From 3nFmzSwoJBvQoqkieYdneociWeh.YkihkfXWjckkchacnkqlo.Yki@groups.bounces.google.com Wed Mar 31 07:18:33 2010 Received: from mail-yw0-f160.google.com ([209.85.211.160]) by chain.digitalkingdom.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from <3nFmzSwoJBvQoqkieYdneociWeh.YkihkfXWjckkchacnkqlo.Yki@groups.bounces.google.com>) id 1NwykU-0006gg-U3 for lojban-list-archive@lojban.org; Wed, 31 Mar 2010 07:18:33 -0700 Received: by ywh32 with SMTP id 32sf115510ywh.28 for ; Wed, 31 Mar 2010 07:18:20 -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=x7hFFug1/UCi0s721VLfqYtSAYWDFqqCgcROeTP9xpY=; b=qbYyj6+Niv+JMn9ZT95DeVJg4XaeKfOrDDzMWOsyy0WspFKgZisfGDLe/HQjP7EXg2 ZRNnxAWYHvJsGrcQiYlaZW/CLbO2BmbjweCpczJdiADuXein2nrjVNyroLjAnItBzJlh F6BeL9aX8AxoVhOxKUcVUSTgig2awWloc5+sk= 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=RGKWu9IVCStAyj/mR/17XHerlUCRtkSGAp9bOhBTVaVhHGPHTOmZ2cUtyOmSBEsHiT kjKxJGnxG2gwzfLGyT6qKcUJT4bxDMxWWVe2bqh7Fu5zEFMQUO69IhMlS779oPryY2Ax sK3aloEG7cXw+jfo3PqsCFpXsZw+fupIyfe2E= Received: by 10.91.91.9 with SMTP id t9mr20997agl.20.1270045084609; Wed, 31 Mar 2010 07:18:04 -0700 (PDT) X-BeenThere: lojban@googlegroups.com Received: by 10.90.248.13 with SMTP id v13ls122037agh.7.p; Wed, 31 Mar 2010 07:18:03 -0700 (PDT) Received: by 10.91.150.2 with SMTP id c2mr190451ago.13.1270045077708; Wed, 31 Mar 2010 07:17:57 -0700 (PDT) Received: by 10.91.150.2 with SMTP id c2mr190325ago.13.1270045070704; Wed, 31 Mar 2010 07:17:50 -0700 (PDT) Received: from mail-gw0-f52.google.com (mail-gw0-f52.google.com [74.125.83.52]) by gmr-mx.google.com with ESMTP id 18si496748gxk.3.2010.03.31.07.17.49; Wed, 31 Mar 2010 07:17:49 -0700 (PDT) Received-SPF: pass (google.com: domain of suomichris@gmail.com designates 74.125.83.52 as permitted sender) client-ip=74.125.83.52; Received: by gwb17 with SMTP id 17so72290gwb.11 for ; Wed, 31 Mar 2010 07:17:49 -0700 (PDT) MIME-Version: 1.0 Received: by 10.100.5.20 with HTTP; Wed, 31 Mar 2010 07:17:29 -0700 (PDT) In-Reply-To: References: <27513e551003300148q3e78ef25lb01b2032f5b3b98d@mail.gmail.com> From: Christopher Doty Date: Wed, 31 Mar 2010 07:17:29 -0700 Received: by 10.101.135.17 with SMTP id m17mr12786678ann.23.1270045069169; Wed, 31 Mar 2010 07:17:49 -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 74.125.83.52 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/484f72532efd0734 Sender: lojban@googlegroups.com List-Subscribe: , List-Unsubscribe: , Content-Type: multipart/alternative; boundary=001636c5c29732545f048319697e --001636c5c29732545f048319697e Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Did you mean languages here? If so, I actually was thinking continent--although it occurs to me that language family might be an interesting thing to incorporate instead... On Tue, Mar 30, 2010 at 12:29, MorphemeAddict wrote: > 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 w= rote: > >> 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 t= ry >> and incorporate the three letters of the ISO code for the language into = the >> fu'ivla, ideally in the same order, even if not adjacent. This would mak= e 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 = have >> 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 wr= ote: >> >>> 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 o= ne >>> can talk about, say, "Moroccan Arabic" or "Indian English" in an establ= ished >>> way. >>> >>> Chris >>> >>> >>> On Tue, Mar 30, 2010 at 09:52, Christopher Doty w= rote: >>> >>>> 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 r= id 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 reco= gnize >>>>> all useful "cultures" while avoiding a trade-off with gismuspace. The >>>>> sensible compromise is to make this list a reference for both cmene a= nd >>>>> fi'uvla. Also, this way we can talk about language and politics in lo= jban >>>>> 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 famil= iar >>>> with the fi'uvla creation process, if we could do something that could= make >>>> these recognizable as the names of countries/languages/etc.? Like, sa= y, 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 specif= y >>>>> several origins of culture; the primary definition citing race, relig= ion 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 year= s). >>>> Often that revision would probably not change much, but it might at so= me >>>> 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, Taiwa= n and the >>>>> Confederate 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 >>>> the "relations with a UN-recognized state," though... I think a bette= r way >>>> for autonomous areas and the like would be some sort of Zeitgeist >>>> measure--it seems relevant, for example, to have Chechnya, Basque Coun= try, >>>> and Kurdistan fi'uvla if we want to be able to talk about world affair= s in >>>> Lojban. Those seem more immediately pressing than, say, the CSA. Aga= in, >>>> 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, sho= uld >>>> 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 >>>>> portions of this page: >>>>> >>>>> 1. Ethnicity? Hard. >>>>> "Ethnicity" and "cultural groups" themselves are loosely defined >>>>> social constructs, may have no easy autonymic solution (like Polyn= esian), >>>>> and can be better expressed directly with {da kulnu de} where de i= s a >>>>> chromosomal pattern or distinguishing feature for a particular rac= e, or >>>>> perhaps an activity for a term like 'nomadic,' 'chopsticks' or 'ne= rd' or >>>>> whatever. >>>>> >>>>> Yeah, anything with "ethnicity," except as a gismu that says somethin= g >>>> 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-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'uvla >>>> for the major groups, but not subdivisions--so, Christian, Hinduism, I= slam, >>>> 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 follo= wers, >>>> 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, ma= ybe >>>> 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, t= hough, >>>> 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 thin= k >>>>> this should be left to some earth experts to decide just which lan= d masses, >>>>> tectonic plates, bodies of water, air masses and climactic systems= would be >>>>> useful to name. On a tangent, how about constellations or a comple= te >>>>> periodic table of elements? Also, I don't see any way to come up w= ith >>>>> '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 th= e 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 Group= s >> "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. >> > > -- > 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. --001636c5c29732545f048319697e Content-Type: text/html; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Did you mean languages here? =A0If so, I actually was thinking continent--a= lthough it occurs to me that language family might be an interesting thing = to incorporate instead...

On Tue, Mar 30,= 2010 at 12:29, MorphemeAddict <lytlesw@gmail.com> wrote:
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 Doty <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<= /div>

(Amharic also demonstrates a good reason to use such = a list--it has more than 20 million speakers, more than Hebrew, but it isn&= #39;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 goi= ng to sort of play devil's advocate and critique a couple of things. = =A0Overall, 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 <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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