From nobody@digitalkingdom.org Thu Aug 09 20:26:30 2007 Received: with ECARTIS (v1.0.0; list lojban-beginners); Thu, 09 Aug 2007 20:26:31 -0700 (PDT) Received: from nobody by chain.digitalkingdom.org with local (Exim 4.67) (envelope-from ) id 1IJL8w-0006h7-9B for lojban-beginners-real@lojban.org; Thu, 09 Aug 2007 20:26:30 -0700 Received: from eastrmmtao107.cox.net ([68.230.240.59]) by chain.digitalkingdom.org with esmtp (Exim 4.67) (envelope-from ) id 1IJL8s-0006gw-Kh for lojban-beginners@lojban.org; Thu, 09 Aug 2007 20:26:29 -0700 Received: from eastrmimpo01.cox.net ([68.1.16.119]) by eastrmmtao107.cox.net (InterMail vM.7.08.02.01 201-2186-121-102-20070209) with ESMTP id <20070810032620.BYKU1348.eastrmmtao107.cox.net@eastrmimpo01.cox.net> for ; Thu, 9 Aug 2007 23:26:20 -0400 Received: from [127.0.0.1] ([72.192.234.183]) by eastrmimpo01.cox.net with bizsmtp id a3SG1X00H3y5FKc0000000; Thu, 09 Aug 2007 23:26:19 -0400 Message-ID: <46BBDB4D.6020401@lojban.org> Date: Thu, 09 Aug 2007 23:28:13 -0400 From: Robert LeChevalier User-Agent: Mozilla Thunderbird 1.0.7 (Windows/20050923) X-Accept-Language: en-us, en MIME-Version: 1.0 To: lojban-beginners@lojban.org Subject: [lojban-beginners] Re: anti-Zipfian gismu rant References: <46C3210B@webmail.bcpl.net> <200708092146.51826.phma@phma.optus.nu> In-Reply-To: <200708092146.51826.phma@phma.optus.nu> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Spam-Score: 0.0 X-Spam-Score-Int: 0 X-Spam-Bar: / X-archive-position: 5326 X-ecartis-version: Ecartis v1.0.0 Sender: lojban-beginners-bounce@lojban.org Errors-to: lojban-beginners-bounce@lojban.org X-original-sender: lojbab@lojban.org Precedence: bulk Reply-to: lojban-beginners@lojban.org X-list: lojban-beginners Pierre Abbat wrote: > On Thursday 09 August 2007 14:09, turnip wrote: >> But you _do_ have a gismu for llama -- kumte.... see?? There's more >>than 500,000,000 raccoons in the world (and yes, mostly concentrated in >>North America, but ~1 million in Germany's forest, and also in Asia and >>South America), and about 25 million camels, alpacas, llamas, and vicunas >>combined. So again, who makes the decision on where to split the hairs >>(hares? ;-) ) ? (Personally, I don't think there should be a gismu for >>raccoon, but I do think there should be for rodent). > > Lojban has two gismu for kinds of rodents but none for rodent in general, two > for galliforms and two for anseriforms but none for any other order or more > specific taxon of bird, two for the genus Canis and one for foxes. This has > often made me hesitate when coining a word for some animal. Lojban animal and plant words were NOT necessarily designed to reflect the scientific taxonomy, but rather the linguistic taxonomy. Thus a Lojbanic raccoon could be a "pre-dog" (procyon, the genus name), or could mimic other languages and call it a "hand-mammal" or a "wash-bear". The fact that it is not Ursae does not mean that it cannot be a kind of cribe. This being the case, it is perfectly OK to make a lujvo for rodent as a lujvo from "ratcu-klesi", or to do a guinea pig as a "ketco-xarju-ratcu" > *African hunting dog (Lycaon pictus): gerku je'i labno? (gernlikaone) It doesn't have to be a gerku or a labno, to be expressible with a lujvo of either. What is wrong with "friko-kalte-gerku"? > *Peacock: jipci je'i xruki? (skaxruki I would choose whichever makes the better sounding lujvo between: "preja-rebna-jipci"? "preja-rebna-xruki"? > *Swan: datka je'i gunse? (nebdatka, but I think someone else used gunse) In size they are more like geese, and Wikipedia says that they are sometimes taxonomically grouped with geese in a "tribe". since-cnebo-gunse? > And for "blueberry" I say {blanu bakyjba} or {zirpu bakyjba}. Anyone who accepts bakyjba for a kind of cowberry should have no trouble with a peacock being a dembi-jipci %^) Or maybe for my earlier example, a "sralo-snanu-daplu palci-crida" %^) lojbab