From nobody@digitalkingdom.org Thu Dec 27 22:29:39 2007 Received: with ECARTIS (v1.0.0; list lojban-beginners); Thu, 27 Dec 2007 22:29:39 -0800 (PST) Received: from nobody by chain.digitalkingdom.org with local (Exim 4.68) (envelope-from ) id 1J88ih-0006iw-Ja for lojban-beginners-real@lojban.org; Thu, 27 Dec 2007 22:29:30 -0800 Received: from squid17.laughingsquid.net ([72.32.93.144]) by chain.digitalkingdom.org with esmtp (Exim 4.68) (envelope-from ) id 1J88iK-0006iK-QA for lojban-beginners@lojban.org; Thu, 27 Dec 2007 22:29:17 -0800 Received: (qmail 29064 invoked by uid 48); 27 Dec 2007 22:28:28 -0800 Received: from c-24-63-92-33.hsd1.ma.comcast.net (c-24-63-92-33.hsd1.ma.comcast.net [24.63.92.33]) by webmail.ixkey.info (Horde MIME library) with HTTP; Thu, 27 Dec 2007 22:28:28 -0800 Message-ID: <20071227222828.bzzq43xksgsk0sk4@webmail.ixkey.info> Date: Thu, 27 Dec 2007 22:28:28 -0800 From: mungojelly@ixkey.info To: lojban-beginners@lojban.org Subject: [lojban-beginners] Re: Politics References: <391301.47766.qm@web88011.mail.re2.yahoo.com> In-Reply-To: <391301.47766.qm@web88011.mail.re2.yahoo.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; DelSp="Yes"; format="flowed" Content-Disposition: inline Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit X-MIME-Autoconverted: from quoted-printable to 8bit by Ecartis User-Agent: Internet Messaging Program (IMP) H3 (4.1.4) X-Spam-Score: 0.0 X-Spam-Score-Int: 0 X-Spam-Bar: / X-archive-position: 71 X-ecartis-version: Ecartis v1.0.0 Sender: lojban-beginners-bounce@lojban.org Errors-to: lojban-beginners-bounce@lojban.org X-original-sender: mungojelly@ixkey.info Precedence: bulk Reply-to: lojban-beginners@lojban.org X-list: lojban-beginners Quoting "A. PIEKARSKI" : > Is anyone prepared to offer a new word for 'politics'? The only > words I've encountered so far are {lo jecta srana} and {lo > girvlici'e}. Neither seem to be quite right. Obviously, there are > two kinds of politics. The narrow definition refers to the state, > the broader to groups (e.g. the office} in general. In both cases, > we seem to be talking about activity-to-increase-power. Parson me! I am anarchist! My politics is mostly about decreasing, distributing, & decentralizing power. :) I don't think that Lojban should or can have a "word for 'politics'", except of course "la'e zoi zoi. politics .zoi". In general if we just go around making Lojban words for English concepts, we'll make a Lojban which is a clone of English, & miss most of the potential whorfian fun to which Lojban is supposed to entitle us! We're talking about power, so instead of looking at it from an English perspective, let's try a Lojbanic perspective. There's a useful word available right there in the gismu "vlipa": a tervlipa is a condition under which lo vlipa has power. So zo tervlipa is already a useful word for discussing politics. I think it does us good to use words that start with "ter" and "vel" and get our places down. :) Some other related gismu are catni (authority), cecmu (community), damba (fight) especially terdamba (a contentious issue), fuzme (responsible) especially terfuzme (someone to whom someone is responsible), ganzu (organize), gubni (public), gugde (country), jdice (decide), jikca (social), jitro (control), jecta (polity), jivna (compete), kamni (committee), krati (represent), minde (command), natmi (nation), nobli (noble), tcadu (city) especially tertcadu (the political division a city belongs to), tinbe (obey) especially tertinbe (someone who commands obedience), turni (govern), tutra (territory), xlura (influence). Phew! I didn't really expect to list so many. But I think it makes my point, which is that there are a LOT of ways to talk about politics in Lojban. You can make a fantastic number of words for different aspects of human political relationships just by combining those gismu, & even more by adding other gismu to describe particular characters & shapes & systems. For instance: selgubnyvelganzu: a public's system of organization. kratyterjivna: a representation competition, an election. jikcytertinbe: social control. turnyterjdice: the matter of deciding who governs. cecmytercatni: the basis by which a community derives authority. jitryxlura: to influence those with control. jikcyjdicyvlipa: powerful by social decision. Or you could apply many of them to various roots, say "ciste" (system): vlipyciste: a system of power. tercatnyciste: a system of how authority is derived. turnyciste: a system of governance. jdicyciste: a system of making decisions. jectyciste: a political system. Or perhaps "cuxna" (choose): kratycuxna: choose representatives. jikcycuxna: decide socially. cecmycuxna: decide as a community. mindycuxna: choose who's in charge. turnycuxna: choose a government. Here's one I like: "vlipyterlanxe", the various forces which together form the balance of power. So yes! A better question is, what's the English word for vlipyterlanxe? The answer: There isn't one! Lojban is a fun *new* language. :) mu'o mi'e. bret.