{prenu} vs. {remna}

[Dylan Thurston <dpt@MATH.HARVARD.EDU>]

Reading further in the Martin Luther King speech (which is going much
more easily now), I came across

        ro remna cu jikydunli co'a lenu ri se zbasu

(as a translation of part of the U.S. Declaration of independence: "All
men are created equal".)  Now, from the gismu list, it seems to me that
the distinction between {prenu} and {remna} is like the English
distinction between person and human animal.  Since the above bridi is
specifically about the social aspects of humans rather than the physical,
it seems to me that {prenu} would be more appropriate.  Indeed, there are
certain {lo remna} that don't qualify as {lo prenu} in this sense; for a
less explosive example than the slaves the framers probably intended,
consider young children, the psychotically insane, or the severely
retarded.

I'm not sure if this analysis of the difference between {prenu} and
{remna} really holds up, though.  Anyone who has a pet will tell you that
animals can have personalities and thus might qualify as {lo prenu}.  And
if {remna} is meant to be the human animal, why doesn't it have a place
for "species/breed" (i.e., genetic background, one of the senses of
English "race") like all other animals?  Other opinions?

(Indeed, why doesn't {remna} have a place for "species/breed"?  Perhaps
{prenu} should have a place for cultural background, just to make the
difference perfectly clear.)

co'o mi'e. dilyn. ZRstan.

(I'm not sure how best to transliterate my last name.  The second vowel,
which is close to the vowel in "John", seems to normally be
transliterated {a} rather than {o}, though it's not really either.  And
Lojban doesn't have a (unvoiced) dental affricate, English "th"
(sometimes); earlier, I used {t} to preserve the dental quality, but
perhaps it's better to keep it an affricate with {z}, as in the
stereotypical French pronunciation of "the".  Opinions?)