Re: [lojban] Re: lo nuzba zo'u la'a la kopernik se facki

[John E Clifford <clifford-j@sbcglobal.net>]

--- Pierre Abbat <phma@phma.hn.org> wrote:

> On Saturday 12 November 2005 18:47, Adam COOPER
> wrote:
> > ki'e doi pier i ro da poi do stidi ke'a cu
> simlu lo ka ce'u drani kei mi i
> > mi ba tugni stika lo xe fanva be fu mi
> > ni'o la'a mi pu toldra fanva zoi gy
> archaeologist gy fu zo tolci'opre i
> > ju'o cu'i zo tolci'oce'upre cu drani xe fanva
> 
> That's a hard one! There are gerontologists,
> archeologists, and 
> paleontologists. I'm thinking {prucedryskepre}
> or {dzeskepre}. The 
> distinction in Lojban may be different than in
> English.
> 
As the Greek roots suggest, we have three notions
of "old" here, where Lojban has -- at least
initially -- none.  "geront-" is easy
(relatively): {tolcitno}"opposite of young" then
decide whether you want just the science of that
or the medical science of that. "palai-" fits
moderatley well against {cnino}, since it does
carry the sense of comfortably (even honorably)
familiar as well as fuddy-duddy or obsolete.  Of
course, paleontolgy is just about
non-contemporary organism so you might work off
of {cabna} as well as mentuioning biology.  And
{archai-} more or less copies {palai-} with the
hint that (perversely from the English usage)
what is talked about is even older: from the
beginning.  And, of course, archeology is about
culture and artifacts, not generally organisms. 
In this case, I would think it goes better with
{cnino} and the organism with {cabna} but that is
probably reading a lot of English into the matter.