Subject: Re: [lojban] Re: month names

From: Ivan A Derzhanski <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 31 Oct 2000 10:42:21 +0200

I think that the fact that most of the world's languages have
the same names for the months of the Western calendar (modulo
phonetic differences) is a Very Good Thing.

I also think that the fact that some of the languages that do
not use the Latin names of the months use numbers for them is
an Even Better Thing.

Why throw out a chance to make learning/speaking/understanding
Lojban easier for the few who want to? A novel set of month
names, especially one not based on a culturally fixed calendric
twelvesome, strikes me as an unjustified mental burden.

michael helsem wrote:
> --- In [email-masked], pycyn@a... wrote:
> > Why not take the (ok, abstractly arbitrary, but
> > culturally fixed) zodiacal animals from China.
> 
> rat RATCU horse XIRMA
> ox (bovine BAKNI) goat KANBA
> tiger TIRXU monkey SMANI
> rabbit RACTU rooster (chicken JIPCI)
> dragon RAMRESPA dog GERKU
> snake SINCE bear CRIBE

Typo or misreading? It's not `bear' but `boar', ie `pig'.

> this is usable but (1) requires one lujvo;

Make it just {respa} then.

> (2) RATCU & RACTU are too similar;

The rabbit is replaced by a cat in some versions of the zodiac.
Also the goat could just as well be a sheep.

--Ivan