Received: with ECARTIS (v1.0.0; list lojban-beginners); Sun, 07 Mar 2004 12:41:31 -0800 (PST) Received: from fresco.math.mcgill.ca ([132.206.150.41]) by chain.digitalkingdom.org with esmtp (Exim 4.30) id 1B01V5-00060W-QN for lojban-beginners@chain.digitalkingdom.org; Sun, 07 Mar 2004 08:51:39 -0800 Received: (from archibal@localhost) by fresco.Math.McGill.CA (8.11.6/8.11.6) id i27Gpc724829 for lojban-beginners@chain.digitalkingdom.org; Sun, 7 Mar 2004 11:51:38 -0500 Date: Sun, 7 Mar 2004 11:51:38 -0500 From: Andrew Archibald To: lojban-beginners@chain.digitalkingdom.org Subject: [lojban-beginners] Re: short question Message-ID: <20040307115138.F8729@fresco.Math.McGill.CA> References: <20040307042623.CDEC9725B@sitemail.everyone.net> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline User-Agent: Mutt/1.2.5.1i In-Reply-To: <20040307042623.CDEC9725B@sitemail.everyone.net>; from windharp@stormloader.com on Sat, Mar 06, 2004 at 08:26:23PM -0800 X-archive-position: 568 X-Approved-By: jkominek@miranda.org X-ecartis-version: Ecartis v1.0.0 Sender: lojban-beginners-bounce@chain.digitalkingdom.org Errors-to: lojban-beginners-bounce@chain.digitalkingdom.org X-original-sender: archibal@math.mcgill.ca Precedence: bulk Reply-to: lojban-beginners@chain.digitalkingdom.org X-list: lojban-beginners Content-Length: 5283 On Sat, Mar 06, 2004 at 08:26:23PM -0800, Heather Grove wrote: > coi rodo coi xeket. I'm hardly an expert, but here are my ideas... > I'm really very new both to the list and to learning lojban, so > please forgive if this has been covered already. This sounds a bit > like nit-picking, I suppose, and I really don't mean it that way. > I'm honestly confused: I find the dictionary distressingly vague sometimes too. Figuring out the connotations and precise meaning of a word take more than a short definition (see any good English dictionary). I suppose as the speaker community gets used to using words in a particular way, that'll be described in the dictionary. > I was poking through the dictionary material, thinking that I would > look up some vocabulary that I use fairly often in my daily English, > and I ran across something that made me frown a bit: the definition > of {pipno} includes musical instruments > piano/harpsichord/synthesizer/organ. Given that {jgita} is for > stringed instruments (piano and harpsichord are strings, one > hammered and one plucked) and {flani} is for edge blown pipes/flutes > (organs are edge blown pipes), I'm unable to choose which words to > use. > > Does {pipno} refer specifically to the keyboard mechanism used to > play the music rather than the family to which the instrument > belongs? {jgita} and {flani} seem to focus on the > method-of-sound-production aspect. Reed instruments are split up > oddly, too: {xagri} takes a very broad approach by lumping together > single-reed (saxophone, clarinet) and double-reed (oboe, bassoon, > bagpipes), while the lip-reeds get {tabra} all to themselves. While > it is nice to have two separate ways to name an instrument, it seems > that the existance of {pipno} is a bit redundant here. Am I missing > something? Is there another somewhat redundant word which refers to > the method of fingering wind/brass instruments? If {pipno} does > refer to the keyboard part and {xagri} refers to the method of sound > production, how should I best translate 'accordion'? The gismu are not supposed to be orthogonal or systematic: the designers decided it was overabitious to try to partition up and logically categorize all human thought. So they worried only about having enough gismu to cover (however irregularly) all human thought. They also put in escape hatches in the form of fu'ivla and lujvo for concepts that are ot adequately represented by gismu and tanru thereof. This vagueness and odd categorization exists in English, too: "brass" usually means all lip-reed instuments, but sometimes it includes the flute, which is sometimes tossed in with the woodwinds instead; "woodwinds" itself covers both single and double-reed instruments. "Strings" usually isn't meant to include pianos but soemtimes does; other methods of sound production (bowing plates, analog electronic synthesis, direct digital synthesis) don't really have terminology. So the situation is not really any worse in lojban. To translate accordion specifically (or piano, or bagpipes) somebody really needs to make up a lujvo. Of course, before then, we need to address what I suspect your real question was: what's a good tanru for "accordion"? My musical ignorance is quite astonishing, but let me take a swing at it anyway. An accordion is a musical instrument with a keyboard and a bank of reeds, producing sound as an air chamber is expanded or contracted drawing air over the reeds (is this correct?). So certainly the tanru should include {xagri} and {pipno}. Since I can't think of another common instrument with a keyboard and reeds, I think this is specific enough. So if I were writing about one, I'd probably say {pipno xagri}. If I were writing a book on musical instruments, I would probably coin the new word {pe'orxagri} (perhaps someone could check my lujvo-making?) and assign it the specific meaning "x1 is an accordion". Other keyboard reed instruments could still be {pipno xagri}; if they needed specific names, I'd construct a longer tanru and then make a lujvo out of it. Incidentally, how ready should one be in making up lujvo? Is it something only gurus should do, or is it something anybody can do if they use the word enough? Does it make sense to make one up for the length of a book? An email? A paragraph? There's another solution, which I don't think is needed here. If you really can't capture the concept with a tanru (like maybe "quark" or "DNA" or "minuet") you can just borrow the word as a fu'ivla. If it gets used a lot, there's a procedure for shortening it, but at first you could just call it {me la'o ly. accordion ly.}, {me la aKORdi,an.}, or {pipnakordian} (although this last requires care in construction, it gives a little context to help someone who's never heard of an accordion). > I know, I'm crazy. No one else much cares what you call it, so long as the instrument is in tune. So I'll advance a 'thank you' to anyone who is even half as crazy as I am and is willing to shed some light on this for me (or even point me to the correct part of the dictionary!). Not at all; lots of people care what the instrument is called. I care whether I'm buying a flute solo or a bagpipe solo for my atmosphere music... co'o Andrew