From arj@nvg.org Wed Jan 12 11:36:05 2005 Received: with ECARTIS (v1.0.0; list lojban-list); Wed, 12 Jan 2005 11:36:05 -0800 (PST) Received: from sabre-wulf.nvg.ntnu.no ([129.241.210.67] ident=[P/nRqMsjY5KL5PMmv9s3Qkg+yvM11gR8]) by chain.digitalkingdom.org with esmtp (Exim 4.34) id 1CooHe-0007gJ-5m for lojban-list@lojban.org; Wed, 12 Jan 2005 11:35:58 -0800 Received: from sabre-wulf.nvg.ntnu.no ([129.241.210.67]:24297 "EHLO grey.nvg.ntnu.no" ident: "[pvVjcwm0u1yNf3mW8CkG7sGYHBEjrDgc]" whoson: "-unregistered-") by sabre-wulf.nvg.ntnu.no with ESMTP id convert rfc822-to-quoted-printable; Wed, 12 Jan 2005 20:35:44 +0100 Received: from hagbart.nvg.ntnu.no (hagbart.nvg.ntnu.no [129.241.210.68]) by grey.nvg.ntnu.no (Postfix) with ESMTP id DE136947BD for ; Wed, 12 Jan 2005 20:35:36 +0100 (CET) Date: Wed, 12 Jan 2005 20:35:36 +0100 (CET) From: Arnt Richard Johansen X-X-Sender: arj@hagbart.nvg.ntnu.no To: lojban-list@lojban.org Subject: [lojban] Re: Oldbie Question from private mail. In-Reply-To: <20050112171829.GV4261@chain.digitalkingdom.org> Message-ID: References: <20050112171829.GV4261@chain.digitalkingdom.org> X-No-Archive: yes MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=iso-8859-1; Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit X-MIME-Autoconverted: from quoted-printable to 8bit by Ecartis X-NVG-MailScanner-Information: Please contact the ISP for more information X-NVG-MailScanner: Found to be clean X-MailScanner-From: arj@nvg.org X-archive-position: 9245 X-ecartis-version: Ecartis v1.0.0 Sender: lojban-list-bounce@lojban.org Errors-to: lojban-list-bounce@lojban.org X-original-sender: arj@nvg.org Precedence: bulk Reply-to: lojban-list@lojban.org X-list: lojban-list On Wed, 12 Jan 2005, Robin Lee Powell wrote: > Someone sent me (as lojban@lojban.org) private mail to ask: > > 3) This url states that : http://arj.nvg.org/lojban/myths.html > > When the new vocabulary was made after the Loglan/Lojban split, > the semantics of the colour adjectives were changed. The word > "blanu" no longer meant "x1 is bluer than x2", but "x1 is blue". > The justification for this change was "we don't want a world > where everything strives to be bigger, better and taller than > everything else". This is clearly a strain of the Western ideal > of equality, which by no means can be called "culturally > neutral". > > Is this all true? It was I who wrote the above paragraph. The fact that the Loglan prim "blanu" had two places, can be seen from the Scientific American article, and from http://www.lojban.org/files/draft-dictionary/Working/OLDLOG.TXT , where Loglan "blanu" is translated as Lojban "blamau". As for the claim that the place structure change was motivated by some ideal of equality, all I can say is "I think someone wrote that on the mailing list somewhere". Unfortunately, when I wrote that web page, I didn't yet realize how important it is to include references. I think sure I could find the original passage somewhere with some web searching, but I'm not entirely sure. If that turns out not to be the case, I'll remove that claim. In any event, the remaining bullet points in that section are enough to underscore the main point: that it is not possible to achieve full cultural neutrality, because you cannot fully liberate yourself from the biases inherent in your thought. I now realize that that is not expressed as explicitly as it should be. -- Arnt Richard Johansen http://arj.nvg.org/ Jeg er nok verdens sydligste sengevæter. Forutsatt at ingen på basen på Sydpolen driver med slikt, da. --Erling Kagge: Alene til Sydpolen