From @YaleVM.YCC.YALE.EDU:LOJBAN@CUVMB.BITNET Tue Jun 22 05:55:31 1993 Received: from YALEVM.YCC.YALE.EDU by MINERVA.CIS.YALE.EDU via SMTP; Tue, 22 Jun 1993 16:26:27 -0400 Received: from CUVMB.CC.COLUMBIA.EDU by YaleVM.YCC.Yale.Edu (IBM VM SMTP V2R2) with BSMTP id 6751; Tue, 22 Jun 93 16:25:10 EDT Received: from CUVMB.COLUMBIA.EDU by CUVMB.CC.COLUMBIA.EDU (Mailer R2.07) with BSMTP id 5673; Tue, 22 Jun 93 16:19:21 EST Date: Tue, 22 Jun 1993 09:55:31 -0400 Reply-To: John Cowan Sender: Lojban list From: John Cowan Subject: Re: Animal {gismu} X-To: Lojban List To: Erik Rauch In-Reply-To: <9306220011.AA23085@relay1.UU.NET> from "Chris Handley" at Jun 22, 93 12:13:15 pm X-Status: Status: OR Message-ID: la kris. cusku di'e > Very definitely, the creatures identified are all important in one way or > another. We could also have a 'catch-all' for the local worrisome insect -- > in South Africa it was mosquitoes, here it is sandflies. "civla", meaning louse/flea, can be very well extended to any parasitic insect, or even to scorpions. > Just to mess things up because animals do not split neatly into species. The > latest evidence claims that the DNA distance between chimps and us is less > than half the distance between either and gorillas and hence any reasonable > classification should at least acknowledge this (%-}. I realise that the > human - non-human split is probably too firmly entrenched to expunge, but it > woule be nice to at least think about it. Alternatively lump us all together > with some prefix to distinguish between the various species (the > Pongid/Hominid split is totally artificial). Yes, I know about that. I probably should have given "remna" a pathname of "Vertebrata:Mammalia:Primates:Hominidae" (not ":Homo", because that would exclude Australopithecus and the like). But I have no trouble with saying mi smani I am a primate. because any primate is a {smani}. Sidenote: My very favorite Linnean binomial, which describes the boa constrictor: >Boa constrictor<. -- John Cowan cowan@snark.thyrsus.com ...!uunet!lock60!snark!cowan e'osai ko sarji la lojban.