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Date: Thu, 16 Oct 2014 00:36:50 -0400
From: "Bob LeChevalier, President and Founder - LLG" <lojbab@lojban.org>
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Subject: Re: [lojban] Gender vs. Sex. Culture vs. nature.
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On 10/14/2014 1:02 AM, Alexander Kozhevnikov wrote:
> On Tue, 7 Oct 2014, Gleki Arxokuna wrote:
>> fetsi = x1 is a female/doe of species x2 evidencing feminine trait(s) x3
>> (ka); x1 is feminine
> On Tue, 7 Oct 2014, Gleki Arxokuna wrote:
>> ninmu = x1 is a woman/women; x1 is a female humanoid person [not
>> necessarily adult].
>
> I find both of these to be rather unsatisfying, precisely because they
> seem to be based on a partially-scientifically-informed, common-human-
> experience-skewed notions of what sex (biological or otherwise) is.

That is precisely (or maybe "vaguely" %^) the intent.  The language of 
human beings is inherently that of a partially-scientifically-informed, 
common-human-experience kinda thing, and Lojban is likely so far as we 
know, the language solely of human beings, and perhaps their computers. 
  And those humans do not necessarily have a lot of scientific training, 
so the meanings of the words that they used cannot be constrained to 
some scientific ideal that the users of the language will not be aware of.

fetsi is defined by having specific traits that the speaker associates 
with being female.  ninmu is a categorical classification; traits are 
irrelevant - the speaker has made a categorical statement without 
specifying particular traits.  (As indeed, most of us would categorize a 
woman as "ninmu" without actually examining specific traits they might 
name as definitive.)

JCB argued that certain words/concepts were biologically primitive, 
fundamental to and found in all human languages, and without effort to 
qualify them as you would feel it necessary.  He may have been right or 
wrong in this argument, but we built the language in part based on JCB's 
assumptions, knowing that a fallback was built into the language.  If 
you want the traits place on ninmu that is found on fetsi, you can make 
a lujvo from fetsi-remna.  If you want the cinse place added, you can 
make a lujvo using cinse.  Or if that doesn't seem right, you can simply 
attach the place using a fi'o construct as a sumti tcita (if you simply 
want a "by standard" place, there already is a member of BAI that will 
do this).

> The only way I can rationalize the definition of {fetsi} being 'good' is
> if x3 is understood in context of x1.

x3 is inherently to be understood in context of BOTH x1 and x2.  That is 
the nature of a predicate language.

> To say that some x1 is {fetsi} of species of x2 because it exhibits
> trait x3 is for me going to boil down to implicitly saying it is so by
> {some arbitrary cultural standard/notion of what is meant by 'feminine'
> in this context which I have to guess or ask for clarification}

Yep, and that standard is whatever the speaker wishes it to be, assuming 
that the speaker has even thought about the question, which in the use 
of these words is generally not the case, hence we cannot arbitrarily 
require the speaker to specify it. (You can always ask a "by standard 
ma" question, but the speaker may not have an answer.)

> at
> which point I will personally reject the validity of any standard in
> that context besides one defined by that species itself.

IN all language use, the standard of meaning is determined by the 
speaker.  Only if the speaker is likely to recognize that multiple 
possible standards are implicit is s/he likely to need a place, and in 
general those are the situations where we included such a place.

> And then {ninmu} is even more fuzzy/blurred.

By intent, per above.

> As brought up, what about
> XXY humans? What about intersex people who are XY or XX but still come
> out with ambiguous or dual genitalia? Is an XYY or XYYY male more 'male'
> than an XY male (evidence that I know of suggests that they are only
> slightly so in some biological aspects, but mostly not really notably
> so)? I suspect transgendered people will find words like 'ninmu'
> unhelpful and problematic.

Then they can and should use a different word.  It will probably be a 
longer word, since it is likely to be a lujvo compound, but since it 
will be less frequently used than the normative category word, that is 
to be expected under Zipf's Law (less frequently used words tend to be 
longer).

> It seems to me that the notion of woman/female and man/male is something
> that for most humans consists of almost entirely cultural baggage.

Possibly, or perhaps it is biological baggage as JCB believed.  Either 
way, Lojban is not designed to eliminate baggage, though it has the 
inherent ability to recognize such baggage by making a lujvo with a 
derived definition.

  On the other hand, I claim ninmu is flawed not in its
> meaning itself, but in the fact that the meaning will map so closely to
> typical man/woman words for most people that use of the word will always
> be muddled with deeply embedded baggage (and incidentally, an x2 like
> the x4 of cinse would also help remedy this, in my opinion).

Which is what it was designed to be, because the baggage in this case is 
indeed presumed to be *deeply* embedded, and not often thought about by 
most people.  You perhaps are unlike most people, and thus would choose 
a word with extra places, and that is fine as well.

> On Tue, 7 Oct 2014, Gleki Arxokuna wrote:
>> Who are Annelida? Are they nakni or fetsi? They are hermaphrodites.
>> Some male mammals breastfeed their babies. Do they evidence fetsi3 this
>> way?
>
> I would argue it ought not be so if it had to boil down to a yes/no,
> because this fact inherently proves that breastfeeding is not an inately
> feminine trait. I think this also perfectly demonstrates my argument
> that fetsi should have a fetsi4 which would specify by what standard
> that trait is feminine (then I imagine it would be trivial to say that
> they exhibit fetsi3 by the standard of
> things-which-are-feminine-in-humans, but that they don't exhibit fetsi3
> by the standard of their-species).

The standard is whatever the speaker has assumed, possibly or even 
probably without thought.

> Any hardcoded meaning on that front does a disservice to the language
> and its ability to aid communication, I think.

Only if the language was limited to only the gismu would that be a valid 
argument.  Lojban's lexicon is open-ended and indeed potentially infinite.

> Anyway I think this is just more of the same: humanity has no conclusive
> answer currently. Either way I think the language ought to just let the
> seemingly existing mechanism of specifying by what standard one means
> something apply here,

That argument would more or less apply to every single brivla of the 
language, and for a very short time I started adding standards places to 
all the gismu, but it quickly became obvious that this was not the right 
solution when there are other ways to specify a standard when it is 
important.  So I removed most of the standards places (and some think I 
should have removed all of them, but there are historical and other 
reasons that countered that extreme).

lojbab

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