making type-4 fu'ivla

When a word is used enough, or well-enough known, that you don't need

to be told that a vombatu is a mammal, a merlanu a fish, or a santuri

a stringed instrument, then you can drop the prefix (mabrn-, finpr-, jgitr-)

and use a type 4 fu'ivla.

Creating type 4 fu'ivla is more art and less procedure than type 3, because

the foreign language phonology interacts not only with the Lojban phonology,

but also with the rules of well-formed fu'ivla. Sometimes a foreign word

refuses to be fit into the fu'ivla mold.

Often, but not always, the type 4 fu'ivla for a plant or animal is the common

name, while the type 3 is the word used by scientists. What is mabrnmakropode

to the zoologist, to the common man is just kanguru. But not always:

a finprgado is a finprgado.

To make a type 4 fu'ivla, start with the transliterated form of the foreign

word, and do the following steps in no particular order until you get a well-formed fu'ivla. You can test words for kamfu'ivla with the vlatai program, which is part of the jbofi'e suite.

• If the word ends in a consonant, drop it or add a vowel.

• If the word begins in a vowel, drop it or add a consonant. But if the vowel is followed by a non-initial consonant pair, as in antimoni, keep it.

• If the word begins with a non-initial consonant pair, change it, prepend a vowel, insert a vowel, or exchange them.

• If there is no consonant pair in the first five letters (not counting apostrophes), put another consonant in or drop a vowel.

• If the word falls apart or has lujvo form because the second consonant cluster is an initial pair, exchange the two consonants or change one of them.

• If the word is not a well-formed fu'ivla for any other reason, fiddle around with it.

There are several short word forms that are well-formed fu'ivla forms:

• VC/CV: alga. otpi was proposed for a lidless bottle.

• VCCV: iglu.

• CCVVCV: Many of these words denote nationalities or regions, such as tci'ile, tce'exo, kri'ibe, and bre'one, but glauka is an owl.

• CCVCVCV: platesa, krotalu, spinaki

• CVC/CVCV: kanguru, vombatu, zirkoni, vultura, falkone, salmone, magjaro, tinceme, kapsiku, laktuka, polgosu

• CCVC/CVCV: mlongena, skalduna, mlibdena, tcimpazi

• CVVC/CVCV: bauksita

Here is how I formed some of these words:

tcimpazi: I started with "chimpanzee", which transliterates as "tcimpanzi", but

that is a slinku'i: "pa tcimpanzi" lexes as "patcimpanzi", which might mean a

child who wets himself every time he complains. "cimpanzi" is no better; it's

a lujvo meaning a wet child. "tcipanzi" is a tool-child, whatever that might be.

"tcimpazi" is a well-formed fu'ivla.

skalduna: The Basques call their language Euskera or Euskara, depending on

dialect, and a Basque speaker (they define membership in their people by

speaking the language) euskaldun. I dropped "eu" from the beginning and added

"a" (the Basque definite article) to the end to get "skalduna".