed in chief, um, I dunno, get the ed a scanner :) Of course, all these proposals are for when the project is off on its own two feet and running. For now, if I understand Lojbab's mail correctly, Lojban Central will still mediate.
 
The LLG can have all the archival stuff it wants (and with editorship a net activity, there'll be plenty of it). I'm not sure about publication rights though. I envisage a periodical publication, rather than a book-form corpus, that certainly is distributed by the LLG, and sold at a profit to the LLG, but which is produced by a decentralised body, which is not necessarily equivalent to the LLG.
 
I suppose Lojbab's approach [on finances] will do. I dearly want a periodical publication out of this, not just a corpus of text to be dumped in Fairfax for people to order; but it is fair that the periodical be available by LLG's preorder (and if you preorder enough, by subscription). We'll ask for expressions of interest in the next JL. As for editorial mail... depending on volume, the eds as a committee may have to start pooling resources. Certainly we should use the net to make sure stuff gets snailmailed in the same quarter of the globe, at least; that'll be a big help. One article per newsletter in JL, but I'd like the newsletter to eventually have some editorial independence (once again, that would be excellent PR).
 
[As to who should be editor, it] basically boils down to who feels like being ed du jour (and handling a lot of grammar and correspondence), and who feels like ed in chief (who will have little grammar, but lots of correspondence, supervision, and consistency checking)? I still nominate Veijo for ed in chief; I'll go ed du jour, and we should have 3 to 5 such eds that we can divide work between; they need to have demonstrated Lojban competence, and that already narrows down the candidates to less than twenty.
 
Lojbab (originally private to Veijo): I haven't said so, and have been biting my tongue while all the discussion is going on. It sounds like the Lojban "creative writing" movement is about to take off on its own, and be more than mildly independent of "Lojban Central" with its own editor (perhaps you) and publication not much under my control. I think this is good because it shows the language can and will become free of me and of even the concept of a centralized "Central". This also allows me to show that my attitude is entirely opposite from JCB, who when faced with anything like this immediately becomes extremely possessive and controlling. I will not display such an attitude, at all costs; our legitimacy as an organization and a project independent of JCB depends on it.
 
Still I have some misgivings, in that, honestly, most of the net postings, even in the final draft forms, have tended to be significantly flawed in lots of minor details of the language. The netters catch most things, but not everything, as in the example of your *tosmabru error in your first attempt. Nick is the most voluminous writer we have, and in many ways the best in that he has demonstrated a command of many idiosyncrasies of the language, but I have found that, even after he posts his 3rd or 4th revision he still has multitudinous little errors - things like failing to check the rafsi in a lujvo, errors of place structure, etc. He even has a copy of the parser, but he has told me that he merely checks to make sure that the text parses, and doesn't always check to make sure that it is parsing the way he intends it to be read. Thus, for example, you will find dozens of minor changes between his final posted version of Aesop, and the version I finally printed in JL. (And unfortunately Nick didn't agree with all my changes, but there wasn't time for him to respond before publication.)
 
Perhaps you can see what my misgiving is, then. Will the proposed new publication have an editor who can and will check the language usage as thoroughly as it needs to be checked? How much authority will the editor have to correct and change misusages without getting author approval. (Nick may have accepted my changes because I am 'of Central' whereas he might be less tolerant of others changing his stuff. But too much editorial/authorial dillying over individual pieces of work will lead to an editor who has to spend an excessive amount of time in correspondence over a relatively small amount of final text. The text being generated in the community now already exceeds what Cowan and I can read and perform such editorial checking on.
 
And of course if the editor spends too much time editing, he/- she gets to spend little time writing his own stuff (a problem I personally have experienced). Thus, while Nick compliments you by asking you to be editor because you have a natural Lojbanic style, if you actually serve as editor, the community will be deprived of your developing and improving (rapidly) exemplification of such a good Lojban style.
 
I don't know what the solution is. I want this type of movement to get started, and I want it to succeed. But I worry that it is premature, in that no one, including myself, has the Lojban skill to be an editor of Lojban text, as such an editor needs to be given the present skill level among others in the community. Yet, how will such an editor develop, if no one takes the first step and tries.
 
Your ideas on this convoluted problem are of interest to me. Please keep this between us for now, since, as I said, I don't want my doubts to stifle debate or the formation of a movement; I write to you, because I sense in your writings and activities of the last month or two that my comments are not going to discourage you. But others have proven very sensitive to this whole silly concept of a "Central" (which concept I wish had never evolved - I don't want to be a figure of authority).
 
 
Veijo: Well, I think a 'Central' can have a quite legitimate role - even in the long run. In Finland we have something called 'the language office' which cannot enforce anything but follows the debates about the current usage, comments on it every now and then and is there to answer questions about the correct usage. Given the nature of Lojban I think we'll need a kind of clearing house for changes of grammar, place structures etc. to avoid anarchy before the language has stabilized. Also, I feel that a seal of approval on changes will help to avoid some of the endless and probably fruitless debates raging among the Esperantists. With people like you at the Institute I have no fear of an overtly stifling influence.
 
I do not see the journal as something completely independent. It will, of course, have an independent editorial policy. It will, however, be a purely literary journal not containing any theoretical material - at least not in English, perhaps in the long run we'll have Lojban articles about stylistics, reviews etc. I think JL will remain the proper publishing channel for the linguistic questions arising on the basis of the submitted stories.
 
Well, I think we'll never catch all the errors but probably we'll be better off than most natural language journals. I'm modifying the editor program I'm using presently (the one with hypertext capability) to do certain things. At the moment it has vocabulary and rafsi look-up capability (if only I'd remember to use them always) and I intend to add lujvo checking next.
 
Cf. Nick's posting: The main idea was that the workload would be divided between the ed in chief and the ed du jour. The ed in chief would write the editorial, define the profile of the journal and accept the stories for publication. The ed du jour would do the dirty work of preparing the stories for publication with all the associated fuss. Each issue might have a different ed du jour - the qualified people taking turns - so nobody would be prevented from writing etc. for a prolonged period of time.
 
It is normal practice in journals that the ed in chief decides what gets published. If an author doesn't want to change his/her text to the extent that it'll pass the editorial board, the text doesn't get published. On the other hand the journal cannot publish something against the authors will. I think the journal ought to have a 'charter' defining the aims, the editorial policy and the editorial procedures. All the reviewing would be public so we'd have less fear of unfair treatment.
 
Editing detracts from writing detracts from theoretical work detracts from studying detracts from ..., the never ending chain of choices. On the other hand, being forced to read what others have written and to really think about it will give you a better perspective on what you yourself are writing. None of us has a literary Lojbanic background and to find the language and refine our own writing we must try to explore as much of the text being written as possible. Nick's proposal would help a lot.
 
Being set up as an example may be quite counterproductive. If you, every time you sit down to write, feel that you must be able to create something exemplary, it will - sooner or later - extinguish your creativity. You must be able to allow yourself the luxury of also producing mediocre or even poor text in order to be relaxed enough to produce something worth your while.
 
At the moment the journal can only succeed as a collective effort, along the lines Nick has pointed out. I think his plan might work - with a few finishing touches. And I think we need the journal to give the community a further reason d'etre as there are very few people who'll remain content to study a language which isn't actually used as a language. The main purpose of the journal would be to encourage people to write in Lojban, to start with simple things (I have even thought that good one-liners might be worth publishing) and gradually to proceed to more demanding forms of expression. After 5, maybe 10 years we might have another journal with more ambitious goals - if the language really takes off - but now we'd be content just to have a journal - 'la jbotur po'u le jbocfi karni pe lei ckafybarja lisri' or what ever it would be called.
 
The way I see it, we aren't in any particular hurry. First we must present the idea in JL and poll the opinions of the community. If the response is positive, the real work would start, say, in January and we ought to have the material for the first issue prepared by the end of March. I think we'll have enough material by then and ample time for the editing (at the present rate we'll have lots of material even before the end of the year). Preparing this first issue will give us enough experience to define the schedule for the later issues realistically.
 
[Veijo's times in this paragraph were undoubtedly predicated on the assumption that JL would be on schedule, which it has not been, and that the volume of text that was written in August would continue at that rate, which it also has not.]
 
 
Lojbab: I agree that having to be exemplary stifle creativity and productivity. Why do you think I don't wish my job on anyone else? It is a real bear being thought of as the ultimate authority, and having little errors from years ago held up as sanctified rulings. That is why I find "Central" a distressing concept, since 'Central' like the Pope, is never wrong and must always be right. And I am not infallible. First among equals is fine, and indeed you-all who are most active on Lojban List tend to think of me this way. But the masses that are not as active consider me much more of an Authority.
 
 
Veijo: I know and I certainly do not envy your position. (It's funny, I was actually considering the phrase 'primus inter pares' in some context in my previous letter but then decided to avoid it as it is sometimes also used to mean 'first among "equals"'.) Many - if not most - people have a need for an authority and this ought to be taken into account. I think we'll have to consider the role and nature of the 'Central' in the future. The way I see it now, we should have a group of experienced Lojbanists (6-12), geographically dispersed, in contact with each other outside the Lojban list. This group would, among other duties, work like the 'language office'. I mentioned giving out statements either as individuals or as a collective. These statements would contain a standard attachment declaring that the statement a) is based on the current parser and/or word list and as such is "objective" or b) is a considered opinion of so and so and as such doesn't constitute an absolute ruling/truth but a recommendation. The main idea is that there would a body to which you could address your questions and have reasonable expectations of getting a correct or at least thoroughly considered answer. Of course you can ask questions on the net but then you may get a multitude of answers from which you must choose or get a single answer from somebody who just thinks he knows - the question and the answer having passed unnoticed by those who would be better qualified to answer - or even no answer at all. But how to avoid the halo of Authority, that is the question.
 
: Lojbab: Which leads me to mention the thing I was talking to Nick about [see below for this text]. One problem I've never seen a solution for is how to communicate with those just short of trying to use the language. You have noticed how little Sylvia and Dave post, and there are several others that could probably post good stuff too, but they:
: a) don't try because the debates that ensue are intimidating;
: b) don't try because they see this enormous volume of debate on each discussion, and put all their effort into trying to understand it, not always with useful effect.
 
I think that the tons of stuff on the coffee house has probably intimidated some people from speaking up, simply because the leadership is going at it so fast and furious.
 
And while I am happy to see yours and Nick's attempts at supporting text in Lojban, they 1) set a standard few feel that they can match, so they don't try and 2) because they are in Lojban, people have to spend the time needed to read and understand (if possible) what has been written to make sure that what they write is consistent with what has gone before. The latter is the reason that I was urging people to keep to English for the most part during the project formation phase. Nick did give an English translation, though colloquial. You didn't, at least that I noticed. The newcomer right now probably hasn't got a clue what is going on, and what if anything has been determined/decided about the project, and what details if any have been added since the initial posting. The latter is why Karen wanted people to write rather lengthy English supporting text - so that people know about what they are writing before they start, and get to save their creativity for the stories.
 
 
Veijo: Perhaps I ought to post an explanation of what I'm trying to accomplish with my little stories. There is a qualitative difference between my two little etudes and Nick's rant. Nick's story needs the translation as it adds details to the original English description, my two published stories, on the other hand, actually add nothing to it, so it isn't so essential to understand them.
 
What I'd like to show to just the people who'd like to post something but feel they aren't advanced enough, is that it is possible to take a small detail (the smell of coffee, an inscribed letteral) and develop a few bridi concerning it. The story may be quite banal, the main thing is to write something in Lojban - preferably without an original in any natural language. My Lojban isn't so advanced that I could take an extended passage from the English description and transcribe it into real Lojban.
 
This is why I wasn't so concerned about invention - it's no good if I invent a clever story or a detailed description but lack the means of expressing it in Lojban. First I must develop a familiarity with the language - writing little banal first-grader stories if need be. The way I work maybe the reason for the hint of lojbo style in the stories. It's like putting together a puzzle or playing a game of Go. I pick a key piece - an observative, a selbri, a sumti, an attitudinal or maybe a complete bridi from Nick's rant - put it on the board and start attaching other pieces around it. The story/paragraph is like an extended bridi with places to fill - only the places aren't predefined but change all the time I'm developing the story. So it isn't a linear process where I'd have an idea and just started from the beginning - I can't sustain that yet. This way I can add just the kind of pieces I can manage - or change my mind halfway through if the going gets too rough.
 
We are still waiting reactions to the views I presented concerning the handling of the subject, we have this new idea of starting a newsletter and the related ideas concerning the subject material and, of course, the additions to the English supporting text by Nick and some other people. The adoption of the supporting text will be a problem. It seems to me we are going to need an editor just to select and unify the accumulating material. Some of Nick's material is fine as a literary work but hardly stuff to encourage an apprentice to base a story upon. You know my views and misgivings about this approach and there is no need to reiterate, I guess. I know my limits and I have found a way to cope - at least at this stage.
 
The 'etudes' I'm writing now do not - or not exactly - fit within the original framework and perhaps it was an error to post them without comments to that effect though at the time I was writing the first one I felt it was better to avoid comments which might be misinterpreted by the non-netters as we still don't have their reactions to the views I had presented earlier.
 
For me these etudes are a way to learn, to study, and comparable to any other stuff people are posting. If we keep to the original plan they are my way of preparing for the project proper, if we, on the other hand, decide to start the newsletter and change the scope of the material the way I have outlined, they may be eligible for publication.
 
Lojbab (originally private to Nick): I suspect that you won't see any of the inactive people contributing to the coffeehouse for a while. That effort is doing stunningly well, and has taken on a life of its own independent of "Central" (thank God, since I abhor the concept of a Lojban 'Central' in the first place). But it is suffering from the same problem that has afflicted almost all previous discussions of Lojban text on net. Some few people, in this case apparently you, Veijo, Ivan, Mark, and Colin, are churning out so much text and commentary on text that the others with less time or less confidence cannot be other-than lurkers, because they cannot read what has been written as fast as new stuff is produced. I doubt that you will see much from Sylvia, and you might even see less simply because everyone else is writing more. I printed out your latest 'rant', and we will be going over it in Tuesday-night group next Tuesday, but Veijo's much shorter text was all that we covered last Tuesday, so I suspect they may be working on your text for a few weeks. When we read Lojban texts here, every single word and every single rafsi is looked up, and thus even if you-and-others never made mistakes in these areas, this makes for very slow progress. (Nobody here has any confidence in our ability to read texts in Lojban as opposed to in literal English translation, which in my case I can do in my head. I have long gotten the impression that those of you who pour out commentary on each others texts at high volume and at rapid response rates are doing something quite different than we do when we read these texts, possibly something much better than what we do. Indeed, I find that while I can translate quickly in my head, even the smallest grammatical or rafsi error brings me to a complete halt because I have no error recovery capability - I have to stop and do a detailed word-for-word translation to try to figure out what the speaker was trying to say in English before I can hope to figure out what the Lojban 'should have been'.)
 
Not sure what the solution to all this is. It is great to see all of this on-line volume, and people seem to be signing up to start learning more actively in the last two weeks since this effort has come to life. But you need to know that those of lower confidence or skill are unlikely to contribute for a while, and I'm not sure I have any ideas how to remedy the situation.
 
 
Nick: I still don't know what we can do with beginners. I do note two things, however: there are beginners out there with enthusiasm, who don't blanche at the sight of Lojban sentences (Dryad, for example, saying "if I don't understand a sentence, I'll let you know); and I'd count Andrew Smith and Veijo Vilva amongst the beginners, the only difference being that they have applied themselves to the language. It takes little more than a month to turn from a lurker to a text-writer; barely three to become a Jimbob, given the right background. As for incentive, the Cafe is a great idea, allowing oodles of scope, and if it doesn't get people writing, nothing will.
 
 
Lojbab: With regard to the enthusiasm of beginners, I think that there are two or three kinds. Some are inspired by seeing the quantity of text, others are intimidated. I am opposed to the opening up of the coffee house project to 'anything goes', because the worst problem we have around here in getting people to write is that we basically here are not creative writers - we need to be given a subject to write about - an anchor to build a ship around. I can urge all that I want, but the more wide open the subject matter is, the more people here get writer's block because there are too many options and too little creativity - so they go back to translation. If indeed there has been such an opening up of the project, as I understand what you write, those who proposed it may take it back and make a smaller, more restricted sub-project that they are comfortable with, because otherwise they won't write anything. (You will recall from my original posting that Karen Stein, who really took charge here at LogFest on this thing was adamant about the need to fully define the coffeehouse setting and the common characters in English so that everyone understood the common ground before they started to write. She is a creative writer, but she said that she could not write the kind of stories she wants without having this firm structure to build off of - at least not if she wanted to end up with anything that would tie in to what anyone else decided to write. And the group-ness of the enterprise was clearly the thing that excited her about it.)
 
As for the 'who is writing' question - the people here are totally overwhelmed even by the two pieces of text that have been posted. People here feel the need to digest word-for-word everything that gets written before responding to it. Both Cowan and I, arguably among the most skilled in the language, especially technically, no longer even bother to try to read Lojban text that is posted. It takes too much work; we file it away under the 'someday ...' file, whereupon I eventually pull some of it out when I go to produce a JL issue; Cowan has never done so at all. I suspect that the rest of us here in DC are the same way. We can converse in the language comfortably (that is Nora, Sylvia and I), but we do so by not using lujvo unless the place structures and the rafsi-meanings are rather obvious from the context, because though I can make lujvo in my head, the others have to stop and look them up, which kills conversation. Thus your rather more literary style is an effort to read - we have to check everything thoroughly before we have any idea what you are saying. Since you and others who post to the net are predominantly writers rather than speakers of the language, this stylistic difference is rather difficult at the moment to overcome - you are used to taking the time to analyze stuff on-line that we cannot and do not do. By comparison, I suspect it will take us 2 weeks merely to go through your latest text and understand it as Lojban.
 
Part of the effect of our different styles of language use is that people who do all their work on-net are tolerant of different types of errors than us conversationalists. I find that your errors caused by not looking up rafsi and gismu bring me to a complete halt, because I cannot error-correct those type of errors quickly. Yet people seem to read and respond to your stuff with comments at a variety of levels quite quickly compared to what we manage here. They seem to concentrate on tanru and lujvo, and kind of absorb the grammar in passing having figured out the meaning by correlating the tanru into a gestalt meaning that dominates the sentence. Meanwhile, we get stuck on the missing "cu" that leads to total nonsense.
 
The point of this is that if Cowan and Lojbab can be intimidated out of trying to read your stuff, that should tell you something about what happens to David Young, with a gismu vocabulary of 100 after a long summer of LogFlash, and Guy Garnett, who is still stuck at around the 50 level, and has to look up virtually every gismu even after the whole summer of classes. People here, being grossly mono-lingual, get really stuck on lack of vocabulary. Until we get people up to a comfortable vocabulary level, no one will write anything, and people will tend to avoid even trying to read things.
 
But keep things going. It may not be what people had in mind, but things in Lojban are finally taking on a life of their own, which is the important thing.
 
----
 
=== Text and comments elucidating further description of Scenario #2 ===
 
[Translations, where they exist, and commentaries on the language aspects of the Lojban writings will be found in the translations section. A computer-generated English gloss of Veijo's two writings will also be found there. No proper English translation exists for either Veijo's writings or Iain's second writing.]
 
Veijo's original text, mentioned several times above, was the first attempt to add to the initial description #2 provided as a starting point. Veijo's commentary above indicated that he feels that his text adds no new information to the coffee house description. On the other hand, his attempt to do a simple Lojban writing based on that description may provide some indication of how people will use the descriptions provided. Furthermore, Nick and Iain's writings below reference back to things Veijo says in this piece.
 
<pre style="text-align: center">
le la vei,on ckafybarja srinuntroci xipa xici
</pre>
 
ni'o sriku'a
<br />.i ckafybarja
<br />.i mi zvati le vorstu gi'e terpanci loi ckafi da.uicai
<br />.i mi ca ze'upunai.oi sumne da
<br />.i mi dzukla le jbustu gi'e ctacarna
<br />.i rancindu jubme
<br />.i seldandu lo vrici to'erninda'i noi mi na djuno zo'e ke'a
<br />.i selzvati ji'ipano zutse remna
<br />.i srotanxe loi ckafi lei mudri
<br />.i vrici
<br />.i mi visyfacki fi pa lo poi loi remna na zutlamji ke'a ku'o jubme goi ko'a
<br />.i mi co'a zutlamji ko'a
<br />.i ko'a lamji le nunjupca'u
<br />.i le jukpa cu selviska gi'e jupfinti de.a'ucu'i
<br />.i mi pensi.a'e loi selpinxe co ckafi.au
<br />.i ckafypanci fi mi.ui
<br />.i ckafypanci
<br />.i .ui.o'u
<br />.i sriku'a
 
Nick: Vilva arrives in the ckafyzda. Finally! It's such a good navigation too, I feel guilty for proceeding to propose some fleshing out of the scenery in English. And of course, the Lojbanisations of our English specs should not be translations, but transformations, as Veijo has rightly pointed out. Here goes [italicized text is from Description #2]:
 
As I walked under the crossed climbing axes, and into the coffeehouse, I felt I was in a place designed to give one the feeling of putting on an old comfortable pair of shoes.
 
Veijo speaks of ".ui.o'u"; that's the feeling I want in the cafe too. A boisterous place, sure, with lots of emphasis on the "ka vrici", but also a very "mela'ezo.i'u" place. The door is nothing too fancy; plain, wooden, touch heavy, not pretentious. The climbing axes certainly have been positioned informally (maybe even not perfectly symmetrically?)
 
The benches were made of old soft oak, in which many tales and symbols had been carved. On the bench I was seated was the inscription: "Members of the first sandpit expedition to find the first digger, or traces thereof - 198?" The table also bore other marks of former patrons who had drank their selections and transcribed their feelings with pitons.
 
What with the suggested rural setting and the benches, I'm put in mind of soft damp oak, and murky late afternoon light. I don't think the place need be spotlighted, in any case; the can't-look-outside windows will do. There's not just tales and symbols, of course; there's a lot of good old fashioned graffiti (no need to be too solemn about it.) The place is, I suggest, small and intimate, with the "vrici" paraphernalia on the walls haphazard and competing for space, rather than formally set out, museum style. No more than ten benches (reasonably sized, though).
 
The walls were littered with climbing apparel and debris in what might charitably have been termed a collage.
 
See? I visualised correctly :) And some of the parts of the collage are downright incongruous. I would not be surprised, for example, if a certain pea on a cushion lies in a corner, with some inscription to do with a Kunstkammer. Several postcards, too (I don't think this is being too explicitly outside-world-bound), from Cafe Cairo, The Loglan Sogrun, Burnley F.A...
 
There were the rusting remains of pitons and hooks abutting practically new lengths of the latest high test rope. Opposite the door from which I had entered was a ladder - a climbing ladder, of course. The ladder reached to the ceiling, and a solid-looking trap door that made me wonder of the unknown relics that lay beyond, and the stories they might hold.
 
The ladder stays, but it has nothing to do with "le lisri be le serti"; an imposing marble staircase would be a touch too imposing.
 
Underneath these visible artifacts were the dour reminders of the primary business of this establishment-coffee. There were full wooden bins of coffee from just about every place in the world, with or without caffeine. The cook was visible to all and in the process of developing the latest creation on the current menu, and not without some debate about the amount of spice the particular dish required.
 
The menu is on display just to the right of the partition behind which the cook is visible; handwritten, with the le'avla defined at the bottom of the list in the six source languages. The coffee bins are along the walls, I take it? (Beneath the artifacts.) The waiter does some serving, but for the most part sits with the customers and socialises. The cook has most of his/her arguments with the dishwasher, sometimes carrying the arguments outside the kitchen and asking for support in his debates amongst hapless customers, slapstick-style (hm, I'm going against the rotation thing - others may countersupport it); I don't know what a busboy is either; and the Manager (and the sixth man/woman out for the night) sit together and overlook the scene. I don't know if it's worthwhile giving the Manager his/her own table, and a small table rather than a bench at that; but I would like the Manager to be a bit more formal than the rest, a voice of authority amidst the chaos, and somewhat set apart - a big gun in a story, held in reserve.
 
This might be a biiiiit silly, but maybe a small bookcase of NL dictionaries and Lojban references on the side? And the cafe, I thiiiiink, should be a bit of a bastion of lojbanism, or at least lojbanism-aware - which would give us the opportunity of satirising traits of the current or future community in it. The visitors, of course, don't have to particularly like or think about Lojban - it's by no means an exclusive venue.
 
This happy riot provided the counterpoint to the hissing, and boiling of a near endless stream of coffee beans in response to the always cold, often frustrated, and very determined clientele. . .
 
Damn! I knew they were cold and damp! :)
 
OK. If you all don't blow up at this, we can go navigating some more...
 
Veijo, on the coffee bins, wrote: ".i patxu loi ckafi lei mudri"
 
: Colin: Why "lei mudri"?
:: Veijo: I'd say they are wooden but can't be sure these days. (The coffee? :)
 
 
Colin: I don't get Veijo's answer to my question here, so probably he didn't understand my question. I was querying "lei" as opposed to "loi".
 
: Veijo: I tried to use 'the mass described ...' instead 'the mass really is ...' to express concisely the idea that the bins looked like wood but might be something else on closer inspection.
 
Mark on 'ckafyzda': Veijo in [an early version of] his first text used: "ni'o zdani"
 
I might have thought "dinju" would be a better choice. "zdani" implies some sort of dwelling-place, and you're leading into this with these observatives as "A house. A coffee-house...", where habitation isn't implied. For that matter, is "ckafyzda" malglico? It expands to "ckafi zdani" = "coffee-ish nest/house/- bivouac/dwelling-place". Most coffeehouses aren't inhabited by anyone, they're solely places of business. "ckafyzarci" implies a more of a store where you buy coffee beans to me, so that's no better, and "ckafybriju" is right out. Aha! "ckafybarja"! That's really much better, I think. "barja" even has a place for what's served, which is filled, in the lujvo/tanru, by "ckafi" (though other things may be served as well). I think this is an important change to make, even if "ckafyzda" has acquired some sacredness. It's only a week or two old, and it's broken. Please let us switch to "ckafybarja".
 
 
Veijo replies: In this case I definitely wanted the connotation of dwelling or even home-coming. I was thinking along the lines of a cafe where people are not perhaps quite dwelling but spending a lot of time telling stories and having conversations. At least in some parts of Europe cafes (especially student cafes) and like are almost a second home to some people.
 
Also implied was a cultural dwelling place.
 
"ckafybarja" is better as a general lujvo (and corresponds to usage in some languages, e.g. Finnish before American English domination) but...
 
There is nothing sacred about "ckafyzda" but it may match the underlying ideas much better. If we are stacking the place with connotative paraphernalia we may as well tack on a few more connotations.
 
Mark responds: Sorry, I'm unconvinced. You say you're trying to get warm fuzzy feelings of homecoming by using "zdani", but "zdani" doesn't have that meaning either. The lair of a dragon is a "zdani". A beehive is a "zdani". "zdani" means "place of residence/habitation of....", not implying any hominess nor lack thereof. Even if the manager chances to live in the place, (and thus it may be proper to describe it as a "zdani" incidentally), what we are describing the place as is a tavern or bar or other sort of informal restaurant wherein coffee is served. That is, "le barja zo'e loi ckafi" -> "le ckafi barja" -> "le ckafy-barja". Now, the proprietor(s) of the place, perhaps, might try naming it "la ckafyzda" (note the article), as that would be a tolerable name for such a place, but as a description, it doesn't wash. I don't care how much time people spend there: call it what it is - "lo barja".
 
Connotations are fine in describing the place, in the objects you put in there, etc., but if you call something by what it isn't, people won't know what you're talking about. "ckafyzda" would imply maybe the home of a coffee grower (rotten lujvo for it, though), or a coffee-colored house (also not so great), or a place where coffee lives (decent lujvo) - yes, that's probably the most likely interpretation. Just as "remzda" is used to mean "house" (i.e. typical habitation of human beings - some cultural bias there, no?), "ckafyzda" seems to conjure up some kind of habitation for coffee (as if it were a living being). Maybe those big burlap sacks that coffee beans are kept in, or a cannister on your shelf. In either case, the word would be very poetic, but more for its implication that coffee "lives" anywhere than for connotations of hominess on "zdani".
 
Veijo to Colin about the coffee:
 
I'm not too keen a coffee drinker. The smell came in kind of naturally with the coffee bins and all, perhaps childhood memories of freshly ground coffee at my aunt's shop where I used to hang a lot. If the specs had called for a taverna I'd have thought of something else to fill the first 10 seconds. The sense of smell carries a lot of connotations and brings fore memories... The smell of pezyckafi is the first reminder telling you that you have come (back) to where you belong. You can't put your finger on it during the first few moments but it hits you, sometimes like a sledgehammer. The visual recognition comes later and the images of times long past.
 
Veijo to Mark about coffee and tea: Used to be a tea-drinker myself but Finland is one of heaviest coffee drinking countries in the world and getting a decent brew of tea turned out to be too much of an effort in the long run so I gave up around the age of 25 and started drinking coffee. I still enjoy properly brewed decent teas, though.
 
Now about "loi selpinxe ckafi". Does it bring to mind the beverage or the coffee beans/powder the beverage is made of? I had the beverage in mind and I want to have the gismu "ckafi" in a position where I can tack the attitudinal on it. Well, now I have it: "loi selpinxe co ckafi.au". What do you think? Better? Or was it you just couldn't imagine someone thinking more the beverage than the actual act of drinking? Many a time have I been sitting and enjoying the fragrant smell of tea, this being an essential part of the total enjoyment when the tea isn't just something nondescript. Same goes for coffee. There are brews and BREWS. And think of the Japanese tea ceremony, to take an extreme example. In the ceremony the act of drinking is really almost superfluous.
 
Nick was next to enter the coffee house [A free translation of Nick's text will be found on page 60]:
 
.i mi se lidne la vei,on. ba'acu'i lenu nerkla le la loblaz. kafybarja .i mi sutra joiku'i.o'a banli cadzu pa'o la'ele cravro noi tilju je jadycau .i lenu mi pu kargau le vorme cu mlirocnandu gi'e sacri'a lenu mi catke .i le te vorme cu se gusni lo lecydo'i<ref name=ze /> milxe gi'e se kufra cmalu .i panomei sa'enai.a'acu'i loi jubme .i mi zutse ne'a lo na'e se tsejbi jubme {poi diklo le kumfa kojna gi'e stula'i le vorme ku'o} gi'e catlu loi zvapre .iza'a la vei,on. zutse vi le ragve kojna gi'enaipe'i zvaju'o mi .i ra zanfri .i'e.o'enai loi panci be loi vi ckafi .i mi zmanei loi tcati gi'e.o'o.aucu'i denpa lenu lo djabe'ipre cu jundi mi .i milxe savru gi'e ruble nungei .iku'i mi cabdei me ®lu .i'inai li'u¯ vau.u'uru'ero'a .i lei bitmu cu se jadni loi carmi bo vrici joi na'e simlanxe be ja'i le tcaci .i le re cpare ka'amru poi simkruca se punji fi le cravro gapru na minrysarxe .u'iru'e .i na go'i fa loi drata ke bitmu se punji ne mu'u lo dembi poi vreta lo kicne ku'o jo'u lo slabu tcityta'o ne secu'u ®lu vi xagrai loi tauzba pe levi tcadu li'u¯ ge'ujo'u lo befydai noi te ciska zo sindereluud. .i mi ca jundi le jbusfe pe mi .i te ciska so'ida ne bau la lojban. e la bangrnesperanto .e le glibau .e.ueru'e le dotco .i le dotco cu se ciska ta'i la fraktur .i mi xebni la fraktur .i mi djica {lenu ciska fi le jbusfe fe ®lu mi la fraktur xebni mi'e kilrois. li'u¯ kei} gi'enai ca ponse lo ve ciska befi loi mudri .i mi ka'e lebna lo cpare ja bisli kilmru le zunle bitmu .i mi co'i morji le xajmi pe lei bisli kilmru jgari relcisyge'upre .iku'i lenu le xajmi cu jboselsku na se snada mi .isemu'ibo mi pensi sanga le se finti be la suZAN.vegas. be'o pe me'e ®lu le la tom. gusta li'u¯ .i lenu go'i cu se dicra lenu lo djabe'ipre noi .uacu'i xindo cu klama mi gi'e cisma bacru ®lu cticpe ?ma doi lojbo ga'icu'i li'u¯ .i mi co'a se spaji catlu le be'ipre .i mi nelci le be'ipre .i mi mutce nelci co se trina le be'ipre ja'e lenu mi na spuda ri .iseki'ubo ri cmila joiku'i milxe bo se fanza bacru ®lu be'ebe'e xaupre zo'o ctidji ja pixydji ?ma li'u¯ .i mi spuda bacru ®lu
 
je'eki'e pendo .u'u si ba'edo'u.u'u .u'ise'i go'i lo tcati li'u¯ .i le be'ipre goi ko'a cu bacru ®lu go'i lo tcati pe le'a ?ma li'u¯ .i mi ®lu .aicu'i do ?ma stidi li'u¯ .i ko'a ®lu .e'a la kukytcat. noi vi purlamrai terve'u li'u¯ .i mi ®lu .i'e ko bevri le la kukytcat. tcati li'u¯ .i ko'a bacru ®lu baziba'o go'i .oinai li'u¯ gi'e cliva mu'i lenu bevri nagi'e tavla lo drata zutse .ipujecabo lu'i le jukpa kuce le patlu'i lu'u nevi le jupku'a cu cladu joi selzdi dabysnu .i le jukpa cu so'uroi batkla gi'e te jivrei le se casnu fo lei zvati .i.aucai mi na ve preti .i le barjyjatna noi dasni lo jikri'i taurgunma ca tavla la vei,on. .i mi xance rinsa la vei,on. i ko'a spuda rinsa gi'e nupre lenu bazi kansa mi kei mi .i loi cnino cu nerkla gi'e cladu rinsa loi no'e cnino noi na'oca'o te lisri .i mi na .ai cabdei ve lisri .i mi .e'icu'i cabdei xebni la fraktur.
 
<references>
<ref name=ze>Lojbab: Nick kind of jumped the gun, using the rafsi "do'i" for the new gismu "donri" ("daytime") prior to either being announced publicly or appearing in any lists that people can look up.</ref>
</references>
----
 
Veijo followed up with a second text, in part reacting to Nick's effort. This may show the type of interaction between characters of different writers that may be possible, even if no one goes so far as to initiate a direct dialogue between the characters (a possibility that Nick comments on afterwards) [See page 58 for a computer generated gloss]:
 
<pre style="text-align: center">
le la vei,on ckafybarja srinuntroci xire xire
</pre>
 
<pre>
ni'o mi penzutse.o'u
.i to'erninda'i fa lemi jubme
.i ciska da le jbusfe .ije mi catlu da.a'u
.i lerfu la fraktur.ue
.i mi morji fi loi lerfu be la fraktur.
.i morji
.i mi puzuki zvati le ckule gi'e caca'a tcidu
.i mi tcidu le cfika be le ze bruna bei la Aleksis.kivis.
  po'u le natmytercfi
.i le poi le drata be mi cu tcidu fi ke'a ku'o selpapri cu te prina loi lerfu be la antik.
.i lemi selpapri goi ko'a te prina loi lerfu be la fraktur.
.i lenu tcidu de pe ta'i la fraktur. kei pu nandu mi gi'e ca frili
.i mi djica lenu tcidu fi ko'a kei mu'i lenu lemi patfu
  puzu prina loi lerfu loi ko'a papri
.i lemi patfu ze'u prina
.i lenu ri go'i kei nanca li vobi
.i kiku mi catlu le vi lerfu be la fraktur.
.i lerfu
.i bacru.ue zo coi
.i barjyjatna.a'a
.i la nitcion. co'ava se zvaju'o mi
.i ra xance rinsa mi .ije mi spuda rinsa
.i la nitcion. caca'a xebni la fraktur.
</pre>
 
Nick comments: There's going to be a good tale, I think, in an old-timer at the cafe explaining how the devil the Fraktur got there in the first place...
 
I feel veeery hesitant in any interaction with the staff with their personas still not settled. If people don't like the Manager (and "jatna" does seem to be the only word we have for "boss" or "manager") being imperious, they'll be very unhappy if I portray him like that. So for now, let's not probe into the background characters too deeply.
 
The even greater danger is in sketching interactions with Real Life people. Veijo and I are about to start talking, and I'd like neither of us to make potentially annoying presumptions about the other's persona. So one should be wary in this kind of thing.
 
----
 
Iain then joined in with the following [a rough translation of the Lojban will be found on page 63]:
 
<pre style="text-align: center">
la jbolanzu kafybarja
</pre>
 
®lu .ie.a'a .ie.o'onairu'e (cu'usa'a mi noi caki vilkla zo'a le vorme fi'o te mlixra le janco ku'o) sera'a ?ma pezyjicla li'u¯ .i mi vi le zdani pu zutse co cando .icabo mi terbei lo notci poi ve cusku le se du'u lu'o la vei,on. joi la nitcion. lu'u goi ko'a noi zvati le kafybarja po'u la *jbolaz. cu djica lenu penmi mi vi ra .i ®lu ?ma ?mo li'u¯ na se spuda .i ko'a jundi casnu la fraktur. .i mi zo'u la fraktur. no'e cinri .i mi co'a zutse ne'a lo jubme poi lamji le me ko'a ku'o gi'e denpa lenu se zvaju'o da no'u ga ko'a gi lo selfu noida'i bevri loi ckafi mi
 
ni'o lemi jubme cu xekri seja'e loni to'ercitno .i ra ve srakysku zo mi ce'o prami bu ce'o ®lu le cmacrnalgebra li'u¯ .i mi nelci le jubme .i mi de'a morji fi la vei,on. .e la nitcion. gi'e co'a pensi .i mi si'a se cinri so'a klesi be lo sinxa ciste ra'anai ledu'u vo'e ge'ikau te javni mu'u le sucta cmacrnalgebra gi mecritli mu'u loi rarna ja rutni bangu .i la'edi'u mukti lenu mi tadni la lojban. kei noi ki'u ke'a mi zvati la jbolanzu
 
no'i lo be'ipre cu klama co veirgau lemi selcpe po'u lo barda carmi bo ckafi gi'ebabo nalsirkla mo'ize'oku na'e mo'ifa'a le jupku'a .i .uaru'e simlu fa lenu ko'a ze'apu naje ca zvaju'o mi .i mi'a simxu rinsa .i la'aru'e mi bazi facki le krinu be lenu sutrygau
 
----
 
Nick: Very cool, Iain. I wonder why we got you to the *Jbolaz? Hmmm? :)
 
[Lojbab: With any luck, the rest of us will find out in JL18.]
 
----
 
 
[Next follows the first text of the type that was actually asked for - an English elaboration of setting and/or characters. Both David Bowen and Veijo Vilva, whose effort follows David's, have proposed characters for the cafe staff. You are welcome, indeed encouraged, to comment on these, possibly suggesting changes or elaborations, or to propose your own - remember that we need a half dozen or so to staff the cafe.
 
We also need lots more detail on the layout of the cafe, what is located where, what is the size of the various rooms, whether the 'cooking-space' (as it was put in Veijo's first writing) is a separate room, etc.
 
All submissions (subject to space) received prior to 5 March (15 March if computer-readable - via email or MS-DOS diskette) will appear in JL18, after which will commence voting if we get too many or too-conflicting descriptions.]
 
David Bowen: The owner and manager [or perhaps just the owner or just the manager] of the Cafe Chalet is a man of mystery. It's easy enough to see him, either hiking among the hills surrounding the village or conversing with the customers as he makes his rounds. But any questions about his life before coming to the village are met with vague replies and a quick shift in the topic of conversation. There are stories that he used to be a climber himself. A climbing accident, so the story goes, which killed his lover while the two of them were attempting a major climb led to his retirement from the sport. It is said that much of the equipment which decorates the interior of the Chalet is his.
 
In appearance he's a big man, with light brown hair and green eyes. In summer his ruddy complexion turns to a golden tan and his hair lightens to the point where it almost matches his skin color. On the slopes, he is often seen in lederhosen and a green alpine hat. While in the Chalet, these are replaced by conservative gray or navy business suits. Only his bright paisley ties and an occasional brightly colored vest show hints of the boy hidden beneath the serious businessman.
 
Attempts to determine his background from his speech have been unsuccessful. Though his English shows most of the signs of British English, it shows no signs of any other European accent being mixed in. His German, French and Italian are equally indistinguishable from those spoken by native speakers and he has shown no problems conversing with visitors from other parts of Europe and Asia.
 
Veijo: This is a description of la xiron, the first co-worker at la jbolanzu - Cafe Jbolanzu. No one knew his real name and the name he had picked for himself after learning Lojban was a kind of pun - if you bothered to play games with names. I don't tell much about the other members of the personnel as I didn't know them so well and, besides, I want to leave the pleasure of describing them to the other patrons of the Cafe. There were quite a few of us literary types spending our evenings there so someone else ought recollect enough of that time to relate about it.
 
I do not yet know whether xiron will interest you enough to make him a permanent member of the staff. So I shall tell you mostly about the first impressions he made on people and add more details later on if required.
 
----
 
He arrived one dark, windy evening in November. No one noticed him at first. He was just a tall shadow at the doorway, standing there, quietly observing the room. He stood there for a while, motionless, as if half asleep.
 
There were groups of people sitting at the tables, drinking coffee, chatting with each other. Someone glimpsed at the door, started to turn away but changed his mind and took a closer look. Others noticed his curios gaze and also turned to look. A silence fell. A stranger wasn't too common those days. The man at the door seemed to wake up. He took off his hat, wiped his forehead with a sleeve and started towards the nearest unoccupied table with a heavy step. He hesitated for a moment before sitting down, glanced apprehensively around and threw down the rucksack from his shoulder. His hand was gently stroking the wood of the table and he had again a far-away look on his face. A murmur of voices began to fill the air as people lost their initial interest in the newcomer. Only the most curious ones were stealing glimpses at him every now and then. There was nothing special about the stranger except perhaps his quietness. He seemed to be content just to sit there and observe the other patrons. He was a dark, slim man of indeterminate age and origin, face expressionless but not inscrutable in an oriental way. He had obviously come afoot as his boots were covered with dust but somehow he didn't seem to be an outdoor type. Veins were visible on the backs of his hands but the hands were soft, apparently not used to manual work.
 
The owner of the Cafe was busy in the kitchen and hadn't noticed the arrival of the stranger. He himself had drifted quite recently into the village and hadn't yet succeeded in hiring anyone to help at the Cafe so he had to serve at the tables in addition to cooking. Presently he lifted the frying pan to the edge of the stove, wiped his hands and started his round among the patrons.
 
He noticed the stranger almost immediately. The stranger was looking straight at him but gave no sign at all of noticing him. There was no rudeness in the stranger's gaze when he at last noticed the approaching Cafe owner, just quiet waiting, no smile, no irritation. The Cafe owner felt a slight discomfort which reminded him of the times he had had to address the head master at school. Had someone asked he would have been unable to tell what exactly was the reason for this uneasiness.
 
The stranger was looking at the approaching man. Japanese? No, more likely Chinese. What was he doing in these parts? Well, none of his business. He had been listening to the sound of the locals talking. There was a curious note in their speech and he had been unable to recognize the few words he was able to discern. He just hoped the Chinaman would be able to communicate in some language he knew.
 
"Good evening, sir. Welcome to Cafe Jbolanzu. Quite chilly outside, isn't it? Would you like to have something hot to drink? Coffee or tea perhaps?"
 
Something in the appearance of the stranger made the owner choose English instead of Lojban to address him. A slight change in the attitude of the stranger's shoulders seemed to indicate relief. The Chinaman felt easier.
 
There was an almost imperceptible delay before the man answered. He wasn't actually surprised, it just always took him moment to switch into English. Now he knew he'd be able to cope.
 
"Oh, yes. Good evening. Yes, it is. Could you bring me some tea, please. Have you got any green teas? Gunpowder? I'd really appreciate that. A whole pot of it."
 
There was no smile on his face even when he was speaking, just a relaxed softness. He was at peace with himself and had obviously no need to affect others one way or another. The Cafe owner felt strangely at home with the man.
 
"Well, I think I have got some tucked away somewhere. Isn't much demand for it, you know. Will take a while. Thank you, sir."
 
The Chinaman left with a slight bow. The man sat waiting, still stroking the table every once in a while, regarding the others absentmindedly. The din of the conversations grew louder and his thoughts wandered.
 
There had been a time when he had preferred quieter places, much quieter. He remembered a particular one in some provincial capital in the East. It was a large tea-house with tables for more than a hundred people. He had spent many an evening sitting there alone at his table sipping his tea and thinking. There were two other regular customers, the three of them coming there for a year or so a few times a week. Each had his own corner, they never spoke to each other during all the time he frequented the place. The Japanese waitresses sometimes told the latest news of Sensei-san, Teacher, as they called one of the patrons. It was really very discreet, no gossiping at all, they'd say: "Sensei-san is tired today. He's had a rough day." or something like that. And he'd sit there sipping his Japanese tea, eating perhaps a cupful of rice with a slice of cucumber dipped in soy sauce and looking at Sensei-san correcting exam papers. It was a quiet time in his life. Later came more turbulent times but they too had passed into semi-oblivion. He'd been wandering around for years now, observing people, almost always an outsider.


                                  19
There was a sluggish discussion going on at many tables. Quite many people were just listening to the others and most of the speakers didn't seem to be very fluent. It was as if they had just recently learned the language. A few were narrating a longer story but they were quite often interrupted by one or another of the listeners who seemed to be asking something but curiously there was no change in their intonation. The stranger was perplexed. Where had he stumbled?
        Lojban jargon) is attached    2.1) le sonci cu to'ercitno
        to the entire predication.        nanmu ja ninmu
        In 1.2, the relative-              the soldiers are-anti-young
        phrase particle "pe" glues        men or women
        the prepositional phrase     
        to the preceding noun        2.2) le sonci cu ke to'ercitno
        phrase.  Of course, other          nanmu ke'e ja ninmu
        interpretations are                the soldiers (are-anti-
        possible, each with its            young men) or are-women
        Lojban expansion:           
                                      2.3) le sonci cu to'ercitno bo
  1.3) mi viska le banskeju'o joi          nanmu ja ninmu
      le reldanvistci                    the soldiers are-anti-
      I see the language-science-        young-men or are-women
      knower joined-with the two-   
      far-see-tool.                   Normally, logical connection
                                            binds more tightly than
    This denotes seeing the two            simple modification in
        objects jointly.                    Lojban, so 2.1 means "old
                                            (men or women)".  To
  1.4) mi viska le banskeju'o poi          change this rule, we may
      kansa le reldanvistci                use the explicit
      I see the language-science-          parenthesis words "ke" and
      knower who accompanies the          "ke'e" as in 2.2, or the
      two-far-see-tool.                    high-precedence infix
                                            marker "bo" as in 2.3.
    Here the linguist is "with"            Lojban often allows both
        the binoculars in the              forethought and
        sense of carrying them or          afterthought forms of
        being near them, not using          expression; parentheses
        them.                              are more general but
                                            require more preplanning
2.  Old men and women ('old' can            and may be more difficult
be taken with either 'men' or 'men          to use in colloquial
and women').  This is perhaps the          speech.
second most frequent type of       
structural ambiguity in languages  3.  Army demands change (Is
like English.  Signposts on the    'demands' a noun or a verb?).
words can solve some classes of    This problem comes up in all
this problem, i.e if the two nouns  languages in which words do not
are singular and the adjective      have different forms for different
when taken with both is plural.    parts of speech or a given marker
                                    like English 's' is ambiguous.
    Since Lojban is a predicate   
        language, I will recast        I would star this example as
        this example as a                  dubious English:  it is
        predication, which                  really "headlinese" and
        involves changing the              depends on omitting the
        "and" to an "or", thus:            article.  But even after
        "The soldiers are old men          revision to "The army
        or women."  Using "and"            demands change", it is
        would limit the soldiers            still ambiguous.  The
        to such individuals as are          Lojban versions are:
        both old men and women;     
        since no individual is        3.1) le jenmi cu cpedu lo
        both a man and a woman,            nunbinxo
        that translation would be          the army requests an event-
        incorrect.                        of-change
                                     
                                      3.2) le jenmi se cpedu cu binxo


                                  20
The Chinaman returned with a large teapot and a Chinese rice cup. He put the cup in front of the stranger, poured some olive green tea into it and set the pot on the table.
      the army-type-of requested-  inflected relative pronouns might
      thing changes                be able to avoid this type, at
                                    least if the two nouns are not in
    "binxo" signifies a             the same class.
        transformative change, as 
        when ice changes to water.    6.1) le pixra be le tadni poi mi
        A mere change in the              nelci ke'a
        amount or intensity of a           the picture of (the student
        property, on the other            such-that I like him)
        hand, is "cenba".           
    "cpedu" is "A requests/demands    6.2) le pixra be le tadni be'o
        B" and "se cpedu" is "B is        poi mi nelci ke'a
        requested/demanded by A",          the (picture of the
        so "se cpedu" is needed in         student) such-that I like
        3.2 to refer to that which        it
        is requested rather than     
        the requester.                  Note that Lojban relative
                                            clauses are of the Hebrew
4.  Flying planes can be dangerous          type, with a marker at the
(Does 'flying' modify 'planes', or          beginning of the clause
is 'planes' the object of the              ("poi") and a pronoun
gerund 'flying'?).                          within the clause
                                            referring back to the
  4.1) lo vofli vinji ka'e ckape            relativized argument
      some flyer-type-of                  ("ke'a").
      airplanes can-be perilous        6.1 and 6.2 differ by the
                                            presence of the right-
  4.2) lenu vofli be lo vinji ka'e          bracket word "be'o".  An
      ckape                                omitted right-bracket word
      the event-of flying some             acts as if it appears as
      airplanes can-be perilous            far to the right as
                                            possible; thus 6.1 is
    Lojban's careful distinction            equivalent to:
        between concrete and ab-     
        stract arguments pays off    6.3) le pixra be le tadni poi mi
        here.                              nelci ke'a be'o
                                     
5.  The hunting of the tigers (Are      In both 6.2 and 6.3, the
the tigers the hunters or the               "be"..."be'o" construct
hunted?).                                  indicates the subordinated
                                            argument of the
  5.1) lenu le tirxu cu kalte              subordinated predication
      the event-of the tiger(s)            "is a picture of".  In
      hunting                              6.1/6.3, the argument is
                                            "the student such-that I
  5.2) lenu le tirxu cu se kalte            like him" whereas in 6.2,
      the event-of the tiger(s)            the argument is merely
      being hunted                        "the student" and the
                                            subordinated argument is
    These may be collapsed to              then cut off, leaving
        compounds:                          "such-that I like it" to
                                            modify the whole (top-
  5.3) le nuntirxykalte                    level) argument.
                                   
  5.4) le nuntirxyselkalte          Sentence 1 would not be ambiguous
                                    in Esperanto, since there happen
  6.  The picture of the student    to be two different prepositions
that I liked (Does the relative    ('kun' and 'per') in this case.
clause go with 'picture' or        But this general type of ambiguity
'student?')  Languages with        is found in Esperanto as well.


                                  21
"Here you are, sir. Anything else, sir?"
As I show above, the 'per'          and the form of the root never
interpretation is possible even if  changes.  So it would be more
"linguist" is taken to be the      accurate to say that Esperanto is
attachment point, giving something  an agglutinative language like
like "I see the linguist who is    Turkish or Japanese.  The
doing something with (using) the    essential difference between
binoculars".                        Esperanto and Glosa [ed.: another
Sentence 2 would indeed be          artificial language] is that in
ambiguous in Esperanto, at least    Esperanto many of the signposts
in the most usual translation.      are written as part of the same
Sentence 3 would definitely not be  word, whereas in Glosa they are
ambiguous, because different parts  always written as a separate word.
of speech are marked by different  But in both languages the
endings.  Sentence 4 would also    signposts have exactly one form.
not be ambiguous, because         
participles have different endings      Lojban function words may be
than nominalized verbs.  In 5, it          written free or compounded
depends on how careful the speaker          as a mere matter of
is being.  There is a tendency to          orthography.  Lojban con-
use the same preposition in both            tent words (predicates)
cases, but there is also a                  may be compounded and
commonly used alternative for the          taken apart again
subject reading.  The translation          unambiguously, but the
of 6 would be ambiguous in                  compounds are not
Esperanto as well.                          identified with their
                                            underlying word sequences,
    As shown above, none of these          although there is
        are ambiguous in Lojban,            naturally a close semantic
        and all of the Lojban              relationship.
        forms given above are nat- 
        ural unstrained forms.      Parsing algorithms started out
                                    with a simple L-R sequential
Inflection-based grammar developed  approach, because this is the way
in historical times; it is          language works, at its basic
probably an example of the way the  level.
human mind seeks complexity.  Any  I guess it's usually true that
language, including Esperanto,      programming languages operate
that developed prior to the  emer-  sequentially, but they also have
gence of Information Technology,    braces and so on to tell us what
is 'historical' in this  sense.    goes with what.
The formal grammar and agreement   
present in such pre-computer-era        Lojban has braces of various
languages has proved to be almost          sorts, but achieves nat-
impossible to process.                      uralness (unlike most
Esperanto, especially our modified          programming languages) by
version of it in DLT, was much              a systematic mechanism for
easier to parse than English, due          eliding right terminators
largely to the ways of avoiding            where no ambiguity (as
ambiguity in sentences like the            rigorously tested by a
ones mentioned above, among oth-            parsing algorithm) can
ers, even though English is                result.
presumably less inflection-based   
than some consider Esperanto to    Function words in natural
be.  Actually, Esperanto is not    languages are not generally as
inflection-based in the sense that  specific as the devices used by
Latin, Russian, and German are.    programmers.  "that" (if you know
There are certain morphemes which  it's not the pronoun) tells us
are written as one word with the    that a new clause is beginning,
root, but these morphemes do not    but doesn't tell you what this
vary according to noun class, etc.  clause goes with or where it ends.


                                  22
The man raised the cup to his lips, took a sip and sighed. He then lowered the cup and looked up to the waiting Cafe owner.
I think this kind of problem can    A friendly comment: this project
be found to varying degrees in any  [Lojban] ought also to be of
constructed language invented so    interest to linguists concerned
far.                                with universals.
                                   
    Except Lojban, where there is      It ought, oughtn't it?
        never any doubt.           
                                    It would be of interest if human
This is nevertheless not a serious  beings could learn to speak and
problem for speakers, because they  understand it fluently; it would
have context and meaning to help    be of even greater interest if
disambiguate (most of the time).    children could acquire it from
But if we are constructing          their parents.
languages which can be used by     
computers as well as humans, then       If it is true that natural
we have to make our signposts more          (and planned but natural-
explicit or we have to wait until          like, such as Esperanto)
computational linguists like me,            human languages are
the AI people who work on human            learnable only because
language, and our programmer col-          they are built upon a
leagues find ways to make                  hardwired structure (Uni-
computers understand meaning and            versal Grammar), then
context as well as humans do.              Lojban should not be
These are the real stumbling                learnable in the natural
blocks for computers much more              way, as it violates much
than complex declensions and                if not most of what is
conjugations.                              currently thought of as
                                            being universal.  I'm
    Agreed.  Lojban provides an            afraid that we won't get
        unambiguous syntax to              away with running an
        clear away questions of            experiment, though, as its
        syntax early, thus                  side effects may include a
        allowing the effort to be          few language-impaired
        spent on semantics, the            kids, if my expectations
        true heart of language.            are correct.
                                   
[In response to further comments    I dunno - consider A. N. Prior, a
that English and Esperanto can      guy who has written a lot on tense
also make disambiguations parallel  logic: he uses symbolic logic in
to the Lojban versions, it was      the Polish notation, which is sort
explained that the key point is    of like Japanese syntax backwards.
that not only are the Lojban        With a little practice, you can
versions unambiguous, but that      start thinking in it in a sense -
these are the simple and natural    you become "fluent" in it, as he
expressions to be used and that    is.  (You have to, to read his
furthermore there are NO versions  works.)
of these sentences in Lojban that  No natural language has a syntax
DO express the ambiguities of the  like an SOV language backwards (go
original sentences.]                ahead, somebody, pounce; note that
                                    it wouldn't be like the rare VOS
        Lojban Fluency?            type at all).  Yet you can learn
                                    to process it.  Ditto for master
  Ken Miner (a linguist at the      programers.  All that's lacking is
University of Kansas) made the      a spoken form...
following comment about Lojban on 
the computer news-group                Certainly you can learn to
"sci.lang".  Lojbanist Ivan                think in it (and you can
Derzhanski, also a linguist,                become fluent in it), but
responded [indented]:                      the kind of learning it
                                            takes is quite different,


                                  23
"Excellent. Thank you. Maybe in a moment. Tell me, I've been wondering, what is the language these people are talking in? Who are they really?"
        isn't it, from a child's    That's a very interesting datum.
        acquisition of his first    I wonder if anyone or any group
        language. I'm not          became fluent in the earlier
        convinced that you could    Loglan?  When you consider that
        have learned symbolic      this project has been around since
        logic in your mother's      1955, and that some of its primary
        lap, using the same        goals sort of depend on this very
        miraculous language        thing...
        acquisition mechanism that  I'd like to hear more about this.
        you used to learn English  Does LeChevalier himself say he
        ("for although we've been   does not really qualify as fluent,
        talking since we were      or is that your judgment, and if
        three, / how anyone can is  the latter, roughly what criteria
        a big mystery").  Neither  for fluency were you applying?
        am I convinced that you   
        couldn't; I'm just          [I responded with the following:]
        wondering.
    And it just might be the case      Bruce is correct that no one
        that you must use the        is fluent in Lojban, and that I
        first few years of your      am the most fluent in the
        life to acquire some          language, but not really
        natural or natural-like      'fluent' in the sense that
        language, and if you          linguists use the term.
        don't, you'll never be          The state of the art improves
        able to learn any later            all of the time, of
        on.  I'm not sure that a            course.  I can state
        child whose only native            rather categorically that
        language is symbolic logic          there was no real fluency
        won't grow up as a live            in any previous version of
        computer, fluent in that            Loglan.  Indeed, Lojban is
        system, but unable to deal          the first version to
        with natural language.              really support the needs
        Again, I'm not sure of the          of conversation.  JCB
        opposite either.  Project          reports having had
        "Mowgli", anyone?                  conversation sessions back
                                            in the late 70s, but I've
Maybe some people have learned to          talked to participants in
speak Lojban fluently.  That alone          those 'conversations', and
would be interesting.  It certain-          I think heard some tapes
ly ought to be worth fooling                once or was told about
around with.                                them.  Basically a lot of
                                            dead silence with sounds
    So far all of those who can            of paper shuffling,
        generate and understand            because no one other than
        Lojban text have learnt it          JCB had enough vocabulary
        as a foreign language,              solid to even make a
        moreover, as an                    sentence without looking
        incarnation of predicate            up one or more words in a
        logic, to which all have            word list.  There was
        had a prior theoretic              'conversation' only that
        exposure.  That's not how          there was no resort to
        we learnt our respective            English.  The bulk of the
        first languages.                    sessions was groping, in
                                            Loglan, to find the right
[Bruce Gilson then noted that              words that someone could
Lojban is not actually spoken              understand.
fluently by anyone, even by            That was 15 years ago.
Lojbab.  Ken commented:]                In 1987, after only 6 months,
                                            my wife and I reached the
                                            same point with the then-


                                  24
The Chinaman paused for a moment before answering. He wasn't quite sure what to tell the stranger. He himself was just beginning to grasp the language spoken here and had to formulate his answer most carefully.
        budding Lojban version.            sation participants to the
        On our honeymoon, without          weekly group for fall
        word lists, and each of us          1992.
        knowing around 300 words        Basically the reason why there
        (but often not                      is no fluent Lojban speech
        overlapping), we were able          yet is two-fold:
        to 'converse' for about an      1) for almost no one is there
        hour with no word lists,            an opportunity to use the
        using repetition,                  language often enough to
        pointing, and paraphrase            gain fluency; only here in
        to get across the words we          DC have we gotten people
        didn't know.  It seemed            to even try to sustain
        very much like the process          conversation, much less do
        whereby one might learn a           so regularly.  My wife and
        language my total                  I probably could run our
        immersion.  But we tried            household in Lojban and
        it only once.                      quickly become fluent, but
    In 1989, 5 of us sustained              I have some specific
        conversation, with word            reasons for avoiding this
        lists, for about 4 hours.           - I don't want our usage,
        By that time I knew the            already rather dominating
        vocabulary well enough              in the community learning
        that I rarely used the              the language, to become a
        word list.  A couple of            de facto idiom; instead I
        months later, we had                want several people able
        several such sustained              to speak the language and
        conversations, while                write in it, thus devel-
        driving from Washington to          oping a more natural
        Boston, but with Nora and          idiom, even if it takes
        I both not using word              longer. There is also the
        lists.  Early in 1991, we          emotional and mental drain
        started having weekly              to be considered - I'm al-
        conversation sessions in            ready putting most of my
        Lojban, typically 1-2              time into the language,
        hours, in which relatively          and I need a break once in
        little use of word lists            a while, at least until
        occurred by the 4 main              others have gotten up to
        participants.  However, we          the level where I am at.
        usually had at least one        2) because there has been
        less skilled person                relatively little advanced
        present, and not using              usage, Lojban remains a
        word lists did not mean            pidgin.  We have about
        that people didn't have to         2000 solid vocabulary
        stop typically once or              words, which is enough to
        twice in each sentence to          converse and communicate,
        think of the word they              but not to converse
        wanted, and repeat things          fluently.  We have the
        once or twice for those            means to make any
        who missed something.               additional words for con-
        These conversations lasted          cepts that we need, but
        until one of the 4 was              making up words is not a
        injured in an auto                  fluent language activity.
        accident last Feb.,                I am quite skilled at
        leaving us with only 3              coming up with communica-
        regulars, which we have            tive and productive usages
        found makes for too sparse          on the fly, but not at
        a conversation.  We have            fluent speeds.  Hence my
        just finished a new Lojban          working vocabulary is 2000
        class, which will add              words, though I probably
        another couple of conver-          have used perhaps 3000-


                                  25
"Well, sir, the language is called Lojban but I guess the name tells you nothing. I myself knew quite many languages before coming here but I'd never heard about it. It is a constructed language not related to any natural language - living or dead. Hard to explain in a few words if you aren't a linguist. These people are practitioners and students of Lojban who gather here to tell stories or just to chat with each other. As a matter of fact, the name of this Cafe is 'la jbolanzu' which means something like 'The Clan of Lojban'. It seemed to be a fitting name as most of my patrons are Lojbanists."
        4000 different words in my          speakers because there are
        Lojban speaking career.            no fluent speakers to
        These words are going to            learn from.  Those of us
        have to be recorded in              bootstrapping the language
        dictionaries, and in                are the examples for
        written usages for the              everyone else, but who do
        mass of Lojbanists (most            we learn from. In writing
        of whom are not local to           we can learn from each
        me) to learn about. In            other, which is why Lojban
        addition, I suspect that            writing has progressed far
        vocabulary level needs to           beyond speech in skill
        reach more like 5000-              level, but until we have a
        10000, with most of the            cluster of people in one
        words on spontaneous re-            location who are willing
        call, before fluent                to make the commitment to
        conversation will be                use Lojban at a much
        sustainable.  Given the            higher level than 1 hour a
        great amount of technical          week, we won't achieve
        and specialized vocabulary          fluent speech.
        that pervades most              We are in the process of
        conversation that I                publishing the first books
        experience (and which is            about Lojban, and when
        necessary to keep a                those are available, I
        conversation going for              suspect that there will be
        hours - you can only say            people willing to make
        so much about the weather          that commitment. So this
        today zo'o), I could not            situation may change
        comfortably talk for hours          within the next year or
        without having such a               two.  Our experience 5
        vocabulary on tap.                  years ago on our honeymoon
        English speakers                    has convinced me that
        vocabularies are estimated          there is no reason that
        as being much larger than          Lojban itself is
        this, of course, but                insufficient or incapable
        Lojban gains some                  of being spoken fluently.
        considerable efficiency        (By the way, to avoid the
        from its predicate                  inevitable comparison, I
        structure wherein words            should note that Esperanto
        serve as nouns, verbs, and          also did not catch on
        adjectives                          until there was a book to
        interchangeably.                    learn from.  It grew much
    The obvious question is "why            faster because its
        is it taking so long?"              vocabulary is so strongly
        The answer is that it              derivative of the European
        hasn't been a high enough          word stock, whereas
        priority for very many              Loglan/Lojban by intent
        people.  Secondary reasons          must not be so derivative.
        for this include the                Even so, I have heard that
        geographical dispersion of          the watershed moment when
        Lojbanists (our best                Esperanto really
        writers are Nick Nicholas          'succeeded' did not come
        in Australia, Ivan                  until something like 1904,
        Derzhanski in Scotland,            when people at their
        Iain Alexander and Colin            international conference
        Fine in England, Veijo              discovered to both
        Vilva in Finland, John              pleasure and surprise that
        Cowan in New York, and              the language was finally
        myself in Washington DC).           well enough known to such
    But another key point is that          a degree that the meeting
        there are no fluent                could be conducted in


                                  26
Lojban. The stranger looked around. Not an ethnic language - that explained many things which had been bothering him already before he had reached the Cafe. Lojban. The name brought no recollections what so ever into his mind even though he had been studying linguistics sometime in the remote past. Languages had always interested him and he knew a few words of quite many languages. Some of the languages he had learned while wandering from place to place in search of - well, he really didn't know what. Some he had studied at various schools and colleges during the more quiet epochs of his life.
        spontaneous and fairly          Exactly, and even worse, given
        fluent Esperanto. That            that I myself have been
        was 17 years after                  monolingual English
        Zamenhof's book, and I've          speaker (whereas Zamenhof
        heard that Esperanto was            and his associates were
        in formation for at least          predominantly polyglots to
        8 years before the book            start with), I recognize
        was published. While              that relying on my usage
        Lojban has recaptured all          to set the patterns is
        of the research benefits            particularly risky for
        of the earlier Loglan              cultural neutrality.
        developments, we basically      In written usage, we seem to
        started the language                be meeting your goals.
        definition process from            With the major people
        scratch in 1987.  I don't          writing in the language
        think we will be waiting            including a Greek-
        17 years for spontaneous            Australian, a Finn, and a
        fluent speech.)                    Bulgarian polyglot with
                                            professional linguistics
[Ken responded, leading to the              training, our stylistics
following exchange:]                        is developing somewhat
                                            independent of myself.
  ... I ... probably will have              Further, by recognizing
further reaction, but for the               the importance of cultural
moment:  while comparisons with            neutrality, I am very
Esperanto (which I have spoken              forward about indicating
fluently since my youth, but not            which of my usages are
natively) are indeed inevitable, a          tentative, and in
better comparison would be with            screening myself for
VolapЃk, Esperanto's predecessor,          cultural bias.  "malglico"
which while naturalistic was less          (damnably-English-like)
so than Esperanto, having I think          was one of the first
more case endings than Finn-ish            compounds to gain
yet allowing Germanic-type                  widespread use, and I'm
compounding.                                proud of having coined and
This whole area of how new                  pushed it.
languages "get going" is           
fascinating.  It relates to modern  Lesson from Another Constructed
Israeli Hebrew as well.                          Language
Re what you said about not wanting 
a small group to fix usage too      [The following, translated from
soon:  that seems to be what        Esperanto by Don Harlow from the
happened to Esperanto, maybe on a  referenced article, indicates the
larger scale.  I don't know         dangers of uncontrolled change
whether you're an Esperantist but  and/or change in a constructed
I and others have often been        language controlled by "people who
impressed by the extent to which    were linguistically very undisci-
Esperanto became "a real European  plined". Novial was a major
language" when it had the          artificial language invented by
potential, and the theoretical      one of the most noted linguists of
underpinnings, to develop along    his time, and for a while
completely different lines. I see  attracted a significant following
that as the problem with Lojban.    (it basically supplanted Ido, the
You need speakers, early in the    major splinter from Esperanto),
game, with diverse linguistic      but it apparently died from
backgrounds.  Otherwise it's going  uncontrolled change.]
to develop along the lines of     
"standard average European."        The following comes from
                                    Carlevaro, Tazio:  "Mondlingvaj
                                    akademioj", in Haupenthal,


                                  27
"I see. Thanks."
Reinhard (ed.):  "Li kaj ni",      tional. "." may only be placed at
Antwerp-La Laguna:  Stafeto, 1985,  a required pause, though.)
pp. 389-390:                          - It must be a grammatical
                                    utterance.
    The well-known Danish linguist    - No fair using zoi (non-Lojban
  Jespersen, who had already        quotes) or lo'u/le'u
  collaborated in the creation of  (ungrammatical text quotes) to
  Ido, in 1928 proposed a new neo-  throw in nonsense to get tough
  Latinoid language project Novial  letters.
  (Nov International Auxiliari        - No experimental or unknown
  Lingue).  In 1929 a handful of    cmavo, of course.
  ex-Idists joined it, along with
  the otherwise well known Ido
  magazine Mondo.  In 1934
  Jespersen decided to radically
  reform the language to bring it
  nearer to Occidental.  But it
  became obvious that the
  Novialists were people who were
  linguistically very
  undisciplined, and for this
  reason, and perhaps also because
  Jespersen didn't have the time
  to get very deeply occupied in
  his project, the Lingual Jurie
  del Novalistes was founded
  (1937) and proposed new
  improvements and changes.  This
  did not, however, reduce the
  linguistic chaos in the movement
  itself, because this committee's
  decisions were not mandatory but
  only indicative.  Novial,
  together with its language
  committee, disappeared during
  the second world war.
   
        A Lojban Pangram


[Mark Shoulson issued a challenge
He had done many things and studied many subjects during the years since leaving home - some things out of necessity, some out of curiosity. Here was something new. He hesitated. He had intended to continue across the mountains in the morning. He wasn't exactly going anywhere but there were some old cities in the Plains and he had thought he'd spend a few days just enjoying the atmosphere there. It was a long time since he had sat in a Bierstube drinking a proper black draught beer, sweet with the taste of caramel malt. But now he had bumped into something unexpected.
on Lojban list for a Lojban
'pangram', a sentence as short as
possible that contains all of the
letters of the Lojban alphabet.
Examples from English include "The
quick brown fox slyly jumped over
the lazy dog." and "Pack my box
with five dozen liquor jugs."
Mark wrote:]


  Here comes the quest for the
The Chinaman was leaving. Someone had beckoned him to a table across the room. The stranger nodded just slightly.
Lojban pangram.  Guidelines should
be:
  - No cmene or le'avla.  Cop-out.
  - All Lojban symbols except ","
(which only happens in cmene and
le'avla) must appear (not counting
such optionals as ";" or ":", but
counting ".", even though it's op-


                                  28
He was eyeing the other customers with a renewed interest. He raised the cup and smelled the fragrance of the tea while pondering the situation. He'd have to find some employment if he was to stay for more than a few days. Perhaps the Chinaman could help? He was prepared to do almost anything within his capacity for board and lodgings and a reasonable amount of free time. He'd stay till he felt it was again time to go.
Desiderata:                        (They're) antarctic gloves of two
  - It should be a bridi (a        Malay-relative living things.
complete Lojban sentence), not     
just a bare sumti or a string of      To add the missing symbols:
exclamations.                        "." uses up one or two vowels -
  - It should not have sumti in    either [selma'o] I or UI
undefined places, if possible        "'" uses up two vowels.  We can
(e.g. nothing in the x6 place of    combine these in UI, or in a cmavo
"prenu" or whatnot, even though    or lujvo.
that parses).                        "y" requires a lujvo (if we are
  - It should have some sort of    not using letterals or hes-
comprehensible meaning, though it  itation).
may be nonsense (i.e. the meaning 
needn't be reasonable, but it        1) Minimising use of lujvo:
should be capable of being            Two strategies suggest
understood in some fashion).        themselves for this goal.  Either
  - It should be as short as        use a (single) consonant-rich
possible.                           lujvo of the form "CVCyCCV" and
  - It shouldn't use letterals      use UI for the other two.
just to get letters in cheaply.    Inserting (a single instance of
In fact, avoid letterals if you    the form) ".V'V CVCyCCV" covers
can, except maybe to get "y".      4C, 4V at a cost of 11 characters
  - lujvo should be used            altogether, or use a (single)
sparingly, and if used, should      CVCyCV'V-form lujvo and a V cmavo:
make sense somehow.  You can get    ".V CVCyCV'V" covers 3C, 4V at a
"y" using hesitation or letterals,  cost of 10 characters altogether.
but don't turn down an otherwise    The latter approach is shorter,
good sentence because of a lujvo.  but since the total number of dif-
                                    ferent consonants is 2 mod 3,
  The desiderata are roughly in    would require two cmavo, giving a
order of importance. I'd imagine  total length of 34, against 33 for
it's a little easier to find a      the first strategy.  Therefore the
pangram in Lojban than in English,  minimal solution with only one
although finding a good one (where  (two-element) lujvo is of form
"good" is defined something like    ".V'V CVCyCCV CV gismu gismu gismu
above) isn't easy in almost any    gismu" (with the order of these
language.                          elements completely free)
  Have fun with it!               
                                      .e'u zadyfra pa baxso ckini
[Colin Fine responded with the          jmive gluta (33 characters)
following admirably-complete          Let's react more to a Malay-
analysis:]                              related living thing's glove!
                                   
  Assuming Mark's rules, but          2) Allowing free use of lujvo
avoiding letterals or hesitation:  CVC rafsi have the highest
  There are 17 consonants and only  consonant/vowel ratio possible in
5 vowels.  All brivla are more     the language, so the answer is
consonant-rich than all cmavo.  So  clearly going to involve one or
use as many brivla as possible.    more long lujvo with lots of
  Ignoring, ".'y", the best ratio  CVC's.  An obvious strategy is
you can get in a sentence with      (CVC)n-CV'V = 2n+1 consonants, n+2
gismu only is 3 consonants/2        vowels,  Thus with ".i" at the
vowels; 17 consonants requires 6    beginning (we can't use any other
words, for a total length of 30.   V word unless we have some sumti),
Using 2 CV cmavo instead of one    and one juncture requiring "y", we
gismu improves this to 29.          get:
                                   
dzipo gluta fe re baxso ckini        .i CVCCVCCVCCVCCVCCVCCVCCVCyCV'V
jmive                                    (31 chars.)
                                      e.g.


                                  29
The Chinaman had apparently gone to the kitchen which wasn't visible to where the stranger was sitting. The questions would have to wait. An elderly man at a nearby table stood up and approached him...
  .i cabjagnixtulroskazdempafyva'i  minimum of relearning to be able
  The currently-resulting girl's-  to start participating in the
    leg prose has the quality of  Lojban community, should such an
    dense father value" (or        orthography option be part of the
    something)                    resolution of our differences.
                                      The alternate orthography is
  Once you've got the structure,    thus a mapping from Lojban back to
they're easy to concoct, and I've  the original orthography of
no doubt somebody can come up with  Loglan, with a couple of things
better ones.                       that JCB added after the split
                                    like the doubled letters for
[The challenge to the community is  syllabic consonants. Thus, JCB
to propose some better pangrams    used "ao" for the diphthong that
using any of these forms.  I know  we write in Lojban as "au".  JCB
of at least one Lojban poet        doesn't use apostrophes in non-
(Michael Helsem) who will probably  diphthong VV pairs.  (He has never
have a field day with this kind of  addressed the problem that we
challenge.  We will print the best  resolved through the devoiced
submittals in a future issue of    glide).  He uses 'h', but 'x' as a
JL.]                                distinct phoneme is found only in
                                    names, whereas historically,
  An Alternative Orthography for    Loglan considered our 'x' to be an
              Lojban                allophone of 'h'.]
          by John Cowan           
                                      NOTE:  This document is not an
  [Editor's note:  This is an      official policy of the Logical
optional alternative to the cur-    Language Group and has not been
rent Lojban writing system, not a  endorsed by the LLG or its Board
change or replacement.  In short,  (to which, for my sins, I belong).
this proposal is a way to write    Still less is it endorsed by any
Lojban so that it looks more like  other non-profit organization con-
any other version of Loglan, and    cerned with the development of
hence be more palatable to JCB.    logical languages.
  I don't think that any Lojbanist    This note proposes an
considers the alternative more      alternative orthography for Loj-
desirable than what we do now - we  ban.  The orthography here
made the current Lojban            described is not intended to re-
orthography in order to better      place the existing standard
reflect the way people will learn  orthography.  Nothing in this note
and speak the language (although    is intended as a proposal for
the use of doubled consonants for  change either in Lojban's
syllabics might actually be an      orthography or its phonology.  The
improvement if used throughout the  purpose of the alternative
language - TLI Loglan uses this    orthography is to provide a way of
convention only for syllabic        writing Lojban which visually
consonants in borrowings, and not  resembles the conventions used by
in lujvo.)                          earlier versions of the Loglan
  However, having an orthography    language, including the version
that looks more 'normal' to JCB is  proposed in the 4th edition of
an advantage in trying to reach a  Loglan 1 (1989).
long term solution to our         
differences - something that we      The standard Lojban orthography
have long sought. By having a set  makes use of 23 letters of the
of standard mappings between the    Roman alphabet, viz. a b c d e f g
two orthographies, it becomes      i j k l m n o p r s t u v x y z,
relatively trivial for someone to  plus the three signs:
write a program that can convert      apostrophe "'" for a voiceless
text written in one orthography to  intervocalic glide roughly similar
the other form.  Thus TLI          to English /h/;
Loglanists would have to do a


                                  30
----
  comma "," for a voiced                    i,e i,i i,o i,u u,a u,e
intervocalic glide;                        u,i u,o u,u.
  period "." for a pause or
glottal stop.                        4) Capitalization is used for
Capitalization is used to repre-   the first letter of names, and for
sent abnormal non-penultimate      the cmavo ".i", which is written
stress in names:  the syllable to  "I".
be stressed is capitalized in its    5) Periods before words are
entirety.                          dropped.
  The letters i and u are used in    6) Periods after words are
three ways:  as full vowels, in    replaced by comma.  This comma
the falling diphthongs ai ei oi    cannot be confused with the comma
au, and in the rising diphthongs    of 3b and 3c, because that cannot
ia ie ii io iu ua ue ui uo uu.      appear at the end of a word.
The rising diphthongs appear only  However, periods at the end of
as stand-alone words and in names  names are dropped.
and borrowings.                      7) Syllabic r l m n are written
  The letters r l m n are used as  rr ll mm nn, and need not be set
normal consonants and as syllabic  off by comma.
consonants (in names and              8) Other uses of comma are
borrowings only).                  retained.  When doubt arises
  Double letters are never used    whether a comma represents a
for any purpose.                    voiced or a voiceless glide, the
                                    voiceless glide is preferred.
  The alternative orthography        9) Stress is indicated by an
[approximating the TLI system]      apostrophe following the vowel of
makes the following substitutions.  the stressed syllable.
  1) The letter "x" is replaced in 
all uses by "h".  It is useful to    Obviously, the alternative
emphasize here that this does not  orthography is much more "context-
represent a change in              sensitive" than the standard
pronunciation.                      orthography.  Two consecutive
  2) The diphthong au is replaced  vowels in the standard orthography
by ao.                              always represent a diphthong; in
  3) The apostrophe, which in the  the alternative orthography, they
standard orthography is used only  may represent a diphthong, two
between vowels, is replaced in the  syllables with a voiceless glide,
following ways:                    or two syllables with a voiced
    3a) In a'a a'e a'u e'a e'e e'o  glide, depending on the particular
        e'u o'a o'e o'o o'u, it is  two vowels and on the kind of word
        dropped, producing aa ae    in which they appear.  On the
        au ea ee eo eu oa oe oo    other hand, the difference between
        ou.                        syllabic and consonantal r l m n
    3b) In a'i a'o e'i o'i, it is  is clearly marked in the
        replaced by comma (sym-    alternative orthography.
        bolizing the syllable     
        break that accompanies the    Here is a passage of Lojban
        glide) producing a,i a,o    (written by Nick Nicholas) in both
        e,i o,i.                    orthographies:
    3c) In i'a i'e i'i i'o i'u u'a
        u'e u'i u'o u'u, it is      mi na certu le se zajbrnatleta
        dropped, producing ia ie    .iku'i mi co'a jimpe lenu mi poi
        ii io iu ua ue ui uo uu;    xelso cu no'e snada tu'a le la
        except that when these      olimpik. nunjvi pe vi la tokios.
        diphthongs appear standing  .isa'unai mi nu'o zmadu
        alone (as cmavo of selma'o  zo'epeca'aku leni snada  .iti'e le
        UI), or in names and        mulno nizyji'a cu te zmadu mi le
        borrowings, it is replaced  gugdrkore'a kuce'o le
        by comma, producing i,a    gugdrnafganistana kuce'o le
                                    gugdrkenia kuce'o le


                                  31
A year had gone by. He called himself xiron now. There was no specific reason for the name - he had just made it up one night in early June when he was trying to memorize a batch of rafsi. Though names had no inherent meaning you could always play with them, divide them in different ways - even ungrammatically. xi-ro-n, xi-ron, xir-on. The last variant had a Japanese rafsi meaning 'sound' at the end. He would play the games mainly in his thoughts as he wasn't exactly of the playful type. He would rarely venture to play with others and few would have considered him a member of the species Homo ludens, playing man.
gugdrtrinidada kuce'o le xanto      attain a community of native
denci xaskoi gugde  .iku'i mi      speakers, these pauses will be one
zmadu .u'a le gugdrlixtenctaine    of the first things to disappear.
.i lenu go'i cu pluka nuzba  .i
zmadu pluka fau le nu'o nu le          Lojban pauses need not be the
gugdrlixtenctaine cu se nunjvi la    kind of pauses used by
olimpik.                              separated-word speech
                                      recognizers; a glottal stop is a
                                      sufficient equivalent of pause.
mi na certu le se zajbrrnatleta      The two main uses of pauses are
I kui mi coa jimpe lenu mi poi        after names and before words
xelso cu noe snada tua le la          beginning with a vowel.  In the
Olimpik nunjvi pe vi la Tokios  I    first case, nothing will be able
saunai mi nuo zmadu zoepecaaku        to do much better; existing
leni snada  I tie le mulno          speech-recognition systems
nizyjia cu te zmadu mi le            simply punt on names in general,
gugdrrkorea kuceo le                  unless the name has been hard-
gugdrrnafganistana kuceo le          wired into the system as a word.
gugdrrkenia kuceo le                    Glottal stops before words
gugdrrtrinidada kuceo le xanto              beginning with a vowel are
denci xaskoi gugde  I kui mi              common enough in the
zmadu u,a le gugdrrlixtenctaine            world's languages:
I lenu go,i cu pluka nuzba  I              consider German, which
zmadu pluka fao le nuo nu le                does not notate such
gugdrrlixtenctaine cu se nunjvi la          glottal stops but whose
Olimpik                                    speakers (of the standard
                                            dialect, anyway) invari-
                                            ably produce them. Not
Criticisms of Lojban as a Tool for          everybody speaks like
      Machine Translation                  anglophones - "English is
                                            the language you speak
[Rick Morneau posted some criti-           without moving your
cisms of Lojban as a language for          mouth", as my mother
machine translation (MT).  John            (native German, near-
Cowan responded to these, which            native English) used to
led Rick to try to clarify his ob-         say.
jections. John Cowan then re-
sponded to the clarifications.            In some cases this is true,
The result is an excellent summary      especially when one word ends
of a number of the most common          in a vowel and the next starts
criticisms of Lojban, and the ar-      in a vowel. However, there
guments that we believe refute          are some cases where a glottal
them.]                                  stop will not work:
                                          1. if a word ends in a
Here are the reasons why I feel        voiced nasal and the following
that Lojban is poorly suited for        word starts in an unvoiced
use as an interlingua in machine        fricative, stop or affricate.
translation:                              2. if a word ends in an
1. Lojban claims that its words        unvoiced fricative and the
are self-segregating.  Obviously,      following word starts in an
this feature is not needed for the      unvoiced fricative, stop or
analysis of written language, but      affricate.
it can greatly simplify the              In these situations a
analysis of continuous speech.          glottal stop will either be
Unfortunately, Lojban requires the     impossible to detect, or will
use of pauses in certain places in      be eliminated through normal
order to fully implement this          phonological processes.  If,
feature.  Enforced pauses are          however, these juxtapositions
unnatural and, should Lojban ever      can not occur in Lojban then I
                                        withdraw my criticism.


                                  32
He had made few friends during his year at the Cafe and no real enemies though there were people who didn't like him very much. Newcomers often at first thought he was unfriendly as he didn't smile when he greeted them and later on many felt the same uneasiness the Chinaman had felt a year ago. Perhaps it was the initial impression of self-as-suredness and reservedness which only gradually was replaced by a more realistic, more mixed one.
        These juxtapositions can     
      occur only if the first word    2. Lojban syntax is too complex.
      is a name, and (as I said    Regardless of the syntactic
      earlier) names are            formalism you swear by
      notoriously intractable.      (transformational grammar,
      They can violate the          government/binding theory,
      phonotactics of the language  generalized phrase structure
      in which they are embedded    grammar, lexical functional
      in random ways, and existing  grammar, home-brew grammar, ad
      word-based speech processors  nauseam), a natural language minus
      simply punt on them.          its idioms and irregularities can
        Lojbab adds:  This item    be represented with an equivalent
      seems irrelevant to the      of fewer than three dozen
      issue that Rick says he is    production rules.  If I remember
      arguing.  If he is solely    correctly, Lojban syntax requires
      concerned in his criticism    about ten times that number.
      with Lojban's suitability as  Lojbanists claim that it is ma-
      an interlingua for machine    chine-parsable, and I'm willing to
      translation of other          take their word for it.  However,
      languages, then              an MT interlingua (IL) should have
      recognizability of pauses in  a syntax that is as simple as
      a Lojban speech stream is    possible.  A simple syntax not
      irrelevant because a machine  only makes it easier to parse the
      translator would not be      IL, but more importantly, it makes
      processing Lojban speech.    translating from the source
      Mandatory phonemic pauses    language to the IL much easier.
      affect how humans speak the
      language and not on how          As simple as possible, but no
      difficult it is to translate    simpler.  The Lojban grammar is
      it.                            a phrase structure grammar - it
        Answering the issue for      does not have any transformation
      the case of a machine          (T) rules or their more modern
      attempting to understand        equivalents.  Chomsky introduced
      spoken Lojban, I note that      T rules, way back in Syntactic
      our statement is that a        Structures, because he didn't
      glottal stop is a sufficient    want to have to deal with phrase
      allophone of the phoneme        structure grammars with (by
      "pause".  If phonological      guesswork) 104 to 105 rules.
      processes cause a glottal      Lojban's 600-odd rules look
      stop to disappear, then        pretty simple by comparison.
      under those circumstances a      The existing parser generates
      Lojban speaker will need a            a complete parse of a
      more exaggerated 'pause'. A          1600-word short story
      proper Lojban speaker will            (with some pretty hairy
      have sufficient pause in his          grammar - it's a
      or her dialect to separate            deliberately complex
      the words.  But errors in            translation of a Saki
      speech will occur.  To say            short story) in about 15
      that such errors in speech            seconds on a '386 machine.
      are a burden on the machine          The existing program is
      is a truism; we can also say          not optimized for speed
      that it is a burden on the            worth a damn - I
      machine if the speaker                concentrated on
      lisps, slips in voiced con-           maintainability.  On a
      sonants that are unvoiced,           'Real Computer', parsing
      or speaks with stops that            effort will be absolutely
      are insufficiently                    negligible.
      distinguished, all things
      that often happen in natural        Your response puzzled me.  A
      human speech.                     fast computer is not adequate


                                  33
Xiron was mostly very quiet and even later on in the evenings when the staff was mixing with the customers he'd just sit there and listen to others talking, rarely expressing himself. When he did there was a certain finality in what he said. He might err but mostly his facts and opinions had a ring of truth about them which made it hard for the others to disagree. Sometimes he got on his hobbyhorse and then there was no keeping him. Luckily the occasions were quite rare.
    justification for creating in-          [Lojbab adds:  Rick is
    efficient code, especially            making a big issue out of
    when the MT application itself        rule counts that are
    will be grasping greedily for        specific to the format in
    every cpu cycle it can get.          which they are presented -
    Also, Lojban's 600-odd rules          the language of input to the
    (twice as many as I thought!)        YACC processor that verifies
    is still almost twenty times          their unambiguity.  Another
    as much as needed.  So,               rule format describing the
    compared with a syntax                same language, the E-BNF
    designed explicitly for an MT        included with this issue of
    IL, Lojban's parser requires          JL, has only about 80 rules.
    only 20 times as much code as        Of the E-BNF rules, 15 are
    minimally necessary.  This is        associated with the grammar
    quite a selling point!                of mathematics (MEX), and 12
                                          are associated with the
        600 rules is for the full        tense system (described in
      language. A pure in-              John Cowan's paper that ac-
      terlingua application would        companied JL16), leaving
      be unlikely to generate the        perhaps 50 to cover the
      full language.  A "core            whole remainder of the
      subset" could be constructed        grammar.
      that would be far more rigid          By comparison, Rick in a
      but far smaller, and yet            separate posting gave a
      truly be a subset.                  sample E-BNF set of rules
        However, I would also            for what he considered an
      point to an argument given          extremely "simple" grammar
      in The Elements of                  for a constructed language
      Programming Style.  A tricky        which has at least 40 E-BNF
      way of initializing a              rules, but not specifying
      identity matrix in FORTRAN          any MEX or tense grammar,
      is given, and the text              even though all language has
      explains why it works.              at least some rudiments of
      However, it then points out        each.
      that the time taken to               For an interlingua
      initialize such a matrix is        translation system, mathe-
      always insignificant. In a        matical text would be
      program with small matrices,        translated notationally, not
      the time is insignificant in        in words, and hence MEX
      an absolute sense; in a            would not need to be part of
      program with large matrices,        a machine translation sys-
      the time is insignificant          tem.  Thus MEX is an example
      relative to the time spent          of John's statement that
      in all other matrix                machine translation using
      operations, which are              Lojban would implement only
      typically n2 to n3 expen-          a subset of the Lojban
      sive.                              grammar.
        Furthermore, for IL                Tense is an example of one
      applications there is no            of the many features of
      real need to keep the Lojban        natural language that are
      in text form; the conversion        not easily represented in a
      from tree form to text form        very simple language.  You
      is absolutely trivial.              might end up with an optimal
      (Lojban has no "obligatory          language for internal data
      transformations" in the            processing, but it is so
      sense of early Chomsky, so          cumbersome to use for humans
      you print out the tree and          that they cannot
      strip the parentheses.)            significantly input or read
                                          the internal texts. Lojban
                                          tenses, expressing re-


                                  34
He seemed to know very much or at least of very many different subjects though if you poked deeper you might find that sometimes he knew just a handful of key facts, nothing more profound. He didn't often volunteer the information. It was almost as if he had considered many things not worth mentioning without a specific reason. Just knowing wasn't enough.
      lationships in space and      In most natural language
      time about the referents of  processing applications, a
      the sentences they occur in,  sentence is represented using case
      could easily be expressed    frames or a close equivalent.  (In
      using expanded predicates    brief, case frames are a practical
      (and the conversion from      and elegant implementation of
      tense to predicate is        basic X-bar theory, which, in my
      probably trivial for most    opinion, gives tremendous
      cases that would occur in    credibility to its claim of cross-
      natural language), but the    linguistic applicability.)
      resulting text would be      Lojban's inflexible place
      longer and no easier to      structures and [selma'o] BAI
      convert to the tense          bandaids are not only
      structure of another          counterintuitive, but they force
      language.                    the computer to treat language
        Clearly.  Lojban is not    structures differently when they
      "20 times what is needed",    are essentially the same.  Each
      but rather is probably        predicate, in effect, has a built-
      fairly close in size to      in irregularity which requires
      Rick's 'minimal' grammar.    extra processing by the computer.
        Rick also misinterprets
      John's statement that he did      The present list does not do
      not design the parser for      the fact justice, but there are
      speed, and he jumped to a       in fact cross-predicate patterns
      false conclusion.  John's      of place structures.
      parser was designed for        Furthermore, it was believed to
      maintainability, to minimize    be more important to get each
      programming time, which is      word as nearly right as possible
      our critical resource these    than to shoe-horn the words into
      days.  "Inefficient code"      some existing framework.  There
      has plenty of "excuse" when    is simply a lot more complexity
      it gets the job done without    in the Real World (TM) than
      affecting critical              typical Schankian frames allow
      resources.  But Lojban can      for; lots and lots of idio-
      have faster processing:        syncrasy. Still and all, 1300
      Jeff Taylor's earlier          place structures is simply not a
      parser, limited in text        whopping amount:  even given
      capacity, could do 1/4 of      that we don't believe it's
      Saki in about 5 seconds on a    possible to derive the place
      much slower 286 machine.       structures of compounds
        Finally, of course, Lojban    algorithmically from the place
      has the advantage of being      structures of the underlying
      usable both for internal        roots, those roots do constrain
      processing as well as by the    the resultant place structures
      linguists/natural language      to a marked degree.
      processing people who are
      building the knowledge              John interpreted my use of
      engine (see our DARPA            "case frames" as synonymous
      proposal in JL16).                with Schankian scripts.  Actu-
                                        ally, the two are not related
3. Lojban's predicate logic is not      at all. My mention of X-bar
very "logical" in the way it is        theory should have clarified
used to represent natural              the matter, except, of course,
language.  (It may be "logical"        to those who are unfamiliar
for testing the Sapir-Whorf            with X-bar theory.  My
hypothesis, but this has no            apologies.
bearing on its use as an MT IL.)          In a case frame
It's assignment of place                representation, each node can
structures is too arbitrary and        be represented by a head and
inflexible for use as an MT IL.        its modifiers.  This is the


                                  35
The Chinaman now liked him. Many times they had sat late at night quietly sipping tea, not talking much, each deep in reverie. Both had seen a lot of world and contemplated many things with a certain polite amusement. Not many words were needed to convey ideas and somehow Lojban suited their purposes extremely well.
    essence of X-bar theory.             heuristics have not yet been
    Thus, a frame representing a          defined.)
    noun phrase would have the              To take an English
    main noun as its head and the        example, "I see the dog"
    modifiers as adjuncts that            involves a predicate "see"
    follow the head in the frame.         and two arguments "I" and
    (A modifier can also be a            "the dog".  The definition
    complete relative clause, in          of "see" determines which of
    which case it would be rep-          these is the seer and which
    resented by the equivalent of        the seen, but Lojban treats
    a separate sub-frame).  A            them as syntactically
    sentence would have the main          identical.
    verb as its head, and noun     
    phrases that are arguments of  4. Lojban's list of concept
    the verb would, in effect, be  primitives (gismu) is inadequate
    its modifiers.  These          and lacks semantic motivation.
    structures, of course, are re-  Now, I've read hand-waving
    cursive.  Note that,            arguments claiming that the gismu
    syntactically, all elements in  are not semantic primitives.  Yet
    a frame that modify their      that is exactly the way they are
    heads are treated equally.      used.  The fact is, an awful lot
    Note also, that these case      of work has been done in both
    frames are simply an easy way  computational and theoretical
    to represent syntactic trees    linguistics in the search for a
    in a computer.  Lojban predi-  meaningful set of semantic
    cates and their designer-      primitives. A few examples are
    selected, pseudo-thematic      Silvio Ceccato's semantic
    place structures force          hierarchies (circa 1950-1960),
    arguments to be treated dif-    Yorick Wilks semantic primitives
    ferently when they are          (circa 1977), Roger Schank's
    essentially the same.  In      primitive ACTs (circa 1977),
    other words, some branches of  Donald Fass's comprehensive genus
    the tree will require          classification (mid 1980's), Anna
    different code to handle than  Wierzbicka's semantic primitives
    other branches.  Nothing is    (1970-1980), and, most recently,
    gained except counter-          Kathleen Dahlgren's knowledge
    productive complexity.          representation work (1989).  Any
      So, although Lojban's        one of these systems could be used
    predicate structures do not    as is, or modified for use in the
    make the job impossible, they  design of an AL.  And any one of
    do make it much more difficult  them would have provided a solid
    than it has to be.              foundation for the semantics of an
                                    AL.  Now, I realize that Loglan
        I do not understand this    got its start before most of the
      argument.  There seems to be  work I mentioned above.  However,
      a shift between talk of      Loglanists and Lojbanists have
      syntax and talk of            been modifying and repairing their
      semantics.  The arguments of  languages since then, and, as far
      a Lojban predicate are        as I'm concerned, if something is
      syntactically all equal;      broken it should be fixed.  This
      semantically, each one plays  is especially true if Lojban is to
      a specified role.  Which      be suitable for use as an MT IL,
      role can be determined by    and if its semantics are to be as
      looking in the dictionary,    "logical" as its other features.
      or if the word is a compound
      which is not in the diction-      The best indication that none
      ary, by applying a set of      of these "semantic primes"
      heuristics. (Despite sev-      systems is fully adequate for
      eral efforts, those            mapping the real world is the


                                  36
----
  very fact that there are so many        everything? Lojban's gismu
  of them.  The empirical                list is a posteriori and
  derivation of the gismu list is        merges semantic lists from
  admitted.  Some of the words do        several different sources.
  not belong in any list of              It may not be the most
  semantic primes, and others            tractable possible list, but
  exist for historical reasons            it is a usable list in a
  only.  We do repair things, but        deep sense.  Furthermore,
  only when they are demonstrably        the same consideration
  broken; there has been no effort        mentioned under syntax
  to reduce the number of gismu en        applies here.  There is no
  masse.  We in Lojbanistan (he          reason to suppose that the
  said) simply do not believe that        IL generator will have
  there exists any truly                  sufficient smarts (or re-
  comprehensive semantic system          sources) to generate text
  for mapping the immense variety        that involves every one of
  of real-world predicates into a        the 1300-odd root words.
  categorical or hierarchical sys-
  tem.  Instead, the gismu are              [Lojbab adds:  That there
  meant to blanket semantic space,        is no semantic theory in our
  ensuring that what needs to be          selection of basic roots
  expressed can be expressed.            need not be a failing - one
  Even so, large areas of                has to show that some
  semantically "shallow" but              semantic theory is
  "broad" space are underserved:          universally enough true to
  foods, cultures, materials,            give a better result.  But
  living organisms.  These                since we contend to be able
  semantic areas will be covered          to express most any concept
  by borrowings from natural lan-        within Lojban, it doesn't
  guages.                                really matter what our set
                                          of roots are.]
      Of course there isn't a
    system, otherwise linguists          If you're still not
    wouldn't be working on it.          convinced, then consider this:
    What I failed to make clear        there is not yet a single
    was that there's no need for a      comprehensive theory of
    comprehensive, unchallenged        syntax.  Did this lack of a
    theory on which one could base      comprehensive theory prevent
    the design of an AL.  Keep in      the Lojban designers from
    mind that linguists are trying      designing a rigorous, machine-
    to develop a theory that will      tractable syntax?
    correctly describe and explain
    the totality of human                  The history of the Loglan
    language.  An AL designer            Project shows that the
    needs only a single, simple          rigorous machine-tractable
    system that can be applied            syntax was not actually
    rigorously and that is suffi-        achieved until a systematic
    ciently robust to allow any          re-design of the grammar was
    human language statement to be        undertaken using YACC as an
    accurately converted into the        indispensable tool.  I do
    AL.                                  not mean that the language
                                          was changed to make YACC-ing
        "A single, simple system          easier; the only changes
      [of semantics]" - ah,              made were those forced by
      there's the rub.  How can          the goal of "0 shift-reduce,
      you be sure that your              0 reduce-reduce conflicts
      "single, simple system",            found".
      presumably designed a                If the theory and practice
      priori, really does cover          of LALR(1) parsing was not


                                  37
Following are 2 Lojban pieces, the first two 'stories' told in the cafe. A translation of Mark's story will be found in the translation section (pg. 63). Iain's story has not been translated, though there are some comments in the translation section.
      so well understood, I doubt    house for inhabitants who are
      that Lojban would have a        blue, a house that is blue in
      "rigorous, machine-tractable    the appropriate way for houses,
      syntax".  There is simply      a house for people who are
      nothing comparable in the       slowly turning blue,...  Since
      semantic domain for checking    the first requisite of Lojban is
      the correctness and            that it be speakable (it is a
      completeness of a design.       human language, not a code), not
                                      all ambiguity can be weeded out.
5.  Lojban's process of creating      Lojban works on removing
compound words from its set of        structural ambiguity so that the
primitives seems to depend on con-    real problems of semantic
textual disambiguation for proper    ambiguity can be openly faced.
understanding.  In other words, it
is as "illogical" as the same          lo cimni ka satci cu se jdima
process in natural languages.  (I      lo cimni ni valsi
believe that Jim Carter has             the-thing-which-is-an infinite
criticized Loglanists for this          type-of quality-of preciseness
lack.)  In computer translation,        has-as-price the-thing-which-
the computer will often run into a      is-an infinite type-of
situation where a compound word in      quantity-of words
the IL does not have a counterpart      The price of infinite
in the target language.  In this        precision is infinite
situation, the computer must be        verbosity.
able to break up the word into an
equivalent phrase or clause.  In          I failed to make clear that
other words, the computer must be      such a compromise can be
able to generate a paraphrase of        achieved along with the
the relationship between the more      reversible compositionality
primitive components of the            that is needed in machine
compound.  You can, of course, put      translation.  For example, the
this information in the                 English compound "houseboat"
dictionary, but this solution is        can be decomposed as "boat
not at all practical if you want        which functions as a house".
to keep your dictionaries simple,      The compound "windowpane" can
and if you want to have one            be decomposed as "pane which
dictionary per natural language        is part of a window".  In a
usable for both source and target      machine translation
translation. I could say much          application, the relationships
more on this extremely important        "which functions as" and
topic, but to do so would take          "which is a part of" must be
more time than I have, and this        explicitly stated in the
thing is already too long.  In          compound word.  This can
summary, though, an IL designed        always be done with the addi-
for use in MT must be maximally        tion of a single morpheme
and reversibly compositional.          which would, in effect, link
                                        the component morphemes and
    There are two separate points      indicate the relationship that
  to sort out here:  the mapping        exists between them.  This
  of compounds to phrases, and the      would normally mean an
  explication of phrases.  Every        additional syllable (and, of
  compound can be mapped to a          course, an appropriately de-
  phrase, and potentially every        signed morphology), and
  phrase to a compound, unambigu-      apparently many people would
  ously and reversibly.  What is        object to this for esthetic
  left ambiguous is the precise        reasons.  However, one
  set of compositional rules.          additional syllable is a small
  Does  "blanu zdani" (blue house)      price to pay when the
  mean a house that is blue, a          potential reward is so high.
  house part of which is blue, a


                                  38
Mark:
    Without this simple                    languages, forces
    "sacrifice", your AL will be            ambiguity to be squeezed
    useless as an IL.                      out before a correct
                                            translation can be
        Lojban compounds (whether          generated.  (I am not
      closed or open) are by                referring here to the
      design semantically                  problem of translating
      ambiguous.  However, there            intentional ambiguity, as
      are always paraphrases which          in poetry, which is surely
      disambiguate them.  An IL            far beyond the state-of-
      generator would presumably            the-art of any computer-
      not generate ambiguous                based technique.)  If all
      compounds.                            languages without
                                            exception deviated from
6. Finally, a logical language is          predicate logic in the
inherently unsuitable for                  same ways, then the need
representing natural language.              for a neutral medium would
Lojban is called a logical                  not exist - but they
language for good reason.  It              don't.  For example,
forces a speaker to express                Lojban can be neutral
himself according to various rules          among languages that
of logic.  Natural languages do            affirm a negative question
not require a speaker to be                with "No" (like English),
logical in the same way.  As a              with "Yes" (like Russian),
result, when translating from a            and that repeat the
natural language into Lojban, the          negated verb (like Irish).
computer will often have to fully
understand what the speaker is            How can "being equally
saying (to "fill in the gaps", so      foreign to all natural
to speak), which is well beyond        languages" be anything but an
the capabilities needed for normal      impassible barrier?  An
disambiguation.  It is also well        interlingua designed for use
beyond the capabilities of              in machine translation must
computers.                              be, as much as humanly
                                        possible, a reductive and
    But is it "well beyond the          fundamental distillation of
  capabilities needed" in all          the essential features of
  cases?  It seems to me that          natural language.  Not even
  given two languages A and B, and      the slightest degree of
  three meanings a, b, c, that          "foreignness" can be
  language A expresses a and b          tolerated.
  with an ambiguous sentence,
  whereas language B expresses b            "The" essential features?
  and c with an ambiguous                Which are those?  Unless you
  sentence.  If meaning b is              have a theory (or at least a
  intended, then translating              set of heuristics) telling
  ambiguity with ambiguity is a          you the essential features,
  safe procedure - but in                your project will be
  translating a from A into B, or        inherently parochialized by
  c from B into A, the ambiguity          the particular case you
  must be tackled and resolved.  A        choose to debug it with.
  system that does not "fully un-        Lojban is intended to
  derstand what the speaker is            provide a framework which
  saying" will inevitably make            minimizes metaphysical
  blunders of this type.                  assumptions; thus S/W is
    The neutral framework of              assumed as a hypothesis (its
        predicate logic which Loj-        falsity is the null hy-
        ban employs, being equally        pothesis to be rejected).
        foreign to all natural            Therefore, the assumptions
                                          of the original must be


                                  39
ni'oni'o vanci .icabo nalcladu ne'i le ckafybarja .i le bi'u<ref name=bi /> remna cu klama mo'ine'i ra .i ko'a goi ra zutse ne'a lo jubme .i ko'a cpedu loi tcati le kafybarja se jibri .i ba so'o mentu ko'a se dunda loi tcati gi'e co'aru'inai pinxe ri
      spelled out in the Lojban            Anyhow, I meant to use the
      version, which can then be          aphorism rather than
      interpreted and reduced by          mentioning it; I was
      the process that composes          pointing out that if Lojban
      the translation.                   is confined to fully
                                          explicit semantic forms, it
      John wrote the Lojban for          will be unspeakable because
    "The price of infinite                too verbose. Even your
    precision is infinite                glosses like "boat which
    verbosity."                          functions as a house" are
      This is such a simple              not really enough. Pre-
    statement in English (and            cisely which of the
    equally simple in Swahili and        "functions" of the house are
    French and Indonesian and how        provided by the houseboat,
    many others?), yet how complex        and which are not?  For
    and convoluted it is in              example, one of the
    Lojban!  I shudder at the            functions of a house may be
    thought of designing software        to serve as a recipient of
    that is smart enough to know          mail, but a houseboat
    that "infinite precision" must        typically does not.  So you
    be paraphrased as "the-thing-        need something like "boat
    which-is-an infinite type-of          which functions as a house
    quality-of preciseness", and          in that it provides shelter
    that "infinite verbosity" must        and a fixed platform for
    be paraphrased as "the-thing-        engaging in normal domestic
    which-is-an infinite type-of          behavior".  Each word in
    quantity-of words". I'm not          this expansion itself re-
    even sure it's possible.  The        quires further expansion; in
    degree of understanding needed        particular, "fixed" with
    to generate these paraphrases        respect to what?  Obviously
    may be required by natural            not the shore of the river!
    language understanding                  [Lojbab adds:]  In case
    systems, but not by machine          the motivation for John's
    translation systems.                  last point isn't clear, I
                                          want to point out that there
        It is an aphorism of              may not be a word
      Lojbanic culture (such as it        corresponding to "houseboat"
      is), making use of the full        in every natural language -
      resources of the Lojban            or that might be more than
      language.  The literal gloss        one, with significant minor
      is complex and convoluted,          denotation differences based
      but that is because Lojban          on exactly which functions
      is not encoded English.            are performed.  Would the
        Somewhere or other,              Chinese word for the boats
      Jespersen has translations          that people live on in the
      of "First come, first              rivers and ports of China be
      served", an aphorism which          an accurate translation for
      is simple and terse in              English "houseboat" in every
      English, into French and            instance of the latter's
      Danish.  The French isn't          occurrence.
      bad, but the Danish is                I'm not sure that a
      incredibly verbose and              successful machine transla-
      downright baroque.  I can          tion system can be anything
      just imagine what the Danish        less than a full-featured
      (Swahili, Bahasa Indonesia,        natural language system,
      ...) for "The more the              unless you intend to have
      merrier, but the fewer the          substantial human translator
      better fare" looks like!            verification of every single
                                          word choice made.


                                  40
ni'o ko'a ca lenu ko'a pinxe loi tcati po ko'a cu zgana lenu le bi'u nanmu cu se dunda lei ckafi poi ra pu cpedu ke'a .ije le nanmu goi ko'e cu pencu le kabri poi se nenri lei ckafi ku'o le degji gi'enai pinxe lei ckafi .ije mu'i zo'epela'edi'u ko'e cusku ®lu .o'onai ju'ido'u ko lebna lei vi ckafi gi'ebabo bevri fi mi fe lei je'a glare ku'i ckafi li'u¯ le bevri be lei ckafi be'o goi ko'i
      In summary, I feel that an      of data is needed to capture the
<br />.i ko'i cusku ®lu .u'u .ie ga'inai li'u¯ gi'ebabo lebna le kabri
    interlingua for use in machine    "total" meaning of a statement.]
<br />.i ko'i krefu klama gi'e bevri lei ckafi vau ba so'o mentu .i ko'e krefu pencu le kabri .i ko'e cusku ®lu .i'esai ba'e ti ku'i cu je'a glare ckafi li'u¯ .i ko'e gleki pinxe lei ckafi po ko'e
    translation must be as close   
    as we can come to the elusive  In summary, I do not feel that
    "universal grammar".  In        Lojban (or Glosa, or Esperanto, or
    attempting to provide a test    Vorlin) is suitable for use as a
    for the Sapir-Whorf            machine translation interlingua,
    hypothesis, Loglan designers    in spite of claims to the con-
    have had no choice but to go    trary. Most importantly, I see
    in exactly the opposite        nothing in Lojban that would
    direction.                     facilitate the most difficult
                                    aspect of machine translation:
By the way, most of the claims      translating from a natural lan-
I've heard about Lojban's          guage to the interlingua.  What I
suitability for use as an MT IL    do see is an AL that has so little
seem to be based on its underlying  in common with natural languages,
predicate structure. Now, many    that translating between it and a
(most?) linguists and logicians    natural language will be con-
are of the opinion that predicate  siderably more difficult than
logic is not suitable for repre-    translating directly between
senting natural language. Some,    natural languages. And this does
however, disagree and have created  not surprise me at all,
a school of semantics usually      considering that Loglan/Lojban was
called Montague semantics (other    designed to test the Sapir-Whorf
names and minor variations are      hypothesis. Such a language, by
model-theoretic semantics, truth-  its very nature, would be the
conditional semantics and          antithesis of what is needed for
possible-worlds semantics).  These  an MT IL, no matter how "logical"
linguists are attempting to do      it is.
what Loglanists claim to have      Finally, I realize that much of
already done; i.e., developing a    what I've said is potentially
formal and unambiguous method for  flammable. However, I'd like to
representing natural language.      make it clear that I have no
So, if you do in fact make this    intention of angering anyone, and,
claim, then you might want to test  if I have, please accept my
it on the people who count the      apologies.  I can even admit the
most - the Montague semanticists.  possibility that I've
Show them how predicate logic and  misunderstood some of the features
its accessories can be used to      of Lojban that I've criticized
represent natural language.  If it  (although I doubt it).  Also,
means learning their lingo (and it  please keep in mind that I've only
probably will if you want to get    criticized one aspect of Lojban -
their attention), then do it!  The  its claimed suitability for use as
burden of proof, however, is on    a machine interlingua. In most
you.                                other respects I find Lojban to be
                                    a fascinating language, and, if I
    [Lojbab responds:  pc studied  were not committed to learning
  semantics under Montague at      other languages as part of my MT
  UCLA, and is quite capable of    hobby, I would probably be
  speaking the lingo.  But Loglan  studying Lojban (in spite of its
  does not claim to unambiguously  ugly consonant clusters :-).
  handle semantics of natural
  language; indeed I claim that        Lojbab:  I would not be angry
  semantics is impossible to          with Rick Morneau for what
  handle unambiguously because it    appears to be an honest
  is dependent on the whole of the    difference of opinion.  Nor do I
  speaker's and listener's            say that Rick's arguments are
  background experiences as well      ones that cannot or should not
  as on the current context, and      be raised.  I believe that some
  thus a virtually infinite amount


                                  41
no'i ko'a zgana la'eso'odi'u .i ba so'o mentu ko'a tavla le bi'unai selpinxe bevri goi ko'i .i ko'a cusku ®lu .ia do pu bevri lei naldrata ckafi ta vau ?xu li'u¯
  of them do not apply to Lojban,          important to the
<br />.i ko'i cusku ®lu go'i .o'unairo'a .u'uro'a li'u¯
  some do not apply to Lojban as            translation.
<br />.i ko'a cusku ®lu ko .i'i na jikca dunku .i mi puzuze'u se jibri loinu bevri loi selpinxe vi lo gusta .iseki'ubo mi djuno tu'a le do se zukte .i da poi prenu cu genai pinxe lei ckafi gi pencu le kabri gi'e na'e djica tu'a lei ckafi ki'u lo za'i na'e pe'ise'inai glare .ije semu'i loinu da minde mi lenu basti lei ckafi loi glare ckafi kei kei mi lebna lei ckafi gi'e na'o denpa fu'i so'e mentu tezu'e lenu tu'a lei ckafi cu glaryri'a le kabri kei fo lenu krefu dunda lei naldrata ckafi .i za'a do panra zukte .i la'ede'u ve ctuca fu tu'a le slabu lisri be le bebna seljibri ka'u li'u¯
  it would be used in an MT            For example, the English
<br />.i ko'i cusku ®lu le lisri ki'a li'u¯
  application, and some are simply          phrase "ship which is
<br />.i ko'a cusku ®lu .ue do punai ?xu ve lisri fu ri li'u¯
  irrelevant, or at best matters            faster than light", which
<br />.i ®lu noroi ve lisri li'u¯
  of opinion.                               may also be expressed as
<br />.i ®lu .ai mi te lisri .i tu'e ka'u da'i puzuki da te bende le re seljibri .i fo'a goi le te bende ca le fanmo be le jeftu cu pleji le se jerna le re seljibri no'u lu'i le prije seljibri goi fo'e ge'u jo'u le bebna seljibri goi fo'i .i le se jerna cu rupnu li panono .ijesemu'ibo fo'a pleji lei jdini be ta'i le pelji jdini fo'e .e fo'i .i fo'e ckire fo'a gi'ebabo cliva gi'e gleki ki'u lenu le jdini cu se vamji li su'orau
    In some matters of opinion,            "faster-than-light ship".
<br />.i fo'i na'e gleki .i cusku ®lu .o'onai mi to'e lazni gunka fi'o te bende do ca piro le jeftu .i do pleji levi malpelji .i'enaisai mi .i le'o ko pleji fi mi fe le je'u je'a jdini no'u lo sicni li'u¯ .isemu'ibo fo'a pleji fo'i lo gusminra sicni poi se fepni li mu .iseki'ubo fo'i gleki klama le fo'i zdani tu'u
        there is not always an              Does an interlingua for MT
<br />.i tu'a di'u xe ctuca fi ledu'u jdice nagi'apubo e'ucai zgana .i .ua ri'a je'unai ka'u le sego'i zo "za'a" noi cmavo fi lesi'o zgana ku'o cu rafsi zo zabna li'u¯
        'ironclad' method of                need the capability to
        refuting them. The rule-          separately distinguish the
        counting game is an                two forms, which probably
        example, since comparing            mean almost identical
        rule counts is so                   things, if not totally
        dependent on how they are          identical in meaning?
        stated, and what features          This is a design decision,
        of the language are                not a theory decision. If
        included in the not-yet-            the target language offers
        designed Lojban machine            equivalent forms to the
        translation system. Which          two English variations,
        rules would be used is              then preserving the form
        going to be determined by          of the original is
        the MT system designer              valuable in achieving a
        based on factors that are          natural-seeming style in
        not knowable now.                   the output of the
    Lojban features such as the            translation. If merely
        tense system each reflect          the information is to be
        things that occur in                transferred, then such
        natural languages, and to          stylistic preservation is
        eliminate one means that            wasted. Lojban has rules
        the translator will have            that support both forms.
        to use software to                  An MT system designer that
        simplify or paraphrase in          did not care to support
        translation into Lojban,            both forms could easily
        though it might then                leave out one rule from
        simplify the processing            the Lojban interlingua.
        out of Lojban thereafter,          But in a 10-language
        when the Lojban has to be           system, this potentially
        processed.                         means that you must write
    Indeed in writing this last            10 input processors to
        sentence, I realize that I          decide that such ordering
        believe the opposite of            information is to be
        Rick. The basis of an              simplified out into the
        interlingua-based MT                single remaining Lojban
        system is to minimize              (or other interlingua)
        language-specific                  form, and then you need 10
        processing for source and          output processors that
        target languages, which            will decide based on some
        processing expands at a             criteria which of two or
        higher degree polynomial            more output forms in the
        of the number of languages          target language will
        in a non-interlingua                reflect the single Lojban
        system. An interlingua            form. Clearly, in such a
        which is ultra-simplified          situation, an
        requires that the source            oversimplified Lojban or
        language be paraphrased in          other interlingua
        an ultra-simplified manner          increases the processing
        which may lose significant          required.  The better
        information that could be          interlingua is the one
                                            that can convey the
                                            maximum amount of complex


                                  42
<references>
        information across the      mailing list
<ref name=bi >Lojbab: This text uses "bi'u" and "bi'unai" which are not on any published word lists yet with the current meaning. They are used to discursively to mark pieces of the sentence as 'new information' or 'old information'. New information is that which the speaker is trying to communicate to the listener, while old information is that which the speaker assumes that the listener knows from background or context. Normally this distinction is conveyed in natural languages through word order (putting new information either at the beginning or the end of the sentence, typically, depending on the language and the situation), but people want to have the option in Lojban of using word order for other purposes including simply expressing the place structures in numerical order. Marking a "le" description sumti as new information on its first occurrence in text, for example, means that the speaker has a specific and definite someone/- something in mind, but that he doesn't expect the listener to know which someone/something is being referred to at that point. Without "bi'u", the listener might wonder why he can't figure out which one the speaker is talking about.</ref>
        language boundaries.        "linguist@tamsun.tamu.edu", Lojbab
</references>
    As an example of one of Rick's  wrote:
----
        claims that is an ir-
        refutable argument, look    Michael Kac says:
        at the claim that natural    On the basis of unsystematic
        languages are too complex    observation and impressionistic
        to be modelled by a          judgements which are confirmed
        logical language. If        by all other linguists I've
        there is more that I am      consulted, it would appear that
        missing, I apologize.  But    the view that one's world view
        this is an argument by as-    is determined by the language
        sertion, since Rick has      one speaks is nearly universally
        not posed any specific        accepted by educated people who
        natural language feature      aren't linguists.
        that cannot be modelled by 
        a logical language - he      I'll concur, as well, and my
        has merely argued from     primary interaction is with such
        assumptions. That these    people. The exceptions to this are
        assumptions are plausible  correlated with politics, with
        does not mean that they    some people (usually 'left')
        are correct.  While Rick    considering linguistic relativism
        states that logical        to be racist. However, even these
        analysis has failed in the people are inconsistent, since the
        case of Montague grammar    arguments about gender and pro-
        semantics, another poster  nouns/language-gender (including
        noted that Montague        the recent one on Linguist List)
        grammars have been used in inherently assume some form of
        MT systems.                 language effect on world-view, or
    Whether natural languages are  it wouldn't make any difference.
        too complex to be modelled  Note that the occasionally emotive
        by a logical language is    arguments in this latter dis-
        probably indeterminate.    cussion shows that even linguists
        For every example Rick      may to some extent assume what
        poses, I may be able to    they claim they don't.
        find a counter, but this      Factors in the continuing belief
        does not stop him from      include:
        claiming that there are
        many more that I have not    a) what people mean by 'world
        covered.                    view' and 'determined' is
    Since Lojban does not embed    different. Sapir-Whorf is
        any particular semantic    generally understood to have
        theory into its design,    strong and weak versions, with the
        attacking Montague          strongest form almost certainly
        grammars doesn't say much  false because translation IS
        about Lojban anyway.  To    possible, and the weakest form
        say that our design is     true to the point of triteness.
        inadequate, you have to      b) the field of semiotics is
        show how it fails.  Rick    heavily dependent on assuming
        has not.  I would contend  linguistic relativism, and most
        that he cannot, without    educated people are more exposed
        getting much deeper into    to literary criticism than
        the Lojban design than he  linguistic theory.
        probably cares to.            c) the continuing identification
                                    of political issues with the
  Discussions on the Sapir-Whorf    linguistic relativity assumption.
            Hypothesis              As such, people are continually
                                    exposed to the assumption in daily
  In a discussion of Sapir-Whorf    life without it being explicitly
on the Linguist List linguistic    identified as a hidden assumption.


                                  43
Iain:
  d) I believe certain areas of    conducted in the 50s truly settled
anthropological linguistics still  the issue.  Supporters of the
accept Sapir-Whorf to some extent,  hypothesis seem to think that
especially where the researcher is  linguists abandoned the issue ei-
in the anthropology department      ther because they could not prove
rather than the linguistics dept.  it one way or the other, or
My source of this is Reed Riner at  because the idea became unfash-
U. of No. Arizona, but I think I    ionable or even non-P.C. with the
heard something similar from John  rise of Chomsky's ideas.
Atkins who was at U. of              If unambiguously true, the
Washington.                        hypothesis itself is uninter-
  I've used the phrase 'linguistic  esting.  Until the bounds of its
relativity' because when actually  truth are explored, the philo-
pinned down, many people will say  sophical implications will
that they aren't sure whether      continue to be profound.
language determines world-view or    I think there is some
vice versa, but that there is      considerable correlation in atti-
obviously a relation.              tude on linguistic relativity and
                                    language prescriptivism.  In the
  I guess I don't find that        latter area as well, linguists
  particularly strange (a lot of    tend to have a considerable dis-
  my friends, however, consider ME  agreement with the educated-
  extremely strange for being      populace-at-large, who consider it
  skeptical on this point);        a truism that there is a right way
                                    to speak and use a language and
  The Loglan (artificial language)  other usages are wrong.  This as-
project has the goal (among        sumption is also considered
others) of testing the 'Sapir-      'obvious', and when its fallacies
Whorf hypothesis'.  Those of us    and philosophical implications are
working on the project, linguists  pointed out, also considered pro-
or not, are assumed by many to      found.
'believe in' the SWH, though we    __________________________________
are predominantly agnostic or                    _______
skeptical like you.  I think it is                 
again an unquestioning assumption  A lively debate ensued, partly in
that the concept holds, with        response to these comments.
little analysis of the             
implications, that leads to this    Niko Besnier, Department of
assumption.                        Anthropology, Yale University
                                    <UTTANU@YALEVM.BITNET> replied:
  I do find it somewhat odd that
  people who accept this view seem    The reason why linguistic
  to think that it is (a)          anthropologists "still" believe in
  obviously correct, and (b)        some version of the Sapir-Whorf
  profound, a contradiction in      Hypothesis (SWH) is not that they
  terms.  I welcome further data    know less about language than
  and insights.                    mainstream linguists (many fields
                                    have much to say about language,
                                    and it is a delusion to think that
  Again, I think people assume the  any one field has a monopoly on
concept to be obviously correct in  the subject), but that they focus
some 'weak' form and also intu-    on language in a different way
itively realize that it breaks      from linguists.  The prototypical
down in some stronger form.        anthropological paradigm focuses
  The profundity is due to the      on diversity, on the particular,
never-ending political and          and builds theory on the
philosophical implications of the  particular, looking at, for
assumed-true concept.  That the    example, relational patterns
hypothesis isn't even well stated  between the particular in language
means that none of the tests        and the particular in society and


                                  44
.i bazi lenu mi'a simxu lenu rinsa kuku lo nanmu poi nanca li so'a cu klama pu'e le na'e sirji ne'i le barja gi'e co'a zutse ca'u mi
culture. This contrasts with the  are in fact very different from
avowed universalism extant in most  areas that Whorf is usually said
linguistic paradigms.  Having been  to have claimed to be
"brought up" in the latter          deterministic.  I'd point to work
paradigm, to then move to some      like that of Elinor Ochs as
version of the former, I am at a   example of where determinism is to
loss to decide that one is          be found between language and
"better," more intellectually      habitual thought: the shape of,
worthwhile, etc., than the other.  even the presence/absence of baby
I doubt that mud-slinging          talk in a speech community,
("butterfly collector!"            provides a pretty strong
"universalist-schmuniversalist!")  deterministic "lesson" to language
will get either field very far.    acquirers about the relationship
  There is room for the SWH in a    between structure (= institutions)
particularistic approach to        and agency (= person) extant in
language. But what it has to be    the society, i.e. about the type
grounded on is a careful reading    of things that social theorists
of poor Whorf, who must be on the  worry about.
most misread (unread?) thinkers of    This posting is already too
the century. Interpretations of    long, but I'd like to point to
Whorf extant amongst mainstream    Alan Rumsey's (1990) paper,
linguists have little to do with    "Wording, Meaning, and Linguistic
what Whorf actually wrote, and      Ideology," American Anthropologist
this had led linguists to call the  92:346-361, for an excellent
man by all sorts of names (e.g.    discussion of where Whorfianism
"weekend linguist" - Geoffrey      works.
Pullum in NLLT).  It is telling,   
for example, that in my linguistic  __________________________________
training at two institutions I was                ______
never required to read a single                     
original text by Whorf.  To a      [Bruce Nevin gave a very detailed
certain extent this is under-      and informative discussion of the
standable, since Whorf wrote in an  Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis.  He has
opaque, dense style.                given us permission to publish the
  John Lucy ("Whorf's view of the  entire text which is part of a
linguistic mediation of thought,"  longer work-in-progress.  The I,
in Semiotic Mediation, ed. by      II, and III perspectives listed in
Elizabeth Mertz & Richard          the text are not his but as cited.
Parmentier, Academic P, 1985)      Following is Bruce's relevant
shows that one of the important    background.
aspects of the SWH missing from      Bruce Nevin received his AB and
laypersons' accounts (i.e.          AM degrees in linguistics from the
accounts by those who have not      University of Pennsylvania in 1969
read Whorf) is that Whorf is not    and 1970.  From 1970 through 1974
talking about determinism by all    he did extensive fieldwork on
of language of all aspects of      Achumawi, a Hokan language spoken
world view.  Rather, fashions of    in the northeastern corner of
speaking determine habitual        California.  He resumed PhD ma-
thought.  Fashions of speaking are  triculation at the University of
broad patternings of grammatical    Pennsylvania in 1987, intending to
categories and discourse            use the Achumawi material in the
strategies in a language, across    dissertation.  He has been em-
what Whorf calls overt and covert  ployed as a writer by Bolt Beranek
categories.  Areas of language      and Newman (BBN) in Cambridge,
where one should seek "weak"        Massachusetts since 1982.
determinism (the strong version of    The following is Copyright 1991
determinism was never advocated by  by Bruce Nevin, <bn@bbn.com>.]
Whorf, but by subsequent linguists 
who never seem to have read Whorf)


                                  45
.i le nanmu goi ko'a cusku le se du'u ri puzi se gunta lo puzu respa pe la'o ly. saurischia ly.  .i ®lu .iku'i loi respa pe la'edi'u cu puzu ji'esti li'u¯ se cusku mi
  I want to outline the views of      in which different societies
Sapir and of Whorf on linguistic      live are distinct worlds, not
and cultural relativism as I          merely the same world with
understand them and survey some of    different labels attached."
what has been done with these
ideas, both as deriving explicitly    It was in this sense that he
from their writings and as arising  made his famous assertion "The
from less clearly articulated      fact of the matter is that the
cultural and intellectual an-      'real world' is to a large extent
tecedents that it is difficult for  unconsciously built up on the
any of us not in some measure to    language habits of the group."
share as we grapple with            (Preceding quotations all loc.
universals and idiosyncrasies of    cit.)
language and culture.                The core of the matter for
  These ideas arose for Sapir in    Sapir, however, was an iden-
the context of his work on          tification of language,
language typology on the one hand  specifically grammatical cate-
and psychology on the other.  In    gories, with thought:
the background lay social
Darwinism, or at least the            "I quite frankly commit myself
pervasive evolutionist perspective    to the idea that thought is im-
of 19th-century anthropology, and    possible without language, that
in this respect Sapir's interest      thought is language."  (In a
here was a continuation of Boas'     letter of 8 April 1921 keeping
restitution of "primitive" lan-      Lowie abreast of progress on the
guages as on an equal footing with    manuscript of Language; quoted
the languages of familiar literate    in Darnell 1990:99.)
cultures, and an all-important
entree into "the network of          In other places, Sapir severely
cultural patterns of a              divorces language from culture,
civilization," which "In a sense    but in this he appears to mean
... is indexed in the language      material culture, the "inventory"
which expresses that                of cultural artefactsThe
civilization."  (1929:162)          correlation of these things with
  In his conception of the          associated vocabulary he regarded
relation of language, personality,  as trivial.2
culture, and "the world," Sapir        Whorf may have been a
distinguished between social        Theosophist.  His philosophical
reality:                            interests attracted him to Sapir
                                    and to linguistics, and his
  "Language is a guide to `social  fascination with the "hidden
  reality.' ... it powerfully con-  metaphysics" of languages remained
  ditions all our thinking about    always the central thing for him,
  social problems and processes    for which the tools of linguistics
  ... the world of social activity  were subordinate means.  From the
  as ordinarily understood"1


and objective reality, as had      ____________________
.i ®lu .ila'aru'e go'i .iboku'i simlu fa lenu noda ve cilre la'edi'u fo ra cu'usa'a ko'a
Durckheim and others, and affirmed
of the former that:                2Darnell (1990:434 n) says:
                                    Sapir's strongest relativity
  "No two languages are ever        statement was a brief note titled
  sufficiently similar to be        "Conceptual Categories of
  considered as representing the    Primitive Languages," an abstract
  same social reality. The worlds  of a paper read to the National
                                    Academy of Sciences in 1931.  This
____________________                was published only after his
1Hoijer, in the 1953 conference    death.  Her bibliography lists it
proceedings, adduces passages of a as appearing in Science 74:578.  I
similar sort in the writings of    have not seen it and cannot
Boas.                              comment.


                                  46
.i lenu mi'a simxu lenu kansa cu nanca li reno
point of view of an emerging          organization which may concen-
profession, then, he was quite        trate systematically upon
literally eccentric, in that          certain phases of reality, cer-
specific sense. His ideas began      tain aspects of intelligence,
to crystallize with preparation to    and may systematically discard
teach a course at Yale during        others featured by other
Sapir's leave in 1937-38.  His in-    languages.  The individual is
tention was to "excite [students']    utterly unaware of this
interest in the linguistic            organization and is constrained
approach as a way of developing      complete within its unbreakable
understanding of the ideology of      bonds."  (256)
other peoples" (letter to Spier).
He would focus on "a psychological    Since:
direction, and the problems of:
                                      "if a rule has absolutely no
  "meaning, thought and idea in      exceptions, it is not recognized
  so-called primitive cultures,"      as a rule or as anything else;
  aiming to "reveal psychic          it is then part of the
  factors or constants" and the      background of experience of
  "organization of raw experience    which we tend to remain un-
  into a consistent and readily      conscious.
  communicable universe of ideas
  through the medium of linguistic    In the background always is
  patterns" (to Carroll; both      Theosophy, as in The Voice of the
  quoted in Darnell 1990:381).      Silence:


  Whorf developed his ideas about    The mind is the great slayer of
.i mi co'aki kurji ko'e goi le respa ca lenu ri ca'o citno
  linguistic relativity during        the real."  (Quoted on p. 253)
  Sapir's illness and elaborated
  it after his death, so Sapir        His views were recast in terms
  never had a chance to comment.    more acceptable to prevalent
  Whorf died in 1941 at the age of  conceptions of operational test
  forty-four, leaving less          and verification, as by Eric
  sympathetic colleagues to pursue  Lenneberg in 1953, summarized by
  the implications of his work.    Roger Brown (Reference:  In
  (Darnell 1990:375)                Memorial Tribute to Eric
                                    Lenneberg, Cognition 4:125-153):
  Sapir had confined the
constitutive role of language to        I. Structural differences
social reality. Whorf went            between language systems will,
farther, and developed the claim      in general, be paralleled by
that:                                nonlinguistic cognitive dif-
                                      ferences, of an unspecified
  "It is the grammatical              sort, in the native speakers of
  background of our mother tongue,    the two languages.
  which includes not only our way
  of constructing propositions but    II. The structure of anyone's
  the way we dissect nature and      native language strongly influ-
  break up the flux of experience    ences or fully determines the
  into objects and entities to        world-view he will acquire as he
  construct propositions about."      learns the language. (p. 128)
  (1956:239)
                                      Behind this was the assumption
  The identification of language    (presumably "part of the
and thought takes an adversative    unconscious background" of every
twist:                              student in the Boas-Sapir
                                    tradition, and indeed of virtually
  "[T]hinking ... follows a        everyone as has been argued on the
  network of tracks laid down in    LINGUIST list) that:
  the given language, an


                                  47
.i mi jinvi ledu'u le mamta be ko'e cu morsi ba'o lo nanca be li so'o .ije cumki fa lenu ko'e romoi lu'i le jutsi
  III. Languages, and hence        other than color perception, in
  cognitive systems, can vary      particular domains (they mention
  without constraint.              religion) where characteristics of
                                    peripheral neural mechanisms like
  Proposition II has generally      those of color perception have no
been presumed to be untestable      bearing.
because of the identification of      A parallel tradition of research
language and any means of          into aspect I of the hypothesis
communicating one's world-view.    has been carried out primarily by
Attempts to verify or falsify the  psychologists, and Kay and Kempton
hypothesis have concerned          (1984) is a continuation of this.
themselves either with I or III    They cite Brown and Lennebert
(with indirect evidence for II      1954, Burnham and Clark 1955,
sought from III).  It would be in-  Lenneberg 1961, Lantz and Stefflre
teresting to see a resumption of    1964, and Stefflre, Castillo, and
attention to II; e.g. employing    Morely 1966.  This line of
techniques developed for study of  research seeks a correlation
non-human communication.            between a linguistic variable
  A conference organized by Robert  (codability and communication
Redfield in 1953 drew together a    accuracy) and a nonlinguistic
relatively small number of lin-    cognitive variable (memorability)
guists and anthropologists with    within a single language, and is
the aim of defining problems        thus a weak form of I.
related to the hypothesis,            After initial claims of success
reviewing work undertaken and      in finding a positive correlation
plans for future work relating to  between the memorability of a
it, and attempting to establish a  color and its value on a
minimal framework of institutional  linguistic variable, Rosch showed
support for these research inter-  that both memorability and the
ests. Their proposals concerned    combined variable of codability
mostly methods for getting at I.    and accuracy of communication is
Their conclusions were cautious,    determined universally by focality
as noted above, in keeping with    or perceptual salience.  The
the temper of the times.            assumption that the linguistic
  Kay and Kempton (AA 86:66),      variables of codability and
perhaps somewhat parochially but    communication accuracy differ
truthfully as regards empirical    across languages (III again) was
research, claim that most of this  falsified by this research, and
research has been in the domain of  therefore any correlation between
color.  They give citations of      memorability and a linguistic
work bearing on III beginning      variable was not relevant to the
about the time of the Redfield      hypothesis.  Lucy and Shweder
conference (Ray 1952, Conklin      determined that the problem of
1955, Lenneberg and Roberts 1956,  focality or salience was an
Gleason 1961, Bohannan 1963), and  artefact of how the color chips
probably the best known study,      were presented, and devised an
their own (Berlin and Kay 1969).    array by repeatedly re-randomizing
They remark that "studies before    chips from the initial array so
1969 tended to support III; those  that there is no relation between
since 1969 have tended to          focality and findability. By this
discredit III" (loc. cit.)  They    means they have reinstated the
accept the finding of Kay and      earlier correlation in favor of I
McDaniel (1978) explaining uni-    with respect to color categories.
versal constraints in color        There remain problems of
classification in terms of the      interpretation and relevance to
neurophysiology of human color      the broader aims of the
vision, and discrediting III with  enterprise, as unfortunately often
respect to color.  They affirm of  happens in narrowly empirical
course that research into II and    work.
III is an open matter for domains


                                  48
.i le pendo be mi zu'apu kurji ko'e gi'eku'i puzi co'a speni gi'e gasnu lenu cfari fa lenu lanzu kuku gi'e jinvi ledu'u vo'a na kakne lenu tu'ari xamgu ko'e ca lenu xamgu le lanzu
  Research of a broader sort has    practical techniques of reframing
gone on in many fields. In social  and use of metaphor, and an
and cultural anthropology it is    understanding of human systems in
difficult to find anything that is  cybernetic terms, as therapy
absolutely irrelevant to the        (particularly the field of family
Whorf-Sapir hypothesis, though the  therapy).
latter can be made irrelevant to      Lastly, I must mention the
some forms of anthropological work  resurgence of feminism in all its
essentially by legislating a        many forms, especially as a
rather narrowly realist, anti-      scholarly concern in anthropology.
constructivist perspective for        I will describe in a little more
science.  Among clearly relevant    detail a new test of aspect I of
issues I name questions of sym-    the hypothesis devised by Kay and
bolism, including especially money  Kempton (1984) so as not to be so
and symbols of political and/or    restricted in interpretive scope
religious stature, magic and cargo  as the previous communicability/-
cults, studies of kinship systems  codability studies had been.
and their role in the construction  Speakers of Tarahumara (a Uto-
of interpersonal and social        Aztecan language of northern Mexi-
relations, and work in social cat-  co) lack the basic lexical
egories.  To this must be added    distinction between green and blue
work of more obviously linguistic  (as do various other languages,
nature, such as projection of      including Achumawi).  Aspect I of
prehistoric cultures from          the hypothesis predicts that
reconstructed proto-languages,      speakers of English will polarize
Studies of the bases of prejudice,  their perceptions near the border
of stereotyping, and of national    of green and blue, but speakers of
character in a more genuine sense  Tarahumara will not.3  In the
(as pioneered by Gregory Bateson)  first experiment, English-
... the list is seemingly endless.  speaker's judgements reflected the
  The fields of ethnolinguistics    division of green against blue in
and sociolinguistics, themselves    29 trials out of 30; Tarahumara
extremely broad and diversified    speakers responded even-handedly
(and themselves polarized rather    with 13 out of 24, extremely close
as the right and left hemispheres  to a 50-50 split, vindicating the
of the brain of the archetypal      hypothesis.
anthropological linguist), have      These experiments involve
obvious bearing on the hypothesis.  discriminating among three chips.
Hymes has urged a reinterpretation  In the first experiment, the
of the hypothesis, investigating    subject had an opportunity to
patterns of language use rather    assign a color name to the
than of language structure per se.  intermediate chip, and this may
  The perhaps contentiously named  have prejudiced the later step of
field of cognitive linguistics has  the experiment, when the alternate
a strong constructivist bent.      comparison was made.  The second
Work in psycholinguistics in        experiment made the comparisons
general often has clear bearing,    with the three chips adjacent in a
though the direction of interest    box with a sliding cover that
(and funding) to linguistic
universals has tended to obscure    ____________________
investigation of linguistic        3This phenomenon of polarization,
idiosyncrasies that might          by the way, is the reason speakers
correlate with cognitive            of English can disagree so
differences.                        strongly about the assignment of
  From Bateson's work on            marginal colors to either green or
communication and learning and in  blue.  A slight difference in
particular the discovery of the    idiosyncratic placement of the
double bind in relation to these    boundary makes a large difference
have developed lines of clinical    in categorization. This would
research that have developed        provide the basis of an
                                    interesting study relating to I.


                                  49
.isemu'ibo le go'i cpedu lenu mi curmi lenu basti fi lenu bilga lenu kurji ko'e
covered the chip on one end. In    the conventional categories of
the setup stage, the subject        one's shared language and culture.
agrees that the middle chip is        In formal linguistics, Zellig
greener with respect to one chip,  Harris and his co-workers have
and then that it is bluer than the  come full circle to the work on
other.  It thus has both names      information structures in
associated with it when the        discourse that opened the whole
subject is invited to alternate    field of transformational grammar.
views as often as desired, and      Harris, Ryckman, Gottfried et al.
judge which difference is greater.  The Form of Information in Science
In this experiment the              (1990) develops a representation
polarization effect disappears.    of the information immanent in a
  This accords with an              body of texts written over a span
interpretation by categorization    of years in the history of a sub-
(experiment 1) versus an            field of a science (immunology).
interpretation by discrimination    Changes in this structure
(experiment 2).  An exact parallel  correlate transparently with
could be made with the fact that    historically well-documented
people can discriminate            changes and developmental stages
differences between sounds with    of the science during that period,
indeterminate fineness              although the structure was deter-
(phonetics), but discriminate      mined by clearly defined formal
relevant differences that make a    means and without reference to any
difference in small numbers of      knowledge of that historical
categories (phonemes, contrasts,    context.  In this way, they have
distinctions) and displaying        demonstrated strongly that
characteristic polarization        structures found in the sub-
effects at the boundaries.  A      language of that science (and not
culturally/linguistically          imposed a priori on it) correlate
determined contrast can be re-      on the one hand with aspects of
peated, a difference requiring      the social reality of the science
perceptual discrimination can only  and on the other with the
be imitated.                        structure of the real-world domain
  Kay and Kempton interpret these  which is the concern of that sci-
findings as disconfirming what      ence.
they call radical linguistic          The latter correlation is
determinism, in which "human        reflexive, however, in the sense
beings ... are very much at the    that, as the structure changed, it
mercy of the particular language"  (and the understanding of the
(Sapir, quoted previously).  Be-    scientists writing the original
cause the polarization associated  research reports on which the
with naming can be made to dis-    analysis was done) over time came
appear simply by not naming, we    into closer conformity with a
are not hopelessly at the mercy of  reality whose nature was in
our language.  To this I would add  process of being discovered.
that it is difficult to do many    Before that change and that
sorts of things cooperatively with  concurrent discovery, certain
other human beings or with social  characteristics of reality could
consequence and recognition        not be stated or thought;
without employing the categories    afterward, they could.  But the
inherent in language.  The excep-  discovery and the change in
tions, it seems to me, are in the  structure were simultaneous
realms of art, of religion, of      (though of course the writing down
play and creativity.  These are    for publication was not).  No
the domain of the pleroma in        better confirmation of Sapir's
Bateson's terms, the realm of      intuition of the essential unity
cybernetic explanation, as opposed
to the creatura, the realm of
forces and impacts dealt with in


                                  50
.i mi je'a curmi .ijeja'ebo kiku nu'i bi'ogi ca la'edi'u gi caku dunda loi cidja .e loi djacu ko'e
of language and thought could be    to come to recognize and un-
offered by one of his students.4    derstand, and not possible to
  To illustrate this point          communicate; she claims that with
further, I should like to adduce a the proposed new terminology it
recent contribution to the          is.5
enormous literature in the study      Thus, while providing an
of kinship categories, always a    illustration of Whorfian effects
favorite topic in anthropological  within a sub-field of a science,
linguistics.  Wierzbicka, in        she proposes to overcome such
Semantics and the interpretation    effects by devising a perfect
of cultures:  the meaning of        metalanguage for that sub-field.
'alternate generations' devices in  Since the sub-field concerns an
Australian languages, proposes a    area that is by nature a matter of
new set of metalanguage terms for  social convention and so in social
discussing the alternate sets of    reality rather than physical
pronouns used in many Australian    reality (to make that Durckheimian
languages.  She urges that the      distinction again), she may be
terminology of "generation          able to get away with it.  I do
harmony" and "disharmony" that has  not doubt the creativity of human
become traditional in anthropology
is arcane and psychologically ar-  ____________________
bitrary, does not capture native    5This is part of Wierzbicka's
speakers' meaning and does not      ongoing work on natural language
make that meaning accessible to    semantics based, ultimately, on a
people from other cultures, and    proposed set of universal semantic
claims that her new terminology    primitives, including:  I, you,
provides a better fit.  This work  this, someone, something, want,
illustrates a Whorfian effect in    don't want, say, think of,
the sub-language of a spe-          imagine, know, become, part,
cialization within the science of  place, and world (Wierzbicka,
anthropology. With the            Semantic Primitives (1972), Lingua
traditional terminology, aspects    Mentalis (1980).  Be it noted that
of aborigine culture are difficult  Harris denies there can be a lin-
                                    gua mentalis or any metalanguage
____________________                external to natural language.  For
4The confirmation is equivocal,    one thing, were there such one
however, since the work clearly    would need to account for the
demonstrates (as Harris stated at  grammar and semantics of that
the end of Mathematical Structures  metalanguage, and off we go in an
of Language (Wiley, 1968)) that    infinite regress of grammatical
language is not identical with      and semantic metalanguages.  For
thought but instead provides a      another, Harris has demonstrated
rather rigid channel for thought.  that the information structures
This corresponds precisely to the  immanent in texts account
observation above that the          precisely for the information that
discovery and the language for      the texts report, so that, like
talking about it co-evolved.  By    LaPlace, he has no need for this
using this term I refer            additional hypothesis.  But
specifically to the common          Wierzbicka's proposal here,
misperception regarding biological  however it may be guided by her
evolution that e.g. eohippus        broader theoretical interests,
evolved into the horse in response  concerns only a sub-language of
to environmental changes, when one  English serving as metalanguage
must instead acknowledge eohippus  for a sub-field of anthropology,
and its pre-grasslands environment  and as such is unobjectionable.
co-evolved into the horse and its  The semantics of this sub-language
grasslands environment.  Synec-    inhere in its informational
doche is fallacious in both cases.  structures, per Harris, rather
The claim, then, is of the unity,  than in its use of vocabulary from
but not identity of language and    a supposedly universal lingua
thought.                            mentalis.


                                  51
.ijebo satre ko'e .ijebo fi lenu cadzu cu kansa fe ko'e
cultures, however, and would build  hypothesis, we tested only one
in means for the sub-language to    question:  Do the lexical
evolve.                             categories of a language affect
  An abiding interest of Harris,    non-linguistic perceptions of its
as of his teacher Sapir, has been  speakers to a non-trivial extent?
the question of refinements and    (P. Kay & W. Kempton, "What is the
possibly extensions of natural      Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis?", American
language that foster international  Anthropologist, vol 86, No. 1,
scientific communication.  In his  March 1984.)
analysis, language-particular        Considering the complexities of
characteristics due to the          prior research efforts, our
reduction system (extended morpho-  primary experiment was simple:
phonemics) of one language or      Present three color chips (call
another are partitioned from        them A, B, C) to speakers of two
operator-argument structures that  languages, such that colors A and
`carry' information, which are      B are slightly more different in
remarkably uniform from one lan-    terms of (universal) human visual
guage to another.  This uniformity  discriminability, whereas B and C
becomes very close indeed in the    have a linguistic boundary
grammar of a science sub-language,  separating them in one language
where classifications and          (English) but not the other
selection restrictions are much    (Tarahumara, a Uto-Aztecan lan-
more closely constrained than in    guage).  As noted earlier, the
other domains.  But even in        English speakers chose C as most
nontechnical domains Harris has a  different, whereas the Tarahumara
great deal to say about linguistic  chose A or split evenly (there
universals6, and about the          were actually eight chips and four
distinctions between what is        sets of relevant triads).
universal in language and culture    I'll add a couple of points of
and what is idiosyncratic and      interest that were either buried
therefore pertinent to the Whorf-  in that article, or have not
Sapir Hypothesis.                  appeared in print.  First, as the
__________________________________  speaker of a language subject to
            ________              this perceptual effect, I would
                                    like to report that it is
[One of the researchers on color    dramatic, even shocking.  I
terms mentioned above then posted  administered the tests to
some additional notes on his        informants in Chihuahua.  I was so
research:]                          bewildered by their responses that
                                    I had trouble continuing the first
Willett Kempton                    few tests, and I had no idea
<willett@Princeton.EDU>:            whether or not they were answering
                                    randomly.  In subsequent analysis
  I'm a coauthor of the Kay and    it was clear that they were
Kempton study discussed in several  answering exactly as would be pre-
earlier messages. (I don't follow  dicted by human visual discrim-
this newsgroup regularly, but a    inability, but quite unlike the
colleague passed on the thread.)    English informants.
As pointed out earlier, from the      An informal, and unreported,
tangled cluster of hypotheses      check of our results was more
referred to as the Sapir-Whorf      subjective:  I showed some of the
                                    crucial triads to other English
____________________                speakers, including some who had
6See e.g. Language and Information  major commitments in print to not
(Columbia 1989) and A Theory of    finding Whorfian effects for color
Language and Information (Oxford,  (several of the latter type of
1990), which is a more              informants were available on the
philosophical companion volume to  Berkeley campus, where Kay and I
A Grammar of English on            were).  All reported seeing the
Mathematical Principles (Wiley
1982).


                                  52
.i ca lo'e vanci mi tavla ko'e so'i klesi be lei te cilre be'o ne mu'u le citri be loi jmive be va'o le terdi be'obe'o .e loi jicmu be le saske bele munje poi vanbi ma'a
same effects. We tried various    powerful conversion experience
games with each other and          unlike anything I've experienced
ourselves like "We know English    in my scientific career.  Perhaps
calls these two green and that one  this all just goes to affirm
blue, but just looking it them,    Seguin's earlier quote, as
which one LOOKS most different?"    applying to us as both natives and
No way, the blue one was REALLY a  as theorists:
LOT more different.  Again, the
Tarahumara, lacking a lexical        "We have met the natives whose
boundary among these colors,          language filters the world - and
picked "correctly" with ease and      they are us."
in overwhelming numbers.  The
article includes the Munsell chip  __________________________________
numbers, so anyone can look them
up and try this on themselves.     
  Some of the triads which crossed  [One linguist on Linguist List
hue and brightness were truly      added comments to those of Bruce
unbelievable, as it was            Nevin, specifically noting that
perceptually OBVIOUS to us English  Sapir and Whorf did not
speakers which one was the most    necessarily believe in the 'Sapir-
different, yet all the visual      Whorf Hypothesis'.  As noted in
discriminability data were against  JL16, Alexis Manaster-Ramer has
us.  (The article did not mention  become interested in potential
the hue/brightness crossovers for  linguistics research applications
the sake of simplifying the        for Lojban.  This interest derived
argument in print.)                in part as a result of these dis-
  Our second experiment, like the  cussions.]
original visual discrimination     
experiments, showed only two chips  Alexis Manaster-Ramer writes
at a time.  We additionally made    <Alexis_Manaster_Ramer@MTS.CC.WAYN
it difficult to use the lexical    E.EDU>:
categories.  And we got visual        In several recent messages there
discrimination-based results, even  are references to Whorf or Sapir
from English speakers.  So there    and Whorf together as having
are ways to overcome our lin-      originated the idea of "human
guistic blinders.  (Which we knew  thinking patterns being relative
already, or the original visual    to the inventory of the available
discriminability work could not    language system" (to quote one
have been done in the first        contributor).  However, like the
place.)  I don't feel that the      story of the Eskimo words for
differences across these tasks was  snow, this story about Whorf and
adequately explored, and represent  Sapir is not factually correct.
a golden opportunity for a            First of all, it was Sapir who
research project or thesis.        fought against such simplistic
  I didn't expect to find this.    language-thought claims of earlier
The experiment was a minor piggy-  scholars such as Uhlenbeck (one of
back on another project.  I        the guys who claimed that certain
believed the literature and the    "primitive" folks don't have the
distinguished scientists who told  same perception of action as we do
me in advance that we wouldn't      because they speak ergative lan-
find anything interesting. The    guages and that some of them also
experiment was going to be dropped  have trouble distinguishing
from the field research, saved by  between themselves and their body
a conversation at a wine party      parts because they speak languages
with a "naive" sociologist (Paul    in which possessors of subjects or
Attewell) who had read Whorf but    objects are sometimes treated as
not the later refutations.          subjects and objects).
  A simple experiment, clear data,    Second, it is true that Whorf
and seeing the Whorfian effect      took for granted (as did almost
with our own eyes:  It was a       everybody else at the time) the


                                  53
.i jetnu fa lenu ko'e na kakne lenu tavla .ijeku'iseki'unaibo mi su'oroi jinvi lenu ko'e jimpe la'e le se cusku be mi li'
idea that the structure of a        in fact to support the Un-Sapir-
language can be taken literally as  Whorf hypothesis. However, it
giving the underlying ontology      should be noted that these results
(not that it causes it, mind you,  do NOT show a causal relation
but that it does reveal it).  We    going from language to cognition.
know for example that Whorf was    Indeed, the often-noted fact that
much impressed with the claims (I  color terminologies seem to become
forget whose at the moment) that    more and more complex as the
Chinese has no relative clauses,    speakers' material culture becomes
only things that were rendered as  more and more complex would argue
Jack build-ish house (i.e., the    for precisely the opposite caus-
house that Jack built).            ality:  People find they need to
  Third, all of Whorf's claims      distinguish more colors because of
about Hopi are quite explicitly of  material, nonlinguistic reasons,
this same variety:  He does not    and then devise the necessary
assert that the structure of the    linguistic means to formalize the
language causes the world view,    distinctions.
merely that it reveals it.  He        I would also like to address
also does not claim this            briefly the question of a
connection between the ontology    connection with Humboldt.  As I
and the language to be a new idea.  noted in my first message on the
He presupposes it.  That is a big  subject of Whorf, Whorf (like most
difference, of course, because      of his contemporaries) PRESUPPOSED
Whorf is often accused of claiming  the existence of a connection be-
such a connection without giving    tween language and cognition, a
any independent evidence about the  connection which Humboldt was one
ontology.  But in fact he did not  of the first (if not the first) to
make any such claims, he merely    make.  The issue is very simple,
assumed that there was such a      really.  Before Humboldt and
connection because everybody        others like him, the standard way
around him assumed it also.  His    of describing languages was in
contribution (as he saw it) was    terms of how they would be glossed
entirely different:  it was to      in some Western metalanguage like
show that the way people view      Latin or Spanish.  This is why
time, events, quantities, etc.,    people were perfectly happy to
can be culture- and hence lan-      describe ergative constructions
guage-specific.                    (in e.g. Greenlandic) or "active"
  What I find particularly          ones (e.g., in Huron and Guarani,
surprising about the need to re-    see Mithun's recent Language ar-
iterate all this is that the        ticle) without noticing anything
relevant writings of Whorf's are    odd.  They would just say that the
all reprinted in a widely          subject and the verb had different
available collection, and that      forms in transitive as opposed to
Sapir's writings are hardly        intransitive constructions.
obscure either.                    People like Humboldt came up with
                                    the revolutionary idea of de-
  _____________________________    scribing languages in their own
                                    terms, which meant that the
                                    superficial patterns of each lan-
  At another point, Alexis also    guage had to be taken at face
wrote:                              value.
                                      Hence, Humboldt's argument that
  I am very grateful to those who  Malayo-Polynesian verbs are really
have written in to note that the    nouns, for example.  Or later
so-called Sapir-Whorf hypothesis    arguments by various people that
was NOT what Whorf (or a fortiori  ergatives are really passives (or
Sapir) maintained.  And also to    other things).  But that then made
those who have written in          it imperative to explain why
reminding us of the results, such  exotic peoples say things that we
the Berlin and Kay ones, that seem


                                  54
.i ®lu .iku'i mu'ima va'o la'e so'odi'u ko'e co'a bradi do li'
would not, e.g., why do they use    a mistaken one" and he cites some
"nouns" instead of verbs or        arguments.
"passives" instead of actives.        Thus, I believe that Whorf made
And the explanation, of course,    a clear distinction between
was that they THINK differently    culture (behavior) and language,
from us as well.  Whorf, like      but he did not make such a
almost all his contemporaries, was  distinction between language and
steeped in this way of thinking,    thought.  As I said before, he
but certainly did not originate    presupposed as did almost everyone
it.  As I noted before, his point  else at the time that if people
to show just HOW EXOTIC languages  speak a certain way then that
could get, and this he tried to do  reflects the way they think.  He
by discussing the Hopi treatment    took it for granted for example
of time, events, and quantities.    that if the Hopis pluralize the
    __________________________      word for cloud (oomaw) the way
                                    that they normally pluralize
Alexis provided evidence for his    animate nouns, then they must
claims in the following:            think of the clouds as animate.
                                      Of course, this view is naive,
  Since many of the readers of      as Joseph Greenberg pointed out in
LINGUIST are from Missouri, I      the fifties, since languages make
thought I would provide some        all sorts of arbitrary
evidence for my recent assertions  distinctions (or fail arbitrarily
that Whorf's position has been      to make them in certain
widely misunderstood.              environments) without any apparent
  In "The relation of habitual      conceptual consequences.
thought and behavior to language",    Essentially, I think the
Whorf says among other things:      connection works one way, namely,
                                    if a language makes a distinction
  "That portion of the whole        which cannot be described in
  investigation here to be re-      purely structural terms, then we
  ported may be summed up in two    must ascribe to the speakers the
  questions:  (1) Are our concepts  ability to perceive or imagine or
  of 'time', 'space', and 'matter' whatever the corresponding
  given in substantially the same  distinction in the world.  Thus,
  form by experience to all men,    when Greenberg points out that
  or are they in part conditioned  nothing important hinges on the
  by the structure of particular    fact that the French use an
  languages?  (2) Are there trace-  ordinal in Napoleon Premier but a
  able affinities between (a)      cardinal in Napolean Deux, that's
  cultural and behavioral norms    OK, because the choice here can be
  and (b) large-scale linguistic    made w/o reference to the world.
  patterns?  (I should be the last  The rule is purely linguistic.
  to pretend that there is          And, of course, this could be the
  anything so definite as "a       case with the Hopi word for cloud
  correlation" between culture and  and its plural.
  language, and especially between    On the other hand, if we find
  ethnological rubrics such as      that speakers of Polish
  'agricultural, hunting', etc.,    systematically use a different
  and linguistic ones like          genitive ending for place-names in
  'inflected', 'synthetic', or      Poland (and other Slavic
  'isolating'."                    countries) than they do for other
                                    place-names, and do so PRO-
  In a footnote on the same page    DUCTIVELY, then it IS reasonable
(p. 139 of the Language, Thought,  to conclude that they are capable
and Reality book), he says em-      of a conceptual distinction
phatically that "The idea of        between Poland (or Slavdom) and
"correlation" between language and  the rest of the world.
culture, in the generally accepted
sense of correlation, is certainly


                                  55
.i ®lu
  The distinction between these    was quite typical for the time
<blockquote>
two kinds of cases is what seems    (though not for the 17 or the 18th
na birti .i noda ru'a jimpe le stura bele menli be lei puzu respa
not to have been entirely clear to  century).
Whorf, and that, as far as I can    _________________________________
see, is where he came to sometimes 
came to grief.                     Finally Alexis wrote, in a fourth
  It is also quite clear that he    posting:
was not claiming any originality
about the relation of language and    Setting aside for the moment the
thought per se, rather he was      question of why so many people
trying to show just how different  continue to insist on attributing
the language/thought of one        to Whorf and Sapir views they did
culture could be from that of an-  not hold (or at least did not ex-
other in the case of such basic    press), I would like to say
ideas as that of time, although he  something about the results which
points out (p 158) that there is    are claimed to support the
not a comparable difference be-    hypothesis that language and non-
tween Hopi and Standard Average    linguistic behavior (behavior, for
European regarding space.          short) exhibit certain close
  As to culture, Whorf was          connections (which people seem to
faithfully following Sapir in      want to interpret as involving
claiming that there is no more      causality going from language to
than an "affinity" between          behavior).
language and culture, but no          (1) Even if we find certain
"correlations or diagnostic cor-    correlations between language
respondences" (p 159).  For, as I  structure and patterns of
noted earlier, Sapir was one of    behavior, this does NOT (as I
the staunchest critics of the late  think I noted earlier) indicate
19th century and early 20th        the direction of causality (as
century linguists who propounded    indeed Whorf himself noted at one
such theories as the "passivity"    point).  The color terminology
of peoples whose languages use the  business shows, if anything, that
ergative constructions, and such    the complexity of a color
like drivel.                        terminology seems to depend on the
  Incidentally, much of what I      complexity of the culture, there
have said about Whorf's intent in  being, for example, no industrial
bringing the Hopi vs. the SAE      or post-industrial cultures whose
treatment of time and matter can    languages use two or three color
also be said about Sapir's work on  terms.  There has also been specu-
the psychological reality of        lation about the fact that the
phonemes.  Today, we emphasize the  lateness of terms for 'blue' may
psychological reality part, but    be connected with the relative
actually in his time, the novelty  scarcity of blue objects (other
was the phoneme.  Claims about      than the ubiquitous sky) in
psychological reality about in the  nature.
second half of the 19th century      This would suggest very strongly
and later (and we find them in all  that the linguistic pattern comes
of Sapir's as well as Bloomfield's  second, as a reflection of a cul-
early writings).  The idea of the  ture's need to make certain
psychological vs. the grammatical  distinctions.
subject after all originated in      (2) All the studies that claim
that period.  And, to take one      to show a connection between
example our of thousands, when      language and behavior that I have
Platt wrote in the 1870's that the  seen mentioned seem to deal with
Urdu speakers perceive certain      two or at any rate a small number
constructions in their language as  of languages, e.g., Tarahumara and
active even though they look        English.  Likewise, I have seen
passive (these are, of course,      studies by Alexander Guiora on
ergatives again!), he was          Hebrew and English and other such
expressing himself in a way which  small sets, which I don't think


                                  56
.i seki'unai la'ede'u mi pupuziki gasnu lenu xendo ko'e
have been cited on LINGUIST so        From this end of your postings,
far. Yet, since the claim being    I'd say that you've made your case
tested is correlation between      that the two did not believe in
linguistic structure and nonlin-    'their' hypothesis, at least
guistic behavior, the relevant      insofar as it is generally
population is languages (not        understood by others.
individual speakers), and you
cannot seriously talk about          (which people seem to want to
correlations for populations of      interpret as involving causality
two (or three or whatever small      going from language to
number is involved).  What we        behavior).
require is a study involving a
dozen or a hundred languages that    I agree that this is not
have the Tarahumara color system    evidenced in the writings.  I note
and a dozen or a hundred that have  by the way that Jim Brown, who
the English one before we can say  invented Loglan, also cites F. S.
anything at all about correlations  C. Northrop (1946) The Meeting of
and things.                        East and West as proposing a
  Having said this, I would        cultural effect of language inde-
predict that we will find such      pendently of the presumed
correlations but I would also      interpretation of S and W, but he
predict that at least some of them  never cites quotes.  I also have
will turn out to have the opposite  read a book in the 80s, The
causality from that suggested (or  Alphabet Effect, by a follower of
a more complex one than either of  McLuhan, that claims cultural ef-
the simple unidirectional ones).    fects from orthography.  Certainly
  Is there anybody out there who    the concept "the medium is the
would like to collaborate on        message" significantly underlies
putting together such a mass        most interpretations of the SWH.
cross-linguistic study?            Perhaps it should be call the
                                    SWMcH %^).
    _______________________          I do not know where John Carroll
                                    fits in the historical setting of
                                    the SWH, whether he knew Whorf or
  Lojbab responded privately to    Sapir, etc.  Carroll WAS involved
Alexis's last message with the      in Jim Brown's formulation of Log-
following:                          lan throughout the 60s and 70s,
                                    and presumably found Brown's
You write:                          assertions to not be inconsistent
                                    with his own writings on SWH.  So
  Setting aside for the moment the  I would ask you whether you
  question of why so many people    believe that Carroll has said
  continue to insist on            anything (presumably in his
  attributing to Whorf and Sapir    comments on the collection of
  views they did not hold (or at    Whorf's essays or elsewhere) that
  least did not express) ...        misinterprets those writings?
                                    Although he is retired, I could
  Note that when we talk about the  ask Carroll to respond.  It seems
Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis in Lojban    that the issue is ripe for such
writings, we are using the common  discussion.
name for the hypothesis, not in
particular attributing the            (1) Even if we find certain
formulation of that hypothesis        correlations between language
that we use to either Sapir or        structure and patterns of
Whorf.  That formulation is of        behavior, this does NOT (as I
course more complex than simple      think I noted earlier) indicate
'cultural relativism', and there      the direction of causality (as
seems to be no other good name,      indeed Whorf himself noted at
much less one that is known to        one point).
people.


                                  57
.i mi'a puzi klama zo'a lo bende be lo xanto .ijeseki'ubo mi mu'i lenu djica lenu fanta lenu damba noi cumki fa lenu ke'a se jalge lenu ko'e se xrani cu cusku ®lu ko se kajde fi tu'a le mabru li'
  Agreed. One reason we are        direction of response should be
</blockquote>
working very hard on Lojban before  easy to measure.
li'u¯ mi'e .i,n.
proposing a specific test is that
we want to be able to predict a      Is there anybody out there who
causal effect of language that is    would like to collaborate on
clearly not part of the cultural      putting together such a mass
milieu. The drastic differences      cross-linguistic study?
between Lojban and natural
languages make it more likely that    I obviously would be interested
we can identify a way to determine  (especially if funding can be
both a relation and a causal        obtained) but note that I can't
effect, if one exists.  This may    contribute much in understanding
then tell us how to look for con-  of the other languages.  I also
firming data in the natural lan-    would like to see such a study,
guages.                            even if it must include colors due
                                    to the popular associations of
  The color terminology business    colors with SWH, find one or two
  shows, if anything, that the      other areas of language that are
  complexity of a color            more believably independent of
  terminology seems to depend on    biology.  I've heard that kinship
  the complexity of the culture,    terms is another area of com-
  there being, for example, no      parison that might be considered.
  industrial or post-industrial    My own preference would be an
  cultures whose languages use two  analysis of words for emotions,
  or three color terms.  There has  emotional expressions, and
  also been speculation about the  linguistic and para-linguistic
  fact that the lateness of terms  ways of expressing emotions, as
  for 'blue' may be connected with  well as perhaps on time and
  the relative scarcity of blue    spatial relations  (e.g. do
  objects (other than the ubiq-    languages with 2 distinctions of
  uitous sky) in nature.            distance in demonstratives this/-
                                    that have any correlations in
  I think that color terminology    culture not found in those having
is the worst place to look for a    three this/that/that yonder?)
SW effect, since it seems patently
obvious that color recognition is    Essentially, I think the
going to be dominated by the basic    connection works one way,
biological process of recognizing    namely, if a language makes a
color which would mask more subtle    distinction which cannot be
linguistic effects.  Indeed, if      described in purely structural
one presumes that biology was        terms, then we must ascribe to
directed by evolutionary              the speakers the ability to
requirements, there may be some      perceive or imagine or whatever
environmental reason that we are      the corresponding distinction in
not aware of that causes certain      the world.  Thus, when Greenberg
colors to seem more basic or          points out that nothing
important than others.                important hinges on the fact
                                      that the French use an ordinal
  This would suggest very strongly    in Napoleon Premier but a
  that the linguistic pattern        cardinal in Napolean Deux,
  comes second, as a reflection of    that's OK, because the choice
  a culture's need to make certain    here can be made w/o reference
  distinctions.                      to the world. The rule is
                                      purely linguistic.  And, of
  I agree that this also occurs in    course, this could be the case
language, and in constructing new    with the Hopi word for cloud and
artificial languages, especially a    its plural. On the other hand,
language like Lojban where nonce      if we find that speakers of
new word creation is easy and        Polish systematically use a
favored, the scope of this


                                  58
== le lojbo se ciska ==
  different genitive ending for    mean the only contribution of his)
  place-names in Poland (and other  I know on this subject).  Let me
  Slavic countries) than they do    reemphasize:  Whorf and Sapir did
  for other place-names, and do so  NOT argue for a correlation
  productively, then it is          between linguistic and
  reasonable to conclude that they  nonlinguistic behavior (although
  are capable of a conceptual      they saw connections) and they
  distinction between Poland (or    simply did not see the question of
  Slavdom) and the rest of the      a correlation between language and
  world.                            thought in the way that we do.
                                    This is NOT to say that, like in
  This sounds like you would see    the case of language and non-
value in finding out what types of  linguistic behavior, they held
productive distinctions are made    there was no correlation. Rather,
in an artificial language where    they did not see clearly that
structure and concept are strongly  there was anything to correlate,
separated and it is relatively      since they assumed that language
easy to recognize native language  and thought go hand-in-hand.  And
reflections (pollutions?) because  this they almost certainly did
of the drastic structural differ-  because the same idea was
ences.  The obvious question is    generally accepted at the time.
where you would look for such      So, I would not say that Sapir and
distinctions.                      Whorf did not believe in the
  Lojban is only one language, but  Sapir-Whorf hypothesis.  Rather
perhaps we might detect            they did not consider it a
correlations between native        hypothesis.
language features and con-            ______________________________
ceptualization in Lojban when
those people learn Lojban.  Do      [Note:  We will endeavor to pass
people with AN structures lose      along to the respective authors
that pattern in a language where    any comments on the above
the AN distinction is blurred (I    discussions that readers may send
find myself in Lojban often ex-    us.]
pressing things in the form of        ______________________________
house-big, as well as big-house,
but would not presume to try to      During the course of the
find any correlations yet?)  My    discussion of the Sapir-Whorf
wife and I have devised several    Discussion, several references
possible experiments related to    were mentioned, which can be added
this concept, but have long fig-    to bibliographies on Sapir-Whorf,
ured that it will be a while        such as those which have appeared
before there's an opportunity to    in previous issues of ju'i
even do a detailed plan, much less  lobypli.  I've collected these
conduct the experiments.            together, sometimes including the
                                    comments of the person who
__________________________________  mentioned the work:
            __________
                                      John Lucy ("Whorf's view of the
                                    linguistic mediation of thought,"
Alexis responded:                  in Semiotic Mediation, ed. by
                                    Elizabeth Mertz & Richard
  Thank you for your extensive and  Parmentier, Academic P, 1985).
thoughtful responses.  ... I would
love to be in touch with Carroll.    Alan Rumsey's (1990) paper,
He certainly knew Whorf, but is    "Wording, Meaning, and Linguistic
not a linguist.  How he interprets  Ideology," American Anthropologist
Whorf is not always clear from his  92:346-361, for an excellent
intro to Whorf's selected writings  discussion of where Whorfianism
(which is his only contribution (I  works.


                                  59
=== le lisri be le serti ===
  There's a nice discussion by       Garro, Linda.  1986.  Language,
by Christo Smirnenski, translated from Bulgarian by Ivan Derzhanski
Roger Brown of the Brown &          memory, and focality:  A
Lenneberg work in his old book      reexamination.  American
Words & Things, in 2 different      Anthropologist 88:128-136.
chapters separated by another
chapter.  There is one article I      Another attempt at an empirical
know of that provides some          test is Alfred Bloom's book The
evidence for the strong version of  Linguistic Shaping of Thought.  He
the hypothesis, by Carroll &        found that Chinese speakers had
Casagrande on object                more difficulty comprehending a
classification by Navaho vs.        text full of counterfactual
Boston suburban kids. It's in an    conditionals than English
early psycholinguistics anthology  speakers, and attributed this to
(Saporta's??)                      the lack of explicit coding of
                                    counterfactuals in Chinese.
  Berlin & Kay's (1969) study of    However, Terry Au and Lisa Garbern
color-term universals was indeed a  Liu in Cognition (1985?)
real breakthrough, although I also  replicated the experiment trying
believe again that it attacked      to avoid cultural bias, and found
what Whorf did not maintain, but    no significant difference.
rather what was imputed to Whorf.
However, there has been work since    A more recent reference on Whorf
then which has examined Berlin &    and color terms is a paper by Paul
Kay (1969) closely, and has come    Kay and Willet Kempton called What
up with some pretty damning        is the Sapir Whorf hypothesis? in
evaluations.  One of the main      American Anthropologist vol. 86,
problems with the study is the      1984.
inaccurate data that it used (but
then again Whorf has been shown to    Brown, R. L. (1967). Wilhelm Von
have misunderstood the structure    Humboldt's Conception of
of Hopi), and the criteria used in  Linguistic Relativity.  The Hague:
determining when a color term is    Mouton.
basic and when it's not, and when
a color is focal or not.  Chapter    Rheingold, H. (1988). They Have
4 of Geoffrey Sampson's (1980)      A Word For It, Los Angeles: Jeremy
School of Linguistics, (Stanford    P. Tarcher, Inc.
University Press) is one reference
that comes to mind.                  Saporta, S. (1960) (Editor)
  There are also pretty careful    Psycholinguistics : A book or
experimental studies on the        readings,  Holt Rinehart.
recognition of and memory for
color terms which have come out in    Newcombe, etc. ?? (1958??)
favor of both Whorfian relativism  (Editors)  Readings in Social
and determinism.  See:              Psychology.
  Lucy, John and Richard Shweder.
1979.  Whorf and his critics:        Vygotsky, Language and Thought
Linguistic and nonlinguistic
influences on color memory.          Kuhn, T. (1960?),  Structure of
American Anthropologist 81:581-    Scientific Revolutions (2nd
615.                                Edit.).
  Lucy, John and Richard Shweder.
1988.  The effect of incidental      Aarsleff, H. (1982). From Locke
conversation on memory for focal    to Saussure. Minneapolis:
colors. American Anthropologist    University of Minnesota Press.
81:923-931.
  The first paper was critiqued by    G. Pullam's book, The Great
Linda Garro (reference below), and  Eskimo Vocabulary Hoax, essays by
the second paper is an answer to    Sir William Jones and by W. D.
Garro:                              Whitney, Carter and Nash's Seeing
                                    Through Language, Coupland's


                                  60
Over a year ago, Ivan made the following translation from a Bulgarian original. Because Nora and I have been so slow at technical review of Lojban text and because JL has been less than regular, this long promised effort is finally making it to print.
Styles of Discourse, and            Finnish Kalevala, the sagas of the
Freeborn's Varieties of English,    Nordic nations, and the myths of
and works by philosophers such as  the Greeks, were not written by
Austin, Searle, Grice, and Stal-    one person at one time.  (Indeed,
naker.                              these stories and poems were not
                                    originally written, but probably
  Helmut Gipper, whose office      transmitted for centuries as oral
sported an oversized poster of      tradition.)  Instead, these are
Einstein formulated an explicit    collections of stories with a
link between the principle of      more-or-less common context.
relativity in theoretical physics    But as with Chaucer and
and a similar principle in          Shakespeare, these collections are
linguistics (Helmut Gipper, Gibt    more than stories; they are among
es ein sprachliches Rela-          the oldest works in their
tivitaetsprinzip?:  Untersuchungen  respective languages and hence
zur Sapir-Whorf-Hypothese, Fischer  serve to define the earliest
1972).                              memory for most speakers of the
                                    language: of how the language was
  The Lojban Kalevala Project      at its earliest known formation.
                                      As a modern example of how
  A most exciting project has      collective authorship in a common
commenced, starting at the first    context can work, the successful
LogFest this year, crystallizing    science fiction/fantasy series
at the second one, and evolving    Wild Cards edited by George R. R.
thereafter on Lojban List.          Martin, shows how people can write
  This project is an attempt to    such stories using each other's
develop a work of coherent          characters as well as a common
original Lojban literature, one    context (later volumes of the
which would have the formative and series show how editing can weave
perhaps normative effects on the    stories written by many indi-
language and its style that        viduals into a seamless novel
various epic works have had on the  which bears the stylistic elements
languages that they were written    of the contributors, but in a way
in.                                where you cannot clearly tell what
  For several years, I've used a    pieces were written by which
reference to Chaucer and his        authors).
Canterbury Tales in describing the    Lojban would be better off with
context for such a project          such a body of stories (indeed it
(Chaucer's work effectively        would become, in a sense, alive,
defined the change from the era of  at that point), and would be
'Old English' to what is now        better served by having the
called 'Middle English), though    stories written by a collective
I've also mentioned Shakespeare    authorship composed of people from
(whose plays similarly gave birth  as broad a cultural spectrum as
to Modern English) in the same      possible.
context.                              At the August LogFest, a concept
  These might serve as good        for such a project was developed,
exemplars of the goal of such a    along with a basis or methodology
project: to make the Lojban        for common authorship.  Lojbab
language come 'alive', but it is   assembled the concept into a
unlikely and probably undesirable  proposal, and posted it to Lojban
for one single author in one        List, getting several people to
single work to set the norms for    express active interest.
Lojban.  We are trying to avoid      The project since has taken off
embedding the ideas of only one    on its own, though possibly in
person or of only one culture as    some ways changing from what was
the basis of Lojban.                originally envisioned at LogFest.
  Thus, when I spotted a better    Lojbab has pretty much stayed out
exemplar, I started using it.  The  of the discussion since then,
                                    except to try to point out the in-


                                  61
As with some of our other texts this issue, a translation may be found later, along with footnoted commentary on the text. This text is being published without final revision. Ivan's original submission was so well done that Nora was able to translate it and understand it as she received it. Her translation was extensively commented by Ivan, who planned to rewrite the text based on the comments. I think that the text we have is good enough to see print, and the commentary and response from Ivan, with added notes from Nick Nicholas and Lojbab, serve as an excellent study in Lojban stylistics and the problems of translation.
terests of people who had no        - First, Veijo Vilva, a Finnish
access to the computer networks,    Lojbanist who has taken a
and hence could not defend their    leadership role in the project,
own interests.  This must be a      briefly summarizes what he sees
project of the community, and not  the project to be, its current
his project.                        status, and where he thinks it
  The people discussing the        should go in the future.
project, have chosen to use more    - Then follows a longer
prosaic names that reflect the      compendium, assembled by Veijo
specifics of the effort, rather    (with some additions by Lojbab),
than the paradigmatic goals.  We    that embodies the essential
will let the project continue with  discussions that have taken place
the several names it has acquired,  in the last several months.
remembering the multi-authored,    - Then follows the first
multi-faceted, multi-cultural      submissions for a collection of
spirit in which it is envisioned.  English language texts written by
  We want all of you who might be  people to serve as descriptions of
interested in this project to      the common context for the
speak up.  Now!  You do not need    writings of the project.  These
to be a original, creative, writer  may serve as examples of what we'd
- another hallmark of these        like to see from people proposing
ancient collections is that many    additional descriptions of
of their stories are retellings of  characters or setting (though
earlier legends and tales,         please don't feel that you have to
sometimes of a different culture    match the sometimes elaborate
(examples: some scholars think      style of these writings).
that the Bible story of Noah and    - Mingled with the English texts
the flood is a retelling of an      (in the order in which they were
earlier story, that of Gilgamesh,  originally posted, since some of
Shakespeare's Julius Caesar was     the stories rely on 'earlier'
obviously built on the legends      texts for information, or react to
that the Romans evolved about that  things mentioned in the earlier
leader, and most of his other      texts) are the most recent
plays had plots plagiarized from    revisions of all Lojban writings
other plays of the Middle Ages -    written by people in conjunction
plays since forgotten because they  with this phase of the project.
did not have the literary power    Some of these writings have been
and influence of Shakespeare.)      attempts to help develop the
  But you don't need to be a        common context in Lojban rather
Shakespeare either in quality or    than in English, some experiments
in volume of work, in order to      in trying to write within the
make a contribution.  You just      context as it is known, and of
need to do the best you can on a    course, all are attempts by the
piece of the whole - a piece whose  authors to improve their own
size and nature you can determine,  Lojban abilities in the best way:
whether it be a paragraph, a poem,  by writing in the language.
a page, or a longer work.  Indeed,    Currently the goal is to define
there is some room for              the common context, and we want as
contribution from people who have-  many inputs as possible for this.
n't yet learned Lojban, in          As noted in the longer
contributing ideas for the common  discussions, we are looking for
setting.  (But we hope that most    text (in English, or in Lojban
people who participate will do so  with English translation for those
with the intention of eventually    who can't easily read Lojban text
writing some Lojban text in        yet) that a) further elaborates
contribution to the project.)      the common setting of the stories,
  The following several pages      a 'coffeehouse' that will be
define the state the project has    defined with rich enough detail
reached in the last few months.     that people can tie their stories
                                    into the common context by


                                  62
(The excellence of Ivan's work should not be doubted merely because of the number of footnotes. The stylistic discussions in these footnotes consist of Ivan's explanations of subtle distinctions in the original Bulgarian that are not captured in Nora's translation. I felt that presenting these discussions would teach a fair amount about the language, while showing some of the stylistic considerations that go into an excellent translation, considerations that need not apply when, like Veijo or Mark, you write originally in Lojban.)
referencing these hooks, and b) to  quarterly rate).  This may make
define the major common characters  the proposal moot, or may cause it
that can be used (so long as non-  to be a longer-term milestone that
destructively and consistently      will occur only when the Lojban
with the provided details) by any  community is large enough that
writer who wants to contribute.    people write enough text to
  We need you to act immediately    support a separate journal, and
and send us your ideas (on paper,  enough people are interested in
diskette, or via email).  JL18      reading such text to make a
(current deadline March 5) will    journal economically viable.
contain as many additional            Where this project goes after
writings and character              JL19 is up to the community.  A
descriptions, in either language,  separate publication may be spun
as we can fit.  We will hopefully  off.  Someone may choose to try to
have more character descriptions    edit the best writings into a
submitted than we intend to actual  publishable book.  Or ... - well,
use, in which case there will be a  you decide!
period of comment and voting until    Here's Veijo.
JL19 (current deadline June 5).
(Additional ideas and proposals   
may also be submitted for this        The Purpose of The Ckafybarja
issue, but they will be at a                    Project
handicap in any voting.)
  Hopefully by the time JL19 comes    The purpose of the project is to
out with the results of this        encourage people to create
voting, the dictionary will have    original Lojban stories which have
been published, and people will    the following common features:
have a common language definition    - as already stated the stories
with which do begin writing. The   are original Lojban stories, not
extra 6 months and the large        translations from other languages;
volume of Lojban writings that        - they are closely connected
will hopefully be appearing will    with a coffeehouse which is
also help more people learn of      described in detail in a set of
enough of the language to be        English documentation available to
willing to try to write in the     all;
language.                            - the stories either take place
  There is a proposal for a        or are told in the Cafe.
separate publication to contain   
only Lojban writings.  As this        The proposed Cafe Newsletter
proposal evolved, it grew away      would widen the scope of material
from the concept of the Kalevala    eligible for publication and make
project, expanding to be a journal  it easier for the beginning Lojban
of in-Lojban writing.  The merits  writers to produce something
of this proposal are also for the  worthwhile.
community to decide, but I have   
taken this proposal more                        History
immediately to be a criticism of
the excessive backlog in getting      The project has gone through
Lojban text printed in ju'i loby-  several stages during the last few
pli, the relative infrequency of    months.  There were some
ju'i lobypli, and perhaps a sense  preliminary postings concerning
that text appearing in ju'i        the lack of Lojban text -
lobypli represents an over-        especially original text, not
centralized attitude of what the    translations from other languages.
language should be like.            It was noted that actually very
  I have thus taken action to      few people did produce Lojban text
change JL's editorial policy to    or use Lojban in communicating
reflect these implied criticisms    with other Lojbanists. The ideas
(as well as get its publication    culminating in the project were
frequency up to the intended        formulated during the summer


                                  63
As with other pieces published in this JL, I am publishing this text with essentially no changes, choosing instead to make my comments in the footnotes along with Nora's, Nick's, and Ivan's. Ivan did such an excellent job; I can scarcely say that my artistic judgement could better than his capture the sense of the Bulgarian text that I've never read.
LogFests and the ensuing            limbo and some are waiting comment
discussions on the net.            from the non-netters.
                                      The 'Kalevala' was quite soon
  The Lojban Canterbury Tales      dropped from the name of the
                                    project as there was no actual
  The first [1992] LogFest          reason for the reference.  I
formulated the idea of encouraging  proposed the name 'la jbotur'
people to write original Lojban    instead but it was never adopted
stories with some common features.  by anybody else.  The name of the
The basic idea was that there      Cafe was 'la *jbolaz' for a while
would be a place were people would  but this has turned out to be an
gather to tell stories to each      invalid form [hence marked with an
other like in the original          asterisk whenever it occurs
Canterbury Tales or in The          herein].
Decameron.  The Finnish national   
epic Kalevala was also mentioned              Controversies
as a possible source of ideas and
there were some discussions          When the Cafe Project proposal
concerning the possibilities.  The  (The Lojban Kalevala Project) was
parts of these conversations which  posted on the net there was some
affected the development of the    disagreement concerning various
Project are included in the        aspects of the plan.  The main
Papers.  The discussions were at a  reason for this was the fact that
very general level and nothing      none of the most active netters
concrete was done at this stage.    had participated in the initial
The name 'Kalevala' was used in    formulation.  Some of the ideas
the headers of most of the          presented on the net contradicted
postings which gave rise to the    the original plan so some non-
first name of the project proper.  netters might feel that the very
                                    active netters were trying to
  The Lojban Kalevala Project ->    dominate.  The views of the
      The Ckafybarja Project        netters (or of the most vocal of
                                    them) are being presented to non-
  At the second LogFest the Cafe    netters in JL17; there has been no
idea was adopted and also the idea  response yet.  The conversation on
of having a detailed description    the net has quieted down.
of the locale and the personnel.      The most controversial question
This description would be in        was the characterization of the
English in order to be readily      Cafe personnel - especially the
accessible to everybody.  It would  proposed national heterogeneity.
serve two main purposes:            The main views presented are
  1) the stories by various        included in the 'Condensed Papers'
writers would obviously describe    [found afterwards] and I am not
the same Cafe;                     going to reiterate them here.  As
  2) the less creative writers      far as I can see this question is
would be able to concentrate on    still open - in all the others at
the plot instead of also having to  least some kind of a consensus was
invent the settings.               achieved.
  Three different settings were                     
described but description #2 was              Basic Settings
the favourite already before the
plan was posted and there was        A more detailed description of
actually no further discussion on  the settings is included in the
the net.                            Condensed Papers.
  There were differences of          The Cafe - A small cafe in rural
opinion concerning various aspects  surroundings (not visible from the
of the description.  Most of these  inside).  Predominantly Lojbanic
have been resolved but some are in  clientele gathers there to tell
                                    stories.  Some netters have
                                    already arrived.  Nick advises to


                                  64
Enjoy!
avoid interaction for the time        These stories have resulted in a
being (cf. Condensed Papers)        very active conversation on the
  The Personnel - Multinational    net concerning various linguistic
personnel, Chinese manager and 5    aspects - grammar, semantics, and
others representing the source      pragmatics.  One very challenging
languages of Lojban.  Detailed      task for the future is the
characterization isn't available    collection, editing and
yet so avoid adding details in the  publication of the accumulating
stories.  All the views presented  theoretical material so that the
on the net concerning the          results of these conversations can
characterization ought to be        be used by the whole Lojban commu-
studied most carefully by all      nity.
potential writers.  We need well   
thought-out characterizations            The Newsletter Proposal
which take into account the views
presented by Ivan and others          Nick Nicholas posted a proposal
concerning the difficulty of real-  concerning a Cafe Newsletter which
istically portraying national      would publish all kinds of Lojban
characteristics and the need to    text connected with the Cafe.  The
have recognizably non-American      proposal is included in the
characters as desired by Lojbab    Condensed Papers.
and some non-netters.  Mark          The newsletter would actually
pointed out that the characters    widen the scope of the Lojban
must be such that later writers    texts compared to the original
can live with them.  They are      plan.  The original plan called
basically background characters    for stories about the Cafe or
but writers may want to use them    stories told at the Cafe - the
in their stories.  Others may      Newsletter would accept all kinds
choose to ignore them in which      of original Lojban text connected
case the characterizations don't    with the Cafe, e.g.  small studies
really matter very much.            like my 'etudes' would be eligible
                                    for publication.  This would be
      Accumulated Material        the first purely Lojban journal -
                                    all the theoretical material with
  English Descriptions - There      English explanations and glosses
isn't very much new descriptive    would be published in ju'i lobypli
material as the project hasn't      as would selected Lojban writings
actually started yet - in spite of  not connected with the Cafe.
the posting of the first              The main purpose of the
preparatory Lojban texts.  Nick    Newsletter would be to encourage
Nicholas has added detail to the    and help beginning writers.  The
original Description #2 of the      second raison d'etre would be to
locale, David Bowen has described  show that we have advanced so far
a Cafe manager, and I (Veijo) have  that Lojban can be used without
proposed a Cafe worker.            English glosses.  Perhaps the most
  Lojban Text - Altogether 6        advanced stories wouldn't be
Lojban stories have been posted -  accessible to everybody but there
a proper story by Mark Shoulson, a  would probably be a much greater
longish 'rant' by Nick Nicholas, 2  number of easy and intermediate
short 'etudes' by Veijo Vilva and  articles.  I also think that
a 'rant' and a short tale by Iain  having the stories without English
Alexander.  [A 7th piece, a 3-part  glosses would be advantageous as
character sketch by Nick, was      the structure of Lojban -
posted but Nick has indicated that  especially 'Lojbanic' Lojban - is
he intends to substantially        so different that providing an
rewrite it], Only the stories by    English version may actually
Mark and Iain contain storytelling  hinder understanding or at least
along the lines indicated in the    slow down the learning.
plan, the others are more         
preparatory.                              To would-be writers


                                  65
.i fitfi'i di'e ro lei ba cusku be ledu'u vo'e vo'i na srana
  1. Start writing NOW!            sentence.  Lojban IS different.  A
  2.  Don't set goals that are too  tanru, a lujvo, a sumti with
ambitious.  Remember that the      attachments, a "ko" at a
published stories do not set a      unaccustomed position may all be
standard which you ought to match.  very difficult to express
Your first stories can be very      naturally in English.  Just accept
short and use simple sentences.    it.  Utilize it.
As an example, my first attempt,      10.  Start writing.
after minor corrections, may be                     
found below [page 46].                    The Condensed Papers
  3.  Start with simple things, do
experiments with the language.        This is a record of the
Try to avoid formulating the ideas  Development of the Ckafybarja
in English - otherwise you may      Project, the Main Ideas, the
have difficulties with              Conversations and Differences of
astonishingly simple expressions.  Opinion concerning the
  4.  You may find to your          Characterization of the Cafe Per-
surprise that it is often actually  sonnel.
easier to express something in        This is not a straight record of
Lojban because you don't have to    the conversations on the net.  I
cope with the relatively free      have deleted a lot of material -
structure of English.  Just drop    either redundant or not essential
the words to the proper slots and  for the project at the present
the unambiguous grammar of Lojban  stage.  I have also taken the
takes care of the rest.            liberty of making some minor
  5.  Don't force yourself to      changes to the text following the
invent a story - it doesn't work.  deletions so that the resulting
The story either comes or not.      joints are more natural.
Pick up something and start          Sometimes only first names
writing about it - but do it now.  appear in identifying comments.
  6.  The story isn't very          Full names for these people are
important at this stage.  It may    Veijo Vilva, Nick Nicholas (alias
be quite banal or even non-        la nitcion.), Iain Alexander,
existent - if you find a Lojbanic  Lojbab (Bob LeChevalier), Colin
way of expressing something, write  Fine, Mark Shoulson, Nora LeCheva-
it down.                            lier, Andrew Smith, Ivan
  7.  There is no stylistic        Derzhanski.  We've tried to spell
tradition, you are completely free  everyone else's name out in full.
- within the dictates of the                       
grammar, of course.  If you end up  __________________________________
expressing your thoughts in a way 
which doesn't resemble anything        A.  Lojbab's original Lojban
you ever read, it's quite alright.      Canterbury Tales proposal
  8.  Don't be afraid of simple
sentences.  Lojban IS different.      Lojbab:  This LogFest was a fun
Writing a complex sentence which    gathering, and not one for work.
doesn't fall apart doesn't prove    Nothing really accomplished except
you know Lojban well - it is just  to teach people a bit more of the
a trivial exercise.  Don't write a  language, use it a little, and
sentence which you can't readily    socialize, learning more about
understand yourself - even next    each other.  One topic of
week.  You ought to be able to      discussion was how to get more
understand your sentences without  people doing something with the
parsing/analyzing/translating - at  language.  The topic segued into
least the structure even if you    literature, original Lojban lit-
don't remember all the words you    erature.  One long thought-about
had to pick from the word lists.    idea that was discussed again was
  9.  It doesn't matter if you      an interactive role playing
can't find a natural English way    project of the type often con-
of expressing the idea of a        ducted at science fiction


                                  66
ni'oni'o tu'e
conventions, based on a Lojban-re-    One rule - if you have a
lated scenario.  Learning a little  specific story idea, whether you
Lojban would give actor/players of  want to write it or not:  don't
the scenario an advantage.          talk about it in English.  The
  But a better idea surfaced, one  stories are to be Lojban stories,
that can get more involved.        and whatever appeal they have, as
  The germinal start of English as  the first Lojban literature, will
a literary language was Chaucer's  be emphasized by their not
Canterbury Tales, and someone      existing in English first.  If you
mentioned that Italian has a        have trouble with the language,
similar medieval literary          you can ask how-to-say-it
landmark, the Decameron.  Perhaps  questions on Lojban List, or send
other languages as well.  The      messages privately to Nick, Ivan,
essence of the Canterbury Tales is  Colin, John Cowan, Mark Shoulson,
that they are a bunch of 1st        or me.
person tales, rich and colorful,      Less experienced Lojbanists
often bawdy.  Why not write some-  might team up on a story, in which
thing similar for Lojban, or at    case you can talk privately with
least start to do so.  We can get  each other in whatever language
a lot of people involved, who need  about your story, or if necessary,
only commit to writing a single    with one experienced Lojbanist
short tale - a page long would be  that you interact with from the
fine.  A couple of the more expert  above list.
Lojbanists - Nick, Ivan, and Mark, 
for example, might do some longer    Chris Handley:  Some points to
tales, perhaps about characters    remember about both Canterbury
that might have a more complex      Tales and the Decameron:
story.                                1) They were written by one
  One charm of the Canterbury      person (and a genius at that);
Tales is the variety of per-          2) They were written fairly well
sonalities of the characters - we  into the flowering of the
can achieve that by having many    language.
authors.  Stylistic consistency      In my opinion neither of these
isn't necessary, since different    conditions apply to Lojban at the
people have different ways of      moment, which should not stop us
talking.  If you are relatively    doing something.  Certainly a
unskilled, you might want to        collection of stories along a
choose a less-well educated        central theme would be a great
character, but even this might not  start to the language.
be a constraint.                      Another suggestion would be
  The question is how to devise a  another parlour game.  One person
scenario around which people can    starts off and writes part of a
write these short-short stories.    story (a para, a sentence,
Canterbury Tales takes place where  whatever).  This is then passed to
travellers gather - an inn or bar.  the next person in the list to
Do we tell tales of the people of  continue, and so on.  (In the
mythical Lojbanistan?  Or do we    normal version, you stop in mid
presume a modern or post-modern    sentence, but that may be a tad
society, with people much like the  difficult).
spectrum found in the world today? 
One possibility proposed would be    Lojbab:  I think the continued
people on a space station, thus    story idea is a good one, but you
appealing to the SF fans among us  need really cooperative people to
- an international space station,  have it work.  We did try it once
wherein people like Ivan and Nick  with Lojban, but a certain person
can bring in tales from other      (who shall remain nameless) made a
cultures.  Some could be tales of  point of striving for truly
earth, while others could be high  strange twists in the story at
adventure in space.                every opportunity - strange enough
                                    that there was no possibility that


                                  67
®lu do ?mo li'u¯ preti fi la pacrux. goi fo'a
the result could be interesting    People have felt almost no urge to
(as opposed to the process - which  use Lojban for logical expression,
can be interesting in spite of      any more than they feel the urge
strangeness, or because of it).    to use English for it.  Usually
                                    the ones want to do so use
  Randall Helzermann:  So is        symbolic logic.
Lojban going to be the first          I understand your point, but
language in which the "classic      there really is no one who would
novel" was defined by a committee?  write the book, and more
  Before going to the "great        importantly, probably no one who
lojbanian novel" why not build a    would read it.  It seems like the
lojbanic tradition from the roots  same kind of idealistic project as
up?  The first thing that should    the occasionally proposed Lojban
be written in my opinion is a      dictionary, written entirely in
primer on logical and critical      Lojban.  Such a book could be
thinking.                          written, I think, but would be an
                                    exercise to prove a point and
  Lojbab:  This might be nice,      would probably not be very good,
but:                                or much-used.  Maybe some day, but
  1) people seem to want to write  not nearly yet.
creatively, and I will encourage      But thanks for the compliment.
any writing in Lojban for any      I'm glad someone thinks I do
reason                              things logically and clear-
  2) I don't know anyone competent  thinkingly around here zo'o.
to write a primer on logical and
critical thinking in English, much    My main reason for suggesting
less in Lojban.  Maybe Lojban will  the Canterbury Tales approach is
lead to the development of such a  that we are currently being
genius (if the Sapir-Whorf          flooded with translations of a
Hypothesis is true), but right now  variety of materials from other
all we have is rather normal        languages, but almost no one
mostly-English native speakers      (except Michael Helsem) has
writing non-fluently in a not      attempted significant original
quite living language.              writing in Lojban.  Since
                                    translation always involves some
  Randall:  What?!? you yourself    amount of interlingual compromise
must have done an incredible        (as we've seen in the phone game),
amount of thinking about "logical  only original writing in the lan-
and critical thinking" when        guage will lead to the development
designing Lojban, a language        of true Lojban stylistics -
ostensibly made to encourage such. something near and dear to Nick's
  How about a tractus on            heart, if not others'.
elementary logic then?                By making the length be at the
                                    writers' options, we can get
  Lojbab:  I did surprisingly      people like Nick, who could
little thinking about "logical and  probably write a good, longer
critical thinking".  Remember that  story, but also maybe encourage
I didn't design Lojban from        Chris, who has never posted longer
scratch, but built on the original  than words and sentences, to
design by JCB.  John Parks-        contribute something.  The
Clifford (pc) and others have      advantage of having a common
contributed significantly to the    context for the stories, is that
'logical' aspects of the language,  it is possible in such a context
and pc is probably the most        to tell a little anecdote in as
competent in the intersection of    little as a paragraph or two that
logic and Lojban.  As for myself,  can form part of the compendium as
I nearly flunked logic in college,  well as a longer story.
and rely on my wife and others     
when logic issues come up in          Lojbab (paraphrased):  Those who
Lojban, which frankly isn't often.  have trouble coming up with plot


                                  68
.i ®lu mi to'erno'i ji'u leka cerda .ije ro le pidrai mi bruna
lines can take stories from the      I don't think the way to
great mythologies, and use their    founding original Lojban liter-
plots as the basis for Lojban      ature can be found in emulation.
stories. There are many little-    It takes great literary talent to
known such stories.  For example,  transform an existing story into
Veijo, could we use stories from    something worthwhile - not a mere
the Finnish epic, the Kalevala, as  imitation.  A literature arises
the basis for Lojbanic stories.    from an existing cultural and
                                    linguistic background and the only
  Veijo:  ... about the            thing we have at hand is a half-
possibility of using The Kalevala  baked language.  This is the fact
as a starting point for the Lojban  we must start from.  If we are to
Canterbury Tales.  It has taken me  lay the foundations of a liter-
a while to sort things out as I    ature we must look at the world -
didn't want to give a hasty        the language - we have.  What is
answer.  It's been quite a while    the world of Lojban like?  What
since I read Kalevala - and not a  sets it apart from the rest?  If
total edition at that - and I had  you take Lojban sans tanru, lujvo
to do a quick sampling of it. I    and le'avla it presents a
also read through a few reviews.    remarkably Platonian view of the
I feel it's not much use taking an  world.  The most distinguishing
odd plot from Kalevala and trying  feature of gismu and many cmavo is
to elaborate on that as Kalevala    that they describe a very ideal
covers the whole spectrum of human  world, every word brings out the
life and the stories are not very  essence, the underlying principle
unique.                            of a class of phenomena.  In most
  One outstanding feature of        natural languages the general is
Kalevala is, however, the way      described in terms which are
mythos permeates everything in an  either alien or complex, in Lojban
almost pantheistic way.  The scale  the opposite prevails.  This makes
is continuous from an almost        it possible to present a distilled
imperceptible presence to          view of the surrounding world
personified entities - not quite    without resorting to unnatural
Olympian in power but more on par  expressions and also to contrast
with the main characters of the    the general and the particular in
story who themselves cannot always  a single utterance or even a
be distinguished from the mythos.  single bridi.  The avoidance of
There is also a strong faith in    tanru and lujvo can be thought of
the power of words - not any        as another form of controlled and
single, magic ones but prolonged    recognizable ellipsis - only the
singing which can drive an          essential is expressed and the
opponent up to his armpits into a  particular is suppressed.  Other
swamp or build a boat, singing of  areas where Lojban excels are the
real men, not mere boys nor of      tense system, the attitudinal and
those feeble in body or character.  emotional indicators and of course
Words do not offer a quick way out  the connectives.  We have a very
of a tight spot and at a crucial    rich apparatus offering unprece-
moment the vital words may be      dented opportunities for
missing and must be sought for.    expression but do we have some-
Words are the key to the duality    thing to say?
of the world - or even more as the    I think we mustn't hurry.  We
metalevel of the poems is          need the stories, the literature,
sometimes quite tightly interwoven  but we must not push things.  We
with the subject matter.  It's a    must first try to see the world -
world which is very difficult to    a slice of the present, some
portray convincingly in a          particular past, the future -
different language - or even in    through Lojban 'glasses'.  The
present-day Finnish which isn't    literary world we eventually
any more so rich in metaphor.      create must have a distinct Lojban
                                    flavour to it, it mustn't be a


                                  69
.i .oicai ge le terdi cu to'e melbi gi le remna cu to'e gleki
mere re-representation of some      which point the student suddenly
<br />li'
other world. It doesn't suffice    started to write and produced a
to avoid translation, the world    quite respectable essay about the
must be conceptualized in a Lojban  brick in no time flat. We may
way from the ground up.  I don't    have to take a similar route to
think the stories need much of a    get started.  But for now - let's
plot, the settings give enough      start looking around.
opportunities for fruitful         
utilization of the language.  Even    Nick:
quite ordinary things can form the    Wow.
scaffolding around which the story    I mean that quite sincerely.
unfolds.  If you read the stories    I mean, when I bemoan Lojban
by e.g.  Ray Bradbury, quite many  stylistics, I usually see the
of them have a negligible plot.    trees - the complexities of
The something hangs in the          nesting, the uncertainties of
atmosphere, in many little things.  place structures in flux (lujvo
That, of course, takes great        and gismu), the markedness of
talent.  I don't know whether any  attitudinals.  You, Veijo, seem to
of us can muster that but we ought  have struck at the essence.  It is
to be able to utilize Lojban for    absolutely true that Lojban (and
the necessary special effects -    any language) sustain their own
with due constraint.  The thing    world (it is also true that one
mustn't be overdone, we are not    should not be too flashy in
aiming to produce a linguistic      pursuing the manifestations of
fire-works.  The language ought to  this world, as happens often in
be utilized subtly to produce a    Esperanto literature); it is also
mosaic of shadow and sun-light,    true that exploring this world is
soft generalizations against which  the great task awaiting Lojban
sharp detail can be engraved, the  literature.  And it is even more
dull monotonous every-day or        true that my translations so far
whatever described in a few, quick  have not done any such exploration
indicators and the richer moments  (interestingly enough, David
of life in ever increasing detail  Twery's ckafyzda diary did - not
using the full array of tools      just because it was original
available for the task.  If we      writing, but because it looked at
don't try to reproduce the world    the cafe in the staccato, explicit
in the way we are accustomed to    way we will come to expect of
see it, to use the imagery of our  Lojban...).
respective native languages - or   
our secondary languages - but try    John Cowan:  On substantive
to see our surroundings through    matters, I associate myself with
the Lojban glasses I think we may  everything that Veijo says, and I
find quite many things worth de-    express my immense admiration for
picting.                            the way that he says it.  I, too,
  Perhaps we don't need the past    believe that language naturally
or the future to provide the        leads to mythology, and that
alienating background but can      mythologies are not really
contemplate the present in the      transferable.  (Tolkien started
stories.  It may even be more      inventing his conlangs for the
fruitful to start with something    pure "philological" pleasure of
small.  I once read a book called  it, and found that they led him
'Writing the natural way' where    inexorably to mythopoetic.)
the author told about a student of 
hers who had trouble in writing an    Lojbab (written in December):
essay about her home town.  She    Notwithstanding Veijo's excellent
told the student to concentrate on  points, the idea I intended in
successively smaller and smaller    raising the Kalevala as an example
details until finally they were    is that plot ideas for short
down to an individual brick in the  stories of classic interest are
wall of a specific building at      easy to find.  Many of the plots


                                  70
.i di'u se bacru lo citno nanmu noi se lafti se mebri gi'e denmi se xance .i ri goi ko'a sanli crane le serti .i labyxu'e linji ke blabi roimrmaro ke galtu serti .i ko'a catlu mo'ifa'a le darno ne di'o lepu'u lei grusi kalsygri be leka pindi cu ca simsa be loi ctaru rirxe ke to'ekli boxna ku savri'a .i diklo slilu gi'e febvi fengu gi'e lafti loi to'e plana ke xekri birka .i le nunpante ke suksa sance .e lei fengu nunki'a cu desku le vacri .i le te minra cu simsa be lo darno ke barda terdanti sance ku masno je junri runta .i lei girzu cu banro gi'e klama ne'i loi pelxu pulce dilnu .ije loi sepli ti'otra cu mutcne leka viskli ze'o le kampu ke grusi vanbi
of stories in classic literature      On the other hand, I am
are not original plots; for        recommending this primarily to
example, most of Shakespeare's      people who think they cannot come
plays are unoriginal plots, based  up with something more "original".
on either on history, or on        Original stories are fine, and
retellings of tales that were      indeed are especially encouraged.
already set into plays or verse.   If you develop a story naturally
The intent is not to encourage      out of simply narrating in a
translation of the untranslatable  Lojbanic manner, you will have
epic of a national culture, but to  achieved what we are seeking from
point out that anyone who reads    this effort, and bring Lojban
can take a story they've seen in    alive as a language.
another language, in another form, 
and retell the plot in their own      Veijo:  One of the first things
words, perhaps inventing some new  we'll have to do when we start to
characters. For example, one of    use Lojban creatively is to chart
my kids just brought home a         the most obvious ways of twisting
children's book, retelling the      it in our quest for expressive
classic fairy tale of Jack and the  ability.  Although a language has
Beanstalk from the first person    an unambiguous grammar and words
point of view of Jack (who sees    with but a single meaning, it must
things perhaps a little dif-        somehow allow for linguistic sur-
ferently and from a more childlike  prise - otherwise something is
perspective than the impersonal    lost.
narrator of the classic version).    The regularity of the language
The story, even while being told    will force us to find the
in a simplistic children's "see    materials for the element of
Spot run" manner (and not very      surprise in the choice of words
well, in my opinion), conveys a    and metaphors - and also in some
sense of Jack's motivations that    kind of contrapunctive
would seem out-of-place in a       juxtaposition of syntactical
third-person narrative.             structures, perhaps in a wise
  Thus, one suggestion, for        choice of modals or imaginative
someone who feels that they cannot  personal tenses.  Quantification
come up with a plot idea to write  of expressive power in a language
about:  take a story, perhaps a    is probably something quite
fairy tale or legend, that you      unattainable. Even though we can
have read or heard, figure out      make sure that the Lojban grammar
some way that the events of the    covers all the necessary aspects
story, or something akin to them,  and are pretty convinced that
might take place in a modern or    tanru and lujvo can expand the vo-
post-modern environment, and        cabulary to the required extent,
attempt to retell it as a first    we cannot have any short term
person narrative, conveying some    certainty in this respect.
sense of the emotions experienced    Expression is a two-way process.
by the storyteller using Lojban    It is no use having an elegant
attitudinals.                       expression if no one can really
  The story will not be a simple    feel what you are trying to say.
English (or Finnish) story          In English - or any other living
anymore, nor necessarily a mere    language - we build our
imitation of the original, because  expressions to rest on the solid
you will have added some original  foundation of the linguistic
point-of-view. And if the result  imagery which forms large parts
is not great literature, but        even of the unconscious mind of
merely "a pale imitation" anyway,  the potential readers.  In Lojban
because your writing skill isn't    we have nothing like this
that great, I say that even a pale  available.  Even the most advanced
imitation of some of the greatest  of us will have to struggle -
of literature is likely to be a    probably for years to come - to
better-than-average yarn.          attain a level of competency where


                                  71
ni'o pa.o'enai to'ercitno cu simsa be lepu'u sisku leri se cirko ka citno be'o ni'akro be fa'a le terdi ku dzukla .i lo cucycau cmaxli cu jgari lera selxaksu taxfu gi'e catlu le galtu serti sepi'o lo tinbe je simsa be le rulnkentaure,a bei leka blanu ku kanla .i catlu je cisma .i loi selpopseltau je grusi je cinla remtra cu trixe dzukla gi'e gunma sanga lo selsno ke mrori'i zgike .i da kercrori'a siclu fi le ctebi .i de noi daski nenri se xance cu cmila sepi'o lo cladu je rufsu voksa .ije lede kanla cu jarco leka fenki
reading is no more an intellectual  comparison to that relatively
exercise but a living experience.  unknown mythic collection. I'll
To really feel the language        leave it to people to come up with
requires that it flows in you      a suitably jingling name to
relatively effortlessly.  You must  supplant "The Kalevala Project".
have a background against which to    With the impending completion of
contrast the author's way of        the first Lojban dictionary, it is
saying things.  Esperanto is so    time for people to write
much like the mainstream Indo-      originally in Lojban (rather than
European languages that the early  in translation from other
literary efforts could build on    languages) and hence to explore
the existing imagery.  Lojban is    the unique point-of-view and style
conceptually so different that we  that Lojban's unusual nature might
have no such easy way out of our    bring to narrative (the assumption
predicament.  The imagery will      of the uniqueness of this point-
have to be different otherwise we  of-view actually assumes Sapir-
may end up using modals to rebuild  Whorf is true, but we'll ignore
the alien imagery.  At this stage  that problem for now).
translations may contain seeds of    We had a long discussion at
peril as we don't yet have a        LogFest, and Veijo's comments
living tradition to protect the    about basing the story(s) on a
language from the dominance of      uniquely Lojbanic world-view,
external influences. I don't      coupled with Nick Nicholas's
implicate that we ought to exclude  identification of what writings
these influences totally.  The      seemed to him to best represent a
language needs the common imagery  budding Lojban culture, underlay
of the whole mankind and perhaps    much of the discussion and its
even large sections of the          current resolution.
heritage of the main cultures but    The goal is Lojban stories
this imagery must trickle in in a  written from a common narrative
controlled way, not as an          starting point, written by as many
avalanche.                          different people as possible, each
                                    of varying Lojban skill levels.
__________________________________    Quickly ruled out was a scenario
                _                  involving medieval times, which
                                    would severely restrict the scope
B. The Lojban Kalevala Project =>  of stories that could be told, and
      The Ckafybarja Project        a space travel scenario, with
                                    people travelling together telling
  Lojbab:  On Lojban List, there    stories of their home worlds.
has been discussion for the last    Unfortunately, this type of
month on what I once called the    scenario would require a lot of
Lojban Canterbury Tales. Several  what SF people call "world-
major cultures trace their          building" - every story would need
earliest cultural and linguistic    the added baggage of devising a
identity to a collection of        believable 'world' wherein it
stories written in the language.   takes place, and making that
These include Chaucer's Canterbury  unique world come alive. Even the
tales, which basically defined the  better SF writers often fail at
birth of Middle English,            the 'world-building' game, and it
Shakespeare, who did the same for  seems too much to ask of the non-
Modern English, the Decameron for  expert writers who will be trying
Italian, the tales of the Arabian  to bring Lojban to life, to ask
Nights for Arabic.  Veijo Vilva's  them to bring totally new worlds
moving comments about the          to life as well.
necessary birth of a Lojban          Still the idea is to bring
stylistics through original        people together in a situation
literature, written under the      where they will tend to tell
subject title of "The Kalevala",    stories, a process that takes time
seems to have shifted the focus of


                                  72
ni'o ®lu mi to'erno'i ji'u leka cerda .ije ro le pidrai mi bruna .i .oicai ge le terdi cu to'e melbi gi le remna cu to'e gleki .i .iunai vu gapru .i .o'onai li'
when a lot of stories are to be    are SF fans, to get inspiration
told.  In modern society, people    from a variety of similar ideas
are simply not thrown together in  used in SF stories, including the
numbers sufficient for such        "White Hart" tales of Arthur C.
storytelling.  There was a          Clarke, and the Callahan's Bar
suggestion of a scenario involving  tales of Spider Robinson.  For a
a story-telling contest of some    brief while we had the compromise
type, but this didn't fire          situation of a coffee house on the
people's imagination. In          edge of the sand pits, allowing
retrospect, I think such a com-    both indoor and outdoor settings
petition would have caused          for storytelling, but the anti-pit
problems in that some of the        people eventually came up with a
short-shorts that beginning        better approach.
Lojbanists might write won't be in    We devised an interesting,
the same story-telling league as    Lojban-allegorical coffeehouse
longer stories told by more        which is interesting enough to
experienced Lojbanists.  I'd        serve as the subject of stories,
rather see people write well what  as well as a backdrop for the
they feel comfortable at writing    telling of stories.  The concept
about, and not try to compete with  is a coffeehouse with an
other Lojbanists, better or worse,  international flavor in which
which I think a competition theme  Lojban is spoken.  The atmosphere
would naturally lead to.  The goal  is vaguely contemporary, but
is Lojban stories written from a    somewhat timeless.  Indeed, one
common narrative starting point,    idea was to leave the outside of
written by as many different        the coffeehouse, i.e. its locale,
people as possible, each of        essentially unspecified.
varying Lojban skill levels.          Description #2 below, the
  We came up with a scenario that  current strong favorite, is
allows, and even encourages, a      probably in a rural or mountainous
motley collection of stories of    setting, since it suggests that
varying lengths.  We decided to     the sandpits are nearby if not
draw on the limited range of        immediately present, but unlike
'Lojban culture' that exists        our starting premise, the sandpits
today.  The first such element      are not essential to the
identified was the "Jimbob" 'rant'  description (though they clearly
(as David Twery labelled it) that  inspired the climbing equipment).
we published in JL16. We talked    But people voting for description
of the stories that the Jimbobs    #2 in many cases specified that
might tell each other while        they wanted the windows removed
"working in the sandpits" while    from the description, so that the
the Esperantists climbed their      outside remains undefined. What
wall and the apes came abseiling    will likely happen is that we will
down. Several people liked this    see how things develop from what
idea, but others objected          we have, and add more details as
violently.  To them, the Jimbob    needed by specific authors as the
allegory makes for a distracting    culture of the coffeehouse becomes
setting for telling a story - it    further defined.
is a story in itself and not a        The coffeehouse has 6 employees,
setting; it is also a humorous,    each a representative of a culture
indeed ridiculous setting, and      using one of the source languages
might ruin a story with a serious  for Lojban (There was a lot of
tone.                              debate over whether to use a
  Then we turned to David Twery's  British or American representative
coffee-house (ckafyzda) text        for English, and I would have sug-
[hopefully to be published in      gested Australian in honor of
JL18], which Nick has identified    Nick, but people settled on
as the first authentic-seeming      American because unfortunately the
"Lojban world-view" text.  It also  majority of Lojbanists, who are
allows Lojbanists, many of whom    mostly Americans, may be familiar


                                  73
.i di'u se bacru lo citno nanmu noi se lafti se mebri gi'e dukri'a denmi se xance
only with American culture, and we  and rely upon to the finest
don't want to shut people out of    detail.
this effort for cultural              Indeed the coffeehouse
blindness.)                        description will be described and
  We were able to identify a        finalized in English, to make sure
number of "roles" to be filled in  that everyone understands all the
a coffeehouse:  manager, cook,      details in a consistent manner.
waiter/waitress, busboy, cashier.   It also allows people to use a
[clarification: the American        variety of Lojban expressions and
English word 'busboy', or perhaps  forms to describe the English-
'bus-person' cleans tables at the  defined setting.  Thus the
end of a meal and prepares them    descriptions by various authors
for new patrons.]                  will not read exactly the same,
  But some of these are seen as of  yet the place they are describing
a lower, subservient nature as      will obviously be the same place.
compared with others.  Rather than    We welcome and indeed encourage
risk association of some culture    people to write descriptions in
being seen as stereotypically sub-  Lojban, recognizing that the
servient by tying a character of    description will have to be
that culture to a particular role  translated into clear English.
(e.g., the Chinese busboy), the    But this gives people something to
workers rotate jobs, giving the    write about in Lojban, and you can
job of cook to a different person  if you choose use your Lojban text
each night, with the effect that    as a starting point for an even-
the menu is both international,    tual story for the collection.
exotic, and a bit unpredictable.      The third phase of the scenario
The manager was assigned to the    definition is to define the six
Chinese character, based on        characters in enough depth that
Chinese as the most populous of    people can include them in the
the Lojban languages.              backdrop to their stories and have
  A friend of Karen Stein's who    them recognizably be the same
came to LogFest, Phil, wrote up    people.  The details should range
three descriptions based on this    from gender, age, and appearance,
concept.  Description #2 was        to personality, distinctive
favored provided that the windows  mannerisms, and outside interests
were removed from the description,  that might serve as jumping off
and thus the need to describe what  places for a story when the
is outside the windows.            indicated person comes up to the
  Meanwhile there is further work  table with a tray of food, or
to be done, some of which requires  coffee.
knowledge of Lojban, some that        This phase will be conducted in
requires only imagination.  More    the manner of a contest followed
details of the setting need to be  by a vote.  Write a character
worked out, eventually giving      sketch of one of the characters,
enough information that a detailed  putting as much or as little
floor plan of the coffeehouse can  detail into your description as
be drawn, with locations of        you care to.  The contest will be
everything marked, so that people  announced in JL17 (but I'd like to
writing stories can be consistent  have a couple of samples by then),
in describing the scene wherein    and thus people have plenty of
the story is told (given that the  time to write good descriptions
exterior environment is undefined,  before a voting a couple of months
there is no particular need for    later, with the results of all
consistency, or even implied        phases of this introductory work
truth, in the stories themselves,  appearing in JL18, I hope.  All
but it was felt that this col-      those who submit any ideas, text,
lection, being written by a large  description, or otherwise indicate
number of authors of varying        definite interest in participating
styles, needed to have some one    in the project will be eligible to
thing that all authors could share  vote.  Again, character descrip-


                                  74
.i ®lu .io xupe'i do xebni lei vu gapru li'u¯ preti fi fo'a noi ca tcica krori'a le xadni fa'a ko'a  
tions can be written in Lojban,    carpet might be made brown to hide
but we will also need English      coffee stains.
translations.
  However, the polycultural                  Description #1
polylinguistic background of the
characters has led me to identify    My eyes had to adjust to the
a fourth task that the more        difference in lighting.  The light
skilled Lojbanists can start on    in the place came from the twelve
now, independent of the actual      stain glass tiffany lamps which
descriptions of the characters (or  hung from the ceiling over a
at least it may be so).  Each of    table.  Low wattage bulbs cast a
our 6 cultural representatives      pale light around a place which
will be a native speaker of their  measured some 10 meters in length
own language - Lojban is the        and some 5 meters across.  The
lingua franca that all share, and  tables have four chairs set around
the lingua franca of those who      each of them, and as I sat down in
patronize the coffeehouse as well  the green cushioned chair I was
(hence stories told in Lojban      shown, I had a chance to survey
therein).  But Lojban has many      the rest of this place I found my-
possible styles, and some of these  self.  The table settings had
styles will be dependent on the    white linen napkins with an
native language of the speakers.    embroidered design of a type
Thus, the Hindi speaker may be      unfamiliar to me.  The silverware
prone to SOV-order sentences, the  was of a plain though excellent in
Chinese speaker to strange-to-      quality, in addition there was a
English-speakers tanru, and the    set of chopsticks incorporated
Arabic speaker to flowery meta-    into the traditional place set-
phor.  The Russian speaker may      ting.  There were no coffee cups
choose lujvo forms that are heavy  set out on the tables.  [Along the
in consonant clusters, whereas the  walls hung pictures, and many of
Chinese speaker will minimize      these were of people whom I did
clusters and maximize vowels.      not recognize, and always with the
  I don't pretend to know enough    same person, presumably the
of the non-English source          manager of this establishment.]
languages to try to describe them  Each picture had a gold frame, and
in any detail, but some Lojbanists  the expressions in the pictures
like Ivan Derzhanski probably do;  ranged across every known emotion.
others might be willing to          The floor was carpeted with a
research.  The result will be      green shag of similar shade to the
perhaps a short sample of Lojban    chairs, as a result the only
"conversation" and of "narrative"  sounds that one hears is the
styles for each of the six          gentle flapping to the door going
characters (perhaps each of them    into the kitchen, and the whispers
describing the same scene to make  of conversations occurring at the
for ready comparison), along with  nearby tables.  [The place was
an English language description of  quiet, still, at peace, as the man
the essential linguistic            in all the pictures is approaching
ingredients that comprise the      me. ...]
style, so that others can try to      _____________________________
emulate the styles when writing.
The ideal will thus be, along with    Description #2 is the current
distinctive personalities for the  favorite, having references to
6 characters, a distinctive style  existing Lojban texts that might
of Lojban speech that will          somehow be worked into the
identify the characters and also    stories-to-be-told, possibly with
lend authenticity to the style.    modification.  The main objection
  Here are the proposed            is to the windows, that would
descriptions.  For #1, the offen-  require a description of the
ding-to-some picture sentences are  outside.  (The outside might, but
bracketed.  Someone suggested the  need not, be in a mountainous


                                  75
.i ®lu .aisai mi ba vefsfa lei vu mabla nobli joi turni .i mi ri kusru vefsfa seka'i leimi bruna goi ko'u noi simsa be le canre bei leka pelxu ku se flira zi'e noi zmadu be le la gaimast. si'erbi'e bei leni tepri'a ku se cmoni .i ko viska leko'u ®lunbe ke ciblu ve flecu xadni .i ko tirna leko'u cmoni .i .ai mi ko'u venfu .i le'o ko curmi li'
rural area where rock climbing is  was the inscription:  "Members of
done - or sand pits. We didn't    the first sandpit expedition to
want to be stuck with Don Harlow's  find the first digger, or traces
El Capitan reference of the        thereof - 198?"  The table also
original Jimbob story - not ev-    bore other marks of former patrons
eryone knows what Yosemite looks    who had drank their selections and
like, and who says that the        transcribed their feelings with
coffeehouse is even anywhere in    pitons.  The walls were littered
America.)  A possible modification  with climbing apparel and debris
would be to make the windows high  in what might charitably have been
up, or frosted so that people      termed a collage. There were the
can't see through them.  This      rusting remains of pitons and
provides the light without the      hooks abutting practically new
undefined scenery.                  lengths of the latest high test
  [Note:  This is not the original  rope.  Opposite the door from
text prepared by Phil.  The stairs  which I had entered was a ladder -
from Ivan's story printed in this  a climbing ladder, of course.  The
issue were originally              ladder reached to the ceiling, and
misunderstood to be a ladder, and  a solid-looking trap door that
a ladder was therefore added to    made me wonder of the unknown
the description. Though we've     relics that lay beyond, and the
learned that the ladder in the      stories they might hold.
coffeehouse bears no resemblance    Underneath these visible artifacts
to the marble stairs of Ivan's      were the dour reminders of the
story, the concept in a room fur-  primary business of this
nished in climbing equipment, of    establishment-coffee. There were
using a climbing ladder to access  full wooden bins of coffee from
a trap door (presumably leading to  just about every place in the
the attic, wherein other artifacts  world, with or without caffeine.
may be found that could inspire    The cook was visible to all and in
more stories) fits the scenario    the process of developing the
even if the specific association    latest creation on the current
with Ivan's story is excluded.     menu, and not without some debate
Indeed, someone of Ivan's culture  about the amount of spice the
might see the ladder, and use it    particular dish required.  This
as a lead-in to tell that story.    happy riot provided the
That is the purpose of having      counterpoint to the hissing, and
detailed decor with potential      boiling of a near endless stream
heavy symbolism - it allows people  of coffee beans in response to the
hooks to hang a story on, either a  always cold, often frustrated, and
new story or one from their native  very determined clientele.
culture.]
                                    __________________________________
          Description #2                            _


  As I walked under the crossed      #3 is a distinctly unsavory
.i fo'a cisma
climbing axes, and into the cof-    place, or savory indeed if that is
feehouse, I felt I was in a place  the type of place you like.
designed to give one the feeling    People seemed to feel strongest
of putting on an old comfortable    about this one, in both positive
pair of shoes. [The large arched  and negative directions.
windows filled the dining area
with light, and since all of the              Description #3
booths were lined along the
outside, every booth had a superb    The current dart game was in
view of the .] The benches were    progress, with its normally furi-
made of old soft oak, in which      ous dispute about scoring from its
many tales and symbols had been    very stressed participants.  I had
carved.  On the bench I was seated  walked in for my usual pot of


                                  76
.i ®lu mi jibri bandu lei vu gapru .ije mi se le'irbai gi'anai lacti'a ri li'
Jamaican Blue Mountain, this being  cultural imagery self-conscious
the only place I could get it      and flimsy. But this project is
every day, and I sat down in my    just perfect for us. We can get
usual table, one of the few which  cosy in it; we can all write like
had a level table, and reasonably  Twery :), in that detached,
sound chairs.  I reviewed the      detail-seeking chain of sumti I
familiar surroundings.  Aside from  find so endearing; we can
the dart game, which had a wall in  concentrate on the tiniest details
which the number of dart holes ap-  (Lojban is ideally suited for that
peared to compromise the            tutorial application Veijo
structural integrity of the build-  mentioned - start writing about a
ing, there was the varnished        town by writing about a single
hardwood floor, which was again    brick in a building in the town).
showing the effects of the heavy      We should not be afraid to put
traffic of the numbers and shoes    into the story that which we are,
of the customers.  The place        either.  No need to exoticise or
closes for a week once every three  aggrandise our late-20th-century
years, just so the management can  mundaneness and splinter interests
refinish the floor.  The other      (the exotic is not unwelcome, of
tables were showing their wear      course).
from the customers.  Some of the      The unsympathetic outsider might
tables were still in good shape,    also scoff at our attention to
but most were worn out from the    detail (the colour of the
life that seemed to pour out of    carpet?!) - but no, this all
the customers and into the          matters.
furniture, the poor furniture was    It's right to reject Jimbobs as
not designed for this.  As a        a story basis; a bit too self-
result, these old maple and pine    conscious, and intended as a
pedestal tables had not only seen  cliquey thing.  Still, veiled ref-
better days, they had seen better  erences to current pitwork
years.  However, like the dart      wouldn't help, and would allow a
game, the often refinished floor,  lot of therapeutic mutual ego
and the old sunbeam coffee ma-      massaging :)  What with the
chines, and cast iron cooking      allegory really being Don Harlow's
utensils I have often seen          brainchild, I wonder what
cleaned, they are irreplaceable.    reference we make to the
There is an identity to this        Esperantists going up the mountain
place, that while the customers    - and in general, how much we let
may come and go, this place will    the outside world (including
be what they share in common.      merko) impinge on the Cafe goings
          ______________            on.
Chinese - Manager; Russian -          I have a couple of thoughts on
  Cook/Wait/Bus/Dishwasher;        the Cafe personnel and the decor;
  American - Cook/Wait/Bus/-        I'll get back to you.  My
  Dishwasher; Arabic - Cook/Wait/-  jimbobism makes me go for #2, with
  Bus/Dishwasher; Hindi - Cook/-    #3 as an alternative.  Do we go
  Wait/Bus/Dishwasher; Spanish -    for equal ratios of men and women?
  Cook/Wait/Bus/Dishwasher.        Do we have any minorities or
Rotating Menu, With Chinese        "deviations" in the personas, or
  overtones because of manager      keep them mainstream? [Clarifying
International Menu                  later:  Actually, I was thinking
                                    sexual minorities.  I expect we
            Discussion              can also assume homophobia to have
                                    been eradicated in Lojbanistan.]
  Nick:  This is a most capital    Hm.  We shall see.
suggestion.  I'm for it full          Dang, this WILL be fun :)
throttle.  I mean, sure, the
unsympathetic outsider would find  The names will have to be native
our scampering for any hint of      Lojban (rafsi):


                                  77
.i ®lu mi ponse no solji .i mi ponse no lo se pleji befi do .i mi pindi je selpopseltau citno .iku'i mi bredi lenu pleji lemi kazyji'e li'
  .u'isai.u'uru'e mi pu nalmorji    colourless - in fact, they are as
lenu cusku lei se stidi cmene.  We  colourful as anything - and they
could have                          are not in the least Russian in
{cic.} ("Wildman")                  culture (that is Grin's own
{cis.} ("Hot Pants")                nationality).
{cit.} ("Kid")                        [On sexual minorities:] ... Now
{ciz.} ("Wierdo")                  I'm going to milxe disagree.  We
{dar.} ("Daredevil")                aren't going to break all existing
{dib.} ("Darl")                    conventions at once, are we?
{din.} ("Moneybag")                We're in an imaginary land, our
{dir.} ("Mr. Kibbitz")              characters talk in Lojban, that's
{duk.} ("Worrywart")                about enough.  I think I could do
{fad.} ("Norm")                    with three men and three women,
{fad.} ("Mr Attitude")              all of them heterosexual.
{faz.} ("Dennis the Menace")          [On staffing:] I don't see why
{fun./xaufun.} ("Lucky") (these    we need the staff to be rotating.
are all #3 names, eh?)              That's not how coffeehouses in the
- or for less unsavoury:            real world are anyway.
{sax.} ("Harmonia")                    [Nick:  Mmm... OK, don't have
{glek.} ("Felicia")                  'em rotating shrug.  Cuts the
{vir.} ("Carl")                      numbers down to five.]
{nol.} ("Adolf")                   
{tir.} ("Ferris") ...                Veijo:  As a quick first comment
                                    I support these opinions.  It's
  Ivan:  Whoever wants to write a  better to make these 'background'
story with Chinese, (Hindu)        characters as neutral as possible
Indians, or Arabs among the        so that the writers don't get into
characters had better be very      unnecessary problems.  The
familiar with the corresponding    characters and the storytellers/-
cultures.  I wouldn't venture      observers in the actual stories
anything of the sort, and          are another matter.  A visitor
therefore make the following        dropping into the cafe isn't
  Counterproposal.  Don't specify  observing the 'common' world when
any national identity or cultural  in the cafe.  His story or the
background for the characters.      story he is listening to while in
Make them representatives of an    the cafe may describe various eth-
abstract, undetermined, or          nic/national/linguistic groups but
fictitious nation.  In this case    the narrator's relationship to the
they might be Lojbanis by birth,    cafe ought to reflect his rela-
for example.  Assume, for the      tionship to the Lojbanic culture.
purpose of the game, that          He may be a full-blown lojbo or
everyone's skin is the same        still have one foot in his ori-
colour.                            ginal culture which will affect
  Otherwise you risk to end up      the way he describes the settings,
with a story that no Arab (say)    the balance between superficial
would find plausible.              and essential details.  Maybe even
  [Later clarifying:]  When I      the male/female dichotomy is
proposed that, I was mainly        superfluous in this context.
thinking of the stories of         
Alexander Grin, one of my favour-    Nick:  Neutral, yes, but not
ite authors.  The events in his    characterless.  Exploring
stories happen in a country which  stylistic stereotypes (the
doesn't exist in the real world,    sledgehammer JL15 I'm prone to)
and even no hint is given as to    should be fun.  I already had in
its location on the map (though it  mind a tanru-ist, an attitu-
is clear that it is a warm area :-  dinalist, an anaphorist and an
)).  The characters, natives of    SVO-ist, as well as the obligatory
that country, are not associated    Prolog speaker :)
with any of the existing cultures.    I think the monomania of
Yet they are by no means            exploring every facet of familiar


                                  78
.i fo'a rapli cisma
objects in a familiar surrounding  better not to go too carefully
(the old brick thing) is highly    this route, and play with that in
pertinent to this do.  Plots and    one of your own stories with a few
tales aren't essential; a laid-    patrons you bring in (if you think
back, look-at-what-everyone-else-  you can do it and still make the
is-doing-and-how-that-crack-on-    story work, which Ivan fears
the-wall-runs attitude is just as  wouldn't happen).  Remember:  If
appropriate here.                  you want something in a character,
  In a boisterous environment like  it can walk in the door.  The
#2, given we've taken out the      patrons, over which each writer
cultural differences, I'd prefer    has more or less complete control,
it if the boisterousness were      are the ones which make the
sustained by some heterogeneity    stories click.  The staff is
amongst the cafe personnel.        background.
                                      Your plan might be a good idea,
  Mark:  Remember, guys, these are  Nick, but it may make writing a
the background characters.  It'd    real challenge for normal folk.
be fine to give them some flavor    Remember, the staff are characters
and all, but don't think they're    that everyone has to live with.
the only ones around, nor the key  If you want a few characters that
ones (except perhaps in some rare  you can deal with that have such
"Cook's Tale" or something).        speech styles, the door's right
  ... [Gender] doesn't make a      over there, and here they come.
whole lot of difference, really.    It's unfair to ask a beginning
Bear in mind that this is Lojban    speaker to incorporate such
we're dealing with; you needn't    clevernesses into his writings by
know anyone's sex unless it        making characters common to all
becomes important.  I could see    the stories have these traits.
the waiter's sex never mentioned      Tell me, when was the last time
until five stories down the line    you could tell at a glance the
when somehow it makes a            sexual orientation of your waiter?
difference.  It'd be nice to keep  Um, badly put (wedding rings are a
it equal, so bear that in mind if  giveaway).  I mean, that's not
it becomes necessary to specify    something anyone would notice or
someone's gender.                   care about unless it chanced to
  Your own characters, that's      become important in a story.  If
something else.  Remember, these    you want someone with orientation
characters are not the ones doing  X, have him/her/it/them walk in
most of the story-telling.  The    the front door, under the climbing
ones doing that are the patrons    axes.  If you feel a need to
whom you bring in.  They may have  attach that kind of info to a
their own idiosyncrasies, culture,  staff member, make sure nobody has
bias, whatever.  In fact, I        beaten you to it, and then think
imagine the chief method of find-  twice before doing it.
ing out people's sex/color/-          Remember, though, that when you
accent/whatever might be seeing    tweak the background or the staff,
things from the point of view of a  you're messing with something that
patron who happens to be            all the writers have to live with.
particularly concerned about such  Don't build your world and force
things.                            everyone else to live in it; bring
  Keep them neutral.  I don't      your world into everyone else's.
think you have to go out of your    In fact, if you really need the
way to try to convince me they're  waiter to be a certain way, you
native lojbananas, and I always    might even consider having a
feel funny about overusing the      replacement waiter that day, just
rafsi-as-name bit; you just can't  to be on the safe side.
trust it.  I like the idea of     
giving them distinct, but            Nick:  Oh, ok.  Still, these'll
distinctly lojbanic, speaking      be the people we come home to in
styles, but perhaps it would be    every episode; they do have to be


                                  79
.i ®lu .e'onai ri zmadu lemi se cpadji .i do'anai ko fi mi dunda leka do sanga'e li'.i ®lu .ueru'e leka mi sanga'e .i .iefi'i .i .e'i mi noroi tirna di .i .e'i li'
"character actors". It seems I    case that with people representing
missed the point of these          6 cultures interacting on a
characters, nevertheless, for      constant basis that none of the
which I duly apologise.             characters would be 'pure' in
  While I want them to be          representing their culture - after
boisterously different from each    all, they do not live with their
other, I also want them to have    own people (at least not likely).
common reference points - I want
them, as a mass, to provide a          (Ivan:  Getting a non-American
feeling of home (Lojbanistan?)        culture is great, but calling it
against which the protagonists are    Arabic or Hindi (by the way,
foregrounded.  Of course, since we    what is Hindi culture?  I've
don't know what being a native        never heard of such), without
Lojbani would entail, we can't        having a close familiarity with
exaggerate this.                     the real ones, would be way too
  ... best is to keep [differences    bold.)
in speech] subtle (not whack whack      (Nick:  Agreed.  But not
zo'u VSO); since that'll take a            inappropriate details,
lot of finesse (which I'm not sure          which will lead us to
I have), we might as well play              embarrassment. Your
this one down. Still, a vague              Hindi-speaking co-owner
guideline (this character prefers          will either be:  US (or
tanru, this one expands) won't              Australian) assimilated,
hurt overmuch.                             to some extent or other
  [As for backgrounds,] I won't            (just like all the Hindi-
mess with what's there, but I              speakers I know), or a
would like something reasonably            caricature. We need some
explicit there to build on.  I am          character and colouring in
going to describe a particular              the owners.  But talking
crack in a wall :)                          about cultures we don't
                                            know enough about (I mean,
  Lojbab:  Ivan asks for several            gee, what do I come up
changes, all of which remove de-            with as a character trait
tail from the persons and scenery          for a Hispanic?) is plain
details.  To write a good story,            too risky. Seek diversity
the details must be present.  If            elsewhere, in that which
we do not specify the culture of            we are familiar with, and
the characters, they will have no          that which everyone is
culture; i.e. they will be                  familiar with.  Having
colorless, which is exactly what            them come out Americans is
we don't want.                              not the ultimate problem
                                            (besides, there are enough
    (Ivan:  Not necessarily.  They          of us outside the States
  simply won't be identified with          to avoid that); you don't
  any one of the existing                  need to hunt down the
  cultures.)                                exotic.  There is little
                                            more mundane and more An-
Actually they won't be - with              glo-cultural than la
mostly Americans in the Lojban              tuerp.'s [David Twery] or
community, they will all end up as          la .andruc.'s [Andrew
nondescript American in culture.            Smith] writing; and yet
I would rather attempt and fail to          their work has the im-
capture hints of a foreign culture          mediate charm of being
than not to attempt at all, and            comfortably Lojbanic that
have the result seem too American.          we seek.)
We may not succeed in capturing a
true Arabic or Hindi culture (but 
then we might come close), but we
will get a somewhat non-American
culture.  One would expect in any


                                  80
.i ®lu do ranji leka ka'e tirna li'u¯ .i fo'a ko'a papri'a sepi'o di'u gi'e cadzu curmi .i ®lu ko pagre li'u¯
  The setting must be well-        quite difficult to create truly
developed and self-consistent.     flesh-and-blood characters.  But
The stories told indeed must stand  telling about a person known to
on their own, but if we are to      everybody may be equally
have any cohesiveness to a set of  difficult.  To be consistent with
stories written by a a variety of  the characterization without
people, many with no particular    merely copying, to add something
talent for literary writing, we    or just to express it somewhat
need some common setting that is    differently takes skill at many
well enough developed that the      levels.  Actually, it might be
stories hang together.  Otherwise  much more difficult than making a
we just have an anthology of        quick sketch of a stranger or
random stories, which loses the    adding depth to some your own cre-
joint-ness of the project.          ation - even in your own native
  The effort of those who worked    language.  Fitting a limited
hard to come up with the scenario,  expressiveness in Lojban to a
and the rather inspirational        detailed microcosm may be in fact
effect it seemed to have as the    harder than creating the details
coffeehouse came together in        on the fly from the bits and
peoples minds, is just the type of  pieces of the Lojban you do
consensus work that we lojbo do     master.
well, and I want to see more of      Brainstorming in English at a
it.                                LogFest may give you quite a
  Indeed, the better writers can    skewed view.  There people are
invent stories and worlds of their  using the imagery of their native
own, and characters as well.        English to create the ckafyzda and
Others may choose to have their    everything flows smoothly.  A
story rest in an interaction        detailed English plan is, however,
between patrons and staff in the    a double-edged sword.  It helps,
coffeehouse, which itself is a      as you said, people to visualize
basis for a lot of powerful story  this microcosm.  On the other hand
imagery, and, given some            people must get rid of this
preparatory work in character      visualization not to be hampered
development of the staff, allows    by it (jumping from English - or
people with perhaps less skill or  Finnish or what so ever - to
imagination to still tell a        Lojban already requires a certain
reasonable story, concentrating on  amount of flexibility of mind).
the Lojban and not on the creative  It will also be quite necessary to
work that not all of us do so      transform the plan into a Lojban
well.                              plan to help the less experienced
  The better writers can invent    Lojbanists to handle the basic
stories and worlds of their own,    premises.  I used the word
and characters as well.  Others    'transform' quite intentionally
may choose to have their story      instead of the word 'translate' as
rest in an interaction between      I feel that a translation isn't
patrons and staff in the            sufficient, it is quite necessary
coffeehouse, which itself is a     to try to remove the 'alien'
basis for a lot of powerful story  imagery. At another - simpler -
imagery, and, given some            level it is necessary to give the
preparatory work in character      required lujvo and the ways of de-
development of the staff, allows    scribing certain quite elementary
people with perhaps less skill or  things:  distances, relationships,
imagination to still tell a        the way things hang together.  It
reasonable story, concentrating on  might be useful to have a kind of
the Lojban and not on the creative  workshop (on the List) where the
work that not all of us do so      novice lojbo would be taught to
well.                              navigate in this verbal VR
                                    (virtual reality).  There might be
  Veijo:  There are many facets to  teams of two or more people
creativeness.  It is, of course,


                                  81
.i ko'a bikla bajra gi'e dzugre ci te serti tai pa nu stapa .i ku'i lefo'a terkre xance ko'a lacpu
working on a person or even a          (Nick:  I think it's perfectly
table to get it just so.             possible, but then, I think
                                      we're also looking for different
    (Nick:  Because I have only      things in character definition.
  vague suspicions about how this    What maketh a Hindi speaking
  might work, I propose that we,      character?  I know personally 3
  as an example, navigate on          native Hindi speakers Now what
  [Lojban List] around, oh, the      do I extract from them to
  leftmost bench nearest the          create, say, la jbosanjiv., and
  kitchen.  I'm not being            what am I missing by virtue of
  facetious; I want to see how one    the fact that I talk with these
  would go about this.  The tables    people in English, within an
  are made of old soft oak, on        Anglo culture?  If these
  which many symbols and inscrip-    characters aren't assimilated
  tions have been carved.)            into some medium we're familiar
This kind of process might help      with (regrettably or not,
people to find their own voice and    this'll have to be a more or
to cultivate the innate creativity    less Anglo cultural medium -
each one of us is sure to possess.    leave the "or less" part to us
                                      na'e glico) they'll be
  Nick:  And with what you (Veijo)    caricatures. And of course, as
say about characterisation, too,      background, they don't have to
the solution is a broad-brush        be that detailed anyway.
sketch that allows us room to     
maneuver in; not too detailed, not    If we're to avoid a palace coup,
too vague.  Well, that can          sure, keep them Hindi and Arabic
certainly be handled.              in name; but don't expect the
  I think a Lojbanisation of the    character description to be too
brush-stroke plan will not be      adamant about their cultural
limiting at all; people do really  identity.  Exoticising these
need that help in simply keeping a  people is unsatisfactory.  They
narrative going.                    will be somewhat assimilated, into
  As the mass of writers becomes    be it merko or jbomerko.  This is
more familiar with Lojban, the      nothing to be ashamed of.  Talking
Cafe will be sketched out in        about the Arab's fiery temperament
greater detail in the story, and    or the Russian's cool intellect as
more successfully, with the end    cultural traits would be.)
result possibly quite distant from    After we have the basic scenario
what we'd anticipated at the        settled, the material can be
start.  The more expert of us      translated into Lojban, and people
reinforce those less expert in the  can set up teleconferences of
describing.                        whatever kind to help each other
                                    in writing, or whatever, but while
  Lojbab:  The plan is that there  the project is still in the
be 1 coffeehouse, and that the de-  formative stage, we must make
scription be suitably refined in    provision for those who want to
English.  People will develop      learn Lojban but haven't yet done
refined descriptions of 6          so, and for those who do not have
characters (or some other number    net access (which is 90% of the
if we abandon the 6 cultures idea  community).
- but I don't think you can have a    Be that as it may, I recognize
'cultureless person' and have the  that most of the work will be done
character detail that I think the  by people on net, and we should
others want in the shared          take advantage of the opportunity
characters), which will then be    for rapid communication.  But
voted on, which means the          please be considerate of those who
characters must also be defined in  want to participate but cannot.
English.                              If people think they can develop
                                    interesting culture-free
                                    characters, I for one will await


                                  82
.i ®lu banzu .i ko sisti mu'i lenu tirna leiko'u vu cnita cmoni li'
the first posted character de-      messages on the screen and the
scription meeting the challenge.   inevitable problems caused by
                                    widely differing time zones - it's
    (Nick:  Cool.  Veijo's          like being a semi-cyborg.
  navigation of virtual reality      I can imagine, on the other
  can be done once the description  hand, the limitations of meeting
  is in place, and the description  others only, say, once a week and
  should not be exhaustive.)        keeping all the ideas to yourself
                                    in the meantime and not hearing
  Veijo:  I certainly understand    from the others or the goings-on
those of us who were at the        (too few of us are still
LogFest and now feel that the net-  accustomed to writing real letters
people are trying to take over the  - and remembering the state of
whole Project utilizing their      postal services to-day I guess it
technological 'supremacy'.  On the  wouldn't much help).  I can think
other hand, we who are, due to      of being without the List
external factors unsurmountable,    (shudder).  Of course it is a
unable to attend the LogFests and  slightly different matter for me
are limited to electronic          here in the middle of a figurative
contacts, which - though fast -    nowhere.  The blip of an arriving
cannot compete with face-to-face    message envelope is also a symbol
contacts and classes, feel left    of the contact with you others.
out of the initial phase of the   
Project.                              Lojbab:  In this case the people
  Actually we were left a quite    in question who are not on-net
limited say in the formulation of  live 250 miles from here and have
the framework.  The views I did    no contact with any Lojbanists
present in my previous postings    except at LogFest, and when JL
were ones I should have liked to    comes out.  We may all be in the
present at the LogFest, I should    same country over here, but that
have liked to have had my say at    doesn't necessarily mean that we
that time.  Perhaps it would have  are close to each other.  On the
made no difference in the outcome,  other hand, I see your point of
but I should have felt              view too.  Your ideas will be pre-
differently.  When I was writing    sented to them, and the decision
the postings I recognized I was -  process will just take a little
at least to an extent - writing    longer.  I just wanted people to
post facto.  The writing was,      try to think of ways to keep
however, necessary to find out      everyone working towards the same
just how much elbowroom I had.      goals, when some people are stuck
These postings (as quite many of    with paper mail rates.  This is
my previous ones) must be taken    not intended to stifle the lively
with a pinch of salt.  They are in  and entertaining debate that has
a way a substitute for the process  occurred.
of thinking out loud in a class or    I don't think that the people
a group working on a problem.  The  off net are necessarily locked
postings do contain errors and      into the 6 cultures idea.  But
false starts which in a class      they did sound very committed to
would be corrected immediately.  I  the idea of these common
am at least as much talking to      characters being defined is
myself as to others on the net -    considerable detail, in English,
but the process only works if I do  before people started to write in
send the messages out.              Lojban.  The desire for detail and
  I do hope that the people who    for English, as well as the clear
feel left out of all the fun we on  desire for people to go beyond
the net do have would try - once    philosophy and into specific
in a while - to imagine themselves  detailed descriptions of people
sitting a couple of thousand        and the coffeehouse itself, is
kilometers from the nearest active  what I was trying to urge.
fellow lojbo and having only the


                                  83
.i ko'a sisti gi'e kerlo jundi
  It was my idea, not theirs, that  side this land/domain of Kaleva
the best way to show Hindi culture  which actually remains quite vague
is my having some Hindi-inspired    and so, in a way, the name tells
Lojban stylistics, etc.  I think    nothing of the contents - it just
the original people posing the      kind of sets the reference point.
idea were thinking more along the  So I think we might as well
lines of having the chef of the    replace 'The Kalevala' with 'la
day specialize in cooking foods of  jbotur.'  (lojbo tutra = the
his/her native culture (for which  domain of Lojban) and call the
we would need lots of lujvo and    project 'The Jbotur Project' (le
le'avla in order to have the foods  la jbotur. fitpla) or something
recognizable, if then).  Thus I    like that (for the time being).
thought that stylistics of Lojban  Here I am thinking of tutra in
would be a more creative way to    quite a figurative sense, more as
go, people will recognize the      a mental territory/domain/sphere
exoticness of the non-standard      of influence than as a
forms, and maybe even learn a      geographical territory.  I also
little linguistics about the        thought of various other
differences in the languages based  possibilities but none were as
on the Lojban forms.  But I do not  concise or descriptive.
see that we have to go too extreme    Again a couple of figurative
to bona fide culture, especially    names:
if people don't think they can
pull it off.                            la *jbolaz. ( < lojbo lanzu) =
  If people don't want to use the    the people tied together by
6 culture labels, I suspect this      Lojban
will fly, but only if the
characters are defined well enough      la jbonat. ( < lojbo natmi) =
that people writing feel they        the people with a Lojbanic
'know' the characters either          cultural background
fully, or in terms of any cultural
features/stereotypes/whatever that    I can't tell why I prefer 'jbo'
would be most noticed by your      to 'loj' in this context.  Perhaps
everyday lojbo wandering in for a  it gives the lujvo a certain
cup of coffee.                     distance from concreteness.
  I don't think that there is a     Lojban is something quite concrete
'splintering' between the non-      and 'la lojnat.' would feel too
netters and the netters.  But my    near to 'Lojbanic nation'.
responsibility is to see that one  Theoretically, of course, there is
doesn't come about.  I fully feel  no difference and the two are
Veijo's isolation in not being      interchangeable.  I'll leave it to
able to come to LogFest.  But      others to decide whether these
there are plenty of people in the  particular forms are preferable
U. S. who feel just as distant as  and whether these names are worth
you do, though they may be only    adoption to name the abstract
250 miles away instead of 8000.    entities in our writings.  I think
                                    we have/will have the entities.
  Veijo:  [On] the name of the          [Lojbab:  "*jbolaz" is an
Project: The Kalevala got to the            invalid name, because it
name of the project more by way of          contains a syllable
accident than by volition.  It is          starting with "la".
in a way quite fitting as the              However, it is
Kalevala (or the epic poems/songs          permissible, and perhaps
on which it is based) was created          even more Lojbanic, to
by numerous anonymous people                leave the name as a brivla
during several centuries.  The              "la jbolanzu".  brivla, of
'-la' at the end of the name                course, do not have the
corresponds roughly to the '-ia'            "la" restriction.  Perhaps
of 'Lojbania'.  Most of the                we should save name
action, however, takes place out-          morphology for words


                                  84
.i ®lu .uesai .i ?ki'uma ko'u suksa cfari lenu to'edri sanga gi'e xalbo cmila li'u¯ .i ko'a krefu ke bikla bajra
        Lojbanized from other lan-  nominal editor (forwarding mail to
        guages.                     the editor de jour who must commit
    Another alternative that works  him/herself to passing all
        is to use a different      articles through the current
        rafsi condensation that    parser, and glossing lujvo as
        avoids the problem. In    appropriate.)
        this case "la loblaz." is
        legal because the "b"        Lojbab:  I see no problem with
        before the "la" prevents a  such a newsletter, but feel that
        morphology problem.  This  it is appropriate after the
        is a solution here, but    getting started period of the
        won't always be possible,  first two issues of JL, which will
        so I favor the selbri ap-  serve to give more people a chance
        proach in general.          to decide to participate who are
    Since there has been no        in the snailmail set.
        agreement among the par-      After the next two issues of JL,
        ticipants as to the name    I suspect that there will be
        of the cafe, in editing    enough people motivated by the
        this issue I have left all  project and skilled enough at
        names, including this      Lojban, that there will be more
        invalid one, as stated by  than just Nick and Veijo trying to
        the authors. Ideas for    write stuff that is appropriate,
        names are welcome from all  including some people not on net.
        of the community.          When the non-netters feel comfort-
__________________________________  able in participating, then I
              ______                personally will have no qualms in
                                    letting the project go where it
  C. The Cafe *Jbolaz Newsletter    will, including letting whatever
            proposal              leaders have emerged at that point
                                    assume both control and
  Nick:  Every two months, an      responsibility.  I would hope of
electronic and snailmail [i.e      course that LLG would be offered
regular postal mail] set of Cafe    first publication rights on the
descriptions gets mailed out -      results, as well as to get as much
this is necessary to allow the      archival data as possible on this,
off-net participants to keep up to  the first organized-and-skilled
date.  For net participants, a      creative writing effort in what is
month after posting their cafe      obviously about to become a living
article on the net, they must      language.
submit a revision incorporating   
all comments made.  For those off    Veijo:  The original plan called
net, the newsletter editor          for stories told at the Cafe.  We
forwards all comments (net and      have already had differences of
snail), allowing the contributor    opinion concerning background
to post a revision, say, four      details.  Now Nick is proposing
months later.  The newsletter is    that we widen the scope to include
all-Lojban, and people (preferably  also other kinds of related liter-
on the net, and preferably gram-    ary works.  (My srinuntroci or
mar-competent) can take turns      navigations as Nick calls them are
editing it.  The newsletter is      just kind of etudes, not meant to
cafe only, other literature being  be the stories, though widening
forwarded as usual for JL          the scope will make them eligible
consideration.  Cafe articles need  for publication.)  In principle I
not be tales at all - any piece to  am for this change of policy as it
do with the cafe (like Veijo's      makes it possible also for the
navigation or my Fraktur rant) is  less advanced lojbo to participate
legit, as is any genre.  If we all  in the creative process.  It is
approve on this, the newsletter    much less demanding to produce a
can be announced in JL.  Some      snapshot of a few lines than to
central on-net personage should be


                                  85
.i fo'a ko'a krefu rinju
produce something like Nick's      bit stodgy in Lojban, but would
Fraktur rant.  We could have many  also help explore Lojban's
more people contributing if this    capacities more.  A catechism or
were an acceptable option.  I      an Encyclopedia reference (I know
think the non-netters would profit  I've got Joyce's Ulysses in mind
most from this change as longer    here, but bear with me) are just
stories do need more rounds of      as valid modes of expression, and
feedback from others.              just as helpful to the language.
  The question of the editorship    A fixed kind of narrative is
and of a possible editorial board  unduly constrictive, and can
must be solved.  Although          discourage many would-be
technical reasons seem to indicate  participants.  In fact, I'd be
an on-net board, other              discouraged from producing a
possibilities must also be          straightforward narrative.
considered.  The board might also    Plus, I think the opportunity of
be something quite informal.  In    using this as a springboard for
practice we would have a wide open  some satire of the Lojban movement
peer review system where in        is too good to pass up :)
principle all the lojbo on the net    Certainly the editorship need
would be doing the reviewing.  For  not be formal.  Let me attempt to
the netters this works fine but I  refine my proposal:  the editor du
think Nick's proposal concerning    jour is entrusted with the
the non-netters would require some  typographic preparation of the
fine-tuning.                        journal, the style preferred in
  This issue must be handled with  his/her number (namely, subjective
the greatest sensitivity.          minor issues of expression - lujvo
  The division of work between the  phrasing, optional punctuation and
board and the Lojban Central must  spelling, minor grammatical errors
be agreed on.  There are technical  - can be left to them). They also
questions like handling of the      do the chasing up of
snailmail if the editors are        correspondence and editing of
mainly outside the USA (most of    discussions eventuating from
the non-netters are in the USA)    articles published in their issue,
and converting source text to text  adjusting the work accordingly and
files suitable for e-mail.          resubmitting it on the expiry date
  Last but not least are the        to the current editor for
financial questions.  I think the  publication.  What I'm saying is
ideal would be if we could find    that a given ed du jour is
independent ways of funding the    responsible for all articles first
newsletter and the related          published by him.  For example:
editorial mail so that we don't    suppose I, Mark, and Colin are eds
strain the limited resources of    du jour, and, oh, Nancy Lebovitz
the Central.  We need some          (say) submits an article that gets
estimate of the volume of the mail  corrected and published during my
and the circulation of the          editorship.  I then, and not Mark,
newsletter.  This concerns mainly  follow up any subsequent
the section of the community which  discussion and correspondence
doesn't have net access.  An        about Nancy's article, I make the
option might be to circulate the    suitable adjustments, and hand the
newsletter as an appendix to JL.    finished result, and only the more
                                    interesting highlights of the dis-
  Nick:  In creating a virtual      cussion, to Colin (say) for
world such as this, we must be af-  republication.  I suppose that
forded full freedom in our ways of  means that my norms, rather than
exploring it, and full scope for    Colin's, go for the republished
Lojbanists of all interests and    article; but at least work gets
capabilities to work with it.      shared out that way.
Extended narrative is one            The reviewing of text is of
alternative; others would not only  course carried out by all sub-
be a relief from what could get a   scribers to the newsletter, on net


                                  86
.i ®lu mu'i lenu do krefu pagre ci te serti kei mi cpadji ledo kanla li'
or off. But one person has to tie  Certainly we should use the net to
all the threads together at the    make sure stuff gets snailmailed
end, and take responsibility for    in the same quarter of the globe,
touching up the text in accordance  at least; that'll be a big help.
with the criticisms made; let that  One article per newsletter in JL,
person be the first publication's  but I'd like the newsletter to
ed du jour.                        eventually have some editorial
  The editor in chief takes care    independence (once again, that
of the editorial; his/her address  would be excellent PR).
appears in the newsletter as the      [As to who should be editor, it]
address to which all                basically boils down to who feels
correspondence is directed; has a  like being ed du jour (and
certain amount of veto as to        handling a lot of grammar and
article content (checking for      correspondence), and who feels
consistency and so forth), vetts    like ed in chief (who will have
the newsletter just before          little grammar, but lots of
publication, and reports to the    correspondence, supervision, and
wider community through JL as      consistency checking)?  I still
needed.                            nominate Veijo for ed in chief;
  I see no reason why stories      I'll go ed du jour, and we should
should not be mailed for sub-      have 3 to 5 such eds that we can
mission and entered into text      divide work between; they need to
files directly by the editor in    have demonstrated Lojban
chief, who is after all just one    competence, and that already
address (if this is a forbidding    narrows down the candidates to
responsibility for an ed in chief,  less than twenty.
um, I dunno, get the ed a scanner 
:)  Of course, all these proposals    Lojbab (originally private to
are for when the project is off on  Veijo):  I haven't said so, and
its own two feet and running.  For  have been biting my tongue while
now, if I understand Lojbab's mail  all the discussion is going on.
correctly, Lojban Central will      It sounds like the Lojban
still mediate.                      "creative writing" movement is
  The LLG can have all the          about to take off on its own, and
archival stuff it wants (and with  be more than mildly independent of
editorship a net activity,          "Lojban Central" with its own
there'll be plenty of it).  I'm    editor (perhaps you) and
not sure about publication rights  publication not much under my
though.  I envisage a periodical    control.  I think this is good
publication, rather than a book-    because it shows the language can
form corpus, that certainly is      and will become free of me and of
distributed by the LLG, and sold    even the concept of a centralized
at a profit to the LLG, but which  "Central".  This also allows me to
is produced by a decentralised      show that my attitude is entirely
body, which is not necessarily      opposite from JCB, who when faced
equivalent to the LLG.              with anything like this
  I suppose Lojbab's approach [on  immediately becomes extremely
finances] will do.  I dearly want  possessive and controlling.  I
a periodical publication out of    will not display such an attitude,
this, not just a corpus of text to  at all costs; our legitimacy as an
be dumped in Fairfax for people to  organization and a project
order; but it is fair that the      independent of JCB depends on it.
periodical be available by LLG's      Still I have some misgivings, in
preorder (and if you preorder      that, honestly, most of the net
enough, by subscription).  We'll    postings, even in the final draft
ask for expressions of interest in  forms, have tended to be
the next JL.  As for editorial      significantly flawed in lots of
mail...  depending on volume, the  minor details of the language.
eds as a committee may have to      The netters catch most things, but
start pooling resources.            not everything, as in the example


                                  87
.i ko'a pa'arcau sliri'a le xance
of your *tosmabru error in your    your developing and improving
first attempt. Nick is the most    (rapidly) exemplification of such
voluminous writer we have, and in  a good Lojban style.
many ways the best in that he has    I don't know what the solution
demonstrated a command of many      is.  I want this type of movement
idiosyncrasies of the language,    to get started, and I want it to
but I have found that, even after  succeed.  But I worry that it is
he posts his 3rd or 4th revision    premature, in that no one,
he still has multitudinous little  including myself, has the Lojban
errors - things like failing to    skill to be an editor of Lojban
check the rafsi in a lujvo, errors  text, as such an editor needs to
of place structure, etc.  He even  be given the present skill level
has a copy of the parser, but he    among others in the community.
has told me that he merely checks  Yet, how will such an editor de-
to make sure that the text parses,  velop, if no one takes the first
and doesn't always check to make    step and tries.
sure that it is parsing the way he    Your ideas on this convoluted
intends it to be read.  Thus, for  problem are of interest to me.
example, you will find dozens of    Please keep this between us for
minor changes between his final    now, since, as I said, I don't
posted version of Aesop, and the    want my doubts to stifle debate or
version I finally printed in JL.    the formation of a movement; I
(And unfortunately Nick didn't      write to you, because I sense in
agree with all my changes, but      your writings and activities of
there wasn't time for him to        the last month or two that my
respond before publication.)        comments are not going to
  Perhaps you can see what my      discourage you.  But others have
misgiving is, then.  Will the      proven very sensitive to this
proposed new publication have an    whole silly concept of a "Central"
editor who can and will check the  (which concept I wish had never
language usage as thoroughly as it  evolved - I don't want to be a
needs to be checked?  How much      figure of authority).
authority will the editor have to 
correct and change misusages          Veijo:  Well, I think a
without getting author approval.    'Central' can have a quite legiti-
(Nick may have accepted my changes  mate role - even in the long run.
because I am 'of Central' whereas  In Finland we have something
he might be less tolerant of        called 'the language office' which
others changing his stuff.  But    cannot enforce anything but
too much editorial/authorial        follows the debates about the
dillying over individual pieces of  current usage, comments on it
work will lead to an editor who    every now and then and is there to
has to spend an excessive amount    answer questions about the correct
of time in correspondence over a    usage.  Given the nature of Lojban
relatively small amount of final    I think we'll need a kind of
text.  The text being generated in  clearing house for changes of
the community now already exceeds  grammar, place structures etc. to
what Cowan and I can read and      avoid anarchy before the language
perform such editorial checking    has stabilized.  Also, I feel that
on.                                a seal of approval on changes will
  And of course if the editor      help to avoid some of the endless
spends too much time editing, he/-  and probably fruitless debates
she gets to spend little time      raging among the Esperantists.
writing his own stuff (a problem I  With people like you at the
personally have experienced).      Institute I have no fear of an
Thus, while Nick compliments you    overtly stifling influence.
by asking you to be editor because    I do not see the journal as
you have a natural Lojbanic style,  something completely independent.
if you actually serve as editor,    It will, of course, have an
the community will be deprived of  independent editorial policy.  It


                                  88
.i ®lu ku'i va'o la'edi'u mi na ka'e viska ga leimi bruna gi leimi ba se vefsfa li'
will, however, be a purely          being forced to read what others
literary journal not containing    have written and to really think
any theoretical material - at      about it will give you a better
least not in English, perhaps in    perspective on what you yourself
the long run we'll have Lojban      are writing.  None of us has a
articles about stylistics, reviews  literary Lojbanic background and
etc.  I think JL will remain the    to find the language and refine
proper publishing channel for the  our own writing we must try to
linguistic questions arising on    explore as much of the text being
the basis of the submitted          written as possible. Nick's
stories.                            proposal would help a lot.
  Well, I think we'll never catch    Being set up as an example may
all the errors but probably we'll  be quite counterproductive.  If
be better off than most natural    you, every time you sit down to
language journals.  I'm modifying  write, feel that you must be able
the editor program I'm using        to create something exemplary, it
presently (the one with hypertext  will - sooner or later -
capability) to do certain things.  extinguish your creativity.  You
At the moment it has vocabulary    must be able to allow yourself the
and rafsi look-up capability (if    luxury of also producing mediocre
only I'd remember to use them      or even poor text in order to be
always) and I intend to add lujvo  relaxed enough to produce
checking next.                      something worth your while.
  Cf. Nick's posting: The main        At the moment the journal can
idea was that the workload would    only succeed as a collective
be divided between the ed in chief  effort, along the lines Nick has
and the ed du jour.  The ed in      pointed out.  I think his plan
chief would write the editorial,    might work - with a few finishing
define the profile of the journal  touches.  And I think we need the
and accept the stories for          journal to give the community a
publication.  The ed du jour would  further reason d'etre as there are
do the dirty work of preparing the  very few people who'll remain
stories for publication with all    content to study a language which
the associated fuss.  Each issue    isn't actually used as a language.
might have a different ed du jour  The main purpose of the journal
- the qualified people taking      would be to encourage people to
turns - so nobody would be          write in Lojban, to start with
prevented from writing etc.  for a  simple things (I have even thought
prolonged period of time.          that good one-liners might be
  It is normal practice in          worth publishing) and gradually to
journals that the ed in chief de-  proceed to more demanding forms of
cides what gets published.  If an  expression.  After 5, maybe 10
author doesn't want to change      years we might have another
his/her text to the extent that    journal with more ambitious goals
it'll pass the editorial board,    - if the language really takes off
the text doesn't get published.    - but now we'd be content just to
On the other hand the journal      have a journal - 'la jbotur po'u
cannot publish something against    le jbocfi karni pe lei ckafybarja
the authors will.  I think the      lisri' or what ever it would be
journal ought to have a 'charter'  called.
defining the aims, the editorial      The way I see it, we aren't in
policy and the editorial            any particular hurry.  First we
procedures.  All the reviewing      must present the idea in JL and
would be public so we'd have less  poll the opinions of the
fear of unfair treatment.          community.  If the response is
  Editing detracts from writing    positive, the real work would
detracts from theoretical work      start, say, in January and we
detracts from studying detracts    ought to have the material for the
from ..., the never ending chain    first issue prepared by the end of
of choices.  On the other hand,    March.  I think we'll have enough


                                  89
.i ®lu do ranji leka ka'e viska
material by then and ample time    statements would contain a
for the editing (at the present    standard attachment declaring that
rate we'll have lots of material    the statement a) is based on the
even before the end of the year).  current parser and/or word list
Preparing this first issue will    and as such is "objective" or b)
give us enough experience to        is a considered opinion of so and
define the schedule for the later  so and as such doesn't constitute
issues realistically.              an absolute ruling/truth but a
  [Veijo's times in this paragraph  recommendation. The main idea is
were undoubtedly predicated on the  that there would a body to which
assumption that JL would be on      you could address your questions
schedule, which it has not been,    and have reasonable expectations
and that the volume of text that    of getting a correct or at least
was written in August would        thoroughly considered answer.  Of
continue at that rate, which it    course you can ask questions on
also has not.]                      the net but then you may get a
                                    multitude of answers from which
  Lojbab:  I agree that having to  you must choose or get a single
be exemplary stifle creativity and  answer from somebody who just
productivity.  Why do you think I  thinks he knows - the question and
don't wish my job on anyone else?  the answer having passed unnoticed
It is a real bear being thought of  by those who would be better qual-
as the ultimate authority, and      ified to answer - or even no an-
having little errors from years    swer at all.  But how to avoid the
ago held up as sanctified rulings.  halo of Authority, that is the
That is why I find "Central" a      question.
distressing concept, since         
'Central' like the Pope, is never      Lojbab:  Which leads me to
wrong and must always be right.            mention the thing I was
And I am not infallible.  First            talking to Nick about [see
among equals is fine, and indeed            below for this text].  One
you-all who are most active on              problem I've never seen a
Lojban List tend to think of me            solution for is how to
this way.  But the masses that are          communicate with those
not as active consider me much              just short of trying to
more of an Authority.                      use the language.  You
                                            have noticed how little
  Veijo:  I know and I certainly            Sylvia and Dave post, and
do not envy your position.  (It's          there are several others
funny, I was actually considering          that could probably post
the phrase 'primus inter pares' in          good stuff too, but they:
some context in my previous letter      a) don't try because the
but then decided to avoid it as it          debates that ensue are in-
is sometimes also used to mean              timidating;
'first among "equals"'.)  Many -        b) don't try because they see
if not most - people have a need            this enormous volume of
for an authority and this ought to          debate on each discussion,
be taken into account.  I think            and put all their effort
we'll have to consider the role            into trying to understand
and nature of the 'Central' in the          it, not always with useful
future.  The way I see it now, we          effect.
should have a group of experienced  I think that the tons of stuff on
Lojbanists (6-12), geographically  the coffee house has probably
dispersed, in contact with each    intimidated some people from
other outside the Lojban list.      speaking up, simply because the
This group would, among other      leadership is going at it so fast
duties, work like the 'language    and furious.
office'.  I mentioned giving out      And while I am happy to see
statements either as individuals    yours and Nick's attempts at
or as a collective.  These          supporting text in Lojban, they 1)


                                  90
.i mi fi do ba dunda lo drata kanla noi mutce zmadu li'.i ko'a rapli pagre ci te serti gi'e ni'a catlu jundi .i fo'a rinka lenu ko'a morji
set a standard few feel that they  no good if I invent a clever story
can match, so they don't try and    or a detailed description but lack
2) because they are in Lojban,      the means of expressing it in
people have to spend the time      Lojban. First I must develop a
needed to read and understand (if  familiarity with the language -
possible) what has been written to  writing little banal first-grader
make sure that what they write is  stories if need be.  The way I
consistent with what has gone      work maybe the reason for the hint
before.  The latter is the reason  of lojbo style in the stories.
that I was urging people to keep    It's like putting together a
to English for the most part        puzzle or playing a game of Go.  I
during the project formation        pick a key piece - an observative,
phase.  Nick did give an English    a selbri, a sumti, an attitudinal
translation, though colloquial.    or maybe a complete bridi from
You didn't, at least that I        Nick's rant - put it on the board
noticed. The newcomer right now    and start attaching other pieces
probably hasn't got a clue what is  around it.  The story/paragraph is
going on, and what if anything has  like an extended bridi with places
been determined/decided about the  to fill - only the places aren't
project, and what details if any    predefined but change all the time
have been added since the initial  I'm developing the story.  So it
posting.  The latter is why Karen  isn't a linear process where I'd
wanted people to write rather      have an idea and just started from
lengthy English supporting text -  the beginning - I can't sustain
so that people know about what      that yet. This way I can add just
they are writing before they        the kind of pieces I can manage -
start, and get to save their        or change my mind halfway through
creativity for the stories.        if the going gets too rough.
                                      We are still waiting reactions
  Veijo:  Perhaps I ought to post  to the views I presented
an explanation of what I'm trying  concerning the handling of the
to accomplish with my little        subject, we have this new idea of
stories.  There is a qualitative    starting a newsletter and the
difference between my two little    related ideas concerning the
etudes and Nick's rant.  Nick's    subject material and, of course,
story needs the translation as it  the additions to the English
adds details to the original        supporting text by Nick and some
English description, my two        other people.  The adoption of the
published stories, on the other    supporting text will be a problem.
hand, actually add nothing to it,  It seems to me we are going to
so it isn't so essential to        need an editor just to select and
understand them.                    unify the accumulating material.
  What I'd like to show to just    Some of Nick's material is fine as
the people who'd like to post      a literary work but hardly stuff
something but feel they aren't      to encourage an apprentice to base
advanced enough, is that it is      a story upon.  You know my views
possible to take a small detail    and misgivings about this approach
(the smell of coffee, an inscribed  and there is no need to reiterate,
letteral) and develop a few bridi  I guess.  I know my limits and I
concerning it.  The story may be    have found a way to cope - at
quite banal, the main thing is to  least at this stage.
write something in Lojban -          The 'etudes' I'm writing now do
preferably without an original in  not - or not exactly - fit within
any natural language.  My Lojban    the original framework and perhaps
isn't so advanced that I could      it was an error to post them
take an extended passage from the  without comments to that effect
English description and transcribe  though at the time I was writing
it into real Lojban.                the first one I felt it was better
  This is why I wasn't so          to avoid comments which might be
concerned about invention - it's    misinterpreted by the non-netters


                                  91
.i ®lu ko viska leko'u ®lunbe ke ciblu ve flecu xadni li'
as we still don't have their        those of you who pour out
reactions to the views I had pre-  commentary on each others texts at
sented earlier.                    high volume and at rapid response
  For me these etudes are a way to  rates are doing something quite
learn, to study, and comparable to  different than we do when we read
any other stuff people are          these texts, possibly something
posting.  If we keep to the        much better than what we do.
original plan they are my way of    Indeed, I find that while I can
preparing for the project proper,  translate quickly in my head, even
if we, on the other hand, decide    the smallest grammatical or rafsi
to start the newsletter and change  error brings me to a complete halt
the scope of the material the way  because I have no error recovery
I have outlined, they may be        capability - I have to stop and do
eligible for publication.          a detailed word-for-word
                                    translation to try to figure out
  Lojbab (originally private to    what the speaker was trying to say
Nick):  I suspect that you won't    in English before I can hope to
see any of the inactive people      figure out what the Lojban 'should
contributing to the coffeehouse    have been'.)
for a while.  That effort is doing    Not sure what the solution to
stunningly well, and has taken on  all this is. It is great to see
a life of its own independent of    all of this on-line volume, and
"Central" (thank God, since I      people seem to be signing up to
abhor the concept of a Lojban      start learning more actively in
'Central' in the first place).      the last two weeks since this
But it is suffering from the same  effort has come to life.  But you
problem that has afflicted almost  need to know that those of lower
all previous discussions of Lojban  confidence or skill are unlikely
text on net.  Some few people, in  to contribute for a while, and I'm
this case apparently you, Veijo,    not sure I have any ideas how to
Ivan, Mark, and Colin, are          remedy the situation.
churning out so much text and     
commentary on text that the others    Nick:  I still don't know what
with less time or less confidence  we can do with beginners.  I do
cannot be other-than lurkers,      note two things, however:  there
because they cannot read what has  are beginners out there with
been written as fast as new stuff  enthusiasm, who don't blanche at
is produced.  I doubt that you      the sight of Lojban sentences
will see much from Sylvia, and you  (Dryad, for example, saying "if I
might even see less simply because  don't understand a sentence, I'll
everyone else is writing more.  I  let you know); and I'd count
printed out your latest 'rant',    Andrew Smith and Veijo Vilva
and we will be going over it in    amongst the beginners, the only
Tuesday-night group next Tuesday,  difference being that they have
but Veijo's much shorter text was  applied themselves to the lan-
all that we covered last Tuesday,  guage.  It takes little more than
so I suspect they may be working    a month to turn from a lurker to a
on your text for a few weeks.      text-writer; barely three to
When we read Lojban texts here,    become a Jimbob, given the right
every single word and every single  background.  As for incentive, the
rafsi is looked up, and thus even  Cafe is a great idea, allowing
if you-and-others never made        oodles of scope, and if it doesn't
mistakes in these areas, this      get people writing, nothing will.
makes for very slow progress.     
(Nobody here has any confidence in    Lojbab:  With regard to the
our ability to read texts in        enthusiasm of beginners, I think
Lojban as opposed to in literal    that there are two or three kinds.
English translation, which in my    Some are inspired by seeing the
case I can do in my head.  I have  quantity of text, others are
long gotten the impression that    intimidated.  I am opposed to the


                                  92
.i ®lu .uecai .i .u'ecai cizra
opening up of the coffee house      never done so at all. I suspect
project to 'anything goes',        that the rest of us here in DC are
because the worst problem we have  the same way.  We can converse in
around here in getting people to    the language comfortably (that is
write is that we basically here    Nora, Sylvia and I), but we do so
are not creative writers - we need  by not using lujvo unless the
to be given a subject to write      place structures and the rafsi-
about - an anchor to build a ship  meanings are rather obvious from
around.  I can urge all that I      the context, because though I can
want, but the more wide open the    make lujvo in my head, the others
subject matter is, the more people  have to stop and look them up,
here get writer's block because    which kills conversation.  Thus
there are too many options and too  your rather more literary style is
little creativity - so they go      an effort to read - we have to
back to translation.  If indeed    check everything thoroughly before
there has been such an opening up  we have any idea what you are
of the project, as I understand    saying.  Since you and others who
what you write, those who proposed  post to the net are predominantly
it may take it back and make a      writers rather than speakers of
smaller, more restricted sub-      the language, this stylistic
project that they are comfortable  difference is rather difficult at
with, because otherwise they won't  the moment to overcome - you are
write anything.  (You will recall  used to taking the time to analyze
from my original posting that      stuff on-line that we cannot and
Karen Stein, who really took        do not do.  By comparison, I
charge here at LogFest on this      suspect it will take us 2 weeks
thing was adamant about the need    merely to go through your latest
to fully define the coffeehouse    text and understand it as Lojban.
setting and the common characters    Part of the effect of our
in English so that everyone        different styles of language use
understood the common ground        is that people who do all their
before they started to write.  She  work on-net are tolerant of
is a creative writer, but she said  different types of errors than us
that she could not write the kind  conversationalists.  I find that
of stories she wants without        your errors caused by not looking
having this firm structure to      up rafsi and gismu bring me to a
build off of - at least not if she  complete halt, because I cannot
wanted to end up with anything      error-correct those type of errors
that would tie in to what anyone    quickly.  Yet people seem to read
else decided to write.  And the    and respond to your stuff with
group-ness of the enterprise was    comments at a variety of levels
clearly the thing that excited her  quite quickly compared to what we
about it.)                          manage here.  They seem to
  As for the 'who is writing'      concentrate on tanru and lujvo,
question - the people here are      and kind of absorb the grammar in
totally overwhelmed even by the    passing having figured out the
two pieces of text that have been  meaning by correlating the tanru
posted.  People here feel the need  into a gestalt meaning that
to digest word-for-word everything  dominates the sentence.
that gets written before            Meanwhile, we get stuck on the
responding to it.  Both Cowan and  missing "cu" that leads to total
I, arguably among the most skilled  nonsense.
in the language, especially          The point of this is that if
technically, no longer even bother  Cowan and Lojbab can be in-
to try to read Lojban text that is  timidated out of trying to read
posted.  It takes too much work;    your stuff, that should tell you
we file it away under the 'someday  something about what happens to
...' file, whereupon I eventually  David Young, with a gismu
pull some of it out when I go to    vocabulary of 100 after a long
produce a JL issue; Cowan has      summer of LogFlash, and Guy


                                  93
.i ?cama binxo lenu ko'u melbi dasni .i ji'a seba'i lei ciblu te xrani ko'u se jadni loi se manci xunre rozgu li'
Garnett, who is still stuck at      .i rancindu jubme
around the 50 level, and has to    .i seldandu lo vrici to'erninda'i
look up virtually every gismu even    noi mi na djuno zo'e ke'a
after the whole summer of classes.  .i selzvati ji'ipano zutse remna
People here, being grossly mono-    .i srotanxe loi ckafi lei mudri
lingual, get really stuck on lack  .i vrici
of vocabulary. Until we get people  .i mi visyfacki fi pa lo poi loi
up to a comfortable vocabulary        remna na zutlamji ke'a ku'o
level, no one will write anything,    jubme goi ko'a
and people will tend to avoid even  .i mi co'a zutlamji ko'a
trying to read things.              .i ko'a lamji le nunjupca'u
  But keep things going.  It may    .i le jukpa cu selviska gi'e
not be what people had in mind,      jupfinti de.a'ucu'i
but things in Lojban are finally    .i mi pensi.a'e loi selpinxe co
taking on a life of their own,        ckafi.au
which is the important thing.      .i ckafypanci fi mi.ui
    ________________________      .i ckafypanci
                                    .i .ui.o'u
  Text and comments elucidating    .i sriku'a
further description of Scenario #2
                                      Nick: Vilva arrives in the
  [Translations, where they exist,  ckafyzda.  Finally!  It's such a
and commentaries on the language    good navigation too, I feel guilty
aspects of the Lojban writings      for proceeding to propose some
will be found in the translations  fleshing out of the scenery in
section.  A computer-generated      English.  And of course, the
English gloss of Veijo's two        Lojbanisations of our English
writings will also be found there.  specs should not be translations,
No proper English translation      but transformations, as Veijo has
exists for either Veijo's writings  rightly pointed out.  Here goes
or Iain's second writing.]          [italicized text is from
                                    Description #2]:
  Veijo's original text, mentioned
several times above, was the first  As I walked under the crossed
attempt to add to the initial      climbing axes, and into the
description #2 provided as a        coffeehouse, I felt I was in a
starting point.  Veijo's            place designed to give one the
commentary above indicated that he  feeling of putting on an old
feels that his text adds no new    comfortable pair of shoes.
information to the coffee house
description.  On the other hand,      Veijo speaks of ".ui.o'u";
his attempt to do a simple Lojban  that's the feeling I want in the
writing based on that description  cafe too.  A boisterous place,
may provide some indication of how  sure, with lots of emphasis on the
people will use the descriptions    "ka vrici", but also a very
provided.  Furthermore, Nick and    "mela'ezo.i'u" place.  The door is
Iain's writings below reference    nothing too fancy; plain, wooden,
back to things Veijo says in this  touch heavy, not pretentious.  The
piece.                              climbing axes certainly have been
                                    positioned informally (maybe even
    le la vei,on ckafybarja        not perfectly symmetrically?)
      srinuntroci xipa xici
                                    The benches were made of old soft
  ni'o sriku'a                      oak, in which many tales and
.i ckafybarja                      symbols had been carved.  On the
.i mi zvati le vorstu gi'e          bench I was seated was the
  terpanci loi ckafi da.uicai      inscription:  "Members of the
.i mi ca ze'upunai.oi sumne da      first sandpit expedition to find
.i mi dzukla le jbustu gi'e        the first digger, or traces
  ctacarna                          thereof - 198?"  The table also


                                  94
ni'o vi ro lo cimoi te serti fo'a di'i lebna lefo'a cmalu selpleji .i ku'i ko'a ru'i cadzu
bore other marks of former patrons  staircase would be a touch too
who had drank their selections and  imposing.
transcribed their feelings with
pitons.                            Underneath these visible artifacts
                                    were the dour reminders of the
  What with the suggested rural    primary business of this
setting and the benches, I'm put    establishment-coffee.  There were
in mind of soft damp oak, and      full wooden bins of coffee from
murky late afternoon light.  I      just about every place in the
don't think the place need be      world, with or without caffeine.
spotlighted, in any case; the      The cook was visible to all and in
can't-look-outside windows will    the process of developing the
do.  There's not just tales and    latest creation on the current
symbols, of course; there's a lot  menu, and not without some debate
of good old fashioned graffiti (no  about the amount of spice the
need to be too solemn about it.)    particular dish required.
The place is, I suggest, small and
intimate, with the "vrici"            The menu is on display just to
paraphernalia on the walls          the right of the partition behind
haphazard and competing for space,  which the cook is visible;
rather than formally set out,      handwritten, with the le'avla
museum style.  No more than ten    defined at the bottom of the list
benches (reasonably sized,          in the six source languages.  The
though).                            coffee bins are along the walls, I
                                    take it?  (Beneath the artifacts.)
The walls were littered with        The waiter does some serving, but
climbing apparel and debris in      for the most part sits with the
what might charitably have been    customers and socialises.  The
termed a collage.                  cook has most of his/her arguments
                                    with the dishwasher, sometimes
  See?  I visualised correctly :)  carrying the arguments outside the
And some of the parts of the        kitchen and asking for support in
collage are downright incongruous.  his debates amongst hapless
I would not be surprised, for      customers, slapstick-style (hm,
example, if a certain pea on a      I'm going against the rotation
cushion lies in a corner, with      thing - others may countersupport
some inscription to do with a      it); I don't know what a busboy is
Kunstkammer.  Several postcards,    either; and the Manager (and the
too (I don't think this is being    sixth man/woman out for the night)
too explicitly outside-world-      sit together and overlook the
bound), from Cafe Cairo, The        scene.  I don't know if it's
Loglan Sogrun, Burnley F.A...      worthwhile giving the Manager
                                    his/her own table, and a small
There were the rusting remains of  table rather than a bench at that;
pitons and hooks abutting          but I would like the Manager to be
practically new lengths of the      a bit more formal than the rest, a
latest high test rope.  Opposite    voice of authority amidst the
the door from which I had entered  chaos, and somewhat set apart - a
was a ladder - a climbing ladder,  big gun in a story, held in
of course.  The ladder reached to  reserve.
the ceiling, and a solid-looking      This might be a biiiiit silly,
trap door that made me wonder of    but maybe a small bookcase of NL
the unknown relics that lay        dictionaries and Lojban references
beyond, and the stories they might  on the side?  And the cafe, I
hold.                              thiiiiink, should be a bit of a
                                    bastion of lojbanism, or at least
  The ladder stays, but it has      lojbanism-aware - which would give
nothing to do with "le lisri be le  us the opportunity of satirising
serti"; an imposing marble          traits of the current or future


                                  95
.i ko'a bredi dunda rodi mu'i lemu'e klama tu gi'e vefsfa leivu malplana nobli joi turni .i .uo.ui semaunai pa te serti .i ba su'epa te serti ko'a gapru .i ko'a cabazi venfu leiko'a bruna .i ®lu mi to'erno'i ji'u leka cerda .ije ro le pidrai sa'a li'
community in it. The visitors, of  better, and "ckafybriju" is right
course, don't have to particularly  out.  Aha! "ckafybarja"!  That's
like or think about Lojban - it's  really much better, I think.
by no means an exclusive venue.    "barja" even has a place for
                                    what's served, which is filled, in
This happy riot provided the        the lujvo/tanru, by "ckafi"
counterpoint to the hissing, and    (though other things may be served
boiling of a near endless stream    as well).  I think this is an
of coffee beans in response to the  important change to make, even if
always cold, often frustrated, and  "ckafyzda" has acquired some
very determined clientele. . .      sacredness.  It's only a week or
                                    two old, and it's broken. Please
  Damn! I knew they were cold and  let us switch to "ckafybarja".
damp! :)                           
  OK.  If you all don't blow up at    Veijo replies:  In this case I
this, we can go navigating some    definitely wanted the connotation
more...                            of dwelling or even home-coming.
                                    I was thinking along the lines of
  Veijo, on the coffee bins,        a cafe where people are not
wrote:  ".i patxu loi ckafi lei    perhaps quite dwelling but
mudri"                              spending a lot of time telling
                                    stories and having conversations.
  Colin:  Why "lei mudri"?          At least in some parts of Europe
    Veijo:  I'd say they are        cafes (especially student cafes)
        wooden but can't be sure    and like are almost a second home
        these days. (The coffee?  to some people.
        :)                            Also implied was a cultural
Colin:  I don't get Veijo's answer  dwelling place.
to my question here, so probably      "ckafybarja" is better as a
he didn't understand my question.  general lujvo (and corresponds to
I was querying "lei" as opposed to  usage in some languages, e.g.
"loi".                              Finnish before American English
    Veijo:  I tried to use 'the    domination) but...
        mass described ...'          There is nothing sacred about
        instead 'the mass really    "ckafyzda" but it may match the
        is ...' to express          underlying ideas much better.  If
        concisely the idea that    we are stacking the place with
        the bins looked like wood  connotative paraphernalia we may
        but might be something      as well tack on a few more
        else on closer inspection. connotations.
                                   
  Mark on 'ckafyzda':  Veijo in      Mark responds:  Sorry, I'm
[an early version of] his first    unconvinced.  You say you're
text used: "ni'o zdani"            trying to get warm fuzzy feelings
  I might have thought "dinju"      of homecoming by using "zdani",
would be a better choice.  "zdani"  but "zdani" doesn't have that
implies some sort of dwelling-      meaning either.  The lair of a
place, and you're leading into      dragon is a "zdani".  A beehive is
this with these observatives as "A  a "zdani".  "zdani" means "place
house.  A coffee-house...", where  of residence/habitation of....",
habitation isn't implied. For      not implying any hominess nor lack
that matter, is "ckafyzda"          thereof.  Even if the manager
malglico?  It expands to "ckafi    chances to live in the place, (and
zdani" = "coffee-ish nest/house/-  thus it may be proper to describe
bivouac/dwelling-place".  Most      it as a "zdani" incidentally),
coffeehouses aren't inhabited by    what we are describing the place
anyone, they're solely places of    as is a tavern or bar or other
business.  "ckafyzarci" implies a  sort of informal restaurant
more of a store where you buy      wherein coffee is served.  That
coffee beans to me, so that's no    is, "le barja zo'e loi ckafi" ->


                                  96
.i ®lu ju'i. citno nanmu su'epa te serti .i ba su'epa te serti do venfu .i ku'i levi te serti di'i ve pleji le relpi'i jdima mi .i ko fi mi dunda leka do cinmo je morji li'.i ko'a sliri'a le xance
"le ckafi barja" -> "le ckafy-      later and the images of times long
barja". Now, the proprietor(s) of  past.
the place, perhaps, might try     
naming it "la ckafyzda" (note the    Veijo to Mark about coffee and
article), as that would be a        tea:  Used to be a tea-drinker
tolerable name for such a place,    myself but Finland is one of
but as a description, it doesn't    heaviest coffee drinking countries
wash. I don't care how much time  in the world and getting a decent
people spend there:  call it what  brew of tea turned out to be too
it is - "lo barja".                 much of an effort in the long run
  Connotations are fine in          so I gave up around the age of 25
describing the place, in the ob-    and started drinking coffee.  I
jects you put in there, etc., but  still enjoy properly brewed decent
if you call something by what it    teas, though.
isn't, people won't know what        Now about "loi selpinxe ckafi".
you're talking about.  "ckafyzda"  Does it bring to mind the beverage
would imply maybe the home of a    or the coffee beans/powder the
coffee grower (rotten lujvo for    beverage is made of?  I had the
it, though), or a coffee-colored    beverage in mind and I want to
house (also not so great), or a    have the gismu "ckafi" in a
place where coffee lives (decent    position where I can tack the
lujvo) - yes, that's probably the  attitudinal on it.  Well, now I
most likely interpretation.  Just  have it:  "loi selpinxe co
as "remzda" is used to mean        ckafi.au".  What do you think?
"house" (i.e.  typical habitation  Better?  Or was it you just
of human beings - some cultural    couldn't imagine someone thinking
bias there, no?), "ckafyzda" seems  more the beverage than the actual
to conjure up some kind of          act of drinking?  Many a time have
habitation for coffee (as if it    I been sitting and enjoying the
were a living being).  Maybe those  fragrant smell of tea, this being
big burlap sacks that coffee beans  an essential part of the total
are kept in, or a cannister on      enjoyment when the tea isn't just
your shelf.  In either case, the    something nondescript.  Same goes
word would be very poetic, but      for coffee.  There are brews and
more for its implication that      BREWS.  And think of the Japanese
coffee "lives" anywhere than for    tea ceremony, to take an extreme
connotations of hominess on        example.  In the ceremony the act
"zdani".                            of drinking is really almost
                                    superfluous.
Veijo to Colin about the coffee:   
  I'm not too keen a coffee          Nick was next to enter the
drinker.  The smell came in kind    coffee house [A free translation
of naturally with the coffee bins  of Nick's text will be found on
and all, perhaps childhood          page 60]:
memories of freshly ground coffee
at my aunt's shop where I used to    .i mi se lidne la vei,on.
hang a lot.  If the specs had      ba'acu'i lenu nerkla le la loblaz.
called for a taverna I'd have      kafybarja  .i mi sutra joiku'i.o'a
thought of something else to fill  banli cadzu pa'o la'ele cravro noi
the first 10 seconds.  The sense    tilju je jadycau  .i lenu mi pu
of smell carries a lot of          kargau le vorme cu mlirocnandu
connotations and brings fore        gi'e sacri'a lenu mi catke  .i le
memories...  The smell of          te vorme cu se gusni lo lecydo'i7
pezyckafi is the first reminder
telling you that you have come
(back) to where you belong.  You    ____________________
can't put your finger on it during
the first few moments but it hits  7Lojbab:  Nick kind of jumped the
you, sometimes like a sledgeham-    gun, using the rafsi "do'i" for
mer.  The visual recognition comes  the new gismu "donri" ("daytime")
                                    prior to either being announced


                                  97
.i ®lu .ii leka cinmo .i .e'anaicai .i dukse kusru li'
milxe gi'e se kufra cmalu  .i      je'eki'e pendo .u'u si
panomei sa'enai.a'acu'i loi jubme  ba'edo'u.u'u .u'ise'i go'i lo
.i mi zutse ne'a lo na'e se tsejbi  tcati li'uЇ  .i le be'ipre goi
jubme {poi diklo le kumfa kojna    ko'a cu bacru ®lu go'i lo tcati pe
gi'e stula'i le vorme ku'o} gi'e    le'a ?ma li'uЇ  .i mi ®lu .aicu'i
catlu loi zvapre  .iza'a la        do ?ma stidi li'uЇ  .i ko'a ®lu
vei,on. zutse vi le ragve kojna    .e'a la kukytcat. noi vi purlamrai
gi'enaipe'i zvaju'o mi  .i ra      terve'u li'uЇ  .i mi ®lu  .i'e ko
zanfri .i'e.o'enai loi panci be    bevri le la kukytcat. tcati li'uЇ
loi vi ckafi  .i mi zmanei loi      .i ko'a bacru ®lu baziba'o go'i
tcati gi'e.o'o.aucu'i denpa lenu    .oinai li'uЇ gi'e cliva mu'i lenu
lo djabe'ipre cu jundi mi  .i      bevri nagi'e tavla lo drata zutse
milxe savru gi'e ruble nungei      .ipujecabo lu'i le jukpa kuce le
.iku'i mi cabdei me ®lu .i'inai    patlu'i lu'u nevi le jupku'a cu
li'uЇ vau.u'uru'ero'a  .i lei      cladu joi selzdi dabysnu  .i le
bitmu cu se jadni loi carmi bo      jukpa cu so'uroi batkla gi'e te
vrici joi na'e simlanxe be ja'i le  jivrei le se casnu fo lei zvati
tcaci  .i le re cpare ka'amru poi  .i.aucai mi na ve preti  .i le
simkruca se punji fi le cravro      barjyjatna noi dasni lo jikri'i
gapru na minrysarxe .u'iru'e  .i    taurgunma ca tavla la vei,on.  .i
na go'i fa loi drata ke bitmu se    mi xance rinsa la vei,on. i ko'a
punji ne mu'u lo dembi poi vreta    spuda rinsa gi'e nupre lenu bazi
lo kicne ku'o jo'u lo slabu        kansa mi kei mi  .i loi cnino cu
tcityta'o ne secu'u ®lu vi xagrai  nerkla gi'e cladu rinsa loi no'e
loi tauzba pe levi tcadu li'uЇ      cnino noi na'oca'o te lisri  .i mi
ge'ujo'u lo befydai noi te ciska    na .ai cabdei ve lisri  .i mi
zo sindereluud.  .i mi ca jundi le  .e'icu'i cabdei xebni la fraktur.
jbusfe pe mi  .i te ciska so'ida        __________________________
ne bau la lojban. e la
bangrnesperanto .e le glibau          Veijo followed up with a second
.e.ueru'e le dotco  .i le dotco cu  text, in part reacting to Nick's
se ciska ta'i la fraktur  .i mi    effort.  This may show the type of
xebni la fraktur  .i mi djica      interaction between characters of
{lenu ciska fi le jbusfe fe ®lu mi  different writers that may be
la fraktur xebni mi'e kilrois.      possible, even if no one goes so
li'uЇ kei} gi'enai ca ponse lo ve  far as to initiate a direct
ciska befi loi mudri  .i mi ka'e    dialogue between the characters (a
lebna lo cpare ja bisli kilmru le  possibility that Nick comments on
zunle bitmu  .i mi co'i morji le    afterwards) [See page 58 for a
xajmi pe lei bisli kilmru jgari    computer generated gloss]:
relcisyge'upre  .iku'i lenu le
xajmi cu jboselsku na se snada mi        le la vei,on ckafybarja
.isemu'ibo mi pensi sanga le se          srinuntroci xire xire
finti be la suZAN.vegas. be'o pe
me'e ®lu le la tom. gusta li'uЇ    ni'o mi penzutse.o'u
.i lenu go'i cu se dicra lenu lo    .i to'erninda'i fa lemi jubme
djabe'ipre noi .uacu'i xindo cu    .i ciska da le jbusfe .ije mi
klama mi gi'e cisma bacru ®lu      catlu da.a'u
cticpe ?ma doi lojbo ga'icu'i      .i lerfu la fraktur.ue
li'uЇ  .i mi co'a se spaji catlu    .i mi morji fi loi lerfu be la
le be'ipre  .i mi nelci le be'ipre  fraktur.
.i mi mutce nelci co se trina le    .i morji
be'ipre ja'e lenu mi na spuda ri    .i mi puzuki zvati le ckule gi'e
.iseki'ubo ri cmila joiku'i milxe  caca'a tcidu
bo se fanza bacru ®lu be'ebe'e      .i mi tcidu le cfika be le ze
xaupre zo'o ctidji ja pixydji ?ma  bruna bei la Aleksis.kivis.
li'uЇ  .i mi spuda bacru ®lu          po'u le natmytercfi
                                    .i le poi le drata be mi cu tcidu
__________________________________  fi ke'a ku'o selpapri cu te prina
publicly or appearing in any lists  loi
that people can look up.


                                  98
.i fo'a maljgira cmila ra'i le galxe
  lerfu be la antik.              le vorme fi'o te mlixra le janco
.i lemi selpapri goi ko'a te prina  ku'o) sera'a ?ma pezyjicla li'uЇ
loi lerfu be la fraktur.            .i mi vi le zdani pu zutse co
.i lenu tcidu de pe ta'i la        cando  .icabo mi terbei lo notci
fraktur. kei pu nandu mi gi'e ca    poi ve cusku le se du'u lu'o la
frili                              vei,on. joi la nitcion. lu'u goi
.i mi djica lenu tcidu fi ko'a kei  ko'a noi zvati le kafybarja po'u
mu'i lenu lemi patfu                la *jbolaz. cu djica lenu penmi mi
  puzu prina loi lerfu loi ko'a    vi ra  .i ®lu ?ma ?mo li'uЇ na se
papri                              spuda  .i ko'a jundi casnu la
.i lemi patfu ze'u prina            fraktur.  .i mi zo'u la fraktur.
.i lenu ri go'i kei nanca li vobi  no'e cinri  .i mi co'a zutse ne'a
.i kiku mi catlu le vi lerfu be la  lo jubme poi lamji le me ko'a ku'o
fraktur.                            gi'e denpa lenu se zvaju'o da no'u
.i lerfu                            ga ko'a gi lo selfu noida'i bevri
.i bacru.ue zo coi                  loi ckafi mi
.i barjyjatna.a'a                    ni'o lemi jubme cu xekri seja'e
.i la nitcion. co'ava se zvaju'o    loni to'ercitno  .i ra ve srakysku
mi                                  zo mi ce'o prami bu ce'o ®lu le
.i ra xance rinsa mi .ije mi spuda  cmacrnalgebra li'uЇ  .i mi nelci
rinsa                              le jubme  .i mi de'a morji fi la
.i la nitcion. caca'a xebni la      vei,on. .e la nitcion. gi'e co'a
fraktur.                            pensi  .i mi si'a se cinri so'a
                                    klesi be lo sinxa ciste ra'anai
  Nick comments:  There's going to  ledu'u vo'e ge'ikau te javni mu'u
be a good tale, I think, in an      le sucta cmacrnalgebra gi mecritli
old-timer at the cafe explaining    mu'u loi rarna ja rutni bangu  .i
how the devil the Fraktur got      la'edi'u mukti lenu mi tadni la
there in the first place...        lojban. kei noi ki'u ke'a mi zvati
  I feel veeery hesitant in any    la jbolanzu
interaction with the staff with      no'i lo be'ipre cu klama co
their personas still not settled.  veirgau lemi selcpe po'u lo barda
If people don't like the Manager    carmi bo ckafi gi'ebabo nalsirkla
(and "jatna" does seem to be the    mo'ize'oku na'e mo'ifa'a le
only word we have for "boss" or    jupku'a  .i .uaru'e simlu fa lenu
"manager") being imperious,        ko'a ze'apu naje ca zvaju'o mi  .i
they'll be very unhappy if I        mi'a simxu rinsa  .i la'aru'e mi
portray him like that.  So for      bazi facki le krinu be lenu
now, let's not probe into the      sutrygau
background characters too deeply.    _______________________________
  The even greater danger is in
sketching interactions with Real      Nick:  Very cool, Iain.  I
Life people.  Veijo and I are      wonder why we got you to the
about to start talking, and I'd    *Jbolaz?  Hmmm?  :)
like neither of us to make              [Lojbab:  With any luck, the
potentially annoying presumptions    rest of us will find out in
about the other's persona.  So one    JL18.]
should be wary in this kind of
thing.                                ______________________________
    _______________________
                                      [Next follows the first text of
  Iain then joined in with the      the type that was actually asked
following [a rough translation of  for - an English elaboration of
the Lojban will be found on page    setting and/or characters.  Both
63]:                                David Bowen and Veijo Vilva, whose
                                    effort follows David's, have
      la jbolanzu kafybarja        proposed characters for the cafe
                                    staff.  You are welcome, indeed
  ®lu .ie.a'a .ie.o'onairu'e        encouraged, to comment on these,
(cu'usa'a mi noi caki vilkla zo'a


                                  99
.i ®lu mi na mela'edi'u kusru .i mi fi do canja dunda lo zabna kazyci'o .e lo cnino kazmo'i .i ga do zanru gi do noroi pagre levi te serti gi'e noroi venfu leido bruna pe lo se flira be le simsa be le canre zi'e pe le se cmoni be le zmadu be le la gaimast. si'erbi'e bei leni tepri'a li'
possibly suggesting changes or      English shows most of the signs of
elaborations, or to propose your    British English, it shows no signs
own - remember that we need a half  of any other European accent being
dozen or so to staff the cafe.      mixed in. His German, French and
  We also need lots more detail on  Italian are equally
the layout of the cafe, what is    indistinguishable from those
located where, what is the size of  spoken by native speakers and he
the various rooms, whether the      has shown no problems conversing
'cooking-space' (as it was put in  with visitors from other parts of
Veijo's first writing) is a        Europe and Asia.
separate room, etc.               
  All submissions (subject to        Veijo:  This is a description of
space) received prior to 5 March    la xiron, the first co-worker at
(15 March if computer-readable -    la jbolanzu - Cafe Jbolanzu.  No
via email or MS-DOS diskette) will  one knew his real name and the
appear in JL18, after which will    name he had picked for himself
commence voting if we get too many  after learning Lojban was a kind
or too-conflicting descriptions.]  of pun - if you bothered to play
                                    games with names.  I don't tell
  David Bowen:  The owner and      much about the other members of
manager [or perhaps just the owner  the personnel as I didn't know
or just the manager] of the Cafe    them so well and, besides, I want
Chalet is a man of mystery. It's  to leave the pleasure of
easy enough to see him, either      describing them to the other
hiking among the hills surrounding  patrons of the Cafe. There were
the village or conversing with the  quite a few of us literary types
customers as he makes his rounds.  spending our evenings there so
But any questions about his life    someone else ought recollect
before coming to the village are    enough of that time to relate
met with vague replies and a quick  about it.
shift in the topic of                I do not yet know whether xiron
conversation.  There are stories    will interest you enough to make
that he used to be a climber        him a permanent member of the
himself. A climbing accident, so  staff.  So I shall tell you mostly
the story goes, which killed his    about the first impressions he
lover while the two of them were    made on people and add more
attempting a major climb led to    details later on if required.
his retirement from the sport.  It              _______
is said that much of the equipment
which decorates the interior of      He arrived one dark, windy
the Chalet is his.                  evening in November.  No one
  In appearance he's a big man,    noticed him at first.  He was just
with light brown hair and green    a tall shadow at the doorway,
eyes.  In summer his ruddy          standing there, quietly observing
complexion turns to a golden tan    the room.  He stood there for a
and his hair lightens to the point  while, motionless, as if half
where it almost matches his skin    asleep.  There were groups of
color.  On the slopes, he is often  people sitting at the tables,
seen in lederhosen and a green      drinking coffee, chatting with
alpine hat.  While in the Chalet,  each other.  Someone glimpsed at
these are replaced by conservative  the door, started to turn away but
gray or navy business suits.  Only  changed his mind and took a closer
his bright paisley ties and an      look.  Others noticed his curios
occasional brightly colored vest    gaze and also turned to look.  A
show hints of the boy hidden        silence fell.  A stranger wasn't
beneath the serious businessman.    too common those days.  The man at
  Attempts to determine his        the door seemed to wake up.  He
background from his speech have    took off his hat, wiped his
been unsuccessful.  Though his      forehead with a sleeve and started
                                    towards the nearest unoccupied


                                100
.i ko'a catlu lefo'a crino je ranxi kanla
table with a heavy step.  He          The stranger was looking at the
hesitated for a moment before      approaching man.  Japanese?  No,
sitting down, glanced appre-        more likely Chinese.  What was he
hensively around and threw down    doing in these parts?  Well, none
the rucksack from his shoulder.    of his business.  He had been lis-
His hand was gently stroking the    tening to the sound of the locals
wood of the table and he had again  talking.  There was a curious note
a far-away look on his face.  A    in their speech and he had been
murmur of voices began to fill the  unable to recognize the few words
air as people lost their initial    he was able to discern.  He just
interest in the newcomer.  Only    hoped the Chinaman would be able
the most curious ones were          to communicate in some language he
stealing glimpses at him every now  knew.
and then.                            "Good evening, sir.  Welcome to
  There was nothing special about  Cafe Jbolanzu.  Quite chilly
the stranger except perhaps his    outside, isn't it?  Would you like
quietness.  He seemed to be        to have something hot to drink?
content just to sit there and      Coffee or tea perhaps?"
observe the other patrons.  He was    Something in the appearance of
a dark, slim man of indeterminate  the stranger made the owner choose
age and origin, face                English instead of Lojban to
expressionless but not inscrutable  address him.  A slight change in
in an oriental way.  He had        the attitude of the stranger's
obviously come afoot as his boots  shoulders seemed to indicate
were covered with dust but somehow  relief.  The Chinaman felt easier.
he didn't seem to be an outdoor      There was an almost
type.  Veins were visible on the    imperceptible delay before the man
backs of his hands but the hands    answered.  He wasn't actually
were soft, apparently not used to  surprised, it just always took him
manual work.                        moment to switch into English.
  The owner of the Cafe was busy    Now he knew he'd be able to cope.
in the kitchen and hadn't noticed    "Oh, yes. Good evening.  Yes,
the arrival of the stranger.  He    it is.  Could you bring me some
himself had drifted quite recently  tea, please.  Have you got any
into the village and hadn't yet    green teas?  Gunpowder?  I'd
succeeded in hiring anyone to help  really appreciate that.  A whole
at the Cafe so he had to serve at  pot of it."
the tables in addition to cooking.    There was no smile on his face
Presently he lifted the frying pan  even when he was speaking, just a
to the edge of the stove, wiped    relaxed softness.  He was at peace
his hands and started his round    with himself and had obviously no
among the patrons.                  need to affect others one way or
  He noticed the stranger almost    another.  The Cafe owner felt
immediately.  The stranger was      strangely at home with the man.
looking straight at him but gave      "Well, I think I have got some
no sign at all of noticing him.    tucked away somewhere.  Isn't much
There was no rudeness in the        demand for it, you know.  Will
stranger's gaze when he at last    take a while.  Thank you, sir."
noticed the approaching Cafe          The Chinaman left with a slight
owner, just quiet waiting, no      bow.  The man sat waiting, still
smile, no irritation.  The Cafe    stroking the table every once in a
owner felt a slight discomfort      while, regarding the others
which reminded him of the times he  absentmindedly.  The din of the
had had to address the head master  conversations grew louder and his
at school.  Had someone asked he    thoughts wandered.
would have been unable to tell        There had been a time when he
what exactly was the reason for    had preferred quieter places, much
this uneasiness.                    quieter.  He remembered a
                                    particular one in some provincial
                                    capital in the East.  It was a


                                101
.i ®lu ku'i mi ba traji leni to'e gleki .i do lebna ro ckaji be le kazre'a mi li'
large tea-house with tables for      "Excellent. Thank you.  Maybe
more than a hundred people.  He    in a moment.  Tell me, I've been
had spent many an evening sitting  wondering, what is the language
there alone at his table sipping    these people are talking in?  Who
his tea and thinking.  There were  are they really?"
two other regular customers, the      The Chinaman paused for a moment
three of them coming there for a    before answering.  He wasn't quite
year or so a few times a week.      sure what to tell the stranger.
Each had his own corner, they      He himself was just beginning to
never spoke to each other during    grasp the language spoken here and
all the time he frequented the      had to formulate his answer most
place.  The Japanese waitresses    carefully.
sometimes told the latest news of    "Well, sir, the language is
Sensei-san, Teacher, as they        called Lojban but I guess the name
called one of the patrons.  It was  tells you nothing.  I myself knew
really very discreet, no gossiping  quite many languages before coming
at all, they'd say: "Sensei-san is  here but I'd never heard about it.
tired today.  He's had a rough      It is a constructed language not
day." or something like that.  And  related to any natural language -
he'd sit there sipping his          living or dead.  Hard to explain
Japanese tea, eating perhaps a      in a few words if you aren't a
cupful of rice with a slice of      linguist.  These people are
cucumber dipped in soy sauce and    practitioners and students of
looking at Sensei-san correcting    Lojban who gather here to tell
exam papers.  It was a quiet time  stories or just to chat with each
in his life.  Later came more      other.  As a matter of fact, the
turbulent times but they too had    name of this Cafe is 'la jbolanzu'
passed into semi-oblivion. He'd    which means something like 'The
been wandering around for years    Clan of Lojban'.  It seemed to be
now, observing people, almost      a fitting name as most of my
always an outsider.                patrons are Lojbanists."
  There was a sluggish discussion    Lojban.  The stranger looked
going on at many tables.  Quite    around.  Not an ethnic language -
many people were just listening to  that explained many things which
the others and most of the          had been bothering him already
speakers didn't seem to be very    before he had reached the Cafe.
fluent.  It was as if they had      Lojban.  The name brought no
just recently learned the          recollections what so ever into
language.  A few were narrating a  his mind even though he had been
longer story but they were quite    studying linguistics sometime in
often interrupted by one or        the remote past.  Languages had
another of the listeners who        always interested him and he knew
seemed to be asking something but  a few words of quite many lan-
curiously there was no change in    guages.  Some of the languages he
their intonation.  The stranger    had learned while wandering from
was perplexed.  Where had he        place to place in search of -
stumbled?                          well, he really didn't know what.
  The Chinaman returned with a      Some he had studied at various
large teapot and a Chinese rice    schools and colleges during the
cup.  He put the cup in front of    more quiet epochs of his life.
the stranger, poured some olive      "I see.  Thanks."
green tea into it and set the pot    He had done many things and
on the table.                      studied many subjects during the
  "Here you are, sir.  Anything    years since leaving home - some
else, sir?"                        things out of necessity, some out
  The man raised the cup to his    of curiosity.  Here was something
lips, took a sip and sighed.  He    new.  He hesitated.  He had
then lowered the cup and looked up  intended to continue across the
to the waiting Cafe owner.          mountains in the morning.  He
                                    wasn't exactly going anywhere but


                                102
.i ®lu to'e go'e .i traji leni je'a gleki .i .e'apei .i ?xu do tugni .i do'anai leka do cinmo je morji li'
there were some old cities in the  Newcomers often at first thought
Plains and he had thought he'd      he was unfriendly as he didn't
spend a few days just enjoying the  smile when he greeted them and
atmosphere there.  It was a long    later on many felt the same
time since he had sat in a Bier-    uneasiness the Chinaman had felt a
stube drinking a proper black      year ago.  Perhaps it was the
draught beer, sweet with the taste  initial impression of self-as-
of caramel malt.  But now he had    suredness and reservedness which
bumped into something unexpected.  only gradually was replaced by a
  The Chinaman was leaving.         more realistic, more mixed one.
Someone had beckoned him to a        Xiron was mostly very quiet and
table across the room.  The        even later on in the evenings when
stranger nodded just slightly.      the staff was mixing with the
  He was eyeing the other          customers he'd just sit there and
customers with a renewed interest.  listen to others talking, rarely
He raised the cup and smelled the  expressing himself.  When he did
fragrance of the tea while          there was a certain finality in
pondering the situation.  He'd      what he said.  He might err but
have to find some employment if he  mostly his facts and opinions had
was to stay for more than a few    a ring of truth about them which
days.  Perhaps the Chinaman could  made it hard for the others to
help?  He was prepared to do        disagree.  Sometimes he got on his
almost anything within his          hobbyhorse and then there was no
capacity for board and lodgings    keeping him.  Luckily the
and a reasonable amount of free    occasions were quite rare.
time.  He'd stay till he felt it      He seemed to know very much or
was again time to go.              at least of very many different
  The Chinaman had apparently gone  subjects though if you poked
to the kitchen which wasn't        deeper you might find that
visible to where the stranger was  sometimes he knew just a handful
sitting.  The questions would have  of key facts, nothing more
to wait. An elderly man at a      profound.  He didn't often
nearby table stood up and          volunteer the information.  It was
approached him...                  almost as if he had considered
              ______                many things not worth mentioning
                                    without a specific reason. Just
  A year had gone by. He called    knowing wasn't enough.
himself xiron now. There was no      The Chinaman now liked him.
specific reason for the name - he  Many times they had sat late at
had just made it up one night in    night quietly sipping tea, not
early June when he was trying to    talking much, each deep in
memorize a batch of rafsi.  Though  reverie.  Both had seen a lot of
names had no inherent meaning you  world and contemplated many things
could always play with them,        with a certain polite amusement.
divide them in different ways -    Not many words were needed to
even ungrammatically.  xi-ro-n,    convey ideas and somehow Lojban
xi-ron, xir-on.  The last variant  suited their purposes extremely
had a Japanese rafsi meaning        well.
'sound' at the end.  He would play
the games mainly in his thoughts        _________________________
as he wasn't exactly of the
playful type.  He would rarely        Following are 2 Lojban pieces,
venture to play with others and    the first two 'stories' told in
few would have considered him a    the cafe.  A translation of Mark's
member of the species Homo ludens,  story will be found in the
playing man.                        translation section (pg. 63).
  He had made few friends during    Iain's story has not been
his year at the Cafe and no real    translated, though there are some
enemies though there were people    comments in the translation
who didn't like him very much.      section.


                                103
.i ko'a cu trati pensi .i lo xekri ctino cu manri'a leko'a flira .i loi xasne ke to'ekli dirgo cu gunro zo'a le se cinje mebri .i ko'a fengu demri'a le xance gi'e bacru pa'o le denci ®lu .ai.e'asai .i ko lebna li'
                                    fi mi fe lei je'a glare ku'i ckafi
  Mark:                            li'uЇ le bevri be lei ckafi be'o
  ni'oni'o vanci  .icabo nalcladu  goi ko'i
ne'i le ckafybarja  .i le bi'u8    .i ko'i cusku ®lu .u'u  .ie
remna cu klama mo'ine'i ra  .i     ga'inai li'uЇ gi'ebabo lebna le
ko'a goi ra zutse ne'a lo jubme    kabri
.i ko'a cpedu loi tcati le          .i ko'i krefu klama gi'e bevri lei
kafybarja se jibri  .i ba so'o      ckafi vau ba so'o mentu  .i ko'e
mentu ko'a se dunda loi tcati gi'e  krefu pencu le kabri  .i ko'e
co'aru'inai pinxe ri                cusku ®lu .i'esai ba'e ti ku'i cu
  ni'o ko'a ca lenu ko'a pinxe loi je'a glare ckafi li'uЇ  .i ko'e
tcati po ko'a cu zgana lenu le      gleki pinxe lei ckafi po ko'e
bi'u nanmu cu se dunda lei ckafi      no'i ko'a zgana la'eso'odi'u  .i
poi ra pu cpedu ke'a .ije le       ba so'o mentu ko'a tavla le
nanmu goi ko'e cu pencu le kabri    bi'unai selpinxe bevri goi ko'i
poi se nenri lei ckafi ku'o le      .i ko'a cusku ®lu .ia do pu bevri
degji gi'enai pinxe lei ckafi      lei naldrata ckafi ta vau ?xu
.ije mu'i zo'epela'edi'u ko'e      li'uЇ
cusku ®lu .o'onai ju'ido'u ko      .i ko'i cusku ®lu go'i .o'unairo'a
lebna lei vi ckafi gi'ebabo bevri  .u'uro'a li'uЇ
                                    .i ko'a cusku ®lu ko .i'i na jikca
____________________                dunku  .i mi puzuze'u se jibri
                                    loinu bevri loi selpinxe vi lo
8Lojbab:  This text uses "bi'u"    gusta  .iseki'ubo mi djuno tu'a le
and "bi'unai" which are not on any  do se zukte  .i da poi prenu cu
published word lists yet with the  genai pinxe lei ckafi gi pencu le
current meaning.  They are used to  kabri gi'e na'e djica tu'a lei
discursively to mark pieces of the  ckafi ki'u lo za'i na'e
sentence as 'new information' or    pe'ise'inai glare  .ije semu'i
'old information'.  New            loinu da minde mi lenu basti lei
information is that which the      ckafi loi glare ckafi kei kei mi
speaker is trying to communicate    lebna lei ckafi gi'e na'o denpa
to the listener, while old in-      fu'i so'e mentu tezu'e lenu tu'a
formation is that which the        lei ckafi cu glaryri'a le kabri
speaker assumes that the listener  kei fo lenu krefu dunda lei
knows from background or context.  naldrata ckafi  .i za'a do panra
Normally this distinction is con-  zukte  .i la'ede'u ve ctuca fu
veyed in natural languages through  tu'a le slabu lisri be le bebna
word order (putting new in-        seljibri ka'u li'uЇ
formation either at the beginning  .i ko'i cusku ®lu le lisri ki'a
or the end of the sentence, typi-  li'uЇ
cally, depending on the language    .i ko'a cusku ®lu .ue do punai ?xu
and the situation), but people      ve lisri fu ri li'uЇ
want to have the option in Lojban  .i ®lu noroi ve lisri li'uЇ
of using word order for other      .i ®lu .ai mi te lisri  .i tu'e
purposes including simply          ka'u da'i puzuki da te bende le re
expressing the place structures in  seljibri  .i fo'a goi le te bende
numerical order.                    ca le fanmo be le jeftu cu pleji
  Marking a "le" description sumti  le se jerna le re seljibri no'u
as new information on its first    lu'i le prije seljibri goi fo'e
occurrence in text, for example,    ge'u jo'u le bebna seljibri goi
means that the speaker has a        fo'i  .i le se jerna cu rupnu li
specific and definite someone/-    panono  .ijesemu'ibo fo'a pleji
something in mind, but that he      lei jdini be ta'i le pelji jdini
doesn't expect the listener to      fo'e .e fo'i  .i fo'e ckire fo'a
know which someone/something is    gi'ebabo cliva gi'e gleki ki'u
being referred to at that point.    lenu le jdini cu se vamji li
Without "bi'u", the listener might  su'orau
wonder why he can't figure out      .i fo'i na'e gleki  .i cusku ®lu
which one the speaker is talking    .o'onai mi to'e lazni gunka fi'o
about.


                                104
ni'o ca lenu le xekri kerfa ca biflu'a kei ko'a simsa be le crisa lidbi'e ku fengu pagre le romoi te serti .i ko'a capu snada lemu'e gapru .i suksa cisma gusni leko'a flira .i leko'a kanla cu dirce seci'o le smaji ka se mansa .i leko'a xance cu ®luzbi'o .i ko'a catlu lei pixsalci nobli .i catlu le cnita be di'o lenu krixa je dapma fa le grusi je selpopseltau girzu .i catlu .i ku'i no sluji be leko'a flira cu frati .i ri selgu'i je gleki je selpu'a .i ko'a viska loi salci se taxfu girzu vi le cnita .i lei pu cmoni ca salpemci
te bende do ca piro le jeftu  .i    .i jetnu fa lenu ko'e na kakne
do pleji levi malpelji  .i'enaisai  lenu tavla  .ijeku'iseki'unaibo mi
mi  .i le'o ko pleji fi mi fe le    su'oroi jinvi lenu ko'e jimpe la'e
je'u je'a jdini no'u lo sicni      le se cusku be mi li'uЇ
li'uЇ  .isemu'ibo fo'a pleji fo'i  .i ®lu  .iku'i mu'ima va'o la'e
lo gusminra sicni poi se fepni li  so'odi'u ko'e co'a bradi do li'uЇ
mu  .iseki'ubo fo'i gleki klama le  .i ®lu
fo'i zdani tu'u                        na birti  .i noda ru'a jimpe le
.i tu'a di'u xe ctuca fi ledu'u      stura bele menli be lei puzu
jdice nagi'apubo e'ucai zgana  .i    respa
.ua ri'a je'unai ka'u le sego'i zo    .i seki'unai la'ede'u mi
"za'a" noi cmavo fi lesi'o zgana      pupuziki gasnu lenu xendo ko'e
ku'o cu rafsi zo zabna li'uЇ          .i mi'a puzi klama zo'a lo bende
                                      be lo xanto  .ijeseki'ubo mi
  ________________________________    mu'i lenu djica lenu fanta lenu
              _____                  damba noi cumki fa lenu ke'a se
                                      jalge lenu ko'e se xrani cu
  Iain:                              cusku ®lu ko se kajde fi tu'a le
  .i bazi lenu mi'a simxu lenu        mabru li'uЇ
rinsa kuku lo nanmu poi nanca li    li'uЇ  mi'e .i,n.
so'a cu klama pu'e le na'e sirji   
ne'i le barja gi'e co'a zutse ca'u          le lojbo se ciska
mi                                        le lisri be le serti
.i le nanmu goi ko'a cusku le se    by Christo Smirnenski, translated
du'u ri puzi se gunta lo puzu      from Bulgarian by Ivan Derzhanski
respa pe la'o ly. saurischia ly.   
.i ®lu  .iku'i loi respa pe          Over a year ago, Ivan made the
la'edi'u cu puzu ji'esti li'uЇ se  following translation from a
cusku mi                            Bulgarian original.  Because Nora
.i ®lu  .ila'aru'e go'i  .iboku'i   and I have been so slow at
simlu fa lenu noda ve cilre        technical review of Lojban text
la'edi'u fo ra cu'usa'a ko'a       and because JL has been less than
.i lenu mi'a simxu lenu kansa cu    regular, this long promised effort
nanca li reno                      is finally making it to print.
.i mi co'aki kurji ko'e goi le       As with some of our other texts
respa ca lenu ri ca'o citno        this issue, a translation may be
.i mi jinvi ledu'u le mamta be      found later, along with footnoted
ko'e cu morsi ba'o lo nanca be li  commentary on the text.  This text
so'o  .ije cumki fa lenu ko'e      is being published without final
romoi lu'i le jutsi                revision. Ivan's original
.i le pendo be mi zu'apu kurji      submission was so well done that
ko'e gi'eku'i puzi co'a speni gi'e  Nora was able to translate it and
gasnu lenu cfari fa lenu lanzu      understand it as she received it.
kuku gi'e jinvi ledu'u vo'a na      Her translation was extensively
kakne lenu tu'ari xamgu ko'e ca    commented by Ivan, who planned to
lenu xamgu le lanzu                rewrite the text based on the com-
.isemu'ibo le go'i cpedu lenu mi    ments.  I think that the text we
curmi lenu basti fi lenu bilga      have is good enough to see print,
lenu kurji ko'e                    and the commentary and response
.i mi je'a curmi  .ijeja'ebo kiku  from Ivan, with added notes from
nu'i bi'ogi ca la'edi'u gi caku    Nick Nicholas and Lojbab, serve as
dunda loi cidja .e loi djacu ko'e  an excellent study in Lojban
.ijebo satre ko'e  .ijebo fi lenu  stylistics and the problems of
cadzu cu kansa fe ko'e              translation.
.i ca lo'e vanci mi tavla ko'e        (The excellence of Ivan's work
so'i klesi be lei te cilre be'o ne  should not be doubted merely
mu'u le citri be loi jmive be va'o  because of the number of
le terdi be'obe'o .e loi jicmu be  footnotes.  The stylistic
le saske bele munje poi vanbi ma'a  discussions in these footnotes
                                    consist of Ivan's explanations of


                                105
.i ®lu do ?mo li'u¯ tcica preti fi fo'a sepi'o lo rufsu voksa
subtle distinctions in the          cucycau cmaxli cu jgari lera
original Bulgarian that are not    selxaksu taxfu gi'e catlu le galtu
captured in Nora's translation.  I  serti sepi'o lo tinbe je simsa be
felt that presenting these          le rulnkentaure,a bei leka blanu
discussions would teach a fair      ku kanla  .i catlu je cisma  .i
amount about the language, while    loi selpopseltau je grusi je cinla
showing some of the stylistic      remtra cu trixe dzukla gi'e gunma
considerations that go into an      sanga lo selsno ke mrori'i zgike
excellent translation,              .i da kercrori'a siclu fi le ctebi
considerations that need not apply  .i de noi daski nenri se xance cu
when, like Veijo or Mark, you      cmila sepi'o lo cladu je rufsu
write originally in Lojban.)        voksa  .ije lede kanla cu jarco
  As with other pieces published    leka fenki
in this JL, I am publishing this      ni'o ®lu mi to'erno'i ji'u leka
text with essentially no changes,  cerda  .ije ro le pidrai mi bruna
choosing instead to make my        .i .oicai ge le terdi cu to'e
comments in the footnotes along    melbi gi le remna cu to'e gleki
with Nora's, Nick's, and Ivan's.    .i .iunai vu gapru  .i .o'onai
Ivan did such an excellent job; I  li'uЇ
can scarcely say that my artistic  .i di'u se bacru lo citno nanmu
judgement could better than his    noi se lafti se mebri gi'e dukri'a
capture the sense of the Bulgarian  denmi se xance
text that I've never read.          .i ®lu .io xupe'i do xebni lei vu
  Enjoy!                            gapru li'uЇ preti fi fo'a noi ca
                                    tcica krori'a le xadni fa'a ko'a
.i fitfi'i di'e ro lei ba cusku be  .i ®lu .aisai mi ba vefsfa lei vu
ledu'u vo'e vo'i na srana          mabla nobli joi turni  .i mi ri
  ni'oni'o tu'e                    kusru vefsfa seka'i leimi bruna
®lu do ?mo li'preti fi la        goi ko'u noi simsa be le canre bei
pacrux. goi fo'a                    leka pelxu ku se flira zi'e noi
.i ®lu mi to'erno'i ji'u leka      zmadu be le la gaimast. si'erbi'e
cerda  .ije ro le pidrai mi bruna  bei leni tepri'a ku se cmoni  .i
.i .oicai ge le terdi cu to'e      ko viska leko'u ®lunbe ke ciblu ve
melbi gi le remna cu to'e gleki    flecu xadni  .i ko tirna leko'u
li'uЇ                              cmoni  .i .ai mi ko'u venfu  .i
.i di'u se bacru lo citno nanmu    le'o ko curmi li'uЇ
noi se lafti se mebri gi'e denmi    .i fo'a cisma
se xance  .i ri goi ko'a sanli      .i ®lu mi jibri bandu lei vu gapru
crane le serti  .i labyxu'e linji  .ije mi se le'irbai gi'anai
ke blabi roimrmaro ke galtu serti  lacti'a ri li'uЇ
.i ko'a catlu mo'ifa'a le darno ne  .i ®lu mi ponse no solji  .i mi
di'o lepu'u lei grusi kalsygri be  ponse no lo se pleji befi do  .i
leka pindi cu ca simsa be loi      mi pindi je selpopseltau citno
ctaru rirxe ke to'ekli boxna ku    .iku'i mi bredi lenu pleji lemi
savri'a  .i diklo slilu gi'e febvi  kazyji'e li'uЇ
fengu gi'e lafti loi to'e plana ke  .i fo'a rapli cisma
xekri birka  .i le nunpante ke      .i ®lu .e'onai ri zmadu lemi se
suksa sance .e lei fengu nunki'a    cpadji  .i do'anai ko fi mi dunda
cu desku le vacri  .i le te minra  leka do sanga'e li'uЇ  .i ®lu
cu simsa be lo darno ke barda      .ueru'e leka mi sanga'e  .i
terdanti sance ku masno je junri    .iefi'i  .i .e'i mi noroi tirna di
runta  .i lei girzu cu banro gi'e  .i .e'i li'uЇ
klama ne'i loi pelxu pulce dilnu    .i ®lu do ranji leka ka'e tirna
.ije loi sepli ti'otra cu mutcne    li'uЇ  .i fo'a ko'a papri'a sepi'o
leka viskli ze'o le kampu ke grusi  di'u gi'e cadzu curmi  .i ®lu ko
vanbi                              pagre li'uЇ
  ni'o pa.o'enai to'ercitno cu      .i ko'a bikla bajra gi'e dzugre ci
simsa be lepu'u sisku leri se      te serti tai pa nu stapa  .i ku'i
cirko ka citno be'o ni'akro be      lefo'a terkre xance ko'a lacpu
fa'a le terdi ku dzukla  .i lo


                                106
.i ®lu mi nobli ji'u leka cerda .ije lei cevni mi bruna .i .uicai ge le terdi cu je'a melbi gi le remna cu je'a gleki li'
.i ®lu banzu  .i ko sisti mu'i      kazyci'o .e lo cnino kazmo'i  .i
lenu tirna leiko'u vu cnita cmoni  ga do zanru gi do noroi pagre levi
li'uЇ                              te serti gi'e noroi venfu leido
.i ko'a sisti gi'e kerlo jundi      bruna pe lo se flira be le simsa
.i ®lu .uesai  .i ?ki'uma ko'u      be le canre zi'e pe le se cmoni be
suksa cfari lenu to'edri sanga      le zmadu be le la gaimast.
gi'e xalbo cmila li'uЇ  .i ko'a    si'erbi'e bei leni tepri'a li'uЇ
krefu ke bikla bajra                .i ko'a catlu lefo'a crino je
.i fo'a ko'a krefu rinju            ranxi kanla
.i ®lu mu'i lenu do krefu pagre ci  .i ®lu ku'i mi ba traji leni to'e
te serti kei mi cpadji ledo kanla  gleki  .i do lebna ro ckaji be le
li'uЇ                              kazre'a mi li'uЇ
.i ko'a pa'arcau sliri'a le xance  .i ®lu to'e go'e  .i traji leni
.i ®lu ku'i va'o la'edi'u mi na    je'a gleki  .i .e'apei  .i ?xu do
ka'e viska ga leimi bruna gi leimi  tugni  .i do'anai leka do cinmo je
ba se vefsfa li'uЇ                  morji li'uЇ
.i ®lu do ranji leka ka'e viska    .i ko'a cu trati pensi  .i lo
.i mi fi do ba dunda lo drata      xekri ctino cu manri'a leko'a
kanla noi mutce zmadu li'uЇ  .i    flira  .i loi xasne ke to'ekli
ko'a rapli pagre ci te serti gi'e  dirgo cu gunro zo'a le se cinje
ni'a catlu jundi  .i fo'a rinka    mebri  .i ko'a fengu demri'a le
lenu ko'a morji                    xance gi'e bacru pa'o le denci
.i ®lu ko viska leko'u ®lunbe ke    ®lu .ai.e'asai  .i ko lebna li'uЇ
ciblu ve flecu xadni li'uЇ            ni'o ca lenu le xekri kerfa ca
.i ®lu .uecai  .i .u'ecai cizra    biflu'a kei ko'a simsa be le crisa
.i ?cama binxo lenu ko'u melbi      lidbi'e ku fengu pagre le romoi te
dasni  .i ji'a seba'i lei ciblu te  serti  .i ko'a capu snada lemu'e
xrani ko'u se jadni loi se manci    gapru  .i suksa cisma gusni leko'a
xunre rozgu li'uЇ                  flira  .i leko'a kanla cu dirce
  ni'o vi ro lo cimoi te serti      seci'o le smaji ka se mansa  .i
fo'a di'i lebna lefo'a cmalu        leko'a xance cu ®luzbi'o  .i ko'a
selpleji  .i ku'i ko'a ru'i cadzu  catlu lei pixsalci nobli  .i catlu
.i ko'a bredi dunda rodi mu'i      le cnita be di'o lenu krixa je
lemu'e klama tu gi'e vefsfa leivu  dapma fa le grusi je selpopseltau
malplana nobli joi turni  .i        girzu  .i catlu  .i ku'i no sluji
.uo.ui semaunai pa te serti  .i ba  be leko'a flira cu frati  .i ri
su'epa te serti ko'a gapru  .i      selgu'i je gleki je selpu'a  .i
ko'a cabazi venfu leiko'a bruna    ko'a viska loi salci se taxfu
.i ®lu mi to'erno'i ji'u leka      girzu vi le cnita  .i lei pu cmoni
cerda  .ije ro le pidrai sa'a      ca salpemci
li'uЇ                              .i ®lu do ?mo li'uЇ tcica preti fi
.i ®lu ju'i. citno nanmu su'epa te  fo'a sepi'o lo rufsu voksa
serti  .i ba su'epa te serti do    .i ®lu mi nobli ji'u leka cerda
venfu  .i ku'i levi te serti di'i  .ije lei cevni mi bruna .i .uicai
ve pleji le relpi'i jdima mi  .i    ge le terdi cu je'a melbi gi le
ko fi mi dunda leka do cinmo je    remna cu je'a gleki li'
morji li'uЇ  .i ko'a sliri'a le   
xance                              tu'u
.i ®lu .ii leka cinmo  .i          .i di'u se finti la xristoz.
.e'anaicai  .i dukse kusru li'uЇ    smirnensk. gi'e se fanva la .iVAN.
.i fo'a maljgira cmila ra'i le      derJANSK. fo le banblgaria si'u la
galxe                              nitcion. nikolas. fa'o
.i ®lu mi na mela'edi'u kusru  .i 
mi fi do canja dunda lo zabna     
                                 


le ci cribe - An Operettina with a familiar plot and music, by Nora
tu'u
                            LeChevalier
  (As performed at LogFest 92 - No translation exists for this text)


                                107
.i di'u se finti la xristoz. smirnensk. gi'e se fanva la .iVAN. derJANSK. fo le banblgaria si'u la nitcion. nikolas. fa'o


=== le ci cribe ===
An Operettina with a familiar plot and music, by Nora LeChevalier (As performed at LogFest 92 - No translation exists for this text)


Props: big, medium & little bowls.  Also pot & serving spoon, table &
<pre>
chairs.
Props: big, medium & little bowls.  Also pot & serving spoon, table & chairs.
       high, medium & low chairs.
       high, medium & low chairs.
       hard, soft & medium beds.
       hard, soft & medium beds.
Line 6,526: Line 2,312:


   PAPA BEAR          MAMA BEAR            BABY BEAR
   PAPA BEAR          MAMA BEAR            BABY BEAR
-------------------------                -------------------------     
-------------------------                -------------------------    -------------------------
-------------------------
     mi ba citka
     mi ba citka
(.i) mi ba citka  [eats]
(.i) mi ba citka  [eats]
(.i) glare .oi          mi ba citka
(.i) glare .oi          mi ba citka
(.i) glare .oi      (.i) mi ba citka  [eats]
(.i) glare .oi      (.i) mi ba citka  [eats]
(.i) .e'u mi'o denpa                    (.i) glare .oi          mi ba
(.i) .e'u mi'o denpa                    (.i) glare .oi          mi ba citka
citka
     le nu ti ba cenba                  (.i) glare .oi    (.i) mi ba citka  [eats]
     le nu ti ba cenba                  (.i) glare .oi    (.i) mi ba
citka  [eats]
(.i) litru .ai      (.i) .e'u mi'o denpa (.i) glare .oi
(.i) litru .ai      (.i) .e'u mi'o denpa (.i) glare .oi
(.i) litru .ai [starts leaving]              le nu ti ba cenba  (.i)
(.i) litru .ai [starts leaving]              le nu ti ba cenba  (.i) glare .oi
glare .oi
                     (.i) litru .ai      (.i) .e'u mi'o denpa
                     (.i) litru .ai      (.i) .e'u mi'o denpa
                     (.i) litru .ai [starts leaving]        le nu ti
                     (.i) litru .ai [starts leaving]        le nu ti ba cenba
ba cenba
                                         (.i) litru .ai
                                         (.i) litru .ai
                                         (.i) litru .ai [starts
                                         (.i) litru .ai [starts leaving]
leaving]
 


[The 3 bears leave.  Along comes Goldilocks]
[The 3 bears leave.  Along comes Goldilocks]


       Song #2: "mi xagji" to the tune of "The Inky-Dinky Spider"
       Song #2: "mi xagji" to the tune of "The Inky-Dinky Spider"


                     GOLDILOCKS
                     GOLDILOCKS
Line 6,560: Line 2,342:
                 .i mi lazni gi'e citka
                 .i mi lazni gi'e citka
                 le kukydja bazi
                 le kukydja bazi


  [Goldilocks sits down at table and starts on Big Bowl contents.]
  [Goldilocks sits down at table and starts on Big Bowl contents.]


                                108
  Song #3 "ti dukse glare" to the tune of "He's Got the Whole World In His Hands"
  Song #3 "ti dukse glare" to the tune of "He's Got the Whole World In
                              His Hands"


[Sits down at table with bowls]
[Sits down at table with bowls]


Verse 1:            GOLDILOCKS
Verse 1:            GOLDILOCKS
Line 6,607: Line 2,389:
  [sits on medium]  .i prane ni jdari
  [sits on medium]  .i prane ni jdari
                 .ui .ai cai
                 .ui .ai cai
                 .i mi ba sipna cpana ti    [lies down & goes to
                 .i mi ba sipna cpana ti    [lies down & goes to sleep]
sleep]


[3 bears return, entering]
[3 bears return, entering]


  Song #4: "le ci cribe co'u xrutykla"  to the tune of "Oh, How Lovely
  Song #4: "le ci cribe co'u xrutykla"  to the tune of "Oh, How Lovely Is the Evening"
                          Is the Evening"


   PAPA BEAR          MAMA BEAR            BABY BEAR
   PAPA BEAR          MAMA BEAR            BABY BEAR
-------------------------                -------------------------     
-------------------------                -------------------------    -------------------------
-------------------------
le ci cribe
le ci cribe
   co'u xrutykla
   co'u xrutykla
Line 6,624: Line 2,403:
   le nu gurnycti      co'u xrutykla
   le nu gurnycti      co'u xrutykla
   gi'e surla  .i      le ri lazyzda
   gi'e surla  .i      le ri lazyzda
                                109
ctinei              gi'e djica          le ci cribe
ctinei              gi'e djica          le ci cribe
cribe                le nu gurnycti      co'u xrutykla
cribe                le nu gurnycti      co'u xrutykla
Line 6,636: Line 2,413:
                                         cimei
                                         cimei


                                 


                                110
 
           Song #5: "bredi .au" to the tune of "This Old Man"
           Song #5: "bredi .au" to the tune of "This Old Man"


Line 6,644: Line 2,420:


   PAPA BEAR          MAMA BEAR            BABY BEAR
   PAPA BEAR          MAMA BEAR            BABY BEAR
-------------------------                -------------------------     
-------------------------                -------------------------    -------------------------
-------------------------
bredi .au
bredi .au
selcti mi
selcti mi
Line 6,662: Line 2,437:


   PAPA BEAR          MAMA BEAR            BABY BEAR
   PAPA BEAR          MAMA BEAR            BABY BEAR
-------------------------                ------------------------     
-------------------------                ------------------------    -------------------------
-------------------------
stizu co
stizu co
steci mi
steci mi
Line 6,680: Line 2,454:


   PAPA BEAR          MAMA BEAR            BABY BEAR
   PAPA BEAR          MAMA BEAR            BABY BEAR
-------------------------                -------------------------     
-------------------------                -------------------------    -------------------------
-------------------------
ckana co
ckana co
steci mi
steci mi
Line 6,697: Line 2,470:
[Goldilocks awakes to see three angry bears.  She cowers]
[Goldilocks awakes to see three angry bears.  She cowers]


   Song #6 ".ue .o'onai" to Beethoven's 5th Symphony, 1st Movement,
   Song #6 ".ue .o'onai" to Beethoven's 5th Symphony, 1st Movement, starting after the two introductory 4-note groups.
          starting after the two introductory 4-note groups.


                                 111
                                 111
Line 6,705: Line 2,477:


   PAPA BEAR                MAMA BEAR    BABY BEAR        GOLDILOCKS
   PAPA BEAR                MAMA BEAR    BABY BEAR        GOLDILOCKS
---------------------    ----------------------  --------------------
---------------------    ----------------------  -------------------- -          ----------------------
-          ----------------------
.ue .o'onai
.ue .o'onai
             .ue .o'onai
             .ue .o'onai
Line 6,727: Line 2,498:


   PAPA BEAR          MAMA BEAR            BABY BEAR
   PAPA BEAR          MAMA BEAR            BABY BEAR
-------------------------                -------------------------     
-------------------------                -------------------------    -------------------------
-------------------------
     mi ba citka
     mi ba citka
(.i) mi ba citka  [eats]
(.i) mi ba citka  [eats]
(.i) glare .oi          mi ba citka
(.i) glare .oi          mi ba citka
(.i) glare .oi      (.i) mi ba citka  [eats]
(.i) glare .oi      (.i) mi ba citka  [eats]
(.i) mi'o na ba denpa                    (.i) glare .oi          mi ba
(.i) mi'o na ba denpa                    (.i) glare .oi          mi ba citka
citka
     le nu ti ba cenba                  (.i) glare .oi    (.i) mi ba citka  [eats]
     le nu ti ba cenba                  (.i) glare .oi    (.i) mi ba
citka  [eats]
(.i) citka .ai      (.i) mi'o na ba denpa    (.i) glare .oi
(.i) citka .ai      (.i) mi'o na ba denpa    (.i) glare .oi
(.i) citka .ai [starts eating]                le nu ti ba cenba  (.i)
(.i) citka .ai [starts eating]                le nu ti ba cenba  (.i) glare .oi
glare .oi
                     (.i) citka .ai      (.i) mi'o na ba denpa
                     (.i) citka .ai      (.i) mi'o na ba denpa
                     (.i) citka .ai [starts eating]          le nu ti
                     (.i) citka .ai [starts eating]          le nu ti ba cenba
ba cenba
                                         (.i) citka .ai
                                         (.i) citka .ai
                                         (.i) citka .ai [starts
                                         (.i) citka .ai [starts eating]
eating]


[curtains close]
[curtains close]
__________________________________ 
</pre>
            _______                ti cu dukse glare cidja .ue .aunai
----
Note:  Three Alternate songs        .i ti dukse ji'a lenku .aunaisai
available for Song #3              .i ti glare prane cidja
      (Goldilocks tries food,      .i mi kazyxagji citka
etc.):                              ze'apu le nu se tisna
                                    .a'o .ai
__________________________________ 
________                            ti cu dukse galtu stizu .ue .aunai
A: "ti cu dukse glare" to the tune  .i ti dukse ji'a dizlo .aunaisai
of                                  .i ti galtu prane stizu
  "She'll Be Coming 'Round the    .i mi djica le nu mi cu
Mountain When She Comes"            zutse surla vi le pritu


                                112
Note: Three Alternate songs available for Song #3 (Goldilocks tries food, etc.):
.a'o .ai                          .i mi na vreta ti
                                   
                                  .i ti dukse .uu ranti
----
ti cu dukse jdari ckana .ue .aunai .i .a'o ta xagmau ti
.i ti dukse ji'a ranti .aunaisai  .i .ui .ai cai
.i ti jdari prane ckana            mi vreta sipna .ui vi
.i do kakne le nu zgana           
le nu mi cu sipna cpana           
.a'o .ai


A: "ti cu dukse glare" to the tune of "She'll Be Coming 'Round the Mountain When She Comes"


__________________________________
ti cu dukse glare cidja .ue .aunai
________
<br />.i ti dukse ji'a lenku .aunaisai 
<br />.i ti glare prane cidja         
<br />.i mi kazyxagji citka           
<br />ze'apu le nu se tisna           
<br />.a'o .ai                         
                                 
ti cu dukse galtu stizu .ue .aunai
<br />.i ti dukse ji'a dizlo .aunaisai 
<br />.i ti galtu prane stizu         
<br />.i mi djica le nu mi cu         
<br />zutse surla vi le pritu         
<br />.a'o .ai                         
                                 
ti cu dukse jdari ckana .ue .aunai
<br />.i ti dukse ji'a ranti .aunaisai 
<br />.i ti jdari prane ckana           
<br />.i do kakne le nu zgana           
<br />le nu mi cu sipna cpana           
<br />.a'o .ai


B: "ti dukse glare .ainai" to the
.i mi na vreta ti   
tune of
<br />.i ti dukse .uu ranti
    "For the Beauty of the Earth"
<br />.i .a'o ta xagmau ti
<br />.i .ui .ai cai     
<br />mi vreta sipna .ui vi
 
----
 
B: "ti dukse glare .ainai" to the tune of "For the Beauty of the Earth"


ti dukse glare .ainai .i
ti dukse glare .ainai .i
mi na ka'e citka ti
<br />mi na ka'e citka ti
.i dukse ji'a lenku .uu
<br />.i dukse ji'a lenku .uu
.i ta va cu xagmau ?xu
<br />.i ta va cu xagmau ?xu
.i ti glare prane .ui
<br />.i ti glare prane .ui
.i mi citka piro ti
<br />.i mi citka piro ti


ti dukse galtu .ainai .i
ti dukse galtu .ainai .i
mi na ka'e zutse ti
<br />mi na ka'e zutse ti
.i dukse ji'a dizlo .uu
<br />.i dukse ji'a dizlo .uu
.i ta va cu xagmau ?xu
<br />.i ta va cu xagmau ?xu
.i ti galtu prane .ui
<br />.i ti galtu prane .ui
.i mi stizu zutse ti
<br />.i mi stizu zutse ti


ti dukse jdari .ainai .i
ti dukse jdari .ainai .i
mi na ka'e sipna vi
<br />mi na ka'e sipna vi
.i dukse ji'a ranti .uu
<br />.i dukse ji'a ranti .uu
.i ta va cu xagmau ?xu
<br />.i ta va cu xagmau ?xu
.i ti jdari prane .ui
<br />.i ti jdari prane .ui
.i mi sipna cpana ti
<br />.i mi sipna cpana ti
 
----
__________________________________
C: "ti cu dukse .uu glare" to the tune of "Du, Du Liegst Mir Im Herzen"
________
 
C: "ti cu dukse .uu glare" to the
tune of
    "Du, Du Liegst Mir Im Herzen"


ti cu dukse .uu glare
ti cu dukse .uu glare
.i mi na citka ti
<br />.i mi na citka ti
.i ti dukse .uu lenku
<br />.i ti dukse .uu lenku
.i .a'o ta xagmau ti
<br />.i .a'o ta xagmau ti
.i .ui .ai cai
<br />.i .ui .ai cai
mi citka piro ti vi
<br />mi citka piro ti vi


ti cu dukse .uu galtu
ti cu dukse .uu galtu
.i mi na zutse ti
<br />.i mi na zutse ti
.i ti dukse .uu dizlo
<br />.i ti dukse .uu dizlo
.i .a'o ta xagmau ti
<br />.i .a'o ta xagmau ti
.i .ui .ai cai
<br />.i .ui .ai cai
mi stizu zutse .ui vi
<br />mi stizu zutse .ui vi
<br />ti cu dukse .uu jdari


ti cu dukse .uu jdari
== Translations and Commentary for ckafybarja writings and le lojbo se ciska ==


                                113
Following are computer-generated glosses for the first of Veijo's two Lojban texts. In addition to providing help for those who are attempting to read the texts, they also serve to show the current capability of the Lojban glosser program that Nora is working on. As it is, it produces word-for-word interlinear translations, substituting an English keyword for each Lojban word (and some compounds). But as you can see, a word-for-word gloss can be nearly unreadable if you do not know the grammatical function of each Lojban word, and appropriately adjust the meaning of the keyword to reflect the function of the word in the Lojban grammar of the sentence.
Translations and Commentary for ckafybarja writings and le lojbo se
                                ciska


Following are computer-generated glosses for the first of Veijo's two
=== Veijo's First Text ===
Lojban texts.  In addition to providing help for those who are at-
tempting to read the texts, they also serve to show the current
capability of the Lojban glosser program that Nora is working on.  As
it is, it produces word-for-word interlinear translations, substi-
tuting an English keyword for each Lojban word (and some compounds).
But as you can see, a word-for-word gloss can be nearly unreadable if
you do not know the grammatical function of each Lojban word, and
appropriately adjust the meaning of the keyword to reflect the
function of the word in the Lojban grammar of the sentence.


                        Veijo's First Text
<pre>                                                                     
 
  ({<le  [(la veion) (ckafybarja    {srinuntroci          <[xi    pa]
  ({<le  [(la veion) (ckafybarja    {srinuntroci          <[xi    pa]
     the      veion  coffee+tavern  story+event-of+tries  -sub- 1  
     the      veion  coffee+tavern  story+event-of+tries  -sub- 1
                                                                     
 
[xi    ci]>})]>}                                                    
[xi    ci]>})]>}
  -sub- 3                                                            
  -sub- 3
                                                                     
 
ni'o  {<[({<[({<[({<[({<[sriku'a  ] i [ckafybarja  ]>              
ni'o  {<[({<[({<[({<[({<[sriku'a  ] i [ckafybarja  ]>
     _                    Story+room  .  Coffee+tavern                
     _                    Story+room  .  Coffee+tavern
                                                                     
 
i <mi  [(zvati      {<le  vorstu  >}) gi'e (terpanci              
i <mi  [(zvati      {<le  vorstu  >}) gi'e (terpanci
.  Me    present at  the door+site    and  3rd-place-of+odor      
.  Me    present at  the door+site    and  3rd-place-of+odor
                                                                     
 
{<[loi            ckafi ] [da          ui      cai                 ]>})]>}                                                              
{<[loi            ckafi ] [da          ui      cai
   the mass of all coffee  something #1 (Wheee!) (-intense emotion!)  
]>})]>}
                                                                     
   the mass of all coffee  something #1 (Wheee!) (-intense emotion!)
i {mi  <[(ca              {ze'u                <pu                
 
.  Me      at the time (of)  for an eon (during)  before            
i {mi  <[(ca              {ze'u                <pu
                                                                     
.  Me      at the time (of)  for an eon (during)  before
[nai  oi  ]>}) sumne  ] [da          ]>})                          
 
  -not (Oy!)    smeller  something #1                              
[nai  oi  ]>}) sumne  ] [da          ]>})
                                                                     
  -not (Oy!)    smeller  something #1
i (mi  {<dzukla    [(le  jbustu    )]> gi'e <ctacarna        >})]  
 
.  Me    walks+goes  the table+site    and  looks-at+rotates      
i (mi  {<dzukla    [(le  jbustu    )]> gi'e <ctacarna        >})]
                                                                     
.  Me    walks+goes  the table+site    and  looks-at+rotates
i [(rancindu jubme)]>                                                
 
.  Soft+oak table                                                  
i [(rancindu jubme)]>
                                                                     
.  Soft+oak table
i <seldandu          [(lo  {<vrici        to'erninda'i          >
 
.  2nd-place-of+hang  some  miscellaneous opposite-of-+new+object  
i <seldandu          [(lo  {<vrici        to'erninda'i          >
                                                                     
.  2nd-place-of+hang  some  miscellaneous opposite-of-+new+object
<noi    [mi  ({na      djuno} {<zo'e      ke'a    >})]>})]>}    
 
  , which  me    not true knows    something he/she/it              
<noi    [mi  ({na      djuno} {<zo'e      ke'a    >})]>})]>}
                                                                     
  , which  me    not true knows    something he/she/it
i {selzvati                <[({ji'i          pano}) (zutse remna)]>})  
 
.  2nd-place-of+present-at    approximately 10      sits  human    
i {selzvati                <[({ji'i          pano}) (zutse remna)]>})
                                                                     
.  2nd-place-of+present-at    approximately 10      sits  human
i (srotanxe  {<[loi            ckafi ] [lei        mudri]>})] i   [vrici        ]>                                                    
 
.  Stores+box    the mass of all coffee  the mass of wood      .   Miscellaneous                                                        
i (srotanxe  {<[loi            ckafi ] [lei        mudri]>})] i
                                                                     
[vrici        ]>
i <mi  [visyfacki      ({fi  <[pa] [lo  ({poi  <[loi              
.  Stores+box    the mass of all coffee  the mass of wood      .
.  Me    sees+discoverer  x3=  1    some  that  the mass of all  
Miscellaneous
                                                                     
 
remna] [(na      zutlamji    ) (ke'a    )]> ku'o} {jubme <goi     ko'a>})]>})]>}                                                      
i <mi  [visyfacki      ({fi  <[pa] [lo  ({poi  <[loi
human    not true sits+adjacent  he/she/it    ,      table  alias   it-1
.  Me    sees+discoverer  x3=  1    some  that  the mass of all
 
                                114
remna] [(na      zutlamji    ) (ke'a    )]> ku'o} {jubme <goi
ko'a>})]>})]>}
human    not true sits+adjacent  he/she/it    ,      table  alias
it-1


i {mi  <[co'a        zutlamji    ] [ko'a]>})
i {mi  <[co'a        zutlamji    ] [ko'a]>})
Line 6,915: Line 2,666:
i ui      o'u            ]> i <sriku'a  >})
i ui      o'u            ]> i <sriku'a  >})
. (Wheee!) (Ahh! Relaxing!)  .  Story+room
. (Wheee!) (Ahh! Relaxing!)  .  Story+room
</pre>
=== Commentary on Veijo's first text ===
le la vei,on ckafybarja srinuntroci xipa xici
ni'o sriku'a .i ckafybarja .i mi zvati le vorstu gi'e terpanci loi ckafi da.uicai<span id=x1a />[[#x1b|[1]]] .i mi ca ze'upunai.oi sumne da<span id=x2a />[[#x2b|[2]]] .i mi dzukla le jbustu<span id=x3a />[[#x3b|[3]]] gi'e ctacarna<span id=x4a />[[#x4b|[4]]] .i rancindu<span id=x5a />[[#x5b|[5]]] jubme .i seldandu lo vrici to'erninda'i noi mi na djuno zo'e ke'a .i selzvati ji'ipano zutse remna .i srotanxe loi ckafi lei mudri .i vrici .i mi visyfacki fi pa lo poi loi remna na zutlamji ke'a ku'o jubme goi ko'a .i mi co'a zutlamji ko'a .i ko'a lamji le nunjupca'u<span id=x6a />[[#x6b|[6]]] .i le jukpa cu selviska gi'e jupfinti de.a'ucu'i .i mi pensi.a'e loi selpinxe<span id=x7a />[[#x7b|[7]]] co ckafi.au .i ckafypanci fi mi.ui .i ckafypanci .i .ui.o'u .i sriku'a
----
<span id=x1b />[[#x1a|1.]] Mark: "I am-at the door-place [doorway] and am-a-smell-receptor-of [smell-emitted-by] mass-of coffee [smell being] x1"
Whoa! Took me a long while to work out how that works. The sentence seems to be redundant, but somehow manages actually to sensibly bind "da", making an existential claim at the same time. Confusing, but very clever, and rather uniquely lojbanic.
<span id=x2b />[[#x2a|2.]] Mark: I believe that "da" gets unbound between sentences (except at ijeks [I+JE]), so you should either have an ".ije" there or use some other sort of anaphora to get the smell. You could probably just ellipsize it entirely and get the meaning across fine.
Veijo responds: Didn't think of that (being too smug having put together the previous bridi). ".ije" is actually quite good here.
Didn't want to ellipsize. Definitely not. The smell was the thing.
<span id=x3b />[[#x3a|3.]] Colin: "jbustu" - I guess I understand, but I don't find it obvious. ?xu zo jbustu cu sinxa le pagbu be le dinju be'o poi stizu lo jubme
Veijo responds: go'i
<span id=x4b />[[#x4a|4.]] Mark: Not sure what "ctacarna" really implies, but I get the gist.
Veijo responds: Did a lot of word juggling to arrive at "ctacarna". Not much physical turning, except perhaps the head, a quick wandering look takes in the scene (or an almost stationary stare, the scanning being done mainly mentally).
<span id=x5b />[[#x5a|5.]] Colin asks: loi rancindu ki'a (Don't understand "soft oak") Veijo responds: The original Description #2 from LogFest/Lojbab called for that.
<span id=x6b />[[#x6a|6.]] Mark: "event-of-cooking volume"? Maybe "jupkumfa"? It is a room, after all, isn't it? Not sure the "nun-" is necessary, but it's not badly placed.
Veijo: First I had "(nun)jupkumfa" but then wanted to have just the space, not to imply separation at this stage. More lojbo :)
Mark: Hrrm. Still seems a little weird to me, but you're probably absolutely right here.
<span id=x7b />[[#x7a|7.]] Iain: Whether you use "le pinxe" or "le se pinxe", you are still using "pinxe", with all its connotations. "selpinxe" zu'unai is a lujvo, obviously derived from "pinxe", and with a closely associated meaning, but with potentially a definition of its own, which may have a completely different emphasis. So "lo se pinxe" is "something which is drunk", but "lo selpinxe" could well be "a beverage". dikyjvo considerations would give "selpinxe" the same place structure as "se pinxe", no doubt, but the connotations need not be the same. There is still scope for ambiguity, but within a somewhat different range of meanings.
But at the moment, we don't have a full, or even a partial, dictionary. We don't have any lujvo definitions. So while we may guess that someone means something slightly different by "selpinxe" as distinct from "se pinxe", we can't be sure exactly which facet of the meaning of "pinxe" is intended to be emphasised. These are details which will have to be worked out gradually over a period of time.
Nick: Iain is right. In fact, the place structure subtly changes too (too subtly for dikyjvo). There is a second place of "selpinxe", but it corresponds to the second place of cidja (loi ka'e pinxe), and not of "se pinxe" (lo ca'a pinxe). I think this aspect of lujvo place structures, which we haven't paid attention to in the past, but which is, I feel, coming through in a few of the place structures I'm postulating, in determining which places get turned off (for example, a dinsro (money-store = treasury) has no container important to definition, whereas a dicysro (electricity-store = battery) has no location important to definition, so those respective places are turned off - remember "xo'o" in last October's discussions?), will come back to haunt us when we try to tackle lujvo properly. I don't think that time is quite yet. But thanks to Iain and Mark for pointing it out; we will be wary.
Mark: Aside: I was troubled by the fact that "le na'o se pinxe ckafi" seems to mean "thing-described-as-being: typically: drunk-thing type-of coffee", i.e. something that is typically drunken coffee, with the "na'o" applying to the whole of the following tanru. To my horror, I found that I couldn't restrict the "na'o" to the "se pinxe". I thought of putting ke/ke'e around "na'o se pinxe", but that's not grammatical, and putting it around just "se pinxe" didn't accomplish anything. I suppose I could have done it with "co", but that doesn't seem like a very general answer, and it would change its place-structure.
Lojbab: "na'o" and other tense words are intended to logically apply to a whole bridi and cannot easily be restricted to a part of the selbri. I'm not all that sure what the semantics of such a restriction would be. If you want the effect of "na'o" or some other tense/modal on a part of a selbri, you should do it via tanru, using the gismu/selbri equivalent, in this case perhaps "cnano": "cnano se pinxe ckafi".
For some of these modals, where there may be some question whether the gismu necessarily captures the same sense as a tense would, we are assigning rafsi to the tense cmavo as part of the rafsi retuning. This would also allow you a smaller referent than the whole selbri.
The grammar changes being proposed will eliminate the option to put a separate tense on the part of a selbri after the "co". Allowing that was an error in the grammar implementation, since, as you have noted, there is no non- "co" equivalent, and the purpose of "co" does not include adding new options to selbri, only inverting them for emphasis or place structure convenience.
Iain: I was going to suggest using a gismu, but I couldn't find one that fitted the bill. But you can bind the tense into the selbri with "be":
le se pinxe be na'o ku ckafi


                                  115
Mark: Yes, that's very good. Thanks, Iain. It's a little clumsy that it has to be preposed like that, but not really. That was what I was looking for.
                                    .i rancindu5 jubme  .i seldandu lo
Commentary on Veijo's first text    vrici to'erninda'i noi mi na djuno
                                    zo'e ke'a  .i selzvati ji'ipano
le la vei,on ckafybarja srinuntroci  zutse remna  .i srotanxe loi ckafi
            xipa xici              lei mudri  .i vrici  .i mi
  ni'o sriku'a  .i ckafybarja  .i    visyfacki fi pa lo poi loi remna na
mi zvati le vorstu gi'e terpanci    zutlamji ke'a ku'o jubme goi ko'a
loi ckafi da.uicai1  .i mi ca        .i mi co'a zutlamji ko'a  .i ko'a
ze'upunai.oi sumne da2  .i mi        lamji le nunjupca'u6  .i le jukpa
dzukla le jbustu3 gi'e ctacarna4    cu selviska gi'e jupfinti
                                    de.a'ucu'i  .i mi pensi.a'e loi
                                    selpinxe7 co ckafi.au  .i
____________________
                                    ___________________________________
1Mark: "I am-at the door-place      stare, the scanning being done
[doorway] and am-a-smell-receptor-  mainly mentally).
of [smell-emitted-by] mass-of
coffee [smell being] x1"            5Colin asks:  loi rancindu ki'a
  Whoa!  Took me a long while to    (Don't understand "soft oak") Veijo
work out how that works. The        responds: The original Description
sentence seems to be redundant, but  #2 from LogFest/Lojbab called for
somehow manages actually to          that.
sensibly bind "da", making an
existential claim at the same time. 6Mark:  "event-of-cooking volume"?
Confusing, but very clever, and      Maybe "jupkumfa"?  It is a room,
rather uniquely lojbanic.            after all, isn't it?  Not sure the
                                    "nun-" is necessary, but it's not
2Mark: I believe that "da" gets      badly placed.
unbound between sentences (except
at ijeks [I+JE]), so you should        Veijo:  First I had
either have an ".ije" there or use  "(nun)jupkumfa" but then wanted to
some other sort of anaphora to get  have just the space, not to imply
the smell.  You could probably just  separation at this stage.  More
ellipsize it entirely and get the    lojbo :)
meaning across fine.
                                      Mark:  Hrrm.  Still seems a
  Veijo responds: Didn't think of    little weird to me, but you're
that (being too smug having put      probably absolutely right here.
together the previous bridi).
".ije" is actually quite good here.  7Iain:  Whether you use "le pinxe"
  Didn't want to ellipsize.          or "le se pinxe", you are still
Definitely not. The smell was the  using "pinxe", with all its
thing.                              connotations.  "selpinxe" zu'unai
                                    is a lujvo, obviously derived from
3Colin: "jbustu" - I guess I        "pinxe", and with a closely associ-
understand, but I don't find it      ated meaning, but with potentially
obvious. ?xu zo jbustu cu sinxa le  a definition of its own, which may
pagbu be le dinju be'o poi stizu lo  have a completely different
jubme                                emphasis.  So "lo se pinxe" is
                                    "something which is drunk", but "lo
  Veijo responds:  go'i              selpinxe" could well be "a bev-
                                    erage".  dikyjvo considerations
4Mark:  Not sure what "ctacarna"    would give "selpinxe" the same
really implies, but I get the gist.  place structure as "se pinxe", no
                                    doubt, but the connotations need
  Veijo responds:  Did a lot of      not be the same.  There is still
word juggling to arrive at          scope for ambiguity, but within a
"ctacarna".  Not much physical      somewhat different range of
turning, except perhaps the head, a  meanings.
quick wandering look takes in the      But at the moment, we don't have
scene (or an almost stationary      a full, or even a partial, dic-


                                  116
Iain: When I wrote this, I thought either "ku" or "be'o" was necessary - I'm not sure now - but I suspect it helps human parsers.
___________________________________
tionary.  We don't have any lujvo    ___________________________________
definitions.  So while we may guess
that someone means something          Lojbab:  "na'o" and other tense
slightly different by "selpinxe" as  words are intended to logically
distinct from "se pinxe", we can't  apply to a whole bridi and cannot
be sure exactly which facet of the  easily be restricted to a part of
meaning of "pinxe" is intended to    the selbri.  I'm not all that sure
be emphasised.  These are details    what the semantics of such a
which will have to be worked out    restriction would be.  If you want
gradually over a period of time.    the effect of "na'o" or some other
                                    tense/modal on a part of a selbri,
  Nick:  Iain is right.  In fact,    you should do it via tanru, using
the place structure subtly changes  the gismu/selbri equivalent, in
too (too subtly for dikyjvo).        this case perhaps "cnano":  "cnano
There is a second place of          se pinxe ckafi".
"selpinxe", but it corresponds to      For some of these modals, where
the second place of cidja (loi ka'e  there may be some question whether
pinxe), and not of "se pinxe" (lo    the gismu necessarily captures the
ca'a pinxe).  I think this aspect    same sense as a tense would, we are
of lujvo place structures, which we  assigning rafsi to the tense cmavo
haven't paid attention to in the    as part of the rafsi retuning.
past, but which is, I feel, coming  This would also allow you a smaller
through in a few of the place        referent than the whole selbri.
structures I'm postulating, in        The grammar changes being
determining which places get turned  proposed will eliminate the option
off (for example, a dinsro (money-  to put a separate tense on the part
store = treasury) has no container  of a selbri after the "co".  Allow-
important to definition, whereas a  ing that was an error in the
dicysro (electricity-store =        grammar implementation, since, as
battery) has no location important  you have noted, there is no non-
to definition, so those respective  "co" equivalent, and the purpose of
places are turned off - remember    "co" does not include adding new
"xo'o" in last October's            options to selbri, only inverting
discussions?), will come back to    them for emphasis or place
haunt us when we try to tackle      structure convenience.
lujvo properly.  I don't think that
time is quite yet.  But thanks to      Iain: I was going to suggest
Iain and Mark for pointing it out;  using a gismu, but I couldn't find
we will be wary.                    one that fitted the bill.  But you
                                    can bind the tense into the selbri
  Mark:  Aside: I was troubled by    with "be":
the fact that "le na'o se pinxe
ckafi" seems to mean "thing-            le se pinxe be na'o ku ckafi
described-as-being:  typically:
drunk-thing type-of coffee", i.e.      Mark: Yes, that's very good.
something that is typically drunken  Thanks, Iain.  It's a little clumsy
coffee, with the "na'o" applying to  that it has to be preposed like
the whole of the following tanru.    that, but not really.  That was
To my horror, I found that I        what I was looking for.
couldn't restrict the "na'o" to the
"se pinxe".  I thought of putting      Iain: When I wrote this, I
ke/ke'e around "na'o se pinxe", but  thought either "ku" or "be'o" was
that's not grammatical, and putting  necessary - I'm not sure now - but
it around just "se pinxe" didn't    I suspect it helps human parsers.
accomplish anything.  I suppose I
could have done it with "co", but      Mark:  Hmmm.  Apparently neither
that doesn't seem like a very        is necessary, though that isn't
general answer, and it would change  obvious to the human reader at
its place-structure.                first glance.  Best to keep them
                                    in, for a little extra redundancy.


                                  117
Mark: Hmmm. Apparently neither is necessary, though that isn't obvious to the human reader at first glance. Best to keep them in, for a little extra redundancy.
ckafypanci fi mi.ui  .i ckafypanci
.i .ui.o'.i sriku'a


                                  118
Nick's text with rough translation  gi'e.o'o.aucu'i denpa lenu lo
          and commentary            djabe'ipre cu jundi mi  .i milxe
                                    savru gi'e ruble nungei  .iku'i mi
  .i mi se lidne la vei,on.          cabdei me ®lu .i'inai li'uЇ
ba'acu'i lenu nerkla le la loblaz.  vau.u'uru'ero'a10  .i lei bitmu cu
kafybarja  .i mi sutra joiku'i.o'a  se jadni loi carmi bo vrici joi
banli cadzu pa'o la'ele cravro noi  na'e simlanxe be ja'i le tcaci  .i
tilju je jadycau  .i lenu mi pu      le re cpare ka'amru poi simkruca se
kargau le vorme cu mlirocnandu gi'e  punji fi le cravro gapru na
sacri'a lenu mi catke  .i le te      minrysarxe11 .u'iru'e  .i na go'i
vorme cu se gusni lo lecydo'i milxe  fa loi drata ke bitmu se punji ne
gi'e se kufra cmalu  .i panomei      mu'u lo dembi poi vreta lo kicne
sa'enai.a'acu'i loi jubme  .i mi    ku'o jo'u lo slabu tcityta'o ne
zutse ne'a lo na'e se tsejbi jubme  secu'u ®lu vi xagrai loi tauzba pe
{poi diklo le kumfa kojna gi'e      levi tcadu li'uЇ ge'ujo'u lo
stula'i le vorme ku'o} gi'e catlu    befydai noi te ciska zo
loi zvapre  .iza'a la vei,on. zutse  sindereluud.  .i mi ca jundi le
vi le ragve kojna gi'enaipe'i        jbusfe pe mi  .i te ciska so'ida ne
zvaju'o8 mi  .i ra zanfri            bau la lojban. e la bangrnesperanto
.i'e.o'enai loi panci be loi vi
ckafi9  .i mi zmanei loi tcati      ___________________________________
                                    emotional distance seems to me
____________________                rather more like aloofness than an
                                    absence of empathy.
8Lojbab:  You used "zvaju'o" and
Sylvia guessed your intent from      10Mark:  I like [this].  Very good
context.  Suggested to use "zgana"  use of "me".  Not sure what you're
or "jundi" as the major basis of    repenting of, but you don't have to
the word.                            say.


  Nick:  Possibly, though I think      Nick:  I was regretting being
"zvaju'o", or at most "nunzvaju'o",  such a misery-guts to the audience,
is clear.                            instead of getting on with the job
                                    of navigating.
9Lojbab:  "He's getting high on the
coffee smells" - No one in the        Lojbab:  "private" - was there a
Tuesday night group could figure    reason for not using "sivni" or a
out anything about what you were    lujvo thereon, which is intended to
trying to convey with that          be associated with this attitudi-
attitudinal, even after checking    nal.
the English.  There's no "se'inai",
so this is your attitude, and I see    Nick:  I was unaware of it.  The
no semantic suggestion of "high"    word would have to be "sivyci'o",
even if I assume the "se'inai" was  and not "sivni".  But I think me+UI
supposed to be there.  Explanation?  is a powerful construct, worth
                                    preserving.
  Nick:  The ".o'enai" means I
don't empathise, because that's      11Lojbab:  did you consider "lanxe"
what I take emotional closeness to  vs "sarxe".  The English suggests
mean.                                the former and the minra was a bit
  [Regarding "high"] The            confusing.  Doesn't anyone like
translation was a bit loose? :)      "dukti"? (dukti-mapti lanxe/sarxe?)


  Lojbab:  Closeness can be related    Nick: "minra" will have to be
to empathy, but I'm not sure it is  there because the equilibrium is
the same thing, at least in the      one of reflection same-ness.
sense that you used, I mean ex-      "lanxe" is clearly better than
pressed, it.  I can feel            "sarxe", and maybe "te minra"
emotionally close to someone        rather than "minra", but any ex-
without necessarily sharing their    pression for symmetrical will have
feelings about something else.  And  to have a wild metaphor.


                                  119
.e le glibau .e .ueru'e le dotco    through the front door, which is
.i le dotco cu se ciska ta'i la      heavy and plain.  Opening the door
fraktur  .i mi xebni la fraktur  .i  took a bit of effort, and made it
mi djica {lenu ciska fi le jbusfe    necessary to push.  What is behind
fe ®lu mi la fraktur xebni mi'e      the door is illuminated by mild
kilrois. li'uЇ kei} gi'enai ca      afternoon light, and is comfortably
ponse lo ve ciska befi loi mudri    small.  There's about ten tables, I
.i mi ka'e lebna lo cpare ja bisli  dunno.  I sit at a table with no
kilmru le zunle bitmu  .i mi co'i    one by it, in the corner and next
morji le xajmi pe lei bisli kilmru  to the door, and look at the people
jgari relcisyge'upre  .iku'i lenu    here.  I see Veijo sitting in the
le xajmi cu jboselsku na se snada    opposite corner, and I don't think
mi  .isemu'ibo mi pensi sanga le se  he's noticed I'm here.  He's
finti be la suZAN.vegas.be'o pe      getting high on the coffee smells.
me'e ®lu le la tom. gusta li'uЇ  .i  I prefer tea, and I'm waiting - not
lenu go'i cu se dicra lenu lo        that anxiously - for a waiter to
djabe'ipre noi .uacu'i xindo cu      notice me.  There's some noise and
klama mi gi'e cisma bacru ®lu        a bit of merriment.  But today, I'm
cticpe ?ma doi lojbo ga'icu'i li'uЇ  feeling private - uh, sorry about
.i mi co'a se spaji catlu le        that.  The walls are decorated by
be'ipre  .i mi nelci le be'ipre  .i  miscellanies, unharmonious by the
mi mutce nelci co se trina le        usual standards.  The two climbing
be'ipre ja'e lenu mi na spuda ri    axes above the front door aren't
.iseki'ubo ri cmila joiku'i milxe    quite symmetrical.  Nor are the
bo se fanza bacru ®lu be'ebe'e      other objects on the walls - a pea
xaupre zo'o ctidji ja pixydji ?ma    on a cushion, for example, an old
li'uЇ  .i mi spuda bacru ®lu        signboard saying "Best Tailor in
je'eki'e pendo .u'u si ba'edo'u.u'u  the Whole Town", and a belt with
.u'ise'i go'i lo tcati li'uЇ  .i le  "Cinderelwood" written on it.  I
be'ipre goi ko'a cu bacru ®lu go'i  look at the table-top where I'm
lo tcati pe le'a ?ma li'uЇ  .i mi    sitting.  It's been inscribed with
®lu .aicu'i do ?ma stidi li'uЇ  .i  lots of stuff, in Lojban,
ko'a ®lu .e'a la kukytcat. noi vi    Esperanto, English, even German.
purlamrai terve'u li'uЇ  .i mi ®lu  The German stuff is in Fraktur
.i'e ko bevri le la kukytcat. tcati  script.  I hate Fraktur.  I want to
li'uЇ  .i ko'a bacru ®lu baziba'o    write "Kilroy woz here and hates
go'i .oinai li'uЇ gi'e cliva mu'i    Fraktur", but I haven't got
lenu bevri nagi'e tavla lo drata    something to write on wood with.  I
zutse  .ipujecabo lu'i le jukpa      could take an ice-pick or climbing-
kuce le patlu'i lu'u nevi le        pick from the wall to my left.  I
jupku'a cu cladu joi selzdi dabysnu  recall the joke about the ice-pick
.i le jukpa cu so'uroi batkla gi'e  wielding bisexuals, but it doesn't
te jivrei le se casnu fo lei zvati  go into Lojban too well.  So I
.i.aucai mi na ve preti  .i le      start mentally singing Suzanne
barjyjatna noi dasni lo jikri'i      Vega's Tom's Diner.  I am
taurgunma ca tavla la vei,on.  .i    interrupted by a waiter, Indian I
mi xance rinsa la vei,on. i ko'a    suppose, who comes to me and says,
spuda rinsa gi'e nupre lenu bazi    smiling: "What'll ya have to eat,
kansa mi kei mi  .i loi cnino cu    Lojban-lover?"  I look at the
nerkla gi'e cladu rinsa loi no'e    waiter, surprised.  I like the
cnino noi na'oca'o te lisri  .i mi  waiter.  I really like the waiter.
na .ai cabdei ve lisri  .i mi        I'm so attracted to the waiter, I
.e'icu'i cabdei xebni la fraktur.    forget to answer.  So s/he says,
                                    laughing but a bit annoyed, "Hello?
  Free translation of Nick's text    Earth to Goodfellow Lojbanist?
          into English.            What'll ya have to eat or drink?"
                                    I answer "I hear you, and thank
  I've been preceded by Veijo in    you, friend (shgeez) - Oh, not
entering Cafe Loblaz.  I swiftly    shgeez about you, shgeez about not
and yet grandly make my entrance    answering; what a klutz I am!  :)


                                  120
I'll have tea."  "What kind of      opinion about the topic he's
tea?"  "shrug What do you            debating.  I really don't want to
recommend?"  "Oh, you could have a  be asked.  The manager, wearing a
Tasty-T; it's our most recent        suit, is talking to Veijo.  I wave
purchase."  "OK, get us a Tasty-T."  at Veijo; he waves back and
The waiter says "Consider it done",  promises me he'll be with me in a
and leaves, not to get it, but to    moment.  New people enter and
talk to other patrons.  While this  loudly greet those already there,
has been going on, the cook and the  who are typically telling stories.
dishwasher in the kitchen have been  I don't feeling like being told any
loudly and enthusiastically ar-      stories today.  Today, I feel like
guing.  The cook occasionally comes  hating Fraktur.
out and asks the patrons for their


                        Veijo's Second Text
=== Nick's text with rough translation and commentary ===


({<le [(la veion) (ckafybarja    {srinuntroci          <[xi    re]
.i mi se lidne la vei,on. ba'acu'i lenu nerkla le la loblaz. kafybarja .i mi sutra joiku'i.o'a banli cadzu pa'o la'ele cravro noi tilju je jadycau .i lenu mi pu kargau le vorme cu mlirocnandu gi'e sacri'a lenu mi catke .i le te vorme cu se gusni lo lecydo'i milxe gi'e se kufra cmalu .i panomei sa'enai.a'acu'i loi jubme .i mi zutse ne'a lo na'e se tsejbi jubme {poi diklo le kumfa kojna gi'e stula'i le vorme ku'o} gi'e catlu loi zvapre .iza'a la vei,on. zutse vi le ragve kojna gi'enaipe'i zvaju'o<span id=x8a />[[#x8b|[8]]] mi .i ra zanfri
    The      veion  coffee+tavern  story+event-of+tries  -sub- 2


[xi    re]>})]>}
.i'e.o'enai loi panci be loi vi ckafi<span id=x9a />[[#x9b|[9]]] .i mi zmanei loi tcati gi'e.o'o.aucu'i denpa lenu lo djabe'ipre cu jundi mi .i milxe savru gi'e ruble nungei .iku'i mi cabdei me ®lu .i'inai li'u¯ vau.u'uru'ero'a<span id=x10a />[[#x10b|[10]]] .i lei bitmu cu se jadni loi carmi bo vrici joi na'e simlanxe be ja'i le tcaci .i le re cpare ka'amru poi simkruca se punji fi le cravro gapru na minrysarxe<span id=x11a />[[#x11b|[11]]] .u'iru'e .i na go'i fa loi drata ke bitmu se punji ne mu'u lo dembi poi vreta lo kicne ku'o jo'u lo slabu tcityta'o ne secu'u ®lu vi xagrai loi tauzba pe levi tcadu li'u¯ ge'ujo'u lo befydai noi te ciska zo sindereluud. .i mi ca jundi le jbusfe pe mi .i te ciska so'ida ne bau la lojban. e la bangrnesperanto .e le glibau .e .ueru'e le dotco .i le dotco cu se ciska ta'i la fraktur .i mi xebni la fraktur .i mi djica {lenu ciska fi le jbusfe fe ®lu mi la fraktur xebni mi'e kilrois. li'u¯ kei} gi'enai ca ponse lo ve ciska befi loi mudri .i mi ka'e lebna lo cpare ja bisli kilmru le zunle bitmu .i mi co'i morji le xajmi pe lei bisli kilmru jgari relcisyge'upre .iku'i lenu le xajmi cu jboselsku na se snada mi .isemu'ibo mi pensi sanga le se finti be la suZAN.vegas.be'o pe me'e ®lu le la tom. gusta li'u¯ .i lenu go'i cu se dicra lenu lo djabe'ipre noi .uacu'i xindo cu klama mi gi'e cisma bacru ®lu cticpe ?ma doi lojbo ga'icu'i li'u¯ .i mi co'a se spaji catlu le be'ipre .i mi nelci le be'ipre .i mi mutce nelci co se trina le be'ipre ja'e lenu mi na spuda ri .iseki'ubo ri cmila joiku'i milxe bo se fanza bacru ®lu be'ebe'e xaupre zo'o ctidji ja pixydji ?ma li'u¯ .i mi spuda bacru ®lu je'eki'e pendo .u'u si ba'edo'u.u'u .u'ise'i go'i lo tcati li'u¯ .i le be'ipre goi ko'a cu bacru ®lu go'i lo tcati pe le'a ?ma li'u¯ .i mi ®lu .aicu'i do ?ma stidi li'u¯ .i ko'a ®lu .e'a la kukytcat. noi vi purlamrai terve'u li'u¯ .i mi ®lu .i'e ko bevri le la kukytcat. tcati li'u¯ .i ko'a bacru ®lu baziba'o go'i .oinai li'u¯ gi'e cliva mu'i lenu bevri nagi'e tavla lo drata zutse .ipujecabo lu'i le jukpa kuce le patlu'i lu'u nevi le jupku'a cu cladu joi selzdi dabysnu .i le jukpa cu so'uroi batkla gi'e te jivrei le se casnu fo lei zvati .i.aucai mi na ve preti .i le barjyjatna noi dasni lo jikri'i taurgunma ca tavla la vei,on. .i mi xance rinsa la vei,on. i ko'a spuda rinsa gi'e nupre lenu bazi kansa mi kei mi .i loi cnino cu nerkla gi'e cladu rinsa loi no'e cnino noi na'oca'o te lisri .i mi na .ai cabdei ve lisri .i mi .e'icu'i cabdei xebni la fraktur.
-sub- 2


ni'o  {<[({<[({<[({<[({<[({<[mi  ({penzutse      o'u
Free translation of Nick's text into English.
})]
    _                        Me    cogitates+sits (Ahh! Relaxing!)


i [to'erninda'i            ({fa  <le  [mi  jubme]>})]>
I've been preceded by Veijo in entering Cafe Loblaz. I swiftly and yet grandly make my entrance through the front door, which is heavy and plain. Opening the door took a bit of effort, and made it necessary to push. What is behind the door is illuminated by mild afternoon light, and is comfortably small. There's about ten tables, I dunno. I sit at a table with no one by it, in the corner and next to the door, and look at the people here. I see Veijo sitting in the opposite corner, and I don't think he's noticed I'm here. He's getting high on the coffee smells. I prefer tea, and I'm waiting - not that anxiously - for a waiter to notice me. There's some noise and a bit of merriment. But today, I'm feeling private - uh, sorry about that. The walls are decorated by miscellanies, unharmonious by the usual standards. The two climbing axes above the front door aren't quite symmetrical. Nor are the other objects on the walls - a pea on a cushion, for example, an old signboard saying "Best Tailor in the Whole Town", and a belt with "Cinderelwood" written on it. I look at the table-top where I'm sitting. It's been inscribed with lots of stuff, in Lojban, Esperanto, English, even German. The German stuff is in Fraktur script. I hate Fraktur. I want to write "Kilroy woz here and hates Fraktur", but I haven't got something to write on wood with. I could take an ice-pick or climbing-pick from the wall to my left. I recall the joke about the ice-pick wielding bisexuals, but it doesn't go into Lojban too well. So I start mentally singing Suzanne Vega's Tom's Diner. I am interrupted by a waiter, Indian I suppose, who comes to me and says, smiling: "What'll ya have to eat, Lojban-lover?" I look at the waiter, surprised. I like the waiter. I really like the waiter. I'm so attracted to the waiter, I forget to answer. So s/he says, laughing but a bit annoyed, "Hello? Earth to Goodfellow Lojbanist? What'll ya have to eat or drink?" I answer "I hear you, and thank you, friend (shgeez) - Oh, not shgeez about you, shgeez about not answering; what a klutz I am! :) I'll have tea." "What kind of tea?" "shrug What do you recommend?" "Oh, you could have a Tasty-T; it's our most recent purchase." "OK, get us a Tasty-T." The waiter says "Consider it done", and leaves, not to get it, but to talk to other patrons. While this has been going on, the cook and the dishwasher in the kitchen have been loudly and enthusiastically arguing. The cook occasionally comes out and asks the patrons for their opinion about the topic he's debating. I really don't want to be asked. The manager, wearing a suit, is talking to Veijo. I wave at Veijo; he waves back and promises me he'll be with me in a moment. New people enter and loudly greet those already there, who are typically telling stories. I don't feeling like being told any stories today. Today, I feel like hating Fraktur.
. Opposite-of-+new+object  x1=  the me   table


i <ciska    [(da          {le  jbusfe      })]>} { ije  } {mi
----
.  Inscriber  something #1  the table+surface        ; and  me


<catlu    [(da          a'u        )]>}) i (lerfu  {<la [fraktur ue
]>})]
looks at  something #1 (interest!)      .  Letter      fraktur
(What!)


i [mi  (morji    {<fi  [loi            (lerfu  {be <la
<span id=x8b />[[#x8a|8.]] Lojbab: You used "zvaju'o" and Sylvia guessed your intent from context. Suggested to use "zgana" or "jundi" as the major basis of the word.
fraktur>})]>})]>
. Me    remembers  x3=  the mass of all  letter  of    fraktur


i <morji    >} i {mi  <[({<pu    zu          > ki} zvati    )
Nick: Possibly, though I think "zvaju'o", or at most "nunzvaju'o", is clear.
({le  ckule })]
.  Remembers  .  Me        before , a long time  :  present at
the school


gi'e [({ caca'a      } tcidu )]>})
and      currently is  reader


i (mi  {tcidu  <[le  (cfika  {be <le  [(ze) bruna  ]> <bei [(la
<span id=x9b />[[#x9a|9.]] Lojbab: "He's getting high on the coffee smells" - No one in the Tuesday night group could figure out anything about what you were trying to convey with that attitudinal, even after checking the English. There's no "se'inai", so this is your attitude, and I see no semantic suggestion of "high" even if I assume the "se'inai" was supposed to be there. Explanation?
. Me    reader  the  fiction  of the   7  brother    of


{aleksis kivis}) (po'u    {le  natmytercfi
Nick: The ".o'enai" means I don't empathise, because that's what I take emotional closeness to mean.
})]>})]>})]
aleksis kivis    which is  the ethnos+3rd-place-of+fiction


i [(le  {<poi  [(le  {drata      <be mi  >}) cu        (tcidu
[Regarding "high"] The translation was a bit loose? :)
The   that  the  other than  of me      (is/does) reader


{<fi  ke'a    >})] ku'o> selpapri        }) cu
Lojbab: Closeness can be related to empathy, but I'm not sure it is the same thing, at least in the sense that you used, I mean expressed, it. I can feel emotionally close to someone without necessarily sharing their feelings about something else. And emotional distance seems to me rather more like aloofness than an absence of empathy.


                                121
  x3= he/she/it    ,    2nd-place-of+page  (is/does)


({te          prina  } {<loi            [lerfu  (be {la
<span id=x10b />[[#x10a|10.]] Mark: I like [this]. Very good use of "me". Not sure what you're repenting of, but you don't have to say.
antik})]>})]>
 
Nick: I was regretting being such a misery-guts to the audience, instead of getting on with the job of navigating.
 
Lojbab: "private" - was there a reason for not using "sivni" or a lujvo thereon, which is intended to be associated with this attitudinal.
 
Nick: I was unaware of it. The word would have to be "sivyci'o", and not "sivni". But I think me+UI is a powerful construct, worth preserving.
 
 
<span id=x11b />[[#x11a|11.]] Lojbab: did you consider "lanxe" vs "sarxe". The English suggests the former and the minra was a bit confusing. Doesn't anyone like "dukti"? (dukti-mapti lanxe/sarxe?)
 
Nick: "minra" will have to be there because the equilibrium is one of reflection same-ness. "lanxe" is clearly better than "sarxe", and maybe "te minra" rather than "minra", but any expression for symmetrical will have to have a wild metaphor.
 
 
=== Veijo's Second Text ===
 
<pre>                                                                     
({<le  [(la veion) (ckafybarja    {srinuntroci          <[xi    re] 
    The      veion  coffee+tavern  story+event-of+tries  -sub- 2   
                                                                     
[xi    re]>})]>}                                                     
-sub- 2                                                             
                                                                     
ni'o  {<[({<[({<[({<[({<[({<[mi  ({penzutse      o'u               
})]                                                                 
    _                        Me    cogitates+sits (Ahh! Relaxing!) 
                                                                     
i [to'erninda'i            ({fa  <le  [mi  jubme]>})]>             
.  Opposite-of-+new+object  x1=  the  me  table                   
                                                                     
i <ciska    [(da          {le  jbusfe      })]>} { ije  } {mi     
.  Inscriber  something #1  the table+surface        ; and  me     
                                                                     
<catlu    [(da          a'u        )]>}) i (lerfu  {<la [fraktur ue  ]>})]                                                               
looks at  something #1 (interest!)      .  Letter      fraktur (What!)                                                             
                                                                     
i [mi  (morji    {<fi  [loi            (lerfu  {be <la fraktur>})]>})]>                                                     
.  Me    remembers  x3=  the mass of all  letter  of    fraktur   
                                                                     
i <morji    >} i {mi  <[({<pu      zu        > ki} zvati    )    ({le  ckule })]                                                     
.  Remembers  .  Me        before , a long time  :  present at        the school                                                           
                                                                     
gi'e [({ caca'a      } tcidu )]>})                                   
and      currently is  reader                                       
                                                                     
i (mi  {tcidu  <[le  (cfika  {be <le  [(ze) bruna  ]> <bei [(la   
.  Me    reader  the  fiction  of  the  7  brother    of         
                                                                     
{aleksis kivis}) (po'u    {le  natmytercfi                })]>})]>})]                                                         
aleksis kivis    which is  the ethnos+3rd-place-of+fiction         
                                                                     
i [(le  {<poi  [(le  {drata      <be mi  >}) cu        (tcidu       
.  The  that  the  other than  of me      (is/does)  reader       
                                                                     
{<fi  ke'a    >})] ku'o> selpapri        }) cu                     
                                                                     
  x3= he/she/it    ,    2nd-place-of+page  (is/does)             
                                                                     
({te          prina  } {<loi            [lerfu  (be {la antik})]>})]>
   3rd place of printer    the mass of all  letter  of    antik
   3rd place of printer    the mass of all  letter  of    antik


Line 7,256: Line 2,850:


i (mi  {djica  <[(le  {nu      <tcidu  [(fi  ko'a)]> kei}) (mu'i
i (mi  {djica  <[(le  {nu      <tcidu  [(fi  ko'a)]> kei}) (mu'i
.  Me    desires    the  event of  reader  x3= it-1    ,
.  Me    desires    the  event of  reader  x3= it-1    ,     because
because


{le  <nu      [(le  {mi  patfu }) ({<pu    zu          > prina  }
{le  <nu      [(le  {mi  patfu }) ({<pu    zu          > prina  }
Line 7,268: Line 2,861:
.  The  me  father    for an eon (during) printer
.  The  me  father    for an eon (during) printer


i <[(le  {<nu      [ri  (go'i      )] kei> nanca  }) (li
i <[(le  {<nu      [ri  (go'i      )] kei> nanca  }) (li {< vobi>})]>}
{< vobi>})]>}
.    The  event of  it    , the same  ,    in years    the number 48
.    The  event of  it    , the same  ,    in years    the number
48


i {<[ki ku] mi  > <catlu    [(le  {vi        <lerfu  [be (la
i {<[ki ku] mi  > <catlu    [(le  {vi        <lerfu  [be (la fraktur)]>})]>})
fraktur)]>})]>})
.    :      me    looks at  the  here (at)  letter  of    fraktur
.    :      me    looks at  the  here (at)  letter  of    fraktur


Line 7,289: Line 2,879:
present-at+knows    me
present-at+knows    me


i (ra  {<xance rinsa  > <mi  >})] [ ije  ] [mi  ({spuda    rinsa
i (ra  {<xance rinsa  > <mi  >})] [ ije  ] [mi  ({spuda    rinsa })]>
})]>
.  It    hand  greeter  me        ; and  me    responds greeter
.  It    hand  greeter  me        ; and  me    responds greeter


i <[la nitcion] [({ caca'a      } xebni) ({la fraktur})]>})
i <[la nitcion] [({ caca'a      } xebni) ({la fraktur})]>})
.      nitcion      currently is  hater      fraktur
</pre>
=== Commentary on Veijo's 2nd text ===
le la vei,on. ckafybarja srinuntroci xire xire
ni'o mi penzutse.o'u .i to'erninda'i fa lemi jubme .i ciska da le jbusfe .ije mi catlu da.a'u .i lerfu la fraktur.ue .i mi morji fi loi lerfu be la fraktur. .i morji .i mi puzuki zvati le ckule gi'e caca'a tcidu .i mi tcidu le cfika be le ze bruna bei la .Aleksis.kivis. po'u le natmytercfi .i le poi le drata be mi cu tcidu fi ke'a ku'o selpapri<span id=1a />[[#1b|[1]]] cu te prina loi lerfu be la antik. .i lemi selpapri goi ko'a te prina loi lerfu be la fraktur. .i lenu tcidu de pe ta'i la fraktur. kei pu nandu mi gi'e ca frili .i mi djica lenu tcidu fi ko'a kei mu'i lenu lemi patfu puzu prina loi lerfu loi ko'a papri .i lemi patfu ze'u prina .i lenu ri go'i kei nanca li vobi .i kiku mi catlu le vi lerfu be la fraktur. .i lerfu .i bacru.ue zo coi .i barjyjatna.a'a .i la nitcion. co'ava se zvaju'o<span id=2a />[[#2b|[2]]] mi .i ra xance rinsa mi .ije mi spuda rinsa .i la nitcion. caca'a xebni la fraktur.<span id=3a />[[#3b|[3]]]
----
<span id=1b />[[#1a|1.]] Nick: We are going to see a lot of preposed relatives, I predict, simply because they kill off a lot of the worry about terminating them when postposed. They are not just an affectation.
<span id=2b />[[#2a|2.]] Nick: Nice to see one's dikyjvo picked up :)
<span id=3b />[[#3a|3.]] Nick: Brilliant ending. I mean... so wonderfully deadpan. You're getting quite good at this :)
----
=== Iain's first text, with rough translation and commentary ===
®lu .ie.a'a .ie.o'onairu'e (cu'usa'a mi noi caki vilkla zo'a le vorme<span id=4a />[[#4b|[4]]] fi'o te mlixra le janco ku'o) sera'a ?ma pezyjicla<span id=5a />[[#5b|[5]]] li'u¯ .i mi vi le zdani pu zutse co cando .icabo mi terbei lo notci poi ve cusku le se du'u lu'o la vei,on. joi la nitcion. lu'u goi ko'a noi zvati le kafybarja po'u la *jbolaz. cu djica lenu penmi mi vi ra .i ®lu ?ma ?mo li'u¯ na se spuda .i ko'a jundi casnu la fraktur. .i mi zo'u la fraktur. no'e cinri .i mi co'a zutse ne'a lo jubme poi lamji le me ko'a<span id=6a />[[#6b|[6]]] ku'o gi'e denpa lenu se zvaju'o da no'u ga ko'a gi lo selfu noida'i bevri loi ckafi mi
ni'o lemi jubme cu xekri seja'e loni to'ercitno .i ra ve srakysku zo mi ce'o prami bu ce'o ®lu le cmacrnalgebra li'u¯ .i mi nelci le jubme .i mi de'a morji fi la vei,on. .e la nitcion. gi'e co'a pensi .i mi si'a se cinri so'a klesi be lo sinxa ciste ra'anai ledu'u vo'e ge'ikau te javni mu'u le sucta cmacrnalgebra gi mecritli mu'u loi rarna ja rutni bangu<span id=7a />[[#7b|[7]]] .i la'edi'u mukti lenu mi tadni la lojban. kei noi ki'u ke'a mi zvati la jbolanzu
no'i lo be'ipre cu klama co veirgau lemi selcpe po'u lo barda carmi bo ckafi gi'ebabo nalsirkla mo'ize'oku na'e mo'ifa'a le jupku'a .i .uaru'e simlu fa lenu ko'a ze'apu naje ca zvaju'o mi .i mi'a simxu rinsa .i la'aru'e mi bazi facki le krinu be lenu sutrygau<span id=8a />[[#8b|[8]]]
----
"OK, OK!", I say, barging through the door, bruising my shoulder, "What's all the fuss about?" I was sitting at home quietly, when I got a message saying that Veijo and Nick, who are at the Cafe *Jbolaz, want to see me there. "What's up?" - no reply. They are deep in a discussion about Fraktur. Me? I can take it or leave it. I sit down at a table next to theirs and wait for someone to notice me, either them or one of the people serving who might bring me some coffee.
My table is dark with age. On it is carved "I", a heart, and "algebra". I like this table. I forget about Veijo and Nick and start to ponder. I too am interested in all kinds of symbolic system, whether formal ones like abstract algebra, or more flexible ones such as natural and artificial languages. That's the reason I'm studying Lojban, which is why I'm at the "*Jbolaz".
A waiter comes and takes my order for a large, strong coffee, and wanders off, not heading for the kitchen. Ah, it looks like they've spotted me at last. We say hello. Perhaps now I'll find out the reason for all the rush.
----
<span id=4b />[[#4a|4.]] Colin: "le vorme" - I am still not clear whether "vorme" means a bit of wood etc., or a hole, or both. We often use it as if it means the first - if so, then "le vorme" is certainly not what you mean here!
Nick: I believe "vorme" is a doorway, rather than a piece of wood. I don't see why the piece of wood can't be a "vrogai" (doorway lid).
Lojbab: It is the doorway that is intended in the gismu, but not in the sense of "door frame". The new place structure for "vorme" has a place structure suggestive of route, emphasizing the two sides it connects, while noting that it is also within some larger structure, and hence not just any route. By comparison, "canko" emphasizes the wall in which it is found. I like "vrogai" and "vroca'o" and "vroge'u" for the cover and opening and frame, respectively. The gismu list has been clarified to reflect this.
<span id=5b />[[#5a|5.]] Nick: I'd prefer something more explicit than "pezyjicla", like "raktu" or "cuntu".
Lojbab: I agree. This smells malglico, since there is no clear implicature as to what is being 'stirred up' in the context. Transferring figurative uses between languages, if you must do so, should be confined to situations where the reader/- listener can clearly identify the figurative values for the place structure of the 'figure' - in the case of "jicla" (stir), the agent/force doing the stirring, the 'fluid' being stirred, and the utensil/implement doing the stirring. For the context given, it isn't really even clear to me that Iain wants "jicla" as opposed to "terjicla"
<span id=6b />[[#6a|6.]] Colin: I felt sure there was something wrong with "le me ko'a", but I think you have actually invented a new idiom with which we will now doubtless be plagued.
Mark: It's actually an attempt at a sort of metonymy. I think "le me ko'a" is not the way to go, I greatly prefer "zo'epe ko'a". I sort of think of "zo'epe" as almost like a LAhE word (of course, with different grammar) that introduces metonymy for the sumti it's on. "le me ko'a" seems dangerously close to just plain "ko'a".
Nick: "le me ko'a" is the solution to metonymy - so much better than my "zu'i pe ko'a".
Iain: I've been reprimanded in the past for using "zo'e" with a relative clause, and told to use "da". Admittedly, I think it was a "poi" relative clause, which may make all the difference. Neither "zo'epe ko'a" of "da pe ko'a" seem to express the definiteness that I wanted. I could use "le" with a sumti, provided I insert an explicit quantifier "le pa da pe ko'a", which is starting to get out of hand for a simple concept like "theirs". The voting is still open on this one.
Mark: Well, you have a good point. "zo'e pe" is specifically anti-definite. It's good for metonymy in which you're really not trying to be specific, but are willing to be elliptical. For something like this, "da pe" would be better, but still likely wouldn't get the definiteness across. There's "da voi srana", but that's not really worth considering as a general solution. Too long. "le pada pe ko'a" doesn't seem all that bad to me, but then, in your shoes I would probably say to hell with definiteness and stick with "zo'epe". Not that that's necessarily the right thing to do. I'm still less enthusiastic about "le me ko'a" than Nick is.
Lojbab: I think "le me ko'a" is fine for original Lojban, but would probably have used "le ko'a co'e" as a translation for English "theirs" which more matches the 'possessive' implicature of the English. The "me" version is more vague, and could extend to include "ko'a" as well as things belonging to "ko'a".
On the other hand, I suspect that "la'e" and "tu'a" between them handle metonymy fine, and I think better than "le me ...". It would not be very English-like to handle "theirs" as a "la'e" or a "tu'a", but it might be very lojbanic to do so.
<span id=7b />[[#7a|7.]] Lojbab: Iain translates this sentence as:
: I too am interested in all kinds of symbolic system, whether formal ones like abstract algebra, or more flexible ones such as natural and artificial languages.
There was much debate about this sentence on the net, with Iain eventually deciding to use "ra'anai". Not proposed in the discussion, and I think better and more lojbanic, is a logical connective approach. I also think that "all kinds of" is better expressed using a massifier gadri, since he is not really interested in the categories, but in the things comprising the various categories (or maybe he is a taxonomist):
: .i mi si'a se cinri piso'a loi sinxa ciste ju gu'a te javni be mu'u le sucta cmacrnalgebra be'o gi mecritli be mu'u loi rarna ja rutni bangu
The two "be" clauses might be more readable as parentheses:
: .i mi si'a se cinri piso'a loi sinxa ciste ju gu'a te javni (to mu'u le sucta cmacrnalgebra toi) gi mecritli (to mu'u loi rarna ja rutni bangu toi)
<span id=8b />[[#8a|8.]] Nick: Perhaps "mukti", and "sutrybai".
Lojbab: Iain has to decide: Does he want an explanation for the summons, or does he really want to know the motive. Having multiple words for "why" makes you really need to think about what is really sought after.
=== Translation of Mark Shoulson's Text and Commentary ===
ni'oni'o vanci .icabo nalcladu ne'i le ckafybarja .i le bi'u remna cu klama mo'ine'i ra .i ko'a goi ra<span id=9a />[[#9b|[9]]] zutse ne'a lo jubme .i ko'a cpedu loi tcati le kafybarja se jibri .i ba so'o mentu ko'a se dunda loi tcati gi'e co'aru'inai pinxe ri
ni'o ko'a ca lenu ko'a pinxe loi tcati po ko'a cu zgana lenu le bi'u nanmu cu se dunda lei ckafi poi ra pu cpedu ke'a .ije le nanmu goi ko'e cu pencu le kabri poi se nenri lei ckafi ku'o le degji gi'enai pinxe lei ckafi .ije mu'i zo'epela'edi'u<span id=10a />[[#10b|[10]]] ko'e cusku ®lu .o'onai ju'i do'u ko lebna lei vi ckafi gi'ebabo bevri fi mi fe lei je'a glare ku'i ckafi li'u¯ le bevri be lei ckafi be'o goi ko'i .i ko'i cusku ®lu .u'u .ie ga'inai li'u¯ gi'ebabo lebna le kabri .i ko'i krefu klama gi'e bevri lei ckafi vau ba so'o mentu .i ko'e krefu pencu le kabri .i ko'e cusku ®lu .i'esai ba'e ti ku'i cu je'a glare ckafi li'u¯ .i ko'e gleki pinxe lei ckafi po ko'e
no'i<span id=11a />[[#11b|[11]]] ko'a zgana la'eso'odi'u<span id=12a />[[#12b|[12]]] .i ba so'o mentu ko'a tavla le bi'unai selpinxe bevri goi ko'i .i ko'a cusku ®lu .ia do pu bevri lei naldrata ckafi ta vau ?xu li'u¯ .i ko'i cusku ®lu go'i .o'unairo'a .u'uro'a li'u¯ .i ko'a cusku ®lu ko .i'i na jikca dunku .i mi puzuze'u se jibri loinu<span id=13a />[[#13b|[13]]] bevri loi selpinxe vi lo gusta .iseki'ubo mi djuno tu'a le do se zukte .i da poi prenu cu genai pinxe lei ckafi gi pencu le kabri gi'e na'e djica tu'a lei ckafi ki'u lo za'i na'e pe'ise'inai<span id=14a />[[#14b|[14]]] glare .ije semu'i loinu da minde mi lenu basti lei ckafi loi glare ckafi kei kei mi lebna lei ckafi gi'e na'o denpa fu'i so'e mentu tezu'e lenu tu'a lei ckafi cu glaryri'a le kabri kei fo lenu krefu dunda lei naldrata ckafi .i za'a do panra zukte .i la'ede'u ve ctuca<span id=15a />[[#15b|[15]]] fu tu'a le slabu lisri be le bebna seljibri ka'u li'u¯ .i ko'i cusku ®lu le lisri ki'a li'u¯ .i ko'a cusku ®lu .ue do punai ?xu ve lisri fu ri li'u¯ .i ®lu noroi ve lisri li'u¯ .i ®lu .ai mi te lisri .i tu'e ka'u da'i puzuki da te bende le re seljibri .i fo'a goi le te bende ca le fanmo be le jeftu cu pleji le se jerna le re seljibri no'u lu'i le prije seljibri goi fo'e ge'u jo'u le bebna seljibri goi fo'i .i le se jerna cu rupnu li panono .ijesemu'ibo fo'a pleji lei jdini be ta'i le pelji jdini fo'e .e fo'i .i fo'e ckire fo'a gi'ebabo cliva gi'e gleki ki'u lenu le jdini cu se vamji li su'orau .i fo'i na'e gleki .i cusku ®lu .o'onai mi to'e lazni gunka fi'o te bende do ca piro le jeftu .i do pleji levi malpelji .i'enaisai mi .i le'o ko pleji fi mi fe le je'u je'a jdini no'u lo sicni li'u¯ .isemu'ibo fo'a pleji fo'i lo gusminra sicni poi se fepni li mu .iseki'ubo fo'i gleki klama le fo'i zdani tu'u .i tu'a di'u xe ctuca fi ledu'u jdice nagi'apubo e'ucai zgana .i .ua ri'a je'unai ka'u le sego'i zo "za'a" noi cmavo fi lesi'o zgana ku'o cu rafsi zo zabna li'u<span id=16a />[[#16b|[16]]]¯
Mark's translation uses Lojban pronouns to preserve the gender-free qualities of his Lojban<span id=17a />[[#17b|[17]]]:
It was quiet in the coffeehouse one evening, and a person (ko'a) came in. ko'a sat at a table and ordered tea from the cafe employee. After a few minutes, ko'a was given some tea and began sipping intermittently at it.
As ko'a was sitting drinking ko'a's tea, ko'a saw a man being given the coffee which he'd ordered. The man touched the cup that contained the coffee, but didn't drink the coffee. So he said, "Hey! Take this coffee back and bring me some hot coffee!" to the waiter (ko'i).
"Yes sir, sorry..." And ko'i took the cup away.
A few minutes later, ko'i returned carrying the cup. He (the man) touched the cup again, and said "Ah! Now that's some hot coffee!" and happily drank his coffee. ko'a had seen all this happen, and several minutes later was talking to the waiter. ko'a said, "You brought that guy the same coffee, didn't you?"
"Um... yeah, I did..."
"Don't worry. I used to work as a waiter in a restaurant, so I know what you did. There are people who don't drink the coffee, they just touch the cup and don't want the coffee because they think it's not hot enough. So when they tell me to get them some fresh coffee, I just take the coffee and wait a few minutes until the coffee warms the cup and bring them the same coffee back again. And I see you've done the same. That's really the moral of the old story about the foolish laborer."
"What story?"
"You never heard it?"
"Never."
"OK, I'll tell it then. Once upon a time, there was a manager (fo'a) with two workers. At the end of the week, he paid his two workers: the wise worker (fo'e) and the foolish worker (fo'i). Their salary was $100, so he paid them with paper money. fo'e thanked fo'a and left, happy because he was paid so well.
"fo'i wasn't happy. "Look! I worked hard for you all week, and now you're paying me with this dumb piece of paper!? You better pay me with some real money, with coins!" So fo'a paid fo'i with shiny coins, worth 5 cents, and fo'i went happily home.
"This all teaches that you have to look closely before passing judgement. In fact, that's why "za'a", which represents the idea of observation, is also an affix for "zabna"/favourable."
----
<span id=9b />[[#9a|9.]] Lojbab: I'm wondering why Mark waited till this sentence to assign ko'a. It makes things unnecessarily more difficult on the reader to have done so, since he ends up with two "ra"s with different values only a few words apart. I don't frown on this so much with "ri" which is fairly strictly confined to the next previous sumti, but "ra" is loosely enough defined that one has to stop and think about whether it might or might not mean the same as the previous usage.
Since he is dealing with a 3rd person narration section of a story, assigning with "le ... remna goi ko'a" in the previous sentence is only fair.
<span id=10b />[[#10a|10.]] Nick: zo'epela'edi'u is more accurate here than ".isemu'ibo", but it's still a mouthful. I'm not confident about the usage of "ku'i".
Mark: I thought ".isemu'ibo" wasn't quite right, since after all, it wasn't his touching the cup, but rather what he felt that made him refuse. I'm glad you saw that too. "zo'epela'edi'u" is a bit much to say, but not impossible. Note my "zo'epe" metonymizer.
I was actually proud of the "ku'i" there. "Bring me some hot coffee (as opposed to this tepid stuff)."
Lojbab: How about "tu'a la'edi'u"?
<span id=11b />[[#11a|11.]] Colin: Can anybody explain "no'i" to me, please?
Mark: Not me. I don't know what it is either. I threw it in because I've pretty much never seen it before and figured it deserved some exposure, and this seemed like a possible usage. I'm going back to "ko'a", so it's sort of an old topic... isn't it?
Lojbab: The purpose is to allow you to change topics ("ni'o"), and possibly even contexts, but then to resume the old context at will with "no'i" ("ni'o" and "no'i" can be subscripted, I believe, if you are dealing with many contexts). Context is typically defined in terms of a certain space-time tense reference and possibly a set of anaphora assignments.
Major intended uses are for a story-within-a-story (for which the concept was invented - I've been working on an Arabian Nights translation for a few years now, and that collection nests stories several levels deep, as characters in a story tell a story with characters who in turn tell stories, etc., continually popping from level to level with stories stopping, starting, and being interrupted for metalinguistic comment or action at a higher story level), for comparison between two situations, and a whole bunch of oddball things that happen in stylistics of longer narratives.
The conventions of switching anaphora assignments (i.e. the definition of ko'a, ko'e, da, de, etc.) or tense reference (the value assigned with "ki" are not well established because "no'i" has not been used much used.
Other applications are certainly possible, and will have to be developed through usage. Hopefully they will be generally consistent with the originally intended purposes.
<span id=12b />[[#12a|12.]] Mark: I don't like the way "di'u" only means "the last utterance". It's bringing number considerations into Lojban where it never had them before. I'd have expected it to mean "the last utterance(s)", with optional number, like everything else. You can't always use tu'e/tu'u, sometimes it's used in afterthought. I had to use that hideous "la'e joigi di'ugide'u" [in the original draft of this story], counting on "de'u" to be non-number-specific. Had to use forethought because otherwise "la'e" would stick only to "di'u" and not the whole thing.
Iain: In the latest version of the grammar, LAhE applies to a whole sumti, with an explicit optional LUhU terminator, so you could use afterthought.
Why not "[le] re di'u" - the previous two utterances, "so'o de'u" - several recent utterances, etc.
[Mark liked this approach and incorporated it in the printed version.]
Lojbab: I ask you: What is an 'utterance'? In Lojban, an utterance can be more than a single sentence, a paragraph even, or whatever. I would think this would be familiar to net people from Cowan's method of net quotation on Lojban-List: "la lojbab. cusku di'e", where "di'e" is the forward counting utterance equivalent of the back-counting "di'u".
Thus, the 'utterance' to which "di'u" refers is not that well defined, and may indeed refer to multiple sentences. Grammatically, the construct labelled 'utterance' is a single sentence or partial sentence. However, it has generally been agreed, for example, that ".ije" joining, or ".ibo" joining gives a logical unit (as does ".itu'e ...tu'u", as you noted). Thus the concept utterance extends to be what is labelled an "utterance-string" in the grammar, or perhaps even to the construct labelled "text-B", which can include multiple paragraphs. Now the usage default convention of 'utterance' has tended to be a single sentence, but it need not always be so. If context suggests a longer utterance is intended, fine.
A possibility to consider when you are dealing with a range of sentences and don't want to count, would be to use di'upezi/- di'upeza/di'upezu to indicate relative length of referenced utterance.
<span id=13b />[[#13a|13.]] Mark: I also replaced a lot of "lenu"'s with "loinu"'s, though this is not common practice. I did this because of the article by JCB that was posted here not long ago, in which he pointed out that a lot of our "lenu"'s are really massified: you're not waiting for a specific event of a cab's arriving, you're waiting for a manifestation of the mass of such events. I thought JCB had a very good point there.
<span id=14b />[[#14a|14.]] Colin: I don't think you can use "pe'ise'inai" in the way that I think you are trying to. It reads "didn't want to drink the coffee because it was not (I think but it's not my issue) hot." It seemed to me that you were trying to make it "... it was not (in their opinion) hot", which you cannot do with attitudinals.


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Mark: I'm not so sure about this. I'm not 100% positive about what "se'i"/"se'inai" do. Somewhere in the past someone said they could be used in this way, to tag attitudinals explicitly as belonging to the speaker or not. Oh, I remember. It was when Nick and I were discussing whether attitudinals on "du'u" in the x2 of "djuno" applied to the speaker or to the x1. Actually, we were discussing it with reference to "kau" then, but this was when "kau" was still evolving. Lojbab said you could use "kause'i" and "kause'inai" to distinguish who was "knowing" (remember, at the time we were considering "kau" as mostly just "known!"), since "se'i" always made things apply to the speaker. I fear you're probably right anyway, but I hope you're wrong, since your second reading, the one I intended, is such an elegant way to say it....
.     nitcion     currently is  hater      fraktur
 
[Later ...] I didn't change ..., e.g. Colin's objection to "pe'ise'inai" for "in their opinion", since last I heard the jury's still out on what it should mean, and I like the way it sounds.
 
Lojbab: Mark's usage is fairly consistent with what we had in mind for "se'inai", but is vague as to who actually holds the opinion other than the narrator. Lojban intentionally makes specifically attributing emotions to others difficult (as do many natural languages), and I would prefer such comments to be metalinguistic discursives using "sei". In this case, "sei da jinvi", or "sei vo'a jinvi", or even probably "sei jinvi" says the same thing, but makes the attribution of opinion a claim rather than an empathic understanding/attribution of emotion (which is what I see as the proper meaning of "se'inai" modifying an attitudinal).
 
 
<span id=15b />[[#15a|15.]] Mark: I had trouble getting across the meanings of "this is illustrated by the old story" and "the moral of this is..." Places of "ctuca" have done the job, and reasonably well, but maybe not very well.
 
 
<span id=16b />[[#16a|16.]] General Comments:
 
Mark: I could use some better use of UIs, I think. My grammar gets very complex sometimes.
 
Nick: Hm, this one is... sober. That's ok, though. We were about due for sober :) The grammatical complexity (and I presume the same is the case for my work) means that you have to read the piece slowly, but that's not impossible.
 
Colin: Your grammar is not complex compared to some of us ... - but you let it get quite embedded, which is a little hard to read; but it's good that we are seeing a variety of different styles. Keep it up.
 
Some of your UI's are very good, and others I disagree with.
 
Lojbab: Of the writings generated so far for this project, Mark's has by far the lowest density of lujvo, and he is sparing in the use of the more arcane cmavo, too. I think that simplicity of vocabulary, especially when there is no dictionary, more than makes up for a little complexity in the grammar. After all, if a sentence is a little complex, you can always bracket things more clearly by including a few optional terminators. But if you can't figure out what a couple lujvo in the sentence mean, you may be completely lost.
 
 
<span id=17b />[[#17a|17.]] Lojbab: On the other hand, Mark specified one gender where it doesn't seem that his story needed it: why did the person who ordered the coffee have to be a man? He could have used "prenu", or "remna".
 
 
 
 
 
=== Commentary on Iain's 2nd Piece (no translation available) ===
 
.i bazi lenu mi'a simxu lenu rinsa kuku lo nanmu poi nanca li so'a cu klama pu'e le na'e sirji<span id=18a />[[#18b|[18]]] ne'i le barja gi'e co'a zutse ca'u mi .i le nanmu goi ko'a cusku le se du'u<span id=19a />[[#19b|[19]]] ri puzi se gunta lo puzu respa pe la'o ly. saurischia ly. .i ®lu .iku'i loi respa pe la'edi'u cu puzu ji'esti li'u¯ se cusku mi .i ®lu .ila'aru'e go'i .iboku'i simlu fa lenu noda ve cilre la'edi'u fo ra cu'usa'a ko'a .i lenu mi'a simxu lenu kansa cu nanca li reno .i mi co'aki kurji ko'e goi le respa ca lenu ri ca'o citno .i mi jinvi ledu'u le mamta be ko'e cu morsi ba'o lo nanca be li so'o .ije cumki fa lenu ko'e romoi lu'i le jutsi .i le pendo be mi zu'apu kurji ko'e gi'eku'i puzi co'a speni gi'e gasnu lenu cfari fa lenu lanzu kuku gi'e jinvi ledu'u vo'a na kakne lenu tu'ari xamgu ko'e ca lenu xamgu le lanzu<span id=20a />[[#20b|[20]]] .isemu'ibo le go'i cpedu lenu mi curmi lenu basti fi lenu bilga lenu kurji ko'e .i mi je'a curmi .ijeja'ebo kiku nu'i bi'ogi ca la'edi'u gi caku dunda loi cidja .e loi djacu ko'e .ijebo satre ko'e .ijebo fi lenu cadzu cu kansa fe ko'e .i ca lo'e vanci mi tavla ko'e so'i klesi be lei te cilre be'o ne mu'u le citri be loi jmive be va'o le terdi be'obe'o .e loi jicmu bele saske bele munje poi vanbi ma'a .i jetnu fa lenu ko'e na kakne lenu tavla
 
.ijeku'iseki'unaibo mi su'oroi jinvi lenu ko'e jimpe la'e le se cusku be mi li'u¯ .i ®lu .iku'i ?mu'ima va'o la'e so'odi'u ko'e co'a bradi do li'u¯ .i ®lu na birti .i noda ru'a<span id=21a />[[#21b|[21]]] jimpe le stura bele menli be lei puzu respa .i seki'unai la'ede'u mi pupuziki gasnu lenu xendo ko'e .i mi'a puzi klama zo'a lo bende be lo xanto .ijeseki'ubo mi mu'i lenu djica lenu fanta lenu damba noi cumki fa lenu ke'a se jalge lenu ko'e se xrani cu cusku ®lu ko se kajde fi tu'a le mabru li'u¯ li'u¯ mi'e .i,n.
----
 
 
<span id=18b />[[#18a|18.]] Nick (on an earlier version of this): [Iain wrote:] "lo nanmu poi nanca li so'a cu klama fo le na'e sirji ne'i le barja gi'e co'a zutse ca'u mi"
 
What isn't straight? The two axes? Not that obvious in context.
 
Iain: No, it was meant to be the route (or the manner) by which he came in which wasn't straight. It sounds like this doesn't work. Perhaps I could try pu'e le na'e sirji.
 
Lojbab: I actually thought that the original was clear, and the modified version seems less so. The x4 of klama is a route, and a non-straight route is obviously an indirect one that is not the shortest from point a to point b. It is less clear to me what a non-straight process of going is. Perhaps meaning that he stopped to talk to people on the way. I would have used "lo" instead of "le" though, since it isn't clear to the reader listener which indirect route/means is the one intended. "le" should normally be something specifically identifiable to the listener, and if not, the speaker should be prepared to answer the clarifying question "leki'a" (which?).
 
 
<span id=19b />[[#19a|19.]] Lojbab: Note that "du'u" refers to a fact or truth, something known or knowable, while "se du'u" refers to expressions of such a fact or truth. This is being clarified in the dictionary cmavo list.
 
 
<span id=20b />[[#20a|20.]] Lojbab (on Iain's final draft text submission for JL17): [Iain wrote:]
 
: .i le pendo be mi zu'apu kurji ko'e gi'eku'i puzi co'a speni gi'e gasnu lenu cfari fa lenu lanzu kuku gi'e jinvi ledu'u vo'a na kakne lenu tu'ari xamgu ge ko'e *gicabo le lanzu
 
This sentence is currently ungrammatical at the point indicated by an asterisk. "gi" does not bind with a tense like that - it is only a place holder. When you go from afterthought expression: "ko'e .ecabo le lanzu" to forethought, we don't currently have a way to express both logical and tense connective at the same time. If we did allow it, it might have to be attached to the connective, as "gecabo", and not to the place-holder word "gi". After all, the idea of a forethought connective is to let the listener know the relationship between the connectands before expressing them.
 
The easiest expression that I think captures your intended meaning is to scrap the connective and use an expanded tense clause. I made only this minimal change to make the result grammatical, but also discussed this with Nora. You might also consider expressing the final clause as:
 
vo'a na kakne lenu roroi ku tu'ari xamgu ge ko'e gi le lanzu
 
or maybe:
 
vo'a na kakne lenu paroi ku tu'ari xamgu ge ko'e gi le lanzu
 
or to express the negation as a tense:
 
vo'a noroi kakne lenu paroi ku tu'ari xamgu ge ko'e gi le lanzu
vo'a ca noda kakne lenu paroi ku tu'ari xamgu ge ko'e gi le lanzu
 
We also played with trying to move the negation down a level (which is very un-English), but I'm not sure that the semantics stays intact.
 
vo'a kakne lenu roroi ku tu'ari xamgu ganai ko'e ginai le lanzu
vo'a kakne lenu noroi ku tu'ari xamgu ge ko'e gi le lanzu
 
John Cowan will be looking at this area for a possible grammar change to allow some or all of the possible constructions of this type. It is perhaps useful for the community to note that most of the 2 dozen or so changes in the grammar are like this one would be; a minor expansion to allow something that no one ever tried before, but which seems plausibly understandable when it is tried in an actual writing.
 
 
<span id=21b />[[#21a|21.]] Nick (on an earlier version): [Iain wrote:] .i ®lu na birti .i ?ma paunai jimpe le stura bele menli be lei puzu respa
 
I'd rather "no prenu cu jimpe", myself...
 
 
Iain: Wot, no rhetorical questions in Lojban?
 
Lojbab: I note that the final version uses "noda" with no restriction. So Iain has actually broadened his meaning beyond Nick's assumed "No person understands" to "Nothing understands". Of course, it may be implicit to most people that the x1 of jimpe is itself sufficiently restricting.
 
Iain's original method of expressing a rhetorical question seems valid, though at times one might want to put the "paunai" either at the front of the sentence to forewarn the listener of the rhetoric nature of the question, or to delay it, appending it to a "vau" on the end of the sentence, so that the listener starts to seriously think about the question and answer, before being told that no answer is expected.
 
I suspect that the attitudinal system offers a variety of other ways to convey rhetorical statements of this type, including probably some that don't easily translate to English.
 
=== Translation and Commentary on le lisri be le serti ===
 
Nora's translation follows in italics. Where Ivan intended a different translation, that is given on a third line in a different font, or in the footnotes commenting on Nora's translation.
 
le lisri be le serti
<br />''The story of the stairs.''
<br />"The Tale of the Stairs"
 
 
.i fitfi'i di'e ro lei ba cusku be ledu'u vo'e vo'i na srana
<br />''Offered is the following to all who say it doesn't pertain to them.''
<br />(Epigram:) "Dedicated to all those who will say: `This doesn't pertain to me!'" ('doesn't apply to me', 'has nothing to do with me'.)
 
ni'oni'o tu'e (non-translatable) ®lu do mo li'u¯ preti fi la pacrux. goi fo'a
<br />''"What are you doing/What are you?" asks Evil-Spirit.''
<br />`Who art thou?' asked the Devil.<span id=22a />[[#22b|[22]]]
 
.i ®lu mi to'erno'i ji'u leka cerda .ije ro le pidrai mi bruna
<br />''.i .oicai ge le terdi cu to'e melbi gi le remna cu to'e gleki li'u¯''
<br />"I'm a peon by birth, and all the poorest are my brothers. Alas! The earth is ugly and the people are miserable."
<br />"I'm a plebeian by birth, and all the tatterdemalions/- ragamuffins are my brethren. Oh, how ugly is the earth and how miserable are the people!"
 
.i di'u se bacru lo citno nanmu noi se lafti se mebri gi'e denmi se xance .i ri goi ko'a sanli crane le serti .i labyxu'e linji ke blabi roimrmaro ke galtu serti
<br />''This was uttered by a young man, with raised brow<span id=23a />[[#23b|[23]]] and dense (thick?)<span id=24a />[[#24b|[24]]] hand. He stands in front of the stairs. Pink-lined, white marble, high stairs.''
<br />Thus spoke a young man with lifted forehead (showing proud unwillingness to conform) and clenched fists. ... a high staircase of white marble with pink veins<span id=25a />[[#25b|[25]]].
 
.i ko'a catlu mo'ifa'a le darno ne di'o lepu'u lei grusi kalsygri be leka pindi<span id=26a />[[#26b|[26]]] cu ca simsa be<span id=27a />[[#27b|[27]]] loi ctaru rirxe<span id=28a />[[#28b|[28]]] ke to'ekli boxna<span id=29a />[[#29b|[29]]] ku savri'a .i diklo slilu gi'e febvi fengu gi'e lafti loi to'e plana ke xekri birka .i le nunpante ke suksa sance .e lei fengu nunki'a cu desku le vacri
<br />''He looks, his gaze moving-towards [somewhere] far, where the gray mobs of poor are, like tide-river unclear-waves, making noise (clamoring?). Shifting/agitated and boiling anger and lifting of meager, black arms<span id=30a />[[#30b|[30]]]. The yelps (?) of protest and the cries of anger shake the air.''
<br />His gaze was directed towards the far-away, where the grey mobs of misery were clamouring... They were agitated/in a state of ferment... The outcries of protest ...
 
.i le te minra<span id=31a />[[#31b|[31]]] cu simsa be lo darno ke barda terdanti sance ku masno je junri runta<span id=32a />[[#32b|[32]]] .i lei girzu cu banro gi'e klama ne'i loi pelxu pulce dilnu .ije loi sepli ti'otra cu mutcne<span id=33a />[[#33b|[33]]] leka viskli ze'o le kampu ke grusi vanbi
<br />''The vantage-of-reflection, like a far artillery (?) sound, slowly and gravely dissolves (don't quite get this sentence). The groups grow and go inside yellow-dust clouds. And the separate shadow shapes vary widely in visibility as they get further from the common gray surroundings.''
<br />... and the echo faded away slowly, solemnly, like distant cannon fire sounds ... and individual silhouettes were emerging more and more clearly against the common grey background".
 
ni'o pa.o'enai to'ercitno<span id=34a />[[#34b|[34]]] cu simsa be lepu'u sisku leri se cirko ka citno be'o ni'akro be fa'a le terdi ku dzukla<span id=35a />[[#35b|[35]]] .i lo cucycau<span id=36a />[[#36b|[36]]] cmaxli cu jgari lera<span id=37a />[[#37b|[37]]] selxaksu taxfu gi'e catlu le galtu serti sepi'o lo tinbe je simsa be le rulnkentaure,a bei leka blanu ku kanla<span id=38a />[[#38b|[38]]] .i catlu je cisma
<br />''An old one, like a searcher for his/her lost youth, walks stooped to the ground. An unshod little girl grasps someones/ somethings worn-out clothes and looks at the high stairs with obedient<span id=39a />[[#39b|[39]]], cornflower-blue eyes. Looking and smiling.''
<br />Some old man was coming, stooped to the ground, as though he was looking for his lost youth ... was holding his [sc. the old man's] ragged/tattered garment (in order not to get lost in the crowd)...
 
.i loi selpopseltau je grusi je cinla remtra cu trixe dzukla gi'e gunma sanga lo selsno ke mrori'i zgike .i da kercrori'a siclu fi le ctebi .i de noi daski nenri se xance cu cmila sepi'o lo cladu je rufsu voksa .ije lede kanla cu jarco leka fenki
<br />''Rag-covered, gray, thin forms walked behind and sang together slow, funereal music (dirges?)<span id=40a />[[#40b|[40]]]. Someone ear-splitting-ly whistled from the lips. Someone, with hands in pockets, laughed in a loud, rough voice. His eyes showed insanity.''
<br />... Someone was whistling sharply. ... insanity was burning in his eyes.
 
ni'o ®lu mi to'erno'i ji'u leka cerda .ije ro le pidrai mi bruna .i .oicai ge le terdi cu to'e melbi gi le remna cu to'e gleki .i .iunai vu gapru .i .o'onai li'u¯
<br />''"I am a peon by birth, and all the poorest are my brothers. Alas! The earth is ugly and the people are miserable. The high-ups - I spit on them!<span id=41a />[[#41b|[41]]]"''
 
.i di'u se bacru lo citno nanmu noi se lafti se mebri gi'e dukri'a denmi se xance
<br />''This was uttered by a young man, with raised brow and agonizingly dense hands<span id=42a />[[#42b|[42]]].''
 
.i ®lu .io ?xupe'i<span id=43a />[[#43b|[43]]] do xebni lei vu gapru li'u¯ preti fi fo'a noi ca tcica krori'a le xadni fa'a ko'a
<br />''"Sir, do you hate the high-up?" asked Evil-Spirit, who slyly bowed to him<span id=44a />[[#44b|[44]]].''
<br />`You hate those up there?' asked the Devil and leaned towards him.
 
.i ®lu .aisai mi ba vefsfa lei vu mabla nobli joi turni .i mi ri kusru vefsfa seka'i<span id=45a />[[#45b|[45]]] leimi bruna goi ko'u noi simsa be le canre bei leka pelxu ku se flira zi'e noi zmadu be le la gaimast. si'erbi'e bei leni tepri'a ku se cmoni<span id=46a />[[#46b|[46]]] .i ko viska leko'u lunbe ke ciblu ve flecu xadni .i ko tirna leko'u cmoni .i .ai mi ko'u venfu .i le'o ko curmi li'u¯
<br />''"I will have revenge on those damned royalty. I will wreak upon them a cruel vengeance on behalf of my brothers, with sand-yellow faces and who moan with more than a December-blizzard worth of scaring. See their bare, bleeding bodies. Hear their moans. I will avenge them. Just you allow it!<span id=47a />[[#47b|[47]]] ''
Oh, I will take vengeance on those princes1 and princes2<span id=48a />[[#48b|[48]]]. ... who moan in a more ominous/- sinister way than the December blizzards.
 
.i fo'a cisma
<br />''The spirit smiles.''
 
.i ®lu mi jibri bandu lei vu gapru .ije mi se le'irbai gi'anai lacti'a ri li'u¯
<br />''"My job is to defend the high-up<span id=49a />[[#49b|[49]]]. I am fined (?)<span id=50a />[[#50b|[50]]] if I am traitorous to them."''
 
.i ®lu mi ponse no solji .i mi ponse no lo se pleji befi do .i mi pindi je selpopseltau citno .iku'i mi bredi lenu pleji lemi kazyji'e li'u¯
<br />''"I have no gold. I have nothing to pay you. I am a poor and rag-covered youth. But, I am prepared to pay with my life<span id=51a />[[#51b|[51]]]."''
 
.i fo'a rapli cisma
<br />''The spirit again smiles.''
 
.i ®lu .e'onai ri zmadu lemi se cpadji .i do'anai ko fi mi dunda leka do sanga'e li'u¯
<br />''"Ah, no. It is more than my get-desire(??). Give me but your hearing."''
<br />"Oh, no, I don't want that much! ..."
 
.i ®lu .ueru'e leka mi sanga'e .i .iefi'i .i .e'i mi noroi tirna di .i .e'i li'u¯
<br />''"What?!<span id=52a />[[#52b|[52]]] My hearing? Take it. I'll never be free<span id=53a />[[#53b|[53]]] to hear anything. Not free ..."''
<br />"My hearing? With pleasure..."
 
.i ®lu do ranji leka ka'e tirna<span id=54a />[[#54b|[54]]] li'u¯ .i fo'a ko'a papri'a sepi'o di'u gi'e cadzu curmi<span id=55a />[[#55b|[55]]] .i ®lu ko pagre li'u¯
<br />''"You'll continue to be able to hear." The spirit calmed him with this and let him walk. "Go through<span id=56a />[[#56b|[56]]]."''
 
.i ko'a bikla bajra gi'e dzugre ci te serti tai pa nu stapa .i ku'i lefo'a terkre xance ko'a lacpu
<br />''He whippingly(?) ran<span id=57a />[[#57b|[57]]], and walked through 3 steps with one stride.  But the spirit's hairy hand pulled him.''
 
.i ®lu banzu .i ko sisti mu'i lenu tirna leiko'u<span id=58a />[[#58b|[58]]] vu cnita cmoni li'u¯
<br />''"Enough. Stop to hear their moans far beneath."''
<br />"Stop to hear how thy brethren moan down there!"
 
.i ko'a sisti gi'e kerlo jundi
<br />''He stopped and listened.''
 
.i ®lu .uesai .i ki'uma ko'u suksa cfari lenu to'edri sanga gi'e xalbo cmila li'u¯ .i ko'a krefu ke bikla bajra
<br />''"Well! What made them suddenly start singing happily and laughing lightly?" He again whippingly ran.''
<br />`Strange: why did they so suddenly <...>?' And he rushed again<span id=59a />[[#59b|[59]]].
 
.i fo'a ko'a krefu
<br />''rinju The spirit again restrained him.''
 
.i ®lu mu'i lenu do krefu pagre ci te serti kei mi cpadji ledo kanla li'u¯
<br />''"To go another 3 steps, I want your eyes."''
 
.i ko'a pa'arcau sliri'a le xance
<br />''He hopelessly shook (wrung?) the hand.''
<br />... desperately waved<span id=60a />[[#60b|[60]]] ...
 
.i ®lu ku'i va'o la'edi'u mi na ka'e viska ga leimi bruna gi leimi ba se vefsfa li'u¯
<br />''"But in that case I can see neither my brothers nor my targets<span id=61a />[[#61b|[61]]]."''
 
.i ®lu do ranji leka ka'e viska<span id=62a />[[#62b|[62]]] .i mi fi do ba dunda lo drata kanla noi mutce zmadu li'u¯
<br />''"You will still be able to see. I give to you other eyes, which are much more."''
<br />"... other, much better eyes!"<span id=63a />[[#63b|[63]]]
 
.i ko'a rapli pagre<span id=64a />[[#64b|[64]]] ci te serti gi'e ni'a catlu jundi<span id=65a />[[#65b|[65]]] .i fo'a rinka lenu ko'a morji
<br />''He again went through 3 steps and looked down. The spirit reminded him:''
 
.i ®lu ko viska leko'u lunbe ke ciblu ve flecu xadni li'u¯
<br />''"See their bare, bleeding bodies."''
 
.i ®lu .uecai .i .u'ecai cizra .i ?cama<span id=66a />[[#66b|[66]]] binxo lenu ko'u melbi dasni .i ji'a seba'i lei ciblu te xrani ko'u se jadni loi se manci xunre rozgu<span id=67a />[[#67b|[67]]] li'u¯
<br />''"Wow! Amazing! When did they become beautifully dressed? And instead of the bloody injuries they are adorned with wondrous red roses."''
<br />"My god! But this is so strange: when did they manage to dress so well! ..."
 
ni'o vi ro lo cimoi te serti fo'a di'i lebna lefo'a cmalu selpleji .i ku'i ko'a ru'i cadzu .i ko'a bredi dunda rodi mu'i lemu'e klama tu gi'e vefsfa leivu malplana nobli joi turni .i .uo.ui semaunai pa te serti .i ba su'epa te serti<span id=68a />[[#68b|[68]]] ko'a gapru .i ko'a cabazi venfu leiko'a bruna
<br />''At each 3rd step, the spirit regularly took his little payment, but the youth went on walking. He readily gave everything to get there and get revenge on those fat royalty. Finally! Not more than<span id=69a />[[#69b|[69]]] 1 step [left]. After only one step he'll be above. He will then avenge his brothers.''
 
.i ®lu mi to'erno'i ji'u leka cerda .ije ro le pidrai sa'a<span id=70a />[[#70b|[70]]] li'u¯
<br />''"I am a peon by birth, and all the poorest..."''
 
.i ®lu ju'i. citno nanmu su'epa te serti .i ba su'epa te serti do venfu .i ku'i levi te serti di'i ve pleji le relpi'i jdima mi .i ko fi mi dunda leka do cinmo je morji<span id=71a />[[#71b|[71]]] li'u¯
<br />''"Hey, young man<span id=72a />[[#72b|[72]]]. Only 1 step. After only 1 step you can avenge. But, for this step I regularly<span id=73a />[[#73b|[73]]] charge double price. Give me your emotions and memory."''
<br />"Young man, only one step more! ..."
 
.i ko'a sliri'a le xance
<br />''He shakes (wrings?) the hand.''
 
.i ®lu .ii leka cinmo .i .e'anaicai .i dukse kusru li'u¯
<br />''"Oh, no! Emotion - heaven forfend. Too cruel."''
<br />"The heart? No! This is too cruel!"
 
.i fo'a maljgira cmila ra'i le galxe
<br />''The spirit haughtily laughs from the throat.''
<br />The Devil gave a guttural, authoritative laugh:
 
.i ®lu mi na mela'edi'u kusru .i mi fi do canja dunda lo zabna kazyci'o .e lo cnino kazmo'i .i ga do zanru gi do noroi pagre levi te serti gi'e noroi venfu leido bruna pe lo se flira be le simsa be le canre zi'e pe le se cmoni be le zmadu be le la gaimast. si'erbi'e bei leni tepri'a li'u¯
<br />''I am not thus cruel. I trade with you for a fine emotion and a new memory<span id=74a />[[#74b|[74]]]. Either you approve<span id=75a />[[#75b|[75]]] or you'll never get through this step and never avenge your brothers with the sandy faces and the moans more fearful than the December blizzard."''
 
.i ko'a catlu lefo'a crino je ranxi kanla
<br />''He looks at the spirit's ironic green eyes.''
 
.i ®lu ku'i mi ba traji leni to'e gleki .i do lebna ro ckaji be le kazre'a mi li'u¯
<br />''"But I will be a most unhappy person. You take all humanity from me."''
<br />But I shall be the most unhappy one. Thou takest from me everything that is human<span id=76a />[[#76b|[76]]].
 
.i ®lu to'e go'e .i traji leni je'a gleki .i .e'apei .i ?xu do tugni .i do'anai<span id=77a />[[#77b|[77]]] leka do cinmo je morji li'u¯
<br />''"Just the opposite - the most truly happy man. Allow me. Do you agree? Your emotion and memory, please?"''
 
.i ko'a cu trati pensi .i lo xekri ctino cu manri'a leko'a flira .i loi xasne ke to'ekli dirgo cu gunro zo'a<span id=78a />[[#78b|[78]]] le se cinje mebri .i ko'a fengu demri'a le xance gi'e bacru pa'o le denci
<br />''He tries<span id=79a />[[#79b|[79]]] to think. A black shadow covers his face. Cloudy drops of sweat roll off the wrinkled brow. He angrily clenched<span id=80a />[[#80b|[80]]]  his fist and said through his teeth:''
 
®lu .ai.e'asai .i ko lebna li'u¯
<br />''"Go ahead. Take [them].''
<br />" "So be it! (Let it be! Soit! etc.) Take them!"
 
ni'o ca lenu le xekri kerfa ca biflu'a kei ko'a simsa be le crisa lidbi'e ku fengu pagre le romoi te serti .i ko'a capu snada lemu'e gapru .i suksa cisma gusni leko'a flira<span id=81a />[[#81b|[81]]]  .i leko'a kanla cu dirce seci'o le smaji ka se mansa .i leko'a xance cu luzbi'o .i ko'a catlu lei pixsalci nobli .i catlu le cnita be di'o lenu krixa je dapma fa le grusi je selpopseltau girzu .i catlu .i ku'i no sluji be leko'a flira cu frati .i ri selgu'i je gleki je selpu'a .i ko'a viska loi salci se taxfu girzu vi le cnita .i lei pu cmoni ca salpemci
<br />''With his black hair fluttering, he, like a summer thunderstorm, angrily passes through the last step. He has now succeeded in getting above<span id=82a />[[#82b|[82]]]. There is a sudden smile illuminating his face. His eyes radiate, emoting the silent satisfaction.<span id=83a />[[#83b|[83]]] His hands loosen<span id=84a />[[#84b|[84]]]. He looks at the toasting nobility<span id=85a />[[#85b|[85]]]. Looking underneath to the crying and the cursing of the gray, ragged crowd. Looking, but not a muscle in his face reacts. It is illuminated and happy and pleased. He sees a crowd dressed for celebration below<span id=86a />[[#86b|[86]]]. What were moans are paeans<span id=87a />[[#87b|[87]]].''
 
.i ®lu do ?mo li'u¯ tcica preti fi fo'a sepi'o lo rufsu voksa
<br />''"What are you?" slyly asks Evil-Spirit with a rough voice.''
<br />"Who art thou?" slyly and hoarsely asked the Devil.
 
.i ®lu mi nobli ji'u leka cerda .ije lei cevni mi bruna .i .uicai ge le terdi cu je'a melbi gi le remna cu je'a gleki<span id=88a />[[#88b|[88]]] li'u¯
<br />''"I am a noble<span id=89a />[[#89b|[89]]] by birth, and the gods are my brothers. Ah!, but the earth is truly beautiful and the people are truly happy."''
 
 
tu'u
<br />''The End.''
 
.i di'u se finti la xristoz. smirnensk.<span id=90a />[[#90b|[90]]] gi'e se fanva la .iVAN. derJANSK. fo le banblgaria si'u la nitcion. nikolas.
<br />''This was written by Christo Smirnensk, and translated by Ivan from Bulgarian aided by Nick Nicholas.''
 
fa'o
<br />''THE END''
 
----
 
 
<span id=22b />[[#22a|22.]] Lojbab: "do mo" is elegant, but a bit vague to expect a useful answer with no context in advance to make it clear what is meant. Given the answer that was given (which is presumably the information that the Devil wanted to hear), I would ask the question as "do ?mo prenu" ("You are a what-kind-of-person")
 
 
<span id=23b />[[#23a|23.]] Nora: Not quite sure what this is. I presume it means he had a "high" brow. Perhaps "clani se mebri" (longly be-browed)?
 
 
Ivan: "with lifted forehead" (showing proud unwillingness to conform)".
 
Lojbab: I am one who believes in making cultural metaphors explicit in translations, especially to a supposedly culture-neutral language (I expect that you will call me on this regularly in return, Ivan, when I fail to make my own cultural metaphors clear.)
 
Thus, if the lifted forehead signifies pride, include 'pride' in the tanru: "jgira ke seke se lafti mebri", or twisting it around for clarity in the relative clause context: "lo citno nanmu noi lafti le mebri seci'o leka jgira"
 
Ivan: I thought a lifted forehead as an expression of pride was universal, not culturally sensitive, but maybe I was wrong. Ditto for clenched fists as an expression of aggressive impatience.
 
Lojbab: You may be right about the universality of the physical expressions - I have no idea. But there is cultural significance in the way each is described, which may vary between languages, and there is more than one emotion that could be symbolized. In (American), phrases like "head held high" suggest self-esteem/- personal pride, while "nose in the air" suggests hauteur. But "eyes lifted on high" suggests worship. All three of these could also be described as having a lifted forehead, but I've never heard the forehead mentioned in an English metaphor suggesting any of them.
 
 
<span id=24b />[[#24a|24.]] Nora: I later figured out that this was "clenched", but it took a while. Perhaps "denmi se polje se xance" (densely-foldedly be-handed)?
 
 
Lojbab: "fist" has been expressed before as "ball-hand", so "fengu bolci se xance" (possibly making the whole or some portion into a lujvo - 'clenched-fist' for se fegbolxa'e, 'angry fist' for fengu se bolxa'e, or 'anger-clenched hands' fegboi se xance). Again, I favor making the emotional implication (which I am assuming is correct) explicit in the tanru/lujvo.
 
"denmi" used this way in tanru will probably not catch on quickly with English-speaking readers, since we don't often use the word in its literal sense in metaphor. The validity of the tanru using denmi is thus hard to evaluate before we have a few usages of this type in the dictionary (and a few other English words besides "dense" to trigger people's consideration.) Other than that, I think "denmi" is fine especially if the "fengu" is also present, and I would not make much of the fact that no one picks up the metaphor right away.
 
Nick comments further on this metaphor in a later footnote.
 
 
<span id=25b />[[#25a|25.]] Lojbab: If the order of the terms in the translation is important to you, use "co" and grouping words to emphasize it: galtu serti co blabi joi labyxu'e bo linji roimrmaro (high stairs of-type white-with-pink-lines marble) is one such approach.
 
Ivan: I confess I never acquired the habit to use "co".
 
 
<span id=26b />[[#26a|26.]] Nick: Will "kalsygri be leka pindi" by itself imply that it's a group of people? If you accept that, then leave "prenu" out.
 
 
<span id=27b />[[#27a|27.]] Lojbab: This kind of long-complex "be" is why "co" is in the language "cu ca savri'a co simsa loi ctaru rirxe ke to'ekli boxna" is much clearer, and also seems to match the order of your intended translation better.
 
 
<span id=28b />[[#28a|28.]] Lojbab: Does the sound of murky waves of a tidal river differ from the sound of any other kind of waves of a tidal river, or any other river?
 
Ivan: The waves are murky because of the appearance of the mobs, and the river is tidal because of their numbers. The observation that these things (especially the first one) don't affect the noise is correct, so maybe I'll extract this description from the tanru and attach it to the mobs, like so: "lei grusi kalsygri be leka pindi bei <like> loi ctaru rirxe ke to'ekli boxna ca savri'a". How's that? [Lojbab: Better, but see my answer in the next footnote.]
 
 
<span id=29b />[[#29a|29.]] Ivan: Bulgarian has the same word for `wave' and `worry', and since the mob is something like a sea made of people, it is not clear whether this is meant in a physical or emotional sense, or both.
 
Lojbab: Then coin a lujvo based on "worry-wave" (dunku boxna) or "anxious-wave" (xanka boxna), possibly with a "joi" in between the terms. It won't translate to English, but will accurately reflect the dichotomy of the Bulgarian. Actually, I think the image, in this case, would translate, even if the word did not.
 
Combining this with the previous comments, I propose:
 
lei grusi kalsygri be leka pindi ca mutce savri'a gi'e simsa loi to'ekli dukyjoibo'a be loi ctaru rirxe
 
 
<span id=30b />[[#30a|30.]] Ivan: Used to be a "forest of dry, black arms".
 
Lojbab: You could get the image of "forest" in there with "grana foldi co lafti loi to'e plana ke xekri birka", paralleling the image of "forest" = "ricfoi" ("tree-field"), which is the lujvo that has been most used.
 
 
<span id=31b />[[#31a|31.]] Nick: I'd use "sanselminra". "te minra" (where something is reflected to) means "echo" less than does "se minra" (that which is reflected).
 
 
<span id=32b />[[#32a|32.]] Lojbab: Again a place where "co" would make the text easier to understand. I also would use "canci" instead of "runta"; I cannot figure out what might go in the places of "runta" for an echo dissolving: "... cu masno je junri canci co simsa loi darno ke barda terdanti sance". (I also put a "loi" here on the cannon sounds.) I don't know about the original Bulgarian, but "solemn" to me can imply "somber/gloomy/sad" at least as much as "serious", or at least both. Perhaps "jurdri"? in place of "junri".
 
 
 
<span id=33b />[[#33a|33.]] Nick: Given that "zenba" is now intransitive, replace "mutcne" with "zenba".
 
Lojbab: If "zenba" were still transitive, you would want "zmabi'o" or "tcebi'o", based on "binxo" instead of "cenba"
 
 
<span id=34b />[[#34a|34.]] Ivan: The ".o'enai" was intended to cater for him being "some [old man]", whom no one knows or cares for.
 
Lojbab: Ivan originally used "slabu". "slabu" is defined as the "old" which is opposite of "new", and not as the opposite of "young". This has caused a lot of people writing in Lojban to change to "to'ercitno". This works but it seems clumsy to define "old" as an opposite. I think that with the proper value for the places, "slabu" can serve both meanings, but have apparently not been convincing. How about "ji'ecla" (alive-long) or "ma'ucla" (mature-long) or "revycla" (survive-long), with the latter or zatcla/za'icla (exist-long), or teicla/temcla (time interval-long) serving for non-living things that have been in their current state for a long time?
 
Ivan: I wouldn't replace "to'ercitno" with anything else. It doesn't matter that the man has lived long. It matters that he is not young any more.
 
 
<span id=35b />[[#35a|35.]] Lojbab: Again, a "be" that should be made into a "co". In addition, I think the old man is like a seeker, and not like a seeking and the "pu'u" should go away (though Nora figured out your intent), while what he is seeking is probably the state of his being young, and not the property. Putting all this together might give: "... cu dzukla co ni'akro be fa'a le terdi be'o simsa lo sisku le selcri za'i vo'a citno".
 
 
<span id=36b />[[#36a|36.]] Ivan: That is "lunbyseljma", but I chose to go for the alliteration and brevity of "cucycau". I trust it is understood as meaning the same.
 
 
<span id=37b />[[#37a|37.]] Nora: I wasn't sure which referent to use for "ra". The possible referents are: the earth, the old one (via "ri" in "leri se cirko"), his lost youth, the lost youth of the old one, the process of searching for the lost youth, and (finally) the original reference to old one himself. I didn't initially pick up the "ri" (in "leri se cirko") as a countable sumti because I missed it (real easy to miss when it's compounded with the "le").
 
Ivan: The old one was what I wanted. The wee lass is "ri", and the earth, the youth and the process have no garments for her to cling to.
 
Nora: I think I'd have been more comfortable with picking up the original reference at the beginning of the paragraph using "ru".
 
Ivan: How would that work? I'm not sure I understand what you mean.
 
Lojbab: Since this is a new paragraph, "ru" should not go back any further than the beginning of the paragraph. The first sumti of the paragraph is the original reference to the old one, and the obvious referent of "ru". In addition, counting minimally based on your text would give "ra" to the earth and "ru" to the "ri" of "leri".
 
On the other hand, a far more clear back-reference would have been "le go'i" which clearly picks up the x1 of the previous sentence, the old man.
 
Note that since this anaphoric reference is occurring in the middle of an extremely picturesque set of metaphors, grasping the clothes of the earth is quite imaginable as a metaphor. Meanwhile, since Nora translated from your original text, which had "lo slabu" instead of "pa to'ercitno", she interpreted the old ones as plural (you had just been talking of masses and the Lojban gave no hint of sudden focus on individuals ("to'unai" or "su'anai" might have discursively indicated this change of detail level). Thus it might be that one girl is holding a mob of old peoples' clothes, or even a mob of unshod little girls is holding onto the clothes of the old people. In comparison to these images, grasping the "worn-out clothes" of the earth does not seem that far-fetched.
 
All of this makes it clear that "ra" and "ru" have rather limited usefulness unless you are dealing with simple sentences where back-counting is easy.
 
 
<span id=38b />[[#38a|38.]] Lojbab: Nora was particularly pleased with herself for figuring out "cornflower blue", whatever that is.
 
Ivan: Just bright blue. Cornflowers are often mentioned in Bulgarian literature. The reader is expected to have seen many of them, which I (being a urban boy) haven't, but I know what colour they are. The reader is also supposed to guess that bright blue as an eye colour suggests innocence. This is not the case in all cultures (and in particular, not in traditional Bulgarian culture - in our folklore all eyes must be black), but that's how the author meant it.
 
Lojbab: Thus adding a modifying term to the tanru and grouping terms would make the meaning clear to those who do not know the cultural implication: "<innocent- (cornflower-bo-blue)>-eyes"
 
Nora said that the context suggested "cornflower", and sure enough, you had used the genus name for cornflower in your le'avla.
 
Ivan: The full name of the plant is Centaurea cyanus. It is not all blue (the stem and leaves are green), but I hope I still can use it in this way.
 
Lojbab: Certainly, since the author did so. If there was doubt, you could specifically add "flower" after the le'avla, but I suspect that the flower is the plausible referent whenever a flowering plant is used as the basis for a color. On the other hand, if you used cauliflower/- broccoli as the basis for a color description, you'd have to be more specific - indeed, I think I have seen both vegetables used to describe colors in English.
 
 
<span id=39b />[[#39a|39.]] Ivan: Or "mild" or "meek" (eyes).
 
Lojbab: I might have tried "cumla" (humble), "fegycau" (anger-without), or "nalvli" (non-powerful).
 
 
<span id=40b />[[#40a|40.]] Ivan: Just a funeral song, which they were singing in a choir.
 
 
<span id=41b />[[#41a|41.]] Ivan: "Oh, ye up there, ye..." (Menace.) He's not really going to talk to them, therefore I spared the "doi".
 
Lojbab: It seems to me that a vocative that is not meant for the referent is expressible by "ju'inai". An alternative would be to use a prenex to achieve an impersonal topicalization. Perhaps something like: "levu [mal]gapru .iunai zo'u do .au ve sputu .o'onai"
 
 
<span id=42b />[[#42a|42.]] Ivan: No, "threateningly clenched fists", "fists clenched in menace".
 
Nick: Maybe "kajde" should be in that tanru?
 
The tanru with denmi doesn't seem to be working. What about "ja'itra denmi xance" - grasp-form dense? ("jgari" alone implies that the youth is "ca'a" grasping "da poi se jgari"
 
Lojbab: If not "kajde", then perhaps "capti'i" (peril-suggesting), though "capyjde" might be better still (peril-warning).
 
 
<span id=43b />[[#43a|43.]] Ivan: It is a rhetoric question (indeed, the behaviour of the youth leaves little doubt). Maybe "pei" (`don't answer') instead of "pe'i" (`I think you do')? The ".io" was a faint attempt to cater for the fact that this is the only occurrence of the formal pronoun in the tale. It doesn't really have to mean anything, and "Sir" is just a little bit too polite for its use here to be fair.
 
Nick: Hang on, "pei" is the attitudinal interrogative, "pe'i" the opinion. What you currently have translates to me as "You do, don't you." I think the ".io" should stay.]
 
Lojbab: "paunai", generally before the sentence, is the marker for a question not to be answered; i.e. a rhetorical question. In this case, you could also just omit the question word and start off with "pe'i do xebni ...". I think such direct statements or rhetorical questions serve to make the ".io" rather a lesser mark of respect than it might be. Note that, in American English at least, "Sir" is commonly used to address someone you don't know the name of in a non-insulting manner, and doesn't necessarily convey a lot of respect, so don't make too much of Nora's choice of the word.
 
 
<span id=44b />[[#44a|44.]] Ivan: "and leaned towards him", certainly not "bowed to him".
 
Nick: Hm. I was thinking of "kroxadjbi", but I don't think "krori'a" need be taken as "to bow" - that's more "xadykro rinsa".
 
Lojbab: You might need a "mo'i" on that "fa'a" to get the motion, and I think the "ko'a" can then be ellipsized. "noi ca tcica xadmu'u le stedu mo'ifa'a". As a sumti tcita, I tend to like "zo'i" more than "fa'a", though I don't think you can ellipsize the "ko'a" in that case, since the default referent of "zo'i" is the speaker/narrator.
 
 
<span id=45b />[[#45a|45.]] Ivan: Wrong BAI, it seems. He wants to avenge his brethren, not necessarily on their behalf (maybe they don't even know who has caused their misery). "venfu" wants one more argument place, therefore I went for "vefsfa", but by doing so I lost another argument place.
 
Nick: Let's get that place back for you. There's really no reason why "vefsfa" should not have a place for "le se venfu"):
 
s1 avenges s2 by doing s3
 
  p1 punishes p2 for doing p3 by doing p4.
 
s1=p1. s3=p4. p3=tu'a s2. Leaving out p3, we have:
 
vefsfa: x1 punishes x2 avenging x3 by doing x4.
 
Of course, you could just say "venfu be lei bruna be'o sfasa"
 
 
<span id=46b />[[#46a|46.]] Lojbab: rearrange more clearly as: "zi'e noi selcmo co zmadu le la gaimast. si'erbi'e leni tepri'a"
 
"zi'e noi" could be simply "gi'e" since you are using the same kind of relative clause (noi) with the relativized sumti in the first position in both cases. But there is nothing wrong with the way you have it.
 
 
<span id=47b />[[#47a|47.]] Ivan: Ought to have been "Let me pass!", but I didn't make it clear what the Devil was supposed to curmi.
 
 
 
<span id=48b />[[#48a|48.]] Ivan: (Bulgarian has two words which are equally glossed `prince' in English, the first referring to a son or other close relative of a king, the other to a ruler of a principality.) "mabla" corresponded to a certain form of the Bulgarian demonstrative pronoun, which suggests contempt.
 
 
<span id=49b />[[#49a|49.]] Ivan: "I am a guard[ian] of those up there..." It is certainly not his only job, but he means that he is serious about defending their privacy.
 
Lojbab: Perhaps remove the "jibri", and replace by ".ei" or ".e'i". This also parallels what I think the following sentence should be ...
 
 
<span id=50b />[[#50a|50.]] Ivan: Contrariwise. "... and without a bribe I won't betray them." That is, "either I will be payingly compelled (i.e. bribed) or I won't betray them".
 
Nick: "gi'anaibabo" to be polite. I still think "le'irbai" is sound. "le'irselmukti"?
 
Lojbab: I like using attitudinals, and "le'ixlu" for bribe: ".ije mi se le'ixlu .ei gi'a na.e'i lacti'a ri
 
I somehow feel that "lacti'a" has the wrong emphasis. Since the Devil intends to deceive the plebeian, he should avoid mentioning deception. Maybe a nice ambiguous tanru like "sidju cliva ri"?
 
 
 
<span id=51b />[[#51a|51.]] Ivan: Lit. "... to lay my head".
 
 
<span id=52b />[[#52a|52.]] Ivan: The surprise in the English is too strong.
 
 
<span id=53b />[[#53a|53.]] Ivan: I don't get the "free" here. "Let me never hear anything, let me..." I don't know how to say `let ... happen' in Lojban, though.
 
Lojbab: Nora was undoubtedly trying to interpret the ".e'i" (constraint), and did so as the negation of ".e'inai" (freedom). I would normally use ".e'a" for permission, and the reiteration of the request is even stronger, a petition: ".ie fi'ido'u mi noroi.e'a tirna di .i.e'o"
 
 
<span id=54b />[[#54a|54.]] Ivan: For a more straightforward way to say "Thou wilt still hear", I'm thinking of trying "do co'unai ka'e tirna".
 
 
<span id=55b />[[#55a|55.]] Ivan: Lit. "made him way", i.e. "moved aside and let him pass".
 
 
<span id=56b />[[#56a|56.]] Lojbab: I don't know how to pass through stairs.
 
Ivan: This may be a malbaublgaria. By passing a set of steps I mean climbing them. They are seen as obstacles, because one has to pay for each set of three. Hints as to how else I could put it are welcome.
 
Nora: "pagre" isn't really the right word, unless you are doing it for the analogy of "passing through" stages (in which case something based on "pruce" might be used). I'm not quite sure what to use in place of it, though.
 
Ivan: No, I'm doing it for want of a better bet.
 
Nora: Maybe "klama mo'i zo'a ci te serti" (went motion-tangential 3 steps)?
 
Ivan: Maybe. (Not that it sounds good enough to me.)
 
Lojbab: I think I would use "bancu", and I'd soften the imperative to reinforce that it is a permission and not a command: ".i ®lu .e'a ko cpare bancu li'u¯"




                                  ®lu .ie.a'a .ie.o'onairu'e
<span id=57b />[[#57a|57.]] Ivan: "He rushed/dashed [forward]". Probably "ko'a co'i [mo'ica'u] bajra".
  Commentary on Veijo's 2nd text  (cu'usa'a mi noi caki vilkla zo'a
                                  le vorme4 fi'o te mlixra le janco
    le la vei,on. ckafybarja      ku'o) sera'a ?ma pezyjicla5 li'uЇ
      srinuntroci xire xire        .i mi vi le zdani pu zutse co


  ni'o mi penzutse.o'u  .i        ____________________
Nick: Remember, Lojbab, the primary raison d'etre of "bikla" is to denote "a whip-like motion", not a whip.
to'erninda'i fa lemi jubme  .i
ciska da le jbusfe .ije mi catlu  4Colin:  "le vorme" - I am still
da.a'u  .i lerfu la fraktur.ue  .i not clear whether "vorme" means a
mi morji fi loi lerfu be la        bit of wood etc., or a hole, or
fraktur.  .i morji  .i mi puzuki  both.  We often use it as if it
zvati le ckule gi'e caca'a tcidu  means the first - if so, then "le
.i mi tcidu le cfika be le ze      vorme" is certainly not what you
bruna bei la .Aleksis.kivis. po'u  mean here!
le natmytercfi  .i le poi le drata
be mi cu tcidu fi ke'a ku'o          Nick: I believe "vorme" is a
selpapri1 cu te prina loi lerfu be doorway, rather than a piece of
la antik.  .i lemi selpapri goi    wood.  I don't see why the piece
ko'a te prina loi lerfu be la      of wood can't be a "vrogai"
fraktur.  .i lenu tcidu de pe ta'i (doorway lid).
la fraktur. kei pu nandu mi gi'e
ca frili  .i mi djica lenu tcidu    Lojbab:  It is the doorway that
fi ko'a kei mu'i lenu lemi patfu  is intended in the gismu, but not
puzu prina loi lerfu loi ko'a      in the sense of "door frame".  The
papri  .i lemi patfu ze'u prina    new place structure for "vorme"
.i lenu ri go'i kei nanca li vobi  has a place structure suggestive
.i kiku mi catlu le vi lerfu be la of route, emphasizing the two
fraktur.  .i lerfu  .i bacru.ue zo sides it connects, while noting
coi  .i barjyjatna.a'a  .i la      that it is also within some larger
nitcion. co'ava se zvaju'o2 mi  .i structure, and hence not just any
ra xance rinsa mi .ije mi spuda    route.  By comparison, "canko"
rinsa  .i la nitcion. caca'a xebni emphasizes the wall in which it is
la fraktur.3                      found.  I like "vrogai" and
                                  "vroca'o" and "vroge'u" for the
    __________________________    cover and opening and frame,
                                  respectively.  The gismu list has
  Iain's first text, with rough    been clarified to reflect this.
    translation and commentary
                                  5Nick:  I'd prefer something more
                                  explicit than "pezyjicla", like
                                  "raktu" or "cuntu".
____________________
                                    Lojbab:  I agree.  This smells
1Nick:  We are going to see a lot  malglico, since there is no clear
of preposed relatives, I predict,  implicature as to what is being
simply because they kill off a lot 'stirred up' in the context.
of the worry about terminating    Transferring figurative uses be-
them when postposed.  They are not tween languages, if you must do
just an affectation.              so, should be confined to
                                  situations where the reader/-
2Nick:  Nice to see one's dikyjvo  listener can clearly identify the
picked up :)                      figurative values for the place
                                  structure of the 'figure' - in the
3Nick:  Brilliant ending. I      case of "jicla" (stir), the
mean...  so wonderfully deadpan.  agent/force doing the stirring,
You're getting quite good at this  the 'fluid' being stirred, and the
:)                                utensil/implement doing the stir-


                                123
Lojbab: I have no real problem with the use of "bikla". Any confusion in my mind is due to the repetition of the motion with different words: whipped forward, ran, walk-passed-through, for as short a motion as three steps. I would use "suksa", though, and perhaps phrase it like: ".i ko'a suksa ke bajra bancu tai pa nunstapa co cimei te serti"
cando  .icabo mi terbei lo notci  ku'o gi'e denpa lenu se zvaju'o da
poi ve cusku le se du'u lu'o la    no'u ga ko'a gi lo selfu noida'i
vei,on. joi la nitcion. lu'u goi  bevri loi ckafi mi
ko'a noi zvati le kafybarja po'u    ni'o lemi jubme cu xekri seja'e
la *jbolaz. cu djica lenu penmi mi loni to'ercitno  .i ra ve srakysku
vi ra  .i ®lu ?ma ?mo li'uЇ na se  zo mi ce'o prami bu ce'o ®lu le
spuda  .i ko'a jundi casnu la      cmacrnalgebra li'uЇ  .i mi nelci
fraktur.  .i mi zo'u la fraktur.  le jubme  .i mi de'a morji fi la
no'e cinri  .i mi co'a zutse ne'a  vei,on. .e la nitcion. gi'e co'a
lo jubme poi lamji le me ko'a6    pensi  .i mi si'a se cinri so'a
                                  klesi be lo sinxa ciste ra'anai
__________________________________ ledu'u vo'e ge'ikau te javni mu'u
ring.  For the context given, it  le sucta cmacrnalgebra gi mecritli
isn't really even clear to me that mu'u loi rarna ja rutni bangu7  .i
Iain wants "jicla" as opposed to
"terjicla"
                                  __________________________________
6Colin: I felt sure there was    something like this, "da pe" would
something wrong with "le me ko'a", be better, but still likely
but I think you have actually      wouldn't get the definiteness
invented a new idiom with which we across.  There's "da voi srana",
will now doubtless be plagued.    but that's not really worth con-
                                  sidering as a general solution.
  Mark:  It's actually an attempt  Too long.  "le pada pe ko'a"
at a sort of metonymy. I think    doesn't seem all that bad to me,
"le me ko'a" is not the way to go, but then, in your shoes I would
I greatly prefer "zo'epe ko'a".  I probably say to hell with defi-
sort of think of "zo'epe" as      niteness and stick with "zo'epe".
almost like a LAhE word (of       Not that that's necessarily the
course, with different grammar)    right thing to do.  I'm still less
that introduces metonymy for the  enthusiastic about "le me ko'a"
sumti it's on.  "le me ko'a" seems than Nick is.
dangerously close to just plain
"ko'a".                              Lojbab: I think "le me ko'a" is
                                  fine for original Lojban, but
  Nick:  "le me ko'a" is the      would probably have used "le ko'a
solution to metonymy - so much    co'e" as a translation for English
better than my "zu'i pe ko'a".     "theirs" which more matches the
                                  'possessive' implicature of the
  Iain:  I've been reprimanded in  English.  The "me" version is more
the past for using "zo'e" with a  vague, and could extend to include
relative clause, and told to use  "ko'a" as well as things belonging
"da".  Admittedly, I think it was  to "ko'a".
a "poi" relative clause, which may  On the other hand, I suspect
make all the difference.  Neither  that "la'e" and "tu'a" between
"zo'epe ko'a" of "da pe ko'a" seem them handle metonymy fine, and I
to express the definiteness that I think better than "le me ...".  It
wanted.  I could use "le" with a  would not be very English-like to
sumti, provided I insert an        handle "theirs" as a "la'e" or a
explicit quantifier "le pa da pe  "tu'a", but it might be very
ko'a", which is starting to get    lojbanic to do so.
out of hand for a simple concept
like "theirs".  The voting is      7Lojbab:  Iain translates this
still open on this one.            sentence as:


  Mark:  Well, you have a good      I too am interested in all kinds
point.  "zo'e pe" is specifically    of symbolic system, whether
anti-definite.  It's good for        formal ones like abstract
metonymy in which you're really      algebra, or more flexible ones
not trying to be specific, but are  such as natural and artificial
willing to be elliptical.  For      languages.


                                124
<span id=58b />[[#58a|58.]] Ivan: Bulgarian has fewer personal pronouns than Lojban, so my "ko'u" corresponds to "my brethren" or "thy brethren" as appropriate.
la'edi'u mukti lenu mi tadni la    quietly, when I got a message
lojban. kei noi ki'u ke'a mi zvati saying that Veijo and Nick, who
la jbolanzu                        are at the Cafe *Jbolaz, want to
  no'i lo be'ipre cu klama co      see me there.  "What's up?" - no
veirgau lemi selcpe po'u lo barda  reply.  They are deep in a
carmi bo ckafi gi'ebabo nalsirkla  discussion about Fraktur.  Me? I
mo'ize'oku na'e mo'ifa'a le        can take it or leave it.  I sit
jupku'a  .i .uaru'e simlu fa lenu  down at a table next to theirs and
ko'a ze'apu naje ca zvaju'o mi  .i wait for someone to notice me,
mi'a simxu rinsa  .i la'aru'e mi  either them or one of the people
bazi facki le krinu be lenu        serving who might bring me some
sutrygau8                          coffee.
                                    My table is dark with age.  On
__________________________________ it is carved "I", a heart, and
              ______              "algebra".  I like this table.  I
                                  forget about Veijo and Nick and
  "OK, OK!", I say, barging        start to ponder.  I too am
through the door, bruising my      interested in all kinds of
shoulder, "What's all the fuss    symbolic system, whether formal
about?"  I was sitting at home    ones like abstract algebra, or
                                  more flexible ones such as natural
__________________________________ and artificial languages.  That's
  There was much debate about this the reason I'm studying Lojban,
sentence on the net, with Iain    which is why I'm at the "*Jbolaz".
eventually deciding to use          A waiter comes and takes my
"ra'anai".  Not proposed in the    order for a large, strong coffee,
discussion, and I think better and and wanders off, not heading for
more lojbanic, is a logical con-  the kitchen.  Ah, it looks like
nective approach.  I also think    they've spotted me at last.  We
that "all kinds of" is better ex-  say hello.  Perhaps now I'll find
pressed using a massifier gadri,  out the reason for all the rush.
since he is not really interested    _____________________________
in the categories, but in the
things comprising the various        Translation of Mark Shoulson's
categories (or maybe he is a              Text and Commentary
taxonomist):
                                    ni'oni'o vanci  .icabo nalcladu
  .i mi si'a se cinri piso'a loi  ne'i le ckafybarja  .i le bi'u
  sinxa ciste ju gu'a te javni be  remna cu klama mo'ine'i ra  .i
  mu'u le sucta cmacrnalgebra be'o ko'a goi ra9 zutse ne'a lo jubme
  gi mecritli be mu'u loi rarna ja
  rutni bangu
  The two "be" clauses might be    ____________________
more readable as parentheses:
                                  9Lojbab:  I'm wondering why Mark
  .i mi si'a se cinri piso'a loi  waited till this sentence to as-
  sinxa ciste ju gu'a te javni (to sign ko'a.  It makes things unnec-
  mu'u le sucta cmacrnalgebra toi) essarily more difficult on the
  gi mecritli (to mu'u loi rarna  reader to have done so, since he
  ja rutni bangu toi)              ends up with two "ra"s with dif-
                                  ferent values only a few words
8Nick:  Perhaps "mukti", and      apart.  I don't frown on this so
"sutrybai".                        much with "ri" which is fairly
                                  strictly confined to the next pre-
  Lojbab:  Iain has to decide:    vious sumti, but "ra" is loosely
Does he want an explanation for    enough defined that one has to
the summons, or does he really    stop and think about whether it
want to know the motive.  Having  might or might not mean the same
multiple words for "why" makes you as the previous usage.
really need to think about what is  Since he is dealing with a 3rd
really sought after.               person narration section of a


                                125
What will happen if I say "leiko'u ni'avu cmoni"?
.i ko'a cpedu loi tcati le        __________________________________
kafybarja se jibri  .i ba so'o    seen it before and figured it de-
mentu ko'a se dunda loi tcati gi'e served some exposure, and this
co'aru'inai pinxe ri              seemed like a possible usage.  I'm
  ni'o ko'a ca lenu ko'a pinxe loi going back to "ko'a", so it's sort
tcati po ko'a cu zgana lenu le    of an old topic... isn't it?
bi'u nanmu cu se dunda lei ckafi
poi ra pu cpedu ke'a  .ije le        Lojbab: The purpose is to allow
nanmu goi ko'e cu pencu le kabri  you to change topics ("ni'o"), and
poi se nenri lei ckafi ku'o le    possibly even contexts, but then
degji gi'enai pinxe lei ckafi      to resume the old context at will
.ije mu'i zo'epela'edi'u10 ko'e    with "no'i" ("ni'o" and "no'i" can
cusku ®lu .o'onai ju'i do'u ko    be subscripted, I believe, if you
lebna lei vi ckafi gi'ebabo bevri  are dealing with many contexts).
fi mi fe lei je'a glare ku'i ckafi Context is typically defined in
li'uЇ le bevri be lei ckafi be'o  terms of a certain space-time
goi ko'i  .i ko'i cusku ®lu .u'u  tense reference and possibly a set
.ie ga'inai li'uЇ gi'ebabo lebna  of anaphora assignments.
le kabri  .i ko'i krefu klama gi'e  Major intended uses are for a
bevri lei ckafi vau ba so'o mentu  story-within-a-story (for which
.i ko'e krefu pencu le kabri  .i  the concept was invented - I've
ko'e cusku ®lu .i'esai ba'e ti    been working on an Arabian Nights
ku'i cu je'a glare ckafi li'uЇ  .i translation for a few years now,
ko'e gleki pinxe lei ckafi po ko'e and that collection nests stories
  no'i11 ko'a zgana la'eso'odi'u12 several levels deep, as characters
.i ba so'o mentu ko'a tavla le    in a story tell a story with
                                  characters who in turn tell
__________________________________ stories, etc., continually popping
story, assigning with "le ...      from level to level with stories
remna goi ko'a" in the previous    stopping, starting, and being
sentence is only fair.            interrupted for metalinguistic
                                  comment or action at a higher
10Nick:  zo'epela'edi'u is more    story level), for comparison
accurate here than ".isemu'ibo",  between two situations, and a
but it's still a mouthful.  I'm    whole bunch of oddball things that
not confident about the usage of  happen in stylistics of longer
"ku'i".                            narratives.
                                    The conventions of switching
  Mark:  I thought ".isemu'ibo"    anaphora assignments (i.e. the
wasn't quite right, since after    definition of ko'a, ko'e, da, de,
all, it wasn't his touching the    etc.) or tense reference (the
cup, but rather what he felt that  value assigned with "ki" are not
made him refuse.  I'm glad you saw well established because "no'i"
that too.  "zo'epela'edi'u" is a  has not been used much used.
bit much to say, but not            Other applications are certainly
impossible.  Note my "zo'epe"      possible, and will have to be
metonymizer.                      developed through usage.
  I was actually proud of the      Hopefully they will be generally
"ku'i" there.  "Bring me some hot  consistent with the originally
coffee (as opposed to this tepid  intended purposes.
stuff)."
                                  12Mark:  I don't like the way
  Lojbab:  How about "tu'a        "di'u" only means "the last utter-
la'edi'u"?                        ance".  It's bringing number
                                  considerations into Lojban where
11Colin: Can anybody explain      it never had them before.  I'd
"no'i" to me, please?             have expected it to mean "the last
                                  utterance(s)", with optional
  Mark: Not me.  I don't know what number, like everything else.  You
it is either.  I threw it in      can't always use tu'e/tu'u,
because I've pretty much never


                                126
Lojbab: Seems as good, and indeed resolves a tanru, though it is one that isn't really misunderstood. The main differences between your translation and Nora's is your "how", which isn't present in the Lojban, and the interpretation of "vu", which rather overstates the distance - it is after all only 3 steps at this point. How about: "ko sisti mu'i lenu tirna leika ko'u ni'ava cmoni"
__________________________________ bi'unai selpinxe bevri goi ko'i
sometimes it's used in            .i ko'a cusku ®lu .ia do pu bevri
afterthought.  I had to use that  lei naldrata ckafi ta vau ?xu
hideous "la'e joigi di'ugide'u"   li'uЇ  .i ko'i cusku ®lu go'i
[in the original draft of this    .o'unairo'a .u'uro'a li'uЇ  .i
story], counting on "de'u" to be  ko'a cusku ®lu ko .i'i na jikca
non-number-specific.  Had to use  dunku  .i mi puzuze'u se jibri
forethought because otherwise      loinu13 bevri loi selpinxe vi lo
"la'e" would stick only to "di'u"  gusta  .iseki'ubo mi djuno tu'a le
and not the whole thing.          do se zukte  .i da poi prenu cu
                                  genai pinxe lei ckafi gi pencu le
  Iain: In the latest version of  kabri gi'e na'e djica tu'a lei
the grammar, LAhE applies to a    ckafi ki'u lo za'i na'e
whole sumti, with an explicit      pe'ise'inai14 glare  .ije semu'i
optional LUhU terminator, so you
could use    afterthought.        __________________________________
  Why not "[le] re di'u" - the      A possibility to consider when
previous two utterances, "so'o    you are dealing with a range of
de'u" - several recent utterances, sentences and don't want to count,
etc.                              would be to use di'upezi/-
  [Mark liked this approach and    di'upeza/di'upezu to indicate
incorporated it in the printed    relative length of referenced
version.]                          utterance.


  Lojbab:  I ask you:  What is an  13Mark: I also replaced a lot of
'utterance'?  In Lojban, an        "lenu"'s with "loinu"'s, though
utterance can be more than a      this is not common practice.  I
single sentence, a paragraph even, did this because of the article by
or whatever.  I would think this  JCB that was posted here not long
would be familiar to net people    ago, in which he pointed out that
from Cowan's method of net        a lot of our "lenu"'s are really
quotation on Lojban-List: "la loj- massified:  you're not waiting for
bab. cusku di'e", where "di'e" is  a specific event of a cab's
the forward counting utterance    arriving, you're waiting for a
equivalent of the back-counting    manifestation of the mass of such
"di'u".                            events.  I thought JCB had a very
  Thus, the 'utterance' to which  good point there.
"di'u" refers is not that well
defined, and may indeed refer to  14Colin: I don't think you can use
multiple sentences.  Grammati-    "pe'ise'inai" in the way that I
cally, the construct labelled      think you are trying to.  It reads
'utterance' is a single sentence  "didn't want to drink the coffee
or partial sentence.  However, it  because it was not (I think but
has generally been agreed, for ex- it's not my issue) hot."  It
ample, that ".ije" joining, or    seemed to me that you were trying
".ibo" joining gives a logical    to make it "... it was not (in
unit (as does ".itu'e ...tu'u", as their opinion) hot", which you
you noted).  Thus the concept      cannot do with attitudinals.
utterance extends to be what is
labelled an "utterance-string" in    Mark: I'm not so sure about
the grammar, or perhaps even to    this.  I'm not 100% positive about
the construct labelled "text-B",  what "se'i"/"se'inai" do.
which can include multiple        Somewhere in the past someone said
paragraphs.  Now the usage default they could be used in this way, to
convention of 'utterance' has      tag attitudinals explicitly as
tended to be a single sentence,    belonging to the speaker or not.
but it need not always be so.  If  Oh, I remember.  It was when Nick
context suggests a longer          and I were discussing whether
utterance is intended, fine.      attitudinals on "du'u" in the x2
                                  of "djuno" applied to the speaker
                                  or to the x1.  Actually, we were


                                127
<span id=59b />[[#59a|59.]] Ivan: Rhetorical question. The last sentence may become ".i ko'a di'a bajra".
loinu da minde mi lenu basti lei  tu'a le slabu lisri be le bebna
ckafi loi glare ckafi kei kei mi  seljibri ka'u li'uЇ  .i ko'i cusku
lebna lei ckafi gi'e na'o denpa    ®lu le lisri ki'a li'uЇ  .i ko'a
fu'i so'e mentu tezu'e lenu tu'a  cusku ®lu .ue do punai ?xu ve
lei ckafi cu glaryri'a le kabri    lisri fu ri li'uЇ  .i ®lu noroi ve
kei fo lenu krefu dunda lei        lisri li'uЇ  .i ®lu .ai mi te
naldrata ckafi  .i za'a do panra  lisri  .i tu'e ka'u da'i puzuki da
zukte  .i la'ede'u ve ctuca15 fu  te bende le re seljibri  .i fo'a
                                  goi le te bende ca le fanmo be le
__________________________________ jeftu cu pleji le se jerna le re
discussing it with reference to    seljibri no'u lu'i le prije
"kau" then, but this was when      seljibri goi fo'e ge'u jo'u le
"kau" was still evolving.  Lojbab  bebna seljibri goi fo'i  .i le se
said you could use "kause'i" and  jerna cu rupnu li panono
"kause'inai" to distinguish who    .ijesemu'ibo fo'a pleji lei jdini
was "knowing" (remember, at the    be ta'i le pelji jdini fo'e .e
time we were considering "kau" as  fo'i  .i fo'e ckire fo'a gi'ebabo
mostly just "known!"), since      cliva gi'e gleki ki'u lenu le
"se'i" always made things apply to jdini cu se vamji li su'orau  .i
the speaker.  I fear you're        fo'i na'e gleki  .i cusku ®lu
probably right anyway, but I hope  .o'onai mi to'e lazni gunka fi'o
you're wrong, since your second    te bende do ca piro le jeftu  .i
reading, the one I intended, is    do pleji levi malpelji  .i'enaisai
such an elegant way to say it....  mi  .i le'o ko pleji fi mi fe le
  [Later ...] I didn't change ..., je'u je'a jdini no'u lo sicni
e.g. Colin's objection to          li'uЇ  .isemu'ibo fo'a pleji fo'i
"pe'ise'inai" for "in their        lo gusminra sicni poi se fepni li
opinion", since last I heard the  mu  .iseki'ubo fo'i gleki klama le
jury's still out on what it should fo'i zdani tu'u  .i tu'a di'u xe
mean, and I like the way it        ctuca fi ledu'u jdice nagi'apubo
sounds.                            e'ucai zgana  .i .ua ri'a je'unai
                                  ka'u le sego'i zo "za'a" noi cmavo
  Lojbab:  Mark's usage is fairly  fi lesi'o zgana ku'o cu rafsi zo
consistent with what we had in    zabna li'uЇ16
mind for "se'inai", but is vague
as to who actually holds the
opinion other than the narrator.  ____________________
Lojban intentionally makes
specifically attributing emotions  16General Comments:
to others difficult (as do many
natural languages), and I would      Mark:  I could use some better
prefer such comments to be met-    use of UIs, I think.  My grammar
alinguistic discursives using      gets very complex sometimes.
"sei".  In this case, "sei da
jinvi", or "sei vo'a jinvi", or      Nick:  Hm, this one is... sober.
even probably "sei jinvi" says the That's ok, though.  We were about
same thing, but makes the          due for sober :)  The grammatical
attribution of opinion a claim    complexity (and I presume the same
rather than an empathic            is the case for my work) means
understanding/attribution of      that you have to read the piece
emotion (which is what I see as    slowly, but that's not impossible.
the proper meaning of "se'inai"
modifying an attitudinal).          Colin:  Your grammar is not
                                  complex compared to some of us ...
15Mark:  I had trouble getting    - but you let it get quite
across the meanings of "this is    embedded, which is a little hard
illustrated by the old story" and  to read; but it's good that we are
"the moral of this is..."  Places  seeing a variety of different
of "ctuca" have done the job, and  styles.  Keep it up.
reasonably well, but maybe not      Some of your UI's are very good,
very well.                        and others I disagree with.


                                128
Lojbab: I'm not sure I understand how this is merely a rhetorical question. The attitudinal you inserted indicates surprise - thus he doesn't know the answer. He probably would like to know, even if he doesn't necessarily expect an answer. Thus "paunai", the unask-the-question marker of a rhetorical question, seems out of place. If he asks the question, he really would like an answer. If you feel that he doesn't really expect to know but just thinks of it as an unsolvable and possibly irrelevant mystery, I would avoid the question-word entirely and merely use the attitudinal for strangeness and an observative to indicate what it is he finds so unquestionably strange. (This comment applies to later questions in the story of this 'rhetorical' type.)
  Mark's translation uses Lojban  "You brought that guy the same
pronouns to preserve the gender-  coffee, didn't you?"
free qualities of his Lojban17:     "Um...  yeah, I did..."
                                    "Don't worry.  I used to work as
  It was quiet in the coffeehouse  a waiter in a restaurant, so I
one evening, and a person (ko'a)  know what you did.  There are
came in.  ko'a sat at a table and  people who don't drink the coffee,
ordered tea from the cafe          they just touch the cup and don't
employee. After a few minutes,    want the coffee because they think
ko'a was given some tea and began  it's not hot enough.  So when they
sipping intermittently at it.      tell me to get them some fresh
  As ko'a was sitting drinking    coffee, I just take the coffee and
ko'a's tea, ko'a saw a man being  wait a few minutes until the
given the coffee which he'd        coffee warms the cup and bring
ordered.  The man touched the cup  them the same coffee back again.
that contained the coffee, but    And I see you've done the same.
didn't drink the coffee.  So he    That's really the moral of the old
said, "Hey!  Take this coffee back story about the foolish laborer."
and bring me some hot coffee!" to    "What story?"
the waiter (ko'i).                   "You never heard it?"
  "Yes sir, sorry..."  And ko'i      "Never."
took the cup away.                  "OK, I'll tell it then.  Once
  A few minutes later, ko'i        upon a time, there was a manager
returned carrying the cup.  He    (fo'a) with two workers.  At the
(the man) touched the cup again,   end of the week, he paid his two
and said "Ah!  Now that's some hot workers:  the wise worker (fo'e)
coffee!" and happily drank his    and the foolish worker (fo'i).
coffee.                            Their salary was $100, so he paid
  ko'a had seen all this happen,  them with paper money. fo'e
and several minutes later was      thanked fo'a and left, happy
talking to the waiter.  ko'a said, because he was paid so well.
                                    "fo'i wasn't happy.  "Look!  I
                                  worked hard for you all week, and
__________________________________ now you're paying me with this
                                  dumb piece of paper!?  You better
  Lojbab:  Of the writings        pay me with some real money, with
generated so far for this project, coins!"  So fo'a paid fo'i with
Mark's has by far the lowest      shiny coins, worth 5 cents, and
density of lujvo, and he is        fo'i went happily home.
sparing in the use of the more      "This all teaches that you have
arcane cmavo, too.  I think that  to look closely before passing
simplicity of vocabulary,          judgement.  In fact, that's why
especially when there is no        "za'a", which represents the idea
dictionary, more than makes up for of observation, is also an affix
a little complexity in the        for "zabna"/favourable."
grammar.  After all, if a sentence
is a little complex, you can        Commentary on Iain's 2nd Piece
always bracket things more clearly    (no translation available)
by including a few optional
terminators.  But if you can't    .i bazi lenu mi'a simxu lenu rinsa
figure out what a couple lujvo in kuku lo nanmu poi nanca li so'a cu
the sentence mean, you may be      klama pu'e le na'e sirji18 ne'i le
completely lost.


17Lojbab:  On the other hand, Mark ____________________
I would have used a different attitudinal, ".i'unai.u'e" (mystery+wonder), instead of ".ue" (surprise), based on your translation of it as "Strange". I would not have put a strength indicator on the attitudinal, which marked the attitude as particularly strong. Otherwise, this seems fine.
specified one gender where it
doesn't seem that his story needed 18Nick (on an earlier version of
it:  why did the person who        this):  [Iain wrote:] "lo nanmu
ordered the coffee have to be a   poi nanca li so'a cu klama fo le
man?  He could have used "prenu", na'e sirji ne'i le barja gi'e co'a
or "remna".                       zutse ca'u mi"


                                129
Ivan: It is a rhetorical question inasmuch as the youth doesn't expect the Devil to answer him. Of course he wouldn't mind being told, but he's not addressing anybody with this question, just wondering aloud. Your suggestion of attitudinal is good.
barja gi'e co'a zutse ca'u mi  .i  jinvi ledu'u vo'a na kakne lenu
le nanmu goi ko'a cusku le se      tu'ari xamgu ko'e ca lenu xamgu le
du'u19 ri puzi se gunta lo puzu    lanzu20  .isemu'ibo le go'i cpedu
respa pe la'o ly. saurischia ly.
.i ®lu .iku'i loi respa pe
la'edi'u cu puzu ji'esti li'uЇ se
cusku mi  .i ®lu .ila'aru'e go'i  ____________________
.iboku'i simlu fa lenu noda ve
cilre la'edi'u fo ra cu'usa'a ko'a 20Lojbab (on Iain's final draft
.i lenu mi'a simxu lenu kansa cu  text submission for JL17): [Iain
nanca li reno  .i mi co'aki kurji  wrote:]
ko'e goi le respa ca lenu ri ca'o
citno  .i mi jinvi ledu'u le mamta  .i le pendo be mi zu'apu kurji
be ko'e cu morsi ba'o lo nanca be    ko'e gi'eku'i puzi co'a speni
li so'o  .ije cumki fa lenu ko'e    gi'e gasnu lenu cfari fa lenu
romoi lu'i le jutsi  .i le pendo    lanzu kuku gi'e jinvi ledu'u
be mi zu'apu kurji ko'e gi'eku'i    vo'a na kakne lenu tu'ari xamgu
puzi co'a speni gi'e gasnu lenu      ge ko'e *gicabo le lanzu
cfari fa lenu lanzu kuku gi'e        This sentence is currently
                                  ungrammatical at the point indi-
__________________________________ cated by an asterisk.  "gi" does
What isn't straight?  The two      not bind with a tense like that -
axes?  Not that obvious in        it is only a place holder.  When
context.                          you go from afterthought ex-
                                  pression:  "ko'e .ecabo le lanzu"
  Iain:  No, it was meant to be    to forethought, we don't currently
the route (or the manner) by which have a way to express both logical
he came in which wasn't straight.  and tense connective at the same
It sounds like this doesn't work.  time.  If we did allow it, it
Perhaps I could try pu'e le na'e  might have to be attached to the
sirji.                            connective, as "gecabo", and not
                                  to the place-holder word "gi".
  Lojbab:  I actually thought that After all, the idea of a
the original was clear, and the    forethought connective is to let
modified version seems less so.   the listener know the relationship
The x4 of klama is a route, and a  between the connectands before ex-
non-straight route is obviously an pressing them.
indirect one that is not the        The easiest expression that I
shortest from point a to point b.  think captures your intended
It is less clear to me what a non- meaning is to scrap the connective
straight process of going is.      and use an expanded tense clause.
Perhaps meaning that he stopped to I made only this minimal change to
talk to people on the way.  I      make the result grammatical, but
would have used "lo" instead of    also discussed this with Nora.
"le" though, since it isn't clear  You might also consider expressing
to the reader listener which      the final clause as:
indirect route/means is the one
intended.  "le" should normally be vo'a na kakne lenu roroi ku tu'ari
something specifically                xamgu ge ko'e gi le lanzu
identifiable to the listener, and
if not, the speaker should be      or maybe:
prepared to answer the clarifying
question "leki'a" (which?).       vo'a na kakne lenu paroi ku tu'ari
                                      xamgu ge ko'e gi le lanzu
19Lojbab:  Note that "du'u" refers
to a fact or truth, something      or to express the negation as a
known or knowable, while "se du'u" tense:
refers to expressions of such a
fact or truth.  This is being        vo'a noroi kakne lenu paroi ku
clarified in the dictionary cmavo      tu'ari xamgu ge ko'e gi le
list.                                   lanzu


                                130
lenu mi curmi lenu basti fi lenu  stura bele menli be lei puzu respa
bilga lenu kurji ko'e  .i mi je'a  .i seki'unai la'ede'u mi pupuziki
curmi  .ijeja'ebo kiku nu'i bi'ogi gasnu lenu xendo ko'e  .i mi'a
ca la'edi'u gi caku dunda loi      puzi klama zo'a lo bende be lo
cidja .e loi djacu ko'e  .ijebo    xanto  .ijeseki'ubo mi mu'i lenu
satre ko'e  .ijebo fi lenu cadzu  djica lenu fanta lenu damba noi
cu kansa fe ko'e  .i ca lo'e vanci cumki fa lenu ke'a se jalge lenu
mi tavla ko'e so'i klesi be lei te ko'e se xrani cu cusku ®lu ko se
cilre be'o ne mu'u le citri be loi kajde fi tu'a le mabru li'uЇ li'uЇ
jmive be va'o le terdi be'obe'o .e mi'e .i,n.
loi jicmu bele saske bele munje   
poi vanbi ma'a  .i jetnu fa lenu    Translation and Commentary on le
ko'e na kakne lenu tavla                  lisri be le serti
.ijeku'iseki'unaibo mi su'oroi
jinvi lenu ko'e jimpe la'e le se    Nora's translation follows in
cusku be mi li'uЇ  .i ®lu .iku'i  italics.  Where Ivan intended a
?mu'ima va'o la'e so'odi'u ko'e    different translation, that is
co'a bradi do li'uЇ  .i ®lu na    given on a third line in a
birti  .i noda ru'a21 jimpe le    different font, or in the
                                  footnotes commenting on Nora's
                                  translation.
__________________________________
                                  le lisri be le serti
  vo'a ca noda kakne lenu paroi ku  The story of the stairs.
    tu'ari xamgu ge ko'e gi le      "The Tale of the Stairs"
    lanzu
                                  __________________________________
  We also played with trying to
move the negation down a level      Iain:  Wot, no rhetorical
(which is                          questions in Lojban?
very un-English), but I'm not sure
that the semantics stays intact.    Lojbab:  I note that the final
                                  version uses "noda" with no re-
  vo'a kakne lenu roroi ku tu'ari  striction.  So Iain has actually
    xamgu ganai ko'e ginai le    broadened his meaning beyond
    lanzu                        Nick's assumed "No person
                                  understands" to "Nothing un-
  vo'a kakne lenu noroi ku tu'ari  derstands".  Of course, it may be
    xamgu ge ko'e gi le lanzu    implicit to most people that the
                                  x1 of jimpe is itself sufficiently
  John Cowan will be looking at    restricting.
this area for a possible grammar    Iain's original method of
change to allow some or all of the expressing a rhetorical question
possible constructions of this    seems valid, though at times one
type.  It is perhaps useful for    might want to put the "paunai"
the community to note that most of either at the front of the
the 2 dozen or so changes in the  sentence to forewarn the listener
grammar are like this one would    of the rhetoric nature of the
be; a minor expansion to allow    question, or to delay it,
something that no one ever tried  appending it to a "vau" on the end
before, but which seems plausibly  of the sentence, so that the
understandable when it is tried in listener starts to seriously think
an actual writing.                about the question and answer,
                                  before being told that no answer
21Nick (on an earlier version):    is expected.
[Iain wrote:] .i ®lu na birti .i    I suspect that the attitudinal
?ma paunai jimpe le stura bele    system offers a variety of other
menli be lei puzu respa            ways to convey rhetorical
                                  statements of this type, including
I'd rather "no prenu cu jimpe",    probably some that don't easily
myself...                          translate to English.


                                131
<span id=60b />[[#60a|60.]] Lojbab: For this meaning I would choose something like "tcudu'u" (need-anguish), which in turn suggests a different kind of hand oscillating.
                                  (thick?)24 hand.  He stands in
.i  fitfi'i di'e ro lei ba cusku  front of the stairs.  Pink-lined,
be ledu'u vo'e vo'i na srana      white marble, high stairs.
  Offered is the following to all
who say it doesn't pertain to
them.                              __________________________________
  (Epigram:)  "Dedicated to all
those who will say: `This doesn't    Ivan:  "with lifted forehead"
pertain to me!'"  ('doesn't apply  (showing proud unwillingness to
to me', 'has nothing to do with    conform)".
me'.)
                                    Lojbab: I am one who believes
ni'oni'o tu'e (non-translatable)  in making cultural metaphors
®lu do mo li'uЇ preti fi la        explicit in translations,
pacrux. goi fo'a                  especially to a supposedly
  "What are you doing/What are    culture-neutral language (I expect
you?" asks Evil-Spirit.            that you will call me on this
  `Who art thou?' asked the        regularly in return, Ivan, when I
Devil.22                          fail to make my own cultural
                                  metaphors clear.)
.i ®lu mi to'erno'i ji'u leka        Thus, if the lifted forehead
cerda  .ije ro le pidrai mi bruna  signifies pride, include 'pride'
.i .oicai ge le terdi cu to'e      in the tanru:  "jgira ke seke se
melbi gi le remna cu to'e gleki    lafti mebri", or twisting it
li'uЇ                              around for clarity in the relative
  "I'm a peon by birth, and all    clause context: "lo citno nanmu
the poorest are my brothers.      noi lafti le mebri seci'o leka
Alas! The earth is ugly and the    jgira"
people are miserable."
  "I'm a plebeian by birth, and      Ivan:  I thought a lifted
all the tatterdemalions/-          forehead as an expression of pride
ragamuffins are my brethren.  Oh,  was universal, not culturally
how ugly is the earth and how      sensitive, but maybe I was wrong.
miserable are the people!"         Ditto for clenched fists as an
                                  expression of aggressive
.i di'u se bacru lo citno nanmu    impatience.
noi se lafti se mebri gi'e denmi
se xance  .i ri goi ko'a sanli      Lojbab:  You may be right about
crane le serti  .i labyxu'e linji  the universality of the physical
ke blabi roimrmaro ke galtu serti  expressions - I have no idea.  But
  This was uttered by a young man, there is cultural significance in
with raised brow23 and dense      the way each is described, which
                                  may vary between languages, and
                                  there is more than one emotion
____________________              that could be symbolized.  In
                                  (American), phrases like "head
22Lojbab:  "do mo" is elegant, but held high" suggest self-esteem/-
a bit vague to expect a useful    personal pride, while "nose in the
answer with no context in advance  air" suggests hauteur.  But "eyes
to make it clear what is meant.    lifted on high" suggests worship.
Given the answer that was given    All three of these could also be
(which is presumably the infor-   described as having a lifted
mation that the Devil wanted to    forehead, but I've never heard the
hear), I would ask the question as forehead mentioned in an English
"do ?mo prenu" ("You are a what-  metaphor suggesting any of them.
kind-of-person")
                                  24Nora:  I later figured out that
23Nora:  Not quite sure what this  this was "clenched", but it took a
is. I presume it means he had a  while.  Perhaps "denmi se polje se
"high" brow.  Perhaps "clani se    xance" (densely-foldedly be-
mebri" (longly be-browed)?        handed)?


                                132
  Thus spoke a young man with      ctaru rirxe28 ke to'ekli boxna29
lifted forehead (showing proud    ku savri'a  .i diklo slilu gi'e
unwillingness to conform) and
clenched fists. ... a high        __________________________________
staircase of white marble with    group of people? If you accept
pink veins25.                      that, then leave "prenu" out.


.i ko'a catlu mo'ifa'a le darno ne 27Lojbab:  This kind of long-
<span id=61b />[[#61a|61.]] Ivan: The Bulgarian contained the rather long "those on whom I go (in the literal, "la'e zo klama" sense) to take vengeance".
di'o lepu'u lei grusi kalsygri be  complex "be" is why "co" is in the
leka pindi26 cu ca simsa be27 loi  language "cu ca savri'a co simsa
                                  loi ctaru rirxe ke to'ekli boxna"
                                  is much clearer, and also seems to
__________________________________ match the order of your intended
                                  translation better.
  Lojbab:  "fist" has been
expressed before as "ball-hand",  28Lojbab:  Does the sound of murky
so "fengu bolci se xance"          waves of a tidal river differ from
(possibly making the whole or some the sound of any other kind of
portion into a lujvo - 'clenched-  waves of a tidal river, or any
fist' for  se fegbolxa'e, 'angry  other river?
fist' for fengu se bolxa'e, or
'anger-clenched hands' fegboi se    Ivan:  The waves are murky
xance).  Again, I favor making the because of the appearance of the
emotional implication (which I am  mobs, and the river is tidal
assuming is correct) explicit in  because of their numbers.  The
the tanru/lujvo.                  observation that these things
  "denmi" used this way in tanru  (especially the first one) don't
will probably not catch on quickly affect the noise is correct, so
with English-speaking readers,    maybe I'll extract this de-
since we don't often use the word  scription from the tanru and
in its literal sense in metaphor.  attach it to the mobs, like so:
The validity of the tanru using    "lei grusi kalsygri be leka pindi
denmi is thus hard to evaluate    bei <like> loi ctaru rirxe ke
before we have a few usages of    to'ekli boxna ca savri'a".  How's
this type in the dictionary (and a that? [Lojbab:  Better, but see my
few other English words besides    answer in the next footnote.]
"dense" to trigger people's
consideration.)  Other than that,  29Ivan: Bulgarian has the same
I think "denmi" is fine especially word for `wave' and `worry', and
if the "fengu" is also present,    since the mob is something like a
and I would not make much of the  sea made of people, it is not
fact that no one picks up the      clear whether this is meant in a
metaphor right away.              physical or emotional sense, or
                                  both.
  Nick comments further on this
metaphor in a later footnote.        Lojbab:  Then coin a lujvo based
                                  on "worry-wave" (dunku boxna) or
25Lojbab:  If the order of the    "anxious-wave" (xanka boxna),
terms in the translation is        possibly with a "joi" in between
important to you, use "co" and    the terms.  It won't translate to
grouping words to emphasize it:    English, but will accurately
galtu serti co blabi joi labyxu'e reflect the dichotomy of the
bo linji roimrmaro (high stairs    Bulgarian.  Actually, I think the
of-type white-with-pink-lines      image, in this case, would
marble) is one such approach.      translate, even if the word did
                                  not.
  Ivan:  I confess I never          Combining this with the previous
acquired the habit to use "co".   comments, I propose:


26Nick: Will "kalsygri be leka    lei grusi kalsygri be leka pindi
Lojbab: You should be able to capture this with "leimi se vefsfa terkla".
pindi" by itself imply that it's a ca mutce savri'a gi'e simsa loi


                                133
febvi fengu gi'e lafti loi to'e    girzu cu banro gi'e klama ne'i loi
plana ke xekri birka  .i le        pelxu pulce dilnu  .ije loi sepli
nunpante ke suksa sance .e lei    ti'otra cu mutcne33 leka viskli
fengu nunki'a cu desku le vacri    ze'o le kampu ke grusi vanbi
  He looks, his gaze moving-        The vantage-of-reflection, like
towards [somewhere] far, where the a far artillery (?) sound, slowly
gray mobs of poor are, like tide-  and gravely dissolves (don't quite
river unclear-waves, making noise  get this sentence).  The groups
(clamoring?).  Shifting/agitated  grow and go inside yellow-dust
and boiling anger and lifting of  clouds.  And the separate shadow
meager, black arms30.  The yelps  shapes vary widely in visibility
(?) of protest and the cries of    as they get further from the com-
anger shake the air.              mon gray surroundings.
  His gaze was directed towards      ... and the echo faded away
the far-away, where the grey mobs  slowly, solemnly, like distant
of misery were clamouring... They  cannon fire sounds ... and
were agitated/in a state of        individual silhouettes were
ferment... The outcries of protest emerging more and more clearly
...                                against the common grey
                                  background".
.i le te minra31 cu simsa be lo   
darno ke barda terdanti sance ku    ni'o pa.o'enai to'ercitno34 cu
masno je junri runta32  .i lei    simsa be lepu'u sisku leri se


__________________________________ ____________________
<span id=62b />[[#62a|62.]] Ivan: Again [see footnote above regarding loss of hearing], I'll try "do co'unai ka'e viska".
to'ekli dukyjoibo'a be loi ctaru
rirxe                              33Nick:  Given that "zenba" is now
                                  intransitive, replace "mutcne"
30Ivan:  Used to be a "forest of  with "zenba".
dry, black arms".
                                    Lojbab:  If "zenba" were still
  Lojbab: You could get the image  transitive, you would want
of "forest" in there with "grana  "zmabi'o" or "tcebi'o", based on
foldi co lafti loi to'e plana ke  "binxo" instead of "cenba"
xekri birka", paralleling the
image of "forest" = "ricfoi"      34Ivan:  The ".o'enai" was
("tree-field"), which is the lujvo intended to cater for him being
that has been most used.          "some [old man]", whom no one
                                  knows or cares for.
31Nick:  I'd use "sanselminra".
"te minra" (where something is      Lojbab:  Ivan originally used
reflected to) means "echo" less    "slabu".  "slabu" is defined as
than does "se minra" (that which  the "old" which is opposite of
is reflected).                    "new", and not as the opposite of
                                  "young".  This has caused a lot of
32Lojbab: Again a place where    people writing in Lojban to change
"co" would make the text easier to to "to'ercitno".  This works but
understand.  I also would use      it seems clumsy to define "old" as
"canci" instead of "runta"; I      an opposite.  I think that with
cannot figure out what might go in the proper value for the places,
the places of "runta" for an echo  "slabu" can serve both meanings,
dissolving: "... cu masno je junri but have apparently not been
canci co simsa loi darno ke barda  convincing.  How about "ji'ecla"
terdanti sance".  (I also put a    (alive-long) or "ma'ucla" (mature-
"loi" here on the cannon sounds.)  long) or "revycla" (survive-long),
I don't know about the original    with the latter or zatcla/za'icla
Bulgarian, but "solemn" to me can  (exist-long), or teicla/temcla
imply "somber/gloomy/sad" at least (time interval-long) serving for
as much as "serious", or at least  non-living things that have been
both.  Perhaps "jurdri"? in place  in their current state for a long
of "junri".                       time?


                                134
cirko ka citno be'o ni'akro be    selxaksu taxfu gi'e catlu le galtu
fa'a le terdi ku dzukla35  .i lo  serti sepi'o lo tinbe je simsa be
cucycau36 cmaxli cu jgari lera37  le rulnkentaure,a bei leka blanu
                                  ku kanla38  .i catlu je cisma


<span id=63b />[[#63a|63.]] Ivan: The Devil slyly fails to specify in what sense they will be better (i.e. in what property they will zmadu).


                                  __________________________________
Nick: Would "zmadu befi zo'e" be too obvious?
__________________________________
                                    Ivan: How would that work?  I'm
  Ivan:  I wouldn't replace        not sure I understand what you
"to'ercitno" with anything else.  mean.
It doesn't matter that the man has
lived long.  It matters that he is  Lojbab:  Since this is a new
not young any more.                paragraph, "ru" should not go back
                                  any further than the beginning of
35Lojbab:  Again, a "be" that      the paragraph.  The first sumti of
should be made into a "co".  In    the paragraph is the original
addition, I think the old man is  reference to the old one, and the
like a seeker, and not like a      obvious referent of "ru".  In
seeking and the "pu'u" should go  addition, counting minimally based
away (though Nora figured out your on your text would give "ra" to
intent), while what he is seeking  the earth and "ru" to the "ri" of
is probably the state of his being "leri".
young, and not the property.        On the other hand, a far more
Putting all this together might    clear back-reference would have
give:  "... cu dzukla co ni'akro  been "le go'i" which clearly picks
be fa'a le terdi be'o simsa lo    up the x1 of the previous
sisku le selcri za'i vo'a citno".  sentence, the old man.
                                    Note that since this anaphoric
36Ivan:  That is "lunbyseljma",    reference is occurring in the
but I chose to go for the          middle of an extremely picturesque
alliteration and brevity of        set of metaphors, grasping the
"cucycau".  I trust it is          clothes of the earth is quite
understood as meaning the same.    imaginable as a metaphor.  Mean-
                                  while, since Nora translated from
37Nora:  I wasn't sure which      your original text, which had "lo
referent to use for "ra".  The    slabu" instead of "pa to'ercitno",
possible referents are:  the      she interpreted the old ones as
earth, the old one (via "ri" in    plural (you had just been talking
"leri se cirko"), his lost youth,  of masses and the Lojban gave no
the lost youth of the old one, the hint of sudden focus on
process of searching for the lost  individuals ("to'unai" or
youth, and (finally) the original  "su'anai" might have discursively
reference to old one himself.  I  indicated this change of detail
didn't initially pick up the "ri"  level).  Thus it might be that one
(in "leri se cirko") as a          girl is holding a mob of old peo-
countable sumti because I missed  ples' clothes, or even a mob of
it (real easy to miss when it's    unshod little girls is holding
compounded with the "le").        onto the clothes of the old
                                  people.  In comparison to these
  Ivan: The old one was what I    images, grasping the "worn-out
wanted.  The wee lass is "ri", and clothes" of the earth does not
the earth, the youth and the      seem that far-fetched.
process have no garments for her    All of this makes it clear that
to cling to.                      "ra" and "ru" have rather limited
                                  usefulness unless you are dealing
  Nora: I think I'd have been more with simple sentences where back-
comfortable with picking up the    counting is easy.
original reference at the
beginning of the paragraph using  38Lojbab:  Nora was particularly
"ru".                              pleased with herself for figuring


                                135
Lojbab: I think it would! It would make the Lojbanic point, but if the plebeian had heard it put like that, he might have guessed what he was in for. However, it would be clearer to readers, if the Devil had use "xagmau" (better) instead of "zmadu" (more), while retaining a similar ellipsis of comparison while adding one regarding the nature of "good" (Better than what? By whose standard?)
  An old one, like a searcher for  high stairs with obedient39,
his/her lost youth, walks stooped  cornflower-blue eyes.  Looking and
to the ground.  An unshod little  smiling.
girl grasps someones/ somethings    Some old man was coming, stooped
worn-out clothes and looks at the to the ground, as though he was
                                  looking for his lost youth  ...
                                  was holding his [sc. the old
                                  man's] ragged/tattered garment (in
__________________________________ order not to get lost in the
out  "cornflower blue", whatever  crowd)...
that is.                         
                                  .i loi selpopseltau je grusi je
  Ivan:  Just bright blue.        cinla remtra cu trixe dzukla gi'e
Cornflowers are often mentioned in gunma sanga lo selsno ke mrori'i
Bulgarian literature.  The reader  zgike  .i da kercrori'a siclu fi
is expected to have seen many of  le ctebi .i de noi daski nenri se
them, which I (being a urban boy)  xance cu cmila sepi'o lo cladu je
haven't, but I know what colour    rufsu voksa .ije lede kanla cu
they are.  The reader is also      jarco leka fenki
supposed to guess that bright blue  Rag-covered, gray, thin forms
as an eye colour suggests          walked behind and sang together
innocence.  This is not the case  slow, funereal music (dirges?)40.
in all cultures (and in            Someone ear-splitting-ly whistled
particular, not in traditional    from the lips. Someone, with
Bulgarian culture - in our        hands in pockets, laughed in a
folklore all eyes must be black),  loud, rough voice.  His eyes
but that's how the author meant    showed insanity.
it.                                  ... Someone was whistling
                                  sharply. ... insanity was burning
  Lojbab:  Thus adding a modifying in his eyes.
term to the tanru and grouping   
terms would make the meaning clear  ni'o ®lu mi to'erno'i ji'u leka
to those who do not know the      cerda  .ije ro le pidrai mi bruna
cultural implication: "<innocent-  .i .oicai ge le terdi cu to'e
(cornflower-bo-blue)>-eyes"        melbi gi le remna cu to'e gleki
  Nora said that the context      .i .iunai vu gapru  .i .o'onai
suggested "cornflower", and sure  li'uЇ
enough, you had used the genus      "I am a peon by birth, and all
name for cornflower in your        the poorest are my brothers.
le'avla.                          Alas! The earth is ugly and the
                                  people are miserable.  The high-
  Ivan:  The full name of the      ups - I spit on them!41"
plant is Centaurea cyanus.  It is
not all blue (the stem and leaves  ____________________
are green), but I hope I still can
use it in this way.                39Ivan:  Or "mild" or "meek"
                                  (eyes).
  Lojbab:  Certainly, since the
author did so.  If there was        Lojbab:  I might have tried
doubt, you could specifically add  "cumla" (humble), "fegycau"
"flower" after the le'avla, but I  (anger-without), or "nalvli" (non-
suspect that the flower is the    powerful).
plausible referent whenever a
flowering plant is used as the    40Ivan:  Just a funeral song,
basis for a color.  On the other  which they were singing in a
hand, if you used cauliflower/-    choir.
broccoli as the basis for a color
description, you'd have to be more 41Ivan:  "Oh, ye up there, ye..."
specific - indeed, I think I have  (Menace.) He's not really going
seen both vegetables used to      to talk to them, therefore I
describe colors in English.        spared the "doi".


                                136
                                  ca tcica krori'a le xadni fa'a
.i di'u se bacru lo citno nanmu    ko'a
noi se lafti se mebri gi'e dukri'a  "Sir, do you hate the high-up?"
denmi se xance                    asked Evil-Spirit, who slyly bowed
  This was uttered by a young man, to him44.
with raised brow and agonizingly    `You hate those up there?' asked
dense hands42.                    the Devil and leaned towards him.
                                 
.i ®lu .io ?xupe'i43 do xebni lei  .i ®lu .aisai mi ba vefsfa lei vu
vu gapru li'uЇ preti fi fo'a noi  mabla nobli joi turni  .i mi ri
                                  kusru vefsfa seka'i45 leimi bruna


__________________________________ __________________________________
<span id=64b />[[#64a|64.]] Lojbab: You again need to deal with the "pagre" here. In this case, I suggest something like "krefu muvdu co bancu ci te serti". "krefu" is better than "rapli" for "again", though the latter is better for multiple repetitions, as occurs later in the story.


  Lojbab:  It seems to me that a    Lojbab:  "paunai", generally
vocative that is not meant for the before the sentence, is the marker
referent is expressible by        for a question not to be answered;
"ju'inai".  An alternative would  i.e. a rhetorical question.  In
be to use a prenex to achieve an  this case, you could also just
impersonal topicalization.        omit the question word and start
Perhaps something like:  "levu    off with "pe'i do xebni ...".  I
[mal]gapru .iunai zo'u do .au ve  think such direct statements or
sputu .o'onai"                    rhetorical questions serve to make
                                  the ".io" rather a lesser mark of
42Ivan:  No, "threateningly        respect than it might be.  Note
clenched fists", "fists clenched  that, in American English at
in menace".                        least, "Sir" is commonly used to
                                  address someone you don't know the
  Nick: Maybe "kajde" should be in name of in a non-insulting manner,
that tanru?                        and doesn't necessarily convey a
  The tanru with denmi doesn't    lot of respect, so don't make too
seem to be working.  What about    much of Nora's choice of the word.
"ja'itra denmi xance" - grasp-form
dense? ("jgari" alone implies that 44Ivan:  "and leaned towards him",
the youth is "ca'a" grasping "da  certainly not "bowed to him".
poi se jgari"
                                    Nick:  Hm. I was thinking of
  Lojbab:  If not "kajde", then    "kroxadjbi", but I don't think
perhaps "capti'i" (peril-sug-      "krori'a" need be taken as "to
gesting), though "capyjde" might  bow" - that's more "xadykro
be better still (peril-warning).  rinsa".


43Ivan:  It is a rhetoric question  Lojbab: You might need a "mo'i"
<span id=65b />[[#65a|65.]] Ivan: Ought to be "mo'ini'a ...", or "... le cnita".
(indeed, the behaviour of the      on that "fa'a" to get the motion,
youth leaves little doubt).  Maybe and I think the "ko'a" can then be
"pei" (`don't answer') instead of  ellipsized.  "noi ca tcica xadmu'u
"pe'i" (`I think you do')?  The    le stedu mo'ifa'a". As a sumti
".io" was a faint attempt to cater tcita, I tend to like "zo'i" more
for the fact that this is the only than "fa'a", though I don't think
occurrence of the formal pronoun  you can ellipsize the "ko'a" in
in the tale. It doesn't really    that case, since the default
have to mean anything, and "Sir"  referent of "zo'i" is the
is just a little bit too polite    speaker/narrator.
for its use here to be fair.
                                  45Ivan:  Wrong BAI, it seems.  He
  Nick:  Hang on, "pei" is the    wants to avenge his brethren, not
attitudinal interrogative, "pe'i"  necessarily on their behalf (maybe
the opinion. What you currently  they don't even know who has
have translates to me as "You do,  caused their misery). "venfu"
don't you." I think the ".io"      wants one more argument place,
should stay.]                      therefore I went for "vefsfa", but


                                137
Lojbab: I prefer "catlu le cnita". "mo'ini'a", like the similar moving gaze early in the story, seems to ask for misunderstanding, though I suspect fluent Lojbanists might appreciate the usage more than us novices.
goi ko'u noi simsa be le canre bei  Oh, I will take vengeance on
leka pelxu ku se flira zi'e noi    those princes1 and princes248. ...
zmadu be le la gaimast. si'erbi'e  who moan in a more ominous/-
bei leni tepri'a ku se cmoni46  .i sinister way than the December
ko viska leko'u lunbe ke ciblu ve  blizzards.
flecu xadni .i ko tirna leko'u   
cmoni  .i .ai mi ko'u venfu  .i    .i fo'a cisma
le'o ko curmi li'uЇ                The spirit smiles.
  "I will have revenge on those   
damned royalty.  I will wreak upon .i ®lu mi jibri bandu lei vu gapru
them a cruel vengeance on behalf  .ije mi se le'irbai gi'anai
of my brothers, with sand-yellow  lacti'a ri li'uЇ
faces and who moan with more than  "My job is to defend the high-
a December-blizzard worth of      up49.  I am fined (?)50 if I am
scaring.  See their bare, bleeding traitorous to them."
bodies.  Hear their moans.  I will
avenge them. Just you allow it!47 ____________________


                                  48Ivan:  (Bulgarian has two words
                                  which are equally glossed `prince'
                                  in English, the first referring to
                                  a son or other close relative of a
__________________________________ king, the other to a ruler of a
by doing so I lost another        principality.)  "mabla"
argument place.                    corresponded to a certain form of
                                  the Bulgarian demonstrative
  Nick:  Let's get that place back pronoun, which suggests contempt.
for you. There's really no reason
why "vefsfa" should not have a    49Ivan:  "I am a guard[ian] of
place for "le se venfu"):          those up there..."  It is
                                  certainly not his only job, but he
  s1 avenges s2 by doing s3        means that he is serious about
                                  defending their privacy.
  p1 punishes p2 for doing p3 by
doing p4.                            Lojbab:  Perhaps remove the
                                  "jibri", and replace by ".ei" or
  s1=p1. s3=p4. p3=tu'a s2.        ".e'i".  This also parallels what
Leaving out p3, we have:          I think the following sentence
                                  should be ...
  vefsfa: x1 punishes x2 avenging
x3 by doing x4.                    50Ivan:  Contrariwise.  "... and
                                  without a bribe I won't betray
Of course, you could just say      them."  That is, "either I will be
"venfu be lei bruna be'o sfasa"    payingly compelled (i.e. bribed)
                                  or I won't betray them".
46Lojbab: rearrange more clearly
as: "zi'e noi selcmo co zmadu le    Nick:  "gi'anaibabo" to be
la gaimast. si'erbi'e leni        polite.  I still think "le'irbai"
tepri'a"                          is sound.  "le'irselmukti"?
  "zi'e noi" could be simply
"gi'e" since you are using the      Lojbab:  I like using
same kind of relative clause (noi) attitudinals, and "le'ixlu" for
with the relativized sumti in the  bribe:  ".ije mi se le'ixlu .ei
first position in both cases.  But gi'a na.e'i lacti'a ri
there is nothing wrong with the      I somehow feel that "lacti'a"
way you have it.                  has the wrong emphasis.  Since the
                                  Devil intends to deceive the
47Ivan:  Ought to have been "Let  plebeian, he should avoid men-
me pass!", but I didn't make it    tioning deception.  Maybe a nice
clear what the Devil was supposed  ambiguous tanru like "sidju cliva
to curmi.                          ri"?


                                138
<span id=66b />[[#66a|66.]] Ivan: No answer to the question is really expected, so "pei ?cama ko'u co'a melbi dasni".
                                  di'u gi'e cadzu curmi55  .i ®lu ko
.i ®lu mi ponse no solji  .i mi    pagre li'uЇ
ponse no lo se pleji befi do  .i  "You'll continue to be able to
mi pindi je selpopseltau citno    hear."  The spirit calmed him with
.iku'i mi bredi lenu pleji lemi    this and let him walk.  "Go
kazyji'e li'uЇ                    through56."
"I have no gold.  I have nothing 
to pay you.  I am a poor and rag-  .i ko'a bikla bajra gi'e dzugre ci
covered youth.  But, I am prepared te serti tai pa nu stapa  .i ku'i
to pay with my life51."           lefo'a terkre xance ko'a lacpu
                                  He whippingly(?) ran57, and walked
.i fo'a rapli cisma                through 3 steps with one stride.
The spirit again smiles.
                                  __________________________________
.i ®lu .e'onai ri zmadu lemi se    wilt still hear", I'm thinking of
cpadji  .i do'anai ko fi mi dunda  trying "do co'unai ka'e tirna".
leka do sanga'e li'uЇ
"Ah, no.  It is more than my get-  55Ivan:  Lit. "made him way", i.e.
desire(??).  Give me but your      "moved aside and let him pass".
hearing."
"Oh, no, I don't want that much!  56Lojbab:  I don't know how to
..."                               pass through stairs.


.i ®lu .ueru'e leka mi sanga'e  .i  Ivan: This may be a
Lojbab: You mean "paunai" instead of "pei". I disagree, as stated in my earlier comment on these kind of rhetorical questions. I think the unsolvability of the question is better conveyed by 1) dropping the ".uecai" (which obviously prompted a different image in Nora's mind), and adding ".i'enaicai" after "cizra".
.iefi'i  .i .e'i mi noroi tirna di malbaublgaria.  By passing a set
.i .e'i li'uЇ                      of steps I mean climbing them.
"What?!52  My hearing?  Take it.   They are seen as obstacles,
I'll never be free53 to hear      because one has to pay for each
anything.  Not free ..."           set of three.  Hints as to how
"My hearing?  With pleasure..."   else I could put it are welcome.


.i ®lu do ranji leka ka'e tirna54    Nora:  "pagre" isn't really the
li'uЇ  .i fo'a ko'a papri'a sepi'o right word, unless you are doing
                                  it for the analogy of "passing
                                  through" stages (in which case
____________________              something based on "pruce" might
                                  be used).  I'm not quite sure what
51Ivan:  Lit. "... to lay my      to use in place of it, though.
head".
                                    Ivan: No, I'm doing it for want
52Ivan:  The surprise in the En-  of a better bet.
glish is too strong.
                                    Nora: Maybe "klama mo'i zo'a ci
53Ivan:  I don't get the "free"    te serti" (went motion-tangential
here.  "Let me never hear any-    3 steps)?
thing, let me..."  I don't know
how to say `let ... happen' in      Ivan: Maybe.  (Not that it
Lojban, though.                    sounds good enough to me.)


  Lojbab:  Nora was undoubtedly      Lojbab:  I think I would use
trying to interpret the ".e'i"    "bancu", and I'd soften the im-
(constraint), and did so as the    perative to reinforce that it is a
negation of ".e'inai" (freedom).  permission and not a command:  ".i
I would normally use ".e'a" for    ®lu .e'a ko cpare bancu li'uЇ"
permission, and the reiteration of
the request is even stronger, a    57Ivan:  "He rushed/dashed
petition:  ".ie fi'ido'u mi        [forward]".  Probably "ko'a co'i
noroi.e'a tirna di .i.e'o"        [mo'ica'u] bajra".


54Ivan: For a more                  Nick:  Remember, Lojbab, the
<span id=67b />[[#67a|67.]] Ivan: Odd as it may be, Smirnenski called them "manci xunre rozgu" `wondrously red roses', rather than "manci ke xunre rozgu". Don't ask me why.
straightforward way to say "Thou  primary raison d'etre of "bikla"


                                139
Lojbab: The reason seems obvious to me, if indeed the difference between the two groupings is that striking in the Bulgarian: The left grouping indicates a surreal quality about the redness of the roses, a clue to the nature of these new eyes, whereas the right grouping just says that they are especially nice roses without suggesting a surreal quality. Pretty roses are a wonder, but they need no special eyes to be found; but roses that are a red color that is wondrous must indeed be an unusual red, since most roses are a fairly distinctive red color.
But the spirit's hairy hand pulled `Strange:  why did they so
him.                              suddenly <...>?'  And he rushed
                                  again.59
.i ®lu banzu  .i ko sisti mu'i   
lenu tirna leiko'u58 vu cnita      .i fo'a ko'a krefu rinju
cmoni li'uЇ                        The spirit again restrained him.
"Enough.  Stop to hear their moans
far beneath."
"Stop to hear how thy brethren
moan down there!"
                                  ____________________
.i ko'a sisti gi'e kerlo jundi
He stopped and listened.          59Ivan:  Rhetorical question.  The
                                  last sentence may become ".i ko'a
.i ®lu .uesai  .i ki'uma ko'u      di'a bajra".
suksa cfari lenu to'edri sanga
gi'e xalbo cmila li'uЇ  .i ko'a      Lojbab: I'm not sure I
krefu ke bikla bajra              understand how this is merely a
"Well!  What made them suddenly    rhetorical question.  The
start singing happily and laughing attitudinal you inserted indicates
lightly?"  He again whippingly    surprise - thus he doesn't know
ran.                              the answer.  He probably would
                                  like to know, even if he doesn't
                                  necessarily expect an answer.
__________________________________ Thus "paunai", the unask-the-
is to denote "a whip-like motion", question marker of a rhetorical
not a whip.                        question, seems out of place.  If
                                  he asks the question, he really
  Lojbab:  I have no real problem  would like an answer.  If you feel
with the use of "bikla".  Any      that he doesn't really expect to
confusion in my mind is due to the know but just thinks of it as an
repetition of the motion with      unsolvable and possibly irrelevant
different words: whipped forward, mystery, I would avoid the
ran, walk-passed-through, for as  question-word entirely and merely
short a motion as three steps.  I  use the attitudinal for
would use "suksa", though, and    strangeness and an observative to
perhaps phrase it like:  ".i ko'a indicate what it is he finds so
suksa ke bajra bancu tai pa        unquestionably strange.  (This
nunstapa co cimei te serti"        comment applies to later questions
                                  in the story of this 'rhetorical'
58Ivan:  Bulgarian has fewer      type.)
personal pronouns than Lojban, so    I would have used a different
my "ko'u" corresponds to "my      attitudinal, ".i'unai.u'e"
brethren" or "thy brethren" as ap- (mystery+wonder), instead of ".ue"
propriate.                        (surprise), based on your
  What will happen if I say        translation of it as "Strange".  I
"leiko'u ni'avu cmoni"?            would not have put a strength in-
                                  dicator on the attitudinal, which
  Lojbab:  Seems as good, and      marked the attitude as particu-
indeed resolves a tanru, though it larly strong. Otherwise, this
is one that isn't really          seems fine.
misunderstood.  The main differ-
ences between your translation and  Ivan:  It is a rhetorical
Nora's is your "how", which isn't  question inasmuch as the youth
present in the Lojban, and the    doesn't expect the Devil to answer
interpretation of "vu", which      him.  Of course he wouldn't mind
rather overstates the distance -  being told, but he's not
it is after all only 3 steps at    addressing anybody with this
this point.  How about:  "ko sisti question, just wondering aloud.
mu'i lenu tirna leika ko'u ni'ava  Your suggestion of attitudinal is
cmoni"                            good.


                                140
Ivan: Congratulations on your reading of the "wondrously red roses". It is very interesting, if not accurate. They were more likely roses of an unusual (yet real) red colour. We often call rare things 'surreal'.
.i ®lu mu'i lenu do krefu pagre ci
te serti kei mi cpadji ledo kanla  .i ko'a rapli pagre64 ci te serti
li'uЇ                              gi'e ni'a catlu jundi65  .i fo'a
"To go another 3 steps, I want    rinka lenu ko'a morji
your eyes."                        He again went through 3 steps and
                                  looked down.  The spirit reminded
.i ko'a pa'arcau sliri'a le xance  him:
He hopelessly shook (wrung?) the  
hand.                              .i ®lu ko viska leko'u lunbe ke
... desperately waved60 ...        ciblu ve flecu xadni li'uЇ
                                  "See their bare, bleeding bodies."
.i ®lu ku'i va'o la'edi'u mi na   
ka'e viska ga leimi bruna gi leimi .i ®lu .uecai  .i .u'ecai cizra
ba se vefsfa li'uЇ                .i ?cama66 binxo lenu ko'u melbi
"But in that case I can see        dasni  .i ji'a seba'i lei ciblu te
neither my brothers nor my tar-
gets61."
                                  __________________________________
.i ®lu do ranji leka ka'e viska62  the Devil had use "xagmau"
.i mi fi do ba dunda lo drata      (better) instead of "zmadu"
kanla noi mutce zmadu li'uЇ        (more), while retaining a similar
"You will still be able to see. I ellipsis of comparison while
give to you other eyes, which are  adding one regarding the nature of
much more."                        "good" (Better than what?  By
"... other, much better eyes!"63  whose standard?)


____________________              64Lojbab:  You again need to deal
                                  with the "pagre" here.  In this
60Lojbab:  For this meaning I      case, I suggest something like
would choose something like        "krefu muvdu co bancu ci te
"tcudu'u" (need-anguish), which in serti".  "krefu" is better than
turn suggests a different kind of  "rapli" for "again", though the
hand oscillating.                  latter is better for multiple
                                  repetitions, as occurs later in
61Ivan:  The Bulgarian contained  the story.
the rather long "those on whom I
go (in the literal, "la'e zo      65Ivan:  Ought to be "mo'ini'a
klama" sense) to take vengeance".  ...", or "... le cnita".


  Lojbab: You should be able to    Lojbab:  I prefer "catlu le
<span id=68b />[[#68a|68.]] Ivan: I'm not quite sure about "ba [pa te serti]" here - steps are not times. Maybe "ba tu'a pa te serti".
capture this with "leimi se vefsfa cnita". "mo'ini'a", like the
terkla".                          similar moving gaze early in the
                                  story, seems to ask for misunder-
62Ivan:  Again [see footnote above standing, though I suspect fluent
regarding loss of hearing], I'll  Lojbanists might appreciate the
try "do co'unai ka'e viska".      usage more than us novices.


63Ivan:  The Devil slyly fails to  66Ivan:  No answer to the question
Nick: To be strictly correct, yes.
specify in what sense they will be is really expected, so "pei ?cama
better (i.e. in what property they ko'u co'a melbi dasni".
will zmadu).
                                    Lojbab:  You mean "paunai"
  Nick: Would "zmadu befi zo'e" be instead of "pei".  I disagree, as
too obvious?                      stated in my earlier comment on
                                  these kind of rhetorical ques-
  Lojbab:  I think it would!  It  tions.  I think the unsolvability
would make the Lojbanic point, but of the question is better conveyed
if the plebeian had heard it put  by 1) dropping the ".uecai" (which
like that, he might have guessed  obviously prompted a different
what he was in for.  However, it  image in Nora's mind), and adding
would be clearer to readers, if    ".i'enaicai" after "cizra".


                                141
xrani ko'u se jadni loi se manci    At each 3rd step, the spirit
xunre rozgu67 li'uЇ                regularly took his little payment,
"Wow!  Amazing!  When did they    but the youth went on walking.  He
become beautifully dressed?  And  readily gave everything to get
instead of the bloody injuries    there and get revenge on those fat
they are adorned with wondrous red royalty.  Finally!  Not more
roses."                            than69 1 step [left].  After only
"My god!  But this is so strange:
when did they manage to dress so  __________________________________
well! ..."
                                    Nick:  To be strictly correct,
  ni'o vi ro lo cimoi te serti    yes.
fo'a di'i lebna lefo'a cmalu
selpleji .i ku'i ko'a ru'i cadzu  69Nora:  The "semaunai" isn't
.i ko'a bredi dunda rodi mu'i      necessary.  "pa te serti" actually
lemu'e klama tu gi'e vefsfa leivu  means "exactly one step".
malplana nobli joi turni  .i
.uo.ui semaunai pa te serti  .i ba  Ivan:  I wanted to emphasise the
su'epa te serti68 ko'a gapru  .i  fact that it is really only one
ko'a cabazi venfu leiko'a bruna    step.  All of these sentences
                                  ended with an exclamation mark in
                                  the Bulgarian original.  What
____________________              would be a way to put it back?


67Ivan:  Odd as it may be,          Nick:  "ba'epa", "ba'esu'epa"
<span id=69b />[[#69a|69.]] Nora: The "semaunai" isn't necessary. "pa te serti" actually means "exactly one step".
Smirnenski called them "manci      will do it for me.]
xunre rozgu" `wondrously red
roses', rather than "manci ke        Lojbab: Also, on the 'only one
xunre rozgu".  Don't ask me why.  step' sentence, add "ba'acai" to
                                  show intense anticipation,
  Lojbab:  The reason seems        certainly worth an exclamation
obvious to me, if indeed the dif-  point.
ference between the two groupings    Indeed, you can add attitudinals
is that striking in the Bulgarian: in each sentence to spice up the
The left grouping indicates a      emotional level, though without
surreal quality about the redness  strength indicators until the
of the roses, a clue to the nature final two sentences.  I suggest
of these new eyes, whereas the    "fu'ese'inai" on the "ni'o" to
right grouping just says that they show that the emotions that follow
are especially nice roses without  are empathic attributions to the
suggesting a surreal quality.      plebeian (you may wish to mark
Pretty roses are a wonder, but    this earlier in the story if you
they need no special eyes to be    are attributing attitudes
found; but roses that are a red    elsewhere in the story), "ba'u" or
color that is wondrous must indeed ".ianai" on "cmalu" to show that
be an unusual red, since most      the payments were not really
roses are a fairly distinctive red 'little', ".a'i.a'a" on the "ru'i"
color.                            before "cadzu", ".e'i.u'o" on
                                  "dunda" (or perhaps ".u'ucu'i"),
  Ivan:  Congratulations on your  ".ai" on "klama", ".o'inai" on
reading of the "wondrously red    "vefsfa", ".o'onai" on "malplana".
roses".  It is very interesting,  By now the emotions are flowing
if not accurate.  They were more  almost as fast as the words, and
likely roses of an unusual (yet    the last few sentences need only
real) red colour.  We often call  one attitudinal per sentence, but
rare things 'surreal'.            with intensity.  ".ua.a'ocai
                                  ba'upa" then on the "one step
68Ivan:  I'm not quite sure about  left" (instead of your ".uo.ui",
"ba [pa te serti]" here - steps    which seems premature), "ba'acai"
are not times.  Maybe "ba tu'a pa  on the following sentence, and
te serti".                         finally a starburst at the end of


                                142
Ivan: I wanted to emphasise the fact that it is really only one step. All of these sentences ended with an exclamation mark in the Bulgarian original. What would be a way to put it back?
one step he'll be above.  He will  ko fi mi dunda leka do cinmo je
then avenge his brothers.          morji71 li'uЇ
                                  "Hey, young man72.  Only 1 step.
.i ®lu mi to'erno'i ji'u leka      After only 1 step you can avenge.
cerda  .ije ro le pidrai sa'a70    But, for this step I regularly73
li'uЇ                              charge double price.  Give me your
"I am a peon by birth, and all the emotions and memory."
poorest..."
.i ®lu ju'i. citno nanmu su'epa te
serti  .i ba su'epa te serti do    ____________________
venfu  .i ku'i levi te serti di'i
ve pleji le relpi'i jdima mi  .i  71Ivan: I'll probably split this
                                  into "ledo ka cinmo .e ledo ka
                                  morji".  The original had "thy
__________________________________ heart and thy memory", but the
the final sentence like            heart ("risna") is in Lojban, as
".au.ei.uo.u'a.uiri'ecai".        in many natural cultures, only a
  This may be overkill, far more  pump for blood. I'm not sure
than you would like to do.  Or I  whether the youth implies that he
may be missing the exact feelings  will die if his heart is torn out
intended in the original, but you  of his chest (which is true with
have to admit that it puts the    respect to his natural heart), or
exclamation points back in the     that he doesn't want to live
paragraph.                        without being able to have
                                  feelings.
70Lojbab:  This word is the Lojban
editorial bracket [e.g., I'm        Lojbab:  It must be the latter,
adding this discursive note later, since he has indicated that he is
and it is not part of the original willing to die in return for
text or quote in which it is      achieving his goal.
embedded]. To get the effect you    I would replace "heart" by
want, it needs to be attached to  either "emotion-source" or
something discursive that indi-    "emotion-organ".
cates the ellipsis, since you
don't really want to delete the    72Ivan:  The "hey" sounds somewhat
"pidrai" that it currently marks.  rude to me.
I would make it vausa'ake'unai,
which ends the sentence with any    Lojbab:  We have generally found
appropriate ellipsis supplied (the that putting in the "doi" tends to
formal meaning of "vau"),          soften the harshness of the
indicates that the "vau" isn't    vocative, making for a more polite
really said, and then indicates    phrase like "Attend my words, O
continuation (which is covered by  young man".  Another possible
the "sa'a" since it is attached to vocative to consider is "ta'adoi",
it in the manner of indicators).  especially since the Devil is
  Actually, "mi'unai" might make a interrupting the reverie of the
better word for open-ended        preceding sentence.
ellipsis, though it isn't
currently in the word list, since  73Nora:  "di'i" is "regularly" as
I think we have a difference      in how a clock ticks, that is "at
discursive intent for "ke'unai":  regular intervals".  I think
to indicate at the start of a      "na'o" ("typically") might work
block of text that you are        better.
continuing a thread after
repeating something for emphasis.    Ivan:  Yes, well, it is not
  Other choices for open-ended    "typically" either, because he
ellipsis might be                  does it every single time when
".isa'a.isa'a.isa'a" or            someone gets to this step.
".itu'esa'atu'u" (which would
become legal under a recently        Lojbab:  Then maybe "roroi" to
proposed grammar change).          so quantify the situation.


                                143
Nick: "ba'epa", "ba'esu'epa" will do it for me.]
"Young man, only one step more!   
..."                               .i ®lu ku'i mi ba traji leni to'e
                                  gleki  .i do lebna ro ckaji be le
.i ko'a sliri'a le xance          kazre'a mi li'uЇ
He shakes (wrings?) the hand.      "But I will be a most unhappy
                                  person.  You take all humanity
.i ®lu .ii leka cinmo  .i          from me."
.e'anaicai  .i dukse kusru li'uЇ  But I shall be the most unhappy
"Oh, no!  Emotion - heaven        one.  Thou takest from me
forfend.  Too cruel."             everything that is human76.
"The heart?  No!  This is too     
cruel!"                            .i ®lu to'e go'e  .i traji leni
                                  je'a gleki  .i .e'apei  .i ?xu do
.i fo'a maljgira cmila ra'i le    tugni  .i do'anai77 leka do cinmo
galxe                              je morji li'uЇ
The spirit haughtily laughs from
the throat.                        ____________________
The Devil gave a guttural,
authoritative laugh:              76Lojbab:  This sounds more like
                                  "do lebna ro selkai be loi remna
.i ®lu mi na mela'edi'u kusru  .i  mi
mi fi do canja dunda lo zabna
kazyci'o .e lo cnino kazmo'i  .i  77Ivan:  "On the contrary - the
ga do zanru gi do noroi pagre levi most happy one!...  But - ?  Dost
te serti gi'e noroi venfu leido    thou agree:  only thy heart and
bruna pe lo se flira be le simsa  thy memory?"  I have no idea what
be le canre zi'e pe le se cmoni be "do'a" means; I used "do'anai" for
le zmadu be le la gaimast.        `only' here.  (I didn't intend it
si'erbi'e bei leni tepri'a li'uЇ  to be interpreted as "please".)
I am not thus cruel.  I trade with The "je'a" is for symmetry (to
you for a fine emotion and a new  replace the "to'e").
memory74.  Either you approve75 or
you'll never get through this step  Nick:  "do'a" - "generously";
and never avenge your brothers    "do'anai" - "parsimoniously". I
with the sandy faces and the moans think here "do'anai" would here
more fearful than the December    mean "I'm not asking for too
blizzard."                        much", but generosity is
                                  associated with giving, isn't it?
.i ko'a catlu lefo'a crino je      But I can find no better UI.
ranxi kanla
He looks at the spirit's ironic      Lojbab:  We better clarify this
green eyes.                        one well.  It came across entirely
                                  backwards.  Intended to be
____________________              discursive rather than emotive,
                                  "do'a" is supposed to mean that
74Ivan:  Or "I will give thee      you are generously conceding or
instead..."  The original had      allowing a dubious point "even if
literally "lo solji risna".        this were so", possibly in con-
                                  junction with "da'i".  "do'anai"
75Ivan:  That is, "If thou        therefore means that you are re-
consentest not, thou shalt        fusing to give in even a little,
never..."                          which is probably why Nora trans-
                                  lated it as an officious and
  Lojbab:  This sounds like        insistent 'please' (rather than a
"tugni" or "curmi", or maybe      polite request).
something else, instead of          I presume that the word can be
"zanru". This literally          used emotively, though I hadn't
translates to something like      thought of it that way.
"ganai do na curmi", a double        We addressed the question of how
negative equivalent of what you    to express "only" on the net at
chose.                            great length, a discussion that I


                                144
Lojbab: Also, on the 'only one step' sentence, add "ba'acai" to show intense anticipation, certainly worth an exclamation point.
"Just the opposite - the most        ni'o ca lenu le xekri kerfa ca
truly happy man.  Allow me.  Do    biflu'a kei ko'a simsa be le crisa
you agree? Your emotion and        lidbi'e ku fengu pagre le romoi te
memory, please?"                   serti  .i ko'a capu snada lemu'e
                                  gapru  .i suksa cisma gusni leko'a
.i ko'a cu trati pensi  .i lo      flira81  .i leko'a kanla cu dirce
xekri ctino cu manri'a leko'a      seci'o le smaji ka se mansa  .i
flira .i loi xasne ke to'ekli      leko'a xance cu luzbi'o  .i ko'a
dirgo cu gunro zo'a78 le se cinje  catlu lei pixsalci nobli  .i catlu
mebri  .i ko'a fengu demri'a le    le cnita be di'o lenu krixa je
xance gi'e bacru pa'o le denci    dapma fa le grusi je selpopseltau
He tries79 to think.  A black      girzu  .i catlu  .i ku'i no sluji
shadow covers his face.  Cloudy    be leko'a flira cu frati  .i ri
drops of sweat roll off the        selgu'i je gleki je selpu'a  .i
wrinkled brow.  He angrily        ko'a viska loi salci se taxfu
clenched80 his fist and said      girzu vi le cnita  .i lei pu cmoni
through his teeth:                ca salpemci
                                    With his black hair fluttering,
®lu .ai.e'asai  .i ko lebna li'uЇ  he, like a summer thunderstorm,
"Go ahead.  Take [them]."          angrily passes through the last
"So be it!  (Let it be!  Soit!    step.  He has now succeeded in
etc.)  Take them!"                getting above82. There is a


__________________________________ ____________________
Indeed, you can add attitudinals in each sentence to spice up the emotional level, though without strength indicators until the final two sentences. I suggest "fu'ese'inai" on the "ni'o" to show that the emotions that follow are empathic attributions to the plebeian (you may wish to mark this earlier in the story if you are attributing attitudes elsewhere in the story), "ba'u" or ".ianai" on "cmalu" to show that the payments were not really 'little', ".a'i.a'a" on the "ru'i" before "cadzu", ".e'i.u'o" on "dunda" (or perhaps ".u'ucu'i"), ".ai" on "klama", ".o'inai" on "vefsfa", ".o'onai" on "malplana". By now the emotions are flowing almost as fast as the words, and the last few sentences need only one attitudinal per sentence, but with intensity. ".ua.a'ocai ba'upa" then on the "one step left" (instead of your ".uo.ui", which seems premature), "ba'acai" on the following sentence, and finally a starburst at the end of the final sentence like ".au.ei.uo.u'a.uiri'ecai".
couldn't fit into JL17.  Unless
you are intending that "only" mean 81Ivan:  "And suddenly a smile
that the Devil is trying to        shone on his face."
express that he is being generous
to require as little as the heart    Lojbab:  I don't think a smile
and memory (which would be a      can illuminate someone's face in
knowingly false emotive expres-    Lojban in any literal sense of the
sion, something I don't much like  relation.
in the Lojban attitudinal system -
though I guess, if anyone can lie    Ivan:  The original uses an
about emotions, the Devil can),    intransitive verb which usually
you need one of the more elaborate refers to the sun coming out from
logical paraphrases of "only" like behind a cloud, something like
"... and nothing else"            `[and suddenly] a smile "co'a"
                                  [shine; be a source of light] on
78Ivan:  "Turbid <...> rolled      his face'.  Clearly Smirnenski
along his wrinkled forehead."     didn't want to just say `he
                                  smiled', but as his alternative
  Lojbab:  I think you wanted      wording doesn't affect the
"mo'ire'o" instead of "zo'a".      meaning, I'm not sure how to
                                  account for it. I am open for
79Ivan:  No!  "He became          suggestions.
thoughtful /fell to thinking."
                                    Lojbab:  How about something
  Lojbab:  Nora got caught here by like "suksa cisma co ka leko'a
the faulty memory that afflicts    flira  cu panra le solgu'i poi
those of us who are long time      ba'o dilzu'i ku leka co'a
Loglanists - "trati" means "taut" to'ercanci"?  (This uses the
in Lojban, in older TLI Loglan    proposed grammar revision for
meant what "troci" now means      relative clauses; the baseline
("try").  A rare case where she    grammar requires "ku'o" where "ku"
didn't actually look the word and is.)
place structure up, I guess.
                                  82Ivan:  Ought to be "He was
80Nora:  This is when I finally   already on the top". I reckon
figured this metaphor out; I think I've been having trouble saying
the "angrily" helped.             `already'.


                                145
This may be overkill, far more than you would like to do. Or I may be missing the exact feelings intended in the original, but you have to admit that it puts the exclamation points back in the paragraph.
sudden smile illuminating his     
face.  His eyes radiate, emoting  .i ®lu do ?mo li'uЇ tcica preti fi
the silent satisfaction.83  His    fo'a sepi'o lo rufsu voksa
hands loosen84.  He looks at the  "What are you?" slyly asks Evil-
toasting nobility85.  Looking un-  Spirit with a rough voice.
derneath to the crying and the    "Who art thou?" slyly and hoarsely
cursing of the gray, ragged crowd. asked the Devil.
Looking, but not a muscle in his 
face reacts.  It is illuminated    .i ®lu mi nobli ji'u leka cerda
and happy and pleased.  He sees a  .ije lei cevni mi bruna  .i .uicai
crowd dressed for celebration be-  ge le terdi cu je'a melbi gi le
low86.  What were moans are        remna cu je'a gleki88 li'uЇ
paeans87.                          "I am a noble89 by birth, and the
                                  gods are my brothers.  Ah!, but
                                  the earth is truly beautiful and
__________________________________ the people are truly happy."
                                 
  Lojbab:  I can see two          tu'u
interpretations of "already" given The End.
only the English word, so don't   
feel bad.  Given that his memory  .i di'u se finti la xristoz.
has changed in the way it has, he  smirnensk.90 gi'e se fanva la
may not remember the climbing, and .iVAN. derJANSK. fo le banblgaria
thus is already at the top (This  si'u la nitcion. nikolas.
might be "ba'anai cpana le        This was written by Christo
gapru").  Or, in the sense that    Smirnensk, and translated by Ivan
you suggest with "snada", he is in from Bulgarian aided by Nick
the aftermath of climbing the last Nicholas.
step ("ba'o cpare fi le gapru"). 
                                  fa'o
83Ivan:  He enjoys his belief that THE END
he is a prince by birth, and has
always been one.


84Ivan:  His fists, actually.  But
it is the same thing.


85Ivan: "He looked at the
<span id=70b />[[#70a|70.]] Lojbab: This word is the Lojban editorial bracket [e.g., I'm adding this discursive note later, and it is not part of the original text or quote in which it is embedded]. To get the effect you want, it needs to be attached to something discursive that indicates the ellipsis, since you don't really want to delete the "pidrai" that it currently marks. I would make it vausa'ake'unai, which ends the sentence with any appropriate ellipsis supplied (the formal meaning of "vau"), indicates that the "vau" isn't really said, and then indicates continuation (which is covered by the "sa'a" since it is attached to it in the manner of indicators).
feasting/banquetting princes."


86Ivan:  `crowds' wearing holiday
Actually, "mi'unai" might make a better word for open-ended ellipsis, though it isn't currently in the word list, since I think we have a difference discursive intent for "ke'unai": to indicate at the start of a block of text that you are continuing a thread after repeating something for emphasis.
garments, such as are worn only on
special days (e.g. Sundays).      __________________________________
                                  their current status at "ca" -
87Ivan:  Literally. "the moans    they may still be moans.
were already hymns".  The "pu" is
my addition.                      88Ivan:  Exclamation.  "Oh, how
                                  beautiful is the earth and how
  Lojbab:  Shades of our classic  happy are the people!"  Again, the
example of "le":  "le nanmu cu    "je'a" is for symmetry, in the
ninmu".  Of course they are still  place of what was "to'e" but a
moans, but he doesn't know that.  while ago.  In the original
Maybe a "pe'i" to make this clear. ".oicai" and ".uicai" were the
  Thus you might want "rolo"      same interjection.
instead of "le", to clarify which
reality the author prefers to      89Ivan:  Lit. "a prince".
assume.
  Remember that Lojban's simple    90Ivan:  The author's pen name is
tenses are aorist; i.e. saying    Smirnenski (I lojbanised it by
that they were moans in the past  cutting off the "-i", which only
with "pu" makes no claim about    indicates that he's a man).


                                146
Other choices for open-ended ellipsis might be ".isa'a.isa'a.isa'a" or ".itu'esa'atu'u" (which would become legal under a recently proposed grammar change).




<span id=71b />[[#71a|71.]] Ivan: I'll probably split this into "ledo ka cinmo .e ledo ka morji". The original had "thy heart and thy memory", but the heart ("risna") is in Lojban, as in many natural cultures, only a pump for blood. I'm not sure whether the youth implies that he will die if his heart is torn out of his chest (which is true with respect to his natural heart), or that he doesn't want to live without being able to have feelings.


Lojbab: It must be the latter, since he has indicated that he is willing to die in return for achieving his goal.


I would replace "heart" by either "emotion-source" or "emotion-organ".




<span id=72b />[[#72a|72.]] Ivan: The "hey" sounds somewhat rude to me.


Lojbab: We have generally found that putting in the "doi" tends to soften the harshness of the vocative, making for a more polite phrase like "Attend my words, O young man". Another possible vocative to consider is "ta'adoi", especially since the Devil is interrupting the reverie of the preceding sentence.




<span id=73b />[[#73a|73.]] Nora: "di'i" is "regularly" as in how a clock ticks, that is "at regular intervals". I think "na'o" ("typically") might work better.


Ivan: Yes, well, it is not "typically" either, because he does it every single time when someone gets to this step.


Lojbab: Then maybe "roroi" to so quantify the situation.




<span id=74b />[[#74a|74.]] Ivan: Or "I will give thee instead..." The original had literally "lo solji risna".




<span id=75b />[[#75a|75.]] Ivan: That is, "If thou consentest not, thou shalt never..."


Lojbab: This sounds like "tugni" or "curmi", or maybe something else, instead of "zanru". This literally translates to something like "ganai do na curmi", a double negative equivalent of what you chose.






<span id=76b />[[#76a|76.]] Lojbab: This sounds more like "do lebna ro selkai be loi remna mi




<span id=77b />[[#77a|77.]] Ivan: "On the contrary - the most happy one!... But - ? Dost thou agree: only thy heart and thy memory?" I have no idea what "do'a" means; I used "do'anai" for `only' here. (I didn't intend it to be interpreted as "please".) The "je'a" is for symmetry (to replace the "to'e").


Nick: "do'a" - "generously"; "do'anai" - "parsimoniously". I think here "do'anai" would here mean "I'm not asking for too much", but generosity is associated with giving, isn't it? But I can find no better UI.


Lojbab: We better clarify this one well. It came across entirely backwards. Intended to be discursive rather than emotive, "do'a" is supposed to mean that you are generously conceding or allowing a dubious point "even if this were so", possibly in conjunction with "da'i". "do'anai" therefore means that you are refusing to give in even a little, which is probably why Nora translated it as an officious and insistent 'please' (rather than a polite request).


I presume that the word can be used emotively, though I hadn't thought of it that way.


We addressed the question of how to express "only" on the net at great length, a discussion that I couldn't fit into JL17. Unless you are intending that "only" mean that the Devil is trying to express that he is being generous to require as little as the heart and memory (which would be a knowingly false emotive expression, something I don't much like in the Lojban attitudinal system - though I guess, if anyone can lie about emotions, the Devil can), you need one of the more elaborate logical paraphrases of "only" like "... and nothing else"




<span id=78b />[[#78a|78.]] Ivan: "Turbid <...> rolled along his wrinkled forehead."


Lojbab: I think you wanted "mo'ire'o" instead of "zo'a".




<span id=79b />[[#79a|79.]] Ivan: No! "He became thoughtful /fell to thinking."


Lojbab: Nora got caught here by the faulty memory that afflicts those of us who are long time Loglanists - "trati" means "taut" in Lojban, in older TLI Loglan meant what "troci" now means ("try"). A rare case where she didn't actually look the word and place structure up, I guess.




<span id=80b />[[#80a|80.]] Nora: This is when I finally figured this metaphor out; I think the "angrily" helped.




<span id=81b />[[#81a|81.]] Ivan: "And suddenly a smile shone on his face."


Lojbab: I don't think a smile can illuminate someone's face in Lojban in any literal sense of the relation.


Ivan: The original uses an intransitive verb which usually refers to the sun coming out from behind a cloud, something like `[and suddenly] a smile "co'a" [shine; be a source of light] on his face'. Clearly Smirnenski didn't want to just say `he smiled', but as his alternative wording doesn't affect the meaning, I'm not sure how to account for it. I am open for suggestions.


Lojbab: How about something like "suksa cisma co ka leko'a flira cu panra le solgu'i poi ba'o dilzu'i ku leka co'a to'ercanci"? (This uses the proposed grammar revision for relative clauses; the baseline grammar requires "ku'o" where "ku" is.)




<span id=82b />[[#82a|82.]] Ivan: Ought to be "He was already on the top". I reckon I've been having trouble saying `already'.


Lojbab: I can see two interpretations of "already" given only the English word, so don't feel bad. Given that his memory has changed in the way it has, he may not remember the climbing, and thus is already at the top (This might be "ba'anai cpana le gapru"). Or, in the sense that you suggest with "snada", he is in the aftermath of climbing the last step ("ba'o cpare fi le gapru").




<span id=83b />[[#83a|83.]] Ivan: He enjoys his belief that he is a prince by birth, and has always been one.




<span id=84b />[[#84a|84.]] Ivan: His fists, actually. But it is the same thing.




<span id=85b />[[#85a|85.]] Ivan: "He looked at the feasting/banquetting princes."




<span id=86b />[[#86a|86.]] Ivan: `crowds' wearing holiday garments, such as are worn only on special days (e.g. Sundays).




<span id=87b />[[#87a|87.]] Ivan: Literally. "the moans were already hymns". The "pu" is my addition.


Lojbab: Shades of our classic example of "le": "le nanmu cu ninmu". Of course they are still moans, but he doesn't know that. Maybe a "pe'i" to make this clear.


Thus you might want "rolo" instead of "le", to clarify which reality the author prefers to assume.


Remember that Lojban's simple tenses are aorist; i.e. saying that they were moans in the past with "pu" makes no claim about their current status at "ca" - they may still be moans.




<span id=88b />[[#88a|88.]] Ivan: Exclamation. "Oh, how beautiful is the earth and how happy are the people!" Again, the "je'a" is for symmetry, in the place of what was "to'e" but a while ago. In the original ".oicai" and ".uicai" were the same interjection.




<span id=89b />[[#89a|89.]] Ivan: Lit. "a prince".


__________________________________


</pre>
<span id=90b />[[#90a|90.]] Ivan: The author's pen name is Smirnenski (I lojbanised it by cutting off the "-i", which only indicates that he's a man).

Latest revision as of 18:34, 20 August 2020

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Contents of This Issue

Important: Your mailing label indicates the last issue of your subscription. If that issue is JL17, we need to hear from you, preferably with money for another year's subscription (US$28 North America, US$35 elsewhere). For overseas subscribers, this is the last grace issue before our subscription policy takes effect for you - we need to hear from you soon if you want to keep receiving JL; we will be far more likely to support a subscription for an interested overseas Lojbanist than a US Lojbanist, but we cannot do so unless you request to keep receiving JL.

This issue features a discussion of the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis, including a fairly detailed explication of how it is understood and interpreted by linguists by Bruce Nevin. Also featured is a long section on the new effort to start creating an original Lojban literature. We invite all Lojbanists to participate in defining this project, which involves a group writing against a shared common setting which is predesigned. Several writings in both Lojban and English appear in this issue to kick off the project. Not all of the writings are translated into English.

Also included in this issue is a longer story translated by Ivan Derzhanski from a Bulgarian original. Extensive footnotes in commentary are provided, discussing some of the stylistic issues in translating, but also showing how you can get an understandable and interesting story even if some of the details of your language use are not understood as you intended.

Technical discussions include debates on Lojban's suitability as an intermediate language for machine translation, and a discussion of types of ambiguity found in language, and how Lojban avoids them.

As will usually be the case, this issue contains much material derived from the Lojban List computer mailing list on the Internet. Nearly all such material has been edited, revised, and corrected from the original.

Note the new network address below for the Planned Languages Server if you wish to obtain electronic copies of our materials.

                          Table of Contents                            
                                                                       
Brief Glossary of Lojban Terms                                ---3     
News                                                                   
  Status of JL, Subscriptions                                 ---3     
  Finances, Athelstan's Status, Bob and Nora's Adoption       ---4     
  LogFest 92 - Activities, Business Meeting, Negotiations with TLI,    
     Forthcoming Books, Baseline Status/Language Design, Next Year     
     ---5                                                              
  Other News - DC Class, Bradford Group, First International           
  Conversation, Phone Game, News from TLI                     ---7     
Language Development Status - gismu, lujvo, Grammar, Morphology, rafsi 
                          ---8                                         
Structural Ambiguity in English and Lojban                    ---9     
Lojban Fluency?                                              ---11     
Lesson from Another Constructed Language                     ---13     
A Lojban Pangram                                             ---13     
An Alternative Orthography for Lojban                        ---14     
Criticisms of Lojban as a Tool for Machine Translation       ---15     
Discussions on the Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis (several pieces, note        
  especially:)                                               ---21     
  Summary of Linguistic Attitudes on Sapir-Whorf, by Bruce Nevin---22  
  Additional Sapir-Whorf Bibliography                        ---29     
                                                                       
The Lojban Kalevala Project                                  ---30     
  Veijo's Summary                                            ---31     
  Condensed Papers - Collected Significant Writings on the Project     
  ---32                                                                
  Text and comments elucidating further description of Scenario #2     
  (Lojban and English texts)                                 ---46     
le lojbo se ciska - Ivan's Translation le lisri be le serti, Nora's    
  Operettina le ci cribe                                     ---52     
Translations and Commentary for ckafybarja writings and le lojbo se    
  ciska                                                      ---57     
  Veijo's First Text (57), Nick's Text (58), Veijo's Second Text (60), 
  Iain's First Text (61), Mark Shoulson's Text (62), Iain's Second     
  Text (commentary only - 64), le lisri be le serti (65)               


Computer Net Information

Via Usenet/UUCP/Internet, you can send messages and text files (including things for JL publication) to la lojbangirz./Bob at:

lojbab@grebyn.com (This supersedes the prior "snark" address.)

You can also join the Lojban List mailing list (currently around 70 subscribers). Send a single line message (automatically processed) containing only:

"subscribe lojban yourfirstname yourlastname" to: listserv@cuvmb. cc.columbia.edu

If you have problems needing human intervention, send to: lojban-list-request@snark.thyrsus.com

Send traffic for the mailing list to: lojban@cuvmb.cc.columbia.edu

Please keep us informed if your network mailing address changes.

Compuserve subscribers can also participate. Precede any of the above addresses with INTERNET: and use your normal Compuserve mail facility. If you want to participate on Lojban List, you should be prepared to read your mail at least every couple of days; otherwise your mailbox fills up and you are dropped from the mailing-list. FIDOnet subscribers can also participate, although the connection is not especially robust. Write to us for details if you don't know how to access the Internet network.

A good portion of our materials are available on-line from the Planned Languages Server (PLS). See JL16, or send the messages "help" and "send lojban readme" to the server address:

langserv@cunixf.cc.columbia.edu

This is a new address since JL16 was published.

The following explicitly identifies people who are referred to by initials in JL. Note that 'Athelstan' is that person's real name, used in his public life, and is not a pseudonym.

'pc' - Dr. John Parks-Clifford, Professor of Logic and Philosophy at the University of Missouri - St. Louis and Vice-President of la lojbangirz.; he is usually addressed as 'pc' by the community.

'Bob', 'lojbab' - Bob LeChevalier - President of la lojbangirz., and editor of ju'i lobypli and le lojbo karni.

'Nora' - Nora LeChevalier - Secretary/Treasurer of la lojbangirz., Bob's wife, author of LogFlash.

'JCB', 'Dr. Brown' - Dr. James Cooke Brown, inventor of the language, and founder of the Loglan project.

'The Institute', 'TLI' - The Loglan Institute, Inc., JCB's organization for spreading his version of Loglan, which we call 'Institute Loglan'.

'Loglan' - This refers to the generic language or language project, of which 'Lojban' is the most successful version, and 'Institute Loglan' another. 'Loglan/Lojban' is used in discussions about Lojban where we wish to make it particularly clear that the statement applies to the generic language as well.

'PLS' - The Planned Languages Server, a no-charge computer-network-accessed distribution center for materials on Lojban (and other artificial languages). See pg. 2 for email address.

Brief Glossary of Lojban Terms

Following are definitions of frequently used Lojban terms. More complete explanations are in the Overview of Lojban.

cmavo - Lojban structure words
gismu - Lojban root words; currently 1342;
rafsi - short combining-forms for the gismu;
lujvo - compound words built from rafsi;
le'avla - words borrowed from other languages;
brivla - Lojban predicate words, consisting of gismu, lujvo. and le'avla;
tanru - Lojban metaphors, the most productive and creative expression form of the language;
sumti - the arguments of a logical predicate;
selbri - Lojban predicates which indicate a relation among one or more sumti. A selbri is most often a brivla or tanru; formerly called "kunbri" in error in some of our publications;
bridi - Lojban predications, the basic grammatical structure of the language; a bridi expresses a complete relationship: the selbri expresses the relation and the sumti express the various things being related;
selma'o - grammatical categories of Lojban words; the basis of the unambiguous formal grammar of the language. Traditionally and erroneously called "lexeme" in the Loglan community. These categories typically have a name derived from one word in that grammatical category; the name is all capitals, except that an apostrophe is replaced by a small letter 'h'.

News

Status of JL

Well, I (Lojbab) seem to be late again in getting ju'i lobypli out the door, though not quite as late as last issue. I do have a bit of an excuse. On very short notice, I had to go to Russia to become a father (more on this later). Now back, and somewhat settled down, I've gone back to work, and have taken steps to make it more likely that JL will be able to come out on time in the future. This issue is hopefully out the door around the first of January. I will be preparing JL18 starting on 5 March, with an intended publication date of 1 April. Issue #18 is already more than half done, using material that would not fit in this issue.

JL17 more Lojban text and commentary on the text than previous issues; from now on, the portion of each issue devoted to Lojban text will continue to grow. Starting with this issue, I have adopted a new editorial policy whereby other Lojbanists who have demonstrated competence in the language will be reviewing and editing Lojban text that is submitted. No longer will I (Lojbab) be the bottleneck in getting Lojban text in print. Instead I will putting my time into getting the Lojban books published, and keeping JL coming out consistently on time.

A result of this policy is that published Lojban text may have varying degrees of quality. All text will have been verified by the Lojban parser to assure that it is grammatical. However, we all know that not all grammatical text is easily understood (anyone who has read legal documents or tax forms can testify to this). Instead of me checking all texts for a consistent level of quality, published text will have been approved by two Lojbanists who have demonstrated competence in the written language. This will presumably mean that at least they understood the text. These editors, labelled by Nick Nicholas as "editors de jour", are described in more detail in the ckafybarja papers below.

Because I won't be checking and preparing the text, there will no longer be detailed translations of the sort that I have prepared for Lojban text in JLs prior to now, unless the authors or one of the editors prepares them. We will be trying to include a list of any special vocabulary words, and will include any translations that are provided.

On the other hand, the increased volume of Lojban text, some of it original writings, will hopefully convince more of you to join the ranks of those who have learned enough Lojban to try to read the texts without translations. And maybe those who try to write such texts.

Subscriptions

If you are receiving this, then probably you either have returned a subscription form, you have a large balance and were already receiving JL, or you have ordered a package of Lojban materials that includes a sample issue, or you are an overseas subscriber receiving your last grace issue.

If you have paid for a subscription, this is the first issue under the subscription policy, and the issue will have cost you either US$7 (US/Canada) or US$8.75 (other countries). Those receiving JL via Major in Australia are doing so by arrangement with him at a price that he is setting.

If you did not return a subscription form and pay for a subscription, then this issue is being charged to your voluntary balance at a higher price than for paid subscribers: US$9 for US/- Canada and US$10 for other countries. If you were a JL subscriber and had enough balance to pay for this issue at this higher price, then you are receiving it even though you haven't returned the form.

If you did return a form, but did not have enough money in your balance to pay for a subscription, you are receiving this issue anyway, in reward for having responded. We hope that you will eventually contribute to your balance to offset the price. If not, you will probably be switched to receiving le lojbo karni as of issue #18.

Having received only $170 in donations earmarked for the support of those who cannot afford subscriptions, we have allocated some of that money to supporting a few nonpaying volunteers who have been particularly active. Priority was given to people who have shown evidence of having tried to learn Lojban, and to non-US Lojbanists. This money has been allocated in the form of prepaid 2-issue subscriptions. We did not have enough money to support subscriptions for all who requested assistance.

As of the publication date, we have 122 prepaid subscribers, and another 13 are receiving this issue as a grace issue. Since some people did not send money with subscription forms, the number of subscribers will drop to around 100 for JL18 (unless we hear from those listed as expiring this issue), and seems likely to stabilize at around that level until books are published. This is not enough to qualify for reduced postal rates, so our costs are higher than they have been for recent issues. However, US recipients are getting their issue by first class mail and hence probably far more quickly than previous bulk mail issues.

Finances

We lost money in 1992, as in previous years, a net loss for the year of around $1300. End-of-year cost savings, including delaying JL17 and LK17 until 1993, reduced this from an earlier deficit of $3000. We will need to have a fund-raising drive in 1993 in order to have money to publish the new Lojban books (as well as to support our continuing operations).

As of the end of December, income for the year was $8646.54 and expenses were $9999.01. This leaves about $2500 in the bank, of which somewhat over $1000 will go for JL17 and LK17. ($5500 of income was donated by Jeff Prothero and Lojbab, and went for legal fees. Thus, actual project income and expenses were only a fraction of previous years', around $3100 and $4500, respectively.)

Our IRS 501(c)(3) provisional status, authorizing us as a tax-free non-profit organization (and making your donations tax-deductible), is up for review as of the end of 1992. We expect that your support has been

sufficient to make our non-profit status permanent.

We are now paying some $30 per month to maintain Master Card/Visa processing capability, though we are looking for a cheaper way to offer this service. Our Master Card/Visa fee to you is being raised to 10% pending our finding an alternative. If finances get any worse and we have not found a cheaper alternative, credit card ordering services will be dropped.

With the successful ending of the legal battle with The Loglan Institute, we are getting close to paying off our legal bills, and expect to do so sometime in 1993. Since Lojbab and Jeff Prothero have been donating funds to cover those bills, the money has not come out of other la Lojbangirz. funds; thus paying the bill off won't really improve our financial situation (though we will have a good credit reference, at least). Legal costs have totalled over $12,000.

Athelstan's Status

There has been a good deal of support and sympathy expressed about Athelstan's accident. Early in December, he completed a course of recuperative therapy, and has moved out from his parents' house, is working part-time, and is starting to rebuild a life of his own. This will take some considerable time, and Athelstan will have to live a fairly structured life for a while to have his best chances for long-term recovery. He also continues to need major dental work, since he has lost nearly all of his teeth.

Athelstan attended the LogFest in August of 1992, for a few hours, and participated in a couple activities, and is doing some studying of the language on his own. However, it is clear that he will not be up to his pre-accident skill with the language for quite a while, and we do not expect him to resume his leadership role in the community at any time soon. Projects that he was working on, including the Lojban mini-lesson, continue to be delayed indefinitely.

Bob and Nora's Adoption

The biggest news out of Bob and Nora's house has little to do with Lojban except to help explain why so little is getting done.

On extremely short notice (an hour after they told me it might take 6 months), the adoption agency called in late August to tell me that they had found a pair of children for us to adopt from Russia, and that they wanted us to travel immediately. All of September was taken up with rushed travel preparations for a trip that seemed continually to be scheduled for "next week some time". These preparations were complicated by previously-scheduled surgery for Nora (who came through quite fine and is fully recovered, but the surgery meant that she could not go to Russia).

Finally I left for Russia on October 2, returning on October 18 with 2 beautiful and healthy children, brother and sister. Angela is 6 1/2 and Avgust is 5. They are energetic, intelligent, and there have been almost no problems in their adaptation. However, from late August until the kids started school in November, we got almost no Lojban work done, hence the delayed appearance of ju'i lobypli.

I've resumed work, but at a somewhat lower pace. It took most of a month then to get caught up on mail and paperwork that had lagged during that time; hopefully the last of the backlogged orders are going out in the mail with this issue. I expect a lag of some 3-4 months in the publishing of Lojban books, but John Cowan, Nick Nicholas and others have made tremendous efforts to keep the ball rolling on book preparation.

These days, we mostly speak Russian at home, despite the fact that neither Nora nor I speak it nearly as well as we speak Lojban. The kids are learning English very slowly (and Lojban even more slowly - they do spontaneously use "coi" and "co'o" to Lojban-oriented guests, though). Being forced to use a language in this way has been a real education in language acquisition, and I have much more recognition of what things help in self-teaching a language.

This will no doubt improve the teaching quality of our materials when they come out. I know that it has certainly changed my ideas what needs to go into the textbook. The proto-textbook that we've been working on won't be affected, and indeed nothing I've written for this draft of the textbook will need significant rewrite, but new sections to be written in the future will incorporate the lessons in language learning that I've acquired the hard way.

Lojban got a bit of a boost from my trip: Ivan Derzhanski did a high quality translation of the Lojban brochure into Russian on short notice (copies available on request); while in Russia, I was able to arrange to have it published in a journal in Russia, probably next autumn; the title is something like the "Transactions of the Society of Eastern and Oriental Languages". This will be the first academic publication about the Loglan project other than book reviews, which don't really count (Scientific American is considered insufficiently academic to have it count in Loglan's favor, and having an academic publication record is important in seeking grants). Special thanks are given to my Russian linguist consultant, Mikhael Maron, of the Institute for Russian Language in Moscow.

On Friday, October 16, I presented a 'seminar' on Lojban (basically a short talk with question-answering) to about 20 people at Moscow State University Dept. of Philology and Linguistics. These included three professors, Mikhail Maron (who arranged the talk with department chairman Professor Polikarpov), and several graduate students who are studying theoretical linguistics and also taking a 'practical English' class (Their teacher saw this as a good opportunity to practice, but the students seemed genuinely interested). A couple of students and the professors as well, especially department chairman Polikarpov, seemed particularly interested, and I made arrangements to continue discussions by electronic mail. There were many regrets that I could not stay longer in Moscow, arrange further discussions and visit laboratories, but the purpose of the trip was primarily for the kids, and they most certainly had to come first in my planning.

I also had discussions with the Academician leading Russia's efforts in machine translation. There was some interest, but his group right now must put financial concerns first - they have to find a way to commercialize (i.e. attract Western money), and there is little likelihood that we are going to be able to help in that.

LogFest 92

The second (and main) LogFest 92 took place the weekend of 14-17 August 1992, and included the annual meeting of la lojbangirz. 16 people attended. As usual, Friday night was arrival night, with socializing and people coming in the door until well after midnight. Lojban-related activities started on Saturday and continued through Monday.

On Saturday, the Lojban community welcomed the return of Athelstan, who was able to attend for a few hours with the assistance of his parents. It will be a while yet before Athelstan can resume the major contributions to the Lojban effort that he was making before the accident, but having him show up at LogFest was a real morale booster for us, and probably also for him.

Athelstan was able to stay and serve as 'critic' while the summer '92 DC Lojban class and John Cowan helped present Nora's operettina "le ci cribe" (text in le lojbo ciska below), for lojbo verba of all ages. As with the previous effort of this kind, Cinderelwood (1989), our low budget, low practice, production group set a new standard for lojbo draci, but aren't about to hit Broadway in the near future. The Lojbanic lyrics went well with the collections of children's songs to which the playlet was set, and some hasty but serious practice efforts before the presentation meant that the actors sang their lines without stumbling. Athelstan the critic gave it a thumbs up before departing; we'll be looking forward to his next visit.

Another Saturday activity was the discussion of the Lojban Kalevala project (see separate article). All in all, we tried to keep Saturday a little bit light, knowing that Sunday's business meeting was likely to be long and emotionally draining (as have all of our annual business meetings). Thus, discussions stayed in English, and ranged over a wide variety of topics related to the Lojban effort.

Business meeting

The business meeting started at 9:30AM Sunday morning. We had several key people missing, as pc had business matters in Arizona to take care of, John Hodges' car broke down at the last minute, and Art Wieners was called back to work from vacation for a crisis that made him unavailable all weekend. However, all of these people had made their positions clear on the issues at hand, and the meeting proceeded surprising well. The following summarizes the results of the meeting:

Organizational

Nick Nicholas and Colin Fine were elected as the first non-US voting members of LLG. We consider all of the Lojban community to be part of LLG, but we have to have a clearly defined voting membership for legal purposes to manage organizational matters. Also added were David Young, Sylvia Rutiser, and David Twery. Jeff Taylor, who hasn't actively participated for the last couple of years, was dropped as a voting member. To make clear the nature of voting membership, a resolution was passed explicitly stating on the record that voting members should consider themselves as representing the community at-large, and not just themselves, in matters that are decided.

Several bylaw changes were made, all relating to procedures involved in holding members' and Board of Directors' meetings when we are so geographically dispersed and several members cannot be physically present for the meeting, especially the overseas members; we do not want inability to attend LogFest to prevent people from participating in the LLG decision-making, especially such major technical contributors as Nick and Colin. These bylaw changes are an evolving process, as we adapt to LLG's continuing growth and international spread; every year, we seem to need a few more changes to meet new problems that have arisen. Copies of the current LLG Bylaws are available at cost to any member of the community.

Bob and Nora LeChevalier, John Cowan, and pc were re-elected to the LLG Board of Directors, and in a brief meeting of the Board after the members' meeting, Bob was reelected President of LLG, pc as Vice President, and Nora as Secretary/Treasurer.

Negotiations with TLI

The major political issue at the meeting was the determination of LLG policy towards The Loglan Institute and JCB, now that the legal battle over trademark status of the name 'Loglan' is over. There have been some initial efforts towards a negotiation between the two groups, with both sides expressing an interest in reuniting the effort behind a single version of the language.

The efforts haven't gone far, since TLI wants LLG to disband and merge into TLI behind its version of Loglan. la lojbangirz. is committed to Lojban, which is a much superior version of the language, and we have a larger group of people actually doing something with the language. The membership showed extreme distrust towards TLI, voting to insist on two key preconditions to further negotiations:

a) Both organizations must sign a binding agreement preventing legal action resulting from further negotiations; the members want to be sure that TLI's offers to negotiate are bona fide and not an attempt to set us up for a lawsuit.

b) TLI must drop its 'trade secret' protection on all aspects of its design for its version of the language. LLG being committed to the freedom of the Loglan community to freely use the language howsoever they choose, the members felt that a 'secret' grammar is anathema to the concept of a large community of people using a constructed language, especially one intended for scientific research. It is felt that no real progress can be made on possible merger of the two languages while TLI continued to keep theirs secret where neither TLI nor LLG supporters could see the language details and evaluate them on their merits.

The voting membership seems open to negotiations provided that TLI demonstrated bona fide intent by meeting the preconditions. However, there is little sentiment for significant change in Lojban as part of a merger of languages; we collectively believe that the Lojban design is far superior to anything the TLI designers might have come up with in the past couple of years since the last good information about their version of the language.

I proposed a strategy for remerger of the efforts starting with the adoption of alternative ways of writing the two language versions so that they resemble each other in appearance, thus making cosmetic appearance not an issue (as it appears to be for JCB) when the two languages are essentially the same in the structures that determine how the language looks on paper. John Cowan has proposed an alternate orthography for Loglan/Lojban, allowing it to look in print very much like TLI Loglan. (see separate article).

Following such an initial step, each organization would study in depth the two language versions looking for similarities and differences. We would try to convince TLI to adopt our changes into their language, and they presumably would try to convince us to adopt their design where we differ. Vocabulary lists are likely to be the major unresolvable issue under this approach. When the review is completed, the decision of which vocabulary list and which version of any unresolved differences to go with would be voted on by the supporters of each version. If one version wins the vote in both organizations, then the language versions have remerged. Otherwise, the two organizations go their separate ways, but with languages presumably much closer together.

It is the collective belief of the LLG membership that if no merger takes place, that TLI will fade away eventually. LLG members expressed an unwillingness to accept changes in Lojban that in any way detract from the current design - any evolution of Lojban would have to be a positive one, and we have no reason to believe that there are any differences between the two languages wherein changing Lojban to match TLI Loglan would enhance the language.

Faced with lengthy negotiations even if TLI meets our necessary preconditions, the voting membership reiterated its intent that we publish the books defining the Lojban design that are currently in preparation, noting that as each book is published it will further cement us in a position wherein we cannot accept changes to the language in concession to TLI. Thus the ball is in TLI's court and they will have to move fast if they wish to have any significant chance of influencing the direction of a future combined effort.

(Initial signs are not optimistic for further reduction in hostilities. TLI formed a public mailing list similar to Lojban List on the computer networks, but then apparently went to considerable lengths to prevent Lojbab from participating, eliminating the public nature of the list and virtually shutting it down - apparently for fear that some of their trade secrets will get to me.)

Forthcoming Books

There was lengthy and emotional debate on the continuing delays in getting the prototype and baseline books out. Many Lojbanists are waiting for the books, convinced either that they cannot learn the language without the books, or that the language will change after they've learned it, if they learn the language before it is set down in the books. Our very conservative baseline approach does not satisfy these people; only the books will do.

The voting membership thus forced John Cowan and me to more strongly commit to getting the books done as quickly as possible, and to avoid changes to the language definition except insofar as glitches come to light during book writing. We expected to have the proto-dictionary done before the end of the year, with the proto-textbook and introductory book following soon after. (This was before the kids came along, forcing a few more months delay). John Cowan's papers will be assembled into a reference grammar to conclude the initial design documents. We are trying to have all 4 books done within a year, though John's book will be the slowest to be completed.

John believes that after these books are completed, there will likely be no further changes to the language, and we will go immediately into the long-term design-ending baseline. I (Lojbab) continue to intend to produce a real textbook and dictionary (of which the first two books are indeed 'prototypes') that will define the baseline, but John and others doubt that this will happen in a timely manner, and that the proto-books will be the ones used in the baseline. I have agreed that the bottom line on the book publication will be how fast we can get them written, coupled with the finances of publishing, and not my goals to produce more 'perfect' non-proto versions of the books. This, and a renewed commitment to stop fiddling with the language design, mollified some very frustrated and impatient Lojban supporters.

The conclusion is that the community very strongly wants the language to be done, and usable, and does not care whether the language is any closer to perfect than it currently is. I stand on record as recognizing that sentiment of the community as expressed by the membership, that has elected me to lead the effort.

Baseline Status/Language Design

The membership voted to update the grammar baseline as of the proto-dictionary publication, to include changes approved by the technical committee that has been reviewing those changes (which are all considered relatively minor by the members). The rafsi and cmavo lists will also be baselined when the book is published, incorporating the current reviews, and the intent is to baseline the morphology algorithm published in JL16 after updating it for wording errors found when we coded it up - John Cowan wants to have the algorithm fully coded and verified before making a baseline commitment, and we are still working on this. With all of these baselines, the only significant language feature that will not be baselined are the gismu place structures, although it is believed that the simple fact of putting those into the book will effectively baseline them as well (the difference to me is that I don't want to feel obligated to defend a stupidity that we missed in the place structure simply because we made a promise not to change. There are known weaknesses in other aspects of the Lojban design, but no major ones, and those known are not considered open for change because of our baseline commitment to avoid change where possible.

The two gismu proposed in JL16, vukro and slovo, were added to the gismu baseline, along with four new gismu for metric prefixes reflecting their addition to the international metric standard.

As part of the rafsi review in progress, there emerged strong feeling that the gismu for "daytime" as distinct from "day" (= 24 hours) should have good rafsi, which was not possible without severe tradeoffs given the word (dinri) that resulted when the word was generated last year using the word-making algorithm. As was done in the case of "less than", which was changed last year from "ckamu" to "mleca" because of the need for a good rafsi, the membership approved that this word be changed, disregarding the scoring algorithm if necessary. This was considered acceptable only because the word is a new one added just last year and is neither in common use yet nor even reflected in our published lists. To minimize relearning difficulty, John Cowan and I opted to change only a single letter, and the gismu for 'daytime' is now "donri", with rafsi "dor" and "do'i". The membership approved this change.

That was it for the members meeting. We also had two committee meetings, one to correlate the results of the rafsi review, and the other to allocate the $142 received last winter in donations specifically to support active, non-paying Lojbanists who cannot afford to pay for materials. The money was allocated toward 2-issue subscriptions for several people, with the hope that our finances have improved after 2 issues and more money is available to help such people out at that point.

John Cowan has put together a new parser based on the current set of proposed grammar changes, which are expected to be approved, and it will hopefully be tested thoroughly in coming weeks by some key people who write a lot of Lojban text.

Sunday night and Monday were spent in more Lojbanic activities, a little conversation, and going over a writing effort by David Twery. By then everyone was exhausted, as another busy and successful Logfest came to an end.

Next Year

We're not sure what LogFest will be like in 1993, given the patter of little feet around here, and haven't set a date for LogFest 93. We hope that there'll be more in-language activities, and at least one of the books should be out by then. Given the addition to our family, we're hoping others coming to LogFest will bring their families too.

There's a possibility for a weekend gathering in 1993 which will be an all-Lojban affair, with no English permitted. This is an ambitious undertaking - the language is ready for it though. The major factor will be the effect of our kids on our time. At the moment, Nora and my Lojban skills have deteriorated in favor of Russian.

But the critical factor in such a weekend is vocabulary, vocabulary, vocabulary. The summer Lojban class here covered most of the grammar in seven 2-hour sessions, but no one had nearly enough vocabulary command to converse. Hopefully with this weekend gathering as a goal, those of the community who want to see the language brought to life will get to work on their word lists and LogFlash, and try to be here if we can put this weekend together. If we don't manage it in 1993, we will surely try in 1994, when Nick Nicholas has threatened to visit from Australia.

Other News

DC Class

During the summer we held a weekly class in Lojban here in Fairfax. Five students participated, although two of them, Sylvia Rutiser and Tommy Whitlock, were primarily freshening up their skills. Of the other three, two completed the class and have continued actively participating in Lojban weekly conversations.

DC Weekly Group

After the conclusion of the summer class, the DC conversation group resumed weekly meetings, continuing even through Nora's recovery from surgery and Lojbab's trip to Russia. Typically, activities split 50/50 between conversation each session and discussions of texts written by the group members or on Lojban List. When less experienced Lojbanists are present, we assign one-on-one "mentors" who aid them by coaching them in what people are saying, and helping them say what they would like in the language. Thus everyone gets to participate.

More recently, since Lojbab's return from Russia, some (rather light-hearted) efforts have been made to introduce our two kids to Lojban; this is necessitated by their domination of everyone's attention until bedtime. We suspended meetings for the December holiday season, partly in order to get the kids better settled so that we can focus more on the language during weekly sessions, and partly to try to arrange a more convenient schedule for participants. After the first of the year, weekly sessions will resume, probably on Monday or Tuesday evenings. Lojbanists in the DC area may contact Lojbab at 703-385-0273 if you would like to visit or start regular participation in this group - you need not have significant skill in the language to gain from participation, but you should in that case be planning some self-study at other times during the week.

Bradford Group

Colin Fine has started a study group in Bradford, England, the first regularly meeting Lojban group outside of the US. I don't have many details on numbers of participants, but the group has produced a significant amount of Lojban text.

First International Conversation

I am pleased to report a major milestone in the Lojban project - a most surprising one indeed at the time it happened.

One Monday evening in September, I received a telephone call. I had been studying Russian about 10 hours straight at the time I got this call. And what do I hear on the line but a collection of traji cizra (superlatively strange) beeps and clicks and this unusual bunch of words coming at me. They weren't Russian (and this itself was baffling, because I'd already gotten 2 calls today from people with heavy Russian accents who were offering me information and advice related to my forthcoming trip, in response to a computer network posting).

It finally dawned on me that someone was talking Lojban at me. Except for intermittent sentences in an otherwise English conversation, no one has ever spoken conversational Lojban to me on the telephone except Nora, and she was sitting next to me.

Alas, I was attempting to understand, and my Lojban totally failed me, partly from shock, and partly from the fact that as I attempted to form Lojban sentences, Russian words kept creeping into them in my mind, and this hodgepodge of jborusko (Lojbanic-Russian) just wouldn't be communicative; but I couldn't tune out the Russian. Finally I asked the other end of the line to repeat, and I made out the words nik. nikolas. and sralo, and I suddenly understood all the clicks and beeps. The first international telephone call in Lojban, and I was talking to Nick Nicholas in Australia.

I'm afraid we never got more than a couple of sentences exchanged - my brain just would not click into Lojban mode. But I can testify that Lojban now has people who have demonstrated conversational competence with the spoken language on two continents. There is no doubt in my mind that the sralo accent on the other end of the line was speaking quite good Lojban, and at a fluency that would stand him well in our weekly sessions in Washington DC. (Nick has promised to visit us in 1994, when he completes his degree work in college.)

After the shock slowly ebbed from my mind, I got enough presence to suggest that this would have worked better if the call had been the following night, when the weekly DC group met. So I was told that I should prepare people for just such a call.

Here is Nick's recollection of the actual conversation, with commentary:

Robert LeChevalier? Yah. [Lojbab: A good answer in all three languages.] .i mi'e nitcion. nikolas. i mi fonxa tavla ra'i la australias. mu'i lenu rinsa do pu lenu do cliva la rusko.

(The "cliva" is wrong, obviously, and "ra'i" isn't very smart, but hey, I'd been walking a lot :)

Thereupon Goodman LeChevalier said "... a couple of words of that sound vaguely familiar; please repeat." I did; this time I was la nik. nikolas, ra'i la sralo...

Ladies and Gentlemen, Robert has learnt his cmavo well: his ".ua" was as good as any exclamation James Brown (let alone James Cooke Brown) could come up with :) Duckcall-like, in fact :)

I started chuckling ("hehehehe"), then quickly corrected myself: ".u'i.u'i.u'i"

A good thing too that Bob's brain wouldn't click into Lojban mode, because, as I said to him (er... four times, the fourth in English :), mi na djuno da poi mi bilga lenu cusku ke'a (once more, in writing that would be a "ledu'u mi bilga lenu cusku dakau", but whatever).

Stunned silence followed, then a bit of small talk, then I talked to Nora, and it went a little bit like this:

coi coi noras .i ?xu do kanro [an IDIOT question in Lojban, but cut me slack already, I'm new at speaking the damn language :) ]

.i mi kanro .i ?xu DO kanro

.i pe'i go'i

[I really aspirated them apostrophes; I can't remember if Bob or Nora did.] .i mi jinvi lenu do xagmau mi lenu cusku [I think it was "cusku"; I remember at being surprised, not so much at the lujvo, as at the fact that it was followed immediately by a pronoun, without a preposition. Two years of written Lojban, and now I notice the absence of "than"?!] .i .u'i ?xu go'i .i mi ruble go'i

[I'm trying to be a smartass in Lojban, and it's not quite working. The word I was looking for was "ru'e".]

Mind you, the bad acoustics and my lack of familiarity with spoken Lojban meant that I had to search a bit to determine what was being said (by Bob, at least). From what I remember though, I got through all right.

Lojbab, I believe, farewelled me with a "co'o" (ah yes, he does aspirate them heavily), and I responded with a "co'osai". I didn't mean by that that I was glad to be rid of you, honest! :)

We'll have to have something to talk about for me to be convinced that we can converse intelligibly. I can see why the differences between Washington and net Lojban exist though: good phrasing just doesn't come to you spontaneously, much less good bracketing. I'm not going to let this worry me about the future of the language yet, mind you...

The kind of halting Lojban I was getting from Fairfax reminded me of the Esperanto beginners I occasionally tutor. The kind of Lojban I was getting out of myself reminded me of the aplomb with which I used to face Esperanto when finding myself in a position of linguistic expertise, but minus the actual expertise... :)

Oh yeah, that's the other thing I said, when he mentioned the Russian on the mind: "Ya ne gavaryu pa-ruskii" :)

The following night, Colin Fine joined in the act, calling about an hour before Nick made his second call (which was considerably more communicative than the first one. Thus in one night we had three continents speaking Lojban. Again, international beeps and whistle gummed up the conversation, but Colin was quite understandable (if a bit briefer than Nick, who seemed to be feeling rich to want to talk so long). I have to say that Nick has a jump on Colin in fluency of speech, but nothing a little practice won't make up for, and Colin does have some people local to him to practice with.

[On aspiration of ': in some words I heavily aspirate it, like co'o, and other vowel pairs with matching vowels. In others I aspirate a bit less. Nick enunciates his vowels far more clearly than most of us speaking the language.]

I didn't feel so bad at not parsing Nick's sentences after he confessed the mistakes he made. I am particularly bad at correcting others' errors in spoken Lojban, especially at conversational speed. This is one major failing I have at teaching the language. If you screw up, I don't understand you, because I am parsing in my head, translating to Lojbanized English and then understanding. The wrong cmavo, or even one no one has used in speech to me before (which Nick did several of), brings the parser in my head to a screeching halt, but Nick kept going. (I have the same trouble with spoken Russian: I hear a word I don't recognize right off, and I completely lose the next 2 sentences trying to figure it out.)

Colin Fine offered that any Lojbanist who wanted to try a call was welcome to call him. His telephone number is currently (+044) 0274-503168. Nick Nicholas noted that those with access to the Internet can effectively practice conversational Lojban by computer, using a software system called "IRC" (Internet Relay Chat). For those with such access, it might be useful practice; the speed of conversational typing is far less than the speed of talking, and not as prone to errors in hearing. Contact us by e-mail at the address on page 2 if you are interested in IRC 'conversation and have access to that service on the networks.

Phone Game

The "phone game", a computer network Lojban activity described last issue, made it through three rounds, but then stalled on the fourth round - one person who signed up dropped out after the game started, and several of the more experienced people participating in previous rounds had other activities to occupy them in summer. By the end of August, we decided to suspend the game, since a replacement activity, the Lojban coffeehouse project described below, had captured everyone's imaginations. We may start new rounds at some future time when we get some new people interested in participating.

The Loglan Institute

After our victory in the appeals court in LLG's trademark dispute with The Loglan Institute (see last issue), there remained the possibility that TLI would continue the legal battle. We are happy to report that this seems not to be the case, and the trademark issue is dead. People may use the word "Loglan" freely in talking about all aspects of our 37 year old project, including Lojban, without needing permission from TLI. Indeed, it seems that both organizations will now be able to turn away from the legal system as a method of resolving our disagreements over the course of the Loglan Project.

Preliminary discussions have led to a "truce" in our disputes, with a possibility that there will be future interest in negotiating an active reconciliation and remerger of our efforts. Unfortunately, at this time both sides remain far apart on how such a reconciliation might be accomplished.

Details on la lojbangirz. policy with regard to negotiations were discussed at LogFest and can be found in the article on that meeting.

We intend to continue to fairly report on what we hear from TLI, and hope that our non-hostile demeanor will cause TLI's people to more actively seek reunification within the Loglan community.

Language Development Status

gismu

Six gismu were added at LogFest, as described in the article on that meeting. Other than these changes, there have been no new gismu proposals, and indeed, the draft set of revised place structures has generated little criticism. Thus, we consider the gismu list stable enough for book publication.

lujvo

Nick Nicholas has spent a lot of time in the last 6 months doing a thorough review of some 2700 lujvo that have been used or proposed for use in Lojban text. He has analyzed these by origin, indicated their quality (and occasionally proposed better replacements), and analyzed them to determine probable place structures based on analysis and actual usage. As a result, the proto-dictionary will likely have many more entries than we had originally planned, since I intend to incorporate as much of Nick's work as possible.

Grammar

The grammar is of course baselined and frozen until we make updates and republish it in the Lojban books. Because we want the books to reflect the grammar after the books are done, we do our writing based on that next revision of the grammar. Indeed, most of the change proposal come out of the detailed analysis that John Cowan does in writing his reference grammar essays.

There are now 27 minor changes planned for that revision, all but 5 being extensions to the language. Because of the delays in publishing books and the fact that many active Lojbanists are incorporating new features in their Lojban writings, JL18 will include a revised E-BNF and a complete summary of all the changes since the last baseline. John Cowan believes that only a couple more changes of even this minor scale are likely prior to baselining for book publication; his estimates are reasonable, since he is the one who has proposed almost all of the ones in this set of changes. Of the changes listed, only one was considered by experienced Lojbanists to be important. However, even that change was easily taught to students last summer within one class session.

Morphology

Last issue, we printed the draft Lojban formal morphology algorithm. Nora has been working to implement and text the algorithm in software, and has found several errors in the algorithm as printed in the issue. The problems are not with Lojban, but rather are errors in the way various steps are worded. The dictionary/reference book will have a version of the algorithm that passes Nora's software analysis. Meanwhile, we print a short discussion that gives a simpler, plain-English rendition of the algorithm:

And Rosta asks:

Has anyone conducted an experiment to verify that word-boundaries are identifiable, even if you don't know what the words mean? If I were to hear a recording of rapid spoken Lojban, could I, equipped only with the word segmentation rules, identify all the word boundaries?

Yes you could. Ideally a computer could. If you cannot, it is due to human limitations in analysis, not to ambiguity in the algorithm. These limitations might prove to be real, since there are some obvious ways to concoct utterances that will lead a listener down a primrose path:

mi viska le prenu is a valid sentence /miVISkalePREnu/ miviskaleprenus is a name /miVISkalePREnus/

but you can't distinguish them till the end.

No we haven't tested the algorithm in any rigorous or experimental sense. There have been informal analyses, and of course we have people conversing who have no problems.

The short form of the algorithm is:

  1. Pauses are word breaks.
  2. Identify names by going backwards from 'consonant + pause' to preceding "la" or "doi" or "lai" or word break/start of text.
  3. Among remaining text, start from the left looking for consonant clusters which mean that you are in a brivla (predicate word). Any number of leading CV and CVV syllables fall off a permissible initial cluster, each forming separate cmavo. In a brivla, find the stressed syllable, then, since that is penultimate, take one syllable more, ending in a vowel.

rafsi

The analysis of Lojban rafsi, mentioned in the discussion of LogFest above, was not completed until just before publication of this issue, primarily due to Bob's travels. We intend to publish a lengthy article and the revised list with JL18, so that all people can switch to the new baseline at that time.

Structural Ambiguity in English and Lojban

by Dan Maxwell and John Cowan

[Dan is an Esperantist, linguist, and programmed on the DLT machine translation project. John Cowan is an LLG leader, and responds to Dan with the indented notes.]

It is obviously true that words which never change their form are easier to handle than ones which do change their form, but at the level of the sentence it is often the case that the forms of words are useful indicators of the relationships between the words. Here are some examples of structural ambiguity in English, some of which could be solved by more "signposts" on the words.

Here are various Lojban translations, showing how Lojban resolves the ambiguities of the English examples. Lojban words never change in form for grammatical purposes, although many root words have shortened forms for use in making compounds (the underlying roots can be uniquely reconstructed from the compound).

1. I saw the linguist with the binoculars ('with the binoculars' can be taken with either 'saw' or 'linguist'.). This problem comes up quite often, although context or the meanings of the words often serve to disambiguate for human beings but not for computers.

1.1) mi viska le banskeju'o sepi'o le reldanvistci
     I see the language-science-knower using the two-far-see-tool.
1.2) mi viska le banskeju'o pe sepi'o le reldanvistci
     I see the language-science-knower which-is using the two-far-see-tool.
In 1.1, the prepositional phrase (tagged sumti, in Lojban jargon) is attached to the entire predication. In 1.2, the relative-phrase particle "pe" glues the prepositional phrase to the preceding noun phrase. Of course, other interpretations are possible, each with its Lojban expansion:
1.3) mi viska le banskeju'o joi le reldanvistci
     I see the language-science-knower joined-with the two-far-see-tool.
This denotes seeing the two objects jointly.
1.4) mi viska le banskeju'o poi kansa le reldanvistci
     I see the language-science-knower who accompanies the two-far-see-tool.
Here the linguist is "with" the binoculars in the sense of carrying them or being near them, not using them.

2. Old men and women ('old' can be taken with either 'men' or 'men and women'). This is perhaps the second most frequent type of structural ambiguity in languages like English. Signposts on the words can solve some classes of this problem, i.e if the two nouns are singular and the adjective when taken with both is plural.

Since Lojban is a predicate language, I will recast this example as a predication, which involves changing the "and" to an "or", thus: "The soldiers are old men or women." Using "and" would limit the soldiers to such individuals as are both old men and women; since no individual is both a man and a woman, that translation would be incorrect.
2.1) le sonci cu to'ercitno nanmu ja ninmu
     the soldiers are-anti-young men or women
2.2) le sonci cu ke to'ercitno nanmu ke'e ja ninmu
     the soldiers (are-anti-young men) or are-women
2.3) le sonci cu to'ercitno bo nanmu ja ninmu
     the soldiers are-anti-young-men or are-women
Normally, logical connection binds more tightly than simple modification in Lojban, so 2.1 means "old (men or women)". To change this rule, we may use the explicit parenthesis words "ke" and "ke'e" as in 2.2, or the high-precedence infix marker "bo" as in 2.3. Lojban often allows both forethought and afterthought forms of expression; parentheses are more general but require more preplanning and may be more difficult to use in colloquial speech.

3. Army demands change (Is 'demands' a noun or a verb?). This problem comes up in all languages in which words do not have different forms for different parts of speech or a given marker like English 's' is ambiguous.

I would star this example as dubious English: it is really "headlinese" and depends on omitting the article. But even after revision to "The army demands change", it is still ambiguous. The Lojban versions are:
3.1) le jenmi cu cpedu lo nunbinxo
     the army requests an event-of-change
3.2) le jenmi se cpedu cu binxo
     the army-type-of requested-thing changes
"binxo" signifies a transformative change, as when ice changes to water. A mere change in the amount or intensity of a property, on the other hand, is "cenba".
"cpedu" is "A requests/demands B" and "se cpedu" is "B is requested/demanded by A", so "se cpedu" is needed in 3.2 to refer to that which is requested rather than the requester.

4. Flying planes can be dangerous (Does 'flying' modify 'planes', or is 'planes' the object of the gerund 'flying'?).

4.1) lo vofli vinji ka'e ckape
     some flyer-type-of airplanes can-be perilous
4.2) lenu vofli be lo vinji ka'e ckape
     the event-of flying some airplanes can-be perilous
Lojban's careful distinction between concrete and abstract arguments pays off here.

5. The hunting of the tigers (Are the tigers the hunters or the hunted?).

5.1) lenu le tirxu cu kalte
     the event-of the tiger(s) hunting
5.2) lenu le tirxu cu se kalte
     the event-of the tiger(s) being hunted
These may be collapsed to compounds:
5.3) le nuntirxykalte
5.4) le nuntirxyselkalte

6. The picture of the student that I liked (Does the relative clause go with 'picture' or 'student?') Languages with inflected relative pronouns might be able to avoid this type, at least if the two nouns are not in the same class.

6.1) le pixra be le tadni poi mi nelci ke'a
     the picture of (the student such-that I like him)
6.2) le pixra be le tadni be'o poi mi nelci ke'a
     the (picture of the student) such-that I like it
Note that Lojban relative clauses are of the Hebrew type, with a marker at the beginning of the clause ("poi") and a pronoun within the clause referring back to the relativized argument ("ke'a").
6.1 and 6.2 differ by the presence of the right-bracket word "be'o". An omitted right-bracket word acts as if it appears as far to the right as possible; thus 6.1 is equivalent to:

6.3) le pixra be le tadni poi mi nelci ke'a be'o

In both 6.2 and 6.3, the "be"..."be'o" construct indicates the subordinated argument of the subordinated predication "is a picture of". In 6.1/6.3, the argument is "the student such-that I like him" whereas in 6.2, the argument is merely "the student" and the subordinated argument is then cut off, leaving "such-that I like it" to modify the whole (top-level) argument.

Sentence 1 would not be ambiguous in Esperanto, since there happen to be two different prepositions ('kun' and 'per') in this case. But this general type of ambiguity is found in Esperanto as well.

As I show above, the 'per' interpretation is possible even if "linguist" is taken to be the attachment point, giving something like "I see the linguist who is doing something with (using) the binoculars".

Sentence 2 would indeed be ambiguous in Esperanto, at least in the most usual translation. Sentence 3 would definitely not be ambiguous, because different parts of speech are marked by different endings. Sentence 4 would also not be ambiguous, because participles have different endings than nominalized verbs. In 5, it depends on how careful the speaker is being. There is a tendency to use the same preposition in both cases, but there is also a commonly used alternative for the subject reading. The translation of 6 would be ambiguous in Esperanto as well.

As shown above, none of these are ambiguous in Lojban, and all of the Lojban forms given above are natural unstrained forms.

Inflection-based grammar developed in historical times; it is probably an example of the way the human mind seeks complexity. Any language, including Esperanto, that developed prior to the emergence of Information Technology, is 'historical' in this sense. The formal grammar and agreement present in such pre-computer-era languages has proved to be almost impossible to process.

Esperanto, especially our modified version of it in DLT, was much easier to parse than English, due largely to the ways of avoiding ambiguity in sentences like the ones mentioned above, among others, even though English is presumably less inflection-based than some consider Esperanto to be. Actually, Esperanto is not inflection-based in the sense that Latin, Russian, and German are. There are certain morphemes which are written as one word with the root, but these morphemes do not vary according to noun class, etc. and the form of the root never changes. So it would be more accurate to say that Esperanto is an agglutinative language like Turkish or Japanese. The essential difference between Esperanto and Glosa [ed.: another artificial language] is that in Esperanto many of the signposts are written as part of the same word, whereas in Glosa they are always written as a separate word. But in both languages the signposts have exactly one form.

Lojban function words may be written free or compounded as a mere matter of orthography. Lojban content words (predicates) may be compounded and taken apart again unambiguously, but the compounds are not identified with their underlying word sequences, although there is naturally a close semantic relationship.

Parsing algorithms started out with a simple L-R sequential approach, because this is the way language works, at its basic level.

I guess it's usually true that programming languages operate sequentially, but they also have braces and so on to tell us what goes with what.

Lojban has braces of various sorts, but achieves naturalness (unlike most programming languages) by a systematic mechanism for eliding right terminators where no ambiguity (as rigorously tested by a parsing algorithm) can result.

Function words in natural languages are not generally as specific as the devices used by programmers. "that" (if you know it's not the pronoun) tells us that a new clause is beginning, but doesn't tell you what this clause goes with or where it ends. I think this kind of problem can be found to varying degrees in any constructed language invented so far.

Except Lojban, where there is never any doubt.

This is nevertheless not a serious problem for speakers, because they have context and meaning to help disambiguate (most of the time). But if we are constructing languages which can be used by computers as well as humans, then we have to make our signposts more explicit or we have to wait until computational linguists like me, the AI people who work on human language, and our programmer colleagues find ways to make computers understand meaning and context as well as humans do. These are the real stumbling blocks for computers much more than complex declensions and conjugations.

Agreed. Lojban provides an unambiguous syntax to clear away questions of syntax early, thus allowing the effort to be spent on semantics, the true heart of language.

[In response to further comments that English and Esperanto can also make disambiguations parallel to the Lojban versions, it was explained that the key point is that not only are the Lojban versions unambiguous, but that these are the simple and natural expressions to be used and that furthermore there are NO versions of these sentences in Lojban that DO express the ambiguities of the original sentences.]

Lojban Fluency?

Ken Miner (a linguist at the University of Kansas) made the following comment about Lojban on the computer news-group "sci.lang". Lojbanist Ivan Derzhanski, also a linguist, responded [indented]:

A friendly comment: this project [Lojban] ought also to be of interest to linguists concerned with universals.

It ought, oughtn't it?

It would be of interest if human beings could learn to speak and understand it fluently; it would be of even greater interest if children could acquire it from their parents.

If it is true that natural (and planned but natural-like, such as Esperanto) human languages are learnable only because they are built upon a hardwired structure (Universal Grammar), then Lojban should not be learnable in the natural way, as it violates much if not most of what is currently thought of as being universal. I'm afraid that we won't get away with running an experiment, though, as its side effects may include a few language-impaired kids, if my expectations are correct.

I dunno - consider A. N. Prior, a guy who has written a lot on tense logic: he uses symbolic logic in the Polish notation, which is sort of like Japanese syntax backwards. With a little practice, you can start thinking in it in a sense - you become "fluent" in it, as he is. (You have to, to read his works.)

No natural language has a syntax like an SOV language backwards (go ahead, somebody, pounce; note that it wouldn't be like the rare VOS type at all). Yet you can learn to process it. Ditto for master programers. All that's lacking is a spoken form...

Certainly you can learn to think in it (and you can become fluent in it), but the kind of learning it takes is quite different, isn't it, from a child's acquisition of his first language. I'm not convinced that you could have learned symbolic logic in your mother's lap, using the same miraculous language acquisition mechanism that you used to learn English ("for although we've been talking since we were three, / how anyone can is a big mystery"). Neither am I convinced that you couldn't; I'm just wondering.
And it just might be the case that you must use the first few years of your life to acquire some natural or natural-like language, and if you don't, you'll never be able to learn any later on. I'm not sure that a child whose only native language is symbolic logic won't grow up as a live computer, fluent in that system, but unable to deal with natural language. Again, I'm not sure of the opposite either. Project "Mowgli", anyone?

Maybe some people have learned to speak Lojban fluently. That alone would be interesting. It certainly ought to be worth fooling around with.

So far all of those who can generate and understand Lojban text have learnt it as a foreign language, moreover, as an incarnation of predicate logic, to which all have had a prior theoretic exposure. That's not how we learnt our respective first languages.

[Bruce Gilson then noted that Lojban is not actually spoken fluently by anyone, even by Lojbab. Ken commented:]

That's a very interesting datum. I wonder if anyone or any group became fluent in the earlier Loglan? When you consider that this project has been around since 1955, and that some of its primary goals sort of depend on this very thing...

I'd like to hear more about this. Does LeChevalier himself say he does not really qualify as fluent, or is that your judgment, and if the latter, roughly what criteria for fluency were you applying?

[I responded with the following:]

Bruce is correct that no one is fluent in Lojban, and that I am the most fluent in the language, but not really 'fluent' in the sense that linguists use the term.

The state of the art improves all of the time, of course. I can state rather categorically that there was no real fluency in any previous version of Loglan. Indeed, Lojban is the first version to really support the needs of conversation. JCB reports having had conversation sessions back in the late 70s, but I've talked to participants in those 'conversations', and I think heard some tapes once or was told about them. Basically a lot of dead silence with sounds of paper shuffling, because no one other than JCB had enough vocabulary solid to even make a sentence without looking up one or more words in a word list. There was 'conversation' only that there was no resort to English. The bulk of the sessions was groping, in Loglan, to find the right words that someone could understand.
That was 15 years ago.
In 1987, after only 6 months, my wife and I reached the same point with the then-budding Lojban version. On our honeymoon, without word lists, and each of us knowing around 300 words (but often not overlapping), we were able to 'converse' for about an hour with no word lists, using repetition, pointing, and paraphrase to get across the words we didn't know. It seemed very much like the process whereby one might learn a language my total immersion. But we tried it only once.
In 1989, 5 of us sustained conversation, with word lists, for about 4 hours. By that time I knew the vocabulary well enough that I rarely used the word list. A couple of months later, we had several such sustained conversations, while driving from Washington to Boston, but with Nora and I both not using word lists. Early in 1991, we started having weekly conversation sessions in Lojban, typically 1-2 hours, in which relatively little use of word lists occurred by the 4 main participants. However, we usually had at least one less skilled person present, and not using word lists did not mean that people didn't have to stop typically once or twice in each sentence to think of the word they wanted, and repeat things once or twice for those who missed something. These conversations lasted until one of the 4 was injured in an auto accident last Feb., leaving us with only 3 regulars, which we have found makes for too sparse a conversation. We have just finished a new Lojban class, which will add another couple of conversation participants to the weekly group for fall 1992.
Basically the reason why there is no fluent Lojban speech yet is two-fold:
1) for almost no one is there an opportunity to use the language often enough to gain fluency; only here in DC have we gotten people to even try to sustain conversation, much less do so regularly. My wife and I probably could run our household in Lojban and quickly become fluent, but I have some specific reasons for avoiding this - I don't want our usage, already rather dominating in the community learning the language, to become a de facto idiom; instead I want several people able to speak the language and write in it, thus developing a more natural idiom, even if it takes longer. There is also the emotional and mental drain to be considered - I'm already putting most of my time into the language, and I need a break once in a while, at least until others have gotten up to the level where I am at.
2) because there has been relatively little advanced usage, Lojban remains a pidgin. We have about 2000 solid vocabulary words, which is enough to converse and communicate, but not to converse fluently. We have the means to make any additional words for concepts that we need, but making up words is not a fluent language activity. I am quite skilled at coming up with communicative and productive usages on the fly, but not at fluent speeds. Hence my working vocabulary is 2000 words, though I probably have used perhaps 3000-4000 different words in my Lojban speaking career. These words are going to have to be recorded in dictionaries, and in written usages for the mass of Lojbanists (most of whom are not local to me) to learn about. In addition, I suspect that vocabulary level needs to reach more like 5000-10000, with most of the words on spontaneous recall, before fluent conversation will be sustainable. Given the great amount of technical and specialized vocabulary that pervades most conversation that I experience (and which is necessary to keep a conversation going for hours - you can only say so much about the weather today zo'o), I could not comfortably talk for hours without having such a vocabulary on tap. English speakers vocabularies are estimated as being much larger than this, of course, but Lojban gains some considerable efficiency from its predicate structure wherein words serve as nouns, verbs, and adjectives interchangeably.
The obvious question is "why is it taking so long?" The answer is that it hasn't been a high enough priority for very many people. Secondary reasons for this include the geographical dispersion of Lojbanists (our best writers are Nick Nicholas in Australia, Ivan Derzhanski in Scotland, Iain Alexander and Colin Fine in England, Veijo Vilva in Finland, John Cowan in New York, and myself in Washington DC).
But another key point is that there are no fluent speakers because there are no fluent speakers to learn from. Those of us bootstrapping the language are the examples for everyone else, but who do we learn from. In writing we can learn from each other, which is why Lojban writing has progressed far beyond speech in skill level, but until we have a cluster of people in one location who are willing to make the commitment to use Lojban at a much higher level than 1 hour a week, we won't achieve fluent speech.
We are in the process of publishing the first books about Lojban, and when those are available, I suspect that there will be people willing to make that commitment. So this situation may change within the next year or two. Our experience 5 years ago on our honeymoon has convinced me that there is no reason that Lojban itself is insufficient or incapable of being spoken fluently.
(By the way, to avoid the inevitable comparison, I should note that Esperanto also did not catch on until there was a book to learn from. It grew much faster because its vocabulary is so strongly derivative of the European word stock, whereas Loglan/Lojban by intent must not be so derivative. Even so, I have heard that the watershed moment when Esperanto really 'succeeded' did not come until something like 1904, when people at their international conference discovered to both pleasure and surprise that the language was finally well enough known to such a degree that the meeting could be conducted in spontaneous and fairly fluent Esperanto. That was 17 years after Zamenhof's book, and I've heard that Esperanto was in formation for at least 8 years before the book was published. While Lojban has recaptured all of the research benefits of the earlier Loglan developments, we basically started the language definition process from scratch in 1987. I don't think we will be waiting 17 years for spontaneous fluent speech.)

[Ken responded, leading to the following exchange:]

... I ... probably will have further reaction, but for the moment: while comparisons with Esperanto (which I have spoken fluently since my youth, but not natively) are indeed inevitable, a better comparison would be with Volapk, Esperanto's predecessor, which while naturalistic was less so than Esperanto, having I think more case endings than Finn-ish yet allowing Germanic-type compounding.

This whole area of how new languages "get going" is fascinating. It relates to modern Israeli Hebrew as well. Re what you said about not wanting a small group to fix usage too soon: that seems to be what happened to Esperanto, maybe on a larger scale. I don't know whether you're an Esperantist but I and others have often been impressed by the extent to which Esperanto became "a real European language" when it had the potential, and the theoretical underpinnings, to develop along completely different lines. I see that as the problem with Lojban. You need speakers, early in the game, with diverse linguistic backgrounds. Otherwise it's going to develop along the lines of "standard average European."

Exactly, and even worse, given that I myself have been monolingual English speaker (whereas Zamenhof and his associates were predominantly polyglots to start with), I recognize that relying on my usage to set the patterns is particularly risky for cultural neutrality.
In written usage, we seem to be meeting your goals. With the major people writing in the language including a Greek-Australian, a Finn, and a Bulgarian polyglot with professional linguistics training, our stylistics is developing somewhat independent of myself. Further, by recognizing the importance of cultural neutrality, I am very forward about indicating which of my usages are tentative, and in screening myself for cultural bias. "malglico" (damnably-English-like) was one of the first compounds to gain widespread use, and I'm proud of having coined and pushed it.

Lesson from Another Constructed Language

[The following, translated from Esperanto by Don Harlow from the referenced article, indicates the dangers of uncontrolled change and/or change in a constructed language controlled by "people who were linguistically very undisciplined". Novial was a major artificial language invented by one of the most noted linguists of his time, and for a while attracted a significant following (it basically supplanted Ido, the major splinter from Esperanto), but it apparently died from uncontrolled change.]

The following comes from Carlevaro, Tazio: "Mondlingvaj akademioj", in Haupenthal, Reinhard (ed.): "Li kaj ni", Antwerp-La Laguna: Stafeto, 1985, pp. 389-390:

The well-known Danish linguist Jespersen, who had already collaborated in the creation of Ido, in 1928 proposed a new neo-Latinoid language project Novial (Nov International Auxiliari Lingue). In 1929 a handful of ex-Idists joined it, along with the otherwise well known Ido magazine Mondo. In 1934 Jespersen decided to radically reform the language to bring it nearer to Occidental. But it became obvious that the Novialists were people who were linguistically very undisciplined, and for this reason, and perhaps also because Jespersen didn't have the time to get very deeply occupied in his project, the Lingual Jurie del Novalistes was founded (1937) and proposed new improvements and changes. This did not, however, reduce the linguistic chaos in the movement itself, because this committee's decisions were not mandatory but only indicative. Novial, together with its language committee, disappeared during the second world war.

A Lojban Pangram

[Mark Shoulson issued a challenge on Lojban list for a Lojban 'pangram', a sentence as short as possible that contains all of the letters of the Lojban alphabet. Examples from English include "The quick brown fox slyly jumped over the lazy dog." and "Pack my box with five dozen liquor jugs." Mark wrote:]

Here comes the quest for the Lojban pangram. Guidelines should be:

  • No cmene or le'avla. Cop-out.
  • All Lojban symbols except "," (which only happens in cmene and le'avla) must appear (not counting such optionals as ";" or ":", but counting ".", even though it's optional. "." may only be placed at a required pause, though.)
  • It must be a grammatical utterance.
  • No fair using zoi (non-Lojban quotes) or lo'u/le'u (ungrammatical text quotes) to throw in nonsense to get tough letters.
  • No experimental or unknown cmavo, of course.


Desiderata:

  • It should be a bridi (a complete Lojban sentence), not just a bare sumti or a string of exclamations.
  • It should not have sumti in undefined places, if possible (e.g. nothing in the x6 place of "prenu" or whatnot, even though that parses).
  • It should have some sort of comprehensible meaning, though it may be nonsense (i.e. the meaning needn't be reasonable, but it should be capable of being understood in some fashion).
  • It should be as short as possible.
  • It shouldn't use letterals just to get letters in cheaply. In fact, avoid letterals if you can, except maybe to get "y".
  • lujvo should be used sparingly, and if used, should make sense somehow. You can get "y" using hesitation or letterals, but don't turn down an otherwise good sentence because of a lujvo.

The desiderata are roughly in order of importance. I'd imagine it's a little easier to find a pangram in Lojban than in English, although finding a good one (where "good" is defined something like above) isn't easy in almost any language.

Have fun with it!

[Colin Fine responded with the following admirably-complete analysis:]

Assuming Mark's rules, but avoiding letterals or hesitation:

There are 17 consonants and only 5 vowels. All brivla are more consonant-rich than all cmavo. So use as many brivla as possible.

Ignoring, ".'y", the best ratio you can get in a sentence with gismu only is 3 consonants/2 vowels; 17 consonants requires 6 words, for a total length of 30. Using 2 CV cmavo instead of one gismu improves this to 29.

dzipo gluta fe re baxso ckini jmive
(They're) antarctic gloves of two Malay-relative living things.

To add the missing symbols:

"." uses up one or two vowels - either [selma'o] I or UI

"'" uses up two vowels. We can combine these in UI, or in a cmavo or lujvo.

"y" requires a lujvo (if we are not using letterals or hesitation).

1) Minimising use of lujvo:

Two strategies suggest themselves for this goal. Either use a (single) consonant-rich lujvo of the form "CVCyCCV" and use UI for the other two. Inserting (a single instance of the form) ".V'V CVCyCCV" covers 4C, 4V at a cost of 11 characters altogether, or use a (single) CVCyCV'V-form lujvo and a V cmavo: ".V CVCyCV'V" covers 3C, 4V at a cost of 10 characters altogether. The latter approach is shorter, but since the total number of different consonants is 2 mod 3, would require two cmavo, giving a total length of 34, against 33 for the first strategy. Therefore the minimal solution with only one (two-element) lujvo is of form ".V'V CVCyCCV CV gismu gismu gismu gismu" (with the order of these elements completely free)

.e'u zadyfra pa baxso ckini jmive gluta (33 characters)
Let's react more to a Malay-related living thing's glove!

2) Allowing free use of lujvo CVC rafsi have the highest consonant/vowel ratio possible in the language, so the answer is clearly going to involve one or more long lujvo with lots of CVC's. An obvious strategy is (CVC)n-CV'V = 2n+1 consonants, n+2 vowels, Thus with ".i" at the beginning (we can't use any other V word unless we have some sumti), and one juncture requiring "y", we get:

.i CVCCVCCVCCVCCVCCVCCVCCVCyCV'V (31 chars.)
e.g.
.i cabjagnixtulroskazdempafyva'i
The currently-resulting girl's-leg prose has the quality of dense father value" (or something)

Once you've got the structure, they're easy to concoct, and I've no doubt somebody can come up with better ones.

[The challenge to the community is to propose some better pangrams using any of these forms. I know of at least one Lojban poet (Michael Helsem) who will probably have a field day with this kind of challenge. We will print the best submittals in a future issue of JL.]

An Alternative Orthography for Lojban

by John Cowan

[Editor's note: This is an optional alternative to the current Lojban writing system, not a change or replacement. In short, this proposal is a way to write Lojban so that it looks more like any other version of Loglan, and hence be more palatable to JCB.

I don't think that any Lojbanist considers the alternative more desirable than what we do now - we made the current Lojban orthography in order to better reflect the way people will learn and speak the language (although the use of doubled consonants for syllabics might actually be an improvement if used throughout the language - TLI Loglan uses this convention only for syllabic consonants in borrowings, and not in lujvo.)

However, having an orthography that looks more 'normal' to JCB is an advantage in trying to reach a long term solution to our differences - something that we have long sought. By having a set of standard mappings between the two orthographies, it becomes relatively trivial for someone to write a program that can convert text written in one orthography to the other form. Thus TLI Loglanists would have to do a minimum of relearning to be able to start participating in the Lojban community, should such an orthography option be part of the resolution of our differences.

The alternate orthography is thus a mapping from Lojban back to the original orthography of Loglan, with a couple of things that JCB added after the split like the doubled letters for syllabic consonants. Thus, JCB used "ao" for the diphthong that we write in Lojban as "au". JCB doesn't use apostrophes in non-diphthong VV pairs. (He has never addressed the problem that we resolved through the devoiced glide). He uses 'h', but 'x' as a distinct phoneme is found only in names, whereas historically, Loglan considered our 'x' to be an allophone of 'h'.]


NOTE: This document is not an official policy of the Logical Language Group and has not been endorsed by the LLG or its Board (to which, for my sins, I belong). Still less is it endorsed by any other non-profit organization concerned with the development of logical languages.

This note proposes an alternative orthography for Lojban. The orthography here described is not intended to replace the existing standard orthography. Nothing in this note is intended as a proposal for change either in Lojban's orthography or its phonology. The purpose of the alternative orthography is to provide a way of writing Lojban which visually resembles the conventions used by earlier versions of the Loglan language, including the version proposed in the 4th edition of Loglan 1 (1989).

The standard Lojban orthography makes use of 23 letters of the Roman alphabet, viz. a b c d e f g i j k l m n o p r s t u v x y z, plus the three signs:

apostrophe "'" for a voiceless intervocalic glide roughly similar to English /h/;

comma "," for a voiced intervocalic glide;

period "." for a pause or glottal stop.

Capitalization is used to represent abnormal non-penultimate stress in names: the syllable to be stressed is capitalized in its entirety.

The letters i and u are used in three ways: as full vowels, in the falling diphthongs ai ei oi au, and in the rising diphthongs ia ie ii io iu ua ue ui uo uu. The rising diphthongs appear only as stand-alone words and in names and borrowings.

The letters r l m n are used as normal consonants and as syllabic consonants (in names and borrowings only).

Double letters are never used for any purpose.

The alternative orthography [approximating the TLI system] makes the following substitutions.

  1. The letter "x" is replaced in all uses by "h". It is useful to emphasize here that this does not represent a change in pronunciation.
  2. The diphthong au is replaced by ao.
  3. The apostrophe, which in the standard orthography is used only between vowels, is replaced in the following ways:
    1. In a'a a'e a'u e'a e'e e'o e'u o'a o'e o'o o'u, it is dropped, producing aa ae au ea ee eo eu oa oe oo ou.
    2. In a'i a'o e'i o'i, it is replaced by comma (symbolizing the syllable break that accompanies the glide) producing a,i a,o e,i o,i.
    3. In i'a i'e i'i i'o i'u u'a u'e u'i u'o u'u, it is dropped, producing ia ie ii io iu ua ue ui uo uu; except that when these diphthongs appear standing alone (as cmavo of selma'o UI), or in names and borrowings, it is replaced by comma, producing i,a i,e i,i i,o i,u u,a u,e u,i u,o u,u.
  4. Capitalization is used for the first letter of names, and for the cmavo ".i", which is written "I".
  5. Periods before words are dropped.
  6. Periods after words are replaced by comma. This comma cannot be confused with the comma of 3b and 3c, because that cannot appear at the end of a word. However, periods at the end of names are dropped.
  7. Syllabic r l m n are written rr ll mm nn, and need not be set off by comma.
  8. Other uses of comma are retained. When doubt arises whether a comma represents a voiced or a voiceless glide, the voiceless glide is preferred.
  9. Stress is indicated by an apostrophe following the vowel of the stressed syllable.

Obviously, the alternative orthography is much more "context-sensitive" than the standard orthography. Two consecutive vowels in the standard orthography always represent a diphthong; in the alternative orthography, they may represent a diphthong, two syllables with a voiceless glide, or two syllables with a voiced glide, depending on the particular two vowels and on the kind of word in which they appear. On the other hand, the difference between syllabic and consonantal r l m n is clearly marked in the alternative orthography.

Here is a passage of Lojban (written by Nick Nicholas) in both orthographies:

mi na certu le se zajbrnatleta .iku'i mi co'a jimpe lenu mi poi xelso cu no'e snada tu'a le la olimpik. nunjvi pe vi la tokios. .isa'unai mi nu'o zmadu zo'epeca'aku leni snada .iti'e le mulno nizyji'a cu te zmadu mi le gugdrkore'a kuce'o le gugdrnafganistana kuce'o le gugdrkenia kuce'o le gugdrtrinidada kuce'o le xanto denci xaskoi gugde .iku'i mi zmadu .u'a le gugdrlixtenctaine .i lenu go'i cu pluka nuzba .i zmadu pluka fau le nu'o nu le gugdrlixtenctaine cu se nunjvi la olimpik.

mi na certu le se zajbrrnatleta I kui mi coa jimpe lenu mi poi xelso cu noe snada tua le la Olimpik nunjvi pe vi la Tokios I saunai mi nuo zmadu zoepecaaku leni snada I tie le mulno nizyjia cu te zmadu mi le gugdrrkorea kuceo le gugdrrnafganistana kuceo le gugdrrkenia kuceo le gugdrrtrinidada kuceo le xanto denci xaskoi gugde I kui mi zmadu u,a le gugdrrlixtenctaine I lenu go,i cu pluka nuzba I zmadu pluka fao le nuo nu le gugdrrlixtenctaine cu se nunjvi la Olimpik


Criticisms of Lojban as a Tool for Machine Translation

[Rick Morneau posted some criticisms of Lojban as a language for machine translation (MT). John Cowan responded to these, which led Rick to try to clarify his objections. John Cowan then responded to the clarifications. The result is an excellent summary of a number of the most common criticisms of Lojban, and the arguments that we believe refute them.]

Here are the reasons why I feel that Lojban is poorly suited for use as an interlingua in machine translation:

1. Lojban claims that its words are self-segregating. Obviously, this feature is not needed for the analysis of written language, but it can greatly simplify the analysis of continuous speech. Unfortunately, Lojban requires the use of pauses in certain places in order to fully implement this feature. Enforced pauses are unnatural and, should Lojban ever attain a community of native speakers, these pauses will be one of the first things to disappear.

Lojban pauses need not be the kind of pauses used by separated-word speech recognizers; a glottal stop is a sufficient equivalent of pause. The two main uses of pauses are after names and before words beginning with a vowel. In the first case, nothing will be able to do much better; existing speech-recognition systems simply punt on names in general, unless the name has been hard-wired into the system as a word.
Glottal stops before words beginning with a vowel are common enough in the world's languages: consider German, which does not notate such glottal stops but whose speakers (of the standard dialect, anyway) invariably produce them. Not everybody speaks like anglophones - "English is the language you speak without moving your mouth", as my mother (native German, near-native English) used to say.
In some cases this is true, especially when one word ends in a vowel and the next starts in a vowel. However, there are some cases where a glottal stop will not work:
1. if a word ends in a voiced nasal and the following word starts in an unvoiced fricative, stop or affricate.
2. if a word ends in an unvoiced fricative and the following word starts in an unvoiced fricative, stop or affricate.
In these situations a glottal stop will either be impossible to detect, or will be eliminated through normal phonological processes. If, however, these juxtapositions can not occur in Lojban then I withdraw my criticism.
These juxtapositions can occur only if the first word is a name, and (as I said earlier) names are notoriously intractable. They can violate the phonotactics of the language in which they are embedded in random ways, and existing word-based speech processors simply punt on them.
Lojbab adds: This item seems irrelevant to the issue that Rick says he is arguing. If he is solely concerned in his criticism with Lojban's suitability as an interlingua for machine translation of other languages, then recognizability of pauses in a Lojban speech stream is irrelevant because a machine translator would not be processing Lojban speech. Mandatory phonemic pauses affect how humans speak the language and not on how difficult it is to translate it.
Answering the issue for the case of a machine attempting to understand spoken Lojban, I note that our statement is that a glottal stop is a sufficient allophone of the phoneme "pause". If phonological processes cause a glottal stop to disappear, then under those circumstances a Lojban speaker will need a more exaggerated 'pause'. A proper Lojban speaker will have sufficient pause in his or her dialect to separate the words. But errors in speech will occur. To say that such errors in speech are a burden on the machine is a truism; we can also say that it is a burden on the machine if the speaker lisps, slips in voiced consonants that are unvoiced, or speaks with stops that are insufficiently distinguished, all things that often happen in natural human speech.

2. Lojban syntax is too complex. Regardless of the syntactic formalism you swear by (transformational grammar, government/binding theory, generalized phrase structure grammar, lexical functional grammar, home-brew grammar, ad nauseam), a natural language minus its idioms and irregularities can be represented with an equivalent of fewer than three dozen production rules. If I remember correctly, Lojban syntax requires about ten times that number. Lojbanists claim that it is machine-parsable, and I'm willing to take their word for it. However, an MT interlingua (IL) should have a syntax that is as simple as possible. A simple syntax not only makes it easier to parse the IL, but more importantly, it makes translating from the source language to the IL much easier.

As simple as possible, but no simpler. The Lojban grammar is a phrase structure grammar - it does not have any transformation (T) rules or their more modern equivalents. Chomsky introduced T rules, way back in Syntactic Structures, because he didn't want to have to deal with phrase structure grammars with (by guesswork) 104 to 105 rules. Lojban's 600-odd rules look pretty simple by comparison.
The existing parser generates a complete parse of a 1600-word short story (with some pretty hairy grammar - it's a deliberately complex translation of a Saki short story) in about 15 seconds on a '386 machine. The existing program is not optimized for speed worth a damn - I concentrated on maintainability. On a 'Real Computer', parsing effort will be absolutely negligible.
Your response puzzled me. A fast computer is not adequate justification for creating inefficient code, especially when the MT application itself will be grasping greedily for every cpu cycle it can get. Also, Lojban's 600-odd rules (twice as many as I thought!) is still almost twenty times as much as needed. So, compared with a syntax designed explicitly for an MT IL, Lojban's parser requires only 20 times as much code as minimally necessary. This is quite a selling point!
600 rules is for the full language. A pure interlingua application would be unlikely to generate the full language. A "core subset" could be constructed that would be far more rigid but far smaller, and yet truly be a subset.
However, I would also point to an argument given in The Elements of Programming Style. A tricky way of initializing a identity matrix in FORTRAN is given, and the text explains why it works. However, it then points out that the time taken to initialize such a matrix is always insignificant. In a program with small matrices, the time is insignificant in an absolute sense; in a program with large matrices, the time is insignificant relative to the time spent in all other matrix operations, which are typically n2 to n3 expensive.
Furthermore, for IL applications there is no real need to keep the Lojban in text form; the conversion from tree form to text form is absolutely trivial. (Lojban has no "obligatory transformations" in the sense of early Chomsky, so you print out the tree and strip the parentheses.)
[Lojbab adds: Rick is making a big issue out of rule counts that are specific to the format in which they are presented - the language of input to the YACC processor that verifies their unambiguity. Another rule format describing the same language, the E-BNF included with this issue of JL, has only about 80 rules. Of the E-BNF rules, 15 are associated with the grammar of mathematics (MEX), and 12 are associated with the tense system (described in John Cowan's paper that accompanied JL16), leaving perhaps 50 to cover the whole remainder of the grammar.
By comparison, Rick in a separate posting gave a sample E-BNF set of rules for what he considered an extremely "simple" grammar for a constructed language which has at least 40 E-BNF rules, but not specifying any MEX or tense grammar, even though all language has at least some rudiments of each.
For an interlingua translation system, mathematical text would be translated notationally, not in words, and hence MEX would not need to be part of a machine translation system. Thus MEX is an example of John's statement that machine translation using Lojban would implement only a subset of the Lojban grammar.
Tense is an example of one of the many features of natural language that are not easily represented in a very simple language. You might end up with an optimal language for internal data processing, but it is so cumbersome to use for humans that they cannot significantly input or read the internal texts. Lojban tenses, expressing relationships in space and time about the referents of the sentences they occur in, could easily be expressed using expanded predicates (and the conversion from tense to predicate is probably trivial for most cases that would occur in natural language), but the resulting text would be longer and no easier to convert to the tense structure of another language.
Clearly. Lojban is not "20 times what is needed", but rather is probably fairly close in size to Rick's 'minimal' grammar.
Rick also misinterprets John's statement that he did not design the parser for speed, and he jumped to a false conclusion. John's parser was designed for maintainability, to minimize programming time, which is our critical resource these days. "Inefficient code" has plenty of "excuse" when it gets the job done without affecting critical resources. But Lojban can have faster processing: Jeff Taylor's earlier parser, limited in text capacity, could do 1/4 of Saki in about 5 seconds on a much slower 286 machine.
Finally, of course, Lojban has the advantage of being usable both for internal processing as well as by the linguists/natural language processing people who are building the knowledge engine (see our DARPA proposal in JL16).

3. Lojban's predicate logic is not very "logical" in the way it is used to represent natural language. (It may be "logical" for testing the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis, but this has no bearing on its use as an MT IL.) It's assignment of place structures is too arbitrary and inflexible for use as an MT IL. In most natural language processing applications, a sentence is represented using case frames or a close equivalent. (In brief, case frames are a practical and elegant implementation of basic X-bar theory, which, in my opinion, gives tremendous credibility to its claim of crosslinguistic applicability.) Lojban's inflexible place structures and [selma'o] BAI bandaids are not only counterintuitive, but they force the computer to treat language structures differently when they are essentially the same. Each predicate, in effect, has a built-in irregularity which requires extra processing by the computer.

The present list does not do the fact justice, but there are in fact cross-predicate patterns of place structures. Furthermore, it was believed to be more important to get each word as nearly right as possible than to shoe-horn the words into some existing framework. There is simply a lot more complexity in the Real World (TM) than typical Schankian frames allow for; lots and lots of idiosyncrasy. Still and all, 1300 place structures is simply not a whopping amount: even given that we don't believe it's possible to derive the place structures of compounds algorithmically from the place structures of the underlying roots, those roots do constrain the resultant place structures to a marked degree.
John interpreted my use of "case frames" as synonymous with Schankian scripts. Actually, the two are not related at all. My mention of X-bar theory should have clarified the matter, except, of course, to those who are unfamiliar with X-bar theory. My apologies.
In a case frame representation, each node can be represented by a head and its modifiers. This is the essence of X-bar theory. Thus, a frame representing a noun phrase would have the main noun as its head and the modifiers as adjuncts that follow the head in the frame. (A modifier can also be a complete relative clause, in which case it would be represented by the equivalent of a separate sub-frame). A sentence would have the main verb as its head, and noun phrases that are arguments of the verb would, in effect, be its modifiers. These structures, of course, are recursive. Note that, syntactically, all elements in a frame that modify their heads are treated equally. Note also, that these case frames are simply an easy way to represent syntactic trees in a computer. Lojban predicates and their designer-selected, pseudo-thematic place structures force arguments to be treated differently when they are essentially the same. In other words, some branches of the tree will require different code to handle than other branches. Nothing is gained except counter-productive complexity.
So, although Lojban's predicate structures do not make the job impossible, they do make it much more difficult than it has to be.
I do not understand this argument. There seems to be a shift between talk of syntax and talk of semantics. The arguments of a Lojban predicate are syntactically all equal; semantically, each one plays a specified role. Which role can be determined by looking in the dictionary, or if the word is a compound which is not in the dictionary, by applying a set of heuristics. (Despite several efforts, those heuristics have not yet been defined.)
To take an English example, "I see the dog" involves a predicate "see" and two arguments "I" and "the dog". The definition of "see" determines which of these is the seer and which the seen, but Lojban treats them as syntactically identical.

4. Lojban's list of concept primitives (gismu) is inadequate and lacks semantic motivation. Now, I've read hand-waving arguments claiming that the gismu are not semantic primitives. Yet that is exactly the way they are used. The fact is, an awful lot of work has been done in both computational and theoretical linguistics in the search for a meaningful set of semantic primitives. A few examples are Silvio Ceccato's semantic hierarchies (circa 1950-1960), Yorick Wilks semantic primitives (circa 1977), Roger Schank's primitive ACTs (circa 1977), Donald Fass's comprehensive genus classification (mid 1980's), Anna Wierzbicka's semantic primitives (1970-1980), and, most recently, Kathleen Dahlgren's knowledge representation work (1989). Any one of these systems could be used as is, or modified for use in the design of an AL. And any one of them would have provided a solid foundation for the semantics of an AL. Now, I realize that Loglan got its start before most of the work I mentioned above. However, Loglanists and Lojbanists have been modifying and repairing their languages since then, and, as far as I'm concerned, if something is broken it should be fixed. This is especially true if Lojban is to be suitable for use as an MT IL, and if its semantics are to be as "logical" as its other features.

The best indication that none of these "semantic primes" systems is fully adequate for mapping the real world is the very fact that there are so many of them. The empirical derivation of the gismu list is admitted. Some of the words do not belong in any list of semantic primes, and others exist for historical reasons only. We do repair things, but only when they are demonstrably broken; there has been no effort to reduce the number of gismu en masse. We in Lojbanistan (he said) simply do not believe that there exists any truly comprehensive semantic system for mapping the immense variety of real-world predicates into a categorical or hierarchical system. Instead, the gismu are meant to blanket semantic space, ensuring that what needs to be expressed can be expressed. Even so, large areas of semantically "shallow" but "broad" space are underserved: foods, cultures, materials, living organisms. These semantic areas will be covered by borrowings from natural languages.
Of course there isn't a system, otherwise linguists wouldn't be working on it. What I failed to make clear was that there's no need for a comprehensive, unchallenged theory on which one could base the design of an AL. Keep in mind that linguists are trying to develop a theory that will correctly describe and explain the totality of human language. An AL designer needs only a single, simple system that can be applied rigorously and that is sufficiently robust to allow any human language statement to be accurately converted into the AL.
"A single, simple system [of semantics]" - ah, there's the rub. How can you be sure that your "single, simple system", presumably designed a priori, really does cover everything? Lojban's gismu list is a posteriori and merges semantic lists from several different sources. It may not be the most tractable possible list, but it is a usable list in a deep sense. Furthermore, the same consideration mentioned under syntax applies here. There is no reason to suppose that the IL generator will have sufficient smarts (or resources) to generate text that involves every one of the 1300-odd root words.
[Lojbab adds: That there is no semantic theory in our selection of basic roots need not be a failing - one has to show that some semantic theory is universally enough true to give a better result. But since we contend to be able to express most any concept within Lojban, it doesn't really matter what our set of roots are.]
If you're still not convinced, then consider this: there is not yet a single comprehensive theory of syntax. Did this lack of a comprehensive theory prevent the Lojban designers from designing a rigorous, machine-tractable syntax?
The history of the Loglan Project shows that the rigorous machine-tractable syntax was not actually achieved until a systematic re-design of the grammar was undertaken using YACC as an indispensable tool. I do not mean that the language was changed to make YACC-ing easier; the only changes made were those forced by the goal of "0 shift-reduce, 0 reduce-reduce conflicts found".
If the theory and practice of LALR(1) parsing was not so well understood, I doubt that Lojban would have a "rigorous, machine-tractable syntax". There is simply nothing comparable in the semantic domain for checking the correctness and completeness of a design.

5. Lojban's process of creating compound words from its set of primitives seems to depend on contextual disambiguation for proper understanding. In other words, it is as "illogical" as the same process in natural languages. (I believe that Jim Carter has criticized Loglanists for this lack.) In computer translation, the computer will often run into a situation where a compound word in the IL does not have a counterpart in the target language. In this situation, the computer must be able to break up the word into an equivalent phrase or clause. In other words, the computer must be able to generate a paraphrase of the relationship between the more primitive components of the compound. You can, of course, put this information in the dictionary, but this solution is not at all practical if you want to keep your dictionaries simple, and if you want to have one dictionary per natural language usable for both source and target translation. I could say much more on this extremely important topic, but to do so would take more time than I have, and this thing is already too long. In summary, though, an IL designed for use in MT must be maximally and reversibly compositional.

There are two separate points to sort out here: the mapping of compounds to phrases, and the explication of phrases. Every compound can be mapped to a phrase, and potentially every phrase to a compound, unambiguously and reversibly. What is left ambiguous is the precise set of compositional rules. Does "blanu zdani" (blue house) mean a house that is blue, a house part of which is blue, a house for inhabitants who are blue, a house that is blue in the appropriate way for houses, a house for people who are slowly turning blue,... Since the first requisite of Lojban is that it be speakable (it is a human language, not a code), not all ambiguity can be weeded out. Lojban works on removing structural ambiguity so that the real problems of semantic ambiguity can be openly faced.
lo cimni ka satci cu se jdima
lo cimni ni valsi
the-thing-which-is-an infinite type-of quality-of preciseness has-as-price the-thing-which-is-an infinite type-of quantity-of words
The price of infinite precision is infinite verbosity.
I failed to make clear that such a compromise can be achieved along with the reversible compositionality that is needed in machine translation. For example, the English compound "houseboat" can be decomposed as "boat which functions as a house". The compound "windowpane" can be decomposed as "pane which is part of a window". In a machine translation application, the relationships "which functions as" and "which is a part of" must be explicitly stated in the compound word. This can always be done with the addition of a single morpheme which would, in effect, link the component morphemes and indicate the relationship that exists between them. This would normally mean an additional syllable (and, of course, an appropriately designed morphology), and apparently many people would object to this for esthetic reasons. However, one additional syllable is a small price to pay when the potential reward is so high.
Without this simple "sacrifice", your AL will be useless as an IL.
Lojban compounds (whether closed or open) are by design semantically ambiguous. However, there are always paraphrases which disambiguate them. An IL generator would presumably not generate ambiguous compounds.

6. Finally, a logical language is inherently unsuitable for representing natural language. Lojban is called a logical language for good reason. It forces a speaker to express himself according to various rules of logic. Natural languages do not require a speaker to be logical in the same way. As a result, when translating from a natural language into Lojban, the computer will often have to fully understand what the speaker is saying (to "fill in the gaps", so to speak), which is well beyond the capabilities needed for normal disambiguation. It is also well beyond the capabilities of computers.

But is it "well beyond the capabilities needed" in all cases? It seems to me that given two languages A and B, and three meanings a, b, c, that language A expresses a and b with an ambiguous sentence, whereas language B expresses b and c with an ambiguous sentence. If meaning b is intended, then translating ambiguity with ambiguity is a safe procedure - but in translating a from A into B, or c from B into A, the ambiguity must be tackled and resolved. A system that does not "fully understand what the speaker is saying" will inevitably make blunders of this type.
The neutral framework of predicate logic which Lojban employs, being equally foreign to all natural languages, forces ambiguity to be squeezed out before a correct translation can be generated. (I am not referring here to the problem of translating intentional ambiguity, as in poetry, which is surely far beyond the state-of-the-art of any computer-based technique.) If all languages without exception deviated from predicate logic in the same ways, then the need for a neutral medium would not exist - but they don't. For example, Lojban can be neutral among languages that affirm a negative question with "No" (like English), with "Yes" (like Russian), and that repeat the negated verb (like Irish).
How can "being equally foreign to all natural languages" be anything but an impassible barrier? An interlingua designed for use in machine translation must be, as much as humanly possible, a reductive and fundamental distillation of the essential features of natural language. Not even the slightest degree of "foreignness" can be tolerated.
"The" essential features? Which are those? Unless you have a theory (or at least a set of heuristics) telling you the essential features, your project will be inherently parochialized by the particular case you choose to debug it with. Lojban is intended to provide a framework which minimizes metaphysical assumptions; thus S/W is assumed as a hypothesis (its falsity is the null hypothesis to be rejected). Therefore, the assumptions of the original must be spelled out in the Lojban version, which can then be interpreted and reduced by the process that composes the translation.
John wrote the Lojban for "The price of infinite precision is infinite verbosity."
This is such a simple statement in English (and equally simple in Swahili and French and Indonesian and how many others?), yet how complex and convoluted it is in Lojban! I shudder at the thought of designing software that is smart enough to know that "infinite precision" must be paraphrased as "the-thing-which-is-an infinite type-of quality-of preciseness", and that "infinite verbosity" must be paraphrased as "the-thing-which-is-an infinite type-of quantity-of words". I'm not even sure it's possible. The degree of understanding needed to generate these paraphrases may be required by natural language understanding systems, but not by machine translation systems.
It is an aphorism of Lojbanic culture (such as it is), making use of the full resources of the Lojban language. The literal gloss is complex and convoluted, but that is because Lojban is not encoded English.
Somewhere or other, Jespersen has translations of "First come, first served", an aphorism which is simple and terse in English, into French and Danish. The French isn't bad, but the Danish is incredibly verbose and downright baroque. I can just imagine what the Danish (Swahili, Bahasa Indonesia, ...) for "The more the merrier, but the fewer the better fare" looks like!
Anyhow, I meant to use the aphorism rather than mentioning it; I was pointing out that if Lojban is confined to fully explicit semantic forms, it will be unspeakable because too verbose. Even your glosses like "boat which functions as a house" are not really enough. Precisely which of the "functions" of the house are provided by the houseboat, and which are not? For example, one of the functions of a house may be to serve as a recipient of mail, but a houseboat typically does not. So you need something like "boat which functions as a house in that it provides shelter and a fixed platform for engaging in normal domestic behavior". Each word in this expansion itself requires further expansion; in particular, "fixed" with respect to what? Obviously not the shore of the river!
[Lojbab adds:] In case the motivation for John's last point isn't clear, I want to point out that there may not be a word corresponding to "houseboat" in every natural language - or that might be more than one, with significant minor denotation differences based on exactly which functions are performed. Would the Chinese word for the boats that people live on in the rivers and ports of China be an accurate translation for English "houseboat" in every instance of the latter's occurrence.
I'm not sure that a successful machine translation system can be anything less than a full-featured natural language system, unless you intend to have substantial human translator verification of every single word choice made.
In summary, I feel that an interlingua for use in machine translation must be as close as we can come to the elusive "universal grammar". In attempting to provide a test for the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis, Loglan designers have had no choice but to go in exactly the opposite direction.

By the way, most of the claims I've heard about Lojban's suitability for use as an MT IL seem to be based on its underlying predicate structure. Now, many (most?) linguists and logicians are of the opinion that predicate logic is not suitable for representing natural language. Some, however, disagree and have created a school of semantics usually called Montague semantics (other names and minor variations are model-theoretic semantics, truth-conditional semantics and possible-worlds semantics). These linguists are attempting to do what Loglanists claim to have already done; i.e., developing a formal and unambiguous method for representing natural language. So, if you do in fact make this claim, then you might want to test it on the people who count the most - the Montague semanticists. Show them how predicate logic and its accessories can be used to represent natural language. If it means learning their lingo (and it probably will if you want to get their attention), then do it! The burden of proof, however, is on you.

[Lojbab responds: pc studied semantics under Montague at UCLA, and is quite capable of speaking the lingo. But Loglan does not claim to unambiguously handle semantics of natural language; indeed I claim that semantics is impossible to handle unambiguously because it is dependent on the whole of the speaker's and listener's background experiences as well as on the current context, and thus a virtually infinite amount of data is needed to capture the "total" meaning of a statement.]

In summary, I do not feel that Lojban (or Glosa, or Esperanto, or Vorlin) is suitable for use as a machine translation interlingua, in spite of claims to the contrary. Most importantly, I see nothing in Lojban that would facilitate the most difficult aspect of machine translation: translating from a natural language to the interlingua. What I do see is an AL that has so little in common with natural languages, that translating between it and a natural language will be considerably more difficult than translating directly between natural languages. And this does not surprise me at all, considering that Loglan/Lojban was designed to test the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis. Such a language, by its very nature, would be the antithesis of what is needed for an MT IL, no matter how "logical" it is.

Finally, I realize that much of what I've said is potentially flammable. However, I'd like to make it clear that I have no intention of angering anyone, and, if I have, please accept my apologies. I can even admit the possibility that I've misunderstood some of the features of Lojban that I've criticized (although I doubt it). Also, please keep in mind that I've only criticized one aspect of Lojban - its claimed suitability for use as a machine interlingua. In most other respects I find Lojban to be a fascinating language, and, if I were not committed to learning other languages as part of my MT hobby, I would probably be studying Lojban (in spite of its ugly consonant clusters :-).

Lojbab: I would not be angry with Rick Morneau for what appears to be an honest difference of opinion. Nor do I say that Rick's arguments are ones that cannot or should not be raised. I believe that some of them do not apply to Lojban, some do not apply to Lojban as it would be used in an MT application, and some are simply irrelevant, or at best matters of opinion.
In some matters of opinion, there is not always an 'ironclad' method of refuting them. The rule-counting game is an example, since comparing rule counts is so dependent on how they are stated, and what features of the language are included in the not-yet-designed Lojban machine translation system. Which rules would be used is going to be determined by the MT system designer based on factors that are not knowable now.
Lojban features such as the tense system each reflect things that occur in natural languages, and to eliminate one means that the translator will have to use software to simplify or paraphrase in translation into Lojban, though it might then simplify the processing out of Lojban thereafter, when the Lojban has to be processed.
Indeed in writing this last sentence, I realize that I believe the opposite of Rick. The basis of an interlingua-based MT system is to minimize language-specific processing for source and target languages, which processing expands at a higher degree polynomial of the number of languages in a non-interlingua system. An interlingua which is ultra-simplified requires that the source language be paraphrased in an ultra-simplified manner which may lose significant information that could be important to the translation.
For example, the English phrase "ship which is faster than light", which may also be expressed as "faster-than-light ship". Does an interlingua for MT need the capability to separately distinguish the two forms, which probably mean almost identical things, if not totally identical in meaning? This is a design decision, not a theory decision. If the target language offers equivalent forms to the two English variations, then preserving the form of the original is valuable in achieving a natural-seeming style in the output of the translation. If merely the information is to be transferred, then such stylistic preservation is wasted. Lojban has rules that support both forms. An MT system designer that did not care to support both forms could easily leave out one rule from the Lojban interlingua. But in a 10-language system, this potentially means that you must write 10 input processors to decide that such ordering information is to be simplified out into the single remaining Lojban (or other interlingua) form, and then you need 10 output processors that will decide based on some criteria which of two or more output forms in the target language will reflect the single Lojban form. Clearly, in such a situation, an oversimplified Lojban or other interlingua increases the processing required. The better interlingua is the one that can convey the maximum amount of complex information across the language boundaries.
As an example of one of Rick's claims that is an irrefutable argument, look at the claim that natural languages are too complex to be modelled by a logical language. If there is more that I am missing, I apologize. But this is an argument by assertion, since Rick has not posed any specific natural language feature that cannot be modelled by a logical language - he has merely argued from assumptions. That these assumptions are plausible does not mean that they are correct. While Rick states that logical analysis has failed in the case of Montague grammar semantics, another poster noted that Montague grammars have been used in MT systems.
Whether natural languages are too complex to be modelled by a logical language is probably indeterminate. For every example Rick poses, I may be able to find a counter, but this does not stop him from claiming that there are many more that I have not covered.
Since Lojban does not embed any particular semantic theory into its design, attacking Montague grammars doesn't say much about Lojban anyway. To say that our design is inadequate, you have to show how it fails. Rick has not. I would contend that he cannot, without getting much deeper into the Lojban design than he probably cares to.

Discussions on the Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis

In a discussion of Sapir-Whorf on the Linguist List linguistic mailing list "linguist@tamsun.tamu.edu", Lojbab wrote:

Michael Kac says:

On the basis of unsystematic observation and impressionistic judgements which are confirmed by all other linguists I've consulted, it would appear that the view that one's world view is determined by the language one speaks is nearly universally accepted by educated people who aren't linguists.

I'll concur, as well, and my primary interaction is with such people. The exceptions to this are correlated with politics, with some people (usually 'left') considering linguistic relativism to be racist. However, even these people are inconsistent, since the arguments about gender and pronouns/language-gender (including the recent one on Linguist List) inherently assume some form of language effect on world-view, or it wouldn't make any difference. Note that the occasionally emotive arguments in this latter discussion shows that even linguists may to some extent assume what they claim they don't.

Factors in the continuing belief include:


a) what people mean by 'world view' and 'determined' is different. Sapir-Whorf is generally understood to have strong and weak versions, with the strongest form almost certainly false because translation IS possible, and the weakest form true to the point of triteness.

b) the field of semiotics is heavily dependent on assuming linguistic relativism, and most educated people are more exposed to literary criticism than linguistic theory.

c) the continuing identification of political issues with the linguistic relativity assumption. As such, people are continually exposed to the assumption in daily life without it being explicitly identified as a hidden assumption.

d) I believe certain areas of anthropological linguistics still accept Sapir-Whorf to some extent, especially where the researcher is in the anthropology department rather than the linguistics dept. My source of this is Reed Riner at U. of No. Arizona, but I think I heard something similar from John Atkins who was at U. of Washington.

I've used the phrase 'linguistic relativity' because when actually pinned down, many people will say that they aren't sure whether language determines world-view or vice versa, but that there is obviously a relation.

I guess I don't find that particularly strange (a lot of my friends, however, consider ME extremely strange for being skeptical on this point);

The Loglan (artificial language) project has the goal (among others) of testing the 'Sapir-Whorf hypothesis'. Those of us working on the project, linguists or not, are assumed by many to 'believe in' the SWH, though we are predominantly agnostic or skeptical like you. I think it is again an unquestioning assumption that the concept holds, with little analysis of the implications, that leads to this assumption.

I do find it somewhat odd that people who accept this view seem to think that it is (a) obviously correct, and (b) profound, a contradiction in terms. I welcome further data and insights.

Again, I think people assume the concept to be obviously correct in some 'weak' form and also intuitively realize that it breaks down in some stronger form.

The profundity is due to the never-ending political and philosophical implications of the assumed-true concept. That the hypothesis isn't even well stated means that none of the tests conducted in the 50s truly settled the issue. Supporters of the hypothesis seem to think that linguists abandoned the issue either because they could not prove it one way or the other, or because the idea became unfashionable or even non-P.C. with the rise of Chomsky's ideas.

If unambiguously true, the hypothesis itself is uninteresting. Until the bounds of its truth are explored, the philosophical implications will continue to be profound.

I think there is some considerable correlation in attitude on linguistic relativity and language prescriptivism. In the latter area as well, linguists tend to have a considerable disagreement with the educated-populace-at-large, who consider it a truism that there is a right way to speak and use a language and other usages are wrong. This assumption is also considered 'obvious', and when its fallacies and philosophical implications are pointed out, also considered profound.


A lively debate ensued, partly in response to these comments.

Niko Besnier, Department of Anthropology, Yale University <UTTANU@YALEVM.BITNET> replied:

The reason why linguistic anthropologists "still" believe in some version of the Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis (SWH) is not that they know less about language than mainstream linguists (many fields have much to say about language, and it is a delusion to think that any one field has a monopoly on the subject), but that they focus on language in a different way from linguists. The prototypical anthropological paradigm focuses on diversity, on the particular, and builds theory on the particular, looking at, for example, relational patterns between the particular in language and the particular in society and culture. This contrasts with the avowed universalism extant in most linguistic paradigms. Having been "brought up" in the latter paradigm, to then move to some version of the former, I am at a loss to decide that one is "better," more intellectually worthwhile, etc., than the other. I doubt that mud-slinging ("butterfly collector!" "universalist-schmuniversalist!") will get either field very far.

There is room for the SWH in a particularistic approach to language. But what it has to be grounded on is a careful reading of poor Whorf, who must be on the most misread (unread?) thinkers of the century. Interpretations of Whorf extant amongst mainstream linguists have little to do with what Whorf actually wrote, and this had led linguists to call the man by all sorts of names (e.g. "weekend linguist" - Geoffrey Pullum in NLLT). It is telling, for example, that in my linguistic training at two institutions I was never required to read a single original text by Whorf. To a certain extent this is understandable, since Whorf wrote in an opaque, dense style.

John Lucy ("Whorf's view of the linguistic mediation of thought," in Semiotic Mediation, ed. by Elizabeth Mertz & Richard Parmentier, Academic P, 1985) shows that one of the important aspects of the SWH missing from laypersons' accounts (i.e. accounts by those who have not read Whorf) is that Whorf is not talking about determinism by all of language of all aspects of world view. Rather, fashions of speaking determine habitual thought. Fashions of speaking are broad patternings of grammatical categories and discourse strategies in a language, across what Whorf calls overt and covert categories. Areas of language where one should seek "weak" determinism (the strong version of determinism was never advocated by Whorf, but by subsequent linguists who never seem to have read Whorf) are in fact very different from areas that Whorf is usually said to have claimed to be deterministic. I'd point to work like that of Elinor Ochs as example of where determinism is to be found between language and habitual thought: the shape of, even the presence/absence of baby talk in a speech community, provides a pretty strong deterministic "lesson" to language acquirers about the relationship between structure (= institutions) and agency (= person) extant in the society, i.e. about the type of things that social theorists worry about.

This posting is already too long, but I'd like to point to Alan Rumsey's (1990) paper, "Wording, Meaning, and Linguistic Ideology," American Anthropologist 92:346-361, for an excellent discussion of where Whorfianism works.


Summary of Linguistic Attitudes on Sapir-Whorf

[Bruce Nevin gave a very detailed and informative discussion of the Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis. He has given us permission to publish the entire text which is part of a longer work-in-progress. The I, II, and III perspectives listed in the text are not his but as cited. Following is Bruce's relevant background.
Bruce Nevin received his AB and AM degrees in linguistics from the University of Pennsylvania in 1969 and 1970. From 1970 through 1974 he did extensive fieldwork on Achumawi, a Hokan language spoken in the northeastern corner of California. He resumed PhD matriculation at the University of Pennsylvania in 1987, intending to use the Achumawi material in the dissertation. He has been employed as a writer by Bolt Beranek and Newman (BBN) in Cambridge, Massachusetts since 1982.
The following is Copyright 1991 by Bruce Nevin, <bn@bbn.com>.]


I want to outline the views of Sapir and of Whorf on linguistic and cultural relativism as I understand them and survey some of what has been done with these ideas, both as deriving explicitly from their writings and as arising from less clearly articulated cultural and intellectual antecedents that it is difficult for any of us not in some measure to share as we grapple with universals and idiosyncrasies of language and culture.

These ideas arose for Sapir in the context of his work on language typology on the one hand and psychology on the other. In the background lay social Darwinism, or at least the pervasive evolutionist perspective of 19th-century anthropology, and in this respect Sapir's interest here was a continuation of Boas' restitution of "primitive" languages as on an equal footing with the languages of familiar literate cultures, and an all-important entree into "the network of cultural patterns of a civilization," which "In a sense ... is indexed in the language which expresses that civilization." (1929:162)

In his conception of the relation of language, personality, culture, and "the world," Sapir distinguished between social reality:

"Language is a guide to `social reality.' ... it powerfully conditions all our thinking about social problems and processes ... the world of social activity as ordinarily understood"[1]

and objective reality, as had Durckheim and others, and affirmed of the former that:

"No two languages are ever sufficiently similar to be considered as representing the same social reality. The worlds in which different societies live are distinct worlds, not merely the same world with different labels attached."

It was in this sense that he made his famous assertion "The fact of the matter is that the 'real world' is to a large extent unconsciously built up on the language habits of the group." (Preceding quotations all loc. cit.)

The core of the matter for Sapir, however, was an identification of language, specifically grammatical categories, with thought:

"I quite frankly commit myself to the idea that thought is impossible without language, that thought is language." (In a letter of 8 April 1921 keeping Lowie abreast of progress on the manuscript of Language; quoted in Darnell 1990:99.)

In other places, Sapir severely divorces language from culture, but in this he appears to mean material culture, the "inventory" of cultural artefacts. The correlation of these things with associated vocabulary he regarded as trivial.[2]

Whorf may have been a Theosophist. His philosophical interests attracted him to Sapir and to linguistics, and his fascination with the "hidden metaphysics" of languages remained always the central thing for him, for which the tools of linguistics were subordinate means. From the point of view of an emerging profession, then, he was quite literally eccentric, in that specific sense. His ideas began to crystallize with preparation to teach a course at Yale during Sapir's leave in 1937-38. His intention was to "excite [students'] interest in the linguistic approach as a way of developing understanding of the ideology of other peoples" (letter to Spier). He would focus on "a psychological direction, and the problems of:

"meaning, thought and idea in so-called primitive cultures," aiming to "reveal psychic factors or constants" and the "organization of raw experience into a consistent and readily communicable universe of ideas through the medium of linguistic patterns" (to Carroll; both quoted in Darnell 1990:381).

Whorf developed his ideas about linguistic relativity during Sapir's illness and elaborated it after his death, so Sapir never had a chance to comment. Whorf died in 1941 at the age of forty-four, leaving less sympathetic colleagues to pursue the implications of his work. (Darnell 1990:375)

Sapir had confined the constitutive role of language to social reality. Whorf went farther, and developed the claim that:

"It is the grammatical background of our mother tongue, which includes not only our way of constructing propositions but the way we dissect nature and break up the flux of experience into objects and entities to construct propositions about." (1956:239)

The identification of language and thought takes an adversative twist:

"[T]hinking ... follows a network of tracks laid down in the given language, an organization which may concentrate systematically upon certain phases of reality, certain aspects of intelligence, and may systematically discard others featured by other languages. The individual is utterly unaware of this organization and is constrained complete within its unbreakable bonds." (256)

Since:

"if a rule has absolutely no exceptions, it is not recognized as a rule or as anything else; it is then part of the background of experience of which we tend to remain unconscious.

In the background always is Theosophy, as in The Voice of the Silence:

The mind is the great slayer of the real." (Quoted on p. 253)

His views were recast in terms more acceptable to prevalent conceptions of operational test and verification, as by Eric Lenneberg in 1953, summarized by Roger Brown (Reference: In Memorial Tribute to Eric Lenneberg, Cognition 4:125-153):

I. Structural differences between language systems will, in general, be paralleled by nonlinguistic cognitive differences, of an unspecified sort, in the native speakers of the two languages.

II. The structure of anyone's native language strongly influences or fully determines the world-view he will acquire as he learns the language. (p. 128)

Behind this was the assumption (presumably "part of the unconscious background" of every student in the Boas-Sapir tradition, and indeed of virtually everyone as has been argued on the LINGUIST list) that:

III. Languages, and hence cognitive systems, can vary without constraint.

Proposition II has generally been presumed to be untestable because of the identification of language and any means of communicating one's world-view. Attempts to verify or falsify the hypothesis have concerned themselves either with I or III (with indirect evidence for II sought from III). It would be interesting to see a resumption of attention to II; e.g. employing techniques developed for study of non-human communication.

A conference organized by Robert Redfield in 1953 drew together a relatively small number of linguists and anthropologists with the aim of defining problems related to the hypothesis, reviewing work undertaken and plans for future work relating to it, and attempting to establish a minimal framework of institutional support for these research interests. Their proposals concerned mostly methods for getting at I. Their conclusions were cautious, as noted above, in keeping with the temper of the times.

Kay and Kempton (AA 86:66), perhaps somewhat parochially but truthfully as regards empirical research, claim that most of this research has been in the domain of color. They give citations of work bearing on III beginning about the time of the Redfield conference (Ray 1952, Conklin 1955, Lenneberg and Roberts 1956, Gleason 1961, Bohannan 1963), and probably the best known study, their own (Berlin and Kay 1969). They remark that "studies before 1969 tended to support III; those since 1969 have tended to discredit III" (loc. cit.) They accept the finding of Kay and McDaniel (1978) explaining universal constraints in color classification in terms of the neurophysiology of human color vision, and discrediting III with respect to color. They affirm of course that research into II and III is an open matter for domains other than color perception, in particular domains (they mention religion) where characteristics of peripheral neural mechanisms like those of color perception have no bearing.

A parallel tradition of research into aspect I of the hypothesis has been carried out primarily by psychologists, and Kay and Kempton (1984) is a continuation of this. They cite Brown and Lennebert 1954, Burnham and Clark 1955, Lenneberg 1961, Lantz and Stefflre 1964, and Stefflre, Castillo, and Morely 1966. This line of research seeks a correlation between a linguistic variable (codability and communication accuracy) and a nonlinguistic cognitive variable (memorability) within a single language, and is thus a weak form of I.

After initial claims of success in finding a positive correlation between the memorability of a color and its value on a linguistic variable, Rosch showed that both memorability and the combined variable of codability and accuracy of communication is determined universally by focality or perceptual salience. The assumption that the linguistic variables of codability and communication accuracy differ across languages (III again) was falsified by this research, and therefore any correlation between memorability and a linguistic variable was not relevant to the hypothesis. Lucy and Shweder determined that the problem of focality or salience was an artefact of how the color chips were presented, and devised an array by repeatedly re-randomizing chips from the initial array so that there is no relation between focality and findability. By this means they have reinstated the earlier correlation in favor of I with respect to color categories. There remain problems of interpretation and relevance to the broader aims of the enterprise, as unfortunately often happens in narrowly empirical work.

Research of a broader sort has gone on in many fields. In social and cultural anthropology it is difficult to find anything that is absolutely irrelevant to the Whorf-Sapir hypothesis, though the latter can be made irrelevant to some forms of anthropological work essentially by legislating a rather narrowly realist, anti-constructivist perspective for science. Among clearly relevant issues I name questions of symbolism, including especially money and symbols of political and/or religious stature, magic and cargo cults, studies of kinship systems and their role in the construction of interpersonal and social relations, and work in social categories. To this must be added work of more obviously linguistic nature, such as projection of prehistoric cultures from reconstructed proto-languages, Studies of the bases of prejudice, of stereotyping, and of national character in a more genuine sense (as pioneered by Gregory Bateson) ... the list is seemingly endless.

The fields of ethnolinguistics and sociolinguistics, themselves extremely broad and diversified (and themselves polarized rather as the right and left hemispheres of the brain of the archetypal anthropological linguist), have obvious bearing on the hypothesis. Hymes has urged a reinterpretation of the hypothesis, investigating patterns of language use rather than of language structure per se.

The perhaps contentiously named field of cognitive linguistics has a strong constructivist bent. Work in psycholinguistics in general often has clear bearing, though the direction of interest (and funding) to linguistic universals has tended to obscure investigation of linguistic idiosyncrasies that might correlate with cognitive differences.

From Bateson's work on communication and learning and in particular the discovery of the double bind in relation to these have developed lines of clinical research that have developed practical techniques of reframing and use of metaphor, and an understanding of human systems in cybernetic terms, as therapy (particularly the field of family therapy).

Lastly, I must mention the resurgence of feminism in all its many forms, especially as a scholarly concern in anthropology.

I will describe in a little more detail a new test of aspect I of the hypothesis devised by Kay and Kempton (1984) so as not to be so restricted in interpretive scope as the previous communicability/- codability studies had been. Speakers of Tarahumara (a Uto-Aztecan language of northern Mexico) lack the basic lexical distinction between green and blue (as do various other languages, including Achumawi). Aspect I of the hypothesis predicts that speakers of English will polarize their perceptions near the border of green and blue, but speakers of Tarahumara will not.[3] In the first experiment, English-speaker's judgements reflected the division of green against blue in 29 trials out of 30; Tarahumara speakers responded even-handedly with 13 out of 24, extremely close to a 50-50 split, vindicating the hypothesis.

These experiments involve discriminating among three chips. In the first experiment, the subject had an opportunity to assign a color name to the intermediate chip, and this may have prejudiced the later step of the experiment, when the alternate comparison was made. The second experiment made the comparisons with the three chips adjacent in a box with a sliding cover that covered the chip on one end. In the setup stage, the subject agrees that the middle chip is greener with respect to one chip, and then that it is bluer than the other. It thus has both names associated with it when the subject is invited to alternate views as often as desired, and judge which difference is greater. In this experiment the polarization effect disappears.

This accords with an interpretation by categorization (experiment 1) versus an interpretation by discrimination (experiment 2). An exact parallel could be made with the fact that people can discriminate differences between sounds with indeterminate fineness (phonetics), but discriminate relevant differences that make a difference in small numbers of categories (phonemes, contrasts, distinctions) and displaying characteristic polarization effects at the boundaries. A culturally/linguistically determined contrast can be repeated, a difference requiring perceptual discrimination can only be imitated.

Kay and Kempton interpret these findings as disconfirming what they call radical linguistic determinism, in which "human beings ... are very much at the mercy of the particular language" (Sapir, quoted previously). Because the polarization associated with naming can be made to disappear simply by not naming, we are not hopelessly at the mercy of our language. To this I would add that it is difficult to do many sorts of things cooperatively with other human beings or with social consequence and recognition without employing the categories inherent in language. The exceptions, it seems to me, are in the realms of art, of religion, of play and creativity. These are the domain of the pleroma in Bateson's terms, the realm of cybernetic explanation, as opposed to the creatura, the realm of forces and impacts dealt with in the conventional categories of one's shared language and culture.

In formal linguistics, Zellig Harris and his co-workers have come full circle to the work on information structures in discourse that opened the whole field of transformational grammar. Harris, Ryckman, Gottfried et al. The Form of Information in Science (1990) develops a representation of the information immanent in a body of texts written over a span of years in the history of a subfield of a science (immunology). Changes in this structure correlate transparently with historically well-documented changes and developmental stages of the science during that period, although the structure was determined by clearly defined formal means and without reference to any knowledge of that historical context. In this way, they have demonstrated strongly that structures found in the sub-language of that science (and not imposed a priori on it) correlate on the one hand with aspects of the social reality of the science and on the other with the structure of the real-world domain which is the concern of that science.

The latter correlation is reflexive, however, in the sense that, as the structure changed, it (and the understanding of the scientists writing the original research reports on which the analysis was done) over time came into closer conformity with a reality whose nature was in process of being discovered. Before that change and that concurrent discovery, certain characteristics of reality could not be stated or thought; afterward, they could. But the discovery and the change in structure were simultaneous (though of course the writing down for publication was not). No better confirmation of Sapir's intuition of the essential unity of language and thought could be offered by one of his students.[4]

To illustrate this point further, I should like to adduce a recent contribution to the enormous literature in the study of kinship categories, always a favorite topic in anthropological linguistics. Wierzbicka, in Semantics and the interpretation of cultures: the meaning of 'alternate generations' devices in Australian languages, proposes a new set of metalanguage terms for discussing the alternate sets of pronouns used in many Australian languages. She urges that the terminology of "generation harmony" and "disharmony" that has become traditional in anthropology is arcane and psychologically arbitrary, does not capture native speakers' meaning and does not make that meaning accessible to people from other cultures, and claims that her new terminology provides a better fit. This work illustrates a Whorfian effect in the sub-language of a specialization within the science of anthropology. With the traditional terminology, aspects of aborigine culture are difficult to come to recognize and understand, and not possible to communicate; she claims that with the proposed new terminology it is.[5]

Thus, while providing an illustration of Whorfian effects within a sub-field of a science, she proposes to overcome such effects by devising a perfect metalanguage for that sub-field. Since the sub-field concerns an area that is by nature a matter of social convention and so in social reality rather than physical reality (to make that Durckheimian distinction again), she may be able to get away with it. I do not doubt the creativity of human cultures, however, and would build in means for the sub-language to evolve.

An abiding interest of Harris, as of his teacher Sapir, has been the question of refinements and possibly extensions of natural language that foster international scientific communication. In his analysis, language-particular characteristics due to the reduction system (extended morpho-phonemics) of one language or another are partitioned from operator-argument structures that `carry' information, which are remarkably uniform from one language to another. This uniformity becomes very close indeed in the grammar of a science sub-language, where classifications and selection restrictions are much more closely constrained than in other domains. But even in nontechnical domains Harris has a great deal to say about linguistic universals,[6] and about the distinctions between what is universal in language and culture and what is idiosyncratic and therefore pertinent to the Whorf-Sapir Hypothesis.

Footnotes

  1. Hoijer, in the 1953 conference proceedings, adduces passages of a similar sort in the writings of Boas.
  2. Darnell (1990:434 n) says: Sapir's strongest relativity statement was a brief note titled "Conceptual Categories of Primitive Languages," an abstract of a paper read to the National Academy of Sciences in 1931. This was published only after his death. Her bibliography lists it as appearing in Science 74:578. I have not seen it and cannot comment.
  3. This phenomenon of polarization, by the way, is the reason speakers of English can disagree so strongly about the assignment of marginal colors to either green or blue. A slight difference in idiosyncratic placement of the boundary makes a large difference in categorization. This would provide the basis of an interesting study relating to I.
  4. The confirmation is equivocal, however, since the work clearly demonstrates (as Harris stated at the end of Mathematical Structures of Language (Wiley, 1968)) that language is not identical with thought but instead provides a rather rigid channel for thought. This corresponds precisely to the observation above that the discovery and the language for talking about it co-evolved. By using this term I refer specifically to the common misperception regarding biological evolution that e.g. eohippus evolved into the horse in response to environmental changes, when one must instead acknowledge eohippus and its pre-grasslands environment co-evolved into the horse and its grasslands environment. Synec-doche is fallacious in both cases. The claim, then, is of the unity, but not identity of language and thought.
  5. This is part of Wierzbicka's ongoing work on natural language semantics based, ultimately, on a proposed set of universal semantic primitives, including: I, you, this, someone, something, want, don't want, say, think of, imagine, know, become, part, place, and world (Wierzbicka, Semantic Primitives (1972), Lingua Mentalis (1980). Be it noted that Harris denies there can be a lingua mentalis or any metalanguage external to natural language. For one thing, were there such one would need to account for the grammar and semantics of that metalanguage, and off we go in an infinite regress of grammatical and semantic metalanguages. For another, Harris has demonstrated that the information structures immanent in texts account precisely for the information that the texts report, so that, like LaPlace, he has no need for this additional hypothesis. But Wierzbicka's proposal here, however it may be guided by her broader theoretical interests, concerns only a sub-language of English serving as metalanguage for a sub-field of anthropology, and as such is unobjectionable. The semantics of this sub-language inhere in its informational structures, per Harris, rather than in its use of vocabulary from a supposedly universal lingua mentalis.
  6. See e.g. Language and Information (Columbia 1989) and A Theory of Language and Information (Oxford, 1990), which is a more philosophical companion volume to A Grammar of English on Mathematical Principles (Wiley 1982).

[One of the researchers on color terms mentioned above then posted some additional notes on his research:]

Willett Kempton
<willett@Princeton.EDU>:

I'm a coauthor of the Kay and Kempton study discussed in several earlier messages. (I don't follow this newsgroup regularly, but a colleague passed on the thread.) As pointed out earlier, from the tangled cluster of hypotheses referred to as the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis, we tested only one question: Do the lexical categories of a language affect non-linguistic perceptions of its speakers to a non-trivial extent? (P. Kay & W. Kempton, "What is the Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis?", American Anthropologist, vol 86, No. 1, March 1984.)

Considering the complexities of prior research efforts, our primary experiment was simple: Present three color chips (call them A, B, C) to speakers of two languages, such that colors A and B are slightly more different in terms of (universal) human visual discriminability, whereas B and C have a linguistic boundary separating them in one language (English) but not the other (Tarahumara, a Uto-Aztecan language). As noted earlier, the English speakers chose C as most different, whereas the Tarahumara chose A or split evenly (there were actually eight chips and four sets of relevant triads).

I'll add a couple of points of interest that were either buried in that article, or have not appeared in print. First, as the speaker of a language subject to this perceptual effect, I would like to report that it is dramatic, even shocking. I administered the tests to informants in Chihuahua. I was so bewildered by their responses that I had trouble continuing the first few tests, and I had no idea whether or not they were answering randomly. In subsequent analysis it was clear that they were answering exactly as would be predicted by human visual discriminability, but quite unlike the English informants.

An informal, and unreported, check of our results was more subjective: I showed some of the crucial triads to other English speakers, including some who had major commitments in print to not finding Whorfian effects for color (several of the latter type of informants were available on the Berkeley campus, where Kay and I were). All reported seeing the same effects. We tried various games with each other and ourselves like "We know English calls these two green and that one blue, but just looking it them, which one LOOKS most different?" No way, the blue one was REALLY a LOT more different. Again, the Tarahumara, lacking a lexical boundary among these colors, picked "correctly" with ease and in overwhelming numbers. The article includes the Munsell chip numbers, so anyone can look them up and try this on themselves.

Some of the triads which crossed hue and brightness were truly unbelievable, as it was perceptually OBVIOUS to us English speakers which one was the most different, yet all the visual discriminability data were against us. (The article did not mention the hue/brightness crossovers for the sake of simplifying the argument in print.)

Our second experiment, like the original visual discrimination experiments, showed only two chips at a time. We additionally made it difficult to use the lexical categories. And we got visual discrimination-based results, even from English speakers. So there are ways to overcome our linguistic blinders. (Which we knew already, or the original visual discriminability work could not have been done in the first place.) I don't feel that the differences across these tasks was adequately explored, and represent a golden opportunity for a research project or thesis.

I didn't expect to find this. The experiment was a minor piggy-back on another project. I believed the literature and the distinguished scientists who told me in advance that we wouldn't find anything interesting. The experiment was going to be dropped from the field research, saved by a conversation at a wine party with a "naive" sociologist (Paul Attewell) who had read Whorf but not the later refutations.

A simple experiment, clear data, and seeing the Whorfian effect with our own eyes: It was a powerful conversion experience unlike anything I've experienced in my scientific career. Perhaps this all just goes to affirm Seguin's earlier quote, as applying to us as both natives and as theorists:

"We have met the natives whose language filters the world - and they are us."


[One linguist on Linguist List added comments to those of Bruce Nevin, specifically noting that Sapir and Whorf did not necessarily believe in the 'Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis'. As noted in JL16, Alexis Manaster-Ramer has become interested in potential linguistics research applications for Lojban. This interest derived in part as a result of these discussions.]

Alexis Manaster-Ramer writes <Alexis_Manaster_Ramer@MTS.CC.WAYN E.EDU>:

In several recent messages there are references to Whorf or Sapir and Whorf together as having originated the idea of "human thinking patterns being relative to the inventory of the available language system" (to quote one contributor). However, like the story of the Eskimo words for snow, this story about Whorf and Sapir is not factually correct.

First of all, it was Sapir who fought against such simplistic language-thought claims of earlier scholars such as Uhlenbeck (one of the guys who claimed that certain "primitive" folks don't have the same perception of action as we do because they speak ergative languages and that some of them also have trouble distinguishing between themselves and their body parts because they speak languages in which possessors of subjects or objects are sometimes treated as subjects and objects).

Second, it is true that Whorf took for granted (as did almost everybody else at the time) the idea that the structure of a language can be taken literally as giving the underlying ontology (not that it causes it, mind you, but that it does reveal it). We know for example that Whorf was much impressed with the claims (I forget whose at the moment) that Chinese has no relative clauses, only things that were rendered as Jack build-ish house (i.e., the house that Jack built).

Third, all of Whorf's claims about Hopi are quite explicitly of this same variety: He does not assert that the structure of the language causes the world view, merely that it reveals it. He also does not claim this connection between the ontology and the language to be a new idea. He presupposes it. That is a big difference, of course, because Whorf is often accused of claiming such a connection without giving any independent evidence about the ontology. But in fact he did not make any such claims, he merely assumed that there was such a connection because everybody around him assumed it also. His contribution (as he saw it) was entirely different: it was to show that the way people view time, events, quantities, etc., can be culture- and hence language-specific.

What I find particularly surprising about the need to reiterate all this is that the relevant writings of Whorf's are all reprinted in a widely available collection, and that Sapir's writings are hardly obscure either.



At another point, Alexis also wrote:

I am very grateful to those who have written in to note that the so-called Sapir-Whorf hypothesis was NOT what Whorf (or a fortiori Sapir) maintained. And also to those who have written in reminding us of the results, such the Berlin and Kay ones, that seem in fact to support the Un-Sapir-Whorf hypothesis. However, it should be noted that these results do NOT show a causal relation going from language to cognition. Indeed, the often-noted fact that color terminologies seem to become more and more complex as the speakers' material culture becomes more and more complex would argue for precisely the opposite causality: People find they need to distinguish more colors because of material, nonlinguistic reasons, and then devise the necessary linguistic means to formalize the distinctions.

I would also like to address briefly the question of a connection with Humboldt. As I noted in my first message on the subject of Whorf, Whorf (like most of his contemporaries) PRESUPPOSED the existence of a connection between language and cognition, a connection which Humboldt was one of the first (if not the first) to make. The issue is very simple, really. Before Humboldt and others like him, the standard way of describing languages was in terms of how they would be glossed in some Western metalanguage like Latin or Spanish. This is why people were perfectly happy to describe ergative constructions (in e.g. Greenlandic) or "active" ones (e.g., in Huron and Guarani, see Mithun's recent Language article) without noticing anything odd. They would just say that the subject and the verb had different forms in transitive as opposed to intransitive constructions. People like Humboldt came up with the revolutionary idea of describing languages in their own terms, which meant that the superficial patterns of each language had to be taken at face value.

Hence, Humboldt's argument that Malayo-Polynesian verbs are really nouns, for example. Or later arguments by various people that ergatives are really passives (or other things). But that then made it imperative to explain why exotic peoples say things that we would not, e.g., why do they use "nouns" instead of verbs or "passives" instead of actives. And the explanation, of course, was that they THINK differently from us as well. Whorf, like almost all his contemporaries, was steeped in this way of thinking, but certainly did not originate it. As I noted before, his point to show just HOW EXOTIC languages could get, and this he tried to do by discussing the Hopi treatment of time, events, and quantities.


Alexis provided evidence for his claims in the following:

Since many of the readers of LINGUIST are from Missouri, I thought I would provide some evidence for my recent assertions that Whorf's position has been widely misunderstood.

In "The relation of habitual thought and behavior to language", Whorf says among other things:

"That portion of the whole investigation here to be reported may be summed up in two questions: (1) Are our concepts of 'time', 'space', and 'matter' given in substantially the same form by experience to all men, or are they in part conditioned by the structure of particular languages? (2) Are there traceable affinities between (a) cultural and behavioral norms and (b) large-scale linguistic patterns? (I should be the last to pretend that there is anything so definite as "a correlation" between culture and language, and especially between ethnological rubrics such as 'agricultural, hunting', etc., and linguistic ones like 'inflected', 'synthetic', or 'isolating'."

In a footnote on the same page (p. 139 of the Language, Thought, and Reality book), he says emphatically that "The idea of "correlation" between language and culture, in the generally accepted sense of correlation, is certainly a mistaken one" and he cites some arguments.

Thus, I believe that Whorf made a clear distinction between culture (behavior) and language, but he did not make such a distinction between language and thought. As I said before, he presupposed as did almost everyone else at the time that if people speak a certain way then that reflects the way they think. He took it for granted for example that if the Hopis pluralize the word for cloud (oomaw) the way that they normally pluralize animate nouns, then they must think of the clouds as animate.

Of course, this view is naive, as Joseph Greenberg pointed out in the fifties, since languages make all sorts of arbitrary distinctions (or fail arbitrarily to make them in certain environments) without any apparent conceptual consequences.

Essentially, I think the connection works one way, namely, if a language makes a distinction which cannot be described in purely structural terms, then we must ascribe to the speakers the ability to perceive or imagine or whatever the corresponding distinction in the world. Thus, when Greenberg points out that nothing important hinges on the fact that the French use an ordinal in Napoleon Premier but a cardinal in Napolean Deux, that's OK, because the choice here can be made w/o reference to the world. The rule is purely linguistic. And, of course, this could be the case with the Hopi word for cloud and its plural.

On the other hand, if we find that speakers of Polish systematically use a different genitive ending for place-names in Poland (and other Slavic countries) than they do for other place-names, and do so PRODUCTIVELY, then it IS reasonable to conclude that they are capable of a conceptual distinction between Poland (or Slavdom) and the rest of the world.

The distinction between these two kinds of cases is what seems not to have been entirely clear to Whorf, and that, as far as I can see, is where he came to sometimes came to grief.

It is also quite clear that he was not claiming any originality about the relation of language and thought per se, rather he was trying to show just how different the language/thought of one culture could be from that of another in the case of such basic ideas as that of time, although he points out (p 158) that there is not a comparable difference between Hopi and Standard Average European regarding space.

As to culture, Whorf was faithfully following Sapir in claiming that there is no more than an "affinity" between language and culture, but no "correlations or diagnostic correspondences" (p 159). For, as I noted earlier, Sapir was one of the staunchest critics of the late 19th century and early 20th century linguists who propounded such theories as the "passivity" of peoples whose languages use the ergative constructions, and such like drivel.

Incidentally, much of what I have said about Whorf's intent in bringing the Hopi vs. the SAE treatment of time and matter can also be said about Sapir's work on the psychological reality of phonemes. Today, we emphasize the psychological reality part, but actually in his time, the novelty was the phoneme. Claims about psychological reality about in the second half of the 19th century and later (and we find them in all of Sapir's as well as Bloomfield's early writings). The idea of the psychological vs. the grammatical subject after all originated in that period. And, to take one example our of thousands, when Platt wrote in the 1870's that the Urdu speakers perceive certain constructions in their language as active even though they look passive (these are, of course, ergatives again!), he was expressing himself in a way which was quite typical for the time (though not for the 17 or the 18th century).


Finally Alexis wrote, in a fourth posting:

Setting aside for the moment the question of why so many people continue to insist on attributing to Whorf and Sapir views they did not hold (or at least did not express), I would like to say something about the results which are claimed to support the hypothesis that language and non-linguistic behavior (behavior, for short) exhibit certain close connections (which people seem to want to interpret as involving causality going from language to behavior).

(1) Even if we find certain correlations between language structure and patterns of behavior, this does NOT (as I think I noted earlier) indicate the direction of causality (as indeed Whorf himself noted at one point). The color terminology business shows, if anything, that the complexity of a color terminology seems to depend on the complexity of the culture, there being, for example, no industrial or post-industrial cultures whose languages use two or three color terms. There has also been speculation about the fact that the lateness of terms for 'blue' may be connected with the relative scarcity of blue objects (other than the ubiquitous sky) in nature.

This would suggest very strongly that the linguistic pattern comes second, as a reflection of a culture's need to make certain distinctions.

(2) All the studies that claim to show a connection between language and behavior that I have seen mentioned seem to deal with two or at any rate a small number of languages, e.g., Tarahumara and English. Likewise, I have seen studies by Alexander Guiora on Hebrew and English and other such small sets, which I don't think have been cited on LINGUIST so far. Yet, since the claim being tested is correlation between linguistic structure and nonlinguistic behavior, the relevant population is languages (not individual speakers), and you cannot seriously talk about correlations for populations of two (or three or whatever small number is involved). What we require is a study involving a dozen or a hundred languages that have the Tarahumara color system and a dozen or a hundred that have the English one before we can say anything at all about correlations and things.

Having said this, I would predict that we will find such correlations but I would also predict that at least some of them will turn out to have the opposite causality from that suggested (or a more complex one than either of the simple unidirectional ones).

Is there anybody out there who would like to collaborate on putting together such a mass cross-linguistic study?



Lojbab responded privately to Alexis's last message with the following:

You write:

Setting aside for the moment the question of why so many people continue to insist on attributing to Whorf and Sapir views they did not hold (or at least did not express) ...

Note that when we talk about the Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis in Lojban writings, we are using the common name for the hypothesis, not in particular attributing the formulation of that hypothesis that we use to either Sapir or Whorf. That formulation is of course more complex than simple 'cultural relativism', and there seems to be no other good name, much less one that is known to people.

From this end of your postings, I'd say that you've made your case that the two did not believe in 'their' hypothesis, at least insofar as it is generally understood by others.

(which people seem to want to interpret as involving causality going from language to behavior).

I agree that this is not evidenced in the writings. I note by the way that Jim Brown, who invented Loglan, also cites F. S. C. Northrop (1946) The Meeting of East and West as proposing a cultural effect of language independently of the presumed interpretation of S and W, but he never cites quotes. I also have read a book in the 80s, The Alphabet Effect, by a follower of McLuhan, that claims cultural effects from orthography. Certainly the concept "the medium is the message" significantly underlies most interpretations of the SWH. Perhaps it should be call the SWMcH %^).

I do not know where John Carroll fits in the historical setting of the SWH, whether he knew Whorf or Sapir, etc. Carroll WAS involved in Jim Brown's formulation of Loglan throughout the 60s and 70s, and presumably found Brown's assertions to not be inconsistent with his own writings on SWH. So I would ask you whether you believe that Carroll has said anything (presumably in his comments on the collection of Whorf's essays or elsewhere) that misinterprets those writings? Although he is retired, I could ask Carroll to respond. It seems that the issue is ripe for such discussion.

(1) Even if we find certain correlations between language structure and patterns of behavior, this does NOT (as I think I noted earlier) indicate the direction of causality (as indeed Whorf himself noted at one point).

Agreed. One reason we are working very hard on Lojban before proposing a specific test is that we want to be able to predict a causal effect of language that is clearly not part of the cultural milieu. The drastic differences between Lojban and natural languages make it more likely that we can identify a way to determine both a relation and a causal effect, if one exists. This may then tell us how to look for confirming data in the natural languages.

The color terminology business shows, if anything, that the complexity of a color terminology seems to depend on the complexity of the culture, there being, for example, no industrial or post-industrial cultures whose languages use two or three color terms. There has also been speculation about the fact that the lateness of terms for 'blue' may be connected with the relative scarcity of blue objects (other than the ubiquitous sky) in nature.

I think that color terminology is the worst place to look for a SW effect, since it seems patently obvious that color recognition is going to be dominated by the basic biological process of recognizing color which would mask more subtle linguistic effects. Indeed, if one presumes that biology was directed by evolutionary requirements, there may be some environmental reason that we are not aware of that causes certain colors to seem more basic or important than others.

This would suggest very strongly that the linguistic pattern comes second, as a reflection of a culture's need to make certain distinctions.

I agree that this also occurs in language, and in constructing new artificial languages, especially a language like Lojban where nonce new word creation is easy and favored, the scope of this direction of response should be easy to measure.

Is there anybody out there who would like to collaborate on putting together such a mass cross-linguistic study?

I obviously would be interested (especially if funding can be obtained) but note that I can't contribute much in understanding of the other languages. I also would like to see such a study, even if it must include colors due to the popular associations of colors with SWH, find one or two other areas of language that are more believably independent of biology. I've heard that kinship terms is another area of comparison that might be considered. My own preference would be an analysis of words for emotions, emotional expressions, and linguistic and para-linguistic ways of expressing emotions, as well as perhaps on time and spatial relations (e.g. do languages with 2 distinctions of distance in demonstratives this/- that have any correlations in culture not found in those having three this/that/that yonder?)

Essentially, I think the connection works one way, namely, if a language makes a distinction which cannot be described in purely structural terms, then we must ascribe to the speakers the ability to perceive or imagine or whatever the corresponding distinction in the world. Thus, when Greenberg points out that nothing important hinges on the fact that the French use an ordinal in Napoleon Premier but a cardinal in Napolean Deux, that's OK, because the choice here can be made w/o reference to the world. The rule is purely linguistic. And, of course, this could be the case with the Hopi word for cloud and its plural. On the other hand, if we find that speakers of Polish systematically use a different genitive ending for place-names in Poland (and other Slavic countries) than they do for other place-names, and do so productively, then it is reasonable to conclude that they are capable of a conceptual distinction between Poland (or Slavdom) and the rest of the world.

This sounds like you would see value in finding out what types of productive distinctions are made in an artificial language where structure and concept are strongly separated and it is relatively easy to recognize native language reflections (pollutions?) because of the drastic structural differences. The obvious question is where you would look for such distinctions.

Lojban is only one language, but perhaps we might detect correlations between native language features and conceptualization in Lojban when those people learn Lojban. Do people with AN structures lose that pattern in a language where the AN distinction is blurred (I find myself in Lojban often expressing things in the form of house-big, as well as big-house, but would not presume to try to find any correlations yet?) My wife and I have devised several possible experiments related to this concept, but have long figured that it will be a while before there's an opportunity to even do a detailed plan, much less conduct the experiments.



Alexis responded:

Thank you for your extensive and thoughtful responses. ... I would love to be in touch with Carroll. He certainly knew Whorf, but is not a linguist. How he interprets Whorf is not always clear from his intro to Whorf's selected writings (which is his only contribution (I mean the only contribution of his) I know on this subject). Let me reemphasize: Whorf and Sapir did NOT argue for a correlation between linguistic and nonlinguistic behavior (although they saw connections) and they simply did not see the question of a correlation between language and thought in the way that we do. This is NOT to say that, like in the case of language and non-linguistic behavior, they held there was no correlation. Rather, they did not see clearly that there was anything to correlate, since they assumed that language and thought go hand-in-hand. And this they almost certainly did because the same idea was generally accepted at the time. So, I would not say that Sapir and Whorf did not believe in the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis. Rather they did not consider it a hypothesis.


[Note: We will endeavor to pass along to the respective authors any comments on the above discussions that readers may send us.]


Bibliography

During the course of the discussion of the Sapir-Whorf Discussion, several references were mentioned, which can be added to bibliographies on Sapir-Whorf, such as those which have appeared in previous issues of ju'i lobypli. I've collected these together, sometimes including the comments of the person who mentioned the work:

John Lucy ("Whorf's view of the linguistic mediation of thought," in Semiotic Mediation, ed. by Elizabeth Mertz & Richard Parmentier, Academic P, 1985).

Alan Rumsey's (1990) paper, "Wording, Meaning, and Linguistic Ideology," American Anthropologist 92:346-361, for an excellent discussion of where Whorfianism works.

There's a nice discussion by Roger Brown of the Brown & Lenneberg work in his old book Words & Things, in 2 different chapters separated by another chapter. There is one article I know of that provides some evidence for the strong version of the hypothesis, by Carroll & Casagrande on object classification by Navaho vs. Boston suburban kids. It's in an early psycholinguistics anthology (Saporta's??)

Berlin & Kay's (1969) study of color-term universals was indeed a real breakthrough, although I also believe again that it attacked what Whorf did not maintain, but rather what was imputed to Whorf. However, there has been work since then which has examined Berlin & Kay (1969) closely, and has come up with some pretty damning evaluations. One of the main problems with the study is the inaccurate data that it used (but then again Whorf has been shown to have misunderstood the structure of Hopi), and the criteria used in determining when a color term is basic and when it's not, and when a color is focal or not. Chapter 4 of Geoffrey Sampson's (1980) School of Linguistics, (Stanford University Press) is one reference that comes to mind.

There are also pretty careful experimental studies on the recognition of and memory for color terms which have come out in favor of both Whorfian relativism and determinism. See:

Lucy, John and Richard Shweder. 1979. Whorf and his critics: Linguistic and nonlinguistic influences on color memory. American Anthropologist 81:581-615.

Lucy, John and Richard Shweder. 1988. The effect of incidental conversation on memory for focal colors. American Anthropologist 81:923-931.

The first paper was critiqued by Linda Garro (reference below), and the second paper is an answer to Garro:

Garro, Linda. 1986. Language, memory, and focality: A reexamination. American Anthropologist 88:128-136.

Another attempt at an empirical test is Alfred Bloom's book The Linguistic Shaping of Thought. He found that Chinese speakers had more difficulty comprehending a text full of counterfactual conditionals than English speakers, and attributed this to the lack of explicit coding of counterfactuals in Chinese. However, Terry Au and Lisa Garbern Liu in Cognition (1985?) replicated the experiment trying to avoid cultural bias, and found no significant difference.

A more recent reference on Whorf and color terms is a paper by Paul Kay and Willet Kempton called What is the Sapir Whorf hypothesis? in American Anthropologist vol. 86, 1984.

Brown, R. L. (1967). Wilhelm Von Humboldt's Conception of Linguistic Relativity. The Hague: Mouton.

Rheingold, H. (1988). They Have A Word For It, Los Angeles: Jeremy P. Tarcher, Inc.

Saporta, S. (1960) (Editor) Psycholinguistics : A book or readings, Holt Rinehart.

Newcombe, etc. ?? (1958??) (Editors) Readings in Social Psychology.

Vygotsky, Language and Thought

Kuhn, T. (1960?), Structure of Scientific Revolutions (2nd Edit.).

Aarsleff, H. (1982). From Locke to Saussure. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.

G. Pullam's book, The Great Eskimo Vocabulary Hoax, essays by Sir William Jones and by W. D. Whitney, Carter and Nash's Seeing Through Language, Coupland's Styles of Discourse, and Freeborn's Varieties of English, and works by philosophers such as Austin, Searle, Grice, and Stalnaker.

Helmut Gipper, whose office sported an oversized poster of Einstein formulated an explicit link between the principle of relativity in theoretical physics and a similar principle in linguistics (Helmut Gipper, Gibt es ein sprachliches Relativitaetsprinzip?: Untersuchungen zur Sapir-Whorf-Hypothese, Fischer 1972).

The Lojban Kalevala Project

A most exciting project has commenced, starting at the first LogFest this year, crystallizing at the second one, and evolving thereafter on Lojban List.

This project is an attempt to develop a work of coherent original Lojban literature, one which would have the formative and perhaps normative effects on the language and its style that various epic works have had on the languages that they were written in.

For several years, I've used a reference to Chaucer and his Canterbury Tales in describing the context for such a project (Chaucer's work effectively defined the change from the era of 'Old English' to what is now called 'Middle English), though I've also mentioned Shakespeare (whose plays similarly gave birth to Modern English) in the same context.

These might serve as good exemplars of the goal of such a project: to make the Lojban language come 'alive', but it is unlikely and probably undesirable for one single author in one single work to set the norms for Lojban. We are trying to avoid embedding the ideas of only one person or of only one culture as the basis of Lojban.

Thus, when I spotted a better exemplar, I started using it. The Finnish Kalevala, the sagas of the Nordic nations, and the myths of the Greeks, were not written by one person at one time. (Indeed, these stories and poems were not originally written, but probably transmitted for centuries as oral tradition.) Instead, these are collections of stories with a more-or-less common context.

But as with Chaucer and Shakespeare, these collections are more than stories; they are among the oldest works in their respective languages and hence serve to define the earliest memory for most speakers of the language: of how the language was at its earliest known formation.

As a modern example of how collective authorship in a common context can work, the successful science fiction/fantasy series Wild Cards edited by George R. R. Martin, shows how people can write such stories using each other's characters as well as a common context (later volumes of the series show how editing can weave stories written by many individuals into a seamless novel which bears the stylistic elements of the contributors, but in a way where you cannot clearly tell what pieces were written by which authors).

Lojban would be better off with such a body of stories (indeed it would become, in a sense, alive, at that point), and would be better served by having the stories written by a collective authorship composed of people from as broad a cultural spectrum as possible.

At the August LogFest, a concept for such a project was developed, along with a basis or methodology for common authorship. Lojbab assembled the concept into a proposal, and posted it to Lojban List, getting several people to express active interest.

The project since has taken off on its own, though possibly in some ways changing from what was originally envisioned at LogFest. Lojbab has pretty much stayed out of the discussion since then, except to try to point out the interests of people who had no access to the computer networks, and hence could not defend their own interests. This must be a project of the community, and not his project.

The people discussing the project, have chosen to use more prosaic names that reflect the specifics of the effort, rather than the paradigmatic goals. We will let the project continue with the several names it has acquired, remembering the multi-authored, multi-faceted, multi-cultural spirit in which it is envisioned.

We want all of you who might be interested in this project to speak up. Now! You do not need to be a original, creative, writer - another hallmark of these ancient collections is that many of their stories are retellings of earlier legends and tales, sometimes of a different culture (examples: some scholars think that the Bible story of Noah and the flood is a retelling of an earlier story, that of Gilgamesh, Shakespeare's Julius Caesar was obviously built on the legends that the Romans evolved about that leader, and most of his other plays had plots plagiarized from other plays of the Middle Ages - plays since forgotten because they did not have the literary power and influence of Shakespeare.)

But you don't need to be a Shakespeare either in quality or in volume of work, in order to make a contribution. You just need to do the best you can on a piece of the whole - a piece whose size and nature you can determine, whether it be a paragraph, a poem, a page, or a longer work. Indeed, there is some room for contribution from people who haven't yet learned Lojban, in contributing ideas for the common setting. (But we hope that most people who participate will do so with the intention of eventually writing some Lojban text in contribution to the project.)

The following several pages define the state the project has reached in the last few months.

  • First, Veijo Vilva, a Finnish Lojbanist who has taken a leadership role in the project, briefly summarizes what he sees the project to be, its current status, and where he thinks it should go in the future.
  • Then follows a longer compendium, assembled by Veijo (with some additions by Lojbab), that embodies the essential discussions that have taken place in the last several months.
  • Then follows the first submissions for a collection of English language texts written by people to serve as descriptions of the common context for the writings of the project. These may serve as examples of what we'd like to see from people proposing additional descriptions of characters or setting (though please don't feel that you have to match the sometimes elaborate style of these writings).
  • Mingled with the English texts (in the order in which they were originally posted, since some of the stories rely on 'earlier' texts for information, or react to things mentioned in the earlier texts) are the most recent revisions of all Lojban writings written by people in conjunction with this phase of the project. Some of these writings have been attempts to help develop the common context in Lojban rather than in English, some experiments in trying to write within the context as it is known, and of course, all are attempts by the authors to improve their own Lojban abilities in the best way: by writing in the language.

Currently the goal is to define the common context, and we want as many inputs as possible for this. As noted in the longer discussions, we are looking for text (in English, or in Lojban with English translation for those who can't easily read Lojban text yet) that a) further elaborates the common setting of the stories, a 'coffeehouse' that will be defined with rich enough detail that people can tie their stories into the common context by referencing these hooks, and b) to define the major common characters that can be used (so long as nondestructively and consistently with the provided details) by any writer who wants to contribute.

We need you to act immediately and send us your ideas (on paper, diskette, or via email). JL18 (current deadline March 5) will contain as many additional writings and character descriptions, in either language, as we can fit. We will hopefully have more character descriptions submitted than we intend to actual use, in which case there will be a period of comment and voting until JL19 (current deadline June 5). (Additional ideas and proposals may also be submitted for this issue, but they will be at a handicap in any voting.)

Hopefully by the time JL19 comes out with the results of this voting, the dictionary will have been published, and people will have a common language definition with which do begin writing. The extra 6 months and the large volume of Lojban writings that will hopefully be appearing will also help more people learn of enough of the language to be willing to try to write in the language.

There is a proposal for a separate publication to contain only Lojban writings. As this proposal evolved, it grew away from the concept of the Kalevala project, expanding to be a journal of in-Lojban writing. The merits of this proposal are also for the community to decide, but I have taken this proposal more immediately to be a criticism of the excessive backlog in getting Lojban text printed in ju'i lobypli, the relative infrequency of ju'i lobypli, and perhaps a sense that text appearing in ju'i lobypli represents an over-centralized attitude of what the language should be like.

I have thus taken action to change JL's editorial policy to reflect these implied criticisms (as well as get its publication frequency up to the intended quarterly rate). This may make the proposal moot, or may cause it to be a longer-term milestone that will occur only when the Lojban community is large enough that people write enough text to support a separate journal, and enough people are interested in reading such text to make a journal economically viable.

Where this project goes after JL19 is up to the community. A separate publication may be spun off. Someone may choose to try to edit the best writings into a publishable book. Or ... - well, you decide!

Here's Veijo.

Veijo's Summary

The Purpose of The Ckafybarja Project

The purpose of the project is to encourage people to create original Lojban stories which have the following common features:

  • as already stated the stories are original Lojban stories, not translations from other languages;
  • they are closely connected with a coffeehouse which is described in detail in a set of English documentation available to all;
  • the stories either take place or are told in the Cafe.

The proposed Cafe Newsletter would widen the scope of material eligible for publication and make it easier for the beginning Lojban writers to produce something worthwhile.

History

The project has gone through several stages during the last few months. There were some preliminary postings concerning the lack of Lojban text - especially original text, not translations from other languages. It was noted that actually very few people did produce Lojban text or use Lojban in communicating with other Lojbanists. The ideas culminating in the project were formulated during the summer LogFests and the ensuing discussions on the net.

The Lojban Canterbury Tales

The first [1992] LogFest formulated the idea of encouraging people to write original Lojban stories with some common features. The basic idea was that there would be a place were people would gather to tell stories to each other like in the original Canterbury Tales or in The Decameron. The Finnish national epic Kalevala was also mentioned as a possible source of ideas and there were some discussions concerning the possibilities. The parts of these conversations which affected the development of the Project are included in the Papers. The discussions were at a very general level and nothing concrete was done at this stage. The name 'Kalevala' was used in the headers of most of the postings which gave rise to the first name of the project proper.

The Lojban Kalevala Project -> The Ckafybarja Project

At the second LogFest the Cafe idea was adopted and also the idea of having a detailed description of the locale and the personnel. This description would be in English in order to be readily accessible to everybody. It would serve two main purposes:

1) the stories by various writers would obviously describe the same Cafe;

2) the less creative writers would be able to concentrate on the plot instead of also having to invent the settings.

Three different settings were described but description #2 was the favourite already before the plan was posted and there was actually no further discussion on the net.

There were differences of opinion concerning various aspects of the description. Most of these have been resolved but some are in limbo and some are waiting comment from the non-netters.

The 'Kalevala' was quite soon dropped from the name of the project as there was no actual reason for the reference. I proposed the name 'la jbotur' instead but it was never adopted by anybody else. The name of the Cafe was 'la *jbolaz' for a while but this has turned out to be an invalid form [hence marked with an asterisk whenever it occurs herein].

Controversies

When the Cafe Project proposal (The Lojban Kalevala Project) was posted on the net there was some disagreement concerning various aspects of the plan. The main reason for this was the fact that none of the most active netters had participated in the initial formulation. Some of the ideas presented on the net contradicted the original plan so some non-netters might feel that the very active netters were trying to dominate. The views of the netters (or of the most vocal of them) are being presented to non-netters in JL17; there has been no response yet. The conversation on the net has quieted down.

The most controversial question was the characterization of the Cafe personnel - especially the proposed national heterogeneity. The main views presented are included in the 'Condensed Papers' [found afterwards] and I am not going to reiterate them here. As far as I can see this question is still open - in all the others at least some kind of a consensus was achieved.

Basic Settings

A more detailed description of the settings is included in the Condensed Papers.

The Cafe - A small cafe in rural surroundings (not visible from the inside). Predominantly Lojbanic clientele gathers there to tell stories. Some netters have already arrived. Nick advises to avoid interaction for the time being (cf. Condensed Papers)

The Personnel - Multinational personnel, Chinese manager and 5 others representing the source languages of Lojban. Detailed characterization isn't available yet so avoid adding details in the stories. All the views presented on the net concerning the characterization ought to be studied most carefully by all potential writers. We need well thought-out characterizations which take into account the views presented by Ivan and others concerning the difficulty of realistically portraying national characteristics and the need to have recognizably non-American characters as desired by Lojbab and some non-netters. Mark pointed out that the characters must be such that later writers can live with them. They are basically background characters but writers may want to use them in their stories. Others may choose to ignore them in which case the characterizations don't really matter very much.

Accumulated Material

English Descriptions - There isn't very much new descriptive material as the project hasn't actually started yet - in spite of the posting of the first preparatory Lojban texts. Nick Nicholas has added detail to the original Description #2 of the locale, David Bowen has described a Cafe manager, and I (Veijo) have proposed a Cafe worker.

Lojban Text - Altogether 6 Lojban stories have been posted - a proper story by Mark Shoulson, a longish 'rant' by Nick Nicholas, 2 short 'etudes' by Veijo Vilva and a 'rant' and a short tale by Iain Alexander. [A 7th piece, a 3-part character sketch by Nick, was posted but Nick has indicated that he intends to substantially rewrite it], Only the stories by Mark and Iain contain storytelling along the lines indicated in the plan, the others are more preparatory.

These stories have resulted in a very active conversation on the net concerning various linguistic aspects - grammar, semantics, and pragmatics. One very challenging task for the future is the collection, editing and publication of the accumulating theoretical material so that the results of these conversations can be used by the whole Lojban community.

The Newsletter Proposal

Nick Nicholas posted a proposal concerning a Cafe Newsletter which would publish all kinds of Lojban text connected with the Cafe. The proposal is included in the Condensed Papers.

The newsletter would actually widen the scope of the Lojban texts compared to the original plan. The original plan called for stories about the Cafe or stories told at the Cafe - the Newsletter would accept all kinds of original Lojban text connected with the Cafe, e.g. small studies like my 'etudes' would be eligible for publication. This would be the first purely Lojban journal - all the theoretical material with English explanations and glosses would be published in ju'i lobypli as would selected Lojban writings not connected with the Cafe.

The main purpose of the Newsletter would be to encourage and help beginning writers. The second raison d'etre would be to show that we have advanced so far that Lojban can be used without English glosses. Perhaps the most advanced stories wouldn't be accessible to everybody but there would probably be a much greater number of easy and intermediate articles. I also think that having the stories without English glosses would be advantageous as the structure of Lojban - especially 'Lojbanic' Lojban - is so different that providing an English version may actually hinder understanding or at least slow down the learning.

To would-be writers

  1. Start writing NOW!
  2. Don't set goals that are too ambitious. Remember that the published stories do not set a standard which you ought to match. Your first stories can be very short and use simple sentences. As an example, my first attempt, after minor corrections, may be found below [page 46].
  3. Start with simple things, do experiments with the language. Try to avoid formulating the ideas in English - otherwise you may have difficulties with astonishingly simple expressions.
  4. You may find to your surprise that it is often actually easier to express something in Lojban because you don't have to cope with the relatively free structure of English. Just drop the words to the proper slots and the unambiguous grammar of Lojban takes care of the rest.
  5. Don't force yourself to invent a story - it doesn't work. The story either comes or not. Pick up something and start writing about it - but do it now.
  6. The story isn't very important at this stage. It may be quite banal or even non-existent - if you find a Lojbanic way of expressing something, write it down.
  7. There is no stylistic tradition, you are completely free - within the dictates of the grammar, of course. If you end up expressing your thoughts in a way which doesn't resemble anything you ever read, it's quite alright.
  8. Don't be afraid of simple sentences. Lojban IS different. Writing a complex sentence which doesn't fall apart doesn't prove you know Lojban well - it is just a trivial exercise. Don't write a sentence which you can't readily understand yourself - even next week. You ought to be able to understand your sentences without parsing/analyzing/translating - at least the structure even if you don't remember all the words you had to pick from the word lists.
  9. It doesn't matter if you can't find a natural English way of expressing the idea of a sentence. Lojban IS different. A tanru, a lujvo, a sumti with attachments, a "ko" at a unaccustomed position may all be very difficult to express naturally in English. Just accept it. Utilize it.
  10. Start writing.

The Condensed Papers

This is a record of the Development of the Ckafybarja Project, the Main Ideas, the Conversations and Differences of Opinion concerning the Characterization of the Cafe Personnel.

This is not a straight record of the conversations on the net. I have deleted a lot of material - either redundant or not essential for the project at the present stage. I have also taken the liberty of making some minor changes to the text following the deletions so that the resulting joints are more natural.

Sometimes only first names appear in identifying comments. Full names for these people are Veijo Vilva, Nick Nicholas (alias la nitcion.), Iain Alexander, Lojbab (Bob LeChevalier), Colin Fine, Mark Shoulson, Nora LeChevalier, Andrew Smith, Ivan Derzhanski. We've tried to spell everyone else's name out in full.


A. Lojbab's original Lojban Canterbury Tales proposal

Lojbab: This LogFest was a fun gathering, and not one for work. Nothing really accomplished except to teach people a bit more of the language, use it a little, and socialize, learning more about each other. One topic of discussion was how to get more people doing something with the language. The topic segued into literature, original Lojban literature. One long thought-about idea that was discussed again was an interactive role playing project of the type often conducted at science fiction conventions, based on a Lojban-related scenario. Learning a little Lojban would give actor/players of the scenario an advantage.

But a better idea surfaced, one that can get more involved.

The germinal start of English as a literary language was Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, and someone mentioned that Italian has a similar medieval literary landmark, the Decameron. Perhaps other languages as well. The essence of the Canterbury Tales is that they are a bunch of 1st person tales, rich and colorful, often bawdy. Why not write something similar for Lojban, or at least start to do so. We can get a lot of people involved, who need only commit to writing a single short tale - a page long would be fine. A couple of the more expert Lojbanists - Nick, Ivan, and Mark, for example, might do some longer tales, perhaps about characters that might have a more complex story.

One charm of the Canterbury Tales is the variety of personalities of the characters - we can achieve that by having many authors. Stylistic consistency isn't necessary, since different people have different ways of talking. If you are relatively unskilled, you might want to choose a less-well educated character, but even this might not be a constraint.

The question is how to devise a scenario around which people can write these short-short stories. Canterbury Tales takes place where travellers gather - an inn or bar. Do we tell tales of the people of mythical Lojbanistan? Or do we presume a modern or post-modern society, with people much like the spectrum found in the world today? One possibility proposed would be people on a space station, thus appealing to the SF fans among us - an international space station, wherein people like Ivan and Nick can bring in tales from other cultures. Some could be tales of earth, while others could be high adventure in space.

One rule - if you have a specific story idea, whether you want to write it or not: don't talk about it in English. The stories are to be Lojban stories, and whatever appeal they have, as the first Lojban literature, will be emphasized by their not existing in English first. If you have trouble with the language, you can ask how-to-say-it questions on Lojban List, or send messages privately to Nick, Ivan, Colin, John Cowan, Mark Shoulson, or me.

Less experienced Lojbanists might team up on a story, in which case you can talk privately with each other in whatever language about your story, or if necessary, with one experienced Lojbanist that you interact with from the above list.


Chris Handley: Some points to remember about both Canterbury Tales and the Decameron:

  1. They were written by one person (and a genius at that);
  2. They were written fairly well into the flowering of the language.

In my opinion neither of these conditions apply to Lojban at the moment, which should not stop us doing something. Certainly a collection of stories along a central theme would be a great start to the language.

Another suggestion would be another parlour game. One person starts off and writes part of a story (a para, a sentence, whatever). This is then passed to the next person in the list to continue, and so on. (In the normal version, you stop in mid sentence, but that may be a tad difficult).


Lojbab: I think the continued story idea is a good one, but you need really cooperative people to have it work. We did try it once with Lojban, but a certain person (who shall remain nameless) made a point of striving for truly strange twists in the story at every opportunity - strange enough that there was no possibility that the result could be interesting (as opposed to the process - which can be interesting in spite of strangeness, or because of it).


Randall Helzermann: So is Lojban going to be the first language in which the "classic novel" was defined by a committee?

Before going to the "great lojbanian novel" why not build a lojbanic tradition from the roots up? The first thing that should be written in my opinion is a primer on logical and critical thinking.

Lojbab: This might be nice, but:

  1. people seem to want to write creatively, and I will encourage any writing in Lojban for any reason
  2. I don't know anyone competent to write a primer on logical and critical thinking in English, much less in Lojban. Maybe Lojban will lead to the development of such a genius (if the Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis is true), but right now all we have is rather normal mostly-English native speakers writing non-fluently in a not quite living language.


Randall: What?!? you yourself must have done an incredible amount of thinking about "logical and critical thinking" when designing Lojban, a language ostensibly made to encourage such.

How about a tractus on elementary logic then?


Lojbab: I did surprisingly little thinking about "logical and critical thinking". Remember that I didn't design Lojban from scratch, but built on the original design by JCB. John Parks-Clifford (pc) and others have contributed significantly to the 'logical' aspects of the language, and pc is probably the most competent in the intersection of logic and Lojban. As for myself, I nearly flunked logic in college, and rely on my wife and others when logic issues come up in Lojban, which frankly isn't often. People have felt almost no urge to use Lojban for logical expression, any more than they feel the urge to use English for it. Usually the ones want to do so use symbolic logic.

I understand your point, but there really is no one who would write the book, and more importantly, probably no one who would read it. It seems like the same kind of idealistic project as the occasionally proposed Lojban dictionary, written entirely in Lojban. Such a book could be written, I think, but would be an exercise to prove a point and would probably not be very good, or much-used. Maybe some day, but not nearly yet.

But thanks for the compliment. I'm glad someone thinks I do things logically and clear-thinkingly around here zo'o.


My main reason for suggesting the Canterbury Tales approach is that we are currently being flooded with translations of a variety of materials from other languages, but almost no one (except Michael Helsem) has attempted significant original writing in Lojban. Since translation always involves some amount of interlingual compromise (as we've seen in the phone game), only original writing in the language will lead to the development of true Lojban stylistics - something near and dear to Nick's heart, if not others'.

By making the length be at the writers' options, we can get people like Nick, who could probably write a good, longer story, but also maybe encourage Chris, who has never posted longer than words and sentences, to contribute something. The advantage of having a common context for the stories, is that it is possible in such a context to tell a little anecdote in as little as a paragraph or two that can form part of the compendium as well as a longer story.


Lojbab (paraphrased): Those who have trouble coming up with plot lines can take stories from the great mythologies, and use their plots as the basis for Lojban stories. There are many little-known such stories. For example, Veijo, could we use stories from the Finnish epic, the Kalevala, as the basis for Lojbanic stories.


Veijo: ... about the possibility of using The Kalevala as a starting point for the Lojban Canterbury Tales. It has taken me a while to sort things out as I didn't want to give a hasty answer. It's been quite a while since I read Kalevala - and not a total edition at that - and I had to do a quick sampling of it. I also read through a few reviews. I feel it's not much use taking an odd plot from Kalevala and trying to elaborate on that as Kalevala covers the whole spectrum of human life and the stories are not very unique.

One outstanding feature of Kalevala is, however, the way mythos permeates everything in an almost pantheistic way. The scale is continuous from an almost imperceptible presence to personified entities - not quite Olympian in power but more on par with the main characters of the story who themselves cannot always be distinguished from the mythos. There is also a strong faith in the power of words - not any single, magic ones but prolonged singing which can drive an opponent up to his armpits into a swamp or build a boat, singing of real men, not mere boys nor of those feeble in body or character. Words do not offer a quick way out of a tight spot and at a crucial moment the vital words may be missing and must be sought for. Words are the key to the duality of the world - or even more as the metalevel of the poems is sometimes quite tightly interwoven with the subject matter. It's a world which is very difficult to portray convincingly in a different language - or even in present-day Finnish which isn't any more so rich in metaphor.

I don't think the way to founding original Lojban literature can be found in emulation. It takes great literary talent to transform an existing story into something worthwhile - not a mere imitation. A literature arises from an existing cultural and linguistic background and the only thing we have at hand is a half-baked language. This is the fact we must start from. If we are to lay the foundations of a literature we must look at the world - the language - we have. What is the world of Lojban like? What sets it apart from the rest? If you take Lojban sans tanru, lujvo and le'avla it presents a remarkably Platonian view of the world. The most distinguishing feature of gismu and many cmavo is that they describe a very ideal world, every word brings out the essence, the underlying principle of a class of phenomena. In most natural languages the general is described in terms which are either alien or complex, in Lojban the opposite prevails. This makes it possible to present a distilled view of the surrounding world without resorting to unnatural expressions and also to contrast the general and the particular in a single utterance or even a single bridi. The avoidance of tanru and lujvo can be thought of as another form of controlled and recognizable ellipsis - only the essential is expressed and the particular is suppressed. Other areas where Lojban excels are the tense system, the attitudinal and emotional indicators and of course the connectives. We have a very rich apparatus offering unprecedented opportunities for expression but do we have something to say?

I think we mustn't hurry. We need the stories, the literature, but we must not push things. We must first try to see the world - a slice of the present, some particular past, the future - through Lojban 'glasses'. The literary world we eventually create must have a distinct Lojban flavour to it, it mustn't be a mere re-representation of some other world. It doesn't suffice to avoid translation, the world must be conceptualized in a Lojban way from the ground up. I don't think the stories need much of a plot, the settings give enough opportunities for fruitful utilization of the language. Even quite ordinary things can form the scaffolding around which the story unfolds. If you read the stories by e.g. Ray Bradbury, quite many of them have a negligible plot. The something hangs in the atmosphere, in many little things. That, of course, takes great talent. I don't know whether any of us can muster that but we ought to be able to utilize Lojban for the necessary special effects - with due constraint. The thing mustn't be overdone, we are not aiming to produce a linguistic fire-works. The language ought to be utilized subtly to produce a mosaic of shadow and sun-light, soft generalizations against which sharp detail can be engraved, the dull monotonous every-day or whatever described in a few, quick indicators and the richer moments of life in ever increasing detail using the full array of tools available for the task. If we don't try to reproduce the world in the way we are accustomed to see it, to use the imagery of our respective native languages - or our secondary languages - but try to see our surroundings through the Lojban glasses I think we may find quite many things worth depicting.

Perhaps we don't need the past or the future to provide the alienating background but can contemplate the present in the stories. It may even be more fruitful to start with something small. I once read a book called 'Writing the natural way' where the author told about a student of hers who had trouble in writing an essay about her home town. She told the student to concentrate on successively smaller and smaller details until finally they were down to an individual brick in the wall of a specific building at which point the student suddenly started to write and produced a quite respectable essay about the brick in no time flat. We may have to take a similar route to get started. But for now - let's start looking around.


Nick:

Wow.

I mean that quite sincerely.

I mean, when I bemoan Lojban stylistics, I usually see the trees - the complexities of nesting, the uncertainties of place structures in flux (lujvo and gismu), the markedness of attitudinals. You, Veijo, seem to have struck at the essence. It is absolutely true that Lojban (and any language) sustain their own world (it is also true that one should not be too flashy in pursuing the manifestations of this world, as happens often in Esperanto literature); it is also true that exploring this world is the great task awaiting Lojban literature. And it is even more true that my translations so far have not done any such exploration (interestingly enough, David Twery's ckafyzda diary did - not just because it was original writing, but because it looked at the cafe in the staccato, explicit way we will come to expect of Lojban...).


John Cowan: On substantive matters, I associate myself with everything that Veijo says, and I express my immense admiration for the way that he says it. I, too, believe that language naturally leads to mythology, and that mythologies are not really transferable. (Tolkien started inventing his conlangs for the pure "philological" pleasure of it, and found that they led him inexorably to mythopoetic.)


Lojbab (written in December): Notwithstanding Veijo's excellent points, the idea I intended in raising the Kalevala as an example is that plot ideas for short stories of classic interest are easy to find. Many of the plots of stories in classic literature are not original plots; for example, most of Shakespeare's plays are unoriginal plots, based on either on history, or on retellings of tales that were already set into plays or verse. The intent is not to encourage translation of the untranslatable epic of a national culture, but to point out that anyone who reads can take a story they've seen in another language, in another form, and retell the plot in their own words, perhaps inventing some new characters. For example, one of my kids just brought home a children's book, retelling the classic fairy tale of Jack and the Beanstalk from the first person point of view of Jack (who sees things perhaps a little differently and from a more childlike perspective than the impersonal narrator of the classic version). The story, even while being told in a simplistic children's "see Spot run" manner (and not very well, in my opinion), conveys a sense of Jack's motivations that would seem out-of-place in a third-person narrative.

Thus, one suggestion, for someone who feels that they cannot come up with a plot idea to write about: take a story, perhaps a fairy tale or legend, that you have read or heard, figure out some way that the events of the story, or something akin to them, might take place in a modern or post-modern environment, and attempt to retell it as a first person narrative, conveying some sense of the emotions experienced by the storyteller using Lojban attitudinals.

The story will not be a simple English (or Finnish) story anymore, nor necessarily a mere imitation of the original, because you will have added some original point-of-view. And if the result is not great literature, but merely "a pale imitation" anyway, because your writing skill isn't that great, I say that even a pale imitation of some of the greatest of literature is likely to be a better-than-average yarn.

On the other hand, I am recommending this primarily to people who think they cannot come up with something more "original". Original stories are fine, and indeed are especially encouraged. If you develop a story naturally out of simply narrating in a Lojbanic manner, you will have achieved what we are seeking from this effort, and bring Lojban alive as a language.


Veijo: One of the first things we'll have to do when we start to use Lojban creatively is to chart the most obvious ways of twisting it in our quest for expressive ability. Although a language has an unambiguous grammar and words with but a single meaning, it must somehow allow for linguistic surprise - otherwise something is lost.

The regularity of the language will force us to find the materials for the element of surprise in the choice of words and metaphors - and also in some kind of contrapunctive juxtaposition of syntactical structures, perhaps in a wise choice of modals or imaginative personal tenses. Quantification of expressive power in a language is probably something quite unattainable. Even though we can make sure that the Lojban grammar covers all the necessary aspects and are pretty convinced that tanru and lujvo can expand the vocabulary to the required extent, we cannot have any short term certainty in this respect.

Expression is a two-way process. It is no use having an elegant expression if no one can really feel what you are trying to say. In English - or any other living language - we build our expressions to rest on the solid foundation of the linguistic imagery which forms large parts even of the unconscious mind of the potential readers. In Lojban we have nothing like this available. Even the most advanced of us will have to struggle - probably for years to come - to attain a level of competency where reading is no more an intellectual exercise but a living experience. To really feel the language requires that it flows in you relatively effortlessly. You must have a background against which to contrast the author's way of saying things. Esperanto is so much like the mainstream Indo-European languages that the early literary efforts could build on the existing imagery. Lojban is conceptually so different that we have no such easy way out of our predicament. The imagery will have to be different otherwise we may end up using modals to rebuild the alien imagery. At this stage translations may contain seeds of peril as we don't yet have a living tradition to protect the language from the dominance of external influences. I don't implicate that we ought to exclude these influences totally. The language needs the common imagery of the whole mankind and perhaps even large sections of the heritage of the main cultures but this imagery must trickle in in a controlled way, not as an avalanche.


B. The Lojban Kalevala Project => The Ckafybarja Project

Lojbab: On Lojban List, there has been discussion for the last month on what I once called the Lojban Canterbury Tales. Several major cultures trace their earliest cultural and linguistic identity to a collection of stories written in the language. These include Chaucer's Canterbury tales, which basically defined the birth of Middle English, Shakespeare, who did the same for Modern English, the Decameron for Italian, the tales of the Arabian Nights for Arabic. Veijo Vilva's moving comments about the necessary birth of a Lojban stylistics through original literature, written under the subject title of "The Kalevala", seems to have shifted the focus of comparison to that relatively unknown mythic collection. I'll leave it to people to come up with a suitably jingling name to supplant "The Kalevala Project".

With the impending completion of the first Lojban dictionary, it is time for people to write originally in Lojban (rather than in translation from other languages) and hence to explore the unique point-of-view and style that Lojban's unusual nature might bring to narrative (the assumption of the uniqueness of this point-of-view actually assumes Sapir-Whorf is true, but we'll ignore that problem for now).

We had a long discussion at LogFest, and Veijo's comments about basing the story(s) on a uniquely Lojbanic world-view, coupled with Nick Nicholas's identification of what writings seemed to him to best represent a budding Lojban culture, underlay much of the discussion and its current resolution.

The goal is Lojban stories written from a common narrative starting point, written by as many different people as possible, each of varying Lojban skill levels.

Quickly ruled out was a scenario involving medieval times, which would severely restrict the scope of stories that could be told, and a space travel scenario, with people travelling together telling stories of their home worlds. Unfortunately, this type of scenario would require a lot of what SF people call "world-building" - every story would need the added baggage of devising a believable 'world' wherein it takes place, and making that unique world come alive. Even the better SF writers often fail at the 'world-building' game, and it seems too much to ask of the non-expert writers who will be trying to bring Lojban to life, to ask them to bring totally new worlds to life as well.

Still the idea is to bring people together in a situation where they will tend to tell stories, a process that takes time when a lot of stories are to be told. In modern society, people are simply not thrown together in numbers sufficient for such storytelling. There was a suggestion of a scenario involving a story-telling contest of some type, but this didn't fire people's imagination. In retrospect, I think such a competition would have caused problems in that some of the short-shorts that beginning Lojbanists might write won't be in the same story-telling league as longer stories told by more experienced Lojbanists. I'd rather see people write well what they feel comfortable at writing about, and not try to compete with other Lojbanists, better or worse, which I think a competition theme would naturally lead to. The goal is Lojban stories written from a common narrative starting point, written by as many different people as possible, each of varying Lojban skill levels.

We came up with a scenario that allows, and even encourages, a motley collection of stories of varying lengths. We decided to draw on the limited range of 'Lojban culture' that exists today. The first such element identified was the "Jimbob" 'rant' (as David Twery labelled it) that we published in JL16. We talked of the stories that the Jimbobs might tell each other while "working in the sandpits" while the Esperantists climbed their wall and the apes came abseiling down. Several people liked this idea, but others objected violently. To them, the Jimbob allegory makes for a distracting setting for telling a story - it is a story in itself and not a setting; it is also a humorous, indeed ridiculous setting, and might ruin a story with a serious tone.

Then we turned to David Twery's coffee-house (ckafyzda) text [hopefully to be published in JL18], which Nick has identified as the first authentic-seeming "Lojban world-view" text. It also allows Lojbanists, many of whom are SF fans, to get inspiration from a variety of similar ideas used in SF stories, including the "White Hart" tales of Arthur C. Clarke, and the Callahan's Bar tales of Spider Robinson. For a brief while we had the compromise situation of a coffee house on the edge of the sand pits, allowing both indoor and outdoor settings for storytelling, but the anti-pit people eventually came up with a better approach.

We devised an interesting, Lojban-allegorical coffeehouse which is interesting enough to serve as the subject of stories, as well as a backdrop for the telling of stories. The concept is a coffeehouse with an international flavor in which Lojban is spoken. The atmosphere is vaguely contemporary, but somewhat timeless. Indeed, one idea was to leave the outside of the coffeehouse, i.e. its locale, essentially unspecified.

Description #2 below, the current strong favorite, is probably in a rural or mountainous setting, since it suggests that the sandpits are nearby if not immediately present, but unlike our starting premise, the sandpits are not essential to the description (though they clearly inspired the climbing equipment). But people voting for description #2 in many cases specified that they wanted the windows removed from the description, so that the outside remains undefined. What will likely happen is that we will see how things develop from what we have, and add more details as needed by specific authors as the culture of the coffeehouse becomes further defined.

The coffeehouse has 6 employees, each a representative of a culture using one of the source languages for Lojban (There was a lot of debate over whether to use a British or American representative for English, and I would have suggested Australian in honor of Nick, but people settled on American because unfortunately the majority of Lojbanists, who are mostly Americans, may be familiar only with American culture, and we don't want to shut people out of this effort for cultural blindness.)

We were able to identify a number of "roles" to be filled in a coffeehouse: manager, cook, waiter/waitress, busboy, cashier. [clarification: the American English word 'busboy', or perhaps 'bus-person' cleans tables at the end of a meal and prepares them for new patrons.]

But some of these are seen as of a lower, subservient nature as compared with others. Rather than risk association of some culture being seen as stereotypically sub-servient by tying a character of that culture to a particular role (e.g., the Chinese busboy), the workers rotate jobs, giving the job of cook to a different person each night, with the effect that the menu is both international, exotic, and a bit unpredictable. The manager was assigned to the Chinese character, based on Chinese as the most populous of the Lojban languages.

A friend of Karen Stein's who came to LogFest, Phil, wrote up three descriptions based on this concept. Description #2 was favored provided that the windows were removed from the description, and thus the need to describe what is outside the windows.

Meanwhile there is further work to be done, some of which requires knowledge of Lojban, some that requires only imagination. More details of the setting need to be worked out, eventually giving enough information that a detailed floor plan of the coffeehouse can be drawn, with locations of everything marked, so that people writing stories can be consistent in describing the scene wherein the story is told (given that the exterior environment is undefined, there is no particular need for consistency, or even implied truth, in the stories themselves, but it was felt that this collection, being written by a large number of authors of varying styles, needed to have some one thing that all authors could share and rely upon to the finest detail.

Indeed the coffeehouse description will be described and finalized in English, to make sure that everyone understands all the details in a consistent manner. It also allows people to use a variety of Lojban expressions and forms to describe the English-defined setting. Thus the descriptions by various authors will not read exactly the same, yet the place they are describing will obviously be the same place.

We welcome and indeed encourage people to write descriptions in Lojban, recognizing that the description will have to be translated into clear English. But this gives people something to write about in Lojban, and you can if you choose use your Lojban text as a starting point for an eventual story for the collection.

The third phase of the scenario definition is to define the six characters in enough depth that people can include them in the backdrop to their stories and have them recognizably be the same people. The details should range from gender, age, and appearance, to personality, distinctive mannerisms, and outside interests that might serve as jumping off places for a story when the indicated person comes up to the table with a tray of food, or coffee.

This phase will be conducted in the manner of a contest followed by a vote. Write a character sketch of one of the characters, putting as much or as little detail into your description as you care to. The contest will be announced in JL17 (but I'd like to have a couple of samples by then), and thus people have plenty of time to write good descriptions before a voting a couple of months later, with the results of all phases of this introductory work appearing in JL18, I hope. All those who submit any ideas, text, description, or otherwise indicate definite interest in participating in the project will be eligible to vote. Again, character descriptions can be written in Lojban, but we will also need English translations.

However, the polycultural polylinguistic background of the characters has led me to identify a fourth task that the more skilled Lojbanists can start on now, independent of the actual descriptions of the characters (or at least it may be so). Each of our 6 cultural representatives will be a native speaker of their own language - Lojban is the lingua franca that all share, and the lingua franca of those who patronize the coffeehouse as well (hence stories told in Lojban therein). But Lojban has many possible styles, and some of these styles will be dependent on the native language of the speakers. Thus, the Hindi speaker may be prone to SOV-order sentences, the Chinese speaker to strange-to-English-speakers tanru, and the Arabic speaker to flowery metaphor. The Russian speaker may choose lujvo forms that are heavy in consonant clusters, whereas the Chinese speaker will minimize clusters and maximize vowels.

I don't pretend to know enough of the non-English source languages to try to describe them in any detail, but some Lojbanists like Ivan Derzhanski probably do; others might be willing to research. The result will be perhaps a short sample of Lojban "conversation" and of "narrative" styles for each of the six characters (perhaps each of them describing the same scene to make for ready comparison), along with an English language description of the essential linguistic ingredients that comprise the style, so that others can try to emulate the styles when writing. The ideal will thus be, along with distinctive personalities for the 6 characters, a distinctive style of Lojban speech that will identify the characters and also lend authenticity to the style.

Here are the proposed descriptions. For #1, the offending-to-some picture sentences are bracketed. Someone suggested the carpet might be made brown to hide coffee stains.

Description #1

My eyes had to adjust to the difference in lighting. The light in the place came from the twelve stain glass tiffany lamps which hung from the ceiling over a table. Low wattage bulbs cast a pale light around a place which measured some 10 meters in length and some 5 meters across. The tables have four chairs set around each of them, and as I sat down in the green cushioned chair I was shown, I had a chance to survey the rest of this place I found myself. The table settings had white linen napkins with an embroidered design of a type unfamiliar to me. The silverware was of a plain though excellent in quality, in addition there was a set of chopsticks incorporated into the traditional place setting. There were no coffee cups set out on the tables. [Along the walls hung pictures, and many of these were of people whom I did not recognize, and always with the same person, presumably the manager of this establishment.] Each picture had a gold frame, and the expressions in the pictures ranged across every known emotion. The floor was carpeted with a green shag of similar shade to the chairs, as a result the only sounds that one hears is the gentle flapping to the door going into the kitchen, and the whispers of conversations occurring at the nearby tables. [The place was quiet, still, at peace, as the man in all the pictures is approaching me. ...]


Description #2 is the current favorite, having references to existing Lojban texts that might somehow be worked into the stories-to-be-told, possibly with modification. The main objection is to the windows, that would require a description of the outside. (The outside might, but need not, be in a mountainous rural area where rock climbing is done - or sand pits. We didn't want to be stuck with Don Harlow's El Capitan reference of the original Jimbob story - not everyone knows what Yosemite looks like, and who says that the coffeehouse is even anywhere in America.) A possible modification would be to make the windows high up, or frosted so that people can't see through them. This provides the light without the undefined scenery.

[Note: This is not the original text prepared by Phil. The stairs from Ivan's story printed in this issue were originally misunderstood to be a ladder, and a ladder was therefore added to the description. Though we've learned that the ladder in the coffeehouse bears no resemblance to the marble stairs of Ivan's story, the concept in a room furnished in climbing equipment, of using a climbing ladder to access a trap door (presumably leading to the attic, wherein other artifacts may be found that could inspire more stories) fits the scenario even if the specific association with Ivan's story is excluded. Indeed, someone of Ivan's culture might see the ladder, and use it as a lead-in to tell that story. That is the purpose of having detailed decor with potential heavy symbolism - it allows people hooks to hang a story on, either a new story or one from their native culture.]

Description #2

As I walked under the crossed climbing axes, and into the coffeehouse, I felt I was in a place designed to give one the feeling of putting on an old comfortable pair of shoes. [The large arched windows filled the dining area with light, and since all of the booths were lined along the outside, every booth had a superb view of the .] The benches were made of old soft oak, in which many tales and symbols had been carved. On the bench I was seated was the inscription: "Members of the first sandpit expedition to find the first digger, or traces thereof - 198?" The table also bore other marks of former patrons who had drank their selections and transcribed their feelings with pitons. The walls were littered with climbing apparel and debris in what might charitably have been termed a collage. There were the rusting remains of pitons and hooks abutting practically new lengths of the latest high test rope. Opposite the door from which I had entered was a ladder - a climbing ladder, of course. The ladder reached to the ceiling, and a solid-looking trap door that made me wonder of the unknown relics that lay beyond, and the stories they might hold. Underneath these visible artifacts were the dour reminders of the primary business of this establishment-coffee. There were full wooden bins of coffee from just about every place in the world, with or without caffeine. The cook was visible to all and in the process of developing the latest creation on the current menu, and not without some debate about the amount of spice the particular dish required. This happy riot provided the counterpoint to the hissing, and boiling of a near endless stream of coffee beans in response to the always cold, often frustrated, and very determined clientele.


  1. 3 is a distinctly unsavory place, or savory indeed if that is the type of place you like. People seemed to feel strongest about this one, in both positive and negative directions.
Description #3

The current dart game was in progress, with its normally furious dispute about scoring from its very stressed participants. I had walked in for my usual pot of Jamaican Blue Mountain, this being the only place I could get it every day, and I sat down in my usual table, one of the few which had a level table, and reasonably sound chairs. I reviewed the familiar surroundings. Aside from the dart game, which had a wall in which the number of dart holes appeared to compromise the structural integrity of the building, there was the varnished hardwood floor, which was again showing the effects of the heavy traffic of the numbers and shoes of the customers. The place closes for a week once every three years, just so the management can refinish the floor. The other tables were showing their wear from the customers. Some of the tables were still in good shape, but most were worn out from the life that seemed to pour out of the customers and into the furniture, the poor furniture was not designed for this. As a result, these old maple and pine pedestal tables had not only seen better days, they had seen better years. However, like the dart game, the often refinished floor, and the old sunbeam coffee machines, and cast iron cooking utensils I have often seen cleaned, they are irreplaceable. There is an identity to this place, that while the customers may come and go, this place will be what they share in common.


Chinese - Manager; Russian - Cook/Wait/Bus/Dishwasher; American - Cook/Wait/Bus/- Dishwasher; Arabic - Cook/Wait/- Bus/Dishwasher; Hindi - Cook/- Wait/Bus/Dishwasher; Spanish - Cook/Wait/Bus/Dishwasher.
Rotating Menu, With Chinese overtones because of manager
International Menu

Discussion

Nick: This is a most capital suggestion. I'm for it full throttle. I mean, sure, the unsympathetic outsider would find our scampering for any hint of cultural imagery self-conscious and flimsy. But this project is just perfect for us. We can get cosy in it; we can all write like Twery :), in that detached, detail-seeking chain of sumti I find so endearing; we can concentrate on the tiniest details (Lojban is ideally suited for that tutorial application Veijo mentioned - start writing about a town by writing about a single brick in a building in the town).

We should not be afraid to put into the story that which we are, either. No need to exoticise or aggrandise our late-20th-century mundaneness and splinter interests (the exotic is not unwelcome, of course).

The unsympathetic outsider might also scoff at our attention to detail (the colour of the carpet?!) - but no, this all matters.

It's right to reject Jimbobs as a story basis; a bit too selfconscious, and intended as a cliquey thing. Still, veiled references to current pitwork wouldn't help, and would allow a lot of therapeutic mutual ego massaging :) What with the allegory really being Don Harlow's brainchild, I wonder what reference we make to the Esperantists going up the mountain - and in general, how much we let the outside world (including merko) impinge on the Cafe goings on.

I have a couple of thoughts on the Cafe personnel and the decor; I'll get back to you. My jimbobism makes me go for #2, with #3 as an alternative. Do we go for equal ratios of men and women? Do we have any minorities or "deviations" in the personas, or keep them mainstream? [Clarifying later: Actually, I was thinking sexual minorities. I expect we can also assume homophobia to have been eradicated in Lojbanistan.] Hm. We shall see.

Dang, this WILL be fun :)

The names will have to be native Lojban (rafsi):

.u'isai.u'uru'e mi pu nalmorji lenu cusku lei se stidi cmene. We could have
{cic.} ("Wildman")
{cis.} ("Hot Pants")
{cit.} ("Kid")
{ciz.} ("Wierdo")
{dar.} ("Daredevil")
{dib.} ("Darl")
{din.} ("Moneybag")
{dir.} ("Mr. Kibbitz")
{duk.} ("Worrywart")
{fad.} ("Norm")
{fad.} ("Mr Attitude")
{faz.} ("Dennis the Menace")
{fun./xaufun.} ("Lucky")
(these are all #3 names, eh?)

- or for less unsavoury:
{sax.} ("Harmonia")
{glek.} ("Felicia")
{vir.} ("Carl")
{nol.} ("Adolf")
{tir.} ("Ferris") ...


Ivan: Whoever wants to write a story with Chinese, (Hindu) Indians, or Arabs among the characters had better be very familiar with the corresponding cultures. I wouldn't venture anything of the sort, and therefore make the following

Counterproposal. Don't specify any national identity or cultural background for the characters. Make them representatives of an abstract, undetermined, or fictitious nation. In this case they might be Lojbanis by birth, for example. Assume, for the purpose of the game, that everyone's skin is the same colour.

Otherwise you risk to end up with a story that no Arab (say) would find plausible.

[Later clarifying:] When I proposed that, I was mainly thinking of the stories of Alexander Grin, one of my favourite authors. The events in his stories happen in a country which doesn't exist in the real world, and even no hint is given as to its location on the map (though it is clear that it is a warm area :- )). The characters, natives of that country, are not associated with any of the existing cultures. Yet they are by no means colourless - in fact, they are as colourful as anything - and they are not in the least Russian in culture (that is Grin's own nationality).

[On sexual minorities:] ... Now I'm going to milxe disagree. We aren't going to break all existing conventions at once, are we? We're in an imaginary land, our characters talk in Lojban, that's about enough. I think I could do with three men and three women, all of them heterosexual.

[On staffing:] I don't see why we need the staff to be rotating. That's not how coffeehouses in the real world are anyway.

[Nick: Mmm... OK, don't have 'em rotating shrug. Cuts the numbers down to five.]


Veijo: As a quick first comment I support these opinions. It's better to make these 'background' characters as neutral as possible so that the writers don't get into unnecessary problems. The characters and the storytellers/- observers in the actual stories are another matter. A visitor dropping into the cafe isn't observing the 'common' world when in the cafe. His story or the story he is listening to while in the cafe may describe various ethnic/national/linguistic groups but the narrator's relationship to the cafe ought to reflect his relationship to the Lojbanic culture. He may be a full-blown lojbo or still have one foot in his original culture which will affect the way he describes the settings, the balance between superficial and essential details. Maybe even the male/female dichotomy is superfluous in this context.


Nick: Neutral, yes, but not characterless. Exploring stylistic stereotypes (the sledgehammer JL15 I'm prone to) should be fun. I already had in mind a tanru-ist, an attitudinalist, an anaphorist and an SVO-ist, as well as the obligatory Prolog speaker :)

I think the monomania of exploring every facet of familiar objects in a familiar surrounding (the old brick thing) is highly pertinent to this do. Plots and tales aren't essential; a laidback, look-at-what-everyone-else-is-doing-and-how-that-crack-on-the-wall-runs attitude is just as appropriate here.

In a boisterous environment like #2, given we've taken out the cultural differences, I'd prefer it if the boisterousness were sustained by some heterogeneity amongst the cafe personnel.


Mark: Remember, guys, these are the background characters. It'd be fine to give them some flavor and all, but don't think they're the only ones around, nor the key ones (except perhaps in some rare "Cook's Tale" or something).

... [Gender] doesn't make a whole lot of difference, really. Bear in mind that this is Lojban we're dealing with; you needn't know anyone's sex unless it becomes important. I could see the waiter's sex never mentioned until five stories down the line when somehow it makes a difference. It'd be nice to keep it equal, so bear that in mind if it becomes necessary to specify someone's gender.

Your own characters, that's something else. Remember, these characters are not the ones doing most of the story-telling. The ones doing that are the patrons whom you bring in. They may have their own idiosyncrasies, culture, bias, whatever. In fact, I imagine the chief method of finding out people's sex/color/- accent/whatever might be seeing things from the point of view of a patron who happens to be particularly concerned about such things.

Keep them neutral. I don't think you have to go out of your way to try to convince me they're native lojbananas, and I always feel funny about overusing the rafsi-as-name bit; you just can't trust it. I like the idea of giving them distinct, but distinctly lojbanic, speaking styles, but perhaps it would be better not to go too carefully this route, and play with that in one of your own stories with a few patrons you bring in (if you think you can do it and still make the story work, which Ivan fears wouldn't happen). Remember: If you want something in a character, it can walk in the door. The patrons, over which each writer has more or less complete control, are the ones which make the stories click. The staff is background.

Your plan might be a good idea, Nick, but it may make writing a real challenge for normal folk. Remember, the staff are characters that everyone has to live with. If you want a few characters that you can deal with that have such speech styles, the door's right over there, and here they come. It's unfair to ask a beginning speaker to incorporate such clevernesses into his writings by making characters common to all the stories have these traits.

Tell me, when was the last time you could tell at a glance the sexual orientation of your waiter? Um, badly put (wedding rings are a giveaway). I mean, that's not something anyone would notice or care about unless it chanced to become important in a story. If you want someone with orientation X, have him/her/it/them walk in the front door, under the climbing axes. If you feel a need to attach that kind of info to a staff member, make sure nobody has beaten you to it, and then think twice before doing it.

Remember, though, that when you tweak the background or the staff, you're messing with something that all the writers have to live with. Don't build your world and force everyone else to live in it; bring your world into everyone else's. In fact, if you really need the waiter to be a certain way, you might even consider having a replacement waiter that day, just to be on the safe side.


Nick: Oh, ok. Still, these'll be the people we come home to in every episode; they do have to be "character actors". It seems I missed the point of these characters, nevertheless, for which I duly apologise.

While I want them to be boisterously different from each other, I also want them to have common reference points - I want them, as a mass, to provide a feeling of home (Lojbanistan?) against which the protagonists are foregrounded. Of course, since we don't know what being a native Lojbani would entail, we can't exaggerate this.

... best is to keep [differences in speech] subtle (not whack whack zo'u VSO); since that'll take a lot of finesse (which I'm not sure I have), we might as well play this one down. Still, a vague guideline (this character prefers tanru, this one expands) won't hurt overmuch.

[As for backgrounds,] I won't mess with what's there, but I would like something reasonably explicit there to build on. I am going to describe a particular crack in a wall :)


Lojbab: Ivan asks for several changes, all of which remove detail from the persons and scenery details. To write a good story, the details must be present. If we do not specify the culture of the characters, they will have no culture; i.e. they will be colorless, which is exactly what we don't want.

(Ivan: Not necessarily. They simply won't be identified with any one of the existing cultures.)

Actually they won't be - with mostly Americans in the Lojban community, they will all end up as nondescript American in culture. I would rather attempt and fail to capture hints of a foreign culture than not to attempt at all, and have the result seem too American. We may not succeed in capturing a true Arabic or Hindi culture (but then we might come close), but we will get a somewhat non-American culture. One would expect in any case that with people representing 6 cultures interacting on a constant basis that none of the characters would be 'pure' in representing their culture - after all, they do not live with their own people (at least not likely).

(Ivan: Getting a non-American culture is great, but calling it Arabic or Hindi (by the way, what is Hindi culture? I've never heard of such), without having a close familiarity with the real ones, would be way too bold.)
(Nick: Agreed. But not inappropriate details, which will lead us to embarrassment. Your Hindi-speaking co-owner will either be: US (or Australian) assimilated, to some extent or other (just like all the Hindi-speakers I know), or a caricature. We need some character and colouring in the owners. But talking about cultures we don't know enough about (I mean, gee, what do I come up with as a character trait for a Hispanic?) is plain too risky. Seek diversity elsewhere, in that which we are familiar with, and that which everyone is familiar with. Having them come out Americans is not the ultimate problem (besides, there are enough of us outside the States to avoid that); you don't need to hunt down the exotic. There is little more mundane and more Anglo-cultural than la tuerp.'s [David Twery] or la .andruc.'s [Andrew Smith] writing; and yet their work has the immediate charm of being comfortably Lojbanic that we seek.)

The setting must be well-developed and self-consistent. The stories told indeed must stand on their own, but if we are to have any cohesiveness to a set of stories written by a a variety of people, many with no particular talent for literary writing, we need some common setting that is well enough developed that the stories hang together. Otherwise we just have an anthology of random stories, which loses the joint-ness of the project.

The effort of those who worked hard to come up with the scenario, and the rather inspirational effect it seemed to have as the coffeehouse came together in peoples minds, is just the type of consensus work that we lojbo do well, and I want to see more of it.

Indeed, the better writers can invent stories and worlds of their own, and characters as well. Others may choose to have their story rest in an interaction between patrons and staff in the coffeehouse, which itself is a basis for a lot of powerful story imagery, and, given some preparatory work in character development of the staff, allows people with perhaps less skill or imagination to still tell a reasonable story, concentrating on the Lojban and not on the creative work that not all of us do so well.

The better writers can invent stories and worlds of their own, and characters as well. Others may choose to have their story rest in an interaction between patrons and staff in the coffeehouse, which itself is a basis for a lot of powerful story imagery, and, given some preparatory work in character development of the staff, allows people with perhaps less skill or imagination to still tell a reasonable story, concentrating on the Lojban and not on the creative work that not all of us do so well.


Veijo: There are many facets to creativeness. It is, of course, quite difficult to create truly flesh-and-blood characters. But telling about a person known to everybody may be equally difficult. To be consistent with the characterization without merely copying, to add something or just to express it somewhat differently takes skill at many levels. Actually, it might be much more difficult than making a quick sketch of a stranger or adding depth to some your own creation - even in your own native language. Fitting a limited expressiveness in Lojban to a detailed microcosm may be in fact harder than creating the details on the fly from the bits and pieces of the Lojban you do master.

Brainstorming in English at a LogFest may give you quite a skewed view. There people are using the imagery of their native English to create the ckafyzda and everything flows smoothly. A detailed English plan is, however, a double-edged sword. It helps, as you said, people to visualize this microcosm. On the other hand people must get rid of this visualization not to be hampered by it (jumping from English - or Finnish or what so ever - to Lojban already requires a certain amount of flexibility of mind). It will also be quite necessary to transform the plan into a Lojban plan to help the less experienced Lojbanists to handle the basic premises. I used the word 'transform' quite intentionally instead of the word 'translate' as I feel that a translation isn't sufficient, it is quite necessary to try to remove the 'alien' imagery. At another - simpler - level it is necessary to give the required lujvo and the ways of describing certain quite elementary things: distances, relationships, the way things hang together. It might be useful to have a kind of workshop (on the List) where the novice lojbo would be taught to navigate in this verbal VR (virtual reality). There might be teams of two or more people working on a person or even a table to get it just so.

(Nick: Because I have only vague suspicions about how this might work, I propose that we, as an example, navigate on [Lojban List] around, oh, the leftmost bench nearest the kitchen. I'm not being facetious; I want to see how one would go about this. The tables are made of old soft oak, on which many symbols and inscriptions have been carved.)

This kind of process might help people to find their own voice and to cultivate the innate creativity each one of us is sure to possess.


Nick: And with what you (Veijo) say about characterisation, too, the solution is a broad-brush sketch that allows us room to maneuver in; not too detailed, not too vague. Well, that can certainly be handled.

I think a Lojbanisation of the brush-stroke plan will not be limiting at all; people do really need that help in simply keeping a narrative going.

As the mass of writers becomes more familiar with Lojban, the Cafe will be sketched out in greater detail in the story, and more successfully, with the end result possibly quite distant from what we'd anticipated at the start. The more expert of us reinforce those less expert in the describing.


Lojbab: The plan is that there be 1 coffeehouse, and that the description be suitably refined in English. People will develop refined descriptions of 6 characters (or some other number if we abandon the 6 cultures idea - but I don't think you can have a 'cultureless person' and have the character detail that I think the others want in the shared characters), which will then be voted on, which means the characters must also be defined in English.

(Nick: I think it's perfectly possible, but then, I think we're also looking for different things in character definition. What maketh a Hindi speaking character? I know personally 3 native Hindi speakers Now what do I extract from them to create, say, la jbosanjiv., and what am I missing by virtue of the fact that I talk with these people in English, within an Anglo culture? If these characters aren't assimilated into some medium we're familiar with (regrettably or not, this'll have to be a more or less Anglo cultural medium - leave the "or less" part to us na'e glico) they'll be caricatures. And of course, as background, they don't have to be that detailed anyway.

If we're to avoid a palace coup, sure, keep them Hindi and Arabic in name; but don't expect the character description to be too adamant about their cultural identity. Exoticising these people is unsatisfactory. They will be somewhat assimilated, into be it merko or jbomerko. This is nothing to be ashamed of. Talking about the Arab's fiery temperament or the Russian's cool intellect as cultural traits would be.)

After we have the basic scenario settled, the material can be translated into Lojban, and people can set up teleconferences of whatever kind to help each other in writing, or whatever, but while the project is still in the formative stage, we must make provision for those who want to learn Lojban but haven't yet done so, and for those who do not have net access (which is 90% of the community).

Be that as it may, I recognize that most of the work will be done by people on net, and we should take advantage of the opportunity for rapid communication. But please be considerate of those who want to participate but cannot.

If people think they can develop interesting culture-free characters, I for one will await the first posted character description meeting the challenge.

(Nick: Cool. Veijo's navigation of virtual reality can be done once the description is in place, and the description should not be exhaustive.)


Veijo: I certainly understand those of us who were at the LogFest and now feel that the net-people are trying to take over the whole Project utilizing their technological 'supremacy'. On the other hand, we who are, due to external factors unsurmountable, unable to attend the LogFests and are limited to electronic contacts, which - though fast - cannot compete with face-to-face contacts and classes, feel left out of the initial phase of the Project.

Actually we were left a quite limited say in the formulation of the framework. The views I did present in my previous postings were ones I should have liked to present at the LogFest, I should have liked to have had my say at that time. Perhaps it would have made no difference in the outcome, but I should have felt differently. When I was writing the postings I recognized I was - at least to an extent - writing post facto. The writing was, however, necessary to find out just how much elbowroom I had. These postings (as quite many of my previous ones) must be taken with a pinch of salt. They are in a way a substitute for the process of thinking out loud in a class or a group working on a problem. The postings do contain errors and false starts which in a class would be corrected immediately. I am at least as much talking to myself as to others on the net - but the process only works if I do send the messages out.

I do hope that the people who feel left out of all the fun we on the net do have would try - once in a while - to imagine themselves sitting a couple of thousand kilometers from the nearest active fellow lojbo and having only the messages on the screen and the inevitable problems caused by widely differing time zones - it's like being a semi-cyborg.

I can imagine, on the other hand, the limitations of meeting others only, say, once a week and keeping all the ideas to yourself in the meantime and not hearing from the others or the goings-on (too few of us are still accustomed to writing real letters - and remembering the state of postal services to-day I guess it wouldn't much help). I can think of being without the List (shudder). Of course it is a slightly different matter for me here in the middle of a figurative nowhere. The blip of an arriving message envelope is also a symbol of the contact with you others.


Lojbab: In this case the people in question who are not on-net live 250 miles from here and have no contact with any Lojbanists except at LogFest, and when JL comes out. We may all be in the same country over here, but that doesn't necessarily mean that we are close to each other. On the other hand, I see your point of view too. Your ideas will be presented to them, and the decision process will just take a little longer. I just wanted people to try to think of ways to keep everyone working towards the same goals, when some people are stuck with paper mail rates. This is not intended to stifle the lively and entertaining debate that has occurred.

I don't think that the people off net are necessarily locked into the 6 cultures idea. But they did sound very committed to the idea of these common characters being defined is considerable detail, in English, before people started to write in Lojban. The desire for detail and for English, as well as the clear desire for people to go beyond philosophy and into specific detailed descriptions of people and the coffeehouse itself, is what I was trying to urge.

It was my idea, not theirs, that the best way to show Hindi culture is my having some Hindi-inspired Lojban stylistics, etc. I think the original people posing the idea were thinking more along the lines of having the chef of the day specialize in cooking foods of his/her native culture (for which we would need lots of lujvo and le'avla in order to have the foods recognizable, if then). Thus I thought that stylistics of Lojban would be a more creative way to go, people will recognize the exoticness of the non-standard forms, and maybe even learn a little linguistics about the differences in the languages based on the Lojban forms. But I do not see that we have to go too extreme to bona fide culture, especially if people don't think they can pull it off.

If people don't want to use the 6 culture labels, I suspect this will fly, but only if the characters are defined well enough that people writing feel they 'know' the characters either fully, or in terms of any cultural features/stereotypes/whatever that would be most noticed by your everyday lojbo wandering in for a cup of coffee.

I don't think that there is a 'splintering' between the non-netters and the netters. But my responsibility is to see that one doesn't come about. I fully feel Veijo's isolation in not being able to come to LogFest. But there are plenty of people in the U. S. who feel just as distant as you do, though they may be only 250 miles away instead of 8000.


Veijo: [On] the name of the Project: The Kalevala got to the name of the project more by way of accident than by volition. It is in a way quite fitting as the Kalevala (or the epic poems/songs on which it is based) was created by numerous anonymous people during several centuries. The '-la' at the end of the name corresponds roughly to the '-ia' of 'Lojbania'. Most of the action, however, takes place outside this land/domain of Kaleva which actually remains quite vague and so, in a way, the name tells nothing of the contents - it just kind of sets the reference point. So I think we might as well replace 'The Kalevala' with 'la jbotur.' (lojbo tutra = the domain of Lojban) and call the project 'The Jbotur Project' (le la jbotur. fitpla) or something like that (for the time being). Here I am thinking of tutra in quite a figurative sense, more as a mental territory/domain/sphere of influence than as a geographical territory. I also thought of various other possibilities but none were as concise or descriptive.

Again a couple of figurative names:

la *jbolaz. ( < lojbo lanzu) = the people tied together by Lojban

la jbonat. ( < lojbo natmi) = the people with a Lojbanic cultural background

I can't tell why I prefer 'jbo' to 'loj' in this context. Perhaps it gives the lujvo a certain distance from concreteness. Lojban is something quite concrete and 'la lojnat.' would feel too near to 'Lojbanic nation'. Theoretically, of course, there is no difference and the two are interchangeable. I'll leave it to others to decide whether these particular forms are preferable and whether these names are worth adoption to name the abstract entities in our writings. I think we have/will have the entities.

[Lojbab: "*jbolaz" is an invalid name, because it contains a syllable starting with "la". However, it is permissible, and perhaps even more Lojbanic, to leave the name as a brivla "la jbolanzu". brivla, of course, do not have the "la" restriction. Perhaps we should save name morphology for words Lojbanized from other languages.
Another alternative that works is to use a different rafsi condensation that avoids the problem. In this case "la loblaz." is legal because the "b" before the "la" prevents a morphology problem. This is a solution here, but won't always be possible, so I favor the selbri approach in general.
Since there has been no agreement among the participants as to the name of the cafe, in editing this issue I have left all names, including this invalid one, as stated by the authors. Ideas for names are welcome from all of the community.

C. The Cafe *Jbolaz Newsletter proposal

Nick: Every two months, an electronic and snailmail [i.e regular postal mail] set of Cafe descriptions gets mailed out - this is necessary to allow the off-net participants to keep up to date. For net participants, a month after posting their cafe article on the net, they must submit a revision incorporating all comments made. For those off net, the newsletter editor forwards all comments (net and snail), allowing the contributor to post a revision, say, four months later. The newsletter is all-Lojban, and people (preferably on the net, and preferably grammar-competent) can take turns editing it. The newsletter is cafe only, other literature being forwarded as usual for JL consideration. Cafe articles need not be tales at all - any piece to do with the cafe (like Veijo's navigation or my Fraktur rant) is legit, as is any genre. If we all approve on this, the newsletter can be announced in JL. Some central on-net personage should be nominal editor (forwarding mail to the editor de jour who must commit him/herself to passing all articles through the current parser, and glossing lujvo as appropriate.)


Lojbab: I see no problem with such a newsletter, but feel that it is appropriate after the getting started period of the first two issues of JL, which will serve to give more people a chance to decide to participate who are in the snailmail set.

After the next two issues of JL, I suspect that there will be enough people motivated by the project and skilled enough at Lojban, that there will be more than just Nick and Veijo trying to write stuff that is appropriate, including some people not on net. When the non-netters feel comfortable in participating, then I personally will have no qualms in letting the project go where it will, including letting whatever leaders have emerged at that point assume both control and responsibility. I would hope of course that LLG would be offered first publication rights on the results, as well as to get as much archival data as possible on this, the first organized-and-skilled creative writing effort in what is obviously about to become a living language.


Veijo: The original plan called for stories told at the Cafe. We have already had differences of opinion concerning background details. Now Nick is proposing that we widen the scope to include also other kinds of related literary works. (My srinuntroci or navigations as Nick calls them are just kind of etudes, not meant to be the stories, though widening the scope will make them eligible for publication.) In principle I am for this change of policy as it makes it possible also for the less advanced lojbo to participate in the creative process. It is much less demanding to produce a snapshot of a few lines than to produce something like Nick's Fraktur rant. We could have many more people contributing if this were an acceptable option. I think the non-netters would profit most from this change as longer stories do need more rounds of feedback from others.

The question of the editorship and of a possible editorial board must be solved. Although technical reasons seem to indicate an on-net board, other possibilities must also be considered. The board might also be something quite informal. In practice we would have a wide open peer review system where in principle all the lojbo on the net would be doing the reviewing. For the netters this works fine but I think Nick's proposal concerning the non-netters would require some fine-tuning.

This issue must be handled with the greatest sensitivity.

The division of work between the board and the Lojban Central must be agreed on. There are technical questions like handling of the snailmail if the editors are mainly outside the USA (most of the non-netters are in the USA) and converting source text to text files suitable for e-mail.

Last but not least are the financial questions. I think the ideal would be if we could find independent ways of funding the newsletter and the related editorial mail so that we don't strain the limited resources of the Central. We need some estimate of the volume of the mail and the circulation of the newsletter. This concerns mainly the section of the community which doesn't have net access. An option might be to circulate the newsletter as an appendix to JL.


Nick: In creating a virtual world such as this, we must be afforded full freedom in our ways of exploring it, and full scope for Lojbanists of all interests and capabilities to work with it. Extended narrative is one alternative; others would not only be a relief from what could get a bit stodgy in Lojban, but would also help explore Lojban's capacities more. A catechism or an Encyclopedia reference (I know I've got Joyce's Ulysses in mind here, but bear with me) are just as valid modes of expression, and just as helpful to the language. A fixed kind of narrative is unduly constrictive, and can discourage many would-be participants. In fact, I'd be discouraged from producing a straightforward narrative.

Plus, I think the opportunity of using this as a springboard for some satire of the Lojban movement is too good to pass up :)

Certainly the editorship need not be formal. Let me attempt to refine my proposal: the editor du jour is entrusted with the typographic preparation of the journal, the style preferred in his/her number (namely, subjective minor issues of expression - lujvo phrasing, optional punctuation and spelling, minor grammatical errors - can be left to them). They also do the chasing up of correspondence and editing of discussions eventuating from articles published in their issue, adjusting the work accordingly and resubmitting it on the expiry date to the current editor for publication. What I'm saying is that a given ed du jour is responsible for all articles first published by him. For example: suppose I, Mark, and Colin are eds du jour, and, oh, Nancy Lebovitz (say) submits an article that gets corrected and published during my editorship. I then, and not Mark, follow up any subsequent discussion and correspondence about Nancy's article, I make the suitable adjustments, and hand the finished result, and only the more interesting highlights of the discussion, to Colin (say) for republication. I suppose that means that my norms, rather than Colin's, go for the republished article; but at least work gets shared out that way.

The reviewing of text is of course carried out by all subscribers to the newsletter, on net or off. But one person has to tie all the threads together at the end, and take responsibility for touching up the text in accordance with the criticisms made; let that person be the first publication's ed du jour.

The editor in chief takes care of the editorial; his/her address appears in the newsletter as the address to which all correspondence is directed; has a certain amount of veto as to article content (checking for consistency and so forth), vetts the newsletter just before publication, and reports to the wider community through JL as needed.

I see no reason why stories should not be mailed for submission and entered into text files directly by the editor in chief, who is after all just one address (if this is a forbidding responsibility for an ed in chief, um, I dunno, get the ed a scanner :) Of course, all these proposals are for when the project is off on its own two feet and running. For now, if I understand Lojbab's mail correctly, Lojban Central will still mediate.

The LLG can have all the archival stuff it wants (and with editorship a net activity, there'll be plenty of it). I'm not sure about publication rights though. I envisage a periodical publication, rather than a book-form corpus, that certainly is distributed by the LLG, and sold at a profit to the LLG, but which is produced by a decentralised body, which is not necessarily equivalent to the LLG.

I suppose Lojbab's approach [on finances] will do. I dearly want a periodical publication out of this, not just a corpus of text to be dumped in Fairfax for people to order; but it is fair that the periodical be available by LLG's preorder (and if you preorder enough, by subscription). We'll ask for expressions of interest in the next JL. As for editorial mail... depending on volume, the eds as a committee may have to start pooling resources. Certainly we should use the net to make sure stuff gets snailmailed in the same quarter of the globe, at least; that'll be a big help. One article per newsletter in JL, but I'd like the newsletter to eventually have some editorial independence (once again, that would be excellent PR).

[As to who should be editor, it] basically boils down to who feels like being ed du jour (and handling a lot of grammar and correspondence), and who feels like ed in chief (who will have little grammar, but lots of correspondence, supervision, and consistency checking)? I still nominate Veijo for ed in chief; I'll go ed du jour, and we should have 3 to 5 such eds that we can divide work between; they need to have demonstrated Lojban competence, and that already narrows down the candidates to less than twenty.

Lojbab (originally private to Veijo): I haven't said so, and have been biting my tongue while all the discussion is going on. It sounds like the Lojban "creative writing" movement is about to take off on its own, and be more than mildly independent of "Lojban Central" with its own editor (perhaps you) and publication not much under my control. I think this is good because it shows the language can and will become free of me and of even the concept of a centralized "Central". This also allows me to show that my attitude is entirely opposite from JCB, who when faced with anything like this immediately becomes extremely possessive and controlling. I will not display such an attitude, at all costs; our legitimacy as an organization and a project independent of JCB depends on it.

Still I have some misgivings, in that, honestly, most of the net postings, even in the final draft forms, have tended to be significantly flawed in lots of minor details of the language. The netters catch most things, but not everything, as in the example of your *tosmabru error in your first attempt. Nick is the most voluminous writer we have, and in many ways the best in that he has demonstrated a command of many idiosyncrasies of the language, but I have found that, even after he posts his 3rd or 4th revision he still has multitudinous little errors - things like failing to check the rafsi in a lujvo, errors of place structure, etc. He even has a copy of the parser, but he has told me that he merely checks to make sure that the text parses, and doesn't always check to make sure that it is parsing the way he intends it to be read. Thus, for example, you will find dozens of minor changes between his final posted version of Aesop, and the version I finally printed in JL. (And unfortunately Nick didn't agree with all my changes, but there wasn't time for him to respond before publication.)

Perhaps you can see what my misgiving is, then. Will the proposed new publication have an editor who can and will check the language usage as thoroughly as it needs to be checked? How much authority will the editor have to correct and change misusages without getting author approval. (Nick may have accepted my changes because I am 'of Central' whereas he might be less tolerant of others changing his stuff. But too much editorial/authorial dillying over individual pieces of work will lead to an editor who has to spend an excessive amount of time in correspondence over a relatively small amount of final text. The text being generated in the community now already exceeds what Cowan and I can read and perform such editorial checking on.

And of course if the editor spends too much time editing, he/- she gets to spend little time writing his own stuff (a problem I personally have experienced). Thus, while Nick compliments you by asking you to be editor because you have a natural Lojbanic style, if you actually serve as editor, the community will be deprived of your developing and improving (rapidly) exemplification of such a good Lojban style.

I don't know what the solution is. I want this type of movement to get started, and I want it to succeed. But I worry that it is premature, in that no one, including myself, has the Lojban skill to be an editor of Lojban text, as such an editor needs to be given the present skill level among others in the community. Yet, how will such an editor develop, if no one takes the first step and tries.

Your ideas on this convoluted problem are of interest to me. Please keep this between us for now, since, as I said, I don't want my doubts to stifle debate or the formation of a movement; I write to you, because I sense in your writings and activities of the last month or two that my comments are not going to discourage you. But others have proven very sensitive to this whole silly concept of a "Central" (which concept I wish had never evolved - I don't want to be a figure of authority).


Veijo: Well, I think a 'Central' can have a quite legitimate role - even in the long run. In Finland we have something called 'the language office' which cannot enforce anything but follows the debates about the current usage, comments on it every now and then and is there to answer questions about the correct usage. Given the nature of Lojban I think we'll need a kind of clearing house for changes of grammar, place structures etc. to avoid anarchy before the language has stabilized. Also, I feel that a seal of approval on changes will help to avoid some of the endless and probably fruitless debates raging among the Esperantists. With people like you at the Institute I have no fear of an overtly stifling influence.

I do not see the journal as something completely independent. It will, of course, have an independent editorial policy. It will, however, be a purely literary journal not containing any theoretical material - at least not in English, perhaps in the long run we'll have Lojban articles about stylistics, reviews etc. I think JL will remain the proper publishing channel for the linguistic questions arising on the basis of the submitted stories.

Well, I think we'll never catch all the errors but probably we'll be better off than most natural language journals. I'm modifying the editor program I'm using presently (the one with hypertext capability) to do certain things. At the moment it has vocabulary and rafsi look-up capability (if only I'd remember to use them always) and I intend to add lujvo checking next.

Cf. Nick's posting: The main idea was that the workload would be divided between the ed in chief and the ed du jour. The ed in chief would write the editorial, define the profile of the journal and accept the stories for publication. The ed du jour would do the dirty work of preparing the stories for publication with all the associated fuss. Each issue might have a different ed du jour - the qualified people taking turns - so nobody would be prevented from writing etc. for a prolonged period of time.

It is normal practice in journals that the ed in chief decides what gets published. If an author doesn't want to change his/her text to the extent that it'll pass the editorial board, the text doesn't get published. On the other hand the journal cannot publish something against the authors will. I think the journal ought to have a 'charter' defining the aims, the editorial policy and the editorial procedures. All the reviewing would be public so we'd have less fear of unfair treatment.

Editing detracts from writing detracts from theoretical work detracts from studying detracts from ..., the never ending chain of choices. On the other hand, being forced to read what others have written and to really think about it will give you a better perspective on what you yourself are writing. None of us has a literary Lojbanic background and to find the language and refine our own writing we must try to explore as much of the text being written as possible. Nick's proposal would help a lot.

Being set up as an example may be quite counterproductive. If you, every time you sit down to write, feel that you must be able to create something exemplary, it will - sooner or later - extinguish your creativity. You must be able to allow yourself the luxury of also producing mediocre or even poor text in order to be relaxed enough to produce something worth your while.

At the moment the journal can only succeed as a collective effort, along the lines Nick has pointed out. I think his plan might work - with a few finishing touches. And I think we need the journal to give the community a further reason d'etre as there are very few people who'll remain content to study a language which isn't actually used as a language. The main purpose of the journal would be to encourage people to write in Lojban, to start with simple things (I have even thought that good one-liners might be worth publishing) and gradually to proceed to more demanding forms of expression. After 5, maybe 10 years we might have another journal with more ambitious goals - if the language really takes off - but now we'd be content just to have a journal - 'la jbotur po'u le jbocfi karni pe lei ckafybarja lisri' or what ever it would be called.

The way I see it, we aren't in any particular hurry. First we must present the idea in JL and poll the opinions of the community. If the response is positive, the real work would start, say, in January and we ought to have the material for the first issue prepared by the end of March. I think we'll have enough material by then and ample time for the editing (at the present rate we'll have lots of material even before the end of the year). Preparing this first issue will give us enough experience to define the schedule for the later issues realistically.

[Veijo's times in this paragraph were undoubtedly predicated on the assumption that JL would be on schedule, which it has not been, and that the volume of text that was written in August would continue at that rate, which it also has not.]


Lojbab: I agree that having to be exemplary stifle creativity and productivity. Why do you think I don't wish my job on anyone else? It is a real bear being thought of as the ultimate authority, and having little errors from years ago held up as sanctified rulings. That is why I find "Central" a distressing concept, since 'Central' like the Pope, is never wrong and must always be right. And I am not infallible. First among equals is fine, and indeed you-all who are most active on Lojban List tend to think of me this way. But the masses that are not as active consider me much more of an Authority.


Veijo: I know and I certainly do not envy your position. (It's funny, I was actually considering the phrase 'primus inter pares' in some context in my previous letter but then decided to avoid it as it is sometimes also used to mean 'first among "equals"'.) Many - if not most - people have a need for an authority and this ought to be taken into account. I think we'll have to consider the role and nature of the 'Central' in the future. The way I see it now, we should have a group of experienced Lojbanists (6-12), geographically dispersed, in contact with each other outside the Lojban list. This group would, among other duties, work like the 'language office'. I mentioned giving out statements either as individuals or as a collective. These statements would contain a standard attachment declaring that the statement a) is based on the current parser and/or word list and as such is "objective" or b) is a considered opinion of so and so and as such doesn't constitute an absolute ruling/truth but a recommendation. The main idea is that there would a body to which you could address your questions and have reasonable expectations of getting a correct or at least thoroughly considered answer. Of course you can ask questions on the net but then you may get a multitude of answers from which you must choose or get a single answer from somebody who just thinks he knows - the question and the answer having passed unnoticed by those who would be better qualified to answer - or even no answer at all. But how to avoid the halo of Authority, that is the question.

Lojbab: Which leads me to mention the thing I was talking to Nick about [see below for this text]. One problem I've never seen a solution for is how to communicate with those just short of trying to use the language. You have noticed how little Sylvia and Dave post, and there are several others that could probably post good stuff too, but they:
a) don't try because the debates that ensue are intimidating;
b) don't try because they see this enormous volume of debate on each discussion, and put all their effort into trying to understand it, not always with useful effect.

I think that the tons of stuff on the coffee house has probably intimidated some people from speaking up, simply because the leadership is going at it so fast and furious.

And while I am happy to see yours and Nick's attempts at supporting text in Lojban, they 1) set a standard few feel that they can match, so they don't try and 2) because they are in Lojban, people have to spend the time needed to read and understand (if possible) what has been written to make sure that what they write is consistent with what has gone before. The latter is the reason that I was urging people to keep to English for the most part during the project formation phase. Nick did give an English translation, though colloquial. You didn't, at least that I noticed. The newcomer right now probably hasn't got a clue what is going on, and what if anything has been determined/decided about the project, and what details if any have been added since the initial posting. The latter is why Karen wanted people to write rather lengthy English supporting text - so that people know about what they are writing before they start, and get to save their creativity for the stories.


Veijo: Perhaps I ought to post an explanation of what I'm trying to accomplish with my little stories. There is a qualitative difference between my two little etudes and Nick's rant. Nick's story needs the translation as it adds details to the original English description, my two published stories, on the other hand, actually add nothing to it, so it isn't so essential to understand them.

What I'd like to show to just the people who'd like to post something but feel they aren't advanced enough, is that it is possible to take a small detail (the smell of coffee, an inscribed letteral) and develop a few bridi concerning it. The story may be quite banal, the main thing is to write something in Lojban - preferably without an original in any natural language. My Lojban isn't so advanced that I could take an extended passage from the English description and transcribe it into real Lojban.

This is why I wasn't so concerned about invention - it's no good if I invent a clever story or a detailed description but lack the means of expressing it in Lojban. First I must develop a familiarity with the language - writing little banal first-grader stories if need be. The way I work maybe the reason for the hint of lojbo style in the stories. It's like putting together a puzzle or playing a game of Go. I pick a key piece - an observative, a selbri, a sumti, an attitudinal or maybe a complete bridi from Nick's rant - put it on the board and start attaching other pieces around it. The story/paragraph is like an extended bridi with places to fill - only the places aren't predefined but change all the time I'm developing the story. So it isn't a linear process where I'd have an idea and just started from the beginning - I can't sustain that yet. This way I can add just the kind of pieces I can manage - or change my mind halfway through if the going gets too rough.

We are still waiting reactions to the views I presented concerning the handling of the subject, we have this new idea of starting a newsletter and the related ideas concerning the subject material and, of course, the additions to the English supporting text by Nick and some other people. The adoption of the supporting text will be a problem. It seems to me we are going to need an editor just to select and unify the accumulating material. Some of Nick's material is fine as a literary work but hardly stuff to encourage an apprentice to base a story upon. You know my views and misgivings about this approach and there is no need to reiterate, I guess. I know my limits and I have found a way to cope - at least at this stage.

The 'etudes' I'm writing now do not - or not exactly - fit within the original framework and perhaps it was an error to post them without comments to that effect though at the time I was writing the first one I felt it was better to avoid comments which might be misinterpreted by the non-netters as we still don't have their reactions to the views I had presented earlier.

For me these etudes are a way to learn, to study, and comparable to any other stuff people are posting. If we keep to the original plan they are my way of preparing for the project proper, if we, on the other hand, decide to start the newsletter and change the scope of the material the way I have outlined, they may be eligible for publication.

Lojbab (originally private to Nick): I suspect that you won't see any of the inactive people contributing to the coffeehouse for a while. That effort is doing stunningly well, and has taken on a life of its own independent of "Central" (thank God, since I abhor the concept of a Lojban 'Central' in the first place). But it is suffering from the same problem that has afflicted almost all previous discussions of Lojban text on net. Some few people, in this case apparently you, Veijo, Ivan, Mark, and Colin, are churning out so much text and commentary on text that the others with less time or less confidence cannot be other-than lurkers, because they cannot read what has been written as fast as new stuff is produced. I doubt that you will see much from Sylvia, and you might even see less simply because everyone else is writing more. I printed out your latest 'rant', and we will be going over it in Tuesday-night group next Tuesday, but Veijo's much shorter text was all that we covered last Tuesday, so I suspect they may be working on your text for a few weeks. When we read Lojban texts here, every single word and every single rafsi is looked up, and thus even if you-and-others never made mistakes in these areas, this makes for very slow progress. (Nobody here has any confidence in our ability to read texts in Lojban as opposed to in literal English translation, which in my case I can do in my head. I have long gotten the impression that those of you who pour out commentary on each others texts at high volume and at rapid response rates are doing something quite different than we do when we read these texts, possibly something much better than what we do. Indeed, I find that while I can translate quickly in my head, even the smallest grammatical or rafsi error brings me to a complete halt because I have no error recovery capability - I have to stop and do a detailed word-for-word translation to try to figure out what the speaker was trying to say in English before I can hope to figure out what the Lojban 'should have been'.)

Not sure what the solution to all this is. It is great to see all of this on-line volume, and people seem to be signing up to start learning more actively in the last two weeks since this effort has come to life. But you need to know that those of lower confidence or skill are unlikely to contribute for a while, and I'm not sure I have any ideas how to remedy the situation.


Nick: I still don't know what we can do with beginners. I do note two things, however: there are beginners out there with enthusiasm, who don't blanche at the sight of Lojban sentences (Dryad, for example, saying "if I don't understand a sentence, I'll let you know); and I'd count Andrew Smith and Veijo Vilva amongst the beginners, the only difference being that they have applied themselves to the language. It takes little more than a month to turn from a lurker to a text-writer; barely three to become a Jimbob, given the right background. As for incentive, the Cafe is a great idea, allowing oodles of scope, and if it doesn't get people writing, nothing will.


Lojbab: With regard to the enthusiasm of beginners, I think that there are two or three kinds. Some are inspired by seeing the quantity of text, others are intimidated. I am opposed to the opening up of the coffee house project to 'anything goes', because the worst problem we have around here in getting people to write is that we basically here are not creative writers - we need to be given a subject to write about - an anchor to build a ship around. I can urge all that I want, but the more wide open the subject matter is, the more people here get writer's block because there are too many options and too little creativity - so they go back to translation. If indeed there has been such an opening up of the project, as I understand what you write, those who proposed it may take it back and make a smaller, more restricted sub-project that they are comfortable with, because otherwise they won't write anything. (You will recall from my original posting that Karen Stein, who really took charge here at LogFest on this thing was adamant about the need to fully define the coffeehouse setting and the common characters in English so that everyone understood the common ground before they started to write. She is a creative writer, but she said that she could not write the kind of stories she wants without having this firm structure to build off of - at least not if she wanted to end up with anything that would tie in to what anyone else decided to write. And the group-ness of the enterprise was clearly the thing that excited her about it.)

As for the 'who is writing' question - the people here are totally overwhelmed even by the two pieces of text that have been posted. People here feel the need to digest word-for-word everything that gets written before responding to it. Both Cowan and I, arguably among the most skilled in the language, especially technically, no longer even bother to try to read Lojban text that is posted. It takes too much work; we file it away under the 'someday ...' file, whereupon I eventually pull some of it out when I go to produce a JL issue; Cowan has never done so at all. I suspect that the rest of us here in DC are the same way. We can converse in the language comfortably (that is Nora, Sylvia and I), but we do so by not using lujvo unless the place structures and the rafsi-meanings are rather obvious from the context, because though I can make lujvo in my head, the others have to stop and look them up, which kills conversation. Thus your rather more literary style is an effort to read - we have to check everything thoroughly before we have any idea what you are saying. Since you and others who post to the net are predominantly writers rather than speakers of the language, this stylistic difference is rather difficult at the moment to overcome - you are used to taking the time to analyze stuff on-line that we cannot and do not do. By comparison, I suspect it will take us 2 weeks merely to go through your latest text and understand it as Lojban.

Part of the effect of our different styles of language use is that people who do all their work on-net are tolerant of different types of errors than us conversationalists. I find that your errors caused by not looking up rafsi and gismu bring me to a complete halt, because I cannot error-correct those type of errors quickly. Yet people seem to read and respond to your stuff with comments at a variety of levels quite quickly compared to what we manage here. They seem to concentrate on tanru and lujvo, and kind of absorb the grammar in passing having figured out the meaning by correlating the tanru into a gestalt meaning that dominates the sentence. Meanwhile, we get stuck on the missing "cu" that leads to total nonsense.

The point of this is that if Cowan and Lojbab can be intimidated out of trying to read your stuff, that should tell you something about what happens to David Young, with a gismu vocabulary of 100 after a long summer of LogFlash, and Guy Garnett, who is still stuck at around the 50 level, and has to look up virtually every gismu even after the whole summer of classes. People here, being grossly mono-lingual, get really stuck on lack of vocabulary. Until we get people up to a comfortable vocabulary level, no one will write anything, and people will tend to avoid even trying to read things.

But keep things going. It may not be what people had in mind, but things in Lojban are finally taking on a life of their own, which is the important thing.


Text and comments elucidating further description of Scenario #2

[Translations, where they exist, and commentaries on the language aspects of the Lojban writings will be found in the translations section. A computer-generated English gloss of Veijo's two writings will also be found there. No proper English translation exists for either Veijo's writings or Iain's second writing.]

Veijo's original text, mentioned several times above, was the first attempt to add to the initial description #2 provided as a starting point. Veijo's commentary above indicated that he feels that his text adds no new information to the coffee house description. On the other hand, his attempt to do a simple Lojban writing based on that description may provide some indication of how people will use the descriptions provided. Furthermore, Nick and Iain's writings below reference back to things Veijo says in this piece.

le la vei,on ckafybarja srinuntroci xipa xici

ni'o sriku'a
.i ckafybarja
.i mi zvati le vorstu gi'e terpanci loi ckafi da.uicai
.i mi ca ze'upunai.oi sumne da
.i mi dzukla le jbustu gi'e ctacarna
.i rancindu jubme
.i seldandu lo vrici to'erninda'i noi mi na djuno zo'e ke'a
.i selzvati ji'ipano zutse remna
.i srotanxe loi ckafi lei mudri
.i vrici
.i mi visyfacki fi pa lo poi loi remna na zutlamji ke'a ku'o jubme goi ko'a
.i mi co'a zutlamji ko'a
.i ko'a lamji le nunjupca'u
.i le jukpa cu selviska gi'e jupfinti de.a'ucu'i
.i mi pensi.a'e loi selpinxe co ckafi.au
.i ckafypanci fi mi.ui
.i ckafypanci
.i .ui.o'u
.i sriku'a

Nick: Vilva arrives in the ckafyzda. Finally! It's such a good navigation too, I feel guilty for proceeding to propose some fleshing out of the scenery in English. And of course, the Lojbanisations of our English specs should not be translations, but transformations, as Veijo has rightly pointed out. Here goes [italicized text is from Description #2]:

As I walked under the crossed climbing axes, and into the coffeehouse, I felt I was in a place designed to give one the feeling of putting on an old comfortable pair of shoes.

Veijo speaks of ".ui.o'u"; that's the feeling I want in the cafe too. A boisterous place, sure, with lots of emphasis on the "ka vrici", but also a very "mela'ezo.i'u" place. The door is nothing too fancy; plain, wooden, touch heavy, not pretentious. The climbing axes certainly have been positioned informally (maybe even not perfectly symmetrically?)

The benches were made of old soft oak, in which many tales and symbols had been carved. On the bench I was seated was the inscription: "Members of the first sandpit expedition to find the first digger, or traces thereof - 198?" The table also bore other marks of former patrons who had drank their selections and transcribed their feelings with pitons.

What with the suggested rural setting and the benches, I'm put in mind of soft damp oak, and murky late afternoon light. I don't think the place need be spotlighted, in any case; the can't-look-outside windows will do. There's not just tales and symbols, of course; there's a lot of good old fashioned graffiti (no need to be too solemn about it.) The place is, I suggest, small and intimate, with the "vrici" paraphernalia on the walls haphazard and competing for space, rather than formally set out, museum style. No more than ten benches (reasonably sized, though).

The walls were littered with climbing apparel and debris in what might charitably have been termed a collage.

See? I visualised correctly :) And some of the parts of the collage are downright incongruous. I would not be surprised, for example, if a certain pea on a cushion lies in a corner, with some inscription to do with a Kunstkammer. Several postcards, too (I don't think this is being too explicitly outside-world-bound), from Cafe Cairo, The Loglan Sogrun, Burnley F.A...

There were the rusting remains of pitons and hooks abutting practically new lengths of the latest high test rope. Opposite the door from which I had entered was a ladder - a climbing ladder, of course. The ladder reached to the ceiling, and a solid-looking trap door that made me wonder of the unknown relics that lay beyond, and the stories they might hold.

The ladder stays, but it has nothing to do with "le lisri be le serti"; an imposing marble staircase would be a touch too imposing.

Underneath these visible artifacts were the dour reminders of the primary business of this establishment-coffee. There were full wooden bins of coffee from just about every place in the world, with or without caffeine. The cook was visible to all and in the process of developing the latest creation on the current menu, and not without some debate about the amount of spice the particular dish required.

The menu is on display just to the right of the partition behind which the cook is visible; handwritten, with the le'avla defined at the bottom of the list in the six source languages. The coffee bins are along the walls, I take it? (Beneath the artifacts.) The waiter does some serving, but for the most part sits with the customers and socialises. The cook has most of his/her arguments with the dishwasher, sometimes carrying the arguments outside the kitchen and asking for support in his debates amongst hapless customers, slapstick-style (hm, I'm going against the rotation thing - others may countersupport it); I don't know what a busboy is either; and the Manager (and the sixth man/woman out for the night) sit together and overlook the scene. I don't know if it's worthwhile giving the Manager his/her own table, and a small table rather than a bench at that; but I would like the Manager to be a bit more formal than the rest, a voice of authority amidst the chaos, and somewhat set apart - a big gun in a story, held in reserve.

This might be a biiiiit silly, but maybe a small bookcase of NL dictionaries and Lojban references on the side? And the cafe, I thiiiiink, should be a bit of a bastion of lojbanism, or at least lojbanism-aware - which would give us the opportunity of satirising traits of the current or future community in it. The visitors, of course, don't have to particularly like or think about Lojban - it's by no means an exclusive venue.

This happy riot provided the counterpoint to the hissing, and boiling of a near endless stream of coffee beans in response to the always cold, often frustrated, and very determined clientele. . .

Damn! I knew they were cold and damp! :)

OK. If you all don't blow up at this, we can go navigating some more...

Veijo, on the coffee bins, wrote: ".i patxu loi ckafi lei mudri"

Colin: Why "lei mudri"?
Veijo: I'd say they are wooden but can't be sure these days. (The coffee? :)


Colin: I don't get Veijo's answer to my question here, so probably he didn't understand my question. I was querying "lei" as opposed to "loi".

Veijo: I tried to use 'the mass described ...' instead 'the mass really is ...' to express concisely the idea that the bins looked like wood but might be something else on closer inspection.

Mark on 'ckafyzda': Veijo in [an early version of] his first text used: "ni'o zdani"

I might have thought "dinju" would be a better choice. "zdani" implies some sort of dwelling-place, and you're leading into this with these observatives as "A house. A coffee-house...", where habitation isn't implied. For that matter, is "ckafyzda" malglico? It expands to "ckafi zdani" = "coffee-ish nest/house/- bivouac/dwelling-place". Most coffeehouses aren't inhabited by anyone, they're solely places of business. "ckafyzarci" implies a more of a store where you buy coffee beans to me, so that's no better, and "ckafybriju" is right out. Aha! "ckafybarja"! That's really much better, I think. "barja" even has a place for what's served, which is filled, in the lujvo/tanru, by "ckafi" (though other things may be served as well). I think this is an important change to make, even if "ckafyzda" has acquired some sacredness. It's only a week or two old, and it's broken. Please let us switch to "ckafybarja".


Veijo replies: In this case I definitely wanted the connotation of dwelling or even home-coming. I was thinking along the lines of a cafe where people are not perhaps quite dwelling but spending a lot of time telling stories and having conversations. At least in some parts of Europe cafes (especially student cafes) and like are almost a second home to some people.

Also implied was a cultural dwelling place.

"ckafybarja" is better as a general lujvo (and corresponds to usage in some languages, e.g. Finnish before American English domination) but...

There is nothing sacred about "ckafyzda" but it may match the underlying ideas much better. If we are stacking the place with connotative paraphernalia we may as well tack on a few more connotations.

Mark responds: Sorry, I'm unconvinced. You say you're trying to get warm fuzzy feelings of homecoming by using "zdani", but "zdani" doesn't have that meaning either. The lair of a dragon is a "zdani". A beehive is a "zdani". "zdani" means "place of residence/habitation of....", not implying any hominess nor lack thereof. Even if the manager chances to live in the place, (and thus it may be proper to describe it as a "zdani" incidentally), what we are describing the place as is a tavern or bar or other sort of informal restaurant wherein coffee is served. That is, "le barja zo'e loi ckafi" -> "le ckafi barja" -> "le ckafy-barja". Now, the proprietor(s) of the place, perhaps, might try naming it "la ckafyzda" (note the article), as that would be a tolerable name for such a place, but as a description, it doesn't wash. I don't care how much time people spend there: call it what it is - "lo barja".

Connotations are fine in describing the place, in the objects you put in there, etc., but if you call something by what it isn't, people won't know what you're talking about. "ckafyzda" would imply maybe the home of a coffee grower (rotten lujvo for it, though), or a coffee-colored house (also not so great), or a place where coffee lives (decent lujvo) - yes, that's probably the most likely interpretation. Just as "remzda" is used to mean "house" (i.e. typical habitation of human beings - some cultural bias there, no?), "ckafyzda" seems to conjure up some kind of habitation for coffee (as if it were a living being). Maybe those big burlap sacks that coffee beans are kept in, or a cannister on your shelf. In either case, the word would be very poetic, but more for its implication that coffee "lives" anywhere than for connotations of hominess on "zdani".

Veijo to Colin about the coffee:

I'm not too keen a coffee drinker. The smell came in kind of naturally with the coffee bins and all, perhaps childhood memories of freshly ground coffee at my aunt's shop where I used to hang a lot. If the specs had called for a taverna I'd have thought of something else to fill the first 10 seconds. The sense of smell carries a lot of connotations and brings fore memories... The smell of pezyckafi is the first reminder telling you that you have come (back) to where you belong. You can't put your finger on it during the first few moments but it hits you, sometimes like a sledgehammer. The visual recognition comes later and the images of times long past.

Veijo to Mark about coffee and tea: Used to be a tea-drinker myself but Finland is one of heaviest coffee drinking countries in the world and getting a decent brew of tea turned out to be too much of an effort in the long run so I gave up around the age of 25 and started drinking coffee. I still enjoy properly brewed decent teas, though.

Now about "loi selpinxe ckafi". Does it bring to mind the beverage or the coffee beans/powder the beverage is made of? I had the beverage in mind and I want to have the gismu "ckafi" in a position where I can tack the attitudinal on it. Well, now I have it: "loi selpinxe co ckafi.au". What do you think? Better? Or was it you just couldn't imagine someone thinking more the beverage than the actual act of drinking? Many a time have I been sitting and enjoying the fragrant smell of tea, this being an essential part of the total enjoyment when the tea isn't just something nondescript. Same goes for coffee. There are brews and BREWS. And think of the Japanese tea ceremony, to take an extreme example. In the ceremony the act of drinking is really almost superfluous.

Nick was next to enter the coffee house [A free translation of Nick's text will be found on page 60]:

.i mi se lidne la vei,on. ba'acu'i lenu nerkla le la loblaz. kafybarja .i mi sutra joiku'i.o'a banli cadzu pa'o la'ele cravro noi tilju je jadycau .i lenu mi pu kargau le vorme cu mlirocnandu gi'e sacri'a lenu mi catke .i le te vorme cu se gusni lo lecydo'i[1] milxe gi'e se kufra cmalu .i panomei sa'enai.a'acu'i loi jubme .i mi zutse ne'a lo na'e se tsejbi jubme {poi diklo le kumfa kojna gi'e stula'i le vorme ku'o} gi'e catlu loi zvapre .iza'a la vei,on. zutse vi le ragve kojna gi'enaipe'i zvaju'o mi .i ra zanfri .i'e.o'enai loi panci be loi vi ckafi .i mi zmanei loi tcati gi'e.o'o.aucu'i denpa lenu lo djabe'ipre cu jundi mi .i milxe savru gi'e ruble nungei .iku'i mi cabdei me ®lu .i'inai li'u¯ vau.u'uru'ero'a .i lei bitmu cu se jadni loi carmi bo vrici joi na'e simlanxe be ja'i le tcaci .i le re cpare ka'amru poi simkruca se punji fi le cravro gapru na minrysarxe .u'iru'e .i na go'i fa loi drata ke bitmu se punji ne mu'u lo dembi poi vreta lo kicne ku'o jo'u lo slabu tcityta'o ne secu'u ®lu vi xagrai loi tauzba pe levi tcadu li'u¯ ge'ujo'u lo befydai noi te ciska zo sindereluud. .i mi ca jundi le jbusfe pe mi .i te ciska so'ida ne bau la lojban. e la bangrnesperanto .e le glibau .e.ueru'e le dotco .i le dotco cu se ciska ta'i la fraktur .i mi xebni la fraktur .i mi djica {lenu ciska fi le jbusfe fe ®lu mi la fraktur xebni mi'e kilrois. li'u¯ kei} gi'enai ca ponse lo ve ciska befi loi mudri .i mi ka'e lebna lo cpare ja bisli kilmru le zunle bitmu .i mi co'i morji le xajmi pe lei bisli kilmru jgari relcisyge'upre .iku'i lenu le xajmi cu jboselsku na se snada mi .isemu'ibo mi pensi sanga le se finti be la suZAN.vegas. be'o pe me'e ®lu le la tom. gusta li'u¯ .i lenu go'i cu se dicra lenu lo djabe'ipre noi .uacu'i xindo cu klama mi gi'e cisma bacru ®lu cticpe ?ma doi lojbo ga'icu'i li'u¯ .i mi co'a se spaji catlu le be'ipre .i mi nelci le be'ipre .i mi mutce nelci co se trina le be'ipre ja'e lenu mi na spuda ri .iseki'ubo ri cmila joiku'i milxe bo se fanza bacru ®lu be'ebe'e xaupre zo'o ctidji ja pixydji ?ma li'u¯ .i mi spuda bacru ®lu

je'eki'e pendo .u'u si ba'edo'u.u'u .u'ise'i go'i lo tcati li'u¯ .i le be'ipre goi ko'a cu bacru ®lu go'i lo tcati pe le'a ?ma li'u¯ .i mi ®lu .aicu'i do ?ma stidi li'u¯ .i ko'a ®lu .e'a la kukytcat. noi vi purlamrai terve'u li'u¯ .i mi ®lu .i'e ko bevri le la kukytcat. tcati li'u¯ .i ko'a bacru ®lu baziba'o go'i .oinai li'u¯ gi'e cliva mu'i lenu bevri nagi'e tavla lo drata zutse .ipujecabo lu'i le jukpa kuce le patlu'i lu'u nevi le jupku'a cu cladu joi selzdi dabysnu .i le jukpa cu so'uroi batkla gi'e te jivrei le se casnu fo lei zvati .i.aucai mi na ve preti .i le barjyjatna noi dasni lo jikri'i taurgunma ca tavla la vei,on. .i mi xance rinsa la vei,on. i ko'a spuda rinsa gi'e nupre lenu bazi kansa mi kei mi .i loi cnino cu nerkla gi'e cladu rinsa loi no'e cnino noi na'oca'o te lisri .i mi na .ai cabdei ve lisri .i mi .e'icu'i cabdei xebni la fraktur.

  1. Lojbab: Nick kind of jumped the gun, using the rafsi "do'i" for the new gismu "donri" ("daytime") prior to either being announced publicly or appearing in any lists that people can look up.

Veijo followed up with a second text, in part reacting to Nick's effort. This may show the type of interaction between characters of different writers that may be possible, even if no one goes so far as to initiate a direct dialogue between the characters (a possibility that Nick comments on afterwards) [See page 58 for a computer generated gloss]:

le la vei,on ckafybarja srinuntroci xire xire
ni'o mi penzutse.o'u
.i to'erninda'i fa lemi jubme
.i ciska da le jbusfe .ije mi catlu da.a'u
.i lerfu la fraktur.ue
.i mi morji fi loi lerfu be la fraktur.
.i morji
.i mi puzuki zvati le ckule gi'e caca'a tcidu
.i mi tcidu le cfika be le ze bruna bei la Aleksis.kivis. 
   po'u le natmytercfi
.i le poi le drata be mi cu tcidu fi ke'a ku'o selpapri cu te prina loi lerfu be la antik.
.i lemi selpapri goi ko'a te prina loi lerfu be la fraktur.
.i lenu tcidu de pe ta'i la fraktur. kei pu nandu mi gi'e ca frili
.i mi djica lenu tcidu fi ko'a kei mu'i lenu lemi patfu 
   puzu prina loi lerfu loi ko'a papri
.i lemi patfu ze'u prina
.i lenu ri go'i kei nanca li vobi
.i kiku mi catlu le vi lerfu be la fraktur.
.i lerfu
.i bacru.ue zo coi
.i barjyjatna.a'a
.i la nitcion. co'ava se zvaju'o mi
.i ra xance rinsa mi .ije mi spuda rinsa
.i la nitcion. caca'a xebni la fraktur.

Nick comments: There's going to be a good tale, I think, in an old-timer at the cafe explaining how the devil the Fraktur got there in the first place...

I feel veeery hesitant in any interaction with the staff with their personas still not settled. If people don't like the Manager (and "jatna" does seem to be the only word we have for "boss" or "manager") being imperious, they'll be very unhappy if I portray him like that. So for now, let's not probe into the background characters too deeply.

The even greater danger is in sketching interactions with Real Life people. Veijo and I are about to start talking, and I'd like neither of us to make potentially annoying presumptions about the other's persona. So one should be wary in this kind of thing.


Iain then joined in with the following [a rough translation of the Lojban will be found on page 63]:

la jbolanzu kafybarja

®lu .ie.a'a .ie.o'onairu'e (cu'usa'a mi noi caki vilkla zo'a le vorme fi'o te mlixra le janco ku'o) sera'a ?ma pezyjicla li'u¯ .i mi vi le zdani pu zutse co cando .icabo mi terbei lo notci poi ve cusku le se du'u lu'o la vei,on. joi la nitcion. lu'u goi ko'a noi zvati le kafybarja po'u la *jbolaz. cu djica lenu penmi mi vi ra .i ®lu ?ma ?mo li'u¯ na se spuda .i ko'a jundi casnu la fraktur. .i mi zo'u la fraktur. no'e cinri .i mi co'a zutse ne'a lo jubme poi lamji le me ko'a ku'o gi'e denpa lenu se zvaju'o da no'u ga ko'a gi lo selfu noida'i bevri loi ckafi mi

ni'o lemi jubme cu xekri seja'e loni to'ercitno .i ra ve srakysku zo mi ce'o prami bu ce'o ®lu le cmacrnalgebra li'u¯ .i mi nelci le jubme .i mi de'a morji fi la vei,on. .e la nitcion. gi'e co'a pensi .i mi si'a se cinri so'a klesi be lo sinxa ciste ra'anai ledu'u vo'e ge'ikau te javni mu'u le sucta cmacrnalgebra gi mecritli mu'u loi rarna ja rutni bangu .i la'edi'u mukti lenu mi tadni la lojban. kei noi ki'u ke'a mi zvati la jbolanzu

no'i lo be'ipre cu klama co veirgau lemi selcpe po'u lo barda carmi bo ckafi gi'ebabo nalsirkla mo'ize'oku na'e mo'ifa'a le jupku'a .i .uaru'e simlu fa lenu ko'a ze'apu naje ca zvaju'o mi .i mi'a simxu rinsa .i la'aru'e mi bazi facki le krinu be lenu sutrygau


Nick: Very cool, Iain. I wonder why we got you to the *Jbolaz? Hmmm? :)

[Lojbab: With any luck, the rest of us will find out in JL18.]



[Next follows the first text of the type that was actually asked for - an English elaboration of setting and/or characters. Both David Bowen and Veijo Vilva, whose effort follows David's, have proposed characters for the cafe staff. You are welcome, indeed encouraged, to comment on these, possibly suggesting changes or elaborations, or to propose your own - remember that we need a half dozen or so to staff the cafe.

We also need lots more detail on the layout of the cafe, what is located where, what is the size of the various rooms, whether the 'cooking-space' (as it was put in Veijo's first writing) is a separate room, etc.

All submissions (subject to space) received prior to 5 March (15 March if computer-readable - via email or MS-DOS diskette) will appear in JL18, after which will commence voting if we get too many or too-conflicting descriptions.]

David Bowen: The owner and manager [or perhaps just the owner or just the manager] of the Cafe Chalet is a man of mystery. It's easy enough to see him, either hiking among the hills surrounding the village or conversing with the customers as he makes his rounds. But any questions about his life before coming to the village are met with vague replies and a quick shift in the topic of conversation. There are stories that he used to be a climber himself. A climbing accident, so the story goes, which killed his lover while the two of them were attempting a major climb led to his retirement from the sport. It is said that much of the equipment which decorates the interior of the Chalet is his.

In appearance he's a big man, with light brown hair and green eyes. In summer his ruddy complexion turns to a golden tan and his hair lightens to the point where it almost matches his skin color. On the slopes, he is often seen in lederhosen and a green alpine hat. While in the Chalet, these are replaced by conservative gray or navy business suits. Only his bright paisley ties and an occasional brightly colored vest show hints of the boy hidden beneath the serious businessman.

Attempts to determine his background from his speech have been unsuccessful. Though his English shows most of the signs of British English, it shows no signs of any other European accent being mixed in. His German, French and Italian are equally indistinguishable from those spoken by native speakers and he has shown no problems conversing with visitors from other parts of Europe and Asia.

Veijo: This is a description of la xiron, the first co-worker at la jbolanzu - Cafe Jbolanzu. No one knew his real name and the name he had picked for himself after learning Lojban was a kind of pun - if you bothered to play games with names. I don't tell much about the other members of the personnel as I didn't know them so well and, besides, I want to leave the pleasure of describing them to the other patrons of the Cafe. There were quite a few of us literary types spending our evenings there so someone else ought recollect enough of that time to relate about it.

I do not yet know whether xiron will interest you enough to make him a permanent member of the staff. So I shall tell you mostly about the first impressions he made on people and add more details later on if required.


He arrived one dark, windy evening in November. No one noticed him at first. He was just a tall shadow at the doorway, standing there, quietly observing the room. He stood there for a while, motionless, as if half asleep.

There were groups of people sitting at the tables, drinking coffee, chatting with each other. Someone glimpsed at the door, started to turn away but changed his mind and took a closer look. Others noticed his curios gaze and also turned to look. A silence fell. A stranger wasn't too common those days. The man at the door seemed to wake up. He took off his hat, wiped his forehead with a sleeve and started towards the nearest unoccupied table with a heavy step. He hesitated for a moment before sitting down, glanced apprehensively around and threw down the rucksack from his shoulder. His hand was gently stroking the wood of the table and he had again a far-away look on his face. A murmur of voices began to fill the air as people lost their initial interest in the newcomer. Only the most curious ones were stealing glimpses at him every now and then. There was nothing special about the stranger except perhaps his quietness. He seemed to be content just to sit there and observe the other patrons. He was a dark, slim man of indeterminate age and origin, face expressionless but not inscrutable in an oriental way. He had obviously come afoot as his boots were covered with dust but somehow he didn't seem to be an outdoor type. Veins were visible on the backs of his hands but the hands were soft, apparently not used to manual work.

The owner of the Cafe was busy in the kitchen and hadn't noticed the arrival of the stranger. He himself had drifted quite recently into the village and hadn't yet succeeded in hiring anyone to help at the Cafe so he had to serve at the tables in addition to cooking. Presently he lifted the frying pan to the edge of the stove, wiped his hands and started his round among the patrons.

He noticed the stranger almost immediately. The stranger was looking straight at him but gave no sign at all of noticing him. There was no rudeness in the stranger's gaze when he at last noticed the approaching Cafe owner, just quiet waiting, no smile, no irritation. The Cafe owner felt a slight discomfort which reminded him of the times he had had to address the head master at school. Had someone asked he would have been unable to tell what exactly was the reason for this uneasiness.

The stranger was looking at the approaching man. Japanese? No, more likely Chinese. What was he doing in these parts? Well, none of his business. He had been listening to the sound of the locals talking. There was a curious note in their speech and he had been unable to recognize the few words he was able to discern. He just hoped the Chinaman would be able to communicate in some language he knew.

"Good evening, sir. Welcome to Cafe Jbolanzu. Quite chilly outside, isn't it? Would you like to have something hot to drink? Coffee or tea perhaps?"

Something in the appearance of the stranger made the owner choose English instead of Lojban to address him. A slight change in the attitude of the stranger's shoulders seemed to indicate relief. The Chinaman felt easier.

There was an almost imperceptible delay before the man answered. He wasn't actually surprised, it just always took him moment to switch into English. Now he knew he'd be able to cope.

"Oh, yes. Good evening. Yes, it is. Could you bring me some tea, please. Have you got any green teas? Gunpowder? I'd really appreciate that. A whole pot of it."

There was no smile on his face even when he was speaking, just a relaxed softness. He was at peace with himself and had obviously no need to affect others one way or another. The Cafe owner felt strangely at home with the man.

"Well, I think I have got some tucked away somewhere. Isn't much demand for it, you know. Will take a while. Thank you, sir."

The Chinaman left with a slight bow. The man sat waiting, still stroking the table every once in a while, regarding the others absentmindedly. The din of the conversations grew louder and his thoughts wandered.

There had been a time when he had preferred quieter places, much quieter. He remembered a particular one in some provincial capital in the East. It was a large tea-house with tables for more than a hundred people. He had spent many an evening sitting there alone at his table sipping his tea and thinking. There were two other regular customers, the three of them coming there for a year or so a few times a week. Each had his own corner, they never spoke to each other during all the time he frequented the place. The Japanese waitresses sometimes told the latest news of Sensei-san, Teacher, as they called one of the patrons. It was really very discreet, no gossiping at all, they'd say: "Sensei-san is tired today. He's had a rough day." or something like that. And he'd sit there sipping his Japanese tea, eating perhaps a cupful of rice with a slice of cucumber dipped in soy sauce and looking at Sensei-san correcting exam papers. It was a quiet time in his life. Later came more turbulent times but they too had passed into semi-oblivion. He'd been wandering around for years now, observing people, almost always an outsider.

There was a sluggish discussion going on at many tables. Quite many people were just listening to the others and most of the speakers didn't seem to be very fluent. It was as if they had just recently learned the language. A few were narrating a longer story but they were quite often interrupted by one or another of the listeners who seemed to be asking something but curiously there was no change in their intonation. The stranger was perplexed. Where had he stumbled?

The Chinaman returned with a large teapot and a Chinese rice cup. He put the cup in front of the stranger, poured some olive green tea into it and set the pot on the table.

"Here you are, sir. Anything else, sir?"

The man raised the cup to his lips, took a sip and sighed. He then lowered the cup and looked up to the waiting Cafe owner.

"Excellent. Thank you. Maybe in a moment. Tell me, I've been wondering, what is the language these people are talking in? Who are they really?"

The Chinaman paused for a moment before answering. He wasn't quite sure what to tell the stranger. He himself was just beginning to grasp the language spoken here and had to formulate his answer most carefully.

"Well, sir, the language is called Lojban but I guess the name tells you nothing. I myself knew quite many languages before coming here but I'd never heard about it. It is a constructed language not related to any natural language - living or dead. Hard to explain in a few words if you aren't a linguist. These people are practitioners and students of Lojban who gather here to tell stories or just to chat with each other. As a matter of fact, the name of this Cafe is 'la jbolanzu' which means something like 'The Clan of Lojban'. It seemed to be a fitting name as most of my patrons are Lojbanists."

Lojban. The stranger looked around. Not an ethnic language - that explained many things which had been bothering him already before he had reached the Cafe. Lojban. The name brought no recollections what so ever into his mind even though he had been studying linguistics sometime in the remote past. Languages had always interested him and he knew a few words of quite many languages. Some of the languages he had learned while wandering from place to place in search of - well, he really didn't know what. Some he had studied at various schools and colleges during the more quiet epochs of his life.

"I see. Thanks."

He had done many things and studied many subjects during the years since leaving home - some things out of necessity, some out of curiosity. Here was something new. He hesitated. He had intended to continue across the mountains in the morning. He wasn't exactly going anywhere but there were some old cities in the Plains and he had thought he'd spend a few days just enjoying the atmosphere there. It was a long time since he had sat in a Bierstube drinking a proper black draught beer, sweet with the taste of caramel malt. But now he had bumped into something unexpected.

The Chinaman was leaving. Someone had beckoned him to a table across the room. The stranger nodded just slightly.

He was eyeing the other customers with a renewed interest. He raised the cup and smelled the fragrance of the tea while pondering the situation. He'd have to find some employment if he was to stay for more than a few days. Perhaps the Chinaman could help? He was prepared to do almost anything within his capacity for board and lodgings and a reasonable amount of free time. He'd stay till he felt it was again time to go.

The Chinaman had apparently gone to the kitchen which wasn't visible to where the stranger was sitting. The questions would have to wait. An elderly man at a nearby table stood up and approached him...


A year had gone by. He called himself xiron now. There was no specific reason for the name - he had just made it up one night in early June when he was trying to memorize a batch of rafsi. Though names had no inherent meaning you could always play with them, divide them in different ways - even ungrammatically. xi-ro-n, xi-ron, xir-on. The last variant had a Japanese rafsi meaning 'sound' at the end. He would play the games mainly in his thoughts as he wasn't exactly of the playful type. He would rarely venture to play with others and few would have considered him a member of the species Homo ludens, playing man.

He had made few friends during his year at the Cafe and no real enemies though there were people who didn't like him very much. Newcomers often at first thought he was unfriendly as he didn't smile when he greeted them and later on many felt the same uneasiness the Chinaman had felt a year ago. Perhaps it was the initial impression of self-as-suredness and reservedness which only gradually was replaced by a more realistic, more mixed one.

Xiron was mostly very quiet and even later on in the evenings when the staff was mixing with the customers he'd just sit there and listen to others talking, rarely expressing himself. When he did there was a certain finality in what he said. He might err but mostly his facts and opinions had a ring of truth about them which made it hard for the others to disagree. Sometimes he got on his hobbyhorse and then there was no keeping him. Luckily the occasions were quite rare.

He seemed to know very much or at least of very many different subjects though if you poked deeper you might find that sometimes he knew just a handful of key facts, nothing more profound. He didn't often volunteer the information. It was almost as if he had considered many things not worth mentioning without a specific reason. Just knowing wasn't enough.

The Chinaman now liked him. Many times they had sat late at night quietly sipping tea, not talking much, each deep in reverie. Both had seen a lot of world and contemplated many things with a certain polite amusement. Not many words were needed to convey ideas and somehow Lojban suited their purposes extremely well.


Following are 2 Lojban pieces, the first two 'stories' told in the cafe. A translation of Mark's story will be found in the translation section (pg. 63). Iain's story has not been translated, though there are some comments in the translation section.

Mark:

ni'oni'o vanci .icabo nalcladu ne'i le ckafybarja .i le bi'u[1] remna cu klama mo'ine'i ra .i ko'a goi ra zutse ne'a lo jubme .i ko'a cpedu loi tcati le kafybarja se jibri .i ba so'o mentu ko'a se dunda loi tcati gi'e co'aru'inai pinxe ri

ni'o ko'a ca lenu ko'a pinxe loi tcati po ko'a cu zgana lenu le bi'u nanmu cu se dunda lei ckafi poi ra pu cpedu ke'a .ije le nanmu goi ko'e cu pencu le kabri poi se nenri lei ckafi ku'o le degji gi'enai pinxe lei ckafi .ije mu'i zo'epela'edi'u ko'e cusku ®lu .o'onai ju'ido'u ko lebna lei vi ckafi gi'ebabo bevri fi mi fe lei je'a glare ku'i ckafi li'u¯ le bevri be lei ckafi be'o goi ko'i
.i ko'i cusku ®lu .u'u .ie ga'inai li'u¯ gi'ebabo lebna le kabri
.i ko'i krefu klama gi'e bevri lei ckafi vau ba so'o mentu .i ko'e krefu pencu le kabri .i ko'e cusku ®lu .i'esai ba'e ti ku'i cu je'a glare ckafi li'u¯ .i ko'e gleki pinxe lei ckafi po ko'e

no'i ko'a zgana la'eso'odi'u .i ba so'o mentu ko'a tavla le bi'unai selpinxe bevri goi ko'i .i ko'a cusku ®lu .ia do pu bevri lei naldrata ckafi ta vau ?xu li'u¯
.i ko'i cusku ®lu go'i .o'unairo'a .u'uro'a li'u¯
.i ko'a cusku ®lu ko .i'i na jikca dunku .i mi puzuze'u se jibri loinu bevri loi selpinxe vi lo gusta .iseki'ubo mi djuno tu'a le do se zukte .i da poi prenu cu genai pinxe lei ckafi gi pencu le kabri gi'e na'e djica tu'a lei ckafi ki'u lo za'i na'e pe'ise'inai glare .ije semu'i loinu da minde mi lenu basti lei ckafi loi glare ckafi kei kei mi lebna lei ckafi gi'e na'o denpa fu'i so'e mentu tezu'e lenu tu'a lei ckafi cu glaryri'a le kabri kei fo lenu krefu dunda lei naldrata ckafi .i za'a do panra zukte .i la'ede'u ve ctuca fu tu'a le slabu lisri be le bebna seljibri ka'u li'u¯
.i ko'i cusku ®lu le lisri ki'a li'u¯
.i ko'a cusku ®lu .ue do punai ?xu ve lisri fu ri li'u¯
.i ®lu noroi ve lisri li'u¯
.i ®lu .ai mi te lisri .i tu'e ka'u da'i puzuki da te bende le re seljibri .i fo'a goi le te bende ca le fanmo be le jeftu cu pleji le se jerna le re seljibri no'u lu'i le prije seljibri goi fo'e ge'u jo'u le bebna seljibri goi fo'i .i le se jerna cu rupnu li panono .ijesemu'ibo fo'a pleji lei jdini be ta'i le pelji jdini fo'e .e fo'i .i fo'e ckire fo'a gi'ebabo cliva gi'e gleki ki'u lenu le jdini cu se vamji li su'orau
.i fo'i na'e gleki .i cusku ®lu .o'onai mi to'e lazni gunka fi'o te bende do ca piro le jeftu .i do pleji levi malpelji .i'enaisai mi .i le'o ko pleji fi mi fe le je'u je'a jdini no'u lo sicni li'u¯ .isemu'ibo fo'a pleji fo'i lo gusminra sicni poi se fepni li mu .iseki'ubo fo'i gleki klama le fo'i zdani tu'u
.i tu'a di'u xe ctuca fi ledu'u jdice nagi'apubo e'ucai zgana .i .ua ri'a je'unai ka'u le sego'i zo "za'a" noi cmavo fi lesi'o zgana ku'o cu rafsi zo zabna li'u¯

  1. Lojbab: This text uses "bi'u" and "bi'unai" which are not on any published word lists yet with the current meaning. They are used to discursively to mark pieces of the sentence as 'new information' or 'old information'. New information is that which the speaker is trying to communicate to the listener, while old information is that which the speaker assumes that the listener knows from background or context. Normally this distinction is conveyed in natural languages through word order (putting new information either at the beginning or the end of the sentence, typically, depending on the language and the situation), but people want to have the option in Lojban of using word order for other purposes including simply expressing the place structures in numerical order. Marking a "le" description sumti as new information on its first occurrence in text, for example, means that the speaker has a specific and definite someone/- something in mind, but that he doesn't expect the listener to know which someone/something is being referred to at that point. Without "bi'u", the listener might wonder why he can't figure out which one the speaker is talking about.

Iain:

.i bazi lenu mi'a simxu lenu rinsa kuku lo nanmu poi nanca li so'a cu klama pu'e le na'e sirji ne'i le barja gi'e co'a zutse ca'u mi

.i le nanmu goi ko'a cusku le se du'u ri puzi se gunta lo puzu respa pe la'o ly. saurischia ly. .i ®lu .iku'i loi respa pe la'edi'u cu puzu ji'esti li'u¯ se cusku mi

.i ®lu .ila'aru'e go'i .iboku'i simlu fa lenu noda ve cilre la'edi'u fo ra cu'usa'a ko'a

.i lenu mi'a simxu lenu kansa cu nanca li reno

.i mi co'aki kurji ko'e goi le respa ca lenu ri ca'o citno

.i mi jinvi ledu'u le mamta be ko'e cu morsi ba'o lo nanca be li so'o .ije cumki fa lenu ko'e romoi lu'i le jutsi

.i le pendo be mi zu'apu kurji ko'e gi'eku'i puzi co'a speni gi'e gasnu lenu cfari fa lenu lanzu kuku gi'e jinvi ledu'u vo'a na kakne lenu tu'ari xamgu ko'e ca lenu xamgu le lanzu

.isemu'ibo le go'i cpedu lenu mi curmi lenu basti fi lenu bilga lenu kurji ko'e

.i mi je'a curmi .ijeja'ebo kiku nu'i bi'ogi ca la'edi'u gi caku dunda loi cidja .e loi djacu ko'e

.ijebo satre ko'e .ijebo fi lenu cadzu cu kansa fe ko'e

.i ca lo'e vanci mi tavla ko'e so'i klesi be lei te cilre be'o ne mu'u le citri be loi jmive be va'o le terdi be'obe'o .e loi jicmu be le saske bele munje poi vanbi ma'a

.i jetnu fa lenu ko'e na kakne lenu tavla .ijeku'iseki'unaibo mi su'oroi jinvi lenu ko'e jimpe la'e le se cusku be mi li'u¯

.i ®lu .iku'i mu'ima va'o la'e so'odi'u ko'e co'a bradi do li'u¯

.i ®lu

na birti .i noda ru'a jimpe le stura bele menli be lei puzu respa

.i seki'unai la'ede'u mi pupuziki gasnu lenu xendo ko'e

.i mi'a puzi klama zo'a lo bende be lo xanto .ijeseki'ubo mi mu'i lenu djica lenu fanta lenu damba noi cumki fa lenu ke'a se jalge lenu ko'e se xrani cu cusku ®lu ko se kajde fi tu'a le mabru li'u¯

li'u¯ mi'e .i,n.

le lojbo se ciska

le lisri be le serti

by Christo Smirnenski, translated from Bulgarian by Ivan Derzhanski

Over a year ago, Ivan made the following translation from a Bulgarian original. Because Nora and I have been so slow at technical review of Lojban text and because JL has been less than regular, this long promised effort is finally making it to print.

As with some of our other texts this issue, a translation may be found later, along with footnoted commentary on the text. This text is being published without final revision. Ivan's original submission was so well done that Nora was able to translate it and understand it as she received it. Her translation was extensively commented by Ivan, who planned to rewrite the text based on the comments. I think that the text we have is good enough to see print, and the commentary and response from Ivan, with added notes from Nick Nicholas and Lojbab, serve as an excellent study in Lojban stylistics and the problems of translation.

(The excellence of Ivan's work should not be doubted merely because of the number of footnotes. The stylistic discussions in these footnotes consist of Ivan's explanations of subtle distinctions in the original Bulgarian that are not captured in Nora's translation. I felt that presenting these discussions would teach a fair amount about the language, while showing some of the stylistic considerations that go into an excellent translation, considerations that need not apply when, like Veijo or Mark, you write originally in Lojban.)

As with other pieces published in this JL, I am publishing this text with essentially no changes, choosing instead to make my comments in the footnotes along with Nora's, Nick's, and Ivan's. Ivan did such an excellent job; I can scarcely say that my artistic judgement could better than his capture the sense of the Bulgarian text that I've never read.

Enjoy!

.i fitfi'i di'e ro lei ba cusku be ledu'u vo'e vo'i na srana

ni'oni'o tu'e

®lu do ?mo li'u¯ preti fi la pacrux. goi fo'a

.i ®lu mi to'erno'i ji'u leka cerda .ije ro le pidrai mi bruna

.i .oicai ge le terdi cu to'e melbi gi le remna cu to'e gleki
li'u¯

.i di'u se bacru lo citno nanmu noi se lafti se mebri gi'e denmi se xance .i ri goi ko'a sanli crane le serti .i labyxu'e linji ke blabi roimrmaro ke galtu serti .i ko'a catlu mo'ifa'a le darno ne di'o lepu'u lei grusi kalsygri be leka pindi cu ca simsa be loi ctaru rirxe ke to'ekli boxna ku savri'a .i diklo slilu gi'e febvi fengu gi'e lafti loi to'e plana ke xekri birka .i le nunpante ke suksa sance .e lei fengu nunki'a cu desku le vacri .i le te minra cu simsa be lo darno ke barda terdanti sance ku masno je junri runta .i lei girzu cu banro gi'e klama ne'i loi pelxu pulce dilnu .ije loi sepli ti'otra cu mutcne leka viskli ze'o le kampu ke grusi vanbi

ni'o pa.o'enai to'ercitno cu simsa be lepu'u sisku leri se cirko ka citno be'o ni'akro be fa'a le terdi ku dzukla .i lo cucycau cmaxli cu jgari lera selxaksu taxfu gi'e catlu le galtu serti sepi'o lo tinbe je simsa be le rulnkentaure,a bei leka blanu ku kanla .i catlu je cisma .i loi selpopseltau je grusi je cinla remtra cu trixe dzukla gi'e gunma sanga lo selsno ke mrori'i zgike .i da kercrori'a siclu fi le ctebi .i de noi daski nenri se xance cu cmila sepi'o lo cladu je rufsu voksa .ije lede kanla cu jarco leka fenki

ni'o ®lu mi to'erno'i ji'u leka cerda .ije ro le pidrai mi bruna .i .oicai ge le terdi cu to'e melbi gi le remna cu to'e gleki .i .iunai vu gapru .i .o'onai li'u¯

.i di'u se bacru lo citno nanmu noi se lafti se mebri gi'e dukri'a denmi se xance

.i ®lu .io xupe'i do xebni lei vu gapru li'u¯ preti fi fo'a noi ca tcica krori'a le xadni fa'a ko'a

.i ®lu .aisai mi ba vefsfa lei vu mabla nobli joi turni .i mi ri kusru vefsfa seka'i leimi bruna goi ko'u noi simsa be le canre bei leka pelxu ku se flira zi'e noi zmadu be le la gaimast. si'erbi'e bei leni tepri'a ku se cmoni .i ko viska leko'u ®lunbe ke ciblu ve flecu xadni .i ko tirna leko'u cmoni .i .ai mi ko'u venfu .i le'o ko curmi li'u¯

.i fo'a cisma

.i ®lu mi jibri bandu lei vu gapru .ije mi se le'irbai gi'anai lacti'a ri li'u¯

.i ®lu mi ponse no solji .i mi ponse no lo se pleji befi do .i mi pindi je selpopseltau citno .iku'i mi bredi lenu pleji lemi kazyji'e li'u¯

.i fo'a rapli cisma

.i ®lu .e'onai ri zmadu lemi se cpadji .i do'anai ko fi mi dunda leka do sanga'e li'u¯ .i ®lu .ueru'e leka mi sanga'e .i .iefi'i .i .e'i mi noroi tirna di .i .e'i li'u¯

.i ®lu do ranji leka ka'e tirna li'u¯ .i fo'a ko'a papri'a sepi'o di'u gi'e cadzu curmi .i ®lu ko pagre li'u¯

.i ko'a bikla bajra gi'e dzugre ci te serti tai pa nu stapa .i ku'i lefo'a terkre xance ko'a lacpu

.i ®lu banzu .i ko sisti mu'i lenu tirna leiko'u vu cnita cmoni li'u¯

.i ko'a sisti gi'e kerlo jundi

.i ®lu .uesai .i ?ki'uma ko'u suksa cfari lenu to'edri sanga gi'e xalbo cmila li'u¯ .i ko'a krefu ke bikla bajra

.i fo'a ko'a krefu rinju

.i ®lu mu'i lenu do krefu pagre ci te serti kei mi cpadji ledo kanla li'u¯

.i ko'a pa'arcau sliri'a le xance

.i ®lu ku'i va'o la'edi'u mi na ka'e viska ga leimi bruna gi leimi ba se vefsfa li'u¯

.i ®lu do ranji leka ka'e viska

.i mi fi do ba dunda lo drata kanla noi mutce zmadu li'u¯ .i ko'a rapli pagre ci te serti gi'e ni'a catlu jundi .i fo'a rinka lenu ko'a morji

.i ®lu ko viska leko'u ®lunbe ke ciblu ve flecu xadni li'u¯

.i ®lu .uecai .i .u'ecai cizra

.i ?cama binxo lenu ko'u melbi dasni .i ji'a seba'i lei ciblu te xrani ko'u se jadni loi se manci xunre rozgu li'u¯

ni'o vi ro lo cimoi te serti fo'a di'i lebna lefo'a cmalu selpleji .i ku'i ko'a ru'i cadzu

.i ko'a bredi dunda rodi mu'i lemu'e klama tu gi'e vefsfa leivu malplana nobli joi turni .i .uo.ui semaunai pa te serti .i ba su'epa te serti ko'a gapru .i ko'a cabazi venfu leiko'a bruna .i ®lu mi to'erno'i ji'u leka cerda .ije ro le pidrai sa'a li'u¯

.i ®lu ju'i. citno nanmu su'epa te serti .i ba su'epa te serti do venfu .i ku'i levi te serti di'i ve pleji le relpi'i jdima mi .i ko fi mi dunda leka do cinmo je morji li'u¯ .i ko'a sliri'a le xance

.i ®lu .ii leka cinmo .i .e'anaicai .i dukse kusru li'u¯

.i fo'a maljgira cmila ra'i le galxe

.i ®lu mi na mela'edi'u kusru .i mi fi do canja dunda lo zabna kazyci'o .e lo cnino kazmo'i .i ga do zanru gi do noroi pagre levi te serti gi'e noroi venfu leido bruna pe lo se flira be le simsa be le canre zi'e pe le se cmoni be le zmadu be le la gaimast. si'erbi'e bei leni tepri'a li'u¯

.i ko'a catlu lefo'a crino je ranxi kanla

.i ®lu ku'i mi ba traji leni to'e gleki .i do lebna ro ckaji be le kazre'a mi li'u¯

.i ®lu to'e go'e .i traji leni je'a gleki .i .e'apei .i ?xu do tugni .i do'anai leka do cinmo je morji li'u¯

.i ko'a cu trati pensi .i lo xekri ctino cu manri'a leko'a flira .i loi xasne ke to'ekli dirgo cu gunro zo'a le se cinje mebri .i ko'a fengu demri'a le xance gi'e bacru pa'o le denci ®lu .ai.e'asai .i ko lebna li'u¯

ni'o ca lenu le xekri kerfa ca biflu'a kei ko'a simsa be le crisa lidbi'e ku fengu pagre le romoi te serti .i ko'a capu snada lemu'e gapru .i suksa cisma gusni leko'a flira .i leko'a kanla cu dirce seci'o le smaji ka se mansa .i leko'a xance cu ®luzbi'o .i ko'a catlu lei pixsalci nobli .i catlu le cnita be di'o lenu krixa je dapma fa le grusi je selpopseltau girzu .i catlu .i ku'i no sluji be leko'a flira cu frati .i ri selgu'i je gleki je selpu'a .i ko'a viska loi salci se taxfu girzu vi le cnita .i lei pu cmoni ca salpemci

.i ®lu do ?mo li'u¯ tcica preti fi fo'a sepi'o lo rufsu voksa

.i ®lu mi nobli ji'u leka cerda .ije lei cevni mi bruna .i .uicai ge le terdi cu je'a melbi gi le remna cu je'a gleki li'u¯

tu'u

.i di'u se finti la xristoz. smirnensk. gi'e se fanva la .iVAN. derJANSK. fo le banblgaria si'u la nitcion. nikolas. fa'o

le ci cribe

An Operettina with a familiar plot and music, by Nora LeChevalier (As performed at LogFest 92 - No translation exists for this text)

Props: big, medium & little bowls.  Also pot & serving spoon, table & chairs.
       high, medium & low chairs.
       hard, soft & medium beds.

[] = actions
() = extra syllables/words on sung line.

[The 3 bears sit down to eat.]

      Song #1: "mi ba citka" to the tune of "Are You Sleeping?"

   PAPA BEAR           MAMA BEAR            BABY BEAR
-------------------------                -------------------------    -------------------------
     mi ba citka
(.i) mi ba citka  [eats]
(.i) glare .oi           mi ba citka
(.i) glare .oi      (.i) mi ba citka  [eats]
(.i) .e'u mi'o denpa                     (.i) glare .oi          mi ba citka
     le nu ti ba cenba                   (.i) glare .oi     (.i) mi ba citka  [eats]
(.i) litru .ai      (.i) .e'u mi'o denpa (.i) glare .oi
(.i) litru .ai [starts leaving]               le nu ti ba cenba  (.i) glare .oi
                    (.i) litru .ai       (.i) .e'u mi'o denpa
                    (.i) litru .ai [starts leaving]         le nu ti ba cenba
                                         (.i) litru .ai
                                         (.i) litru .ai [starts leaving]


[The 3 bears leave.  Along comes Goldilocks]

      Song #2: "mi xagji" to the tune of "The Inky-Dinky Spider"


                    GOLDILOCKS
                 --------------------------------------
                 mi xagji gi'e tatpi
                 .i mi ba nerkla ti
 [enters & sniffs]  .i .ue kukte panci
                 da poi cidja vi
                 .ije zangla marbi
                 co se kufra mi
                 .i mi lazni gi'e citka
                 le kukydja bazi


 [Goldilocks sits down at table and starts on Big Bowl contents.]

 Song #3 "ti dukse glare" to the tune of "He's Got the Whole World In His Hands"

[Sits down at table with bowls]


Verse 1:            GOLDILOCKS
                 --------------------------------------
 [tastes from big bowl]  ti dukse glare .i
                 .oi .ai nai
 [tastes from medium]    .i dukse lenku .i
                 .oi .ai nai
 [tastes from small]     .i prane ni glare
                 .ui ai cai
                 .i mi ba citka piro ti [eats it all up]

 [Goes to chairs]



Verse 2:            GOLDILOCKS
                 --------------------------------------
 [sits on high chair]    ti dukse galtu .i
                 .oi .ai nai
 [sits on low]   .i dukse dizlo .i
                 .oi .ai nai
 [sits on medium]   .i prane ni galtu
                 .ui ai cai
                 .i mi ba stizu zutse ti
 [falls off chair as it breaks.
  Spoken:]       .ue

 [Goes to beds]



Verse 3:            GOLDILOCKS
                 --------------------------------------
 [sits on hard bed] ti dukse jdari .i
                 .oi .ai nai
 [sits on soft]  .i dukse ranti .i
                 .oi .ai nai
 [sits on medium]   .i prane ni jdari
                 .ui .ai cai
                 .i mi ba sipna cpana ti     [lies down & goes to sleep]

[3 bears return, entering]

 Song #4: "le ci cribe co'u xrutykla"  to the tune of "Oh, How Lovely Is the Evening"

   PAPA BEAR           MAMA BEAR            BABY BEAR
-------------------------                -------------------------    -------------------------
le ci cribe
  co'u xrutykla
  le ri lazyzda
gi'e djica          le ci cribe
  le nu gurnycti      co'u xrutykla
  gi'e surla  .i      le ri lazyzda
ctinei              gi'e djica           le ci cribe
cribe                 le nu gurnycti       co'u xrutykla
cimei                 gi'e surla  .i       le ri lazyzda
                    ctinei               gi'e djica
                    cribe                  le nu gurnycti
                    cimei                  gi'e surla  .i
                                         ctinei
                                         cribe
                                         cimei



          Song #5: "bredi .au" to the tune of "This Old Man"

Verse 1: [3 bears go to bowls]

   PAPA BEAR           MAMA BEAR            BABY BEAR
-------------------------                -------------------------    -------------------------
bredi .au
selcti mi
vi le palta         bredi .au
   barda .ui        selcti mi
.i da citka pi      vi le palta          bredi .au
   so'u le kukte ti    midju .ui         selcti mi
semu'i le ka        .i de citka pi       vi le palta
   vefydji             so'u le kukte ti     cmalu .ui
                    semu'i le ka         .i di citka pi
                       vefydji              ro lemi kukte ti
                                         semu'i le ka
                                            vefydji

Verse 2: [3 bears go to chairs]

   PAPA BEAR           MAMA BEAR            BABY BEAR
-------------------------                ------------------------     -------------------------
stizu co
steci mi
gi'e mutce          stizu co
   galtu .ui        steci mi
.i da zutse le mi   gi'e mutce           stizu co
   stizu .ue puzi      dizlo .ui         steci mi
semu'i le ka        .i de zutse le mi    gi'e milxe
   vefydji             stizu .ue puzi       galtu .ui
                    semu'i le ka         .i di daspypli le
                       vefydji              stizu .ue puzi
                                         semu'i le ka
                                            vefydji

Verse 3: [3 bears go to beds]

   PAPA BEAR           MAMA BEAR            BABY BEAR
-------------------------                -------------------------    -------------------------
ckana co
steci mi
gi'e mutce          ckana co
   jdari .ui        steci mi
.i da vreta le mi   gi'e mutce           ckana co
   ckana .ue puzi      ranti .ui         steci mi
semu'i le ka        .i de vreta le mi    gi'e milxe
   vefydji             ckana .ue puzi       jdari .ui
                    semu'i le ka         .i di vreta le mi
                       vefydji              ckana .ue puzi
                                         gi'e ranji
                                            zvati ti  [points]

[Goldilocks awakes to see three angry bears.  She cowers]

   Song #6 ".ue .o'onai" to Beethoven's 5th Symphony, 1st Movement, starting after the two introductory 4-note groups.

                                 111
[Play symphony as accompaniment - Wait for introductory bars to end
and start singing.]

   PAPA BEAR                MAMA BEAR    BABY BEAR        GOLDILOCKS
---------------------    ----------------------   -------------------- -           ----------------------
.ue .o'onai
            .ue .o'onai
                         .ue .o'onai
                                      .ii cai
.i .o'onai
            .i .o'onai
                         .i .o'onai
                                      .ii cai
.i .o'onai
                                      .ii cai
            .i .o'onai
                                      .ii cai
                         .i .o'onai
                                      mi cliva [runs out]

[Once again, the 3 bears sit down to eat.  Mama Bear serves afresh.]

 Song #7: "mi ba citka", reprise (to the tune of "Are You Sleeping?")

   PAPA BEAR           MAMA BEAR            BABY BEAR
-------------------------                -------------------------    -------------------------
     mi ba citka
(.i) mi ba citka  [eats]
(.i) glare .oi           mi ba citka
(.i) glare .oi      (.i) mi ba citka  [eats]
(.i) mi'o na ba denpa                    (.i) glare .oi          mi ba citka
     le nu ti ba cenba                   (.i) glare .oi     (.i) mi ba citka  [eats]
(.i) citka .ai      (.i) mi'o na ba denpa    (.i) glare .oi
(.i) citka .ai [starts eating]                le nu ti ba cenba  (.i) glare .oi
                    (.i) citka .ai       (.i) mi'o na ba denpa
                    (.i) citka .ai [starts eating]          le nu ti ba cenba
                                         (.i) citka .ai
                                         (.i) citka .ai [starts eating]

[curtains close]

Note: Three Alternate songs available for Song #3 (Goldilocks tries food, etc.):


A: "ti cu dukse glare" to the tune of "She'll Be Coming 'Round the Mountain When She Comes"

ti cu dukse glare cidja .ue .aunai
.i ti dukse ji'a lenku .aunaisai
.i ti glare prane cidja
.i mi kazyxagji citka
ze'apu le nu se tisna
.a'o .ai

ti cu dukse galtu stizu .ue .aunai
.i ti dukse ji'a dizlo .aunaisai
.i ti galtu prane stizu
.i mi djica le nu mi cu
zutse surla vi le pritu
.a'o .ai

ti cu dukse jdari ckana .ue .aunai
.i ti dukse ji'a ranti .aunaisai
.i ti jdari prane ckana
.i do kakne le nu zgana
le nu mi cu sipna cpana
.a'o .ai

.i mi na vreta ti
.i ti dukse .uu ranti
.i .a'o ta xagmau ti
.i .ui .ai cai
mi vreta sipna .ui vi


B: "ti dukse glare .ainai" to the tune of "For the Beauty of the Earth"

ti dukse glare .ainai .i
mi na ka'e citka ti
.i dukse ji'a lenku .uu
.i ta va cu xagmau ?xu
.i ti glare prane .ui
.i mi citka piro ti

ti dukse galtu .ainai .i
mi na ka'e zutse ti
.i dukse ji'a dizlo .uu
.i ta va cu xagmau ?xu
.i ti galtu prane .ui
.i mi stizu zutse ti

ti dukse jdari .ainai .i
mi na ka'e sipna vi
.i dukse ji'a ranti .uu
.i ta va cu xagmau ?xu
.i ti jdari prane .ui
.i mi sipna cpana ti


C: "ti cu dukse .uu glare" to the tune of "Du, Du Liegst Mir Im Herzen"

ti cu dukse .uu glare
.i mi na citka ti
.i ti dukse .uu lenku
.i .a'o ta xagmau ti
.i .ui .ai cai
mi citka piro ti vi

ti cu dukse .uu galtu
.i mi na zutse ti
.i ti dukse .uu dizlo
.i .a'o ta xagmau ti
.i .ui .ai cai
mi stizu zutse .ui vi
ti cu dukse .uu jdari

Translations and Commentary for ckafybarja writings and le lojbo se ciska

Following are computer-generated glosses for the first of Veijo's two Lojban texts. In addition to providing help for those who are attempting to read the texts, they also serve to show the current capability of the Lojban glosser program that Nora is working on. As it is, it produces word-for-word interlinear translations, substituting an English keyword for each Lojban word (and some compounds). But as you can see, a word-for-word gloss can be nearly unreadable if you do not know the grammatical function of each Lojban word, and appropriately adjust the meaning of the keyword to reflect the function of the word in the Lojban grammar of the sentence.

Veijo's First Text

                                                                      
 ({<le  [(la veion) (ckafybarja    {srinuntroci          <[xi    pa]  
    the      veion   coffee+tavern  story+event-of+tries   -sub- 1    
                                                                      
[xi    ci]>})]>}                                                      
 -sub- 3                                                              
                                                                      
ni'o  {<[({<[({<[({<[({<[sriku'a   ] i [ckafybarja   ]>               
    _                    Story+room  .  Coffee+tavern                 
                                                                      
i <mi   [(zvati      {<le  vorstu   >}) gi'e (terpanci                
.  Me     present at   the door+site    and   3rd-place-of+odor       
                                                                      
{<[loi             ckafi ] [da           ui       cai                 ]>})]>}                                                               
   the mass of all coffee   something #1 (Wheee!) (-intense emotion!) 
                                                                      
i {mi   <[(ca               {ze'u                <pu                  
.  Me      at the time (of)  for an eon (during)  before              
                                                                      
[nai  oi   ]>}) sumne  ] [da          ]>})                            
 -not (Oy!)     smeller   something #1                                
                                                                      
i (mi   {<dzukla     [(le  jbustu    )]> gi'e <ctacarna        >})]   
.  Me     walks+goes   the table+site    and   looks-at+rotates       
                                                                      
i [(rancindu jubme)]>                                                 
.   Soft+oak table                                                    
                                                                      
i <seldandu          [(lo   {<vrici         to'erninda'i           >  
.  2nd-place-of+hang   some   miscellaneous opposite-of-+new+object   
                                                                      
<noi     [mi   ({na       djuno} {<zo'e      ke'a     >})]>})]>}      
 , which  me     not true knows    something he/she/it                
                                                                      
i {selzvati                <[({ji'i          pano}) (zutse remna)]>}) 
.  2nd-place-of+present-at     approximately 10      sits  human      
                                                                      
i (srotanxe   {<[loi             ckafi ] [lei         mudri]>})] i    [vrici        ]>                                                      
.  Stores+box    the mass of all coffee   the mass of wood       .    Miscellaneous                                                         
                                                                      
i <mi   [visyfacki       ({fi  <[pa] [lo   ({poi  <[loi               
.  Me    sees+discoverer   x3=   1    some   that   the mass of all   
                                                                      
remna] [(na       zutlamji     ) (ke'a     )]> ku'o} {jubme <goi      ko'a>})]>})]>}                                                        
human    not true sits+adjacent   he/she/it    ,      table  alias    it-1

i {mi   <[co'a        zutlamji     ] [ko'a]>})
.  Me     on starting sits+adjacent   it-1

i (ko'a {lamji    <[le  nunjupca'u          ]>})]
.  It-1  adjacent   the event-of+cooks+space

i [(le  jukpa) cu        ({selviska         } gi'e {jupfinti
.   The cooks  (is/does)   2nd-place-of+sees  and   cooks+inventor

<[de           a'ucu'i          ]>})]>
  something #2 (Not interested!)

i <mi   [(pensi     a'e         ) ({loi
.  Me     cogitates (I'm alert!)    the mass of all

<selpinxe            co      [ckafi  au       ]>})]>}
 2nd-place-of+drinks of type  coffee (I want!)

i {ckafypanci  <[fi  (mi   ui      )]>}) i (ckafypanci )] [
.  Coffee+odor   x3=  me   (Wheee!)      .  Coffee+odor

i ui       o'u             ]> i <sriku'a   >})
. (Wheee!) (Ahh! Relaxing!)   .  Story+room

Commentary on Veijo's first text

le la vei,on ckafybarja srinuntroci xipa xici

ni'o sriku'a .i ckafybarja .i mi zvati le vorstu gi'e terpanci loi ckafi da.uicai[1] .i mi ca ze'upunai.oi sumne da[2] .i mi dzukla le jbustu[3] gi'e ctacarna[4] .i rancindu[5] jubme .i seldandu lo vrici to'erninda'i noi mi na djuno zo'e ke'a .i selzvati ji'ipano zutse remna .i srotanxe loi ckafi lei mudri .i vrici .i mi visyfacki fi pa lo poi loi remna na zutlamji ke'a ku'o jubme goi ko'a .i mi co'a zutlamji ko'a .i ko'a lamji le nunjupca'u[6] .i le jukpa cu selviska gi'e jupfinti de.a'ucu'i .i mi pensi.a'e loi selpinxe[7] co ckafi.au .i ckafypanci fi mi.ui .i ckafypanci .i .ui.o'u .i sriku'a




1. Mark: "I am-at the door-place [doorway] and am-a-smell-receptor-of [smell-emitted-by] mass-of coffee [smell being] x1"

Whoa! Took me a long while to work out how that works. The sentence seems to be redundant, but somehow manages actually to sensibly bind "da", making an existential claim at the same time. Confusing, but very clever, and rather uniquely lojbanic.


2. Mark: I believe that "da" gets unbound between sentences (except at ijeks [I+JE]), so you should either have an ".ije" there or use some other sort of anaphora to get the smell. You could probably just ellipsize it entirely and get the meaning across fine.

Veijo responds: Didn't think of that (being too smug having put together the previous bridi). ".ije" is actually quite good here.

Didn't want to ellipsize. Definitely not. The smell was the thing.


3. Colin: "jbustu" - I guess I understand, but I don't find it obvious. ?xu zo jbustu cu sinxa le pagbu be le dinju be'o poi stizu lo jubme

Veijo responds: go'i


4. Mark: Not sure what "ctacarna" really implies, but I get the gist.

Veijo responds: Did a lot of word juggling to arrive at "ctacarna". Not much physical turning, except perhaps the head, a quick wandering look takes in the scene (or an almost stationary stare, the scanning being done mainly mentally).


5. Colin asks: loi rancindu ki'a (Don't understand "soft oak") Veijo responds: The original Description #2 from LogFest/Lojbab called for that.


6. Mark: "event-of-cooking volume"? Maybe "jupkumfa"? It is a room, after all, isn't it? Not sure the "nun-" is necessary, but it's not badly placed.

Veijo: First I had "(nun)jupkumfa" but then wanted to have just the space, not to imply separation at this stage. More lojbo :)

Mark: Hrrm. Still seems a little weird to me, but you're probably absolutely right here.


7. Iain: Whether you use "le pinxe" or "le se pinxe", you are still using "pinxe", with all its connotations. "selpinxe" zu'unai is a lujvo, obviously derived from "pinxe", and with a closely associated meaning, but with potentially a definition of its own, which may have a completely different emphasis. So "lo se pinxe" is "something which is drunk", but "lo selpinxe" could well be "a beverage". dikyjvo considerations would give "selpinxe" the same place structure as "se pinxe", no doubt, but the connotations need not be the same. There is still scope for ambiguity, but within a somewhat different range of meanings.

But at the moment, we don't have a full, or even a partial, dictionary. We don't have any lujvo definitions. So while we may guess that someone means something slightly different by "selpinxe" as distinct from "se pinxe", we can't be sure exactly which facet of the meaning of "pinxe" is intended to be emphasised. These are details which will have to be worked out gradually over a period of time.

Nick: Iain is right. In fact, the place structure subtly changes too (too subtly for dikyjvo). There is a second place of "selpinxe", but it corresponds to the second place of cidja (loi ka'e pinxe), and not of "se pinxe" (lo ca'a pinxe). I think this aspect of lujvo place structures, which we haven't paid attention to in the past, but which is, I feel, coming through in a few of the place structures I'm postulating, in determining which places get turned off (for example, a dinsro (money-store = treasury) has no container important to definition, whereas a dicysro (electricity-store = battery) has no location important to definition, so those respective places are turned off - remember "xo'o" in last October's discussions?), will come back to haunt us when we try to tackle lujvo properly. I don't think that time is quite yet. But thanks to Iain and Mark for pointing it out; we will be wary.

Mark: Aside: I was troubled by the fact that "le na'o se pinxe ckafi" seems to mean "thing-described-as-being: typically: drunk-thing type-of coffee", i.e. something that is typically drunken coffee, with the "na'o" applying to the whole of the following tanru. To my horror, I found that I couldn't restrict the "na'o" to the "se pinxe". I thought of putting ke/ke'e around "na'o se pinxe", but that's not grammatical, and putting it around just "se pinxe" didn't accomplish anything. I suppose I could have done it with "co", but that doesn't seem like a very general answer, and it would change its place-structure.

Lojbab: "na'o" and other tense words are intended to logically apply to a whole bridi and cannot easily be restricted to a part of the selbri. I'm not all that sure what the semantics of such a restriction would be. If you want the effect of "na'o" or some other tense/modal on a part of a selbri, you should do it via tanru, using the gismu/selbri equivalent, in this case perhaps "cnano": "cnano se pinxe ckafi".

For some of these modals, where there may be some question whether the gismu necessarily captures the same sense as a tense would, we are assigning rafsi to the tense cmavo as part of the rafsi retuning. This would also allow you a smaller referent than the whole selbri.

The grammar changes being proposed will eliminate the option to put a separate tense on the part of a selbri after the "co". Allowing that was an error in the grammar implementation, since, as you have noted, there is no non- "co" equivalent, and the purpose of "co" does not include adding new options to selbri, only inverting them for emphasis or place structure convenience.

Iain: I was going to suggest using a gismu, but I couldn't find one that fitted the bill. But you can bind the tense into the selbri with "be":

le se pinxe be na'o ku ckafi

Mark: Yes, that's very good. Thanks, Iain. It's a little clumsy that it has to be preposed like that, but not really. That was what I was looking for.

Iain: When I wrote this, I thought either "ku" or "be'o" was necessary - I'm not sure now - but I suspect it helps human parsers.

Mark: Hmmm. Apparently neither is necessary, though that isn't obvious to the human reader at first glance. Best to keep them in, for a little extra redundancy.




Nick's text with rough translation and commentary

.i mi se lidne la vei,on. ba'acu'i lenu nerkla le la loblaz. kafybarja .i mi sutra joiku'i.o'a banli cadzu pa'o la'ele cravro noi tilju je jadycau .i lenu mi pu kargau le vorme cu mlirocnandu gi'e sacri'a lenu mi catke .i le te vorme cu se gusni lo lecydo'i milxe gi'e se kufra cmalu .i panomei sa'enai.a'acu'i loi jubme .i mi zutse ne'a lo na'e se tsejbi jubme {poi diklo le kumfa kojna gi'e stula'i le vorme ku'o} gi'e catlu loi zvapre .iza'a la vei,on. zutse vi le ragve kojna gi'enaipe'i zvaju'o[8] mi .i ra zanfri

.i'e.o'enai loi panci be loi vi ckafi[9] .i mi zmanei loi tcati gi'e.o'o.aucu'i denpa lenu lo djabe'ipre cu jundi mi .i milxe savru gi'e ruble nungei .iku'i mi cabdei me ®lu .i'inai li'u¯ vau.u'uru'ero'a[10] .i lei bitmu cu se jadni loi carmi bo vrici joi na'e simlanxe be ja'i le tcaci .i le re cpare ka'amru poi simkruca se punji fi le cravro gapru na minrysarxe[11] .u'iru'e .i na go'i fa loi drata ke bitmu se punji ne mu'u lo dembi poi vreta lo kicne ku'o jo'u lo slabu tcityta'o ne secu'u ®lu vi xagrai loi tauzba pe levi tcadu li'u¯ ge'ujo'u lo befydai noi te ciska zo sindereluud. .i mi ca jundi le jbusfe pe mi .i te ciska so'ida ne bau la lojban. e la bangrnesperanto .e le glibau .e .ueru'e le dotco .i le dotco cu se ciska ta'i la fraktur .i mi xebni la fraktur .i mi djica {lenu ciska fi le jbusfe fe ®lu mi la fraktur xebni mi'e kilrois. li'u¯ kei} gi'enai ca ponse lo ve ciska befi loi mudri .i mi ka'e lebna lo cpare ja bisli kilmru le zunle bitmu .i mi co'i morji le xajmi pe lei bisli kilmru jgari relcisyge'upre .iku'i lenu le xajmi cu jboselsku na se snada mi .isemu'ibo mi pensi sanga le se finti be la suZAN.vegas.be'o pe me'e ®lu le la tom. gusta li'u¯ .i lenu go'i cu se dicra lenu lo djabe'ipre noi .uacu'i xindo cu klama mi gi'e cisma bacru ®lu cticpe ?ma doi lojbo ga'icu'i li'u¯ .i mi co'a se spaji catlu le be'ipre .i mi nelci le be'ipre .i mi mutce nelci co se trina le be'ipre ja'e lenu mi na spuda ri .iseki'ubo ri cmila joiku'i milxe bo se fanza bacru ®lu be'ebe'e xaupre zo'o ctidji ja pixydji ?ma li'u¯ .i mi spuda bacru ®lu je'eki'e pendo .u'u si ba'edo'u.u'u .u'ise'i go'i lo tcati li'u¯ .i le be'ipre goi ko'a cu bacru ®lu go'i lo tcati pe le'a ?ma li'u¯ .i mi ®lu .aicu'i do ?ma stidi li'u¯ .i ko'a ®lu .e'a la kukytcat. noi vi purlamrai terve'u li'u¯ .i mi ®lu .i'e ko bevri le la kukytcat. tcati li'u¯ .i ko'a bacru ®lu baziba'o go'i .oinai li'u¯ gi'e cliva mu'i lenu bevri nagi'e tavla lo drata zutse .ipujecabo lu'i le jukpa kuce le patlu'i lu'u nevi le jupku'a cu cladu joi selzdi dabysnu .i le jukpa cu so'uroi batkla gi'e te jivrei le se casnu fo lei zvati .i.aucai mi na ve preti .i le barjyjatna noi dasni lo jikri'i taurgunma ca tavla la vei,on. .i mi xance rinsa la vei,on. i ko'a spuda rinsa gi'e nupre lenu bazi kansa mi kei mi .i loi cnino cu nerkla gi'e cladu rinsa loi no'e cnino noi na'oca'o te lisri .i mi na .ai cabdei ve lisri .i mi .e'icu'i cabdei xebni la fraktur.

Free translation of Nick's text into English.

I've been preceded by Veijo in entering Cafe Loblaz. I swiftly and yet grandly make my entrance through the front door, which is heavy and plain. Opening the door took a bit of effort, and made it necessary to push. What is behind the door is illuminated by mild afternoon light, and is comfortably small. There's about ten tables, I dunno. I sit at a table with no one by it, in the corner and next to the door, and look at the people here. I see Veijo sitting in the opposite corner, and I don't think he's noticed I'm here. He's getting high on the coffee smells. I prefer tea, and I'm waiting - not that anxiously - for a waiter to notice me. There's some noise and a bit of merriment. But today, I'm feeling private - uh, sorry about that. The walls are decorated by miscellanies, unharmonious by the usual standards. The two climbing axes above the front door aren't quite symmetrical. Nor are the other objects on the walls - a pea on a cushion, for example, an old signboard saying "Best Tailor in the Whole Town", and a belt with "Cinderelwood" written on it. I look at the table-top where I'm sitting. It's been inscribed with lots of stuff, in Lojban, Esperanto, English, even German. The German stuff is in Fraktur script. I hate Fraktur. I want to write "Kilroy woz here and hates Fraktur", but I haven't got something to write on wood with. I could take an ice-pick or climbing-pick from the wall to my left. I recall the joke about the ice-pick wielding bisexuals, but it doesn't go into Lojban too well. So I start mentally singing Suzanne Vega's Tom's Diner. I am interrupted by a waiter, Indian I suppose, who comes to me and says, smiling: "What'll ya have to eat, Lojban-lover?" I look at the waiter, surprised. I like the waiter. I really like the waiter. I'm so attracted to the waiter, I forget to answer. So s/he says, laughing but a bit annoyed, "Hello? Earth to Goodfellow Lojbanist? What'll ya have to eat or drink?" I answer "I hear you, and thank you, friend (shgeez) - Oh, not shgeez about you, shgeez about not answering; what a klutz I am! :) I'll have tea." "What kind of tea?" "shrug What do you recommend?" "Oh, you could have a Tasty-T; it's our most recent purchase." "OK, get us a Tasty-T." The waiter says "Consider it done", and leaves, not to get it, but to talk to other patrons. While this has been going on, the cook and the dishwasher in the kitchen have been loudly and enthusiastically arguing. The cook occasionally comes out and asks the patrons for their opinion about the topic he's debating. I really don't want to be asked. The manager, wearing a suit, is talking to Veijo. I wave at Veijo; he waves back and promises me he'll be with me in a moment. New people enter and loudly greet those already there, who are typically telling stories. I don't feeling like being told any stories today. Today, I feel like hating Fraktur.



8. Lojbab: You used "zvaju'o" and Sylvia guessed your intent from context. Suggested to use "zgana" or "jundi" as the major basis of the word.

Nick: Possibly, though I think "zvaju'o", or at most "nunzvaju'o", is clear.


9. Lojbab: "He's getting high on the coffee smells" - No one in the Tuesday night group could figure out anything about what you were trying to convey with that attitudinal, even after checking the English. There's no "se'inai", so this is your attitude, and I see no semantic suggestion of "high" even if I assume the "se'inai" was supposed to be there. Explanation?

Nick: The ".o'enai" means I don't empathise, because that's what I take emotional closeness to mean.

[Regarding "high"] The translation was a bit loose? :)

Lojbab: Closeness can be related to empathy, but I'm not sure it is the same thing, at least in the sense that you used, I mean expressed, it. I can feel emotionally close to someone without necessarily sharing their feelings about something else. And emotional distance seems to me rather more like aloofness than an absence of empathy.


10. Mark: I like [this]. Very good use of "me". Not sure what you're repenting of, but you don't have to say.

Nick: I was regretting being such a misery-guts to the audience, instead of getting on with the job of navigating.

Lojbab: "private" - was there a reason for not using "sivni" or a lujvo thereon, which is intended to be associated with this attitudinal.

Nick: I was unaware of it. The word would have to be "sivyci'o", and not "sivni". But I think me+UI is a powerful construct, worth preserving.


11. Lojbab: did you consider "lanxe" vs "sarxe". The English suggests the former and the minra was a bit confusing. Doesn't anyone like "dukti"? (dukti-mapti lanxe/sarxe?)

Nick: "minra" will have to be there because the equilibrium is one of reflection same-ness. "lanxe" is clearly better than "sarxe", and maybe "te minra" rather than "minra", but any expression for symmetrical will have to have a wild metaphor.


Veijo's Second Text

                                                                      
 ({<le  [(la veion) (ckafybarja    {srinuntroci          <[xi    re]  
    The      veion   coffee+tavern  story+event-of+tries   -sub- 2    
                                                                      
[xi    re]>})]>}                                                      
 -sub- 2                                                              
                                                                      
ni'o  {<[({<[({<[({<[({<[({<[mi   ({penzutse       o'u                
})]                                                                   
    _                        Me     cogitates+sits (Ahh! Relaxing!)   
                                                                      
i [to'erninda'i            ({fa  <le  [mi   jubme]>})]>               
.  Opposite-of-+new+object   x1=  the  me   table                     
                                                                      
i <ciska     [(da           {le  jbusfe       })]>} { ije  } {mi      
.  Inscriber   something #1  the table+surface        ; and   me      
                                                                      
<catlu    [(da           a'u        )]>}) i (lerfu  {<la [fraktur ue  ]>})]                                                                 
 looks at   something #1 (interest!)      .  Letter       fraktur (What!)                                                               
                                                                      
i [mi   (morji     {<fi  [loi             (lerfu  {be <la fraktur>})]>})]>                                                      
.  Me    remembers   x3=  the mass of all  letter  of     fraktur     
                                                                      
i <morji    >} i {mi   <[({<pu       zu         > ki} zvati     )     ({le  ckule })]                                                       
.  Remembers   .  Me        before , a long time  :   present at        the school                                                            
                                                                      
gi'e [({ caca'a      } tcidu )]>})                                    
and      currently is  reader                                         
                                                                      
i (mi   {tcidu  <[le  (cfika   {be <le  [(ze) bruna  ]> <bei [(la     
.  Me    reader   the  fiction  of  the   7   brother    of           
                                                                      
{aleksis kivis}) (po'u     {le  natmytercfi                })]>})]>})]                                                           
 aleksis kivis    which is  the ethnos+3rd-place-of+fiction           
                                                                      
i [(le  {<poi  [(le  {drata      <be mi  >}) cu        (tcidu         
.   The   that   the  other than  of me      (is/does)  reader        
                                                                      
{<fi  ke'a     >})] ku'o> selpapri         }) cu                      
                                                                      
  x3= he/she/it     ,     2nd-place-of+page   (is/does)               
                                                                      
({te           prina  } {<loi             [lerfu  (be {la antik})]>})]>
  3rd place of printer    the mass of all  letter  of     antik

i <[le  (mi   {selpapri          <goi   ko'a>})] [(te
.   The  me    2nd-place-of+page  alias it-1       3rd place of

prina  ) ({loi             <lerfu  [be (la fraktur)]>})]>}
printer    the mass of all  letter  of     fraktur

i {<le  [nu       (tcidu  {<de           [pe  (ta'i
.   The  event of  reader   something #2  of   in form

{la fraktur})]>}) kei]> <[(pu     nandu    ) (mi  )] gi'e
    fraktur       ,        before difficult   me     and

[(ca               frili)]>})
  at the time (of) easy

i (mi   {djica   <[(le  {nu       <tcidu  [(fi  ko'a)]> kei}) (mu'i
.  Me    desires    the  event of  reader   x3= it-1    ,      because

{le  <nu       [(le  {mi   patfu }) ({<pu     zu           > prina  }
 the  event of   the  me   father      before , a long time  printer

{<[loi             lerfu ] [loi             (ko'a papri)]>})]>})]>})]
   the mass of all letter   the mass of all  it-1 page

i [(le  {mi   patfu }) ({ze'u                prina  })]>
.   The  me   father     for an eon (during) printer

i <[(le  {<nu       [ri   (go'i      )] kei> nanca   }) (li {< vobi>})]>}
.    The   event of  it    , the same   ,    in years    the number 48

i {<[ki ku] mi  > <catlu    [(le  {vi        <lerfu  [be (la fraktur)]>})]>})
.    :      me     looks at   the  here (at)  letter  of     fraktur

i (lerfu )] i [(bacru  ue     ) ({zo             coi  })]>
.  Letter   .   Utters (What!)    quote-unquote: hello

i <[barjyjatna     a'a             ]>}
.   Tavern+captain (I'm attentive!)

i {<la nitcion> <[(co'a        va        ) (se
.      nitcion     on starting there (at)   2nd place of

zvaju'o         )] [mi  ]>})
present-at+knows    me

i (ra   {<xance rinsa  > <mi  >})] [ ije  ] [mi   ({spuda    rinsa })]>
.  It     hand  greeter   me         ; and   me     responds greeter

i <[la nitcion] [({ caca'a      } xebni) ({la fraktur})]>})
.      nitcion      currently is  hater       fraktur


Commentary on Veijo's 2nd text

le la vei,on. ckafybarja srinuntroci xire xire

ni'o mi penzutse.o'u .i to'erninda'i fa lemi jubme .i ciska da le jbusfe .ije mi catlu da.a'u .i lerfu la fraktur.ue .i mi morji fi loi lerfu be la fraktur. .i morji .i mi puzuki zvati le ckule gi'e caca'a tcidu .i mi tcidu le cfika be le ze bruna bei la .Aleksis.kivis. po'u le natmytercfi .i le poi le drata be mi cu tcidu fi ke'a ku'o selpapri[1] cu te prina loi lerfu be la antik. .i lemi selpapri goi ko'a te prina loi lerfu be la fraktur. .i lenu tcidu de pe ta'i la fraktur. kei pu nandu mi gi'e ca frili .i mi djica lenu tcidu fi ko'a kei mu'i lenu lemi patfu puzu prina loi lerfu loi ko'a papri .i lemi patfu ze'u prina .i lenu ri go'i kei nanca li vobi .i kiku mi catlu le vi lerfu be la fraktur. .i lerfu .i bacru.ue zo coi .i barjyjatna.a'a .i la nitcion. co'ava se zvaju'o[2] mi .i ra xance rinsa mi .ije mi spuda rinsa .i la nitcion. caca'a xebni la fraktur.[3]



1. Nick: We are going to see a lot of preposed relatives, I predict, simply because they kill off a lot of the worry about terminating them when postposed. They are not just an affectation.


2. Nick: Nice to see one's dikyjvo picked up :)


3. Nick: Brilliant ending. I mean... so wonderfully deadpan. You're getting quite good at this :)


Iain's first text, with rough translation and commentary

®lu .ie.a'a .ie.o'onairu'e (cu'usa'a mi noi caki vilkla zo'a le vorme[4] fi'o te mlixra le janco ku'o) sera'a ?ma pezyjicla[5] li'u¯ .i mi vi le zdani pu zutse co cando .icabo mi terbei lo notci poi ve cusku le se du'u lu'o la vei,on. joi la nitcion. lu'u goi ko'a noi zvati le kafybarja po'u la *jbolaz. cu djica lenu penmi mi vi ra .i ®lu ?ma ?mo li'u¯ na se spuda .i ko'a jundi casnu la fraktur. .i mi zo'u la fraktur. no'e cinri .i mi co'a zutse ne'a lo jubme poi lamji le me ko'a[6] ku'o gi'e denpa lenu se zvaju'o da no'u ga ko'a gi lo selfu noida'i bevri loi ckafi mi

ni'o lemi jubme cu xekri seja'e loni to'ercitno .i ra ve srakysku zo mi ce'o prami bu ce'o ®lu le cmacrnalgebra li'u¯ .i mi nelci le jubme .i mi de'a morji fi la vei,on. .e la nitcion. gi'e co'a pensi .i mi si'a se cinri so'a klesi be lo sinxa ciste ra'anai ledu'u vo'e ge'ikau te javni mu'u le sucta cmacrnalgebra gi mecritli mu'u loi rarna ja rutni bangu[7] .i la'edi'u mukti lenu mi tadni la lojban. kei noi ki'u ke'a mi zvati la jbolanzu

no'i lo be'ipre cu klama co veirgau lemi selcpe po'u lo barda carmi bo ckafi gi'ebabo nalsirkla mo'ize'oku na'e mo'ifa'a le jupku'a .i .uaru'e simlu fa lenu ko'a ze'apu naje ca zvaju'o mi .i mi'a simxu rinsa .i la'aru'e mi bazi facki le krinu be lenu sutrygau[8]


"OK, OK!", I say, barging through the door, bruising my shoulder, "What's all the fuss about?" I was sitting at home quietly, when I got a message saying that Veijo and Nick, who are at the Cafe *Jbolaz, want to see me there. "What's up?" - no reply. They are deep in a discussion about Fraktur. Me? I can take it or leave it. I sit down at a table next to theirs and wait for someone to notice me, either them or one of the people serving who might bring me some coffee.

My table is dark with age. On it is carved "I", a heart, and "algebra". I like this table. I forget about Veijo and Nick and start to ponder. I too am interested in all kinds of symbolic system, whether formal ones like abstract algebra, or more flexible ones such as natural and artificial languages. That's the reason I'm studying Lojban, which is why I'm at the "*Jbolaz".

A waiter comes and takes my order for a large, strong coffee, and wanders off, not heading for the kitchen. Ah, it looks like they've spotted me at last. We say hello. Perhaps now I'll find out the reason for all the rush.




4. Colin: "le vorme" - I am still not clear whether "vorme" means a bit of wood etc., or a hole, or both. We often use it as if it means the first - if so, then "le vorme" is certainly not what you mean here!

Nick: I believe "vorme" is a doorway, rather than a piece of wood. I don't see why the piece of wood can't be a "vrogai" (doorway lid).

Lojbab: It is the doorway that is intended in the gismu, but not in the sense of "door frame". The new place structure for "vorme" has a place structure suggestive of route, emphasizing the two sides it connects, while noting that it is also within some larger structure, and hence not just any route. By comparison, "canko" emphasizes the wall in which it is found. I like "vrogai" and "vroca'o" and "vroge'u" for the cover and opening and frame, respectively. The gismu list has been clarified to reflect this.


5. Nick: I'd prefer something more explicit than "pezyjicla", like "raktu" or "cuntu".

Lojbab: I agree. This smells malglico, since there is no clear implicature as to what is being 'stirred up' in the context. Transferring figurative uses between languages, if you must do so, should be confined to situations where the reader/- listener can clearly identify the figurative values for the place structure of the 'figure' - in the case of "jicla" (stir), the agent/force doing the stirring, the 'fluid' being stirred, and the utensil/implement doing the stirring. For the context given, it isn't really even clear to me that Iain wants "jicla" as opposed to "terjicla"


6. Colin: I felt sure there was something wrong with "le me ko'a", but I think you have actually invented a new idiom with which we will now doubtless be plagued.

Mark: It's actually an attempt at a sort of metonymy. I think "le me ko'a" is not the way to go, I greatly prefer "zo'epe ko'a". I sort of think of "zo'epe" as almost like a LAhE word (of course, with different grammar) that introduces metonymy for the sumti it's on. "le me ko'a" seems dangerously close to just plain "ko'a".

Nick: "le me ko'a" is the solution to metonymy - so much better than my "zu'i pe ko'a".

Iain: I've been reprimanded in the past for using "zo'e" with a relative clause, and told to use "da". Admittedly, I think it was a "poi" relative clause, which may make all the difference. Neither "zo'epe ko'a" of "da pe ko'a" seem to express the definiteness that I wanted. I could use "le" with a sumti, provided I insert an explicit quantifier "le pa da pe ko'a", which is starting to get out of hand for a simple concept like "theirs". The voting is still open on this one.

Mark: Well, you have a good point. "zo'e pe" is specifically anti-definite. It's good for metonymy in which you're really not trying to be specific, but are willing to be elliptical. For something like this, "da pe" would be better, but still likely wouldn't get the definiteness across. There's "da voi srana", but that's not really worth considering as a general solution. Too long. "le pada pe ko'a" doesn't seem all that bad to me, but then, in your shoes I would probably say to hell with definiteness and stick with "zo'epe". Not that that's necessarily the right thing to do. I'm still less enthusiastic about "le me ko'a" than Nick is.

Lojbab: I think "le me ko'a" is fine for original Lojban, but would probably have used "le ko'a co'e" as a translation for English "theirs" which more matches the 'possessive' implicature of the English. The "me" version is more vague, and could extend to include "ko'a" as well as things belonging to "ko'a".

On the other hand, I suspect that "la'e" and "tu'a" between them handle metonymy fine, and I think better than "le me ...". It would not be very English-like to handle "theirs" as a "la'e" or a "tu'a", but it might be very lojbanic to do so.


7. Lojbab: Iain translates this sentence as:

I too am interested in all kinds of symbolic system, whether formal ones like abstract algebra, or more flexible ones such as natural and artificial languages.

There was much debate about this sentence on the net, with Iain eventually deciding to use "ra'anai". Not proposed in the discussion, and I think better and more lojbanic, is a logical connective approach. I also think that "all kinds of" is better expressed using a massifier gadri, since he is not really interested in the categories, but in the things comprising the various categories (or maybe he is a taxonomist):

.i mi si'a se cinri piso'a loi sinxa ciste ju gu'a te javni be mu'u le sucta cmacrnalgebra be'o gi mecritli be mu'u loi rarna ja rutni bangu

The two "be" clauses might be more readable as parentheses:

.i mi si'a se cinri piso'a loi sinxa ciste ju gu'a te javni (to mu'u le sucta cmacrnalgebra toi) gi mecritli (to mu'u loi rarna ja rutni bangu toi)


8. Nick: Perhaps "mukti", and "sutrybai".

Lojbab: Iain has to decide: Does he want an explanation for the summons, or does he really want to know the motive. Having multiple words for "why" makes you really need to think about what is really sought after.

Translation of Mark Shoulson's Text and Commentary

ni'oni'o vanci .icabo nalcladu ne'i le ckafybarja .i le bi'u remna cu klama mo'ine'i ra .i ko'a goi ra[9] zutse ne'a lo jubme .i ko'a cpedu loi tcati le kafybarja se jibri .i ba so'o mentu ko'a se dunda loi tcati gi'e co'aru'inai pinxe ri

ni'o ko'a ca lenu ko'a pinxe loi tcati po ko'a cu zgana lenu le bi'u nanmu cu se dunda lei ckafi poi ra pu cpedu ke'a .ije le nanmu goi ko'e cu pencu le kabri poi se nenri lei ckafi ku'o le degji gi'enai pinxe lei ckafi .ije mu'i zo'epela'edi'u[10] ko'e cusku ®lu .o'onai ju'i do'u ko lebna lei vi ckafi gi'ebabo bevri fi mi fe lei je'a glare ku'i ckafi li'u¯ le bevri be lei ckafi be'o goi ko'i .i ko'i cusku ®lu .u'u .ie ga'inai li'u¯ gi'ebabo lebna le kabri .i ko'i krefu klama gi'e bevri lei ckafi vau ba so'o mentu .i ko'e krefu pencu le kabri .i ko'e cusku ®lu .i'esai ba'e ti ku'i cu je'a glare ckafi li'u¯ .i ko'e gleki pinxe lei ckafi po ko'e

no'i[11] ko'a zgana la'eso'odi'u[12] .i ba so'o mentu ko'a tavla le bi'unai selpinxe bevri goi ko'i .i ko'a cusku ®lu .ia do pu bevri lei naldrata ckafi ta vau ?xu li'u¯ .i ko'i cusku ®lu go'i .o'unairo'a .u'uro'a li'u¯ .i ko'a cusku ®lu ko .i'i na jikca dunku .i mi puzuze'u se jibri loinu[13] bevri loi selpinxe vi lo gusta .iseki'ubo mi djuno tu'a le do se zukte .i da poi prenu cu genai pinxe lei ckafi gi pencu le kabri gi'e na'e djica tu'a lei ckafi ki'u lo za'i na'e pe'ise'inai[14] glare .ije semu'i loinu da minde mi lenu basti lei ckafi loi glare ckafi kei kei mi lebna lei ckafi gi'e na'o denpa fu'i so'e mentu tezu'e lenu tu'a lei ckafi cu glaryri'a le kabri kei fo lenu krefu dunda lei naldrata ckafi .i za'a do panra zukte .i la'ede'u ve ctuca[15] fu tu'a le slabu lisri be le bebna seljibri ka'u li'u¯ .i ko'i cusku ®lu le lisri ki'a li'u¯ .i ko'a cusku ®lu .ue do punai ?xu ve lisri fu ri li'u¯ .i ®lu noroi ve lisri li'u¯ .i ®lu .ai mi te lisri .i tu'e ka'u da'i puzuki da te bende le re seljibri .i fo'a goi le te bende ca le fanmo be le jeftu cu pleji le se jerna le re seljibri no'u lu'i le prije seljibri goi fo'e ge'u jo'u le bebna seljibri goi fo'i .i le se jerna cu rupnu li panono .ijesemu'ibo fo'a pleji lei jdini be ta'i le pelji jdini fo'e .e fo'i .i fo'e ckire fo'a gi'ebabo cliva gi'e gleki ki'u lenu le jdini cu se vamji li su'orau .i fo'i na'e gleki .i cusku ®lu .o'onai mi to'e lazni gunka fi'o te bende do ca piro le jeftu .i do pleji levi malpelji .i'enaisai mi .i le'o ko pleji fi mi fe le je'u je'a jdini no'u lo sicni li'u¯ .isemu'ibo fo'a pleji fo'i lo gusminra sicni poi se fepni li mu .iseki'ubo fo'i gleki klama le fo'i zdani tu'u .i tu'a di'u xe ctuca fi ledu'u jdice nagi'apubo e'ucai zgana .i .ua ri'a je'unai ka'u le sego'i zo "za'a" noi cmavo fi lesi'o zgana ku'o cu rafsi zo zabna li'u[16]¯

Mark's translation uses Lojban pronouns to preserve the gender-free qualities of his Lojban[17]:

It was quiet in the coffeehouse one evening, and a person (ko'a) came in. ko'a sat at a table and ordered tea from the cafe employee. After a few minutes, ko'a was given some tea and began sipping intermittently at it.

As ko'a was sitting drinking ko'a's tea, ko'a saw a man being given the coffee which he'd ordered. The man touched the cup that contained the coffee, but didn't drink the coffee. So he said, "Hey! Take this coffee back and bring me some hot coffee!" to the waiter (ko'i).

"Yes sir, sorry..." And ko'i took the cup away.

A few minutes later, ko'i returned carrying the cup. He (the man) touched the cup again, and said "Ah! Now that's some hot coffee!" and happily drank his coffee. ko'a had seen all this happen, and several minutes later was talking to the waiter. ko'a said, "You brought that guy the same coffee, didn't you?"

"Um... yeah, I did..."

"Don't worry. I used to work as a waiter in a restaurant, so I know what you did. There are people who don't drink the coffee, they just touch the cup and don't want the coffee because they think it's not hot enough. So when they tell me to get them some fresh coffee, I just take the coffee and wait a few minutes until the coffee warms the cup and bring them the same coffee back again. And I see you've done the same. That's really the moral of the old story about the foolish laborer."

"What story?"

"You never heard it?"

"Never."

"OK, I'll tell it then. Once upon a time, there was a manager (fo'a) with two workers. At the end of the week, he paid his two workers: the wise worker (fo'e) and the foolish worker (fo'i). Their salary was $100, so he paid them with paper money. fo'e thanked fo'a and left, happy because he was paid so well.

"fo'i wasn't happy. "Look! I worked hard for you all week, and now you're paying me with this dumb piece of paper!? You better pay me with some real money, with coins!" So fo'a paid fo'i with shiny coins, worth 5 cents, and fo'i went happily home.

"This all teaches that you have to look closely before passing judgement. In fact, that's why "za'a", which represents the idea of observation, is also an affix for "zabna"/favourable."



9. Lojbab: I'm wondering why Mark waited till this sentence to assign ko'a. It makes things unnecessarily more difficult on the reader to have done so, since he ends up with two "ra"s with different values only a few words apart. I don't frown on this so much with "ri" which is fairly strictly confined to the next previous sumti, but "ra" is loosely enough defined that one has to stop and think about whether it might or might not mean the same as the previous usage.

Since he is dealing with a 3rd person narration section of a story, assigning with "le ... remna goi ko'a" in the previous sentence is only fair.


10. Nick: zo'epela'edi'u is more accurate here than ".isemu'ibo", but it's still a mouthful. I'm not confident about the usage of "ku'i".

Mark: I thought ".isemu'ibo" wasn't quite right, since after all, it wasn't his touching the cup, but rather what he felt that made him refuse. I'm glad you saw that too. "zo'epela'edi'u" is a bit much to say, but not impossible. Note my "zo'epe" metonymizer.

I was actually proud of the "ku'i" there. "Bring me some hot coffee (as opposed to this tepid stuff)."

Lojbab: How about "tu'a la'edi'u"?


11. Colin: Can anybody explain "no'i" to me, please?

Mark: Not me. I don't know what it is either. I threw it in because I've pretty much never seen it before and figured it deserved some exposure, and this seemed like a possible usage. I'm going back to "ko'a", so it's sort of an old topic... isn't it?

Lojbab: The purpose is to allow you to change topics ("ni'o"), and possibly even contexts, but then to resume the old context at will with "no'i" ("ni'o" and "no'i" can be subscripted, I believe, if you are dealing with many contexts). Context is typically defined in terms of a certain space-time tense reference and possibly a set of anaphora assignments.

Major intended uses are for a story-within-a-story (for which the concept was invented - I've been working on an Arabian Nights translation for a few years now, and that collection nests stories several levels deep, as characters in a story tell a story with characters who in turn tell stories, etc., continually popping from level to level with stories stopping, starting, and being interrupted for metalinguistic comment or action at a higher story level), for comparison between two situations, and a whole bunch of oddball things that happen in stylistics of longer narratives.

The conventions of switching anaphora assignments (i.e. the definition of ko'a, ko'e, da, de, etc.) or tense reference (the value assigned with "ki" are not well established because "no'i" has not been used much used.

Other applications are certainly possible, and will have to be developed through usage. Hopefully they will be generally consistent with the originally intended purposes.


12. Mark: I don't like the way "di'u" only means "the last utterance". It's bringing number considerations into Lojban where it never had them before. I'd have expected it to mean "the last utterance(s)", with optional number, like everything else. You can't always use tu'e/tu'u, sometimes it's used in afterthought. I had to use that hideous "la'e joigi di'ugide'u" [in the original draft of this story], counting on "de'u" to be non-number-specific. Had to use forethought because otherwise "la'e" would stick only to "di'u" and not the whole thing.

Iain: In the latest version of the grammar, LAhE applies to a whole sumti, with an explicit optional LUhU terminator, so you could use afterthought.

Why not "[le] re di'u" - the previous two utterances, "so'o de'u" - several recent utterances, etc.

[Mark liked this approach and incorporated it in the printed version.]

Lojbab: I ask you: What is an 'utterance'? In Lojban, an utterance can be more than a single sentence, a paragraph even, or whatever. I would think this would be familiar to net people from Cowan's method of net quotation on Lojban-List: "la lojbab. cusku di'e", where "di'e" is the forward counting utterance equivalent of the back-counting "di'u".

Thus, the 'utterance' to which "di'u" refers is not that well defined, and may indeed refer to multiple sentences. Grammatically, the construct labelled 'utterance' is a single sentence or partial sentence. However, it has generally been agreed, for example, that ".ije" joining, or ".ibo" joining gives a logical unit (as does ".itu'e ...tu'u", as you noted). Thus the concept utterance extends to be what is labelled an "utterance-string" in the grammar, or perhaps even to the construct labelled "text-B", which can include multiple paragraphs. Now the usage default convention of 'utterance' has tended to be a single sentence, but it need not always be so. If context suggests a longer utterance is intended, fine.

A possibility to consider when you are dealing with a range of sentences and don't want to count, would be to use di'upezi/- di'upeza/di'upezu to indicate relative length of referenced utterance.


13. Mark: I also replaced a lot of "lenu"'s with "loinu"'s, though this is not common practice. I did this because of the article by JCB that was posted here not long ago, in which he pointed out that a lot of our "lenu"'s are really massified: you're not waiting for a specific event of a cab's arriving, you're waiting for a manifestation of the mass of such events. I thought JCB had a very good point there.


14. Colin: I don't think you can use "pe'ise'inai" in the way that I think you are trying to. It reads "didn't want to drink the coffee because it was not (I think but it's not my issue) hot." It seemed to me that you were trying to make it "... it was not (in their opinion) hot", which you cannot do with attitudinals.

Mark: I'm not so sure about this. I'm not 100% positive about what "se'i"/"se'inai" do. Somewhere in the past someone said they could be used in this way, to tag attitudinals explicitly as belonging to the speaker or not. Oh, I remember. It was when Nick and I were discussing whether attitudinals on "du'u" in the x2 of "djuno" applied to the speaker or to the x1. Actually, we were discussing it with reference to "kau" then, but this was when "kau" was still evolving. Lojbab said you could use "kause'i" and "kause'inai" to distinguish who was "knowing" (remember, at the time we were considering "kau" as mostly just "known!"), since "se'i" always made things apply to the speaker. I fear you're probably right anyway, but I hope you're wrong, since your second reading, the one I intended, is such an elegant way to say it....

[Later ...] I didn't change ..., e.g. Colin's objection to "pe'ise'inai" for "in their opinion", since last I heard the jury's still out on what it should mean, and I like the way it sounds.

Lojbab: Mark's usage is fairly consistent with what we had in mind for "se'inai", but is vague as to who actually holds the opinion other than the narrator. Lojban intentionally makes specifically attributing emotions to others difficult (as do many natural languages), and I would prefer such comments to be metalinguistic discursives using "sei". In this case, "sei da jinvi", or "sei vo'a jinvi", or even probably "sei jinvi" says the same thing, but makes the attribution of opinion a claim rather than an empathic understanding/attribution of emotion (which is what I see as the proper meaning of "se'inai" modifying an attitudinal).


15. Mark: I had trouble getting across the meanings of "this is illustrated by the old story" and "the moral of this is..." Places of "ctuca" have done the job, and reasonably well, but maybe not very well.


16. General Comments:

Mark: I could use some better use of UIs, I think. My grammar gets very complex sometimes.

Nick: Hm, this one is... sober. That's ok, though. We were about due for sober :) The grammatical complexity (and I presume the same is the case for my work) means that you have to read the piece slowly, but that's not impossible.

Colin: Your grammar is not complex compared to some of us ... - but you let it get quite embedded, which is a little hard to read; but it's good that we are seeing a variety of different styles. Keep it up.

Some of your UI's are very good, and others I disagree with.

Lojbab: Of the writings generated so far for this project, Mark's has by far the lowest density of lujvo, and he is sparing in the use of the more arcane cmavo, too. I think that simplicity of vocabulary, especially when there is no dictionary, more than makes up for a little complexity in the grammar. After all, if a sentence is a little complex, you can always bracket things more clearly by including a few optional terminators. But if you can't figure out what a couple lujvo in the sentence mean, you may be completely lost.


17. Lojbab: On the other hand, Mark specified one gender where it doesn't seem that his story needed it: why did the person who ordered the coffee have to be a man? He could have used "prenu", or "remna".



Commentary on Iain's 2nd Piece (no translation available)

.i bazi lenu mi'a simxu lenu rinsa kuku lo nanmu poi nanca li so'a cu klama pu'e le na'e sirji[18] ne'i le barja gi'e co'a zutse ca'u mi .i le nanmu goi ko'a cusku le se du'u[19] ri puzi se gunta lo puzu respa pe la'o ly. saurischia ly. .i ®lu .iku'i loi respa pe la'edi'u cu puzu ji'esti li'u¯ se cusku mi .i ®lu .ila'aru'e go'i .iboku'i simlu fa lenu noda ve cilre la'edi'u fo ra cu'usa'a ko'a .i lenu mi'a simxu lenu kansa cu nanca li reno .i mi co'aki kurji ko'e goi le respa ca lenu ri ca'o citno .i mi jinvi ledu'u le mamta be ko'e cu morsi ba'o lo nanca be li so'o .ije cumki fa lenu ko'e romoi lu'i le jutsi .i le pendo be mi zu'apu kurji ko'e gi'eku'i puzi co'a speni gi'e gasnu lenu cfari fa lenu lanzu kuku gi'e jinvi ledu'u vo'a na kakne lenu tu'ari xamgu ko'e ca lenu xamgu le lanzu[20] .isemu'ibo le go'i cpedu lenu mi curmi lenu basti fi lenu bilga lenu kurji ko'e .i mi je'a curmi .ijeja'ebo kiku nu'i bi'ogi ca la'edi'u gi caku dunda loi cidja .e loi djacu ko'e .ijebo satre ko'e .ijebo fi lenu cadzu cu kansa fe ko'e .i ca lo'e vanci mi tavla ko'e so'i klesi be lei te cilre be'o ne mu'u le citri be loi jmive be va'o le terdi be'obe'o .e loi jicmu bele saske bele munje poi vanbi ma'a .i jetnu fa lenu ko'e na kakne lenu tavla

.ijeku'iseki'unaibo mi su'oroi jinvi lenu ko'e jimpe la'e le se cusku be mi li'u¯ .i ®lu .iku'i ?mu'ima va'o la'e so'odi'u ko'e co'a bradi do li'u¯ .i ®lu na birti .i noda ru'a[21] jimpe le stura bele menli be lei puzu respa .i seki'unai la'ede'u mi pupuziki gasnu lenu xendo ko'e .i mi'a puzi klama zo'a lo bende be lo xanto .ijeseki'ubo mi mu'i lenu djica lenu fanta lenu damba noi cumki fa lenu ke'a se jalge lenu ko'e se xrani cu cusku ®lu ko se kajde fi tu'a le mabru li'u¯ li'u¯ mi'e .i,n.



18. Nick (on an earlier version of this): [Iain wrote:] "lo nanmu poi nanca li so'a cu klama fo le na'e sirji ne'i le barja gi'e co'a zutse ca'u mi"

What isn't straight? The two axes? Not that obvious in context.

Iain: No, it was meant to be the route (or the manner) by which he came in which wasn't straight. It sounds like this doesn't work. Perhaps I could try pu'e le na'e sirji.

Lojbab: I actually thought that the original was clear, and the modified version seems less so. The x4 of klama is a route, and a non-straight route is obviously an indirect one that is not the shortest from point a to point b. It is less clear to me what a non-straight process of going is. Perhaps meaning that he stopped to talk to people on the way. I would have used "lo" instead of "le" though, since it isn't clear to the reader listener which indirect route/means is the one intended. "le" should normally be something specifically identifiable to the listener, and if not, the speaker should be prepared to answer the clarifying question "leki'a" (which?).


19. Lojbab: Note that "du'u" refers to a fact or truth, something known or knowable, while "se du'u" refers to expressions of such a fact or truth. This is being clarified in the dictionary cmavo list.


20. Lojbab (on Iain's final draft text submission for JL17): [Iain wrote:]

.i le pendo be mi zu'apu kurji ko'e gi'eku'i puzi co'a speni gi'e gasnu lenu cfari fa lenu lanzu kuku gi'e jinvi ledu'u vo'a na kakne lenu tu'ari xamgu ge ko'e *gicabo le lanzu

This sentence is currently ungrammatical at the point indicated by an asterisk. "gi" does not bind with a tense like that - it is only a place holder. When you go from afterthought expression: "ko'e .ecabo le lanzu" to forethought, we don't currently have a way to express both logical and tense connective at the same time. If we did allow it, it might have to be attached to the connective, as "gecabo", and not to the place-holder word "gi". After all, the idea of a forethought connective is to let the listener know the relationship between the connectands before expressing them.

The easiest expression that I think captures your intended meaning is to scrap the connective and use an expanded tense clause. I made only this minimal change to make the result grammatical, but also discussed this with Nora. You might also consider expressing the final clause as:

vo'a na kakne lenu roroi ku tu'ari xamgu ge ko'e gi le lanzu

or maybe:

vo'a na kakne lenu paroi ku tu'ari xamgu ge ko'e gi le lanzu

or to express the negation as a tense:

vo'a noroi kakne lenu paroi ku tu'ari xamgu ge ko'e gi le lanzu
vo'a ca noda kakne lenu paroi ku tu'ari xamgu ge ko'e gi le lanzu

We also played with trying to move the negation down a level (which is very un-English), but I'm not sure that the semantics stays intact.

vo'a kakne lenu roroi ku tu'ari xamgu ganai ko'e ginai le lanzu
vo'a kakne lenu noroi ku tu'ari xamgu ge ko'e gi le lanzu

John Cowan will be looking at this area for a possible grammar change to allow some or all of the possible constructions of this type. It is perhaps useful for the community to note that most of the 2 dozen or so changes in the grammar are like this one would be; a minor expansion to allow something that no one ever tried before, but which seems plausibly understandable when it is tried in an actual writing.


21. Nick (on an earlier version): [Iain wrote:] .i ®lu na birti .i ?ma paunai jimpe le stura bele menli be lei puzu respa

I'd rather "no prenu cu jimpe", myself...


Iain: Wot, no rhetorical questions in Lojban?

Lojbab: I note that the final version uses "noda" with no restriction. So Iain has actually broadened his meaning beyond Nick's assumed "No person understands" to "Nothing understands". Of course, it may be implicit to most people that the x1 of jimpe is itself sufficiently restricting.

Iain's original method of expressing a rhetorical question seems valid, though at times one might want to put the "paunai" either at the front of the sentence to forewarn the listener of the rhetoric nature of the question, or to delay it, appending it to a "vau" on the end of the sentence, so that the listener starts to seriously think about the question and answer, before being told that no answer is expected.

I suspect that the attitudinal system offers a variety of other ways to convey rhetorical statements of this type, including probably some that don't easily translate to English.

Translation and Commentary on le lisri be le serti

Nora's translation follows in italics. Where Ivan intended a different translation, that is given on a third line in a different font, or in the footnotes commenting on Nora's translation.

le lisri be le serti
The story of the stairs.
"The Tale of the Stairs"


.i fitfi'i di'e ro lei ba cusku be ledu'u vo'e vo'i na srana
Offered is the following to all who say it doesn't pertain to them.
(Epigram:) "Dedicated to all those who will say: `This doesn't pertain to me!'" ('doesn't apply to me', 'has nothing to do with me'.)

ni'oni'o tu'e (non-translatable) ®lu do mo li'u¯ preti fi la pacrux. goi fo'a
"What are you doing/What are you?" asks Evil-Spirit.
`Who art thou?' asked the Devil.[22]

.i ®lu mi to'erno'i ji'u leka cerda .ije ro le pidrai mi bruna
.i .oicai ge le terdi cu to'e melbi gi le remna cu to'e gleki li'u¯
"I'm a peon by birth, and all the poorest are my brothers. Alas! The earth is ugly and the people are miserable."
"I'm a plebeian by birth, and all the tatterdemalions/- ragamuffins are my brethren. Oh, how ugly is the earth and how miserable are the people!"

.i di'u se bacru lo citno nanmu noi se lafti se mebri gi'e denmi se xance .i ri goi ko'a sanli crane le serti .i labyxu'e linji ke blabi roimrmaro ke galtu serti
This was uttered by a young man, with raised brow[23] and dense (thick?)[24] hand. He stands in front of the stairs. Pink-lined, white marble, high stairs.
Thus spoke a young man with lifted forehead (showing proud unwillingness to conform) and clenched fists. ... a high staircase of white marble with pink veins[25].

.i ko'a catlu mo'ifa'a le darno ne di'o lepu'u lei grusi kalsygri be leka pindi[26] cu ca simsa be[27] loi ctaru rirxe[28] ke to'ekli boxna[29] ku savri'a .i diklo slilu gi'e febvi fengu gi'e lafti loi to'e plana ke xekri birka .i le nunpante ke suksa sance .e lei fengu nunki'a cu desku le vacri
He looks, his gaze moving-towards [somewhere] far, where the gray mobs of poor are, like tide-river unclear-waves, making noise (clamoring?). Shifting/agitated and boiling anger and lifting of meager, black arms[30]. The yelps (?) of protest and the cries of anger shake the air.
His gaze was directed towards the far-away, where the grey mobs of misery were clamouring... They were agitated/in a state of ferment... The outcries of protest ...

.i le te minra[31] cu simsa be lo darno ke barda terdanti sance ku masno je junri runta[32] .i lei girzu cu banro gi'e klama ne'i loi pelxu pulce dilnu .ije loi sepli ti'otra cu mutcne[33] leka viskli ze'o le kampu ke grusi vanbi
The vantage-of-reflection, like a far artillery (?) sound, slowly and gravely dissolves (don't quite get this sentence). The groups grow and go inside yellow-dust clouds. And the separate shadow shapes vary widely in visibility as they get further from the common gray surroundings.
... and the echo faded away slowly, solemnly, like distant cannon fire sounds ... and individual silhouettes were emerging more and more clearly against the common grey background".

ni'o pa.o'enai to'ercitno[34] cu simsa be lepu'u sisku leri se cirko ka citno be'o ni'akro be fa'a le terdi ku dzukla[35] .i lo cucycau[36] cmaxli cu jgari lera[37] selxaksu taxfu gi'e catlu le galtu serti sepi'o lo tinbe je simsa be le rulnkentaure,a bei leka blanu ku kanla[38] .i catlu je cisma
An old one, like a searcher for his/her lost youth, walks stooped to the ground. An unshod little girl grasps someones/ somethings worn-out clothes and looks at the high stairs with obedient[39], cornflower-blue eyes. Looking and smiling.
Some old man was coming, stooped to the ground, as though he was looking for his lost youth ... was holding his [sc. the old man's] ragged/tattered garment (in order not to get lost in the crowd)...

.i loi selpopseltau je grusi je cinla remtra cu trixe dzukla gi'e gunma sanga lo selsno ke mrori'i zgike .i da kercrori'a siclu fi le ctebi .i de noi daski nenri se xance cu cmila sepi'o lo cladu je rufsu voksa .ije lede kanla cu jarco leka fenki
Rag-covered, gray, thin forms walked behind and sang together slow, funereal music (dirges?)[40]. Someone ear-splitting-ly whistled from the lips. Someone, with hands in pockets, laughed in a loud, rough voice. His eyes showed insanity.
... Someone was whistling sharply. ... insanity was burning in his eyes.

ni'o ®lu mi to'erno'i ji'u leka cerda .ije ro le pidrai mi bruna .i .oicai ge le terdi cu to'e melbi gi le remna cu to'e gleki .i .iunai vu gapru .i .o'onai li'u¯
"I am a peon by birth, and all the poorest are my brothers. Alas! The earth is ugly and the people are miserable. The high-ups - I spit on them![41]"

.i di'u se bacru lo citno nanmu noi se lafti se mebri gi'e dukri'a denmi se xance
This was uttered by a young man, with raised brow and agonizingly dense hands[42].

.i ®lu .io ?xupe'i[43] do xebni lei vu gapru li'u¯ preti fi fo'a noi ca tcica krori'a le xadni fa'a ko'a
"Sir, do you hate the high-up?" asked Evil-Spirit, who slyly bowed to him[44].
`You hate those up there?' asked the Devil and leaned towards him.

.i ®lu .aisai mi ba vefsfa lei vu mabla nobli joi turni .i mi ri kusru vefsfa seka'i[45] leimi bruna goi ko'u noi simsa be le canre bei leka pelxu ku se flira zi'e noi zmadu be le la gaimast. si'erbi'e bei leni tepri'a ku se cmoni[46] .i ko viska leko'u lunbe ke ciblu ve flecu xadni .i ko tirna leko'u cmoni .i .ai mi ko'u venfu .i le'o ko curmi li'u¯
"I will have revenge on those damned royalty. I will wreak upon them a cruel vengeance on behalf of my brothers, with sand-yellow faces and who moan with more than a December-blizzard worth of scaring. See their bare, bleeding bodies. Hear their moans. I will avenge them. Just you allow it![47] Oh, I will take vengeance on those princes1 and princes2[48]. ... who moan in a more ominous/- sinister way than the December blizzards.

.i fo'a cisma
The spirit smiles.

.i ®lu mi jibri bandu lei vu gapru .ije mi se le'irbai gi'anai lacti'a ri li'u¯
"My job is to defend the high-up[49]. I am fined (?)[50] if I am traitorous to them."

.i ®lu mi ponse no solji .i mi ponse no lo se pleji befi do .i mi pindi je selpopseltau citno .iku'i mi bredi lenu pleji lemi kazyji'e li'u¯
"I have no gold. I have nothing to pay you. I am a poor and rag-covered youth. But, I am prepared to pay with my life[51]."

.i fo'a rapli cisma
The spirit again smiles.

.i ®lu .e'onai ri zmadu lemi se cpadji .i do'anai ko fi mi dunda leka do sanga'e li'u¯
"Ah, no. It is more than my get-desire(??). Give me but your hearing."
"Oh, no, I don't want that much! ..."

.i ®lu .ueru'e leka mi sanga'e .i .iefi'i .i .e'i mi noroi tirna di .i .e'i li'u¯
"What?![52] My hearing? Take it. I'll never be free[53] to hear anything. Not free ..."
"My hearing? With pleasure..."

.i ®lu do ranji leka ka'e tirna[54] li'u¯ .i fo'a ko'a papri'a sepi'o di'u gi'e cadzu curmi[55] .i ®lu ko pagre li'u¯
"You'll continue to be able to hear." The spirit calmed him with this and let him walk. "Go through[56]."

.i ko'a bikla bajra gi'e dzugre ci te serti tai pa nu stapa .i ku'i lefo'a terkre xance ko'a lacpu
He whippingly(?) ran[57], and walked through 3 steps with one stride. But the spirit's hairy hand pulled him.

.i ®lu banzu .i ko sisti mu'i lenu tirna leiko'u[58] vu cnita cmoni li'u¯
"Enough. Stop to hear their moans far beneath."
"Stop to hear how thy brethren moan down there!"

.i ko'a sisti gi'e kerlo jundi
He stopped and listened.

.i ®lu .uesai .i ki'uma ko'u suksa cfari lenu to'edri sanga gi'e xalbo cmila li'u¯ .i ko'a krefu ke bikla bajra
"Well! What made them suddenly start singing happily and laughing lightly?" He again whippingly ran.
`Strange: why did they so suddenly <...>?' And he rushed again[59].

.i fo'a ko'a krefu
rinju The spirit again restrained him.

.i ®lu mu'i lenu do krefu pagre ci te serti kei mi cpadji ledo kanla li'u¯
"To go another 3 steps, I want your eyes."

.i ko'a pa'arcau sliri'a le xance
He hopelessly shook (wrung?) the hand.
... desperately waved[60] ...

.i ®lu ku'i va'o la'edi'u mi na ka'e viska ga leimi bruna gi leimi ba se vefsfa li'u¯
"But in that case I can see neither my brothers nor my targets[61]."

.i ®lu do ranji leka ka'e viska[62] .i mi fi do ba dunda lo drata kanla noi mutce zmadu li'u¯
"You will still be able to see. I give to you other eyes, which are much more."
"... other, much better eyes!"[63]

.i ko'a rapli pagre[64] ci te serti gi'e ni'a catlu jundi[65] .i fo'a rinka lenu ko'a morji
He again went through 3 steps and looked down. The spirit reminded him:

.i ®lu ko viska leko'u lunbe ke ciblu ve flecu xadni li'u¯
"See their bare, bleeding bodies."

.i ®lu .uecai .i .u'ecai cizra .i ?cama[66] binxo lenu ko'u melbi dasni .i ji'a seba'i lei ciblu te xrani ko'u se jadni loi se manci xunre rozgu[67] li'u¯
"Wow! Amazing! When did they become beautifully dressed? And instead of the bloody injuries they are adorned with wondrous red roses."
"My god! But this is so strange: when did they manage to dress so well! ..."

ni'o vi ro lo cimoi te serti fo'a di'i lebna lefo'a cmalu selpleji .i ku'i ko'a ru'i cadzu .i ko'a bredi dunda rodi mu'i lemu'e klama tu gi'e vefsfa leivu malplana nobli joi turni .i .uo.ui semaunai pa te serti .i ba su'epa te serti[68] ko'a gapru .i ko'a cabazi venfu leiko'a bruna
At each 3rd step, the spirit regularly took his little payment, but the youth went on walking. He readily gave everything to get there and get revenge on those fat royalty. Finally! Not more than[69] 1 step [left]. After only one step he'll be above. He will then avenge his brothers.

.i ®lu mi to'erno'i ji'u leka cerda .ije ro le pidrai sa'a[70] li'u¯
"I am a peon by birth, and all the poorest..."

.i ®lu ju'i. citno nanmu su'epa te serti .i ba su'epa te serti do venfu .i ku'i levi te serti di'i ve pleji le relpi'i jdima mi .i ko fi mi dunda leka do cinmo je morji[71] li'u¯
"Hey, young man[72]. Only 1 step. After only 1 step you can avenge. But, for this step I regularly[73] charge double price. Give me your emotions and memory."
"Young man, only one step more! ..."

.i ko'a sliri'a le xance
He shakes (wrings?) the hand.

.i ®lu .ii leka cinmo .i .e'anaicai .i dukse kusru li'u¯
"Oh, no! Emotion - heaven forfend. Too cruel."
"The heart? No! This is too cruel!"

.i fo'a maljgira cmila ra'i le galxe
The spirit haughtily laughs from the throat.
The Devil gave a guttural, authoritative laugh:

.i ®lu mi na mela'edi'u kusru .i mi fi do canja dunda lo zabna kazyci'o .e lo cnino kazmo'i .i ga do zanru gi do noroi pagre levi te serti gi'e noroi venfu leido bruna pe lo se flira be le simsa be le canre zi'e pe le se cmoni be le zmadu be le la gaimast. si'erbi'e bei leni tepri'a li'u¯
I am not thus cruel. I trade with you for a fine emotion and a new memory[74]. Either you approve[75] or you'll never get through this step and never avenge your brothers with the sandy faces and the moans more fearful than the December blizzard."

.i ko'a catlu lefo'a crino je ranxi kanla
He looks at the spirit's ironic green eyes.

.i ®lu ku'i mi ba traji leni to'e gleki .i do lebna ro ckaji be le kazre'a mi li'u¯
"But I will be a most unhappy person. You take all humanity from me."
But I shall be the most unhappy one. Thou takest from me everything that is human[76].

.i ®lu to'e go'e .i traji leni je'a gleki .i .e'apei .i ?xu do tugni .i do'anai[77] leka do cinmo je morji li'u¯
"Just the opposite - the most truly happy man. Allow me. Do you agree? Your emotion and memory, please?"

.i ko'a cu trati pensi .i lo xekri ctino cu manri'a leko'a flira .i loi xasne ke to'ekli dirgo cu gunro zo'a[78] le se cinje mebri .i ko'a fengu demri'a le xance gi'e bacru pa'o le denci
He tries[79] to think. A black shadow covers his face. Cloudy drops of sweat roll off the wrinkled brow. He angrily clenched[80] his fist and said through his teeth:

®lu .ai.e'asai .i ko lebna li'u¯
"Go ahead. Take [them].
" "So be it! (Let it be! Soit! etc.) Take them!"

ni'o ca lenu le xekri kerfa ca biflu'a kei ko'a simsa be le crisa lidbi'e ku fengu pagre le romoi te serti .i ko'a capu snada lemu'e gapru .i suksa cisma gusni leko'a flira[81] .i leko'a kanla cu dirce seci'o le smaji ka se mansa .i leko'a xance cu luzbi'o .i ko'a catlu lei pixsalci nobli .i catlu le cnita be di'o lenu krixa je dapma fa le grusi je selpopseltau girzu .i catlu .i ku'i no sluji be leko'a flira cu frati .i ri selgu'i je gleki je selpu'a .i ko'a viska loi salci se taxfu girzu vi le cnita .i lei pu cmoni ca salpemci
With his black hair fluttering, he, like a summer thunderstorm, angrily passes through the last step. He has now succeeded in getting above[82]. There is a sudden smile illuminating his face. His eyes radiate, emoting the silent satisfaction.[83] His hands loosen[84]. He looks at the toasting nobility[85]. Looking underneath to the crying and the cursing of the gray, ragged crowd. Looking, but not a muscle in his face reacts. It is illuminated and happy and pleased. He sees a crowd dressed for celebration below[86]. What were moans are paeans[87].

.i ®lu do ?mo li'u¯ tcica preti fi fo'a sepi'o lo rufsu voksa
"What are you?" slyly asks Evil-Spirit with a rough voice.
"Who art thou?" slyly and hoarsely asked the Devil.

.i ®lu mi nobli ji'u leka cerda .ije lei cevni mi bruna .i .uicai ge le terdi cu je'a melbi gi le remna cu je'a gleki[88] li'u¯
"I am a noble[89] by birth, and the gods are my brothers. Ah!, but the earth is truly beautiful and the people are truly happy."


tu'u
The End.

.i di'u se finti la xristoz. smirnensk.[90] gi'e se fanva la .iVAN. derJANSK. fo le banblgaria si'u la nitcion. nikolas.
This was written by Christo Smirnensk, and translated by Ivan from Bulgarian aided by Nick Nicholas.

fa'o
THE END



22. Lojbab: "do mo" is elegant, but a bit vague to expect a useful answer with no context in advance to make it clear what is meant. Given the answer that was given (which is presumably the information that the Devil wanted to hear), I would ask the question as "do ?mo prenu" ("You are a what-kind-of-person")


23. Nora: Not quite sure what this is. I presume it means he had a "high" brow. Perhaps "clani se mebri" (longly be-browed)?


Ivan: "with lifted forehead" (showing proud unwillingness to conform)".

Lojbab: I am one who believes in making cultural metaphors explicit in translations, especially to a supposedly culture-neutral language (I expect that you will call me on this regularly in return, Ivan, when I fail to make my own cultural metaphors clear.)

Thus, if the lifted forehead signifies pride, include 'pride' in the tanru: "jgira ke seke se lafti mebri", or twisting it around for clarity in the relative clause context: "lo citno nanmu noi lafti le mebri seci'o leka jgira"

Ivan: I thought a lifted forehead as an expression of pride was universal, not culturally sensitive, but maybe I was wrong. Ditto for clenched fists as an expression of aggressive impatience.

Lojbab: You may be right about the universality of the physical expressions - I have no idea. But there is cultural significance in the way each is described, which may vary between languages, and there is more than one emotion that could be symbolized. In (American), phrases like "head held high" suggest self-esteem/- personal pride, while "nose in the air" suggests hauteur. But "eyes lifted on high" suggests worship. All three of these could also be described as having a lifted forehead, but I've never heard the forehead mentioned in an English metaphor suggesting any of them.


24. Nora: I later figured out that this was "clenched", but it took a while. Perhaps "denmi se polje se xance" (densely-foldedly be-handed)?


Lojbab: "fist" has been expressed before as "ball-hand", so "fengu bolci se xance" (possibly making the whole or some portion into a lujvo - 'clenched-fist' for se fegbolxa'e, 'angry fist' for fengu se bolxa'e, or 'anger-clenched hands' fegboi se xance). Again, I favor making the emotional implication (which I am assuming is correct) explicit in the tanru/lujvo.

"denmi" used this way in tanru will probably not catch on quickly with English-speaking readers, since we don't often use the word in its literal sense in metaphor. The validity of the tanru using denmi is thus hard to evaluate before we have a few usages of this type in the dictionary (and a few other English words besides "dense" to trigger people's consideration.) Other than that, I think "denmi" is fine especially if the "fengu" is also present, and I would not make much of the fact that no one picks up the metaphor right away.

Nick comments further on this metaphor in a later footnote.


25. Lojbab: If the order of the terms in the translation is important to you, use "co" and grouping words to emphasize it: galtu serti co blabi joi labyxu'e bo linji roimrmaro (high stairs of-type white-with-pink-lines marble) is one such approach.

Ivan: I confess I never acquired the habit to use "co".


26. Nick: Will "kalsygri be leka pindi" by itself imply that it's a group of people? If you accept that, then leave "prenu" out.


27. Lojbab: This kind of long-complex "be" is why "co" is in the language "cu ca savri'a co simsa loi ctaru rirxe ke to'ekli boxna" is much clearer, and also seems to match the order of your intended translation better.


28. Lojbab: Does the sound of murky waves of a tidal river differ from the sound of any other kind of waves of a tidal river, or any other river?

Ivan: The waves are murky because of the appearance of the mobs, and the river is tidal because of their numbers. The observation that these things (especially the first one) don't affect the noise is correct, so maybe I'll extract this description from the tanru and attach it to the mobs, like so: "lei grusi kalsygri be leka pindi bei <like> loi ctaru rirxe ke to'ekli boxna ca savri'a". How's that? [Lojbab: Better, but see my answer in the next footnote.]


29. Ivan: Bulgarian has the same word for `wave' and `worry', and since the mob is something like a sea made of people, it is not clear whether this is meant in a physical or emotional sense, or both.

Lojbab: Then coin a lujvo based on "worry-wave" (dunku boxna) or "anxious-wave" (xanka boxna), possibly with a "joi" in between the terms. It won't translate to English, but will accurately reflect the dichotomy of the Bulgarian. Actually, I think the image, in this case, would translate, even if the word did not.

Combining this with the previous comments, I propose:

lei grusi kalsygri be leka pindi ca mutce savri'a gi'e simsa loi to'ekli dukyjoibo'a be loi ctaru rirxe


30. Ivan: Used to be a "forest of dry, black arms".

Lojbab: You could get the image of "forest" in there with "grana foldi co lafti loi to'e plana ke xekri birka", paralleling the image of "forest" = "ricfoi" ("tree-field"), which is the lujvo that has been most used.


31. Nick: I'd use "sanselminra". "te minra" (where something is reflected to) means "echo" less than does "se minra" (that which is reflected).


32. Lojbab: Again a place where "co" would make the text easier to understand. I also would use "canci" instead of "runta"; I cannot figure out what might go in the places of "runta" for an echo dissolving: "... cu masno je junri canci co simsa loi darno ke barda terdanti sance". (I also put a "loi" here on the cannon sounds.) I don't know about the original Bulgarian, but "solemn" to me can imply "somber/gloomy/sad" at least as much as "serious", or at least both. Perhaps "jurdri"? in place of "junri".


33. Nick: Given that "zenba" is now intransitive, replace "mutcne" with "zenba".

Lojbab: If "zenba" were still transitive, you would want "zmabi'o" or "tcebi'o", based on "binxo" instead of "cenba"


34. Ivan: The ".o'enai" was intended to cater for him being "some [old man]", whom no one knows or cares for.

Lojbab: Ivan originally used "slabu". "slabu" is defined as the "old" which is opposite of "new", and not as the opposite of "young". This has caused a lot of people writing in Lojban to change to "to'ercitno". This works but it seems clumsy to define "old" as an opposite. I think that with the proper value for the places, "slabu" can serve both meanings, but have apparently not been convincing. How about "ji'ecla" (alive-long) or "ma'ucla" (mature-long) or "revycla" (survive-long), with the latter or zatcla/za'icla (exist-long), or teicla/temcla (time interval-long) serving for non-living things that have been in their current state for a long time?

Ivan: I wouldn't replace "to'ercitno" with anything else. It doesn't matter that the man has lived long. It matters that he is not young any more.


35. Lojbab: Again, a "be" that should be made into a "co". In addition, I think the old man is like a seeker, and not like a seeking and the "pu'u" should go away (though Nora figured out your intent), while what he is seeking is probably the state of his being young, and not the property. Putting all this together might give: "... cu dzukla co ni'akro be fa'a le terdi be'o simsa lo sisku le selcri za'i vo'a citno".


36. Ivan: That is "lunbyseljma", but I chose to go for the alliteration and brevity of "cucycau". I trust it is understood as meaning the same.


37. Nora: I wasn't sure which referent to use for "ra". The possible referents are: the earth, the old one (via "ri" in "leri se cirko"), his lost youth, the lost youth of the old one, the process of searching for the lost youth, and (finally) the original reference to old one himself. I didn't initially pick up the "ri" (in "leri se cirko") as a countable sumti because I missed it (real easy to miss when it's compounded with the "le").

Ivan: The old one was what I wanted. The wee lass is "ri", and the earth, the youth and the process have no garments for her to cling to.

Nora: I think I'd have been more comfortable with picking up the original reference at the beginning of the paragraph using "ru".

Ivan: How would that work? I'm not sure I understand what you mean.

Lojbab: Since this is a new paragraph, "ru" should not go back any further than the beginning of the paragraph. The first sumti of the paragraph is the original reference to the old one, and the obvious referent of "ru". In addition, counting minimally based on your text would give "ra" to the earth and "ru" to the "ri" of "leri".

On the other hand, a far more clear back-reference would have been "le go'i" which clearly picks up the x1 of the previous sentence, the old man.

Note that since this anaphoric reference is occurring in the middle of an extremely picturesque set of metaphors, grasping the clothes of the earth is quite imaginable as a metaphor. Meanwhile, since Nora translated from your original text, which had "lo slabu" instead of "pa to'ercitno", she interpreted the old ones as plural (you had just been talking of masses and the Lojban gave no hint of sudden focus on individuals ("to'unai" or "su'anai" might have discursively indicated this change of detail level). Thus it might be that one girl is holding a mob of old peoples' clothes, or even a mob of unshod little girls is holding onto the clothes of the old people. In comparison to these images, grasping the "worn-out clothes" of the earth does not seem that far-fetched.

All of this makes it clear that "ra" and "ru" have rather limited usefulness unless you are dealing with simple sentences where back-counting is easy.


38. Lojbab: Nora was particularly pleased with herself for figuring out "cornflower blue", whatever that is.

Ivan: Just bright blue. Cornflowers are often mentioned in Bulgarian literature. The reader is expected to have seen many of them, which I (being a urban boy) haven't, but I know what colour they are. The reader is also supposed to guess that bright blue as an eye colour suggests innocence. This is not the case in all cultures (and in particular, not in traditional Bulgarian culture - in our folklore all eyes must be black), but that's how the author meant it.

Lojbab: Thus adding a modifying term to the tanru and grouping terms would make the meaning clear to those who do not know the cultural implication: "<innocent- (cornflower-bo-blue)>-eyes"

Nora said that the context suggested "cornflower", and sure enough, you had used the genus name for cornflower in your le'avla.

Ivan: The full name of the plant is Centaurea cyanus. It is not all blue (the stem and leaves are green), but I hope I still can use it in this way.

Lojbab: Certainly, since the author did so. If there was doubt, you could specifically add "flower" after the le'avla, but I suspect that the flower is the plausible referent whenever a flowering plant is used as the basis for a color. On the other hand, if you used cauliflower/- broccoli as the basis for a color description, you'd have to be more specific - indeed, I think I have seen both vegetables used to describe colors in English.


39. Ivan: Or "mild" or "meek" (eyes).

Lojbab: I might have tried "cumla" (humble), "fegycau" (anger-without), or "nalvli" (non-powerful).


40. Ivan: Just a funeral song, which they were singing in a choir.


41. Ivan: "Oh, ye up there, ye..." (Menace.) He's not really going to talk to them, therefore I spared the "doi".

Lojbab: It seems to me that a vocative that is not meant for the referent is expressible by "ju'inai". An alternative would be to use a prenex to achieve an impersonal topicalization. Perhaps something like: "levu [mal]gapru .iunai zo'u do .au ve sputu .o'onai"


42. Ivan: No, "threateningly clenched fists", "fists clenched in menace".

Nick: Maybe "kajde" should be in that tanru?

The tanru with denmi doesn't seem to be working. What about "ja'itra denmi xance" - grasp-form dense? ("jgari" alone implies that the youth is "ca'a" grasping "da poi se jgari"

Lojbab: If not "kajde", then perhaps "capti'i" (peril-suggesting), though "capyjde" might be better still (peril-warning).


43. Ivan: It is a rhetoric question (indeed, the behaviour of the youth leaves little doubt). Maybe "pei" (`don't answer') instead of "pe'i" (`I think you do')? The ".io" was a faint attempt to cater for the fact that this is the only occurrence of the formal pronoun in the tale. It doesn't really have to mean anything, and "Sir" is just a little bit too polite for its use here to be fair.

Nick: Hang on, "pei" is the attitudinal interrogative, "pe'i" the opinion. What you currently have translates to me as "You do, don't you." I think the ".io" should stay.]

Lojbab: "paunai", generally before the sentence, is the marker for a question not to be answered; i.e. a rhetorical question. In this case, you could also just omit the question word and start off with "pe'i do xebni ...". I think such direct statements or rhetorical questions serve to make the ".io" rather a lesser mark of respect than it might be. Note that, in American English at least, "Sir" is commonly used to address someone you don't know the name of in a non-insulting manner, and doesn't necessarily convey a lot of respect, so don't make too much of Nora's choice of the word.


44. Ivan: "and leaned towards him", certainly not "bowed to him".

Nick: Hm. I was thinking of "kroxadjbi", but I don't think "krori'a" need be taken as "to bow" - that's more "xadykro rinsa".

Lojbab: You might need a "mo'i" on that "fa'a" to get the motion, and I think the "ko'a" can then be ellipsized. "noi ca tcica xadmu'u le stedu mo'ifa'a". As a sumti tcita, I tend to like "zo'i" more than "fa'a", though I don't think you can ellipsize the "ko'a" in that case, since the default referent of "zo'i" is the speaker/narrator.


45. Ivan: Wrong BAI, it seems. He wants to avenge his brethren, not necessarily on their behalf (maybe they don't even know who has caused their misery). "venfu" wants one more argument place, therefore I went for "vefsfa", but by doing so I lost another argument place.

Nick: Let's get that place back for you. There's really no reason why "vefsfa" should not have a place for "le se venfu"):

s1 avenges s2 by doing s3
p1 punishes p2 for doing p3 by doing p4.

s1=p1. s3=p4. p3=tu'a s2. Leaving out p3, we have:

vefsfa: x1 punishes x2 avenging x3 by doing x4.

Of course, you could just say "venfu be lei bruna be'o sfasa"


46. Lojbab: rearrange more clearly as: "zi'e noi selcmo co zmadu le la gaimast. si'erbi'e leni tepri'a"

"zi'e noi" could be simply "gi'e" since you are using the same kind of relative clause (noi) with the relativized sumti in the first position in both cases. But there is nothing wrong with the way you have it.


47. Ivan: Ought to have been "Let me pass!", but I didn't make it clear what the Devil was supposed to curmi.


48. Ivan: (Bulgarian has two words which are equally glossed `prince' in English, the first referring to a son or other close relative of a king, the other to a ruler of a principality.) "mabla" corresponded to a certain form of the Bulgarian demonstrative pronoun, which suggests contempt.


49. Ivan: "I am a guard[ian] of those up there..." It is certainly not his only job, but he means that he is serious about defending their privacy.

Lojbab: Perhaps remove the "jibri", and replace by ".ei" or ".e'i". This also parallels what I think the following sentence should be ...


50. Ivan: Contrariwise. "... and without a bribe I won't betray them." That is, "either I will be payingly compelled (i.e. bribed) or I won't betray them".

Nick: "gi'anaibabo" to be polite. I still think "le'irbai" is sound. "le'irselmukti"?

Lojbab: I like using attitudinals, and "le'ixlu" for bribe: ".ije mi se le'ixlu .ei gi'a na.e'i lacti'a ri

I somehow feel that "lacti'a" has the wrong emphasis. Since the Devil intends to deceive the plebeian, he should avoid mentioning deception. Maybe a nice ambiguous tanru like "sidju cliva ri"?


51. Ivan: Lit. "... to lay my head".


52. Ivan: The surprise in the English is too strong.


53. Ivan: I don't get the "free" here. "Let me never hear anything, let me..." I don't know how to say `let ... happen' in Lojban, though.

Lojbab: Nora was undoubtedly trying to interpret the ".e'i" (constraint), and did so as the negation of ".e'inai" (freedom). I would normally use ".e'a" for permission, and the reiteration of the request is even stronger, a petition: ".ie fi'ido'u mi noroi.e'a tirna di .i.e'o"


54. Ivan: For a more straightforward way to say "Thou wilt still hear", I'm thinking of trying "do co'unai ka'e tirna".


55. Ivan: Lit. "made him way", i.e. "moved aside and let him pass".


56. Lojbab: I don't know how to pass through stairs.

Ivan: This may be a malbaublgaria. By passing a set of steps I mean climbing them. They are seen as obstacles, because one has to pay for each set of three. Hints as to how else I could put it are welcome.

Nora: "pagre" isn't really the right word, unless you are doing it for the analogy of "passing through" stages (in which case something based on "pruce" might be used). I'm not quite sure what to use in place of it, though.

Ivan: No, I'm doing it for want of a better bet.

Nora: Maybe "klama mo'i zo'a ci te serti" (went motion-tangential 3 steps)?

Ivan: Maybe. (Not that it sounds good enough to me.)

Lojbab: I think I would use "bancu", and I'd soften the imperative to reinforce that it is a permission and not a command: ".i ®lu .e'a ko cpare bancu li'u¯"


57. Ivan: "He rushed/dashed [forward]". Probably "ko'a co'i [mo'ica'u] bajra".

Nick: Remember, Lojbab, the primary raison d'etre of "bikla" is to denote "a whip-like motion", not a whip.

Lojbab: I have no real problem with the use of "bikla". Any confusion in my mind is due to the repetition of the motion with different words: whipped forward, ran, walk-passed-through, for as short a motion as three steps. I would use "suksa", though, and perhaps phrase it like: ".i ko'a suksa ke bajra bancu tai pa nunstapa co cimei te serti"


58. Ivan: Bulgarian has fewer personal pronouns than Lojban, so my "ko'u" corresponds to "my brethren" or "thy brethren" as appropriate.

What will happen if I say "leiko'u ni'avu cmoni"?

Lojbab: Seems as good, and indeed resolves a tanru, though it is one that isn't really misunderstood. The main differences between your translation and Nora's is your "how", which isn't present in the Lojban, and the interpretation of "vu", which rather overstates the distance - it is after all only 3 steps at this point. How about: "ko sisti mu'i lenu tirna leika ko'u ni'ava cmoni"


59. Ivan: Rhetorical question. The last sentence may become ".i ko'a di'a bajra".

Lojbab: I'm not sure I understand how this is merely a rhetorical question. The attitudinal you inserted indicates surprise - thus he doesn't know the answer. He probably would like to know, even if he doesn't necessarily expect an answer. Thus "paunai", the unask-the-question marker of a rhetorical question, seems out of place. If he asks the question, he really would like an answer. If you feel that he doesn't really expect to know but just thinks of it as an unsolvable and possibly irrelevant mystery, I would avoid the question-word entirely and merely use the attitudinal for strangeness and an observative to indicate what it is he finds so unquestionably strange. (This comment applies to later questions in the story of this 'rhetorical' type.)

I would have used a different attitudinal, ".i'unai.u'e" (mystery+wonder), instead of ".ue" (surprise), based on your translation of it as "Strange". I would not have put a strength indicator on the attitudinal, which marked the attitude as particularly strong. Otherwise, this seems fine.

Ivan: It is a rhetorical question inasmuch as the youth doesn't expect the Devil to answer him. Of course he wouldn't mind being told, but he's not addressing anybody with this question, just wondering aloud. Your suggestion of attitudinal is good.


60. Lojbab: For this meaning I would choose something like "tcudu'u" (need-anguish), which in turn suggests a different kind of hand oscillating.


61. Ivan: The Bulgarian contained the rather long "those on whom I go (in the literal, "la'e zo klama" sense) to take vengeance".

Lojbab: You should be able to capture this with "leimi se vefsfa terkla".


62. Ivan: Again [see footnote above regarding loss of hearing], I'll try "do co'unai ka'e viska".


63. Ivan: The Devil slyly fails to specify in what sense they will be better (i.e. in what property they will zmadu).

Nick: Would "zmadu befi zo'e" be too obvious?

Lojbab: I think it would! It would make the Lojbanic point, but if the plebeian had heard it put like that, he might have guessed what he was in for. However, it would be clearer to readers, if the Devil had use "xagmau" (better) instead of "zmadu" (more), while retaining a similar ellipsis of comparison while adding one regarding the nature of "good" (Better than what? By whose standard?)


64. Lojbab: You again need to deal with the "pagre" here. In this case, I suggest something like "krefu muvdu co bancu ci te serti". "krefu" is better than "rapli" for "again", though the latter is better for multiple repetitions, as occurs later in the story.


65. Ivan: Ought to be "mo'ini'a ...", or "... le cnita".

Lojbab: I prefer "catlu le cnita". "mo'ini'a", like the similar moving gaze early in the story, seems to ask for misunderstanding, though I suspect fluent Lojbanists might appreciate the usage more than us novices.


66. Ivan: No answer to the question is really expected, so "pei ?cama ko'u co'a melbi dasni".

Lojbab: You mean "paunai" instead of "pei". I disagree, as stated in my earlier comment on these kind of rhetorical questions. I think the unsolvability of the question is better conveyed by 1) dropping the ".uecai" (which obviously prompted a different image in Nora's mind), and adding ".i'enaicai" after "cizra".


67. Ivan: Odd as it may be, Smirnenski called them "manci xunre rozgu" `wondrously red roses', rather than "manci ke xunre rozgu". Don't ask me why.

Lojbab: The reason seems obvious to me, if indeed the difference between the two groupings is that striking in the Bulgarian: The left grouping indicates a surreal quality about the redness of the roses, a clue to the nature of these new eyes, whereas the right grouping just says that they are especially nice roses without suggesting a surreal quality. Pretty roses are a wonder, but they need no special eyes to be found; but roses that are a red color that is wondrous must indeed be an unusual red, since most roses are a fairly distinctive red color.

Ivan: Congratulations on your reading of the "wondrously red roses". It is very interesting, if not accurate. They were more likely roses of an unusual (yet real) red colour. We often call rare things 'surreal'.


68. Ivan: I'm not quite sure about "ba [pa te serti]" here - steps are not times. Maybe "ba tu'a pa te serti".

Nick: To be strictly correct, yes.


69. Nora: The "semaunai" isn't necessary. "pa te serti" actually means "exactly one step".

Ivan: I wanted to emphasise the fact that it is really only one step. All of these sentences ended with an exclamation mark in the Bulgarian original. What would be a way to put it back?

Nick: "ba'epa", "ba'esu'epa" will do it for me.]

Lojbab: Also, on the 'only one step' sentence, add "ba'acai" to show intense anticipation, certainly worth an exclamation point.

Indeed, you can add attitudinals in each sentence to spice up the emotional level, though without strength indicators until the final two sentences. I suggest "fu'ese'inai" on the "ni'o" to show that the emotions that follow are empathic attributions to the plebeian (you may wish to mark this earlier in the story if you are attributing attitudes elsewhere in the story), "ba'u" or ".ianai" on "cmalu" to show that the payments were not really 'little', ".a'i.a'a" on the "ru'i" before "cadzu", ".e'i.u'o" on "dunda" (or perhaps ".u'ucu'i"), ".ai" on "klama", ".o'inai" on "vefsfa", ".o'onai" on "malplana". By now the emotions are flowing almost as fast as the words, and the last few sentences need only one attitudinal per sentence, but with intensity. ".ua.a'ocai ba'upa" then on the "one step left" (instead of your ".uo.ui", which seems premature), "ba'acai" on the following sentence, and finally a starburst at the end of the final sentence like ".au.ei.uo.u'a.uiri'ecai".

This may be overkill, far more than you would like to do. Or I may be missing the exact feelings intended in the original, but you have to admit that it puts the exclamation points back in the paragraph.


70. Lojbab: This word is the Lojban editorial bracket [e.g., I'm adding this discursive note later, and it is not part of the original text or quote in which it is embedded]. To get the effect you want, it needs to be attached to something discursive that indicates the ellipsis, since you don't really want to delete the "pidrai" that it currently marks. I would make it vausa'ake'unai, which ends the sentence with any appropriate ellipsis supplied (the formal meaning of "vau"), indicates that the "vau" isn't really said, and then indicates continuation (which is covered by the "sa'a" since it is attached to it in the manner of indicators).

Actually, "mi'unai" might make a better word for open-ended ellipsis, though it isn't currently in the word list, since I think we have a difference discursive intent for "ke'unai": to indicate at the start of a block of text that you are continuing a thread after repeating something for emphasis.

Other choices for open-ended ellipsis might be ".isa'a.isa'a.isa'a" or ".itu'esa'atu'u" (which would become legal under a recently proposed grammar change).


71. Ivan: I'll probably split this into "ledo ka cinmo .e ledo ka morji". The original had "thy heart and thy memory", but the heart ("risna") is in Lojban, as in many natural cultures, only a pump for blood. I'm not sure whether the youth implies that he will die if his heart is torn out of his chest (which is true with respect to his natural heart), or that he doesn't want to live without being able to have feelings.

Lojbab: It must be the latter, since he has indicated that he is willing to die in return for achieving his goal.

I would replace "heart" by either "emotion-source" or "emotion-organ".


72. Ivan: The "hey" sounds somewhat rude to me.

Lojbab: We have generally found that putting in the "doi" tends to soften the harshness of the vocative, making for a more polite phrase like "Attend my words, O young man". Another possible vocative to consider is "ta'adoi", especially since the Devil is interrupting the reverie of the preceding sentence.


73. Nora: "di'i" is "regularly" as in how a clock ticks, that is "at regular intervals". I think "na'o" ("typically") might work better.

Ivan: Yes, well, it is not "typically" either, because he does it every single time when someone gets to this step.

Lojbab: Then maybe "roroi" to so quantify the situation.


74. Ivan: Or "I will give thee instead..." The original had literally "lo solji risna".


75. Ivan: That is, "If thou consentest not, thou shalt never..."

Lojbab: This sounds like "tugni" or "curmi", or maybe something else, instead of "zanru". This literally translates to something like "ganai do na curmi", a double negative equivalent of what you chose.


76. Lojbab: This sounds more like "do lebna ro selkai be loi remna mi


77. Ivan: "On the contrary - the most happy one!... But - ? Dost thou agree: only thy heart and thy memory?" I have no idea what "do'a" means; I used "do'anai" for `only' here. (I didn't intend it to be interpreted as "please".) The "je'a" is for symmetry (to replace the "to'e").

Nick: "do'a" - "generously"; "do'anai" - "parsimoniously". I think here "do'anai" would here mean "I'm not asking for too much", but generosity is associated with giving, isn't it? But I can find no better UI.

Lojbab: We better clarify this one well. It came across entirely backwards. Intended to be discursive rather than emotive, "do'a" is supposed to mean that you are generously conceding or allowing a dubious point "even if this were so", possibly in conjunction with "da'i". "do'anai" therefore means that you are refusing to give in even a little, which is probably why Nora translated it as an officious and insistent 'please' (rather than a polite request).

I presume that the word can be used emotively, though I hadn't thought of it that way.

We addressed the question of how to express "only" on the net at great length, a discussion that I couldn't fit into JL17. Unless you are intending that "only" mean that the Devil is trying to express that he is being generous to require as little as the heart and memory (which would be a knowingly false emotive expression, something I don't much like in the Lojban attitudinal system - though I guess, if anyone can lie about emotions, the Devil can), you need one of the more elaborate logical paraphrases of "only" like "... and nothing else"


78. Ivan: "Turbid <...> rolled along his wrinkled forehead."

Lojbab: I think you wanted "mo'ire'o" instead of "zo'a".


79. Ivan: No! "He became thoughtful /fell to thinking."

Lojbab: Nora got caught here by the faulty memory that afflicts those of us who are long time Loglanists - "trati" means "taut" in Lojban, in older TLI Loglan meant what "troci" now means ("try"). A rare case where she didn't actually look the word and place structure up, I guess.


80. Nora: This is when I finally figured this metaphor out; I think the "angrily" helped.


81. Ivan: "And suddenly a smile shone on his face."

Lojbab: I don't think a smile can illuminate someone's face in Lojban in any literal sense of the relation.

Ivan: The original uses an intransitive verb which usually refers to the sun coming out from behind a cloud, something like `[and suddenly] a smile "co'a" [shine; be a source of light] on his face'. Clearly Smirnenski didn't want to just say `he smiled', but as his alternative wording doesn't affect the meaning, I'm not sure how to account for it. I am open for suggestions.

Lojbab: How about something like "suksa cisma co ka leko'a flira cu panra le solgu'i poi ba'o dilzu'i ku leka co'a to'ercanci"? (This uses the proposed grammar revision for relative clauses; the baseline grammar requires "ku'o" where "ku" is.)


82. Ivan: Ought to be "He was already on the top". I reckon I've been having trouble saying `already'.

Lojbab: I can see two interpretations of "already" given only the English word, so don't feel bad. Given that his memory has changed in the way it has, he may not remember the climbing, and thus is already at the top (This might be "ba'anai cpana le gapru"). Or, in the sense that you suggest with "snada", he is in the aftermath of climbing the last step ("ba'o cpare fi le gapru").


83. Ivan: He enjoys his belief that he is a prince by birth, and has always been one.


84. Ivan: His fists, actually. But it is the same thing.


85. Ivan: "He looked at the feasting/banquetting princes."


86. Ivan: `crowds' wearing holiday garments, such as are worn only on special days (e.g. Sundays).


87. Ivan: Literally. "the moans were already hymns". The "pu" is my addition.

Lojbab: Shades of our classic example of "le": "le nanmu cu ninmu". Of course they are still moans, but he doesn't know that. Maybe a "pe'i" to make this clear.

Thus you might want "rolo" instead of "le", to clarify which reality the author prefers to assume.

Remember that Lojban's simple tenses are aorist; i.e. saying that they were moans in the past with "pu" makes no claim about their current status at "ca" - they may still be moans.


88. Ivan: Exclamation. "Oh, how beautiful is the earth and how happy are the people!" Again, the "je'a" is for symmetry, in the place of what was "to'e" but a while ago. In the original ".oicai" and ".uicai" were the same interjection.


89. Ivan: Lit. "a prince".


90. Ivan: The author's pen name is Smirnenski (I lojbanised it by cutting off the "-i", which only indicates that he's a man).