Subject: re: lujvo

From: [email-masked]
Date: Sun, 11 Jun 2000 09:12:16 EDT

aulun writes:
<<> 6) ceirmamta or cesmamta (rather than: la ceirmam. :) - la mydanys.

>> 6) 1 is a god mother/ holy mother of 2 -- probably not culturally
neutral: or religious mother or education mother is
more neutral 
>> -- every culture seems to have such a job.

I did *not* want be *neutral*, but find an expression for 'Madonna'
(God's mother). Is it the task of Lojban to be neutral at any 
cost? One could create a monstre lujvo with built-in definition
(mother-of-god-Jesus-Christ-in-the-sense-of-Roman-Catholic-
Greek-Orthodox .... religious-understanding), but that is not the
goal. Shouldn't we try to get concise and unambiguous expressions, 
e.g. of Chinese type "shenfu" (Roman-Catholic missionary priest)? How
about 'Rabbi' (ravvi) as /doictu/ (do ctucu)? Or /
solcevni/solcei (solri cevni)?>>

Why you need to include trats with formations. I, performing poorly as a 
good Anglo-
Catholic, never even thought of that reading -- and wondered what a pop music 
star had
to do with it all. For the role of a godmother, "god-mother" is not a good 
word; for the
Theotokos it is probably about right, though different groups might want to 
stress
different features -- virginity, say, or solicitude or ... The neutrality 
point was about a
word for a fairly universal role (mother surrogate with special 
responsibilities in the area
of religious/cultural education) being given a name that reflects a 
particular culture's
terminology.

<<>7) zirblagrute
>> 7) 1 is a bluish-purple fruit of species 2 (grape? plum? eggplant?)

Shouldn't /zirbla/ be purplish-blue? Is eggplant a fruit or a
vegetable? - It might be /grute/ anyway ;)>>

It depends on whether you mean botanically or colloquially. Technically it 
is, since it
bears the seeds in a fleshy matrix and arises from the flower. Colloquially, 
it is not, since it
is eaten in the regular part of the meal, not appetizer nor dessert nor a 
snack (my colloquy,
not everybody's, obviously). And, yes, it should be purplish-blue. What 
plant was it
meant to be, anyhow?

<<8) zirblaborutytricu >>
>> 8) 1 is a fruit tree of species 2 (as above -- scratch eggplant)

Do eggplants grow on trees??? Can't imagine that /tricu/ comprises
shrubs, bushes and that kind of smaller plants, especially 
those annual herbaceous plants (Germ.: Stauden).>>

No, eggplants don't grow on trees, which is why I scratched them (eliminated 
them from teto say about the rest -- just "plants" <spati>? Of course, what 
are the definitions: banana
trees are technically just herbs, since they do not have a woody stem. And 
what are vines?

Fu'ivla for eggplants are fine, though I wouldn't mind something from tamca 
(a possibly
saving for the temci joke that fell flat -- as most translated puns do -- in 
lb). Something "brinjal," the home language of most of my eggplant recipes, 
would work well.