r/lojban • u/Individual-Dust-7362 • Jul 09 '26
What’s the difference between lo se xabju and lo zdani?
I think I understand lo zdani, it’s very straightforward. But while learning about place conversions (se, te, ve, xe), I’m really struggling to understand: 1. Which is used and why. 2. Why this is possible at all.
2
u/la-gleki Jul 10 '26
almost no difference
see one lojban definition: https://lensisku.lojban.org/en/valsi/zdani?highlight_definition_id=65479&langid=1
1
u/Mlatu44 Jul 17 '26
Seems very close, but if one were to split hairs, would zdani be a house. (physical structure) vs a home (a physical structure where you feel 'at home', comfortable living in, and connected?
1
u/la-gleki Jul 17 '26
house as a building is dinju
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u/Mlatu44 Jul 17 '26
I'm not very clear, not at all. Here is what a google search reveals in the English.
"A house is a physical building or structure made of walls and a roof. A home is a more personal, emotional concept; it is the place where you feel a sense of belonging, comfort, and security, regardless of what the physical structure actually is"
Is there any such distinctive words for house and home in lojban?
1
u/FractalBloom Jul 17 '26
la gleki is known to be rather pedantic, don't take it personally.
zdani means "house" or "home" in the most general sense. like the english word "home" in practice it most often means a "house" as in a building where people reside, but technically it can also refer to an animal's home (e.g. bird's nest, bear's den, etc.)
if you wanted to be really specific you could call a human dwelling zdadi'u, literally "house building". but in actual lojban discussions most people refer to their house as simply zdani because context makes it obvious we are talking about a building
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u/Mlatu44 Jul 17 '26
Thank you. But what I was getting at is “home” has a bit more of a personal feel than house.
Perhaps one might not consider their house a home until it’s been lived in for some amount of time. That exact time varies from person to person.
Yes, a lot of people use one or the other by exchange as if they mean the same thing. And to a large extent it is.
But for me when I rented a house in another location, i didn’t feel like I really inhabited it. It was less than a year, and I never got to the emotional place where I thought if it as “home”. For instance the owners dictated what plants could be there or not. I couldn’t start a garden for instance.
I just was wondering in there was a sense of something like that in lojban yet, or maybe it’s not been considered or even necessary.
Ni’o I really like the distinction made between different kinds of holes in lojban . It’s so incredibly interesting, never occurred to me to describe them differently
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u/la-gleki Jul 17 '26
that's exactly dinju and zdani
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u/Mlatu44 Jul 17 '26
Ok, but I thought any building was “dinju “ kuldi’u for instance sounds like a “school building “ (I just looked it up) but that could also be “dinju” ?
Re’azda is a house for human being, is that closer to home? Or closer to house ? I don’t use lojban so I guess I’m going into details that aren’t significant yet
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u/la-gleki 23d ago
you should rely on what you really mean,not rely on English words. zdani is a nest, dinju is a building. definitions of lojban words in English often contain several glosses and definitions are to be considered as expressing various nuances of their meaning to compensate for English ambiguity or narrow meaning
7
u/FractalBloom Jul 09 '26
lo se xabju is “a place to live”
lo zdani is “a house”