On Wed, Apr 25, 2012 = at 12:56 PM, Craig Daniel <craigbdaniel@gmail.com> wrot= e:

On Wed, Apr 25, 2012 at 2:53 PM, Jo= nathan Jones <eyeonus@gmail.com= > wrote:
> On Wed, Apr 25, 2012 at 7:00 AM, Pierre Abbat <phma@phma.optus.nu> wrote:
>>
>> On Wednesday, April 25, 2012 05:15:25 Jonathan Jones wrote:
>> > The only time I have trouble with a Lojban word, however, is = when the
>> > meaning is counter-intuitive, that is, when what it means doe= s not seem
>> > to
>> > fit in with what is used to make it, such as me'ispe. Loo= king at the
>> > word,
>> > without knowing the definition, you would think it has someth= ing to do
>> > with
>> > the concepts of "marriage" and "sister", = and you may even reach the
>> > conclusion that it's talking about someone who is a siste= r because of a
>> > marriage. This makes sense.
>> >
>> > me'ispe currently means "Brother-in-Law".
>> >
>> > My line of attack for lujvo like the above isn't to try t= o memorize the
>> > meaning, or to come with some addition to the language that w= ill make it
>> > more complicated while seeming to make it more simple (any ad= dition is
>> > automatically an increase in complexity), but to /fix/ the /b= roken/
>> > word.
>>
>> "me'ispe" isn't broken. It means "x1 is mar= ried to the sister of x2 by
>> custom/bond x3". This is not the same as brother-in-law, whic= h also
>> includes
>> spebu'a. i la stiv. me'ispe mi .ije mi spebu'a la stiv= . i mi me'ispe noda
>> .ini'ibo mi na speni
>
>
> me'ispe: s1 is a brother-in-law (sister's spouse) of m2 under<= br> > law/custom/tradition/system/convention sp3.
>
> If you look up "brother-in-law", that ^ is what you find. So= either the
> definition of me'ispe is "brother-in-law" and is broken = for reasons stated
> previously, or it isn't and is broken because the definition is wr= ong.
>

In English, a brother-in-law can be two types of relatives - a = husband
of a sibling (that is, most me'ispe and a few bu'aspe), or a brothe= r
of a spouse (a spebu'a). The lujvo definition clarifies which kind it means with that parenthetical (sister's spouse), but the gloss
"brother-in-law" was very probably written at a time when under a= ll
western-world laws that relationship necessarily indicated a man.

That doesn't make it any less broken.

--
mu'o mi'e .aionys.

.i.e'ucai ko c= mima lo pilno be denpa bu .i doi.luk. mi patfu do zo'o
(Come to the Dot Side! Luke, I am your father. :D )