Thursday, May 21

the word sings

The word sings. You pout pronouncing it, form a kiss, moue slightly, blowing gracefully from the lips as if before candles on a birthday cake. (Is that why Rimbaud insists the color of the vowel o is blue?) In the unambiguously grammatical, culturally neutral, core-vocabulary-informed, artificially constructed language Lojban, the word blanu, "blue," incorporates all of English blue, Chinese lan, the la of Hindi nila, the azu of Spanish azul, the olu of Russian goluboi, and of course outside the official six Lojban base languages, the word also incorporates all of German blau, along with the obvious resonations of French bleu.


Alexander Theroux, Three Colors