Re: lo xajmi tersitna

[Bob LeChevalier-Logical Language Group <lojbab@xxxxxx.xxxx]

>From: John Minot <minots@texas.net>
>"Evgueni.Sklyanin" wrote:
>> 'day-of-week:week:day:month:year' (number of the week is usually omitted),
>> for instance, Tuesday, June 8th, 1999 = 3::8:6:1999
>> 
>> The date is Tuesday, June 8th, 1999 =
>> li ci pi'epi'e bi pi'exa pi'epasososo cu detri
>
>Has there ever been any dialog on why the order is month/day/year and
>whether it should be so?

He just said that the order is day/month/year %^)

The reason for the order is linguistics, and has to do with elision and
critical information, which in languages tends to come either up front or
at the end. It was felt sufficiently important to reverse the order found
in ISO standards, which are used for dates with all information specified.
Language users do not generally specify all the portions of the date.

In Lojban, important info is usually up front, and we elide things at the
end that are typically less important. Now look at actual usage of dates
in language.
Today is Tuesday
Today is Tuesday the 8th (not Tuesday in June, or Tuesday in 1999)
Today is Tuesday the 8th of June
Today is Tuesday the 8th of June in 1999

We sometimes elide the day of the week because it is unimportant or known,
but whenb we give dates the order used in Lojban is in order of importance
because the later numbers do not change as often and hence are often
implicit in the context.

> American English is one of the few languages
>in the world with that order. British English, Spanish, Russian, and
>practically every language in the world (although not Japanese, which
>has year/month/day) have day/month/year.

And Lojban matches most countries and not American English.

lojbab
----
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Bob LeChevalier, President, The Logical Language Group, Inc.
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