From 3eCyySwoJBqIUWQOKEJTKUIOCKN.EQONQLDCPIQQINGITQWRU.EQO@groups.bounces.google.com Tue Mar 30 09:53:40 2010 Received: from mail-yx0-f141.google.com ([209.85.210.141]) by chain.digitalkingdom.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from <3eCyySwoJBqIUWQOKEJTKUIOCKN.EQONQLDCPIQQINGITQWRU.EQO@groups.bounces.google.com>) id 1Nweh3-0006SC-Oa for lojban-list-archive@lojban.org; Tue, 30 Mar 2010 09:53:39 -0700 Received: by yxe5 with SMTP id 5sf1822830yxe.2 for ; Tue, 30 Mar 2010 09:53:27 -0700 (PDT) DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha256; c=relaxed/relaxed; d=googlegroups.com; s=beta; h=domainkey-signature:received:x-beenthere:received:received:received :received:received-spf:received:mime-version:received:in-reply-to :references:from:date:received:message-id:subject:to :x-original-authentication-results:x-original-sender:reply-to :precedence:mailing-list:list-id:list-post:list-help:list-archive :x-thread-url:x-message-url:sender:list-subscribe:list-unsubscribe :content-type; bh=UlNyzCDAVEHiGbTDIARHR7hRHHiLL5pyb/AZQCcJBVw=; b=Ue9TEnH25ee9PLg5AX+8n0ZUZBPYoWaqyJpkpp7KcwrMr1PtBPZDPyTwRa+fS86yP+ hi7VlSGEZbddQ+xbMtep4czz5YA80t2ZiMMOZL1l9MHuHHRoMnavDEbuFBqHmOjbgcID M50zVonSGQzXl5uk96V5erxProu7HydQkr95E= DomainKey-Signature: a=rsa-sha1; c=nofws; d=googlegroups.com; s=beta; h=x-beenthere:received-spf:mime-version:in-reply-to:references:from :date:message-id:subject:to:x-original-authentication-results :x-original-sender:reply-to:precedence:mailing-list:list-id :list-post:list-help:list-archive:x-thread-url:x-message-url:sender :list-subscribe:list-unsubscribe:content-type; b=XLQzBE1LXsrEWSirCKyeWSy7lS/+rjpuUEzGu3gqDSaWv+C29RI07ybwPyRA7F2ogV DLokNnsmcedp9hBcKPbsuljBz+dIU9DprFzPIIbHzQvkziXAuUkefuYt1Jc3eUxyLg/J 2MHMEI+rzJJHiSgCNxaej48njZ0P3oxloYwjw= Received: by 10.91.90.9 with SMTP id s9mr20750agl.13.1269967992248; Tue, 30 Mar 2010 09:53:12 -0700 (PDT) X-BeenThere: lojban@googlegroups.com Received: by 10.91.91.6 with SMTP id t6ls761469agl.0.p; Tue, 30 Mar 2010 09:53:11 -0700 (PDT) Received: by 10.90.20.28 with SMTP id 28mr4902159agt.7.1269967991133; Tue, 30 Mar 2010 09:53:11 -0700 (PDT) Received: by 10.90.20.28 with SMTP id 28mr4902152agt.7.1269967990644; Tue, 30 Mar 2010 09:53:10 -0700 (PDT) Received: from mail-yw0-f180.google.com (mail-yw0-f180.google.com [209.85.211.180]) by gmr-mx.google.com with ESMTP id 12si414547gxk.10.2010.03.30.09.53.09; Tue, 30 Mar 2010 09:53:09 -0700 (PDT) Received-SPF: pass (google.com: domain of suomichris@gmail.com designates 209.85.211.180 as permitted sender) client-ip=209.85.211.180; Received: by ywh10 with SMTP id 10so6491480ywh.10 for ; Tue, 30 Mar 2010 09:53:09 -0700 (PDT) MIME-Version: 1.0 Received: by 10.100.133.20 with HTTP; Tue, 30 Mar 2010 09:52:42 -0700 (PDT) In-Reply-To: <27513e551003300148q3e78ef25lb01b2032f5b3b98d@mail.gmail.com> References: <27513e551003300148q3e78ef25lb01b2032f5b3b98d@mail.gmail.com> From: Christopher Doty Date: Tue, 30 Mar 2010 09:52:42 -0700 Received: by 10.101.131.34 with SMTP id i34mr3801655ann.94.1269967988232; Tue, 30 Mar 2010 09:53:08 -0700 (PDT) Message-ID: Subject: Re: [lojban] Getting serious about "Cultural" fi'uvla (was: You're doing it wrong) To: lojban@googlegroups.com X-Original-Authentication-Results: gmr-mx.google.com; spf=pass (google.com: domain of suomichris@gmail.com designates 209.85.211.180 as permitted sender) smtp.mail=suomichris@gmail.com; dkim=pass (test mode) header.i=@gmail.com X-Original-Sender: suomichris@gmail.com Reply-To: lojban@googlegroups.com Precedence: list Mailing-list: list lojban@googlegroups.com; contact lojban+owners@googlegroups.com List-ID: List-Post: , List-Help: , List-Archive: X-Thread-Url: http://groups.google.com/group/lojban/t/7096de6ee0848de3 X-Message-Url: http://groups.google.com/group/lojban/msg/4205def82cb48cae Sender: lojban@googlegroups.com List-Subscribe: , List-Unsubscribe: , Content-Type: multipart/alternative; boundary=001636ed68a4d090f704830776da --001636ed68a4d090f704830776da Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable I think this is great! I'm going to sort of play devil's advocate and critique a couple of things. Overall, I think the proposals Oren made are good, but in the interests of thinking about this stuff, and getting rid of cultural biases... On Tue, Mar 30, 2010 at 01:48, Oren wrote: > On Tue, Mar 30, 2010 at 14:27, Christopher Doty > wrote: > > Hrm... I wonder about the best way to do this... > > On the one hand, it seems like they should be cmene, since they are, > essentially, names. > > .i go'i je'a .i ko'a cu cmene > yes, indeed they are names. > > However fi'uvla grant the freedom to make universally regular five-letter > rafsi (and then build better lujvo) AND to neutrally recognize all useful > "cultures" while avoiding a trade-off with gismuspace. The sensible > compromise is to make this list a reference for both cmene and fi'uvla. > Also, this way we can talk about language and politics in lojban without > having to write in awkWARD CAPital leTTErs. > Yeah, I guess fi'uvla is the way to go. The ones on the list are kind of.... ugly, I guess, but such is life. I wonder, since I'm not familiar with the fi'uvla creation process, if we could do something that could make these recognizable as the names of countries/languages/etc.? Like, say, th= e first consonant is always /s/? Or is that not worth it...? > http://www.lojban.org/tiki/cultural+fu'ivla > > ta'o ni'o What is "culture" anyhow? > > I want to define our specifications for this, so looked up the definition > of culture (Mirriam-Webster, see below). In it they specify several origi= ns > of culture; the primary definition citing race, religion and 'social > groups,' which may be bound by time or place. I think lojban should focus= on > precision first, so the scope should should be restricted to standardized > entities: > > 1. Languages - > autonymic, > first priority to cover accepted top-level ISO codes, > then dialect and variant codes, others only deserve cmene. > > Again, I agree, but--why do bigger languages get "real" words, and others only "deserve" cmene (regardless, we should probably get the "deserve" out of the proposal :p)? What about in a few hundred years, when the dominant languages might be totally different, and this will seem really weird? I think this is probably the right solution, with the caveat that what gets fi'uvla needs to be revised occasionally (say, every 100-150 years). Often that revision would probably not change much, but it might at some stages. > > 1. > 2. Political regions - > autonymic in official language or most populous official language. > First priority to cover UN members territories, > then any self-declared independent regions which at one point had > normalized relations with any UN-recognized state, so Tibet, Taiwan an= d the > Confederate States of America all take precedence over Pedestria, my o= wn > sovereign state that I just declared. > Then once we get these down we automate a cmene-creator to read throug= h > geonames.org and cover all named territories and populated areas. > > I think UN is the way to go. I do think it might be worth not using the "relations with a UN-recognized state," though... I think a better way for autonomous areas and the like would be some sort of Zeitgeist measure--it seems relevant, for example, to have Chechnya, Basque Country, and Kurdista= n fi'uvla if we want to be able to talk about world affairs in Lojban. Those seem more immediately pressing than, say, the CSA. Again, though, this would require regular revisions. One other issue with both language and country names--are we using the English form to get the fi'uvla, or the native term? That is, is the fi'uvla for "Finland/Finnish" derived from "Finland" or from "Suomi?" I'd vote the second, as it introduces less bias. And, with languages, should the language "English" be demonstrably related to "England," or should it (could it?) be different? > And that's all. I argue that these two alone are the most useful and > best-defined terms to care about. Here's my feelings on the other portion= s > of this page: > > 1. Ethnicity? Hard. > "Ethnicity" and "cultural groups" themselves are loosely defined socia= l > constructs, may have no easy autonymic solution (like Polynesian), and= can > be better expressed directly with {da kulnu de} where de is a chromoso= mal > pattern or distinguishing feature for a particular race, or perhaps an > activity for a term like 'nomadic,' 'chopsticks' or 'nerd' or whatever= . > > Yeah, anything with "ethnicity," except as a gismu that says something reflects/seems like x ethnicity, should be chucked, IMO. > > 1. > 2. Religion? Tricky. > As for religion and philosophy, these are much harder to standardize > (dewey decimal system?) and while useful names, not as specific as the= ones > listed above. Naming can also be an issue for multi-lingual schools of > thought. Perhaps these could do with just cmene. > > This one is kind of tricky, but I think there should still be fi'uvla for the major groups, but not subdivisions--so, Christian, Hinduism, Islam, and Buddhism should probably have one, while Catholicism, Sunni Islam, and Zen Buddhism shouldn't. If we made the cut at 5 million or more followers, we'= d have (according to the numbers on Wikipedia): Christianity Islam Irreligious/Atheism Hinduism Folk religion/Deism Buddhism Shinto Sikhism Judaism Bah=E1'=ED Faith Jainism I think the "Folk religion" one is especially important, as it would provid= e a good way for people to describe their beliefs. Actually, maybe there should be two gismu: one for "(world?) religion X" and one for "native religion of X people." We would have to think about Shinto, though, since Shinto is basically the native religion of the Japanese people, so it might not need it's own fi'uvla, but rather a conventionalized cmene....? > > 1. > 2. Geography? Who's version? > Do we stop at Australia or Greenland? To be thorough, I would think > this should be left to some earth experts to decide just which land ma= sses, > tectonic plates, bodies of water, air masses and climactic systems wou= ld be > useful to name. On a tangent, how about constellations or a complete > periodic table of elements? Also, I don't see any way to come up with > 'autonymic' terms for such natural entities, maybe they are better off= with > meaningful lujvo instead. > > I am not a geologist/geographer/etc., but my impression was that the idea of the seven standard continents was pretty widely excepted. Oh, but I see now that that seems to be largely by convention. In looking at the map of the major tectonic plates, though, ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Plates_tect2_en.svg), making the fi'uvla technically mean "a land mass on X plate" might be useful... --=20 You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "= lojban" group. To post to this group, send email to lojban@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to lojban+unsubscribe@googlegrou= ps.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/lojban= ?hl=3Den. --001636ed68a4d090f704830776da Content-Type: text/html; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable I think this is great! =A0I'm going to sort of play devil's advocat= e and critique a couple of things. =A0Overall, I think the proposals Oren m= ade are good, but in the interests of thinking about this stuff, and gettin= g rid of cultural biases...

On Tue, Mar 30, 2010 at 01:48, Oren <get.oren@gmail.com&= gt; wrote:
On Tue, Mar 30, 2010 at 14:27, Christopher Doty <<= a href=3D"mailto:suomichris@gmail.com" target=3D"_blank">suomichris@gmail.c= om> wrote:
> Hrm... I wonder about the best way to do t= his...
> On the one hand, it seems like they should be cmene, since they are, e= ssentially, names.=A0

.i go'i je'a .i ko'a cu cmene
yes, indeed the= y are names.

However fi'uvla grant the freedom to make universal= ly regular five-letter rafsi (and then build better lujvo) AND to neutrally= recognize all useful "cultures" while avoiding a trade-off with = gismuspace. The sensible compromise is to make this list a reference for bo= th cmene and fi'uvla. Also, this way we can talk about language and pol= itics in lojban without having to write in awkWARD CAPital leTTErs.

Yeah, I guess fi'uvla is the way= to go. =A0The ones on the list are kind of.... ugly, I guess, but such is = life. =A0I wonder, since I'm not familiar with the fi'uvla creation= process, if we could do something that could make these recognizable as th= e names of countries/languages/etc.? =A0Like, say, the first consonant is a= lways /s/? =A0Or is that not worth it...?
=A0

ta'o ni'o=A0What is "culture" anyhow?
=
I want to define our specifications for this, so looked up t= he definition of culture (Mirriam-Webster, see below). In it they specify s= everal origins of culture; the primary definition citing race, religion and= 'social groups,' which may be bound by time or place. I think lojb= an should focus on precision first, so the scope should should be restricte= d to standardized entities:
  1. Languages -
    autonymic,
    first priority to cover ac= cepted top-level ISO codes,
    then dialect and variant codes, others only= deserve cmene.
Again, I agree, but--why do bigger languages get "real" word= s, and others only "deserve" cmene (regardless, we should probabl= y get the "deserve" out of the proposal :p)? =A0What about in a f= ew hundred years, when the dominant languages might be totally different, a= nd this will seem really weird?

I think this is probably the right solution, with the c= aveat that what gets fi'uvla needs to be revised occasionally (say, eve= ry 100-150 years). Often that revision would probably not change much, but = it might at some stages.

  1. Political regions -
    autonymic in official language or mo= st populous official language.
    First priority to cover UN members territories,
    then any self-declared = independent regions which at one point had normalized relations with any UN= -recognized state, so Tibet, Taiwan and the Confederate States of America a= ll take precedence over Pedestria, my own sovereign state that I just decla= red.
    Then once we get these down we automate a cmene-creator to read through geonames.org and cover a= ll named territories and populated areas.
I think UN is the way to go. I do think it might be= worth not using the "relations with a UN-recognized state," thou= gh... =A0I think a better way for autonomous areas and the like would be so= me sort of Zeitgeist measure--it seems relevant, for example, to have Chech= nya, Basque Country, and Kurdistan fi'uvla if we want to be able to tal= k about world affairs in Lojban. =A0Those seem more immediately pressing th= an, say, the CSA. =A0Again, though, this would require regular revisions.

One other issue with both language and country names--a= re we using the English form to get the fi'uvla, or the native term? = =A0That is, is the fi'uvla for "Finland/Finnish" derived from= "Finland" or from "Suomi?" =A0I'd vote the second,= as it introduces less bias. =A0And, with languages, should the language &q= uot;English" be demonstrably related to "England," or should= it (could it?) be different?
=A0
And that's all.=A0I argue that these two alone are the mos= t useful and best-defined terms to care about.=A0Here's my feelings on = the other portions of this page:
  1. Ethnicity? Hard.
    "Ethnicity" and "cultural = groups" themselves are loosely defined social constructs, may have no = easy autonymic solution (like Polynesian), and can be better expressed dire= ctly with {da kulnu de} where de is a chromosomal pattern or distinguishing= feature for a particular race, or perhaps an activity for a term like '= ;nomadic,' 'chopsticks' or 'nerd' or whatever.
Yeah, anyth= ing with "ethnicity," except as a gismu that says something refle= cts/seems like x ethnicity, should be chucked, IMO.

  2. Religion? Tricky.
    As for religion and philosophy, these ar= e much harder to standardize (dewey decimal system?) and while useful names= , not as specific as the ones listed above. Naming can also be an issue for= multi-lingual schools of thought. Perhaps these could do with just cmene.<= br>
This one is= kind of tricky, but I think there should still be fi'uvla for the majo= r groups, but not subdivisions--so, Christian, Hinduism, Islam, and Buddhis= m should probably have one, while Catholicism, Sunni Islam, and Zen Buddhis= m shouldn't. =A0If we made the cut at 5 million or more followers, we&#= 39;d have (according to the numbers on Wikipedia):

Christianity
Islam
Irreligious/Atheism
Hinduism
Folk religion/Deism
Buddhism
Shinto
=
Sikhism
Judaism
Bah=E1'=ED Faith
Jai= nism

I think the "Folk religion" one is especially= important, as it would provide a good way for people to describe their bel= iefs. =A0Actually, maybe there should be two gismu: =A0one for "(world= ?) religion X" and one for "native religion of X people." = =A0We would have to think about Shinto, though, since Shinto is basically t= he native religion of the Japanese people, so it might not need it's ow= n fi'uvla, but rather a conventionalized cmene....?
=

  2. Geography? Who's version?
    Do we stop at Australia or G= reenland?=A0To be thorough, I would think this should be left to some earth= experts to decide just which land masses, tectonic plates, bodies of water= , air masses and climactic systems would be useful to name. On a tangent, h= ow about constellations or a complete periodic table of elements? Also, I d= on't see any way to come up with 'autonymic' terms for such nat= ural entities, maybe they are better off with meaningful lujvo instead.
I am not a geolo= gist/geographer/etc., but my impression was that the idea of the seven stan= dard continents was pretty widely excepted. =A0Oh, but I see now that that = seems to be largely by convention. =A0In looking at the map of the major te= ctonic plates, though, (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Plates_tect2_en.svg), = making the fi'uvla technically mean "a land mass on X plate" = might be useful...

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