Lojban Profanity, and other Dirty Words

Lojban profanity is an issue that is overly debated and overly complicated. Instead of addressing the issue, the general consensus of the Lojban community has been to sweep the issue under the rug because "we're above that." However, I have been with enough people in this world to know that most people curse at least some time - intelligent people being no exception.

Obviously, saying something like "Oh crap!" is a lot different from saying something like "I'm going to f*ck your mom's f*cking sh*t filled c*nt you piece of sh*t *ssh*le," and indeed the more intelligent of this world would never resort to such vulgarity.

It is exactly this vulgarity which is simply unavailable in Lojban, as the words for sexual processes, sexual organs, and the progeny of various undesirables are all purely scientific and non-metaphorical. The word for anus in Lojban is ganxo, and has no connotation besides an organ which regulates the expulsion of feces. Likewise one could attempt to translate the word "asshole" into Lojban, but the question arises how to translate it? The ass part is easy, but is an anus really a hole? No, it's the end of the digestive tract. So should we call it the "ass type of ending of the digestive tract?" Maybe we could classify it as an opening? But it normally excretes, not intakes, at least according to its intended function.

Thus one can see the problem with bad words in Lojban: they haven't been formally created and it has been avoided to try and maintain Lojban's cultural neutrality, which essentially is starving it of any culture. Cross culturally however, there are certain things that will always be offensive, and the concept of dirty words and curse words is indeed common among mankind.

Easy Lojban Lessons | Lesson 2 Part 1

New Words:

Grammar words:
le - definite article
lo - indefinite article
na - not

Gismu:
kanro - to be in good health
mlatu - cat
citka - eat
mikce - to doctor, cure
xukmi - chemical, substance; drug
klama - to go

Vocatives:
ki'e - thanks

Discursives:
ji'a - also; additionally

Attitudes:
.uu - pity

Conversation:

jan.: coi do maris. .i xu do kanro
maris.: go'i .i ki'e .i xu do kanro
jan.: .i mi ji'a kanro .i ki'e do
maris.: .i .uinai le mi mlatu na kanro
jan.: .uusai .i xu le do mlatu citka lo mikce xukmi
maris.: go'i .i mi klama .i co'o
jan.: co'o

 

Reading Comprehension:

True or False
1. (  ) Mary hasn't been feeling well.
2. (  ) Zhang has been in good health lately.
3. (  ) Mary is indifferent to her cat's being sick.
4. (  ) Mary doesn't believe in medicine - especially for animals.
5. (  ) Mary didn't give Zhang any notice that she was signing off.


New Material:
1. kanro is a gismu in Lojban which means "to feel healthy/well." In English when we say "How are you? / Good" it doesn't make sense when translated to Lojban, and saying "Good" to a question like this is considered bad Lojban. Therefore the best answer is either to say "go'i" or "mi kanro."

2. ki'e is the vocative meaning "thanks!" Like the other vocatives, a name or pronoun can be placed afterwords to address the 'thankee.'

3. In Lojban there is a set of words called "discursives," which is a fancy way of saying they keep the conversation and flow going. All languages have these words, as they make our individual sentences make sense when put together. Other words in this category include "however, precisely, by the way, on the other hand, etc."

4. When describing the function of lo and le in Lojban, the explanations have typically been long winded and filled with the memories of unimportant debates over their true roles. In actuality, they are very simple and function similarly to articles in most languages. lo works like the English "a, an" and le like "the." More specifically, lo refers to a general thing and le refers to a specific thing.

Up until this point, we have been unable to properly say "my" and "your," until now! To say this in Lojban, you place the pronoun or name inbetween either lo or le and the gismu. Thus "le mi mlatu" means my cat and "lo la maris. gugde" means Mary's country.

Now we can properly understand Zhang's question to Mary:

xu le do mlatu citka lo mikce xukmi

le do mlatu and lo mikce xukmi work under the same principle. mikce is modifying xukmi to mean "a doctoring kind of drug," or a medicine. If we were to write just mikce xukmi without the lo, it would just be incorrect grammar. With le do mlatu however, with the le it literally means "the 'you' kind of cat," and without the le it means "you are a cat"! Thus it is very important to remember your lo's and le's when specifying the words of your sentences.

5. When a gismu is functioning as a verb, at which point we call it a selbri, it can be negated by the word "na." There are words more specific than na, such as the Lojban equivalents of "un-" and "not really," but for now na can be used to generally negate a sentence.


Exercises:

Translate the following into Lojban:

(1). Are you eating a cat?

(2). I'm not eating. I'm going.

(3). I'm also going :). (translate the :) as ui!! Remember word order!)

(4). Is the cat going?

(5). No. The cat's not going. The cat's not feeling good.