[lojban-beginners] Re: Lojban geography and cultures

["Turniansky, Michael" <MICHAEL.A.TURNIANSKY@saic.com>]

 la pier cusku lu


On Tuesday 17 April 2007 07:28, Turniansky, Michael wrote:
 (Why is there a native word
> (gismu) for lions, tigers, and elephants, but none for zebras, rhinos,
> or hippo (or antelope, but I suppose some would argue "mirli" can be
> used for that)?  Why for rat and mouse and rabbit, but not squirrel or
> raccoon (or even "rodent" in general)?  Why for rose and tulip, but
not
> for daisy or lily?  Etc. etc.)  Everything comes down to choices made
by
> the language creators, and as such, represents a bias of some sort or
> other.   So I don't personally speak of lojban as "culturally-neutral"
> except when it comes to the grammar and word sources.  Period.

lo antilope na mirli. The zebra is tirxyxi'a, hippo is ri'erxi'a (even
though it isn't a horse), and for rhino how about zbijirnymabru?

squirrel is ricyratcu, raccoon is either prokiono or lumge'u.
------------------------------------------------

  I didn't say there wasn't ANY way to describe those animals, (and
FWIW, I went with (the also-proposed) xirmrxipotigre for "zebra" in my
Terry the Tiger story, since I take the attitude of "When in doubt, use
the international classification when it comes to plants and animals",
even though it might make it less accessible to the layman, because it
eliminates any doubt of the animal meant.)  I specifically said there
weren't any gismu.  Lack of gismu is indicative of "this concept isn't
basic enough and/or important enough to warrant ease of production."
Which things make the cut and which don't is, by definition, a bias.

              --gejyspa