Re: [lojban] Cool

["A. PIEKARSKI" <totus@rogers.com>]

> 
> On 22 August 2010 16:42, A. PIEKARSKI <totus@rogers.com> wrote:
> > In how many languages does 'cool' mean 'cool'?
> 
> 
> Funnily enough, a lot of non-English speakers have incorporated the
> word "cool" in their slang, even French:
> http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/cool#French
> 
> With English being today's de facto lingua franca that was actually to
> be expected. 

Not so!  English may be the closest the world has to having a lingua 
franca, but most of the world does not speak English.

Your example of French speakers using 'cool' is not very convincing.
Take the six languages that provide the basis for our gismu.  How many 
of their speakers use 'cool'?  I have travelled in in Eastern Europe (including 
Russia) and been in China.  Few people there spoke English, and the 
ones that didn't certainly didn't uses 'cool'.

The danger of succumbing to the temptation of using English words 
that are not widely used in the non-English speaking world is that Lojban 
will be seen as yet another conlang devised by English speakers for 
English speakers.  The creators of Lojban went to some trouble to 
ensure that didn't happen (coming up with the gismu creation algorithm 
was hardly a trivial understaking!),  Their vision was a good one.
I think we should stick to it.

totus


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