Re: [lojban] Lojban customary measuring units

["Mark E. Shoulson" <mark@kli.org>]

Pierre Abbat wrote:

> What were measuring practices like in Lojbanistan before it went 
> metric?  There are few units, so it's hard to tell. Other customary 
> systems have a lot more units.
>
> Take length, for instance. The English system has point, line, 
> barleycorn, inch, foot, ell, yard, fathom, rod, chain, furlong, mile, 
> and league. The Lojban system has gucti and minli.
I'm not sure how much you're joking...

The Lojban gutci (note spelling) and minli exist not because of a 
mythical pre-metric retrohistory of Lojbanistan, but in order to 
accomodate discussions that deal with local units of whatever the locale 
is.  Naturally it isn't going to have all the possible different units, 
it could never catch up.  You need to decide if your unit of measurement 
is some kind of gutci or some kind of minli, and either create a lujvo 
or fu'ivla for it (using gutc- or minl- for the rafsi if it's a type 
4(?)) or else just make sure you define your terms with your 
interlocutors during the discussion

I suppose these two units and some simple lujvo of them suffice.  A 
gutci is for measuring things more or less on the human scale.  For 
measuring household objects, buildings, etc.   And minli is for things 
on a larger scale, like long trips and land-masses.  For things outside 
of both scales, we can use things like pagygutci maybe for inch-like 
things?  mikrygutci (with the first part meant loosely) for micron-scale 
things?  megdyminli or something for more Astronomical Unit or 
light-year scale?  I'm sure there are better choices than these, and 
they don't even have to be unique.  I mean that "pagygutci" or whatever 
needn't be specifically "inch"; it depends on the context just as gutci 
does.
> For weight the Indian system has tola, chittak, seer, and maund. The 
> English system has grain, scruple, dram, ounce, pound, and ton (not 
> counting Avoirdupois and Troy versions). The ancient Hebrew system had 
> gerah, beqa, pim, sheqel, mina, and talent (kikkar). The Lojban system 
> has only bunda.
(pim?  I know my ancient Hebrew measures; that one doesn't sound 
familiar.  And it isn't in http://www.unc.edu/~rowlett/units/  I must be 
forgetting something.)
> I think I found one of the missing units: the fi'urvo is 1/4 dekpu. 
> Anyone know what the others are, or how many gucti are in a minli, or 
> square gucti in a kramu or cubic gucti in a dekpu?
*fi'urvo?  "fi'u" is the rafsi for "cfipu," and yes, this word is 
confusing.  *rvo isn't the rafsi for anything.  It looks like you tried 
to make the number "fi'u vo" into a lujvo by binding it together with an 
r-hyphen.  You can't do that; lujvo are made out of rafsi, not cmavo 
(though some cmavo have rafsi that look the same)

And the answer to your questions, of course, is that it depends on what 
you choose to be meaning as a gutci or minli or whatever.  If we're 
talking merkyminli (and merkygutci), then there are plainly murebino 
gutci.  If we're with a Talmudic xebryminli, only reki'o of the 
corresponding gutci.

~mark