From sentto-44114-1902-mark=kli.org@returns.onelist.com Thu Feb 03 13:20:29 2000 Return-Path: Delivered-To: shoulson-kli@meson.org Received: (qmail 12351 invoked from network); 3 Feb 2000 13:20:28 -0000 Received: from zash.lupine.org (205.186.156.18) by pi.meson.org with SMTP; 3 Feb 2000 13:20:28 -0000 Received: (qmail 20971 invoked by uid 40001); 3 Feb 2000 13:22:19 -0000 Delivered-To: kli-mark@kli.org Received: (qmail 20961 invoked from network); 3 Feb 2000 13:22:18 -0000 Received: from hh.egroups.com (208.48.218.10) by zash.lupine.org with SMTP; 3 Feb 2000 13:22:18 -0000 X-eGroups-Return: sentto-44114-1902-mark=kli.org@returns.onelist.com Received: from [10.1.10.39] by hh.egroups.com with NNFMP; 03 Feb 2000 13:22:13 -0000 Received: (qmail 32399 invoked from network); 3 Feb 2000 13:22:10 -0000 Received: from unknown (10.1.10.26) by 10.1.10.39 with QMQP; 3 Feb 2000 13:22:10 -0000 Received: from unknown (HELO argo.bas.bg) (195.96.224.7) by mta1.onelist.com with SMTP; 3 Feb 2000 13:21:51 -0000 Received: from banmatpc.math.bas.bg (root@banmatpc.math.bas.bg [195.96.243.2]) by argo.bas.bg (8.9.3/8.9.3/Debian 8.9.3-6) with ESMTP id PAA18293 for ; Thu, 3 Feb 2000 15:21:27 +0200 Received: from iad.math.bas.bg (iad.math.bas.bg [195.96.243.88]) by banmatpc.math.bas.bg (8.9.3/8.9.3) with SMTP id PAA01477 for ; Thu, 3 Feb 2000 15:21:25 +0200 Message-ID: <389980E7.11E1@math.bas.bg> Organization: Institute for Mathematics and Computer Science X-Mailer: Mozilla 3.01Gold (Win95; I; 16bit) To: The Lojban List References: MIME-Version: 1.0 Mailing-List: list lojban@onelist.com; contact lojban-owner@onelist.com Delivered-To: mailing list lojban@onelist.com Precedence: bulk List-Unsubscribe: Date: Thu, 03 Feb 2000 15:21:43 +0200 From: Ivan A Derzhanski Reply-to: iad@math.bas.bg Subject: Re: [lojban] And the Eskimos have 100 words for 'Snow Cone' Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit From: Ivan A Derzhanski Cyril Slobin wrote: > la xod. cusku di'e: > > "What is the Russian word for 'fun'?"--to which a Soviet responds, > > "There is no such word. Fun is not a Russian concept." [...] > Also there is no word for "pet" in Russian, > but my cat doesn't care about this. Indeed. Goes to show how fallacious the transition from `There is no word for #1 in language #2' to `#1 is not a #2 concept' is. Never mind `fun'; why is there no word for `meal' in Russian (or Bulgarian, or many other languages for that matter)? Is that a specifically English concept? I can't think of any difference between anglophone and non-anglophone dining that might justify such a notion. It's an unmotivated lexical gap, and that's that. (It's an annoying one, too -- my father and I sometimes use the English word in Bulgarian, but I know of no one else that does so.) I agree that some gaps do have cultural (or other) motivations, but generalisations are dangerous. -- <'al-_haylu wa-al-laylu wa-al-baydA'u ta`rifunI wa-as-sayfu wa-ar-rum.hu wa-al-qir.tAsu wa-al-qalamu> (Abu t-Tayyib Ahmad Ibn Hussayn al-Mutanabbi) Ivan A Derzhanski H: cplx Iztok bl 91, 1113 Sofia, Bulgaria W: Dept for Math Lx, Inst for Maths & CompSci, Bulg Acad of Sciences --------------------------- ONElist Sponsor ---------------------------- To unsubscribe from this mailing list, or to change your subscription to digest, go to the ONElist web site, at http://www.onelist.com and select the Member Center link from the menu bar on the left. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ To unsubscribe, send mail to lojban-unsubscribe@onelist.com