Re: [lojban] lojban language names in jbovlaste

[Robert LeChevalier <lojbab@lojban.org>]

At 08:02 PM 1/13/03 -0500, BestATN@aol.com wrote:
> looking at
> http: //nehwon.dyn.wiw.org/jbovlaste/languages.html
>
> i suggest adding the following lojban names for these languages:
> portuguese = potybau
> greek = xesybau
> hebrew = xebybau/brobau
>
> how did italian not get its own gismu?

Because Italy is not a country that speaks one of the 12 core languages 
considered for Lojban word-making (of which we only used 6, but this wasn't 
decided when I made the list), nor is it considered one of the fundamental 
religious cultures of the world, nor is it one of the ancient cultures that 
is commonly referred to in modern discussion of antiquities (which 
justified Latin and Greek).

Actually, what happened is that JCB had a set of cultural gismu in TLI 
Loglan that were rather ad hoc.  I tried to come up with some set of rules 
to determine which cultures would get gismu in Lojban, came up with the 
above 3, and used that as a basis to decide which to consider.  JCB DID 
have a word for Italian, but I could not for the life of me come up with a 
rule that justified it, that did not also justify too many other 
countries.  Based on population, including Italy would have required 
including Turkey, Iran, Ethiopia, Nigeria.  Based on area, dozens of 
countries are larger than Italy  (I guess I could have used GNP, but it did 
not occur to me).  It seemed to be mere Eurocentrism to coin gismu for 
European countries when we were sparsely representing other 
countries.  Finally, we figured that it would be trivial to make a lujvo 
for Italian based on Latin, and we intended to have thousands of lujvo 
defined by the time we made the Lojban dictionary including many cultural 
lujvo, so that it would be clear that gismu and lujvo are equally 
"prestigious" in the language so that we weren't slighting cultures.  The 
latter never happened.

lojbab

--
lojbab                                             lojbab@lojban.org
Bob LeChevalier, President, The Logical Language Group, Inc.
2904 Beau Lane, Fairfax VA 22031-1303 USA                    703-385-0273
Artificial language Loglan/Lojban:                 http://www.lojban.org