English Translation
I have to go to bed.
“.i .ei mi sipna” in Lojban is roughly translated to “I should sleep” in English.
Let’s break down each word:
- “.i” - Lojban uses this to separate sentences. It is similar to a full stop or period.
- “.ei” - This word expresses obligation or necessity. It implies that the speaker is morally or logically obligated to do the described action. In this sense, it can mean must or should in English.
- “mi” - This is the first person pronoun in Lojban, referring to the speaker. It is equivalent to “I” in English.
- “sipna” - This is a verb in Lojban, meaning to sleep.
So, the entire phrase “.i .ei mi sipna” follows the structure of “I should sleep” in English.
Note that Lojban does not rely on word order for grammatical structure, instead uses particles to indicate the roles of components within sentences. This is different from English and many other languages where the order of words often determine the meaning of a sentence.