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Date: Mon, 11 May 2009 06:07:56 -0700 (PDT)
From: Akisawana <akisawana@yahoo.com>
Subject: [lojban-beginners] Re: mabla
To: lojban-beginners@lojban.org
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Culture isn't all-immersive. The culture of football players is different from the culture of drug addicts is different from the culture of third-generation Polish immigrants is different from the culture of video game players is different from the culture of scholars. And yet at one point all co-existed under my roof. What was a compliment to one brother was an insult to another; the same question could garner five different reactions.

Lojban has its own culture, which values effort, kindness, and humor. Cursing in lojban, therefore, will probably follow some of the European constructions, where it is not the individual words that are "cursing" so much as the whole phrase, like the French "sacred blue" and the Polish "dog's blood." "Don't be an ass," was a phrase I heard frequently when learning to construct a Lojban sentence, to the point where it became an idiom meaning "don't make it any more complicated than it has to be." So "pedantic" could reach cultural status as a curse, as could "show-off."

If you're just looking to insult someone, there's always the form used in Japan. Japanese has maybe two "obscene" words (off the top of my head), but there are endless "fighting words," from sarcastic politeness to comparision to innocent subjects to backhanded compliments. For example "Most honorable little girl pretending to be a punk, your reputation for mercy preceeds you," would be a literal translation that would gloss to "Grow up and step off, you loser biotch, because you ain't got a chance in hell." (Yes. I just quoted Fumoffu.) In lojban, by the same logic, you could insult someone by calling them "anal-retentive" with "to the point that no-one understands what the hell you're saying" implied, or  "serious," or even "ga'i nai."

Now, if you're stubbing your toe, there's an attitudnal for that. Then you move into describing the various mental attributes for whoever put the couch there, whoever decided the couch needed to be that sharp, and possibly whatever moron that used the last of the ice cubes and didn't refill the tray.


----- Original Message ----
From: Ryan Leach <rsw.leach@gmail.com>
To: lojban-beginners@lojban.org
Sent: Monday, May 11, 2009 12:54:27 AM
Subject: [lojban-beginners] Re: mabla

>From the sounds of things, the only way real cursing will appear in
lojban is if people are raised with lojban as their first language and
therefore include it in their culture.

2009/4/16 Jorge Llambías <jjllambias@gmail.com>:
> On Thu, Apr 16, 2009 at 3:29 PM, Luke Bergen <lukeabergen@gmail.com> wrote:
>>  Is it good lojban to say "mabla cukta" to mean
>> some kind of swear word having something to do with "book"?  Or even better
>> "malcku"?
>
> I would interpret it as something like "trashy book". I can't think of
> a despective word for books in English, but in Spanish that might be
> "librucho".
>
>> I've been wondering how "cursing" would work in a culture neutral language,
>> could it really be as simple as "mabla ____" means "____" as an obscenity?
>> (or again, "mal" as a prefix in x number of lujvo).
>
> For a word to be obscene, it has to deal with some taboo subject.
> These are usually about bodily functions, religion, race, sexual
> practices, or some such touchy subjects, it will depend on what a
> culture considers taboo. Without taboo subjects, it's difficult to
> have obscene language. "mabla" is despective, but pretty mild by
> itself, so you need some content relating it with something that must
> not be talked about in order to get an effective curse.
>
>> This could make for some very creative cursing, which can be very
>> entertaining to hear sometimes.  I don't know why, but the idea of limitless
>> creativity when I stub my toe sounds very attractive to me.
>
> Creative cursing can be fun in any language. It's not limited to Lojban.
>
> mu'o mi'e xorxes
>
>
>
>