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Re: [bpfk] Finishing the BPFK sections


On Thu, Jun 19, 2014 at 10:01 PM, John Cowan <cowan@mercury.ccil.org> wrote:
 In heraldry, the left side of a shield is
called the dexter (right) side, and the right side is called the
sinister (left) side, because blazonry takes the shield's point of view,
(ultimately that of the wearer) rather than the observer's point of view.

That makes sense, since shields do have an intrinsic front side. 

> So above/below, in-front-of/behind, and left-of/right-of each follow
> their own slightly different rules.

Above/below is an absolute (or rather Earth-relative) direction, like
north-south and east-west.

But some objects do have an intrinsic up side and bottom side, otherwise nothing could ever be upside down. So in this respect up/down is more like front/back and left/right than like north/south and east/west.
 
 It doesn't fit here at all.  I see no reason
why front, back, left, and right should be inconsistent in Lojban just
because they are inconsistent in English.

Well, are there any languages that don't work like English in this respect? All the languages I know work the same way, but then they are all closely related languages so that doesn't prove much. The rule may be somewhat complicated but it's consistent across (at least some) languages. If there are languages that work the way you suggest, where to the left of a column that you are facing is to your right, then that rule might have a chance for Lojban, if not, then making up such a rule would probably be hopeless and just a source of confusion. I'm not strongly opposed to such a rule if it's based on something more than an analogy that may be too simplistic.

mu'o mi'e xorxes

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