lojbo karni number 18/19

le lojbo karni
Number 18/19 - May 1994
Copyright 1993-4, The Logical Language Group, Inc.
2904 Beau Lane, Fairfax VA 22031 USA (703)385-0273 lojbab@access.digex.net
Permission granted to copy, without charge to recipient, when for purpose of promotion of Loglan/Lojban.
Editor and President: Bob LeChevalier ('Bob' or 'lojbab.')

le lojbo karni (LK) is the quarterly newsletter for new observers of the Loglan Project and for less active participants in the
project. Active participants receive the longer journal, ju'i lobypli (JL) (available by subscription only). The Logical Language
Group, Inc., known in these pages as 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" - pronounced
/LOZH-ban/), and informing the community about logical languages in general.
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 claimed copyright on everything in his
version, including each individual word of the vocabulary. By contrast, the Lojban vocabulary and grammar and all language
definition materials, are explicitly in the 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.
Page count this issue is 12 pages +2 for the order form, resulting in a charge to voluntary balances of $1.40 for North Ameri-
can recipients and $1.68 for others. We ask that you aid us by contributing the amount of your voluntary balance, which specifi-
cally reflects the cost of our producing and mailing your copy of our publication. If you aren't interested in this publication,
please pass it to someone else who might be interested, and let us know so we don't continue to waste limited resources mailing
to you. Press run this issue, 800.

The following identifies abbreviated names of people referred to in
LK.
'pc' - Dr. John Parks-Clifford, Professor of Logic and Philosophy at
the University of Missouri - St. Louis and Vice-President of la Loj-
bangirz.; 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 lan-
guage, 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 an-
other. 'Loglan/Lojban' is used in discussions about Lojban where we
wish to make it particularly clear that the statement applies to the ge-
neric language as well.
'ftp' (File Transfer Protocol) - A method of accessing and getting
copies of electronic materials from archives on other computers via the
Internet. There is a Lojban archive named "/pub/Lojban" on a com-
puter named "ftp.cs.yale.edu". If you have email or computer net ac-
cess and aren't familiar with ftp, contact us via the email address below.
Following are definitions of frequently used Lojban terms. Longer
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 (some people have
started using fu'ivla for this concept, but "le'avla" will also remain a
valid term for the indefinite future);
brivla - Lojban predicate words, consisting of gismu, lujvo, and
le'avla; (a few cmavo have the grammar of a brivla);
tanru - Lojban 'binary' metaphors, the most productive and creative
expression form of the language, unambiguous in syntax/grammar, but
ambiguous in semantics/meaning; tanru generally have a modifying
portion (generally on the left) that serves the function of an English ad-
jective or adverb, and a modified portion (on the right).
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;
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' (this is an artifact of the computer language "C" in
which the formal Lojban grammar is defined for the YACC processor; C
forbids apostrophes in 'tokens' representing single words.
Voluntary Balances and Our Non-Profit Status
Our orientation is non-profit. Almost every dollar we re-
ceive goes directly into producing the products that we send
out, with a very small overhead and no paid salaries. We sub-
sist entirely on your contributions against our costs of mailing
to you. However, a large number of our respondents are col-
lege students and others with low incomes, who want our ma-
terials but couldn't afford them at our costs. Others live out-
side the U.S., where our costs are higher, yet it is harder for
them to contribute.
Therefore, we operate on a voluntary balance system. We
ask you to contribute what you can towards your balance, and
maybe to make a donation to help cover those who can't af-
ford theirs.
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.

Computer Net Information
Via Usenet/UUCP/Internet, you can send messages and text files to la Lojbangirz./Bob at:
lojbab@access.digex.net
(This new address, as of September 1993, supersedes the prior "snark" and 'grebyn' addresses.)
You can also join the Lojban List mailing list (currently around 75 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: lojbab@access.digex.net
Send traffic for the mailing list to: lojban@cuvmb.cc.columbia.edu
The primary Lojban ftp archive site is: ftp.cs.yale.edu (directory /pub/Lojban)

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 26 May 1994 Mailing codes (and ap-
proximate balance needs for U.S. subscribers) are:
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)
Please keep us informed of changes in your mailing address, and US subscribers are asked to provide
ZIP+4 codes whenever you know them.
Feel free to call or write to ask about your balance account or mailing code assignment.

News
First, An Apology

It has been a long time since our last issue back in February 1993, and some of you are receiving your first
materials from us after requesting it as early as June 1993. No, LLG is not dead - not by any standard. We
unfortunately had to make some difficult priority choices in June, and le lojbo karni got dropped to a very low
priority for a while, along with responding to new orders. Since we were out of copies of the previous issue
(#17), this meant that we didn't have a complete introductory package to send to new inquirers about Lojban.
As a result, some of you have been waiting an inexcusably long time to hear from us (especially the few of
you who sent money with your request), and we offer our sincerest apologies for the delay.
In articles below, I'll try to explain what has been going on such that we haven't been answering correspon-
dence and producing newsletters, but I don't assume that this excuses us for not being responsive. I am trying
to find a solution that allows us to be more responsive to new inquirers about Lojban, but for the next few
months, things will continue to be difficult. There is only one person here writing dictionary material, filling
orders, answering letters, and producing newsletters. I am also a new parent of two great kids, and this takes a
lot of time. A lot of work is farmed out to others in the community, but there is a lot that cannot be delegated.
If you get this, and believe that you have an order with us outstanding, be sure to let us know. Unless we
explicitly say so in our mailing to you, we believe that this newsletter and anything sent with it brings our order
backlog up-to-date.
This issue is numbered as #18 and #19. We do not expect to put out a new issue of this shorter newsletter
along with Ju'i Lobypli #19, which we intend to put out in the not-too-distant future, since we don't expect a
significant amount of new news by that time.

Priorities Change
The biggest news this issue is our newly intense focus on
getting the first Lojban book, the dictionary and reference,
completed and published. We've made progress on this goal,
but the book is not done yet. I am hoping to announce publi-
cation information by the next issue of this newsletter.
As a major step towards this goal, last summer we com-
pleted the baselining of the rafsi list, the last major piece of
the language to be frozen before dictionary publication.
Because JL issues are taking 1-2 months to prepare, and
LK issues are derived from the JL issue after it is completed,
we have been unable to keep JL and LK on the hoped-for
quarterly schedule while getting the dictionary and textbook
published.
Issue #18 of JL took even longer than normal to produce,
over 2 months from the day I started, even though I had
thought the issue partially done when I started. My family
life, supporting the computer network discussions, and ad-
ministrative tasks have kept me from working efficiently, and
the types of materials we are publishing are taking longer to
edit than older issues, because of the need to ensure clarity
and accuracy of technical content.
Meanwhile, the books have been too long delayed while I
tried to get JL on a more frequent schedule. We improved the
JL frequency, but not to the quarterly level we need in order
to get 2nd class mailing from the Postal Service. It became
clear that one of the two goals had to give way, and the books
are far more important to the long term prospects for the
project.
I'm sure that the decision to put book publication higher
priority than regular JL publication is one which the com-
munity will find acceptable, provided that we maintain some
minimum publication frequency. Of course, at the moment,
we aren't even managing that.
A Brief Status of Ongoing Projects
The ckafybarja (coffeehouse) writing project - We have
delayed the schedule for this project (described last issue),
partly because there has not been enough material submitted,
and partly because we have had to lower its priority. Some of
the strongest proponents of the project have yet to submit
contributions. However, Nick Nicholas revised one piece that
was in progress when JL17 was published and Veijo Vilva has
written a new Lojban text contribution to the effort. Nick also
submitted a character description on behalf of a friend. As a
result, the period for submission of characters and/or setting
ideas has been extended indefinitely, until the various people
who have contributed feel that enough has been submitted to
either vote, or to at least turn fully to the Lojban writing en-
deavor that is intended.
rafsi baseline - This project started in summer 1992. I
delayed making rafsi assignments final, because I wanted
them to reflect actual usage of Lojban gismu roots in lujvo
compounds. We now have enough data that statistical analy-
sis is meaningful, and some rafsi were changed as a result of
that analysis, while we also managed to respect the 'sacred-
ness' of many of the rafsi more frequently used in compounds.
JL Subscriptions - ju'i lobypli, our "quarterly" journal, is
now fully on a subscription basis. You no longer get this jour-
nal without explicitly requesting it. You must either pay for
this subscription, or request that your subscription charge be
waived (which will be done based on available donated funds
for such purposes, with priority going to overseas subscribers
and those who have been most active in using the language,
"lobypli" after all meaning 'Lojban user'. JL18 had around
120 subscribers, and that number may drop to 110 or so for
JL19, but seems likely to be stable thereafter until books are
published (when it hopefully will increase).
Finances
One reason for delays in publication last spring was a
major hemorrhage in our funds. We were spending money
much faster than we were taking it in. By delaying publication
and reducing our frequency, we restored ourself to a positive
cash-flow for the year. Significant donations from Jeff
Prothero (totalling $2500 in 1993, about 1/3 of our income)
were the primary factor in restoring stability, and we actually
finished the year some $1200 ahead (which is just about the
amount that we lost in 1992). We cannot count on such
support from one individual indefinitely, though, and will need
a fund raising drive in order to make it through next year. I
intend to ask for donations in the letter that announces
publication of the first book. Substantial donations and/or
massive orders will be necessary to keep the price for the Loj-
ban books reasonable, since small print-runs will add several
dollars to the price of each book, and we cannot afford a large
print run without more cash reserves. (Expected publication
costs will run around $10,000, which is larger than our current
annual budget. Donors welcome!)
LogFest 93
Our annual gathering was held at Lojbab's house in Fairfax
VA the weekend of 9-12 July 1993. We had a new record at-
tendance, around 20 people, many of whom stayed the entire
weekend. One attendee was Jorge Llambias, from Argentina,
who had just become interested in Lojban. He has since be-
come one of the leaders of the community through his ac-
tivity, has learned the language about as well as anyone has
so far, and is assisting in our outreach to Spanish-speaking
countries (we've had several inquiries from such countries,
written in either Spanish or Esperanto. Jorge's skill in both
languages means that we now have some capability to
support Lojbanists who speak Spanish but not English.
A highlight of LogFest was international Lojban conversa-
tion by live 'interaction' on the computer networks with Nick
Nicholas in Australia, using the "IRC" function of the Internet
(see below).
The annual business meeting on that Sunday was the
shortest ever, and helped us keep our focus on Lojban activi-
ties rather than organizational ones. Jorge and Veijo Vilva
were added as international voting members of la Loj-
bangirz., joining Nick Nicholas and Colin Fine who were
added last year. Voting members are the subset of you who
are interested enough in Lojban to commit to helping on
organizational matters. International participation helps en-
sure that the organization remains broadly focussed on YOUR
goals, since the Lojban community is growing more quickly
outside the USA than inside.
Logfest '94
LogFest '94 is scheduled for the weekend of 15-17 July
1994. Since we hope to have books done by then, at least in
draft form, we intend to attempt a more aggressive effort to
use Lojban in conjunction with LogFest. A current proposal is
to dedicate at least the Monday following LogFest weekend to
"Lojban-only" living in Lojbab's house (where LogFest will be
taking place) - we have the option of extending this if partici-
pants wish to do so. We hope to recruit several members of
the community to try to participate in this adventure.
If we try this, there will likely be a rocky start, as people
who have not worked extensively with the language quickly try
to get used to hearing and expressing themselves in Lojban.
Anticipating problems, we will probably have one
(inconvenient) room where people can talk in English, and one
person has proposed that we permit any other language be-
sides English (including Esperanto, Spanish, Russian, etc.)
when our Lojban skills fail to communicate; this will among
other things solve the problem of my kids, who haven't
learned much Lojban, but could fall back on their rusty Rus-
sian. Lojban will obviously still be the language of preference
since there is probably no other non-English language that will
be common to all participants.
We welcome any/all interested in participating in this ex-
periment. As usual, the most important skill you will need to
successfully participate will be vocabulary - learning enough
Lojban grammar to communicate is almost trivial if you have
the vocabulary to say things and understand what others are
saying. Study that gismu word list!
Other News
DC Weekly Group - The DC weekly group, consisting of 4
Lojbanists who are regulars, continues to meet and do a little
conversation each week in Lojban. We added one new
person, Albion Zeglin, as a regular attendee, but David Young
had to stop coming at about the same time due to
transportation difficulties. The quality of the Lojban
conversation has definitely improved in the last few months.
Bradford Group - Colin Fine's group in Bradford, England,
continues to meet, albeit irregularly. From postings on the
net, they are probably achieving a sophistication in Lojban use
at least comparable to us in DC. Colin hosted the first UK
Logfest in late September, with 5 attendees.
CIX - A possible bolster to Colin's efforts to build a UK Loj-
ban group was the formation this year of a Lojban discussion
group on the UK computer network 'CIX'. This group has
grown rapidly, and is reported to have some 25 participants.
Lojban List traffic is echoed to this group, and Colin may
shortly have CIX access to assist those interested in studying
Lojban in furthering their progress.
IRC - Colin Fine, Nick Nicholas, and Mark Shoulson started
a pattern of using the computer network system called
"Internet Relay Chat" or IRC, in order to enable 'live' Lojban
conversation between Lojbanists otherwise isolated. A group
of Lojbanists is thus now meeting irregularly on the computer
networks to converse in Lojban, recently including David
Young and Sylvia Rutiser from the DC Lojban group. If you
are on the Internet with access to the IRC function, and want
to participate, contact us by e-mail per page 1. Erik Rauch
devised a computer program called a 'bot' which serves Loj-
banists 'talking' via IRC. Any time you can't remember a word
(English or Lojban), you can ask the 'bot', and it will look up
the word for you while you wait, in the official files.
Legal - The trademark on 'Loglan' has now been officially
cancelled, in accordance with the court order following our
legal victory on this issue. TLI did not include the trademark
claim in the first publication after the cancellation.
We have now paid off the legal debt, with money contrib-
uted by Lojbab and Jeff Prothero.
The Loglan Institute - There is little to report about the
Loglan Institute these days; not much seems to be going on.
The organization continues to exist. TLI had an advertisement
in the April 1993 Scientific American, although they reported
in Lognet that they spent over $2000 for the ad; this would
require a large response in order to break even. TLI has set
up a computer network mailing list; subscribers report little
activity.
In October, TLI announced completion of their own dic-
tionary revision, which is being issued only in electronic form
at a price of $50. No printed version is expected in the near
future. (By comparison, some form of the Lojban dictionary
data in electronic form will be available via the computer
network for free, and at a nominal price on diskette.)
They are also reporting work on a substantial revision on
the rules of their language version, in order to make it, like
Lojban, truly 'self-segregating' at the word level (i.e., unam-
biguity demands that you always be able to break a stream of
Loglan/Lojban sounds down into individual words uniquely;
the TLI language version has been seriously defective in this
area).
TLI has not seemed interested in our efforts to reach a ne-
gotiated settlement to our differences, and recently has made
statements suggesting that they may intend another legal
challenge to our effort. We hope this will be avoided, but will
be prepared in case it happens.
lujvo-making - Nick Nicholas has taken a small project,
describing some principles for making lujvo, and turned it
into a full analysis of the problem. He has analyzed and pro-
posed place strutures for every lujvo that has appeared in
Lojban text, and some that have merely been proposed for
use, and has written a paper describing this extensive analy-
sis. Some form of the paper, after it has been reviewed, will
be part of the dictionary/reference. Another version may
appear in the Lojban grammar description, most of which is
being written by John Cowan.
Nick's extensive lujvo analysis means that we will have at
least 3000 lujvo included in the first dictionary.
English-order dictionary - Meanwhile, John Cowan has
devised a computer utility called a "KWIC" index (Key-Word-
In-Context), which will make creating a good English order
dictionary much easier than we had anticipated. Based on his
and Nick's work, we may have as many as 10000 English en-
tries in the first dictionary, or 7 times the number in the cur-
rent gismu list. A sample of the output of his KWIC index, as
it will be formatted for the dictionary, is found below.
Lojban-to-PROLOG Translator - Nick Nicholas also
turned a term project for one of his classes into a major Loj-
ban accomplishment. He devised a computer program which
automatically translates the basic structures of Lojban text
into PROLOG (computer language) equivalents. He got a lot
of the grammar incorporated in a very short time, thereby
making it easier to convince people that extensive computer
processing of Lojban text is a practical future goal.
FTP site - The Planned Languages Server (PLS), founded
a few years ago by Mark Shoulson and Jerry Altzman, (and
listed in some of our brochures as a source of on-line Lojban
information) appears to have died, a victim of both organizers
moving on to a new environment. However, just in time, Erik
Rauch has set us up an even better facility for distribution of
Lojban materials electronically, an "FTP" (File Transfer
Protocol) server on one of the computers at Yale University.
See page 1 for information on this server, which is available
vis the Internet.
Book Status
Work continues on the books, but we cannot report any
completion dates yet, although Lojbab will have some sort of
draft of the dictionary /reference for review at LogFest 94.
Highest priority remains the dictionary/reference, and that has
occupied most of Lojbab's time in between JL issues, along
with the administrative tasks involved in keeping the organiza-
tion running (including responding to orders and questions
from the community by mail). Unfortunately, these latter
tasks continue to take too much time, with the inevitable
continued delays. There is some significant progress though.
In this issue, however, are two reports on the diction-
ary/reference: an outline, and a sample discussing our ap-
proach to doing the English-order portion of the dictionary.
As the outline shows, the contents of the reference book
have swollen to the point that we are strongly considering
issuing the reference as two books - one more of a reference
per se, while the other is a pure dictionary of English-Lojban
and Lojban-English, emphasizing content words. A major
reason for this has been Nick Nicholas's excellent and exten-
sive work on lujvo, which promises to give us several thou-
sand entries in each direction in the dictionary if it is com-
pleted. Nick is also writing a paper describing his treatment of
place structures in lujvo-making, which will also be included
in the reference book.
John Cowan has completed a revision of the entire content
of the draft textbook lessons, reorganizing the materials and
updating them to the current language. The results will be
merged with the new work that Lojbab has done towards a
textbook, and will then result in the draft textbook.
John also has continued writing his survey papers covering
the entirety of the language from the standpoint of the gram-
mar, which will be assembled into the Lojban Reference Gram-
mar. John has completed 13 of his planned 16 papers, but all
of the papers must yet be reviewed by several people before
they are finalized.
Language Development Status
gismu
Last issue we noted adding of 4 new gismu to support
the new international metric prefixes, but did not list the
words. They are (with the international prefix in
parentheses):
gocti 10-24 (yocto-)
gotro 1024 (yotta-)
zepti 10-21 (zepto-)
zetro 1021 (zetta-)
After an extensive review, all open issues on gismu place
structures have been resolved, and the dictioanry re-baseline
proposal is available on the Internet for final review and com-
ment. After a comment period, the gismu list will be split
into two forms, the current form intended for use with Log-
Flash, and a version oriented towards dictionary formatting.
Once we have two lists, keeping them matching with each
other will be a substantial requirement. In case of conflict,
the dictionary format listing will be presumed to have prece-
dence.
A revised printing of the gismu list was prepared in Sep-
tember, and this will be the new one sent to people ordering
"package 1". As that printing took place during the final re-
view, it is not exactly the same as the final proposal, but the
differences are minor and it is much more accurate than the
previous version that we were sending out (it is also a bit eas-
ier to read).
rafsi
We baselined the rafsi list effective June 1, 1993. We
had intended to have the baseline effective with book
publication, but the books aren't out, and the pending change
had a noticeable effect on people's willingness to make and
use lujvo, as well as to write in Lojban in general. Since we
expect no changes in the few months before the book comes
out, it made sense to make the change effective early.
Nora integrated ad hoc software programs into a capabil-
ity to correct and revise older texts written with the earlier
rafsi list.
Grammar
With the publication of JL18 last June, we included a com-
plete summary of pending changes to the Lojban grammar,
and the revised E-BNF notation form of the Lojban grammar
incorporating those changes. The grammar was effectively
rebaselined with this publication, as we then started using a
parser incorporating the changes to evaluate Lojban text.
There is still the possibility of minor corrections before the
official rebaselining in conjunction with book publication, but
there have been no proposed changes in the 7 months since
JL publication.
We are not yet publishing a new version of the formal
grammar definition (the 'YACC' grammar); it will appear in the
published reference book. Note that the E-BNF, while com-
puter-ish in style, is not the formal definition that has been
verified as unambiguous. The E-BNF was prepared manually
from the formal definition, and has been checked many times,
but the YACC grammar takes precedence in case of disagree-
ment between the two versions.
Lojban Proto-Reference Book - Preliminary Outline
with estimated page counts by section
The following is the outline for the proto-reference book
which Lojbab is using as of publication time. It includes a de-
scription of each section contemplated for inclusion, and an
estimated page count. Major tables, forming the bulk of the
book, are the most unpredictable portions in length; these are
marked with asterisks (*). The estimated page counts in the
following are in most cases just that - estimates (a bar indi-
cates a page count for several related sections). The text is
not in general written in any final form, although almost all of
the materials exist in some preliminary form that mostly re-
quires editing, rather than new writing.
The current page count estimate is large, probably too
large for a reasonable first publication. Due to space and
publication cost, some materials listed in the outline may be
left out. For example, many people are less interested in the
gismu list etymologies, especially since they are in a rather
preliminary form that makes them hard to use. On the other
hand, the features documented in the outline are those that
define Lojban officially, and all may be helpful to both lan-
guage learners and to people looking over our shoulder to
examine the quality of the Lojban design. Those items in
italics are considered likely for omission in the first edition that
we are hoping to get published soon.
A study of the outline shows that, with the exception of
the dictionary proper, no section of the book is particularly
long, such that omitting it would substantially reduce the size
of the books. The only real tradeoff that might make a major
difference would be to avoid the practice of listing most data
twice - once in the full dictionary, and once in a list specific to
the type of information being presented.
That dual listing takes a lot of space, but our experience is
that the nature of the language is such that people will need
and use those separate lists fully as much as any combined
dictionary list. When you are making new words, you need a
handy list of the gismu and their rafsi, and other data, es-
pecially existing lujvo, would be a distraction. Similarly,
people tend to use lists of cmavo in selma'o order as often,
if not more often, than they use alphabetical lists.
The reference may include up to three attempts that have
been made to devise a thesaurus-style semantic index for Loj-
ban. None of the efforts really can be considered authorita-
tive, and indeed, Lojbab believes that there is a significant
problem with the standard thesaurus technique, which tends
to be more noun/adjective-oriented than verb-oriented. In
dealing with a predicate language, which is probably more like
a verb-orientation - most of the words have been categorized
on the basis of the meaning of their x1 place, which is often
not the only place that is important to classify.
However, semantic indexing of the gismu list seems to be
something that most people have some use for, given the
number of people who have reported doing something of that
type on their own. Since we cannot produce a definitive and
verified thesaurus solution, it seems better to present all three
efforts, and let the user of the book decide which best suits
his purpose and his understanding of the Lojban vocabulary
system. Of course, this takes more pages, but we cannot
honestly say, without a lot more research than we are likely to
have time for in the next year, which effort is most accurate
and/or useful, and what entries in each list are correct. Take
all groupings therefore, with a large grain of salt, recognizing
that at least one person, the compiler of the particular list,
saw a semantic similarity between the various gismu that are
grouped together.
Comments on the outline, are of course welcomed.

Pages Section Description
[4] Table of Contents

[7] Intro
4 About Lojban
3 About this book

[43] Syntax
E-BNF
2 About the E-BNF
3 *E-BNF
1 *selma'o/E-BNF terminal index
YACC Grammar
8 About the YACC Grammar
1 Parser algorithm
20 *YACC Grammar
8 *selma'o/YACC grammar terminal index

[21] selma'o
1 *selma'o list
20 *short alphabetical definition, subcategories
with cmavo in each subcategory
[20] terminals
20 *YACC terminal list, definition, examples of each
type

Lexicon
[50] The formation of gismu
3 Lojbanizing rules used
45 *composite gismu etymologies
1 *cultural gismu
1 | *metric gismu
| *internal gismu

[110] Place structures of gismu
40 *Lojban gismu (rafsi, definition) Lojban order
35 *gismu keywords; keywords/phrases for each
place by gismu
35 *Lojban and English order (no place structures)
[39] cmavo
10 * cmavo in Lojban order
10 * cmavo in selma'o/subtype/alphabetical
order
2 * cmavo compounds typically written as one
word
8 * non-Lojban alphabet and symbol set
conventions
1 * unassigned cmavo
2 * experimental cmavo
1 Categories within pro-sumti (KOhA)
3 Categories within UI
2 | Use of BAI to add places/cases
| *list of BAIs typically used to add cases
| *list of BAIs typically used as sumti modifiers
[37] rafsi
1 Assignment of rafsi
8 *rafsi, by type, alphabetically
8 *rafsi, pure alphabetical
[20] How to determine place structures of lujvo

[120-157] lujvo lists
75 *lujvo actually in use - estimated ~3000
45 *proposed lujvo (possibly intermingled with pre-
ceding) systematically created (using "se",
"te", "ve", "xe", "nu", "ka", "ni", "ri'a",
"gau", etc. estimated ~3000
22 *pre Eaton/TLI lists (heavily weeded and
edited) - estimated ~1500
15 *collected old proposals ~1000
[9] Names
1 Lojbanizing of names
4 *some personal names
4 *some country/language names
[16] le'avla
3 types of le'avla
1 the culture word issue
3 *cultural le'avla
3 *some food items
3 *some plants/animals
3 *element words

206-243 *Lojban order dictionary (composed of all
preceding lists) [gismu (40), cmavo (20), rafsi
(8), cmene (names) (6), le'avla (12), lujvo
(120-157)]
378-415 *English-order dictionary [page counts dependent
on Lojban order counts: gismu (est. pg. x 5),
cmavo (x 2), names(x 1), le'avla(x 1), lujvo(x
1)]

Thesaurus
systems of categorization
4 *Roget's/Athelstan/Lojbab
4 *Carter
4 *Cowan
40 *gismu to category for each type
30 *category to gismu for each type
10 *English-order cross-index of categories

30 Appendix - *Glossary of Lojban/Linguistic
Terminology
[74] Appendix - Correspondences with historical TLI Loglan
Lojban gismu correspondence to historical TLI
Loglan gismu and lujvo
30 *Lojban gismu order
20 *historical Loglan gismu order
Lojban selma'o correspondence to historical TLI
Loglan selma'o
3 *Lojban selma'o order
3 *historical Loglan selma'o order
Lojban cmavo correspondence to historical TLI
Loglan cmavo
10 *Lojban cmavo order
6 *historical Loglan cmavo order

8 Index

458-542 pages reference +
584-658 pages dictionary +
92 pages thesaurus +
110 pages appendices =
____
1244-1402pg

Sample English-to-Lojban dictionary (intermediate
step)
The following is a sample of the output from a KWIC (Key
Word In Context) tool that John Cowan wrote specifically to
help automate creating the English-to-Lojban dictionary. This
trial effort will play a part in the creation of the English portion
of the dictionary. There may be some differences in style or
format in the final dictionary. Comments are welcome as to
how usable you find this style of presentation of the vocabu-
lary.

abdomen: x1 is a / the abdomen / belly / lower trunk of x2; ¯betfu (bef
be'u)
able: x1 is able to do / be / capable of doing / being x2 under conditions
x3; ¯kakne (kak ka'e)
above: x1 is directly above / upwards-from x2 in gravity / frame of
reference x4; ¯gapru (gar)
abrupt: x1 is sudden / abrupt / sharply changes at stage / point x2 in
process / property / function x3; ¯suksa (suk)
absolute: x1 is a fact / reality / truth, in the absolute; ¯fatci (fac)
absorbs: x1 soaks up / absorbs / sucks up x2 from x3 into x4; ¯cokcu
(cok cko co'u)
abstracted: x1 is abstracted / generalized / idealized from x2 by rules x3;
¯sucta (suc)
academy: x1 is a school / institute / academy at x2 teaching subject x3 to
audience / community x4 operated by x5; ¯ckule (cu'e)
accessing: x1 is a street / avenue / lane / drive / cul-de-sac / way / alley /
at x2 accessing x3; ¯klaji (laj)
accident: x1 is an accident / unintentional on the part of x2; x1 is an
accident; ¯snuti (nut nu'i)
accommodates: x1 contains / holds / encloses / accommodates /
includes contents x2 within; x1 is a vessel containing x2; ¯vasru (vas
vau)
accompanies: x1 is with / accompanies / is a companion of x2, in state /
condition / enterprise x3; ¯kansa (kas)
accompaniment: x1 dances to accompaniment x2; ¯dansu
accomplishes: x1 succeeds in / achieves / completes / accomplishes x2;
¯snada
according: x1 is a dimension of space / object x2 according to rules /
model x3; ¯cimde
according: x1 is a family / clan / tribe with members x2 bonded / tied /
joined according to standard x3; ¯lanzu (laz)
according: x1 is a history of x2 according to x3 / from point-of-view x3;
¯citri (cir)
according: x1 is an heir to / is to inherit x2 from x3 according to rule x4;
¯cerda (ced)
according: x1 is polite / courteous in matter x2 according to standard /
custom x3; ¯clite (lit)
according: x1 is to the east / eastern side of x2 according to frame of
reference x3; ¯stuna
according: x1 is to the north / northern side of x2 according to frame-of-
reference x3; ¯berti (ber)
according: x1 is to the south / southern side of x2 according to frame of
reference x3; ¯snanu
according: x1 is to the west / western side of x2 according to frame of
reference x3; ¯stici
according: x1 is / reflects a pattern of forms / events x2 arranged
according to structure x3; ¯morna (mor mo'a)
account: x1 is an account / bill / invoice for goods / services x2, billed to
x3, billed by x4; ¯janta (jat ja'a)
accountable: x1 is responsible / accountable for x2 to judge / authority x3;
¯fuzme (fuz fu'e)
accruing: x1 is a profit / gain / benefit / advantage to x2 accruing /
resulting from activity / process x3; ¯prali (pal)
accuracy: x1 measures / evaluates x2 as x3 units on scale x4, with
accuracy x5; ¯merli (mel mei)
achieve: x1 helps / assists / aids object / person x2 do / achieve /
maintain event / activity x3; ¯sidju (sid dju)
achieves: x1 succeeds in / achieves / completes / accomplishes x2;
¯snada
acid: x1 is a quantity of / contains / is made of acid of composition x2; x1
is acidic; ¯slami
acidic: x1 is a quantity of / contains / is made of acid of composition x2; x1
is; ¯slami
On Lojban rafsi
by Lojbab
People new to the project have sometimes criticized Loj-
ban's rafsi system, claiming that the system is overly complex
or hard to learn. I contend otherwise, based on personal ex-
perience and on observation of those who have already
learned the system. What may appear extremely complex and
rule-bound, in practice turns out to be quite easy. The system
also has the advantage that you need not learn everything at
once - you can use the system while knowing only a fraction
of the rules and the rafsi.
As a sample of the criticism, Rick Harrison made the fol-
lowing comment on the "conlang" computer mailing list:
The vast majority of constructed language enthusiasts
agree that a planned language should have no allomorphs,
i.e. each root-word should have only one form which should
not change due to conjugation, declension, compounding, or
other grammatical processes. Allomorphs increase the
difficulty of memorizing a vocabulary and give no benefit in
return. It appears that Loglan and Lojban suffer from
rampant allomorphy. Any given 5-letter predicate might
have 0, 1, 2, or 3 triliteral allomorphs to be used in
compound words. Unless I am mistaken, there's no way to
predict whether a given predicate has allomorphs, and if so,
what those allomorphs might be; each predicate's
allomorphs must be memorized.

Lojban rafsi are the word-forms used to make compound
words, and are the 'allomorphs' that Rick is talking about. I,
of course, disagree with Rick's statements and his conclusions.
In particular, I believe that:
- 'allomorphy', like many other aspects of the design of a
constructed language is a design feature that may be used as
a trade-off to prevent other problems or to provide other
advantages. Lojban's system does both;
- the need to clearly distinguish between a multi-word
metaphor and a single word compound derived from that
metaphor means that some sort of allomorphy is necessary.
The only other alternative is to add an extraneous particle as
glue between the components of one of these two types of
concept combination (which we do in the case of le'avla lu-
jvo, but only because there is no other general solution for an
arbitrary word-form that maintains unambiguity). In general
such particle addition is inconsistent with Zipf's Law for com-
pounds that will be used frequently. Zipf's Law predicts that
words which are frequently used will be shorter than less fre-
quent ones, and a primary reason for making a compound will
be because the combined concept is used frequently enough
to warrant abbreviation. I have considerably more faith in this
principle as a basis for constructed language design than I do
in the purported difficulties arising from allomorphy, especially
with a system like Lojban's that is carefully designed.
(One oft-recurring suggestion for change, generally by crit-
ics of the language such as Rick, has been to let the short
forms serve as the roots themselves. Not only are there far
too few such possible roots, but such a usage would detract
from the words available for use as cmavo, the normal inter-
pretation of a CVV form that is a separate word. In addition,
short rafsi are far more densely-packed among the set of
possible forms than the gismu - nearly all such short forms are
used. This results in a significant loss of redundancy that
would make the language harder to resolve with such con-
densed forms. Indeed, Lojban allows the long-form for any
compound built of 5-letter rafsi, to alternate for any com-
pound built with the shorter rafsi forms to be used equiva-
lently with identical meaning, to reduce noisy environment
redundancy problems. Finally, of course, if the short forms
were the roots, there would be no capability for further
shortening in conformance with Zipf's Law, and indeed either
compounds or non-compound metaphors would have to be
longer than the separate words that compose them.)
- words for all common concepts in a language have to be
memorized eventually, if you are to achieve fluency. 'Allomor-
phy', at least as used in Lojban, makes learning that vo-
cabulary easier in general, and there are significant benefits in
addition to vocabulary learning, in that you can create new
words on an ad hoc basis, even when you are still a language
novice, and you can usefully analyze words you don't know.
The added memorization implied by the rafsi, even if you
memorize every single one of them (which no one has), is but
a very small percentage of the total vocabulary needed for
fluent adult conversation, but provides immediate benefit for
even small amounts of learning.
The first time you see a compound, you will probably take
it apart. Perhaps even the first few times. But you cannot be-
come even moderately fluent in any language if you need to
analyze the etymology of every word you want to read, speak,
or understand. Words that occur at all frequently must be
internalized as a unit of meaning. If there are 50,000 con-
cepts that are needed for adult conversation (a reasonable
guess), then you will need to memorize 50,000 words, at one
word per concept. This number cannot be reduced, except by
polysemy (one word representing multiple concepts), and I
cannot see Rick or anyone arguing that polysemy makes
learning a language easier.
- there is indeed a way to predict whether a Lojban root
has rafsi, and there are constraints that greatly limit what
those rafsi might be. In addition, because the assignment of
rafsi is maximized, almost every possible rafsi has some
meaning. This has the result that every rafsi that you learn to
associate with its gismu reduces the possibilities for other
words. This makes learning the others easier, and by the time
you've learned even 1/2 the rafsi (or maybe less if they're the
right ones), you can generally guess the rest as you need
them.
Let me discuss rationale, first. Lojban lujvo, or com-
pound words, represent the myriad of predicate relations that
are not reflected in the gismu roots. As predicate words in
Lojban (as opposed to tanru, the phrases from which lujvo
are often derived), they each have a unique meaning (and
associated place structure). This meaning need not be memo-
rized by the Lojban learner - the rafsi system allows you to
unambiguously take the word apart to see the tanru compo-
nents that went into building the compound. You may then
assume that the compound represents the most common
and/or most plausible interpretation of that phrase, and you
will rarely be incorrect.o
Thus, as you come to know more of the rafsi by using the
language, you become less and less dependent on a dictionary
or word list to help you understand new words as you come
across them. The ability to dispense with a dictionary in eve-
ryday Lojban use is the major goal and benefit of the rafsi
system - it is virtually impossible to achieve fluency in a lan-
guage until you are willing and able to try to use it spontane-
ously without looking words up that you don't know.
The ability to do without a dictionary offers a major ad-
vantage in the growth of the Lojban vocabulary, a critical as-
pect of the language's first years. Lojbanists, whether new or
experienced, can create new words on an ad hoc basis while
speaking and writing, using the rafsi system to do so quickly
and easily.
With the current Lojban system, you only memorize those
lujvo which you find yourself using often (in which case you
memorize them simply by using them often enough that they
come to mind without thinking about it). You invent new
words on an ad hoc basis, knowing that someone else inde-
pendently inventing a word for the same concept will likely
end up with the same word, but that in any case, the word
you invent will almost certainly be correct, in that it will not
represent any concept other than the one you have in mind.

Briefly reviewing the Lojban rafsi system, each Lojban
gismu has between 2 and 5 combining forms. Two of these
are trivially and uniquely determined. The gismu itself may be
used as its own combining form when it is in the final position
of the lujvo. In addition, there is a related 4-letter form, ob-
tained by dropping the final vowel from the gismu, which may
be used in any non-final position, by gluing it on to the follow-
ing component with a "y" (pronounced as a schwa, the final
sound in the English word "sofa"). Since no two gismu con-
cepts differ only in the final vowel, this means that each con-
cept has two combining forms, which can always be used in
forming compounds that can be uniquely broken down to rec-
ognize the components.
Using only these two 'long' rafsi forms, the 4-letter and
the full 5-letter gismu form, the beginning Lojbanist can use
the full expressive power of the language, while memorizing
no rafsi. There are no exceptions to these rules, and no
complications, and the resulting word, (called the 'unreduced
form') is always correct and acceptable.
The complications arise only when you become a more ad-
vanced student of the language. When you can speak and
write in a language quickly, you don't want really long words
for relatively simple concepts. It is fairly common to devise
lujvo made up of 4 (or more) components, sometime for con-
cepts that are used every day. Most people would be unsatis-
fied with a language that required them to use a 20-letter
word with 8 syllables for a very common concept.
Indeed, an analysis of natural languages called Zipf's Law
indicates that the length of words in actual use is inversely
related to their frequency of use - the most frequently used
words in a language are the shortest ones, and long words are
rarely used. In languages such as English, when a commonly
expressed concept is represented by a long word or phrase,
common usage turns it into a contraction (like "didn't", or into
an acronym or abbreviation. Examples include "TV" for
"television", "TB" for "tuberculosis", "ASAP" for "as soon as
possible", and "CIA" for "Central Intelligence Agency"). It is
believed by many linguists that the multitude of declensions
and conjugations found in languages today are the remnants
of earlier contractions.
Note that such acronyms as "TV" lose significant information
about word meaning available in longer forms. "Television",
for those who know the Latin roots that formed the word,
reveals some aspects of the word's meaning; "TV" does not.
"CIA" can stand for a variety of longer expressions, and there
is no clue except context to indicate that a government or-
ganization is the intended meaning. A common English word
that is apparently a short form, "OK", has completely lost its
origin (leaving only unconfirmable speculations). When that
happens, these compounds become like roots in themselves
that must be memorized separately. This increases the diffi-
culty of language learning, unacceptable in a constructed lan-
guage like Loglan/ Lojban.
To relieve this pressure for short forms for common words,
those Lojban gismu which have been found most useful in
compounds have been assigned additional 3-letter short rafsi.
A Lojban word may have up to one of each of the following
forms: a CVC-form, a CVV-form, and/or a CCV-form, where C
and V stand for consonants and vowels that are found in the
source word. These short-forms may be preferred because
they combine to form shorter words, sometimes with fewer
syllables, than the 4-letter and 5-letter rafsi.
As a result, therefore, more than one rafsi may be used
to represent a gismu/concept in making a compound, since
the 4- and 5- letter forms still exist. In addition, because
these shorter forms are found in other words, or even
standing alone as words (cmavo) in themselves in the case of
CVV forms, you need to have rules that prevent the
compounds from breaking up incorrectly. Language design
decisions force tradeoffs among the need to maximize the
number of words that can be contracted and the requirement
to retain the integrity of the compounds that are formed and
the ability to break them down into recognizable meaning
components.
The nature of the sounds that make up words, and the im-
perfections in human speech and hearing give rise to further
complication in a system of word compression. Certain
sounds, when adjacent to each other may provoke mispro-
nunciation or may be misheard by a listener. Linguists also
know that certain sound combinations tend to be unstable and
to change with time. In designing Lojban, we had to plan
ahead to avoid combinations that would likely lead to the Loj-
ban of 2100 being significantly different from the Lojban of
the first dictionary.
All of these tradeoffs have been dealt with in the current
Lojban design; yet the rules for lujvo-making remain relatively
simple. Some rafsi are forbidden in some word positions.
Depending on word-position and adjacent rafsi, you may
have to add a "hyphen" letter to make a word pronounceable,
or to keep the sounds from breaking up into two words when
heard by a listener.
If the rules are too difficult for your level of proficiency,
you always can fall back to the long form rafsi mentioned
above. You can do so because a firm rule of the Lojban de-
sign is that, if there is more than one possible rafsi combining
form, the choice of form does not affect the resulting mean-
ing. The shortest form of a word means the same as the long
form. An English example where this is true is "television",
which can be seen as a short form of the two components
"tele" and "vision". "TV", a further shortening of the same
components is taken as identical in meaning to "television".
This invariance is true for all Lojban compounds, even when
dozens of possible shortened forms are possible.
Dozens of forms can be possible when more than one
short rafsi is assigned to a gismu. We want to assign multiple
short forms, because the effects of sound interactions and the
Lojban word-formation rules may prevent one particular rafsi
from being used in some situations. Thus an additional short
rafsi increases the likelihood that some short form is possible
in a particular difficult combination; it also may mean that in
other combinations where there are no sound restrictions, you
will have a multitude of choices.
Of course, the rule that all of these choices will have a sin-
gle common meaning means most will never be used.
Probably only the longest form (which will be used by lan-
guage beginners) and the shortest form will be used. If there
is more than one 'shortest form', different people may choose
different ones are preferable for a while, but usage will rela-
tively quickly tend to settle on one of the choices. We have
defined a formal scoring rules to help people pick the form
that is most likely to be settled on, but it is not necessary to
use it - choose the form that sounds best to you and others
may agree.

Let me now turn to a Lojban example. Following is a long
compound that has appeared in Lojban text:
nolraitruti'u (5 syllables)
nol-rai-tru-ti'u
nobli-traji-turni-tixnu
noble+superlative+govern+daughter
(princess - specifically the daughter of a king/queen, as op-
posed to Princess Di of the UK)
If there were no short forms, this word would have to be:
noblytrajyturnytixnu (8 syllables)
Given that it is desired that you expect to memorize the
Lojban word, learning it as a unitary word rather than by puz-
zling it together every time from its components, it should be
obvious that the shorter word "nolraitruti'u" is better than
the longer one. If you lived in a country with royalty such as
the UK that had such a princess (as Elizabeth was before she
became queen) and were prone to reading, writing, and talk-
ing about such a princess a lot, which word would you prefer
to say or write?
I argue that "princess" is not that infrequent a concept,
certainly deserving of a single word. The British, so I under-
stand, do make distinctions between the various types of prin-
cess, at least in terms of how they are titled, so that the dis-
tinction is socially and linguistically important. Lojban must
have separate words if there are clearly two separate con-
cepts, as there are in this case (the 'Di' variety of princess
might be 5 terms: noble-superlative-governor-son-
spouse).
The longer 8-syllable form is permitted as an alternative to
the short form, and might be used either in noisy environ-
ments where the longer word has all those extra sounds as
redundancy checks, or by beginners who have not yet memo-
rized the short rafsi or the compound, and are creating the
compound on the fly (as this word has been created every
time it has been used thus far since we have no dictionary nor
people who have memorized such words). The long forms are
of course needed when the words are not compounded, or
else you would not be able to tell a compound from a root
from a structure word.
Loglan/Lojban has reached what I believe is an optimal
tradeoff between redundancy and brevity, ease of learning
and unambiguity of the morphology. If other solutions exist,
they are unlikely to meet all the goals for the language.

Rick and others make two assumptions when criticizing
Lojban, assumptions I believe are incorrect:
1) that there is a way of reducing the amount of memorization
needed to gain fluency in a conlang below some arbitrary
minimum, and
2) that memorizing allomorphs is difficult.
Assuming that the set of thoughts that might be expressed
linguistically should be about the same, regardless of the lan-
guage, there are only so many options available for expressing
those thoughts. If there is 'one word per concept', then a
speaker must have memorized a separate word for each con-
cept in order to achieve fluency. If polysemy exists, then
speaker has an added burden: to memorize a somewhat
smaller set of words, but to also memorize the multiple mean-
ings of those words (including meanings he may rarely use)
and some means of pragmatically distinguishing which
meaning is intended.
There's no way around this. Fluent speakers don't often
invent words or even derive new prefix/suffix formations when
conversing. Productive language formation (i.e. inventing new
words) takes time to think, and taking that time in the middle
of a conversation breaks up fluency. There is some minimum
amount that must be learned, even in the most regular of con-
langs; no design trick can reduce this.
For a given language, for each concept you expect to talk
or hear about in fluent speech, you must learn 1) at least one
word for the concept, 2) the association of that word with that
specific concept, and not to other concepts (including false
friends from the native language), 3) any other meanings or
usages associated with that word, including both polysemy
and pragmatic considerations (what phrases may be appended
to sentences using that word, etc. For example, if you stick an
object on an intransitive verb "*I sit the store", or attach cer-
tain prepositional phrases to a word that doesn't expect them
"*I give from Mary across the store" you get nonsense in any
language, ungrammatical garbage in most of them.) It takes
memorization to turn words into sense.
Thus, for people who are really going to use a language,
the only thing you can do is ease the memorization process to
make it easier to do that required memorization, to get from
novice to fluency.
One way - the most frequent among conlang inventors - is
to build lots of memory hooks to some natural language(s).
In doing so, you risk semantics transfer that might make your
conlang not truly an independent language. An example of
this problem is the oft-heard debate about the Esperanto pre-
fix "mal-" which in that language means "opposite of", but in
many European languages means "bad". People native to
those languages seem to often complain about 'derogative'
implications of words containing "mal-", when such implica-
tions are not part of Esperanto in any way. You can't avoid
this kind of problem - all languages will have 'false friends'
that mislead you in learning similar-appearing new words in a
new language. You can minimize it through other methods of
aiding the learning process.
Another way, occurring in Esperanto, is the use of affixes
(such as "mal-") that modify meanings of words in certain
semi-regular ways. Thus, by learning a few words and these
few productive affixes, you multiply the vocabulary that results
from memorization. New people then learn from seeing words
that they can easily decompose - after seeing these words
over and over, they suddenly find that they know both the
word-formation rules, the affixes, and the compounds.
Lojban in effect carries the Esperanto technique to the ul-
timate extreme. Rather than a couple dozen short affixes, we
allow every root to have an affix, and then make those affixes
resemble the roots in very regular ways. For all Lojban lujvo,
you automatically know that any resemblances to words of
other languages are accidental, since those lujvo are always
composite of simpler words in Lojban and are not derived
from any other language.

As for the second assumption, I assert that Rick is wrong,
and that
A very regular conlang can have allomorphs that
are easy to memorize and Lojban has such a
system that actually makes compound words more
learnable than they might otherwise be.
There are three parts to my argument on this point:
- the nature of 'memorizing' of a word is non-trivial in the first
place;
- Lojban's system is designed to provide differing aids to the
novice, the experienced learner, and the expert Lojbanist,
allowing the different levels of skill to concentrate on those
aspects of word 'memorizing' that are easiest for their skill
level and most productive for them;
- the Lojban allomorphs, being made in predictable ways from
the gismu are relatively easy to memorize.

Lojban and Metaphysical Bias
(a discussion between And Rosta [not-indented] and Lojbab
[indented])
Does one necessarily wish to avoid metaphysical bias? I
would always wish to be able to say that something is at the
"back" or "front" of my mind, or that I am in "high" or "low"
spirits. I might wish to avoid distinguishing recipients from
destinations and treat them as the same thing; I might want
to treat possession as a kind of location, say.
In Lojban, we want to remove metaphysical bias
when possible. It isn't always. The examples you have
selected are examples that we will be trying to eliminate
(at least in translation to Lojban), because they are Eng-
lish biased figures of speech, and it is not necessarily
universal that all cultures consider "high" spirits to be
better than "low" ones, or that the 'mind as queue'
metaphor is superior to the 'mind as stack' one.
I follow the cognitivist doctrines of George Lakoff and his
colleagues, of Jackendoff and of Langacker. (These are very
simply expounded in Jackendoff's review article of Lakoff's
new book in the June 1991 Language.) This doctrine main-
tains that certain things are conceptualized only metaphori-
cally. Metaphors whose vehicles are space and the body pre-
dominate, and are used to conceptualize more abstract things.
Some of these metaphors are claimed to be grounded in uni-
versal human cognition, and others to be dependent on cul-
ture.
We therefore could, maybe, draw the following conclu-
sions:
(1a) Lojban's aim (of removing metaphysical bias) is
doomed to fail.
The goal is to 'minimize' it, not remove it. For situa-
tions where one or more roughly equivalent methods ex-
ist to express something, but each is biased in some
way, we try to allow all of them. If we must be arbitrary
among several choices, we choose a single way, but are
prone to choosing a non-English way to counter the ten-
dency for English biases to creep in.
(1b) Lojban's aim flies in the face of the way we really
think and is therefore a hindrance to thought.

This we will find out. The problem is that certain
concepts are always metaphorized because we have no
primitive non-metaphor to express them in NLs. Thus
we have a chicken and egg problem. Lojban will try for a
different egg.
Now even if metaphorless Lojban is possible, why is one
supposed to avoid metaphor? My English-biased conceptual
metaphors are the way I think.
Not if you are trying to communicate to someone
from Thailand who does not know your metaphors. In
an earlier book, Lakoff noted that not all cultures shared
the same metaphors (e.g. "up" is "future" or "up" is
"past", I think was one dichotomy). I prefer a language
that says that future is future and makes no links with
'up' or 'down'.
(Remember that the goal of Lojban involving Sapir-
Whorf means that as much as possible we must reduce
and/or identify all sources of bias that would affect
'world-view' - which to me is a very similar concept to
'metaphysics'.)
Sapir-Whorfian Thoughts?
In response to a question from James Meritt, Lojbab said
the following:
There is no evidence yet of Lojban providing thoughts that
are unthinkable in English, but the constraints of English
syntax do tend to make thinking in certain ways more difficult.
It would be a long time before we truly came up with an
example that unambivalently is uniquely Lojbanic.
Hmm. I'll have to amend this. In our discussions of the
last week or two regarding Lojban property abstracts, it has
become pretty clear that while it is possible more or less to
define what is taking place using English words, I think it ac-
curate to say that most of them have no English equivalent in
any meaningful sense.
For example, "loika melbi" translates as "Beauty" the
abstract concept and "leka lemi speni cu melbi" more
roughly as "my wife's beauty" but more accurately as "the
properties that make it true that my wife is beautiful [by
some standard to some observer]". But with most
predicate words, there is no English equivalent for the
property abstract. For example, "loika klama" would
translate as "Going-ness", if that were an English word -
already hard to grasp, while its counterpart:
leka mi klama le zarci
the properties that make it true that I go to the store
conveys no sense of exactly what sort of properties these
might be - we would tend in English to start thinking in terms
of causes, which is not what the Lojban means, because
"Going-ness" is just not an English concept. But constructs
like this are rather easy to express in Lojban, and in some
cases are virtually obligatory. A particular "Going-ness" for
example is the property that is being compared when we say
that I go to my local Safeway more than you do.
Whether use of statements like this in Lojban means that
anything new and different in human thinking will arise as a
result of this implication, is what is still not clear.
Going beyond this, I can say that there are a lot more per-
haps more obscure things that can be easily said in Lojban,
but which defy English translation. Lojban does after all, allow
and almost encourage the expression of "grammatical
nonsense", of the "green ideas sleep furiously" variety, but
even weirder. People can indeed wrap their minds around
such nonsense (for this English example, I have seen pro-
posed places where it might actually be meaningful), but it
can reasonably be said that the Lojban equivalents go far
beyond what anyone will ever understand in English transla-
tion. Whether a Lojbanist thinking in Lojban will 'understand'
such statements in the sense that we can understand "green
ideas sleep furiously" is also presumable, but as yet unverifi-
able.
Lojban Text
Following is Colin Fine's translation into Lojban of a fa-
miliar children's fairy tale. Nick Nicholas served as reviewing
editor. Unlike the norm for LK of excerpting, we are reprinting
the full Lojban (with translation).

®lu le nolraixli ne ga'u le dembi li'u¯
cmene di'e noi se finti
la xans. krIstian. Andrsn.

_itu'e tu'e
lisri le nolrainanla goi ko'a _i ko'a djica lo
nolraixli _i ri mulno be loka nolraixli be'o gi'o se
zanru ko'a _isemu'ibo ko'a fe'eroroi litru gi'e sisku
pa go'i _iku'i roroi nabmi _i sa'e ge lo nolraixli cu
raumei ju'o gi lo ni ri nolraixli ku ko'a na se birti
.!uu _i roroiku le no'e drani vau _i ko'a ki'u
se'irzdakla gi'e badri lenu na'epu'i cpacu lo
nolraixli mulno
ni'o pa vanci cu ki jaica ke selte'a vilti'a _i
lindi joi savru joi carvi joi camcilce _i zo'e darxi le
tcavro _i le sorna'a nolraitru ki'u minde lenu le
vorme cu karbi'o _i le bartu cu nolraixli _i ri
selkecmlu .!uuse'inai ri'a tu'a lo carvi .ebo lo xlali
vilti'a _i mo'ini'a flecu lo djacu vi le kerfa .e le
taxfu _i flecu ji'a pa'o le cutci file cucti'e le
cucyzbi [tosa'a pamoi pinka toi] _i cusku fa ra
ledu'u ra nolraixli mulno
ni'o ®lu .!ue _i cipra _ai li'u¯ se seisku le
sorna'a truspe goi fo'e _ije ri bacru noda ku'i gi'e
klama le sipku'a gi'e vimcu ro le ckabu'u gi'e punji
le pa dembi le ckazbe _ijebabo fo'e cpacu reno
vresraki'e gi'e cpana punji ri le dembi _i pa'aku
reno datkypi'u gairki'e co'a cpana le sraki'e _i ro
go'i cu se vreta le nolraixli goi fo'a ca'o le nicte
ni'o co'i le cerni cu preti fo fo'a fe leli'i fo'a
capu sipna ge'ekau
_i ®lu .!oicairo'o [seisa'a selsku be fo'a] _i mi
su'eso'uroi .!uu ga'orga'i le kanla ca'o piro le nicte
_i ?ma za'anai ?pausai nenri le ckana _i mi puca'o
vreta le raktu jdari _i piro lemi xadni ri'a bunre joi
blanu _i to'e zdile .!oisai li'u¯
_i seni'ibo co'i djuno ledu'u fo'a nolraixli je'a
mulno ki'u lenu fo'a fi le reno sraki'e ku jo'u le
reno gairki'e cu ganse fe le dembi _i lo ckaji be
loka ganse du'i la'edi'u cu nolraixli mulno ju'o
ni'o le nolrainanla goi ko'a co'a speni fo'a _i
ko'a seki'u djuno ledu'u vo'a kansa le mulno be
loka nolraixli _i le dembi ba se punji fi la larku'a
[tosa'a remoi pinka toi] _i caji'a go'i _ijo noda
capu vimcu .!iacu'i tu'u ni'o di'u jetnu lisri .!uo.ui
tu'u
ni'oni'o di'e pinka
_i pamai le lujvo po'u zo cucyzbi cu satci te
fanva fe ®zoi.dy. Naesen paa Skoen .dy.¯ _i mi
nelci le di'u bangrdanska tanru
_i remai [tu'e la larku'a po'u ®la'o .dy.
Kunstkammeret .dy.¯ cu ga'orbi'o ca le nanca be li
pabirepa gi'eseri'abo ca'a teke carmi morji caze'u
le lisri _i le'i ca'a jmaji noi selzda le tolci'o ke
nolraitru ckusro dinju cu selcmi so'i vrici ne mu'u
lo prucedra lisri ku ce lo naiske lisri ku ce lo rarske
cizra tu'u] _i di'u se krasi le pinka ne bau la
dansk. fo la xans. briks. jo'u la .anker. iensn.

Colin's translation:

The Princess on the Pea
There was once a prince, who wanted a princess for
himself, but she had to be a real princess. So he went all
round the world trying to find one, but there was always
some hindrance: there were plenty of princesses, but
whether they were real princesses, he could never be sure -
there was always something that wasn't quite right. So he
went home and was sad, because he so much wanted a
genuine princess.
One evening there was a frightful storm. There was
lightning and thunder, the rain poured down, it was dreadful!
There was a knocking on the town gate, and the old king or-
dered it opened.
It was a princess standing outside. But God how she
looked in the rain and the storm! The water ran down her
hair and her clothes, and went in at the toes of her shoes
and out at the heels. And she said she was a real princess.
"We'll see about that!" thought the old queen, but she
said nothing. She went to the bedroom, took off all the
bedclothes, and put a pea on the base of the bed. Then she
took twenty mattresses and put them on top of the pea, and
then twenty eiderdowns on top of the mattresses.
And that's where the princess was to lie that night.
In the morning, they asked her how she had slept.
"Oh, terribly!", said the princess. "I hardly closed my
eyes the whole night! God knows what there was in the bed!
I was lying on something hard, and I'm black and blue
everywhere! It's quite horrible!"
So they could see that she was a real princess, since
she had felt the pea through twenty mattresses and twenty
quilts. Nobody but a real princess could be that sensitive.
The prince took her for his wife, for now he knew that he
had a real princess, and the pea was put into the Kunstkam-
mer, where it is still to be seen, if nobody has taken it away.
You see, it's a true story!
Note (from Blix & Jensen): The Kunstkammer ("art
chamber") closed in 1821 and was therefore fresh in
memory at the time of the tale. The collection was housed
in the old Royal Library, and contained many different
things: old sagas, ethnographic tales, curiosities of natural
history, and so on.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------
The Logical Language Group, Inc. | NON-PROFIT ORG.|
2904 Beau Lane | U.S. POSTAGE |
Fairfax VA 22031 | P A I D |
| MERRIFIELD, VA |
Address Correction Requested | PERMIT NO. 64 |
Forwarding Postage Guaranteed ------------------
Nick: I think you need a "kei" before "ki'u": her feeling the pea does
not cause her to be a princess, but causes them to know it.
Nick: I don't know about "go'i" - what is true now is that the pea
remains there, not that it is still being placed there.

6

5

lojbo karni number 18/19

Navigation menu

Search