README
Version 1.3, April 2008

This document describes the reconstructed Spanish etymology of Lojban, which is available in the original plain text format and in HTML format, generated by a conversion script. In some cases, the reconstructed Spanish source word is dubious or missing; these cases are marked by a comment with the string “FIXIT”

  1. Copying conditions
  2. Format of the HTML version
  3. Format of the plain text version
  4. Reconstruction procedure
  5. Etymological sources

Copying conditions

The “Spanish etymology of Lojban” in plain text and in HTML format as well as the conversion script were prepared by mublin in April 2008, with help from Jorge LlambĂ­as and Pierre Abbat. The content of these three files is hereby placed irrevocably in the public domain.

English translations of Spanish source words, where present, are from the English Wiktionary, the content of which is under the GNU Free Documentation License. The official gismu list, prepared by The Logical Language Group, Inc., is in the public domain.


Format of the HTML version

In the generated HTML version, each gismu is given in bold, followed by the English keyword and the Lojbanised source word on one line.

On the next line, the reconstructed Spanish source word is given, together with an English translation.

If present, a comment starts on a new line in smaller font.


Format of the plain text version

The plain text file is encoded in UTF-8 with UNIX style line breaks. Each gismu has one line with TAB-separated fields, in the following format:

  1. gismu
  2. English keyword
  3. Spanish source word in Lojbanised form
  4. Spanish source word
  5. English translation
  6. comment (optional)

The gismu “jbera” and “sorgu” do not have a Spanish source word in the original gismu etymology file; these are included with a comment.

Some gismu have two, three, or four Spanish source words; each of these gets its own line. These gismu are “dekpu, xebni, vimcu, tapla, plana, mirli, minra, jipno, jicla, gapru, cpana, bancu, xasne, xagri, vlipa, tunta, tunlo, tugni, trixe, tcica, tcana, tcaci, tagji, sumne, sraji, sobde, snanu, smaji, sluni, sarji, salpo, sacki, rufsu, rinci, ractu, purci, pruni, prije, plibu, pinka, morna, mledi, milxe, marna, mapku, lerci, kuspe, krinu, kliti, karce, kandi, kalci, kabri, juxre, jukpa, jmifa, jisra, jibri, jgira, jendu, janli, gutci, gunka, gletu, gleki, ganti, festi, fatne, fatci, fasnu, fanva, fanta, dzena, dunja, dunda, drudi, drani, dasri, dasni, darno, danfu, curnu, cpacu, cmoni, cmene, cmana, cmalu, cfika, cenba, catlu, carna, cando, blaci, binxo, bargu, bakfu, and bacru.”

The etymology does not include the cultural gismu, the gismu “broda, brode, brodi, brodo, brodu” which have been constructed from “bridi”, and other gismu which have not been generated from the six source languages.

The following conventions are used inside the comment field:

FIXIT ...
needs review for the given reason
FIXIT missing
the source word could not be reconstructed
FIXIT dubious
the source word could be reconstructed, but may be wrong
FIXIT correct transcription “...”
the source word does not exactly match the Lojbanised form; the correct Lojbanisation for the source word is specified (tagged as FIXIT because this may also be due to wrong reconstruction)

Reconstruction procedure

The list of gismu with English keyword and the Spanish source words in Lojbanised form was obtained from the gismu etymology file. This file lists source language words in a Lojbanised form, in ASCII, without inflectional endings and with affricates reduced to simple spirants; and a few other rules, some of them source-language specific.


Etymological sources

The most important etymological source for Lojban is the list of gismu with Lojbanised source words and scores. The format of this file is described in detail in this message to the Lojban mailing list and the file etysample.txt on the Lojban server. Additional information can be found at the Lojban Etymology wiki page, on the Lojban file server and in this directory on the Lojban server.

The gismu generation process is described in more detail in “What is Lojban?”, ch. 4, sec. 17, and in the “Reference Grammar”, ch. 4, sec. 14.

The gismu “mleca” (less) is listed as “ckamu” in the original etymology file; it was changed in 1990 according to the etymology file itself. Similary, the gismu “donri” (daytime) is listed as “dinri”; it was changed in 1993 as reported by the minutes of the LLG. Both gismu are listed in the newer form here.

The following gismu are missing in the gismu etymology file: “gocti” (yocto), “gotro” (yotta), “zepti” (zepto), “zetro” (zetta), “slovo” (Slavic), and “vukro” (Ukrainian); the latter two were added in 1993 as reported by the minutes of the LLG. The gismu “mexco” (Mexican) was changed to “mexno” (see this message to the Lojban list). None of these gismu were generated from the six source languages, so this does not affect the Spanish etymology.

The correspondence between Lojban gismu and TLI Loglan, which is also of etymological interest, is described in detail in the file oldlog.txt on the Lojban server.