From 3NVGySwcJBoQt61tm04ouiqt.kwutwrjivowwotmozw2x0.kwu@groups.bounces.google.com Tue Mar 30 12:30:24 2010 Received: from mail-vw0-f61.google.com ([209.85.212.61]) by chain.digitalkingdom.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from <3NVGySwcJBoQt61tm04ouiqt.kwutwrjivowwotmozw2x0.kwu@groups.bounces.google.com>) id 1Nwh8l-0007sU-9d for lojban-list-archive@lojban.org; Tue, 30 Mar 2010 12:30:24 -0700 Received: by vws12 with SMTP id 12sf326608vws.16 for ; Tue, 30 Mar 2010 12:30:12 -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:date:received:message-id:subject:from: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=c/xScCzI7W7DJjCOljD5/GvdgIko+ETK1GT9OyGffFo=; b=jvIXSEZCc/P23orbgHdA+TzZNNEOOmPqVYSwq5aC/6x5sx/lpSMH+Yvr9VbRVNU5xM 0DiNcDMLU9pZbd8n5yXXp3qkJWahXqwtPbysJf08+ofETD/GNfaaowyr3ZRfGXsKt3FB qdlV5niUsKElnRRH5wRlSjF1b4jyYuOABNQkk= DomainKey-Signature: a=rsa-sha1; c=nofws; d=googlegroups.com; s=beta; h=x-beenthere:received-spf:mime-version:in-reply-to:references:date :message-id:subject:from: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=mRPD9qV0IlRDzAJzm6gWMdGZGRcNnFjfDAKGdmpEcvFOK+8fE6m4+VratCAjmGbhpc LwB1oGxlVVVzOkWxsumERJ+wnxfAZguFCV0yaiLXluAQKYZ27lfe+KEC1De0V85ATZ7n O/Ii2H0S/2bHhs0ZeGAbYssxnpd02Nho6Xvv0= Received: by 10.220.107.1 with SMTP id z1mr468424vco.7.1269977397440; Tue, 30 Mar 2010 12:29:57 -0700 (PDT) X-BeenThere: lojban@googlegroups.com Received: by 10.220.79.85 with SMTP id o21ls2214697vck.0.p; Tue, 30 Mar 2010 12:29:56 -0700 (PDT) Received: by 10.220.4.37 with SMTP id 37mr1762030vcp.16.1269977396143; Tue, 30 Mar 2010 12:29:56 -0700 (PDT) Received: by 10.220.4.37 with SMTP id 37mr1762028vcp.16.1269977396065; Tue, 30 Mar 2010 12:29:56 -0700 (PDT) Received: from mail-gw0-f41.google.com (mail-gw0-f41.google.com [74.125.83.41]) by gmr-mx.google.com with ESMTP id 29si14123504vws.2.2010.03.30.12.29.54; Tue, 30 Mar 2010 12:29:55 -0700 (PDT) Received-SPF: pass (google.com: domain of lytlesw@gmail.com designates 74.125.83.41 as permitted sender) client-ip=74.125.83.41; Received: by gwb15 with SMTP id 15so435795gwb.0 for ; Tue, 30 Mar 2010 12:29:54 -0700 (PDT) MIME-Version: 1.0 Received: by 10.100.242.9 with HTTP; Tue, 30 Mar 2010 12:29:51 -0700 (PDT) In-Reply-To: References: <27513e551003300148q3e78ef25lb01b2032f5b3b98d@mail.gmail.com> Date: Tue, 30 Mar 2010 15:29:51 -0400 Received: by 10.100.30.35 with SMTP id d35mr3092385and.81.1269977391768; Tue, 30 Mar 2010 12:29:51 -0700 (PDT) Message-ID: Subject: Re: [lojban] Getting serious about "Cultural" fi'uvla (was: You're doing it wrong) From: MorphemeAddict To: lojban@googlegroups.com X-Original-Authentication-Results: gmr-mx.google.com; spf=pass (google.com: domain of lytlesw@gmail.com designates 74.125.83.41 as permitted sender) smtp.mail=lytlesw@gmail.com; dkim=pass (test mode) header.i=@gmail.com X-Original-Sender: lytlesw@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/ba06f0b178891e07 Sender: lojban@googlegroups.com List-Subscribe: , List-Unsubscribe: , Content-Type: multipart/alternative; boundary=001485f99dae4f263a048309a715 --001485f99dae4f263a048309a715 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable I don't think equating cultures to the main country they typically occur in is a good idea. stevo On Tue, Mar 30, 2010 at 2:57 PM, Christopher Doty wro= te: > Oren, what did you intend by "top-level?" I don't know the term, and can= 't > find a sorted/divided list... > > One interesting idea for coming up with the language names could be to tr= y > and incorporate the three letters of the ISO code for the language into t= he > fu'ivla, ideally in the same order, even if not adjacent. This would make= it > more "logical," and avoid any additional cultural bias in deciding which > term for the language to use to derive the lojban (and maybe even try to > incorporate a location for the other bit of the fu'ivla?). So we might h= ave > things like: > > English ISO code Lojban fu'ivla > 'Amharic' amh fra'ama > > (Amharic also demonstrates a good reason to use such a list--it has more > than 20 million speakers, more than Hebrew, but it isn't on the cultural > fu'ivla list!) > > And FYI, in case people want to take a look without having to Google: > > List of UN Member states: http://www.un.org/en/members/ > > Chris > > On Tue, Mar 30, 2010 at 09:59, Christopher Doty wro= te: > >> One more thought-- >> >> Once we have the countries/languages set up, I think we should have a >> conventionalized way of combining country and language names, so that on= e >> can talk about, say, "Moroccan Arabic" or "Indian English" in an establi= shed >> way. >> >> Chris >> >> >> On Tue, Mar 30, 2010 at 09:52, Christopher Doty wr= ote: >> >>> 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 ri= d 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 recog= nize >>>> all useful "cultures" while avoiding a trade-off with gismuspace. The >>>> sensible compromise is to make this list a reference for both cmene an= d >>>> fi'uvla. Also, this way we can talk about language and politics in loj= ban >>>> 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 famili= ar >>> 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= , the >>> 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 origins of culture; the primary definition citing race, religi= on and >>>> 'social groups,' which may be bound by time or place. I think lojban s= hould >>>> 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 r= eally >>> 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 som= e >>> 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= and the >>>> Confederate States of America all take precedence over Pedestria, m= y own >>>> sovereign state that I just declared. >>>> Then once we get these down we automate a cmene-creator to read >>>> through 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 th= e >>> "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 Kurd= istan >>> fi'uvla if we want to be able to talk about world affairs in Lojban. T= hose >>> 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, shou= ld >>> 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 an= d >>>> best-defined terms to care about. Here's my feelings on the other port= ions >>>> of this page: >>>> >>>> 1. Ethnicity? Hard. >>>> "Ethnicity" and "cultural groups" themselves are loosely defined >>>> social constructs, may have no easy autonymic solution (like Polyne= sian), >>>> and can be better expressed directly 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 'ner= d' 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 standardiz= e >>>> (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, Is= lam, >>> 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 follow= ers, >>> 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 >>> provide a good way for people to describe their beliefs. Actually, may= be >>> 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, th= ough, >>> since Shinto is basically the native religion of the Japanese people, s= o 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= masses, >>>> tectonic plates, bodies of water, air masses and climactic systems = would be >>>> useful to name. On a tangent, how about constellations or a complet= e >>>> periodic table of elements? Also, I don't see any way to come up wi= th >>>> '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... >>> >> >> > -- > 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@googlegroups.com > . > For more options, visit this group at > http://groups.google.com/group/lojban?hl=3Den. > --=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. --001485f99dae4f263a048309a715 Content-Type: text/html; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable
I don't think equating cultures to the main country they typically= occur in is a good idea.
=A0
stevo

On Tue, Mar 30, 2010 at 2:57 PM, Christopher Dot= y <suomichris@= gmail.com> wrote:
Oren, what did you intend by "top-level?" =A0I don't kno= w the term, and can't find a sorted/divided list...

One interesting idea for coming up with the language names could be to= try and incorporate the three letters of the ISO code for the language int= o the fu'ivla, ideally in the same order, even if not adjacent. This wo= uld make it more "logical," and avoid any additional cultural bia= s in deciding which term for the language to use to derive the lojban (and = maybe even try to incorporate a location for the other bit of the fu'iv= la?). =A0So we might have things like:

English =A0ISO code =A0Lojban fu'ivla
'Amharic' =A0 amh =A0 =A0 fra'ama

(Amharic also demonstrates a good reason to use = such a list--it has more than 20 million speakers, more than Hebrew, but it= isn't on the cultural fu'ivla list!)

And FYI, in case people want to take a look without having to Goog= le:=20

List of UN Member states:=A0http://www.un.org/en/members/

Chris

On Tue, Mar 30, 2010 at 09:59, Christopher Doty = <suomichris@gmail.com> wrote:
One more thought--=20

Once we have the countries/languages set up, I think we should have a = conventionalized way of combining country and language names, so that one c= an talk about, say, "Moroccan Arabic" or "Indian English&quo= t; in an established way.

Chris=20


On Tue, Mar 30, 2010 at 09:52, Christopher Doty = <suomichris@gmail.com> wrote:
I think this is great! =A0I'= m going to sort of play devil's advocate and critique a couple of thing= s. =A0Overall, I think the proposals Oren made are good, but in the interes= ts of thinking about this stuff, and getting rid of cultural biases...

On Tue, Mar 30, 2010 at 01:48, Oren <get.oren@gmail.com> wrote:
On Tue, Mar 30, 2010 at 14:27, Christopher Doty <suomichris@gmail.com> wrote:=
> Hrm... I wonder about the best way to do this...
> On the o= ne hand, it seems like they should be cmene, since they are, essentially, n= ames.=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 ar= e kind of.... ugly, I guess, but such is life. =A0I wonder, since I'm n= ot familiar with the fi'uvla creation process, if we could do something= that could make these recognizable as the names of countries/languages/etc= .? =A0Like, say, the first consonant is always /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 the definit= ion of culture (Mirriam-Webster, see below). In it they specify several ori= gins of culture; the primary definition citing race, religion and 'soci= al 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 stand= ardized entities:=20
  1. Languages -
    autonymic,
    first priority to cover accepted top-lev= el 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 caveat that what= gets fi'uvla needs to be revised occasionally (say, every 100-150 year= s). Often that revision would probably not change much, but it might at som= e stages.

  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 normaliz= ed relations with any UN-recognized state, so Tibet, Taiwan and the Confede= rate States of America all take precedence over Pedestria, my own sovereign= state that I just declared.
    Then once we get these down we automate a cmene-creator to read through 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 th= e "relations with a UN-recognized state," though... =A0I think a = better way for autonomous areas and the like would be some sort of Zeitgeis= t measure--it seems relevant, for example, to have Chechnya, Basque Country= , and Kurdistan fi'uvla if we want to be able to talk about world affai= rs in Lojban. =A0Those seem more immediately pressing than, say, the CSA. = =A0Again, 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? =A0That is, is th= e fi'uvla for "Finland/Finnish" derived from "Finland&qu= ot; or from "Suomi?" =A0I'd vote the second, as it introduces= less bias. =A0And, with languages, should the language "English"= be demonstrably related to "England," or should it (could it?) b= e different?
=A0
And that's all.=A0I argue that these two alone are the most useful= and best-defined terms to care about.=A0Here's my feelings on the othe= r portions of this page:
  1. Ethnicity? Hard.
    "Ethnicity" and "cultural groups&qu= ot; themselves are loosely defined social constructs, may have no easy auto= nymic solution (like Polynesian), and can be better expressed directly 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, anything with "ethnicity," except as a gismu that says= something reflects/seems like x ethnicity, should be chucked, IMO.

  2. Religion? Tricky.
    As for religion and philosophy, these are much ha= rder 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-li= ngual schools of thought. Perhaps these could do with just cmene.
This one is kind of tricky, but I think there should still be fi'u= vla for the major groups, but not subdivisions--so, Christian, Hinduism, Is= lam, and Buddhism should probably have one, while Catholicism, Sunni Islam,= and Zen Buddhism shouldn't. =A0If 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 provide a good way for people to describe their beliefs. =A0Actual= ly, maybe there should be two gismu: =A0one for "(world?) religion X&q= uot; and one for "native religion of X people." =A0We would have = to think about Shinto, though, since Shinto is basically the native religio= n of the Japanese people, so it might not need it's own fi'uvla, bu= t rather a conventionalized cmene....?

  2. Geography? Who's version?
    Do we stop at Australia or Greenland?= =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 mas= ses and climactic systems would 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 enti= ties, maybe they are better off with meaningful lujvo instead.
I am not a geologist/geographer/etc., but my impression was that the i= dea of the seven standard continents was pretty widely excepted. =A0Oh, but= I see now that that seems to be largely by convention. =A0In looking at th= e map of the major tectonic plates, though, (http://en.wikipedia.o= rg/wiki/File:Plates_tect2_en.svg), making the fi'uvla technically m= ean "a land mass on X plate" might be useful...


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