From Ti@fa-kuan.muc.de Thu Jun 15 05:53:29 2000 Return-Path: Received: (qmail 22322 invoked from network); 15 Jun 2000 12:53:28 -0000 Received: from unknown (10.1.10.27) by m1.onelist.org with QMQP; 15 Jun 2000 12:53:28 -0000 Received: from unknown (HELO hl.egroups.com) (10.1.10.44) by mta2 with SMTP; 15 Jun 2000 12:53:28 -0000 X-eGroups-Return: Ti@fa-kuan.muc.de Received: from [10.1.10.97] by hl.egroups.com with NNFMP; 15 Jun 2000 12:53:28 -0000 Date: Thu, 15 Jun 2000 12:53:22 -0000 To: lojban@egroups.com Subject: Lojban's linguistical potentials & perspectives Message-ID: <8iajk2+qu1f@eGroups.com> User-Agent: eGroups-EW/0.82 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Length: 2336 X-Mailer: eGroups Message Poster From: "=?iso-8859-1?q?Alfred_W._Tueting_(T=FCting)?=" X-Yahoo-Message-Num: 3081 Being a scratch-new language and virtually based on world's "biggest" languages, Lojban for sure can be a promise to mankind to equally being *neutral*, sensitive-precise/sensitive-fuzzy and - hopefully first of all - *open* to the wide range and scale of conveying the contents of all the languages used to express/form human thoughts/feelings etc.. Limited in its outer 'shape' though (and 'restricted' to its very independency by logic), Lojban could have a unique chance to 'drink from all the different manifold sources of human spirit and soul', to open and widen itself, and thus being/becoming a means for the world able to comprise everything ever thought and expressed by mankind ... :) Just wishful thinking?? IMHO, Lojban then could have much more of than just being a so-called meta-language - because, if the tool is going to have more fine and distinctive features than the stuff it's used to be worked on, it'll be better sticking to the tool itself. Just one simple example: When trying to translate Gottfried Benn's expressionistic little poem 'Kleine Aster' (http://www.fa- kuan.muc.de/BENN.RXML) into English, there was no means to express the German word 'ersoffen' other than by English 'drowned'. To me it was a real 'breath-taking' and frustrating experience discovering the limits of a that huge language like English - but invain I ran my head against these - infact unexpected - fences: there is no means expressing the different ways people and animals are 'drinking' like in German: trinken/saufen*, hence 'drown/drowned' cannot be given like in German 'ertrinken/ersaufen' or 'ertrunken/ersoffen' with the 'picture' of 'drinki ng-to-death-in-water etc.'. So, it is impossible in English to give the 'picture' of a 'beertruck driver' drowned *like a dog/cat/rat* or whatsoever! And it's like this in many ways - think of the scarcity of diminutives in English. (In Svabian-German dialect they even have a diminutive form for saying 'now' - jetzadle!). Many an English-speaker might shrug his shoulders and say "what does this matter!". So, of what use would be a capable and mighty meta- language still unable to convey the "ersoffener Bierfahrer" into English? * (I do not use 'saufen' with regard to animals, but to people excessively drinking alcoholics) co'o mi'e .aulun.