2.3 Words that can act as sumti
never as in “giant”. s is as in “sell”, never as in “rose”. The sound of x is not found in English in normal words. It is found as “ch” in Scottish “loch”, as “j” in Spanish “junta”, and as „ch“ in German „Bach“; it also appears in the English interjection “yecchh!”. It gets easier to say as you practice it. The letter r can be trilled, but doesn't have to be.
The Lojban diphthongs ai, ei, oi, and au are pronounced much as in the English words “sigh”, “say”, “boy”, and “how”. Other Lojban diphthongs begin with an i pronounced like English “y” (for example, io is pronounced “yo”) or else with a u pronounced like English “w” (for example, ua is pronounced “wa”).
Lojban also has three “semi-letters”: the period, the comma and the apostrophe. The period represents a glottal stop or a pause; it is a required stoppage of the flow of air in the speech stream. The apostrophe sounds just like the English letter “h”. Unlike a regular consonant, it is not found at the beginning or end of a word, nor is it found adjacent to a consonant; it is only found between two vowels. The comma has no sound associated with it, and is used to separate syllables that might ordinarily run together. It is not used in this chapter.
Stress falls on the next to the last syllable of all words, unless that vowel is y, which is never stressed; in such words the third-to-last syllable is stressed. If a word only has one syllable, then that syllable is not stressed.
All Lojban words are pronounced as they are spelled: there are no silent letters.
2.3 Words that can act as sumti
Here is a short table of single words used as sumti. This table provides examples only, not the entire set of such words, which may be found in Section 7.16 (p. 157).
| mi | I/me, we/us |
| do | you |
| ti | this, these |
| ta | that, those |
| tu | that far away, those far away |
| zo'e | unspecified value (used when a sumti is unimportant or obvious) |
Lojban sumti are not specific as to number (singular or plural), nor gender (masculine/feminine/neutral). Such distinctions can be optionally added by methods that are beyond the scope of this chapter.
The cmavo ti, ta, and tu refer to whatever the speaker is pointing at, and should not be used to refer to things that cannot in principle be pointed at.
Names may also be used as sumti, provided they are preceded with the word la:
| la meris. | the one/ones named Mary |
| la djan. | the one/ones named John |
Other Lojban spelling versions are possible for names from other languages, and there are restrictions on which letters may appear in Lojban names: see Section 6.12 (p. 132) for more information.
2.4 Some words used to indicate selbri relations
Here is a short table of some words used as Lojban selbri in this chapter:
| vecnu | x1 (seller) sells x2 (goods) to x3 (buyer) for x4 (price) |
| tavla | x1 (talker) talks to x2 (audience) about x3 (topic) in language x4 |
| sutra | x1 (agent) is fast at doing x2 (action) |
| blari'o | x1 (object/light source) is blue-green |
| melbi | x1 (object/idea) is beautiful to x2 (observer) by standard x3 |
| cutci | x1 is a shoe/boot for x2 (foot) made of x3 (material) |
| bajra | x1 runs on x2 (surface) using x3 (limbs) in manner x4 (gait) |
| klama | x1 goes/comes to x2 (destination) from x3 (origin point) via x4 (route) using x5 (means of transportation) |
