X-Digest-Num: 251 Message-ID: <44114.251.1379.959273825@eGroups.com> Date: Sat, 2 Oct 1999 21:06:22 -0400 (EDT) From: David Brookshire Conner Subject: Gender and relationship words X-Yahoo-Message-Num: 1379 Content-Length: 1996 Lines: 51 So, spurred on by one of John's postings in conlang, I'm starting to think about about words for relationships in lojban. There's words to describe some orientations, rather logically laid out (no surprise), such as pavycinglepre (monosexual) and relcinglepre (bisexual). There's various chains for maternal grandfather and whatnot. What I've noticed recently (in English, talking with friends), is that there's a whole lot of relationships (at least, for me) that I have or friends of mine have that just don't have a good word in English. Maybe it's my relative tyro status, but I'm having some difficulty coming up with the lojban names for these relationships (clearly, I'm not thinking in lojban yet). Yet I have this gut feeling that lojban can state these things, very precisely. For example, "transsexual". Female to male? Male to female? Pre or post-op? If pre, by choice or by situation? In English, some of these get jargon terms in queer communities (e.g., transman, transwoman). Another example, in English, the phrase "my wife's girlfriend" is perhaps startling, but also unclear in meaning - is this just a friend who is female? Or does my wife sleep with this friend? Is this something that is part of our family structure? Or is it something clandestine? Another example: my friend's child. There's no real way to express (that I can think of) in English what your relationship is with this child without a) sounding like a child molester or b) spending a paragraph or two explaining what is intended. Is this someone I know, but have no interaction with? Or someone who is a friend of mine as well? Or someone I think of as a child of my own? Thoughts? Comments? It seems lojban should be able to do better than jargon, or lengthy explanations - it's cultural neutrality should serve it well...... Brook --------- The Definition of an Upgrade: Take old bugs out, put new ones in. --------- Fancy. Myth. Magic. http://www.concentric.net/~nellardo/