From tpeterpark@erols.com Thu Aug 24 22:20:11 2000 Return-Path: Received: (qmail 10413 invoked from network); 25 Aug 2000 05:20:10 -0000 Received: from unknown (10.1.10.27) by m4.onelist.org with QMQP; 25 Aug 2000 05:20:10 -0000 Received: from unknown (HELO smtp01.mrf.mail.rcn.net) (207.172.4.60) by mta2 with SMTP; 25 Aug 2000 05:20:10 -0000 Received: from 209-122-228-105.s359.tnt2.nyw.ny.dialup.rcn.com ([209.122.228.105] helo=umktgghc) by smtp01.mrf.mail.rcn.net with smtp (Exim 3.15 #2) id 13SBuT-0001jD-00; Fri, 25 Aug 2000 01:20:09 -0400 Message-ID: <39A60190.40AD@erols.com> Date: Fri, 25 Aug 2000 01:18:08 -0400 Reply-To: tpeterpark@erols.com X-Mailer: Mozilla 3.01C-DH397 (Win95; I) MIME-Version: 1.0 To: lojban@egroups.com, IALlist@egroups.com Cc: cbrooks@pilot.infi.net, james.miranda@gte.net, RAllaire@aol.com, oldocjk_a@yahoo.com Subject: World-historical and religious figures in Lojban Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit From: "T. Peter Park" X-Yahoo-Message-Num: 4030 Dear Lobypli, One of the questions which I feel needs resolving (or else an agreement to leave unresolved) is that of standardized names for world-historical and religious figures in Lojban. When I was first active in Lojban, in 1989-1990, I became familiar with the normal lojbanization of well-known contemporary and recent proper names, e.g. la bab lycevalIE = Bob LeChevalier ("la lojbab.) la djeimz kuk braun. = James Cooke Brown la djordj buc. = George Bush la bil klintyn. = Bill Clinton la mixail gorbaTCOF. = Mikhail Gorbachev la maudzyDUN = Mao Zedong la carl deGOL. = Charles DeGaulle la adolf xitlyr = Adolf Hitler la karl marks. = Karl Marx la tcarlz daruin. = Charles Darwin la gandis. = Gandhi I also learned a few standardized Lojban divine or quasi-divine religious titles as gismu, e.g.: xriso xis Christ of Christian belief bujo buj bu'o Enlightened One of Buddhism jegvo jeg je'o Jehovah, Supreme Being of Judaism/Christianity However, there seems to be no clear Lojban rule or practice that I'm aware of for Lojbanizing the proper names of the great religious leaders--or of major secular world-hisdtorical figures, either. For instance, apart from his title "Christ" or "Messiah" which has the offcial Lojban gismu "xriso," Jesus Christ was Yehoshuah (the source of our Joshua) in Hebrew, Yeshua in the Aramaic that he spoke as his own native language, Iesous in theGreek in which the New Testament was written, and Jesus as the Latin rendition of Iesous--names which can be Lojbanized respectively as /la ieXOcu'ax./, /la iecu'ax./, /la ieSUS., and la iesus./ Plus, we have, for instance, the modern English, French, Spanish, and German pronunciations of Jesus, which we may transcribe Lojbanically as respectively /djizys/, /jezUS/, /xeSUS/, /iezus/. So, which one of these we select as the basis for the preferred Lojban cmene for the founder of Christianity? The most plausible major contenders, I think, might be /la iecu'ax./, /la ieSUS./, /la iesus./, and /la DJEsus./ The same problem comes up with Moses. His original Hebrew name was Mosheh, which would yield Lojban /la mocex./, but most Westerners know him as Moses, pronounced as some variant of /moses/ or /mozes/ or /mozys/--so, do we call the founder of Judaism "la mocex." or do we call him "la moses."? Confucius, likewise--his native Chinese name is Kong fuzi, which might Lojbanize as "la kunfudzys.", but he is usually known in the West by the Latin name Confucius, subject to any number of distinct national pronunciations--the usual English/American pronunciation of Confucius might be Lojanized as "la kynfiucys." or "la konfiuces.", but I believe the European scholars who first thought up the Latinized Confucius in the 17th and 18th centuries had in mind something like /konfutsius/, which of course would Lojbanize as "la konfutsius."--so, just how WOULD you Lojbanize the great Chinese sage? Same problem with purely secular huistorical figures--like for instance Julius Caesar, whom we might Lojbanize either as "la iulius kaisar." or as "la djuliys sizyr." depending on whether we pick the Classical Latin or Modern English pronunciation of his name, to say nothing of the German-based "la iulius tsezar."! So, what do you all think, lobypli? Regards, T. Peter "la tipitr."