From @YaleVM.YCC.YALE.EDU:LOJBAN@CUVMB.BITNET Fri Jan 22 19:39:10 1993 Received: from YALEVM.YCC.YALE.EDU by MINERVA.CIS.YALE.EDU via SMTP; Sat, 23 Jan 1993 00:40:31 -0500 Received: from CUVMB.CC.COLUMBIA.EDU by YaleVM.YCC.Yale.Edu (IBM VM SMTP V2R2) with BSMTP id 4689; Sat, 23 Jan 93 00:39:13 EST Received: from CUVMB.BITNET by CUVMB.CC.COLUMBIA.EDU (Mailer R2.07) with BSMTP id 6028; Sat, 23 Jan 93 00:39:16 EST Date: Sat, 23 Jan 1993 00:39:10 -0500 Reply-To: Logical Language Group Sender: Lojban list From: Logical Language Group Subject: TEXT:COMMENTS dragons X-To: lojban@cuvmb.cc.columbia.edu To: Erik Rauch Status: RO X-Status: Message-ID: Nick on John Cowan: >>la pyf. poi makfa cu'urcrida > >I've always used {cridrdrakone}, in any case, wouldn't {respycrida} be more >appropriate? I will vote for "respycrida", agreeing with Nick. I did a little dictionary lookup tonight - "wyrm", the Old English from which John obviously got his metaphor, was defined etymologically to mean "serpent/dragon", and not "worm". There is no indication that the word ever included "worms", though obviously etymology led eventually to do so. John's underlying tanru is thus mabla cliryglico, probably the first such %^) Nora pointed out that most dragons of mythology have legs, so "snake" is no better than "worm", and indeed the family of reptiles labelled "Draco" are lizards, as is the "komodo dragon" which is a kind of monitor lizard. I have always used the same borrowing as Nick, but the etymology seems to suggest that the "ne" on the end doesn't belong - the word "dragon" is listed as being of Greco-Latin origin without the 'n'. But on consideration, this borrowing would suggest that the dragon is one of the Western mythologies, rather than an oriental dragon, and I don't think there is anything in the song that suggests what kind of dragon we are dealing with. (I believe that oriental dragons do not have wings and not all of them fly, hence introducing "wing" into a tanru for dragon would also be culturally limiting.) Because of the broad cultural occurance of "dragon", I'd like to avoid culturally limiting Lojban words for it, which a borrowing would be. Besides, I firmly come down on the side of tanru when you can come up with one theat works and is short enough. On the other hand, "respycrida" may be too broad, including the Central American "couatl", a winged snake, that at least in Dungeons and Dragons is not considered a dragon. It would also include the smaller dragon relatives found in McCaffrey's stories about dragons, which other specific metaphors that come to mind might not fit as well. So I guess its best that in Lojban, a couatl is a kind of dragon, in spite of D&D. lojbab PS: Reading John's reply, I guess my obvious question is what "ka curnu" atributes do you attribute to dragons. Worms have no legs, wings, teeth, respiratory weapon, or skeleton (do dragons have skeletons? not sure, but they always have seemed to me to be reptilian rather than invertabrate) lojbab