ce ki tau jau: Difference between revisions

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== Criticisms ==
== Criticisms ==


This proposal destroys back-compatibility. However, it does not actually fix anything that is broken, it just shines it up a bit. So, no new functionality is included nor is any old functionality really improved except superficially. You know what they say about fixing things that ain't broken...
* This proposal destroys back-compatibility. However, it does not actually fix anything that is broken, it just shines up some perfectly good bits of the language a bit (at the level of vocabulary). So, no new functionality is included nor is any old functionality really improved except superficially. You know what they say about fixing things that ain't broken...


Discussion and approval of this proposal would detract from other efforts, including fixing or expanding the language in other ways. The same goes for updating all material so as to conform.
* Discussion and approval of this proposal would detract from other efforts, including fixing or expanding the language in other ways. The same goes for updating all material so as to conform. Any positive amount of discussion or effort at this level would represent a significant proportion of all discussion or effort; we just cannot practically dedicate our (human) resources to this task without being morally obligated to wonder about how it would be better spent.


The only benefit derived directly from this proposal is having shorter words for some "more common" meanings, and perhaps gaining some aesthetic beauty as well. Note that current amount of usage could be biased in some ways and may not actually reveal general usefulness.
* The only benefit derived directly from this proposal is having shorter words for some "more common" meanings, and perhaps gaining some aesthetic beauty as well. Note that current amount of usage could be biased in some ways and may not actually reveal general usefulness.


Parallels and series in the vocabulary could be broken.
* Parallels and series in the vocabulary could be broken.


The scope of the proposal is not clear. Some of its individual proposals seem unrelated to the original intent and are included as extras because they do not really fit anywhere else. At the least, each change would have to be adopted individually - make sure to include the "vice-versa"'s!
* The scope of the proposal is not clear. Some of its individual proposals seem unrelated to the original intent and are included as extras because they do not really fit anywhere else. At the least, each change would have to be adopted individually - make sure to include the "vice-versa"'s!


There is still some disagreement within some individual proposals.
* There is still some disagreement within some individual proposals.


Some individual proposals (such as those somehow concerning the connectives) are predicated on the adoption of other (big) proposals.
* Some individual proposals (such as those somehow concerning the connectives) are predicated on the adoption of other (big) proposals.


Some proposals reduce the explicit nature of Lojban (such as by reducing "la'e di'u" or "lo nu" into single words each), which obfuscates some of the underlying, carefully-crafted structure. This may be highly displeasing to some users, especially due to the introduced lack of symmetry in the vocabulary and grammar solely for the sake of saving syllables in certain (but not necessarily all) pre-existing texts.
* Some proposals reduce the explicit nature of Lojban (such as by reducing "la'e di'u" or "lo nu" into single words each), which obfuscates some of the underlying, carefully-crafted structure. This may be highly displeasing to some users, especially due to the introduced lack of symmetry in the vocabulary and grammar solely for the sake of saving syllables in certain (but not necessarily all) pre-existing texts.


== External links ==
== External links ==


* [https://groups.google.com/forum/m/#!topic/lojban/t2h3yV5_TIU] Mailing list discussion sparked by a "joke" or "test" which announced the (untrue) adoption of Tcekitaujau by the BPFK.
* [https://groups.google.com/forum/m/#!topic/lojban/t2h3yV5_TIU] Mailing list discussion sparked by a "joke" or "test" which announced the (untrue) adoption of Tcekitaujau by the BPFK.

Revision as of 08:04, 16 September 2016

The ce-ki-tau-jau (and occasionally joined by du) dialect of Lojban has certain CV'V cmavo swapped with similar CV cmavo, as those CV'V are (far) more useful than the CV. The proposal can be generalized to a far wider class of proposed swaps. Thus, it is an umbrella-term. The word for this dialect in Lojban is " tcekitaujau "; in English it is often called "ce-ki-tau-jau" (possibly without the hyphens, using whitespaces instead), although this is ambiguous and perhaps "Cekitaujau" or, better, "Tcekitaujau" (or all lowercase) would be preferred.

In the following possibilities, each proposed swap (listed hereinafter) is independent of all others, with the exception that "X becomes Y" necessitates also that "Y becomes X". By "X becomes Y, and Y becomes X", it is meant that the old meaning of X is assigned as the new meaning of Y, while/and the old meaning of Y is assigned as the new meaning of X, and that only the new meanings are used (old meanings are deprecated and deleted from current dictionaries except as a historic note), at least in the case of cmavo. (For rafsi, "meaning" here means "gismu to which it is assigned, if any").

Primary proposal

In particular, it is suggested that:

  • ce'u becomes ce,
  • ke'a becomes ki,
  • tu'a becomes tau,
  • jo'u becomes jau (xorxes has proposed that joi [and zipcpi has proposed jei] should be used for jo'u; if that were the case, we wouldn't have to repurpose jau),
  • du'u becomes du,
  • and, for each of the previous, vice-versa

Support/reasons

Due to the proliferation of fancylojban and the general idea of the type system, ce'u and tu'a become very important cmavo, for maintaining precision and type-correctness, respectively. As for ke'a, it sees far more use than ki, and becomes especially useful with the proposal for new voi (assigned to poi'i for standard Lojban). jo'u has increased in usefulness due to the introduction of plural logic by xorlo.

Secondary possibilities

Other proposed swaps:

  • poi'i becomes voi (as mentioned previously),
  • su'o becomes su,
  • bu'u becomes bu or zai,
  • ko'oi becomes koi,
  • si'au becomes si'u,
  • zu'ai becomes se'e,
  • mo'oi becomes ge (ce ki tau jau fully embraces the connective system simplification, making gaje a complete replacement for official ge),
  • moi'oi becomes gei (gei becomes ge'i?),
  • i'au becomes go,
  • zo'u becomes .u (the former-A-connectives may be a great space for "punctuation" cmavo due to similarity to .i . Similarly, perhaps ju'ei can be .e and zo'au (postnex) can be .a, though there may be better candidates for this precious cmavo-space),
  • lau'u becomes lau,
  • xu'u becomes po,
    • The very common combination of lo + NU to which xu'u is assigned could get po (terminator ku'au becomes po'e) of selma'o PO, which directly turns bridi into sumti (equivalent to lo su'u). This cuts down Lojban's syllable count considerably.
    • The function of po/po'e is replaced by po'a, BAI of ponse; and possibly pesai and pecai for mere expression of strength/permanence of relation
  • fi'o becomes foi? (Did anyone want foi for something else?),
  • and, for each of the previous options, vice-versa.

Additionally:

  • Some changes in the dialect are not mere swaps, but are instead geared towards repurposing little cmavo. One such change is to perhaps use lau instead of lau'u to represent lo su'u go'i or la'e di'u. All of those see far more usage in the corpus than lau with its current definition.

Proposed swaps regarding attitudinal/scalar modifiers:

  • cu'i becomes cei(?),
  • ru'e becomes rei(?),
    • Criticism: Let xei be hex digit fourteen; we don't need two monosyllabic cmavo for it
  • ne'e becomes tei(??),
    • (highly speculative proposal; details need to be worked out) Attitudinals should be refactored so that nai is merely a simple negator like na'e, while tei takes the polar-negation sense of to'e. For example, .uinai would just signify "not happy / other-than-happy", while .uitei would signify "sadness".
  • and, for each of the previous proposals, vice-versa.

Being a basic building block of predicate logic, the existential quantifier is a good candidate for a monosyllabic cmavo form. As for bu'u, it is the spatial equivalent of ca, which has one syllable less. Both tenses are equally important.

rafsi swaps

Swapping of rafsi has also been considered. For example, in standard Lojban the rafsi of te does not parallel those of the other members of SE (se, ve and xe), so it has been proposed to use the rafsi -tel- instead. Ditto for -nol-, to parallel -nal- and -tol-. -se'i- is proposed to stand for sefsi, not sevzi (jbovlaste already contains lujvo using the new assignment).

Activation of this mode

To mark usage of the ce-ki-tau-jau dialect in an utterance/text, one may/should use jo'au tcekitaujau. It is not clear how many of the previously mentioned individual proposals (which exact standard) are included by this referent.

Criticisms

  • This proposal destroys back-compatibility. However, it does not actually fix anything that is broken, it just shines up some perfectly good bits of the language a bit (at the level of vocabulary). So, no new functionality is included nor is any old functionality really improved except superficially. You know what they say about fixing things that ain't broken...
  • Discussion and approval of this proposal would detract from other efforts, including fixing or expanding the language in other ways. The same goes for updating all material so as to conform. Any positive amount of discussion or effort at this level would represent a significant proportion of all discussion or effort; we just cannot practically dedicate our (human) resources to this task without being morally obligated to wonder about how it would be better spent.
  • The only benefit derived directly from this proposal is having shorter words for some "more common" meanings, and perhaps gaining some aesthetic beauty as well. Note that current amount of usage could be biased in some ways and may not actually reveal general usefulness.
  • Parallels and series in the vocabulary could be broken.
  • The scope of the proposal is not clear. Some of its individual proposals seem unrelated to the original intent and are included as extras because they do not really fit anywhere else. At the least, each change would have to be adopted individually - make sure to include the "vice-versa"'s!
  • There is still some disagreement within some individual proposals.
  • Some individual proposals (such as those somehow concerning the connectives) are predicated on the adoption of other (big) proposals.
  • Some proposals reduce the explicit nature of Lojban (such as by reducing "la'e di'u" or "lo nu" into single words each), which obfuscates some of the underlying, carefully-crafted structure. This may be highly displeasing to some users, especially due to the introduced lack of symmetry in the vocabulary and grammar solely for the sake of saving syllables in certain (but not necessarily all) pre-existing texts.

External links

  • [1] Mailing list discussion sparked by a "joke" or "test" which announced the (untrue) adoption of Tcekitaujau by the BPFK.