| Lojban For Beginners — velcli befi la lojban. bei loi co'a cilre | ||
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| Prev | Chapter 5. Times, days, dates (and abstractions) | Next |
The days of the week are also cmene built from numbers, this time adding djed., from djedi, meaning 'day'. There is at present some disagreement about which day should be day one, though. The original convention was to follow the Judaeo-Christian convention of taking Sunday as the first day, giving
| Sunday | la padjed. | |
| Monday | la redjed. | |
| Tuesday | la cidjed. |
This may sound chaotic, but I have gone into this point as a good example of how in Lojban a large part of the language is "left to usage" — meaning that ultimately the language depends on the way people choose to use it in practice. People are also free to work out alternative conventions for cultures which do not use a seven-day week, possibly adding to the name to make it clear; e.g. la padjedjung. could be the first day of the Chinese ten-day week. (Remember, jungo means 'Chinese'.)
Note: For these lessons, of course, we do have to teach something — and that 'something' will be that Monday is Day 1. That, of course, is already getting in the way of usage, but it's unavoidable.
Tip: You will also see days in full lujvo form (meaning in practice one extra consonant after the number), looking like this:
Months also use numbered cmene, adding mast. (from masti 'month'), so January is la pamast. and so on. Again, since there are twelve months, we use the extra numbers, so October is la daumast. .
Note: You will also see months in full lujvo form — the catch being that hexadecimal digits have not been assigned rafsi (combining forms.) So:
- pa(v)mast. or pavma'i
1-month
- re(l)mast. or relma'i
2-month
- ci(b)mast. or cibma'i
3-month
- vo(n)mast. or vonma'i
4-month
- mu(my)mast. or mumyma'i
5-month
- xa(v)mast. or xavma'i
6-month
- ze(l)mast. or zelma'i
7-month
- bi(v)mast. or bivma'i
8-month
- so(z)mast. or sozma'i
9-month
- daumast. or pavnonmast. or pavnonma'i
10-month
- feimast. or pavypavmast. or pavypavma'i
11-month
- gaimast. or pavrelmast. or pavrelma'i
12-month
Just in case you're interested, the words for seasons are:
| vensa | Spring | |
| crisa | Summer | |
| critu | Autumn | |
| dunra | Winter |
| la lekcarv. | 'the cold rain' — Spring | |
| la mliglacarv. | 'the warm (mildly-hot) rain' — Summer | |
| la bifcarv. | 'the windy rain' — Autumn | |
| la dujycarv. | 'the freezing rain' — Winter |
Joking aside, this shows two features of word-building in Lojban: making cmene by losing the final vowel (which we saw in Lesson 1) and creating lujvo, or compound words. (For the same reason, you'll also see pavdjed., relmast., ...) You actually need a pretty good knowledge of Lojban to make up lujvo on the spot, but we'll learn how to make some simple lujvo later on in this course.
| Exercise 4 |
What are these days and months in Lojban?
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