2Ri Fekto je le Hisri je la Loglandias
A Few Facts about the History of Loglandia

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Ra vizgoi je la Loglandias, ga nu gudsange su spuro traci lepo kusdjacea ri fekto je le hisri je le gunti.
All visitors (see-goers) to (the) Loglandia are advised-(well-suggested)-by at-least-one expert traveller [to do] the-event-of familiarizing-oneself-with ((customarily-knowing=acquainted)-become) a-few facts about the history of the country.

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Pa lepo sacdou la Loglan guo, le cmalo ce buo bilplu landi ji na nu namci liu Loglandias, pa nu namci ba noji Lai. Ibuo uu, ga no blicu ga lepo djadou tu, Hoi Ridle, Kae, lepa namci. I nei kenoi nu dreleasri kinoi nu dresoncue. I ai mi sanduo le gunti liu Xi,as gu, e dui legei lengu liu Xlang.
Before the-event-of founding (start-giving) (the) Loglan (end-clause), the small and nevertheless charming (beautiful-pleasing) land which now is named-by the word ‘Loglandias’ was named-by something-x that-is-not Ell (liu Loglandias = the word Loglandias).But (And-however) sadly, (defer 1st arg) not possible-is (deferred arg) the-event-of telling (knowledge-giving) you, O Reader Gentle, the-former name. And en (the former name) is-neither spellable (correct-letters-writeable) nor pronounceable (correct-sounds-sayable).And I-intend-that I refer-(sign-do)-to the country by-using-the-word ‘Xi,as’, and to the-gee’s (the country’s) language by-using-the-word ‘Xlang’.
No change.I note that, unlike Episode 1, this chapter is already “depunctuated”. Good, a welcome ratification of my own decision to depunctuate Episode 1.

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Feu, lopa rojkeosei je le mela Xi,as piplo{,/}{pa/papa}nu gudsia ze nu zavsia lepei lengu, jao raba fektoi lepo lepo cirna lei ga naumro rabe lepo cirna rabo noji lei, e {jie lea/ji}lengu {ji/go}nu lentaa vi la Ter.
In-fact, the-mass-of-former generations (growth-interval-sets) of the Xian people had-been advantaged-(good-positioned)-by and-jointly disadvantaged-(bad-positioned)-by the-pee’s (the-people’s) language, which-is-incidentally-such-that everybody-x acknowledges (fact-agrees) that the-event-of learning ell (the pee’s language) is-more-difficult-for everybody y [than] the-event-of learning anything-z that-is-not ell (anything but ell), and is a language that-is spoken (language-talked) on (the) Earth.
I’ve made three stylistic changes in the published original: 1) I removed a discretionary comma that seemed awkward; 2) I changed the simple past to a more precise past perfect; and 3) I replaced a class-membership clause with a predicating clause, both restrictive.None of the replaced features were ungrammatical.

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Vi lo notbi gunti niba pa lentaa la Xlang. I peu tio, nie, ba moustu ne kardinalu ji {/pa siflii}vi la Vatikanos {ji/}pau lio rima nirne, e ja pa lentaa toma lengu. I la Xlang {djori leu lengu jio kei lentaa/bie}lei.
In the-mass-of other countries zero-someones-x spoke (the) Xlang.And as-to that, looking-closely, something-x is-a-rumour-(more-story)-about one cardinal who lived (site-lived) in the Vatican ago several-hundred years (several hundred years ago), and who-incidentally spoke two-hundred languages.And (the) Xlang is-one-of ell (i.e., one of the 200 languages).

As published, the 2nd sentence didn’t parse.Moreover I could find no right-closer, or combination of right-closers, to insert before the e that would make the ja-clause modify ne kardinalu.But the repair I did hit upon was even simpler, and so probably preferable even if we did have a right-closer.That was to give the first ji-clause a predicate rather than a phrase as its operand, and, this done, the second ji could then be deleted, leaving the pau-phrase to modify the inserted predicate; and this makes the ja-clause coordinate with the surviving ji-clause, as is desired.

The 3rd sentence has a different problem.What it claims as written is not quite reasonable, namely that Xlang be a member of “the set of languages” such that the cardinal spoke “it”.But people do not speak sets of languages; even polyglots speak languages one at a time; so what polyglots speak are multiples.It might now seem sufficient to replace leu with le, making le ro lengu jio kei lentaa lei a designation of a multiple, each member of which is spoken by the Cardinal.But can you be a member of a multiple?Of course; that is now quite clear.A multiple is just a special kind of set.But having cleared this up, we now see how completely unnecessary the whole last part of this sentence is!For I la Xlang bie lei. says it all:And (the) Xlang is one of them (i.e., one of the indefinite multiple of some 200 languages designated previously).Thus I la Xlang bie lei. is a most elegant way of wrapping up this para.(We are slowly coming to understand, through these kinds of sentences, how the apparatus of sets and multiples is actually to be used, in a logical language.)

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Buo saa{/,}lepo cirna la Xlang {ga/pa}norbli. I ga nerbi lopo soncue Xai, ga {nezo/suzo}ga mutce ue vantorni ga lo tongu ze lo molro maktrufa guo, {ji/ja}pifno ckozu lopo valna vamtydaa.

However simply-speaking, the-event-of learning (the) Xlang was impossible.And (deferring 1st arg) necessary-for the-mass-of-events-of pronouncing Khai (i.e., the letters of X, i.e., Xlang), is (the deferred arg) at-least-one-amount-of (deferring 1st arg) extremely, well (surprise), violently-twisted becomes the-mass-of tongues and-jointly the-mass-of soft palates (end clause), which often causes the-mass-of-events-of violently experiencing-nausea (wishing-to vomit).

My edits: 1) a phrasing comma; 2) pa for ga, because this is an historical remark, not narration; 3) at least one rather than exactly one; and 4) ja for ji because this is a subordinate claim.

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I le takrulsei je Xai pa mutce torni. I tei pa {ke ue/ke, ue,}mutce purfadcea ki purparpastyduo.

And the grammar (talk-rule-set) of Khai (la Xlang) was extremely twisted.And tee (the grammar) was both, surprisingly, very inflective (word-end-changing) and agglutinative (word-part-paste-doing).

We’ve agreed, since this was published, that free-modifiers (fms) modify and emphasize the word they follow—which is A’s intention here—when and only when they are surrounded by commas.So I’ve done that.With no commas fms are sentence modifiers and do not emphasize anything.And with a comma before a medial fm, it is taken to modify and emphasize the word that just precedes the next comma.

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Isui tei pa katli ro retca ke gancka ki tandio gu purfoa.

And-also tee (the grammar) was characterized-by many different both courteous (highly-kind) and attitudinal (turn-direction) word-forms.

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I ba ji zavlo rabe bi lepo {rapo bo/pa norbli ga supo bo kau}cutse bu {ji sanpa bacine ji nu furmoi bo, pa norbli/jio bo roipa cutse bu}.
And something-x that-is worse-than everything-(else)-y is that it-was impossible (deferred subject) that-at-least-one-event-(should occur)-of someone-z being-able to-say something-w such-that z intended-to say w.

My repair of this sentence—originally my work—is intended both to correct an error in its logic and to bring it closer in word-order and claim to A’s target sentence, here reproduced.To do this I 1) exchanged rapo for supo (of course that all events should have this property is impossible!); 2) put lepo pa norbli ga (that it was impossible that the following should occur) first; 3) used the two new auxiliaries kau and roi for can and intend; and 4) made a new cpd, roipa, to stress the fact that the intention came before the failed effort to speak it.

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I le nursansio je Xai pa nu clidu ciu lo salgrekua anguili.

And the semantics ((signified=meaning)-system) of Khai were (as) slidable-upon (slippery) as the-mass-of grease-covered eels.

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Fa lepo le {piplo/guidjo}je la Xi,as {pa/papa}cirna lepei norbli lengu guo pei pa clesi le ckemo ze pu nerji ji nerbi lepo cirna lo notbi lengu.I lo gundilri je la Xi,as jue lo nedza gunti pa plizo la {Romnas/Latin}, lo nurpio po togdiu je lopo garni ferci.Iceu su sanfomcea pa nerbi, irau lo notbi piplo ga no saadja {le/lo}po mela Xi,as soncue la {Romnas/Latin}.
After the citizens (country-members) of [the] Xia had learned their impossible language, they lacked the time and-jointly energy that is-necessary-for learning other languages.And the country-representatives of [the] Xia to the neighboring countries used [the] Latin for-the infrequent event-of negotiating (agree-discussing) [the] government matters.And-in-any-case one-or-more interpreters (sign-form-changers) were necessary, because [the] other peoples [did] not understand [the] Xian pronunciation (sound-speaking) of-[the]-Latin.

Collectivities don’t learn things; individuals do; so I changed piplo to guidjo.Also, why not call Latin ‘Latin’?Latin was, to be sure, once the Roman language, i.e., La Latin pa romna; but even then it had a name, which was ‘Latin’.Similarly, La Espaniol ga spana.Also, in the last sentence I changed lepo to lopo because I think you mean the mass of Xian pronunication, not just some instance of it that you have in mind.

Note the grouping; ji applies to the whole of this.But if we add a le, this is what happens: <le ckemo> ze <lepu nerji ji ...>

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Nao neba pa gudnurcko la Xlang{,/} le piplo je la Xi,as, {inie da/icenie ba}bi lepo ni notbi gunti pa fatru la Xi,as.
Now (new para) exactly-one-something-x was a-benefit-(good-(caused-thing=consequence))-of (the) Xlang for-the people of (the) Xia, and that-x is the-fact-that no other country bothered (la) Xia.

I dropped one post-name comma as interruptive, and changed Inie, which would have terminated the scope of ba, to icenie, which doesn’t.

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I ga furplicle ga lopo fosynengoi ra gunti, icanoi ga norbli ga lopo korji lo spalii je gei.
And [deferring subject] useless (purpose-lacking) is the-mass-of-invading to-any country if [deferring subject] impossible is the-mass-of commanding the-mass-of inhabitants (space-livers) of gee (that country).
RAM: The canonical form of fosynengoi is foirnengoi and was already in the dictionary

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Feu ri traci patnakso ce fordyklavea pua slano traci via le landi, e durzo lopo fei batmi{/ guo}, tie lo hansaa ze lo crano. I lo rachaa je {le mela Romanis piplo/lo romhani}pa rilri ractce le landi, ice {pei/rei}pa petrydou le mela Xi,as piplo su fulri sordi je lo violhina muzgi. I ga {mutce ue/mutce, ue,}naumro lopo sonmao lo {mela Romanis/romanho}violhina ga lopo takna.
In-fact a-few traveling tinkers (pot-menders) and carpet-(floor-cloth)-sellers used-to slowly travel through the land, and do their business [end-clause] by-means-of hand-signs and-jointly smiles.And the caravans (travel-houses) of the gypsies (Romany-speaking people) regularly traveled-through (travel-penetrated) the land, and arr (r, they, the gypsies) shared-with (distributed-gave) the Xia-ish people at-least-one rich store of [the] violin music. And [is] much , well, harder-than [the] playing (sound-making) [the] Romanish violins, is [the] talking.
Guo is necessary to close the lopo-clause and make the tie-phrase modify durzo.I made the words fwl/-i/-o for the gypsy language, people, and culture; they shorten the para considerably.Also, if ue is to emphasize the preceding word, it must now be surrounded by commas.
patnakso : patpe-nakso : pot-mend(er) : K is a tinker repairing B for user D
fordyklavea : fordi-klabu-vedma : floor-cloth-sell(er) : K sells carpets to D for price C
rachaa : traci-hasfa : travel-house : B is a trailer/caravan/mobile home of F

ractce : traci-tceru : travel-penetrate : K travels throughout place F
petrydou : petri-donsu : distribute-give : K hands out B to D

APL: Here fei replaces the whole description ri traci patnakso ce fordyklavea, by the convention that the letteral indicates the last element in the description.

JCB: We haven’t done a good job of documenting the gradual development of our anaphora system, the move away from da/de/di to letter vaiables.But the rules now are fairly definite:1) to replace a description, use the initial letter of the modificand in its principal predicate string; 2) the first instance of such a replacement must take place while the description in question is the last one back that calls for that particular letter; 3) use l.c. latins for descriptions; 4) the assignment of a letter variable to a description may last throughout a story, conversation, or essay, but may also be terminated at any time and that letter reassigned by the ji x maneuver (le mrenu ji mei) whenever the writer/speaker wants to do so; 5) should another description come along that invites replacement with a letter that is already in use, and should reassignment by ji not be desired, then the Greek l.c letter with that phonemic value may be used (e.g., meo when mei is occupied); 6) names are handled in exactly the same way except that u.c. latins are used.

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Le lengu{/,}sui pa norveicko lopo nenri{/,}kamda vi {Xai/la Xi,as}.
And the language also prevented the-mass-of internal fighting in (the) Xia.

Here I am employing sui and its leading comma—rather experimentally—as the modifier and emphasizer of nenri, the word before the next comma, as the new rules provide.The other move was to replace Xai, which is still attached to Xlang, with la Xi,as.

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I hu nu blicu supo ba nu minpuncko be bo ji nu cutse be gui{/,}na nepo ba no kapli nurkaidja bu ji nu furmoi {je/}be {/le}nu sanpa {/je}bo?
And what conditions-make-possible some-events-of someone-x’s being offended-(being mind-pain-caused) by-someone-y doing-something-z that is said-by y (by y’s saying something z) [end ji-clause] when an-event-of x’s not completely knowing-the-characteristics-of something-w that is intended-by y to-be-the meaning of z?

This is a horror; and those few edits didn’t help.I expect I’m responsible for it.So let’s back up and, taking the target English as our text, translate it first into the simplest possible Loglanized English:

And no-someone-x could (under circumstances about to be specified) take-offense-at something-y that someone-(else)-z said if (under the following circumstances) x cannot be sure what y means.

Now let’s put this into L:

I niba kau nu minpuncko be nepo cutse bo guo, mia lepo ba nokau sirfio le nu sanpa je bo.
And zero-someones-x can be offended-by someone-y for-an-act-of saying something-z [end-clause] if-the-following-circumstances-obtain: that x cannot be certain-about (feel-sure-about) the thing meant by z (the meaning of z).

Frankly, I think this does it much more elegantly—and understandably—than the even more highly quantified sentence I produced the previous time I considered this target sentence.

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Inurau, coi ne laldo mela Xi,as kusmo, kanoi ne hirtei ga saadja su simci fu minpuncko, ki hei tcutrapeo lepo hei {/napa}tsebiu guo, e crano, e pragoi duo lo hapci gubdaa.
For-this-reason, according-to an old Xian custom, if a listener understands one-or-more apparent causes-of offense, then aitch (that listener) assumes (picture-true-thinks) the-event-of aitch having made-a-mistake (error-behaved) (end-clause), and smiles, and goes-on-his-way in-the-manner-of the-mass-of well-wishers (good-wishers).

Apart from suggesting the present perfect tense for tsebiu, and correcting the last bit of the published English translation, I’ve suggested no changes.Lo bilti!

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Suo le ri gundilri ji pua lentaa la Romnas, ri mela Xi,as ciaflo ji na le neveri ce satci ci toniri heknirne, pa cirna lopo ridle ro gleca ce dotca nu srite, inukou, la Xi,as pracia lo sensi ce rimplilae po valda.
In-addition-to the few diplomats who customarily spoke [the] Latin, a-few Xian scholars (learning-fulls) of (who were in) the nineteenth and beginning hyphen twentieth centuries, learned to read many English and German writings, with-the-result-that the Xia continue-learned the-mass-of scientific and tool-use-art developments.

The Suo-phrase seemed to me to modify ri mela Xi,as ciaflo, and if so it should be JI-linked to it, while the ji na la neveri ... heknirne phrase that you have JI-linked to it now is really a modifier of the main predicate, pa cirna, and should therefore not be linked to any argument.In that case, Alex, we cannot use the convenient—but when you think about it, misleading—E phrase-order but must attach the suo-phrase to the argument it modifies.As a sentence modifier, we can now put the na-phrase anywhere, and as it seemed to me to make a good lead, that’s where I put it.I’ve rewritten the whole para below in order to show this re-ordering of its phrases:

Na le neveri {ce/ze}satci ci toniri heknirne, ri mela Xi,as ciaflo, ja suo le ri gundilri ji pua lentaa la {Romnas/Latin}, pa cirna lopo lentaa lo notbi lengu.Ipiu cei pa cirna lopo ridle {ro/lo}gleca ce dotca nu srite, inukou lo mela Xi,as {/pakau}pracia lo sensi ce rimplilae po valda.
In the nineteenth and, jointly, the beginning of the twentieth centuries, several Xian scholars (learning-fulls), in-addition-to the few diplomats who customarily spoke [the] Latin, learned to speak other languages.And-in-particular see (c, these scholars) learned-how-to read [the] English and German texts, with-the-result-that the Xians could (past-can) keep-up-with (continue-learn) [the] scientific and technological (tool-use-art) developments.

In addition to reordering the phrases of the first sentence, I’ve made a few editorial adjustments in both sentences, all of which are, I trust, self-explanatory.

pracia : prase-cirna : continue-learn : K continue to learn P from source S.
rimplilae : trime-plizo-larte : tool-use-art : N is a technology for producing P used by people K.

APL: Suo : JCB noted the need for a PA word meaning also, corresponding to the UI word sui, and since suo is available proposed its use in this context. At the time of editing it has not yet been ratified by the Keugru or Purgru.

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Le piplo pa plizo lo lenki nerji, ja nu madzo vi lena {nu namci mela Ráixenbax felcue ?/}nu namci li, la Ráixenbax Felcue, lu.I ba pa telfo sisto, ice faza ta, tobe telvi sansuirua, ice re nu vizlei je le tobe ga {/po}plekanpi ca {/po}danse.
The people used [the] electrical energy, which-incidentally (was) made at the-thing-now named “Reichenbach Falling-Water”.And there- was (something-x was) a telephone system, and soon-after that there were two (two somethings-y were) television channels (sign-send-routes), and most-of what-is-shown by the two y’s (the two TV channels) [is/was] sport (sporting) and/or dance (dancing).

APL: In vi lena nu namci mela Ráixenbax felcue I’ve started getting the feeling that this won’t do: can something be named by ([predified name][preda]) ?
So perhaps vi lena nu namci li, Ráixenbax Felcue, lu. This would surely be safer, don’t you think?>

Your second thought about Reichenbach Falls was correct.Names are bits of language, and must be so designated.In line with the textual convention I’ve been exploring, I’m continuing to italicize all quoted material.Also, pos must be inserted before plekanpi and danse, else you’re saying that most of what was shown on TV were either sports-persons or dancers.That may be so, but that isn’t what one means by sport and dance, which are activity words.

felcue : felda-cutri : B is a waterfall of river-system F

sansuirua : sanpa-sundi-rutma : (sign-send)= communication-route : B is a communication channel from S to D of capacity C

ga is redundant,but makes the sentence easier to read.
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Leuva ri ciaflo, ja vi lena nu namci je li, {/la }Kuain Rorpebkea, lu{,/}pa rilri ridle ro sensi cke{lisy/}buu. I ne {cei/ceo}pa {meliegei, Scientific American, gei ckelisybuu/bi laeliegei, Scientific American, gei}, inukou, vi la Nevesonin, le sansensi galpai je le rorpebkea pa candui lepo la Loglan dzabi. I, nia su heknirne, levi galpai ga mutce turka lepo madzo ne purbuu je la Xlang. I leu purbuutua papa fadgoi le letra {, ja/ji}no {/kau}nu namci, e{/buo}ja le teri taksoa ji vi la Gunti Nurgristu{.I/; ikou}tio pa durfoa lepo le mela Xi,as piplo {pia/pua}kledja lo{/pei}letra. I re mela Xlang nu srite ga katli lo tcusaa.I loe {/mela Xi,as}srite pa vetfa su tcusaa na {nepo tei nerbi/rapo sei pa srite.Inukou la Xlang pa katli romamo letra, jao re lei darpao ce gurvei satci}.
The-particular-set-of-those a-few scholars, who-incidentally [were] at the now-named [by quote] ‘Quine University’, regularly read many scientific journals/periodicals (interval-books). And one sigma (one of these many periodicals) was identical-to the-thing-titled-quote,Scientific American, unquote, hence, in [the] 1960, the semantics (sign-science) department (organization-part) of the university happened-to-discover (chance-discovered) that [the] Loglan exists. And, during at-least-one century, that department (start predicate) worked-very-hard- (much worked)-on [the] making a dictionary (word-book) of the Xlang. And the-set-of lexicographers (word-book-workers) had reached (end-gone) the letter that cannot be named, but which-is-incidentally the third speech-sound [that is] in the National Ballad (Sung-Story); for this was the way the Xian people used-to (habitually) identify (class-know) their (the-pei, that people’s) letters. And most [predified-name] Xlang writings are-characterized-by [the] pictograms (picture-signs). And the-typical Xian writer invented one-or-more pictograms during every-time ess (s, that writer) wrote.And-as-a-consequence, [the] Xlang had (was characterized by) many-hundreds-of-thousands of letters, most of them of ancient (far-past) and mysterious (strange-happening) origin.

My insertion of la before Kuain Rorpebkea raises an interesting question.You say something or someone x is “named” something y, when that something y is what one uses to designate x, whence la <NAME> in L; one says that someone x is “called” something y, when that something y is what one uses to address x or call x’s attention to something, whence <NAME> without la in L.Since both universities and falls are seldom called but often discussed, good usage requires that la be included in the expressions used to name them.However, Spat, of “Vizka la Spat” fame, who is both spoken to and discussed, could be said, in L, to be either nu namci liu Spat, or nu namci li, la Spat, lu, depending on whether one is thinking of calling Spot or talking about him; and an appropriate—and unusually fastidious—E translation of the first would be called ‘Spot’, and of the second named ‘[the] Spot’.

Either purpuemou (periodical) or lisbuu (serial), but not both.I prefer ckebuu here, as Scientific American is in fact a periodical, not just a serial. Serialis a word invented by librarians to embrace both the periodical and the aperiodical publications that emerge in installments.

Next I think that ceo rather than cei is the replacement you want here, as there are two c-initial main predicates in the descriptions in the previous sentence, and the one we want, ro sensi ckebuu, is the second.

Next you use the name Scientific American as a modifying predicate, the modificand being cke(lisy)buu.But we don’t need this modificand. Scientific American is known to be a periodical.Better to use its name as the identifier of a unique individual.That’s what you do if, as I’ve suggested, you say pa bi laeliegei, Scientific American, gei = was identical-to the-thing-entitled-by-quote, Scientific American, close-quote.Now you may use pa meliegei, Scientific American, gei = was one-of-the-things-designatable by-quote, Scientific American, close-quote; it’s perfectly legitimate to do so.But in my opinion it would be to use predification unnecessarily and misleadingly, as there is only one thing with this name.

Later I replaced ja with ji and removed the comma, for this is “the letter that cannot be named (by anyone)”.This is a restriction on le letra, and I suggest we use commas to embrace only non-restrictive clauses, as we do in English.Still later I’ve inserted kau, as your English indicates you intend it.The next couple of changes are minor edits that I trust are self-explanatory.
Finally, I have taken the liberty, for the first time, of actually adding a sentence to your story, and if you don’t like, cut it out.(But if you do like the thought of “hundreds of thousands of letters” in the Xian alphabet, I should be honored to contribute this one little joke—well, this one so far—to this elegantly funny work.)

sansensi : sanpa-sensi : sign-science : V is the study of meanings in language F (its semiotics/semantics)
purbuutua : purda-bukcu-turka : (word-book)=dictionary-work(er) : K is a lexicographer in language F

tcusaa : tcure-sanpa : picture-sign : place structure of ‘sanpa’

We speak of the National Ballad here because it is the “third speechsound”, not the third note, in the sequence so named that le letra is being identified with. Gritu means simply produce melodic sounds, as does a bird.

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Leu sansesmao pafazi haphai le vidre je su nernursaa lengu{/ ji katli sitosocu letra}, ice lei {/pa }kukra nu plicea lo ckela.I lo nilboi ji {stude ba/pa lentaa la Loglan vi}lo ckela pa ditca {la Loglan/Lai}lonei penre{, tie/ hea}su telvi nu vizlei, e su komta cirhea{/ guu ji papa kukra nu dzamao pou levi furpli}.I, na lepo lo junti penre {ga/pa}krotaa guo, {da/pei}pa ditca la Loglan le{da/pei}cinta, lia lecei neri lengu.
The-set-of semanticists (sign-science-makers) was-immediately-going-to-be elated-(happy-happy)-over the idea of an unambiguous (one-meaning) language with (that had) a set-of-no-more-than-twenty-six letters, and ell (that language) was quickly adopted-(used-became)-bythe schools. And the children (girl-boys) who studied something-x at-the schools taught [the] Loglan to-the-enn’s (the children’s) parents with-the-help-of some (one-or-more) television shows (things permitted to be seen), and some (one-or-more) computer tutors [close connection] that had-been quickly created (made to exist) for this purpose (this use-purpose).And, when the young parents were fluent (flowingly-talked) [close-clause], pee (those young parents) taught [the] Loglan to-the-pee’s (their, the young parents’) babies, as the-shee’s (the babies’) first language.

I made a lot of gratuitous changes in this para, I’m afraid; use what you like, A, and chuck the rest.

First, in line with my joke and assuming you accept it, I added the JI-clause about the small number of letters in L.Also, given the very intricate tense pafazi you’ve just used, I felt a reader’s need to return to a simple pa in the next clause.

In the next sentence, I replaced stude ba lo ckela with pa lentaa la Loglan vi lo ckela, feeling you needed to be more specific about what the children were doing.That mention of Loglan allowed me to use Lai for its next mention.Next I replaced tie with hea as a matter of diction.Then I made a major change.I inserted guu ji kukra nu dzamao pou levi furpli after your su telvi nu vizlei, e su komta cirhea, having learned today that this sharing of a JI-clause by connectands is possible!(It’s the case where LIP will not accept a comma after guu; but that’s alright, we’ll fix it later.)I should report that, to make this work, I extended the place-structures of both dzamao and madzo in my LOD Edits.They now include a fourth place, the purpose (P) for which an act of creating or making is performed.Then I used the case tag pou to tag levi furpli for its role in this new place-structure. The rest is obvious.

sansesmao : sanpa-sensi-madzo : sign-science-make : K is a semanticist for language F

haphai : hapci-hapci: K is deliriously happy

nernursaa : ne-nu-sanpa : exactly-one-meaning, unambiguous

LOD currently has fluent/eloquent for krotaa. JCB observed: “The idea of anyone being eloquent in Loglan is a bit stunning to this patient, old observer. Lets remake eloquent as fultaa (richly-talk).”

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Ia lepo nenbei ne lengu jio na rapo ba lentaa lei guo, ba kau ce{foisui/, sui foi,}cutse be ji sanpa bo ji nu furmoi ba guo, pa ckozu supo groda kulcea vi la Xi,as. Ifeu lia ni pasko ge po takna {genza/durfoa}, ruba jie le piplo je la Xi,as {pakau/panakau}cutse be ji sanpa bo ji nu furmoi{feu/, feu,}ba, {icesui ba kaupa nurkaidja bu ji nu sanpa, e ji nu furmoi ba, e jio ba trati lepo nufunu sansui bu/icebuo ba kaupana sui saadja leba fu sansui je lo notbi}. I, faza, le bragai pa pubcue lepo la Loglan {/pafa}cenja le gunti lengu, ice le namci je le gunti {ga cenja/pana bi}liu Loglandias.
Certainly the bringing-in-(in-bringing)-of a (one) language such-that on every-occasion-of someone-x speaking ell (that language) [end-clause], x can and, alsomust, say something-y that means something-z that is-intended-by x [end-clause], caused at-least-one-event-of large cultural-change in Xia.And-in-fact like no past talking method (do-form), enough-someone’s-x who-were-among the people of Xia could-now (were-then-able-to) say something-y that meant something-z that was-intended , in-fact, by-x, but x could now also understand x’s messages (signs-sent) to [the] others. And, soon, the king (born-ruler) announced that Loglan was-going-to become the national language, and the name of the country was-now-to be the-word ‘Loglandia’.

Here’s a nice occasion for using the new rule by which commas can be used to cause fms to emphasize a followingelement; so I put sui in front of foi, and put commas around this two-word phrase.

New Policy:Here and elsewhere in my ftc-ing I will ignore the fact that our current LIP can’t parse either what you had originally or what I changed it to.(This particular defect is discussed in my 24 Apr 99 memo to the Keugru, “An Interestng Refusal.”)The policy I’m going to follow now is to ignore such transient defects in LIP, i.e., when LIP won’t do something that it should do, and in all probability can eventually be made to do, I’m going to pretend it can.In doing this, I’m assuming that LIP-engineering will eventually catch up with the logli writer and his ftc-er, that eventually ingenious structures like kau ce, sui foi, cutse will parse.This policy will, I think, have the good effect of encouraging Alex to forge ahead with his literary inventions without worrying about engineering details, confident that they can eventually be made “good Loglan”.To do otherwise would be to stifle both A’s inventiveness and my own desire to explore recently added features of the language that may not have got into LIP; and that would not be consistent with the spirit in which I am doing this essentially didactic ftc-ing.I’m confident that LIP—which has always been a work in progress—will eventually catch up.

RAM: Well, I would think brani logli would likely be satistied with kau ce foi cutse, which does parse, as ce incorporates the sense of 'and also'. Kau ce foi is reduced by the lexer to PA, and these compound PAs are, in other circumstances, written as a single word, and indeed the parser writes kaucefoi. To insert a free modifier (UI) here is like inserting one into the middle of a word.(which occasionally is done in E for effect [abso goshdarn lutly], but is not considered proper grammar). I have no intention of trying to make it so in L

I’ve replaced pakau with panakau in order to use the past coincident (was now able ) instead of the simple past (could ) in this cpd. I am assuming, with A, that putting the auxiliary last is the natural thing to do in these compounds.

The free modifier feu, here intended to be a post-emphasizer, must be surrounded by commas to have this effect.(Remember, A, that without commas, free modifiers, we agreed, are sentence modifiers and have no local effect.)

I wasn’t certain, after reading it, what you were trying to say with icesui ba kaupa nurkaidja bu ji nu sanpa, e ji nu furmoi ba, e jio ba trati lepo nufunu sansui bu; so I sought the help of your target English: but actually to know what it was they were trying to mean.Permit me to sharpen this up, Alex.If the target can be changed to but also to understand what they had communicated to others, that would be easy to render in L, and in a kind of L, moreover, that is much easier to understand: icebuo ba panakau sui saadja leba fu sansui je lo notbi = but x could now also understand x’s messages (signs-sent) to [the] others.Incidentally, I’ve also put the elements of panakau in the right order.

APL: Hm, I think your change steps rather too far away from what I’d intended.The speaker was seen as sharpening da’s own perception of da’s intentions, rather than of the hearer’s eventual understanding.As I see it, at this stage of their learning Loglan, the Xians would often have had to say, “sorry, that wasn’t quite what I meant”, and try a different approach.(Isn’t that rather what we are doing in this ftc exercise?)I’d like to get closer to this essentially Sapir-Whorfian situation.

Here’s my next cut on it:

icebuo ba panakau kacycea le purpue fu sansui jio ba papa furmoi supo volduo sei
and-however x was-now-able-to become-aware-of the precise meaning such-that x had intended at-least-one-event of expressing it

JCB: You’re trying some awfully tough stuff here, A, and I hope you don’t mind my trying, on this second ftc pass, to help you make it a bit easier for your readers. Finally, I saw opportunities to use the past-progressive and the past-coincident tenses, and used them.But writer’s choice here.

such that during every occasion on which someone x is speaking l (end clause) ...x can and must say something y that means something z that is intended by x.

JCB: I have first taken the liberty of remaking nernenbei (evidently an ’88 production of mine) as simply nenbei bring in, import, introduce and then remaking A’s very recent nenbei for is/are the customs (worker?/officials?) of some country as nenberblein-carry-looker; and I also improved the definition of nenberble to include (to) inspect as a customs official.

sui adds the needed emphasis in can and must which in the English is conveyed by not only.

The 2nd and 3rd places of sansui are exchanged here by nufunu, although JCB considers a permanent reversal of these to be justified on other grounds. (LOD: sansui : K sends signal to D conveying intention/message/meaning P concerning matter V. Then nufunu sansui gives K-PDV.) So here the meaning P becomes the second argument. The [to someone] in the literal translation is omitted, but implied as the D argument.

RAM: I concur with this change, which is concordant with the definition of sundi (also K-PDV) and, by extension, donsu, and other related predicates and almost all comounds of sundi. The 4 compounds that do not have this place structure order will be changed approp;riately$$

each of many someones x who are members of the people of Xia., in short (Each of) Many Xians could say something y that meant z that was actually *intended* by x. And in fact, unlike all earlier speech occasions, many someones x among the people of Xia could say something y that meant something z that was actually *intended* by x.

nurkaidja : nu-katli-djano: characteristics-know : know what something is like.

This last sentence is a good illustration of being forced to tease out a precise meaning for a sentence which deals with an admittedly odd concept in a rather allusive way. It might be interesting, in a later issue of La Logli, to gather together these awkward statements about meaning, and to publish JCB’s careful analysis of them.

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Fia lepo la Loglan pa nu sacdou guo, ia Lai pia cenja ce valda. I raba goi, kanoi ba {/pa}cninu citlu le lengu, ki le piplo je la Loglandias {ga/pa}hapci donlei ba, irau ba helba pei lepo cutse ne groda stesei guo, e lepo cutse je sei go purpuemou.
Continuously-after Loglan was founded, certainly L (Loglan) was-continuously changing and developing.And for-all-somethings-x, if x [was-a] new detail [of] the language, then the people of Loglandia happily accepted (give-permitted) x, because x helped them (p) to say a (one) larger set-of-sentences (sentence-set) [close clause], and to say ess (them, the set of sentences) [inverse modifier] more-precisely (word-perfectly-more).

stesei : steti-setci : sentence-set : F is a corpus of utterances in language N.

APL: Irau : JCB wrote: “I’m not sure that this causal connective is justificational.It could be biologically causal.That is, without thinking of reasons why, the logli might be experiencing delight at each new advance as a bio-culturo-linguistico-psychological result of being able “to say more (“and that more, more precisely”), and as an effect of that cause, happily accept it.”

APL: I ought to warn readers here, that whereas JCB uses rau and its derivatives in a justificational-ethical way, I use it rather for those situations where one gives a reason, an explanation of the inner process that led one to act. Such reasons may be ethical, but need not be.

JCB: If they’re not ethical, then they’re just motives and should be reported with moi.Reasons are a kind of motive, just as both reasons and motives are kinds of causes.

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I loe logli na lentaa le cninu je raba {/gu}forma je le lengu, icebuo lei saadja sa le ro laldo forma.Inunorau ri laldo pernu ga lentaa le neri forma je la Loglan. Ikuu loe logli ga haphai plizo lo cninu purda.I lei penso li, Uaui, mi pia djano lepo ba ji kledjo ta dzabi. I mi na kanmo lepo penso {ta/da }., lu.
And the-typical Loglander now speaks the newest (newer than everything) form of the language, but ell (the typical Loglander) understands almost-all-of the many old forms. Nevertheless a-few old persons speak the first form of Loglan.And-in-general the-typical Loglander delightedly (happily-happily) uses [the] new words. And ell thinks, quote, Finally-I-am-happy-to-say-that I continuously-in-the-past knew that something-x of that kind (something that is a member of that class) exists. And I now can think-about X (it, that)., unquote.

Gu is not necessary here, but is certainly permissible. [APL: But I’m keeping it.] The reason it’s not necessary is that the specifying argument, ba, is a variable and so “naturally” right-bounded and the predicate continues. Ta, a demonstrative, must be replaced with a da-word on sutori references to its referent.

Inunorau : nevertheless despite these good reasons for doing so. JCB agrees with this use of rau.
kledjo: klesi-djori: class-member: K is a member of class/sort/kind N

APL: loe logli na lentaa le cninu je raba gu forma je le lengu,
This seems to me to need the gu for the parser to divide it up properly. It also helps the reader—when re-reading it I first saw raba forma as a phrase.
JCB: The parser doesn’t need it, but this is a perfectly permissible use of a redundant gu.

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Lo logli ga mutce rispe la Loglan Stogrusia. I, vi la Mykaivr Famymra Hotle, le toro gudbi krusei ga nu sromao ba la Purmaogru. Irea le nero gudbi krusei rana nu sromao ba la Sacdou.
[The] Loglanders very-much respect the Loglan Institute (Remain-Group-Place). And, at the McIvor Arms (Family-Marks) Hotel, the second-best suite (room-set) is reserved (stored-made) by-someone-x for-the Word-Making-Group. And-clearly the best (first-best) room-set is-always reserved-by someone-x for-the Founder (Start-Giver).

krusei : kruma-setci : room-set : B is a suite in (hotel etc) F
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Kanoi tu penso lepo lo logli {sui/, sui,}{ga/pa}turka lepo valda le lengu, ki tu dreti penso{.I/; ikou}paza, tio {sacycea/napa sacvei}. Ibea liu bulva{ga/nia}nu plizo, ice lo argo {ga/na}mromou nu plizo lo junti. Ibuo kuo lo logli no pakau kalpebmao ro le vidre jio lei norkli filmo lepo vei nerbi [for new version of this sentence, see below]. I ba pa holdu le lengu, ice lo logli no pakau duvri {lehei forma, hei/le forma je ba}.
If you think that [the] Loglanders also worked-on the development-of the language, then you rightly think; because, recently, this has started-to-happen. And-for-example the-word ‘bulva’ is now-being used, and [the] argot is-more-and-more (more-more) used-by the young. But most-of-the-time [the] Loglanders could not (no could) define (completely-specify-(specific-make)) many-of the ideas such-that ell (the Loglanders) not-clearly feel that v (ideas) are-necessary [for the English translation of the new version, see below]. And there (something-x ) was a-hole-in the language, and the Loglanders could not (no could) find-out the form of x.

I turned sui into a post-emphasizer by surrounding it with commas.I also connected the first two sentences with ikou; makes more sense. I also corrected (through my LOD Edits) an apparent defect in LOD, remaking has started to happenas napa satvei. (Where sacycea came from, I do not know.Veirsatci makes a better metaphor but a poorer word; and as the meanings of the two metaphors are almost the same, I think we can get by with the prettier word.)I then suggested a couple of tenses.

The Ibuo ... nerbi sentence I didn’t quite get; so I went to your target English to find your intention. I then set up a new target, one with which I thought I could put your intention into L: But for most of the Loglanders’ past experience of speaking Loglan, ell had known no way of defining new concepts that ell might vaguely feel the need for.This goes into L as follows:
Ibuo nia repo lo logli pa lentaa la Loglan guo, lei no pa djano raba ji durfoa lepo kalpebmao lo cninu vidre jio lei biu norkli filmo lepo lei cnida vei,

This back-translates as follows:

But during most of the events of the loglanders’ past speaking of Loglan [end clause] ell did not know of any-x that was a method of defining [the] new ideas such-that ell might (possibly) vaguely feel that ell needs vee.

Then in the last sentence, I found a definite error: hei may not be used to replace ba in ba pa holdu.You may knowthat this something x is a hole, but you’re not allowed to replace it with the leading letter of holdu because ba pa holdu is not a description.But this was a pseudo-problem, A.Ba did not needreplacing; its second mention occurred in the same sentence as its first, so ba itself could be reused with the same referent.

bulva : (borrowing) : boulevard [[ ‘’ denotes slang usage ]]

argo: (borrowing) : argot, slang. [APL: this will not do as a borrowing. In FVL episode 3 we use damlogla.]

suo is now a PA-word, here used inflectively, like ga.

I ba pa holdu le lengu, ice lo logli no pakau duvri le forma le holdu.

APL: I’ve replaced this with the following, and added the note:

I ba pa holdu le lengu, ice lo logli no pakau duvri lehei forma hei.
Since the place structure of duvri is K finds out N about B , it is a little more loglandical to use both places, as here, rather than duvri le forma je hei, which would perhaps be clearer to our anglophone minds (such that we are trying to wean ourselves from their tyranny).

JCB: I think our anglophone minds are just fine here.The linked phrase le forma je ba is better, in my opinion, as the termset of duvri than either le forma ba or le forma je ba ba.Think of it.The second is unhelpfully repetitive; the first is unnecessarily vague: “Discover theform about x”?Whose form?Well, x’s form.Why not say it?The function of 3rd places of predicates like duvri must, therefore, be to allow us specify the focus of an some act when that focus isn’t plain from whatever is said in the 2nd place.E.g., I discovered two facts about John= Mi pa duvri to fekto la Djan.But the focus is usually plain.And when it is plain, filling the 3rd place is unnecessary.For example, it is usually uninformative to say, I discovered that John was married to Mary, about John. = Mi pa duvri lepo la Djan pa merji la Meris guo, la Djan. Bad L, just as it is bad English.

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Nao no, ro logli ga cirna su notbi lengu. I {le/lo}po no kau cutse ba ji sanpa be ji nu furmoi guo, ckozu le nurpra ji nu namci liu bisytongu.I, vi le hospi, ne kapli hospai ga nu plizo {le/lo}po kicmu levi zavcae nu malbi.
Now it-is-not-the-case-that many Loglanders learn one-or-more other languages.And [the]-states-of not being-able-to unambiguously say something-x that means something-y that is intended [close-clause] causes the condition (converse of ‘process’) that is named [quote] ‘ice-tongue’. And, in the hospital, one whole ward (hospital-part) is used-for [events-of] treating this unfortunate (bad-chance) disease (converse of ‘...is sick with...’).

One change twice: lepo into lopo.In each case you are talking not about a single instance, or about several instances, of this event that you have in mind, but the mass of such events.

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Nao le piplo je la Xi,as papa suksi lopo nernursaa sansui {ba nebe/roba robe jie ne klesi}, ja leupei kangu. I tie {(leu)/}ro{r/c}u hansaa ze po caslo, pei pa pufmao le larte je {le bivdia je lo/lo nu bivdia}kangu.
Now the people of the Xia had succeeded-in [events-of] unambiguously communicating something-x to-all-somethings-y that are-members-of exactly-one class, which-is-incidentally the set-of-all the-pee’s (their, the people’s) dogs. And by-means-of an-indefinite-set-of-many hand-signs and-jointly events-of whistling, pee (the people) perfected (perfect-made) the art-of-producing[the] trained-(behavior-taught) dogs.

Ba nebe won’t hack it; you need something like roba robe jie ne klesi = many things x to many members y of exactly one class.In the next sentence, leu is definite, and you want a set of indefinitely many,which is now rocu.Finally, larte means the art of producing somethingWhat is produced in this case?Trained dogs. So le larte je lo nu bivdia kangu.You could also say le kangu bivdia larte = the dog-trainer’s art. Or even le larte je lo bivdia je lo kangu = the art of (producing) trainers of dogs ! Dealer;s choice.Of course you can redefine larte.LOD is still an open book.

Better yet would be to use one of the “indefinite set descriptors” we don’t have yet, say roru, for then you would not be obliging yourself to provide an address for the definiteI’ve asked the KEUGRU (again) for this boon.
APL: The indefinite set descriptor suffix which the K established is -cu, so here rocu is used.

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Le piplo je la Xi,as na logli, ice na blicu ga lepo pei sanbatmi lo notbi piplo. Ibuo pei cnisti lepo pei stolo lepei kusmo po kincle. I lia la Xi,as, la Loglandias proju ru tcidi ze nerji. I lopo la Loglandias sanbatmi lo notbi gunti, napa valda {duo/}site durfoa. I{,/}nefi{/,}Lai sanbatmi la Loglan Stogrusia, e lo notbi logli, ja via le telfoa, lo lengu ferci. I{,/}tofi{/,}Lai hapvia lo rezkeo traci, ja{rea foi/, rea foi, }lentaa la Loglan. I{,/}tefi{/,}Lai zvosui lo spebi nu bivdia kangu, ja bea lo kangu ji nu bivdia ba lepo helba lo norvia, a lo norhirti, a{/, paza,}lo {autismi/authisti}nilboi{paza/}, jao kei ditca lopo socli {/guo}nei.
The people of Xia are-now Loglanders, and it-is-now possible (deferred 1st arg) that pee (the people) communicate-with [the] other peoples.But pee are-satisfied that pee (they) remain-in the-pee’s (their) customary isolation (being-without-companions).And like Xia, [the] Loglandia produces enough food and-jointly energy.And [the] Loglandia’s communications-with [the] other countries, has developed at-most-three ways (do-forms). And firstly, L (Loglandia) communicates-with the Loglan Institute, and [the] other loglaphones, who-incidentally-are throughout the planet, about-[the] language matters.And secondly, L welcomes (happily-sees) [the] vacationing (free-time) travellers, who-incidentally obviously mustspeak Loglan. And, thirdly, L exports (out-sends) [the] specially trained dogs, which-are for example dogs that are-trained-by someone-x to help the blind, and/or the deaf, and/or recently [the] autistic children, such that kay (the dogs) teach social-behavior [close-clause] to-enn (the children).

I’ve just noticed something that has been true all along but unnoticed by me, namely that LIP treats names without a following comma, when followed by an unmarked predicate, as absorbing those predicates into themselves.In other words, current LIP pays no attention to the difference between all lower-case words and those initially capitalized.Thus, in this para, la Loglandias proju and La Loglandias sanbatmi are treated by the current LIP as if they had been written la Loglandias Proju and la Loglandias Sanbatmi.In line with my policy of looking ahead to a re-engineered LIP—one that will recognize such textual nuances, and also the several lengths of pauses required by modern L (among the shortest of which are those in serial names, by the way, like the one marked ‘|’ in the phonemicization of la Loglandias Proju preda = /la-log-LAN-dias|PRO-juPRE-da/ vs./la-log-LAN-diasPRO-ju-PRE-da/ = la Loglandias proju preda)—I’m suggesting that we avoid these misparsings by inserting commas after such otherwise unmarked names in the specimens we submit to this LIP.

APL: Originally a comma was required after every name. It was I who found that to be disturbing in the flow of one’s reading, and proposed omitting the comma. This was done in L3, Understanding Loglan, except in the early sections. In speech, the pause after a name is of course still obligatory.

RAM 2002: JCB had apparently forgotten, but this behaviour was deliberately and intentionally incorporated into LIP to enable predicates following uncommaed names to become parts of names. No LIP released to logli has ever distinguished upper and lower case letters (although one has been in preparation)

As for my edits, I shifted the comma to followthe -fi-words; used the rule that causes fms to emphasize their sequels, not their prequels; and remade your autismi as authisti for two reasons:1) /a-u-TIS-mi/ breaks up into au tismi, so an inserted /h/ is needed; and 2) it’s better to make a sickness word from the adjectival form of the source word, in this case S autistico, rather than from the noun for the condition, S autismo.(I use Spanish as sources for these scientific and medical borrowings because of the near-identity of S’s phonemics with L’s.)After all, the resulting L word will have an adjectival meaning, is autistic / is an autistic (person), the condition being a po-form.

Now we come to the first grammatical error in this para.You have a JI-clause in a position where it would modify a sentence-modifier, paza, if it could, but it can’t.JI-clauses modify only arguments and must be closely attached to them; only free modifiers are allowed in the joint.So we must move paza out of the way, say to just behind the connective, and even there it must be surrounded with commas: a, paza, lo authisti nilboi, jao kei ditca lopo socli guo nei = and/or recently, [the] autistic children, such that kay (the dogs) teach [the] socializing [close-clause] to-enn (the children).Note that guo is necessary here; otherwise socli nei = interacting with ennwas the operand of lopo.

Concerning the places of sanbatmi places note: This word-order problem, which led to a forced choice of sansui over sanbatmi on the basis of their place-structures, suggests that sanbatmi is wrongly defined.Perhaps it shouldn’t be defined as a reciprocal, which leads to awkward word-orders, but as two-way communication—unlike sansui, which may be one-way—but with args arrayed as in a more useful way, say ... communicates/exchanges information with ... about ....Then a truly reciprocal version of “communicate”, as of “love”, “hit”, etc,, could be generated with the -sei suffix:sansuisei/clusei/blosei, etc.I think the generality of this move is what is best about it.

authisti : borrowing : B is autistic/suffers from autism

Note: In the last sentence we have a rather than e as a conjunction between these different groups. E would imply that the dogs were each trained to help allthe groups. A leaves open the possibility that some dogs mayhelp more than one group.

I, tofi Lai hapvia lo rezkeo traci, ja rea oa lentaa la Loglan.

APL: Here I think foi instead of oa. It’s a claim rather than an attitudinal, isn’t it.

JCB: Yes.

ja bea lo kangu ji nu bivdia ba lepo helba lo norvia, a lo norhirti, a lo autisti nilboi paza, jao kei ditca lopo socli nei.
and recently, dogs trained to educate and socialize autistic children.

APL: I’ve added the last phrase to fit the English rather better.
JCB: This is the right order.
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Nao, gea, le bragai je la Xi,as pa pubcue lepo la Loglan {nu plicea le piplo ne/pana bi lee}gunti lengu. I, {niarapa/pia}lio sunemo nirne, neba {/pa}rapa {/bi laa}bragai je la Xi,as, icebuo nibe pa bragai famji tojo.I, nukou tio, na rapo {laa/lee}bragai pa morcea, kie lepo bragai {je/}la Xi,as pa furlei ke lo mrenu ki lo fumna kiu, {laa/lee}fucgoi bragai pa publi volsi nu tisra lo piplo, ba ji cmalo grupa lea nirne je lio nevo, e jio kanoi be bie ba, ki be bilti ze bilbiu ze bilplu pei ranio{siri/risi}bo ji vi le landi, e ji {/sui}nirne lio nevo {sui/}.
Now, I-repeat, the sovereign of Xia proclaimed that [the] Loglan was- now (was-then) the-actual national language.And for (continuously-before) [the-number] at-least-one-thousand years, exactly-one-something-x had always been the unique and actual sovereign of Xia. but no-something-y was a-”royal family”, so to speak (last two words are metaphorical).And, responsible-for this-effect, on every-occasion-that the-actual sovereign died, [open-parenthesis] the-state-of-being a-sovereign-of [the] Xia was permitted-to both [the] men and [the] women [close-parenthesis], the-actual succeeding sovereign was chosen-by-acclamation (public voice chosen) by-the people from-something-x that-was a small group [from the superset] of-18-year-olds (those-who-number-in-years the-number eighteen), and that-was-such-that if someone-y was-a-member-of x, then y [was] more-beautiful and more-gracious and more-charming-to (as-judged-by) pee (the people) than-all-minus-a-few-at-most someones-z that [were] in the land, and that-were also 18-year-olds (in-years-measured the-number eighteen).

I replaced pa nu plicea le piplo ne gunti lengu = was adopted by the people as a national language, which wasn’t exactly what happened, with pana lee gunti lengu = was now the actual national language., which apparently did by proclamation of the king.Also pia does handsomely for the next sentence instead of the more intricate niarapa, for which I’m responsible, uu; but see JCB, Apr 99 below.Also, the best translation of had always beenis parapa, not rapa (always was ); and I think a tensed identity operator—again, something LIP will not parse yet but must do eventually— (RAM: somethiing he had steadfastly opposed in the past but readily achievable) with the unique descriptor laa in its operand, works best for had always been the unique and actual sovereign of Xia.In the next sentence I’ve replaced your laa with lee, because the operand now is simply bragai.There were many actual sovereigns in the world at that time; so laa bragai (the actual and unique sovereign ) would be a false claim, while lee bragai (the actual but possibly not unique sovereign ) makes the claim you do want to make about this designatum, namely that he or she was actually a sovereign.My next edit was to delete the je in operand of the next lepo.You don’t need it; it’s grammatical but bad usage to JE-link the arguments of a predicate that is being used as a sentence-predicate.(This is part of that unfortunate superset of grammatical but bad usages that Scott and I reluctantly created back in 1982 in the interests of “easy programming”.)
RAM: Again a partial truth. In a 'tanru' (predicate modifified predicate e.g. gudbi tcidi), if it is desired to add arguments to the first predicate they must be je-linked to avoid misparses. They may have been reluctantly created but many have been found to have been needed in certain circumstances.
You also want lee rather than laa for the succeeding sovereign, for this, too, is not a unique designation.Good to give these logical oddities some exercise!In the last sentence—which is a living beauty—I replaced siri with risi (remember the K’s recent solution to the “Sari Problem”?) and took the liberty of moving sui to the place where you put it in the English, and where it makes more sense.

This sentence seems to exceed in logical intricacy anything we have done before—though I thought we had done some lou-lous, (surprise)!

laa is the infrequently used logicians the:the one thing that actually is a king (the author of Waverly was Russell’s classic case), when it would mean the (sole real) king’s dying , in that non-intentional sense.

APL: Bilbiu is in LOD as graceful. But since its derivation is bilti-bivdu (beautifully behaving), JCB agrees that it is better rendered as gracious, and proposes a new complex (bilmuo : beautiful mover) for graceful. These would all have the place-structure of bilti, G is more beautiful to observer S than J is to (possibly some other) observer S.

le bragai je la Xi,as pa pubcue lepo le gunti lengu ga cenja la Loglan.
That started to sound as though the existing language were being changed/twisted/remoulded into L.What actually happened was that a new language was adopted as the national language.

lepo la Loglan nu plicea le piplo ne gunti lengu

I installed this change; it’s definitely better than the original; but then I modified it, too.

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Nao no, lo nu nurfolrui je la Bragai je la Xi,as pa mutce foskoi.I re leBai nu nurfolrui pa fomvei. Ipiu Bai fregoi le piplo {/na}lo dridei fomvei, ice Bai grarisdou {lo/le su}guidjo ji papa kalkao ba ji grada nu turka {gui, na lepa ne nirne}, ice Bai nu tcabei {/go}tovnea la Poldi Horkarti na lo lagmuovei.
Now, it-is-not-the-case-that the duties-(things dictated by obligation)-of the Sovereign of [the] Xia were very demanding (forcefully-commanding). And many-of Bee’s (the Sovereign’s) duties were ceremonial (formal-happenings). And-in-particular Bee led (in-front-of-went) the people during [the] memorial (remember-day) ceremonies, and Bee honored (honor-gave) (each of) the several citizens who had accomplished (completely-done) something-x that-was a-great work (i.e., something worked on) [close JI-clause] during the-past single year, and B is-driven (vehicle-carried) while on-top-of [the] State Horse-Cart during [the] parades (long-move-events).

We need a na in front of lo dridei fomvei, else “memorial ceremonies” are the destination of the leading.Next, I replaced lo with le su because one does not honor manifestations of the citizenry en masse, but each of the quite particular citizens who have done something notable.The su is arbitrary here; you could have used ri or ro.But you do need some sort of plural to avoid the reading that euro-minds, at least, would give a solitary le.L has no general plural, it forces you to choose among some, a few, many, most, or some definite number.

The next change I made, inserting gui, na lena ne nirne, is another little gift:use it or not.But I would think that honoring people for their accomplishments presupposes a definite interval during which the said accomplishments were made.Gui is necessary, note, to keep the time-phrase out of the JI-clause.

The last change I made, the insertion of go, is the trickiest.Go turns the last part of the predstring, together with its argument, into a modifier of the main preda, in this case into an adverbial phrase.The expression with go is equivalent to this one without go:tovnea je la Poldi Horkarti nu tcabei = on-top-of-State-Horsecart-ly carried. And now it is clear that this is indeed a kind of carrying.(Be sure to put a comma after Horcarti if you try to parse this!)You might prefer this go-less form.It is more quaintly loglandical...but also, I imagine, more difficult for the no ge brana logli.

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I la Bragai pua pubpetri su forma nu pubcue {gu/}sui, ja parcea lea lilfa pe la Xi,as.Ibuo pa norbli, neu le stokaisei je la Xlang, ga lepo ba {sirto/sio}djano le purpue nu sanpa je lo nu pubcue guo, inurau niba pa tedji pei. I loe mela Xi,as pernu, lia loena logli, pa prase lopo {pei/peo}helba {lepei/lopeo}snilii, ice {pei/peo}rojmao le{pei/peo}gardi, ice {pei/peo}bivdia le{pei/peo}kangu.
The Sovereign habitually posted-notices-of (publicly-distributed) some (one-or-more) formal proclamations also, which-incidentally become-part-of the-set-of-all laws of Xia.But it-was impossible, given (in-the-circumstances-of) the character-(stay-quality-set)-of [the] Xlang, [deferred 1st arg] that someone-x for-certain know the exact (word-perfect) meaning of the proclamations [end clause], and-for-this-reason no-one (no-something-x) paid-attention-to pee (the proclamations).And the-typical Xian person, like the-typical-current Loglander, continued-to [do acts of] pi (the typical Loglander) helping pi’s (their) neighbors, and pi cultivated (grow-made) the-pi’s gardens, and pi trained their dogs.

Gu is unnecessary here, does nothing.Why not use the new word sio as an auxiliary instead of sirto as a modifier; more precise.You must now use peo, as pei is already assigned, and will stay assigned for this...para?We haven’t really decided on the scope of these designating variables, have we?Let’s say para-wide for the time being; but I suspect it should be more.Say story- or chapter-wide.Let’s feel our way into this.

The Sovereign is now used as a name, since at any time we are referring to a unique individual. Similarly with the State Coach in the last paragraph.

gu: lets sui applyto the whole fombiu pubcue. Without gu it would apply to nu pubcue only.

parcea : parti-cenja : part-change: B become part of F
RAM: This was already in LOD with the opposite sense. A nu was inserted before publication.
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Te kangu {livdansei/specypai}ga braloi la Loglandias. I le neri {livdansei/specypai}ga nu katpua liu kasytilba. I loe kasytilba ga groda ciu loe groda ge dotco bercykeu kangu. I lekei kolro ga aurmoykoo brona, ice kei nigro nu fasli, e pendi nu sorgu.I loekei tilba ga mutce langa, e nu marka ne reckai ge nigro ce kasfoa marka.I le tilba ga blabi nu fando.
Three dog breeds (subspecies, species-parts) are native-to (born-local-in) Loglandia. And the first breed is called (predicated (quality-worded) by) the-word ‘kasytilba’ (‘cross-tail’). And the-typical kasytilba is as large as (big equally-to) the-typical large type-of German shepherd (sheep-care dog). And the-kay’s (the kasytilba’s) color is golden (gold-colored) brown, and kay has a black face (is blackly be-faced), and has hanging ears (is hangingly be-eared).And the-typical kay’s tail is very long, and marked-by a (one) distinctive (difference-quality) type-of black [and] cross-form mark. And the tail has a white tip (is whitely be-ended).

As explained in a recent Purgru memo, I’ve eliminated the 1975 complex for gene,livdai, and also the1988 S-prim, genhe, for the same concept,replacing them both with the newer S-prim, genru, which has two short affixes, ger and geu, which I’ve used to reconstruct all their derivates.I’ve suggested using the broader word specypai (“species-part”) where the English writer would use breedbecause the L constructions that catch the idea of “a domesticated subspecies” or breed,e.g., nurnurgertia, nurgernurtia, and nurmaospecypai, are all very long and so not likely to be used as frequently as breed.is in English.In line with this, I’ve included breedand varietyamong the English equivalents of specypai.I’ve also redefined katpua; it was badly done in LOD.It should be B is the predicate for/word for any member of class F,e.g., Liu kangu logla katpua ra kangu. = The word ‘kangu’ is the Loglan word for all dogs.This change mainly affects the English.The rest is fine, solidly loglandical.

.

livdansei : clivi-danci-setci : life-design-set : F is a breed of (animal) BThis was the word for genotype.But it was not a good one, technicallySo I remade it too, in my LOD Edits, with the geneticist’s sense of a pair of “chosen genes” at a given locus in an organism’s genome = nurtisgeu.

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I le tori {livdansei/specypai}ga nu katpua liu catrykau. Isii lea catrykau pa nu {livdantia/nurgertia}duo lopo miksa su catru ze su kangu.I ra catrykau ga spuro lopo janjua lo ficlu. I cei {kecycea/stokei}na {le/ra}po cei no ga prase {hijra/snire}lo cutri.
The second breed is called (is predicated by the-word) ‘catrykau’ (‘otter-dog’). And-apparently the-set-of-all otterdogs was bred (genetic-traits-chosen) by mixing some otters with (and-jointly) some dogs. And all otterdogs are skillful-at [acts-of] catching (hunt-grabbing) [the] fish. And see (all otterdogs) pine (are lastingly sad) on all-occasions-when see are not continuosly near [the] water.

An English sentence saying A bred thing was bredwould seem awkwardly tautolous.I’ve avoided this tautology by remaking the two words for a breedand to breedon independent metaphors: “a subspecies” and “genetic-traits choose”, giving specypai and nurgertia.I also replaced kecycea with stokei, lastingly sad,the same metaphor as is now used for melancholic,and I adjusted the LOD entry for stokei to include pines for.(You may wish to make a distinction between melancholia and pining, the first having no clear occasion, the second, a very definite one, though both are long-lasting.In that case melancholicmight well be remade as norklikei vaguely-sad. )I also turned lepo into rapo to make this amusing claim a little more amusing, and I thought that continuously near water worked better than continuously present at or attendant on water...though I now admit that the latter has a certain intentionally comedic character that I may well have destroyed, uu!So do restore it if this was indeed your intent.

APL: I still prefer hijra to snire, as emphasizing presence rather than neareness.Also I just noted in LOD: snire : nearer than J to B by C, whereas what we really want isB, J, C, isn’t it.

JCB: In the last sentence, ga spreads the not over the whole predicate expression prase hijra lo cutri. Without ga, no would apply only toprase, giving is discontinuously present at water.

catrykau : catru-kangu : B is an otter-dog

kecycea : kecri-cenja : sad-become : K pines for B in circumstances N

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I le teri {livdansei/specypai}ga nu katpua liu nordjadio. I loe nordjadio ga nurmue cmalo. I le hersei je loe nordjadio ga mutce {ue/, ue,}langa ce skofoa, inukou nei clisii loe {fordyvlacyrie/fordylacrie}ro pernu. I ba repdja li, Ie le fando ga {/nu}hedto?lu, inoca nei prano na ta.
The third breed is called nordjadio (not-know-direction-of = dunno.which.way). And the-typical dunno-which-way is moderately small. And the coat (hair-set) of the-typical dunno-which-way is very,surprise, long and screw-form, therefore enn (the typical dunno-which-way) seems-to-be-like (similar-to-seems) the-typical mop to-many people. And something-x knows-the-answer-to (reply-know) quote, Which of the end(s) has a head?unquote, only-if enn is-running at-that-time (at the time of that).

/lac/ is available; let’s use it to shorten fordyvlacyrie, even if just a little, to fordylacrie.I also inserted nu before hedto to give the sense of has a headrather than is a head,which may be just a little funnier.

nordjadio : no-djano-dirco : not know direction : B is a dunno.which.way dog

hersei : herfa-setci : hair-set :B is the coat of animal S

fordyvlacyrie : fordi-vlaci-trime : floor-wash-tool : B is a mop

APL: My original attempts at the last sentence was: I ba djano lepo ie le fando ga hedto guo, inoca nei prano.

JCB commented: Knowing how to answer a question and “knowing (that) a question” are two different things.Knowing how to answer one is a special kind of knowing, deserving, as usual in L, a special preda.To answer any question correctly takes knowledge, of course, but a kind that is specially “pointed”.So let’s build a preda that expresses this special relation between a knowing person and a question he is able to answer.How about repdjaAnswer-know ? That was easy, soi crano.I expect it will translate one of the many senses of English tell among many other mysterious English expressions.

A lepo is now being used to formulate a question.We do use such clauses to express indirect discourse in L, of course, to tell each other what people believe, etc., i.e., that it will rain; and questions are surely discourse.But is lepo ie Ie fando ga hedto any kind of indirect discourse?Is a person standing at the window looking at the gathering clouds thinking lepo ei ti fa crinathe event of Is it going to rain?’Not; questions are not parts of events or states of affairs; so sentences that include interrogatives can hardly something-y the operands of event-descriptions.One can think questioningly about an uncertain event that one has described non-interrogatively in one’s mind, for example, one can question whether it’s going to rain.But that’s an attitude towards the-event-of ti fa crina, not towards the-event-of ei ti fa crina?...which, it seems to me, is dangerously close to being semantically undefined—like green ideas sleeping furiously, or 4 of the 3 men coming to dinner.

The easy solution to this cute little anomaly—and I agree, it is one!—is to forget about indirect discourse altogether and quote (some canonical form of) the question directly:

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Nao le laldo mela Xlang lengu piacena stolo la Loglandias kou le gunti nu plekanpi ji nu purda liu tongyliukamda.I, lia lola Bragai je la Xi,as, {t/p}ei pa ginkaa {lo/le}fragu pasko.I {t/p}ei clika le gleco plesio ji nu purda lie gei, I packed my bag, gei.I le neri pleci ga cutse ne purda, ice le tori pleci ga gencue le{/pa}purda, e tensea ne cninu purda.I le purda lista ga rodja duo.I raba goi, ba plegau nepo tongyliukamda, ico ba rari ge dreti gencue le purda lista, e no pa vamtu.
Now the old Xlang language was-continuously-and-now remains [in] Loglandia because-of the national sport (play-competition) that is called (indicated-by the-word) quote tongyliukamda(tongue-wrestling).And, like [the] Kings of Xia, pee (the national sport) originated-in (root-came-from) the misty past. And pee (the national sport) is-like the English play-system [that is] known as quote gee, I packed my bag, gee. And the first player says a word, and the second player repeats (again-says) that (the-past) word, and adds (increase-puts) one new word.And the word list grows by-this-means. And for-every-someone-x, x wins (play-wins) an-event-of tongue-wrestling, if-and-only-if x is-the-last (all-th) [type-of] correct repeater-of the word list, and did not vomit.

You can’t use the /t/ from tongyliukamda yet because you haven’t used it in a description; but le gunti nu plekanpi designates the same thing, so you can use pei instead of tei.Later, you’re not talling about “misty pasts” in general, but the misty past you have in mind. Lepa purda would be a good loglnadical way of saying ‘That word or those words.The rest is fine.

tongyliukamda : tongu-litnu-kamda :tongue-restrain-fight : K tongue-wrestles with K

JCB: We can’t—yet!—do in L what we do so easily in English:massify named objects (the Kings of Xia ).We need to be able to do this:speak a lo version of la, that is, coin a descriptor X such that X: the-named::the-mass-of:the.All the /loV/ and /lVo/ forms are occupied.What about letting X be a new compound descriptor, say lola?(We’ve never compounded descriptors before, but why not?We’re running out of CVVs.) Astonishingly, LIP thinks this usage is just great!

Seeing what you were forced to do by the current LOD on gancu, I saw that there was a more fundamental notion of winning that we had not captured, but should capture, in the primitive, and that from it we could then derive the special, non-primitive sense of winning that you need here.Try this:gancuX wins scarce resource Y from rival(s)/competitor(s) Z in struggle W in domain/circumstances/conditions Q.Y may be a female, or a group of females, if X is a stag and X’s rivals are other stags; or it may be the kill of a cheetah if X is a hyena and X’s rival is that cheetah; or it may be the ripe berries in a patch of bush that are won by one flock of birds driving off another; and so on throughout our quaintly rivalrous piece of nature (And assume there are other pieces).This is fundamental winning and losing; and gancu should be redefined in those bedrock zoologic terms.Then plegau—obviously enough!—is winning a game from another team or player; and that is the sense you need here:X wins game Y from player(s)/adversary(ies) Z.

APL: In le laldo mela Xlang lengu piacena stolo la Loglandias kou le gunti nu plekanpi ji nu purda liu tongyliukamda, you also suggested navi in place of kou. I’m coming to rather like that idea and might end up using it. However I wondered about another way of translating it survives as this sport.What about nudii? Since we have nukou etc., where dii means on behalf of/ representing , nudii should mean represented by. However I find LIP does not recognize nudii as a PA.

The ability to nu- all the modals would give some interesting, and very un-English expressions. But they’d be pretty obscure (I can’t quite figure out what most of them would do) unless established as usages.
Hm, I think that’s better back-burnered; but I’ll keep my eye open for other possible occasions, and if a list comes together, offer it to the Keugru.

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I vi la Hisnao Loglandias, lo{/po}tongyliukamda ga pruci {lo/le}pu manko korkukra. I {lo/le suto}pleci ga saadja sipinine lea nu sanpa je lea purda ji nu plizo pei. Iceu vi la Xi,as ji pazu, no, lo pleci pa saadja ro le purda ji nu plizo. I loe{/na}junti logli, feu, ga {san/biv}klimao {liu tongyliukamda, duo lo/lopo tongyliukamda ne}nurmue mordu fizdi nursaa.
In [the] Modern Loglandia, tongue-wrestling tests the property-of mouth agility (body-swiftness). And each-of-the two-or-more players understands only one-hundredth (at-most-point-zero-one) of-set-of-all-the meanings of the-set-of-all-the words that are used-by pee (the players).And-anyway in Xia as-of long-ago, it-was-not-the-case-that [the] players understood many-of the words [that were] used.And the-typical-today’s young Loglander, in fact, interprets (behavior-explains) [the] tongue-wrestling as-having-a moderately more physical meaning.

Lo tongyliukamda means tongue-wrestlers; not -wrestling;you need the -po to designate the act.Later, I suggest lepu rather than lopu because I suspect it is the particular property or properties of oral agility you have in mind rather then oral agility in general.Further I suggest using le suto pleci each of the two-or-more playersto designate the minimal multiple.You need either a multiple or a set because you’re going to be talking about percentages, which do not apply very clearly to masses.Then later I suggested using loena rather than just loe as the descriptor of junti logli to make sure that the reader is brought back (as I wasn’t!) to the present.Then in your last sentence I reflected at some length on the places and uses of sanklimao, and decided that the duo-phrase, though a useful kludge, was not exactly what you needed.I decided you needed a new preda, one having another sense of interpretthat had a third place that would accept the operand of duo directly.I came up with two such predas: bekyklimao object-explainand bivklimao behavior-explain .The first would apply to interpreters of the Sphinx and the Mona Lisa; the other, to those who interpret strange behavior for us, telling us its meaning.That’s the one we need here.I’ve added both to LOD with place-structures similar to that of sanklimao except that their 3rd places refer to meanings, not more signs.

APL: For modern I originally used LOD’s hisfui.

JCB comments: Hisfui really bothers me.I’d like to see hisnao used for modern, hispaonao used for recent, hisfuinao for impending or about to happen historically, and hisfui reserved for futuristic—which is what it immediately suggested to me!

You can’t put a preda in a name-string without making it part of that name.So your text should read vi la Hisnao Loglandias (in Modern Loglandia).

sipinine : at most 1 percent
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Nao, mi napa klimao riba ji mela Loglandias {durfoa/grukuo}. I lemi neapri lerci fa prase le stuci je lemi po vizgoi.
Now, I have explained several-somethings-x that-are Loglandian customs (group-habits). And my next (succeeding) letter will continue the story of my visit.

I believe you mean customshere; that’s grukuo group-habits.The rest is fine.And I do look forward to reading the rest of your story.This is a captivating beginning!

APL: In this section it becomes very plain that I wrote originally in English. My Loglan translation needed very considerable work by JCB because in many cases I wasn’t saying anything like what I meant, uu.! The pearl that emerges, however, from this agonized oyster, is we now know how to say in L that ‘someone says what he means’.