Pierre Abbat wrote:
On Thursday 09 August 2007 14:09, turnip wrote:But you _do_ have a gismu for llama -- kumte.... see?? There's more than 500,000,000 raccoons in the world (and yes, mostly concentrated in North America, but ~1 million in Germany's forest, and also in Asia and South America), and about 25 million camels, alpacas, llamas, and vicunas combined. So again, who makes the decision on where to split the hairs (hares? ;-) ) ? (Personally, I don't think there should be a gismu for raccoon, but I do think there should be for rodent).Lojban has two gismu for kinds of rodents but none for rodent in general, two for galliforms and two for anseriforms but none for any other order or more specific taxon of bird, two for the genus Canis and one for foxes. This has often made me hesitate when coining a word for some animal.
Lojban animal and plant words were NOT necessarily designed to reflect the scientific taxonomy, but rather the linguistic taxonomy. Thus a Lojbanic raccoon could be a "pre-dog" (procyon, the genus name), or could mimic other languages and call it a "hand-mammal" or a "wash-bear". The fact that it is not Ursae does not mean that it cannot be a kind of cribe.
This being the case, it is perfectly OK to make a lujvo for rodent as a lujvo from "ratcu-klesi", or to do a guinea pig as a "ketco-xarju-ratcu"
*African hunting dog (Lycaon pictus): gerku je'i labno? (gernlikaone)
It doesn't have to be a gerku or a labno, to be expressible with a lujvo of either.
What is wrong with "friko-kalte-gerku"?
*Peacock: jipci je'i xruki? (skaxruki
I would choose whichever makes the better sounding lujvo between: "preja-rebna-jipci"? "preja-rebna-xruki"?
*Swan: datka je'i gunse? (nebdatka, but I think someone else used gunse)
In size they are more like geese, and Wikipedia says that they are sometimes taxonomically grouped with geese in a "tribe".
since-cnebo-gunse?
And for "blueberry" I say {blanu bakyjba} or {zirpu bakyjba}.
Anyone who accepts bakyjba for a kind of cowberry should have no trouble with a peacock being a dembi-jipci %^)
Or maybe for my earlier example, a "sralo-snanu-daplu palci-crida" %^) lojbab