Return-Path: <@SEGATE.SUNET.SE:LOJBAN@CUVMB.BITNET> Received: from SEGATE.SUNET.SE by xiron.pc.helsinki.fi with smtp (Linux Smail3.1.28.1 #1) id m0sAIiO-0009acC; Sat, 13 May 95 18:02 EET DST Message-Id: Received: from segate.sunet.se by SEGATE.SUNET.SE (LSMTP for OpenVMS v0.1a) with SMTP id D59EF328 ; Sat, 13 May 1995 17:02:46 +0100 Date: Sat, 13 May 1995 11:02:23 -0400 Reply-To: Dylan Thurston Sender: Lojban list From: Dylan Thurston Subject: {prenu} vs. {remna} X-To: Lojban List To: Veijo Vilva Content-Length: 1876 Lines: 36 Reading further in the Martin Luther King speech (which is going much more easily now), I came across ro remna cu jikydunli co'a lenu ri se zbasu (as a translation of part of the U.S. Declaration of independence: "All men are created equal".) Now, from the gismu list, it seems to me that the distinction between {prenu} and {remna} is like the English distinction between person and human animal. Since the above bridi is specifically about the social aspects of humans rather than the physical, it seems to me that {prenu} would be more appropriate. Indeed, there are certain {lo remna} that don't qualify as {lo prenu} in this sense; for a less explosive example than the slaves the framers probably intended, consider young children, the psychotically insane, or the severely retarded. I'm not sure if this analysis of the difference between {prenu} and {remna} really holds up, though. Anyone who has a pet will tell you that animals can have personalities and thus might qualify as {lo prenu}. And if {remna} is meant to be the human animal, why doesn't it have a place for "species/breed" (i.e., genetic background, one of the senses of English "race") like all other animals? Other opinions? (Indeed, why doesn't {remna} have a place for "species/breed"? Perhaps {prenu} should have a place for cultural background, just to make the difference perfectly clear.) co'o mi'e. dilyn. ZRstan. (I'm not sure how best to transliterate my last name. The second vowel, which is close to the vowel in "John", seems to normally be transliterated {a} rather than {o}, though it's not really either. And Lojban doesn't have a (unvoiced) dental affricate, English "th" (sometimes); earlier, I used {t} to preserve the dental quality, but perhaps it's better to keep it an affricate with {z}, as in the stereotypical French pronunciation of "the". Opinions?)