From lojban@cuvmb.bitnet Wed Aug 07 21:57:31 1996
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Date:         Tue, 6 Aug 1996 23:28:37 -0400
Reply-To:     Logical Language Group <lojbab@ACCESS.DIGEX.NET>
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From:         Logical Language Group <lojbab@ACCESS.DIGEX.NET>
Subject:      Re: male/female, man/woman, human/person
X-To:         davejohn@POGO.WV.TEK.COM
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To:           Multiple recipients of list LOJBAN <LOJBAN%CUVMB.bitnet@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU>
Message-ID: <839388629.1475.0@cunyvm.cuny.edu>
Status: R


>  Okay, the powers that be in the lojban community  discourage the use of
>nanmu (man) and ninmu (woman), saying that they're sexist.  Okay, I
>totally understand and support that guideline.  The thing is, I wonder why
>they even exist as gismu.  Why not just combine fetsi (female) with prenu
>(person) to form fetpre (female person)?  (Or would it be fetypre?)  It
>seems that fetpre and ninmu mean the same thing.  They both have the same
>place structure, and are non-age and -species specific.

fetpre to answer questions out of order, though fetremna would be more true
to the meaning - a fetpre need not be "human" if she has the essntial
property of a person, which is one sense of "personality".

AS to why make them gismu when they are sexist - well, there exist sexist
cultures in the world.  fetpre though would be just as sexist; the point of
such comments is that one should use prenu/remna rather than a gendered
indicator unless there is reason for making note of the gender (after all,
there are some things that are specific to women).

JCB, as language inventor believed that identification of gender was a
biological primitive in the human psyche, and that no matter how politically
correct it might be to try to eliminate gender as a basic consideration,
that it was indeed still basic.  In making the Lojban gismu list we paid
some respect to JCB's opinions, eliminating gismu only if we had a good
reason - make that an OUTSTANDING reason - we were trying to be conservative.
We also early on rejected the idea that the gismu list had to be optimal,
and could not have redundancies, especially when there was some likelihood of
culturally based sensitivity.  The idea was to make the list inclusive of
ideas and not exclusive.

We do have the non gendered and sprecies words present in the language, and
do not have gendered pronouns designed into the language (though one can
simulate them if desired by reserving ko'V for males and fo'V for females
for example).  This was satisfactory.

lojbab