cultural rafsi fu'ivla

["marios cmavirn" <lamarios@hotmail.com>]

.i coi rodo mi'e marios

.i la lojbab cusku di'e:

>I am not sure what you would define as the "Caribbean" culture. My >own 
>preference for lujvo over borrowings would lead me to a lujvo based >on 
>bemro daplu or xispo daplu (or the reverse order). For the British >West 
>Indies culture (which I suspect is different from the Hispanic >Caribbean 
>culture) you could use brito bemro daplu.

. i la steven belknap cusku di'e:

>Being married to a Cuban, and having spent considerable time in the
>Caribbean, I am unsure that there is a Caribbean culture. Cuba has a
>Spanish heritage, St. Lucia a British, Guadaloupe a French, and there
>are many other influences. Even with a common colonial heritage,
>Jamaica is very different from St. Lucia. There is a shared currency
>among some of the countries, (EC dollars), and there is certainly a
>lot of interchange between the islands. But a common Caribbean
>culture? That is a surprise to me.

Thank you for your reactions. With due respect, I must however disagree. For 
someone living in the Caribbean and of Caribbean origin, the existence of a 
Caribbean culture surpassing linguistic and former colonial boundaries is 
just as real as European culture would be for Europeans, with their 
differences between germanic, slavic and romanic Europe. Punto. I was 
looking for a lojban word for Caribbean, and not a discussion about the 
existence of a caribbean cultural identity. I would really suggest to leave 
the question of wether a culture can identify as such up to the culture in 
question, and use this standard where these specific cultural fu'ivla are 
concerned. I looked up ropno, bemro and xazdo in the gismu list which says: 
"x1 reflects European culture/nationality/geography/Indo-European languages 
in aspect x2" . Bemro: "x1 reflects North American culture/ nationality/ 
geography in aspect x2". Even xazdo: x1 reflects Asiatic 
culture/nationality/geography in aspect x2. Can you imagine that the same 
way you look at us from up there, from down here I might question the 
existence of a common culture between US, Canadians and Mexicans. So let's 
not go there.

Just to give an idea of how real Caribbean culture is: As a social scientist 
I'd say Caribbean culture is an insular/coastal determined culture, based on 
the encounter between mainly African, European and Amerindian cultures, with 
even a touch of India, with common roots in plantation economy based on 
slavery and indentureship. Out of this has sprung numerous cultural threads, 
a very important one being the caribbean creole languages born out of a 
common afro-portuguese lingua franca forming a subgroup of the family of 
creole languages, with very similar structures, but with different 
vocabularies. Geographically there is an ambiguity as the Antillean 
archipelago forms one arch from Cuba in the northwest through Trinidad in 
the south-east to Aruba in the southwest, but some islands are 
geographically part of south-america while others are considered part of 
north-america. The Bahamas are outside of the Caribbean arch, but consider 
themselves Caribbean. Same goes for the coastal countries of Belize and the 
Guyanas and for the Caribbean coasts of Venezuela, Colombia and Central 
America. in most Caribbean countries a European country may be the official 
language, but the mother tongue of most people is a creole. At least 16 
independent countries label themselves foremost as Caribbean and not as 
north-american, or hispanic. Most of them have joined Caricom, or the ACS. 
Regularly one of those countries hosts Carifesta, an international festival 
of Caribbean culture.

In the Caribbean we are accustomed to people from outside telling us what 
we are and should be. I don't worry about that. I just think that as lojban 
community we should strive maybe not that much for cultural neutrality, as 
that's a hard one, but more for pluriformity, as more southerners like me 
start joining up. I really think the job you're doing is great, and I hope 
you appreciate this contribution.

.i co'o mi'e kra'ib

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