Date: Wed, 18 Feb 1998 10:24:50 -0500 (EST) Message-Id: <199802181524.KAA02371@locke.ccil.org> Reply-To: Rob Zook Sender: Lojban list From: Rob Zook Subject: Re: Summary so far on DJUNO X-To: LOJBAN@cuvmb.cc.columbia.edu To: John Cowan In-Reply-To: <199802180046.QAA09704@gateway.informix.com> X-UIDL: 1297c96737fba27393c831a00cbb8315 X-Mozilla-Status: 8011 X-From-Space-Date: Wed Feb 18 16:06:30 1998 X-From-Space-Address: - At 08:43 PM 2/17/98 -0300, Jorge J. Llamb=EDas wrote: >Rob: >>One can most definitely apply subjectivity to language. Every single >>language on this planet has it's own cultural relativisms imbedded in it. >>For example, words like "gestault" have no English translation, one can >>come close to gestault by translating it as "wholeness" but >>"wholeness" !=3D3D "gestault". > >"Gestalt" is an English word, according to my dictionary: a structure, >configuration, or pattern of physical, biological, or psychological >phenomena so integrated as to constitute a functional unit with >properties not derivable by summation of its parts. > >Even if there were no such word in English, we can still explain its >meaning, can't we? Gestalt occurs in your dictionary precisely because no "English" word could take it's place. It's actually a German word we adopted into common usage not too long ago (last 50-70 years, I forget exactly when). All cultures have some eclectic words like that when their language cannot express a particular idea. Rob Z. -------------------------------------------------------- "...That no government, so called, can reasonably be trusted for a moment, or reasonably be supposed to have=20 honest purposes in view, any longer than it depends wholly=20 upon voluntary support." --- Lysander Spooner,=20 No Treason: the Constitution of No Authority