Re: [lojban] Cool

[Jorge Llambías <jjllambias@gmail.com>]

On Sun, Aug 22, 2010 at 4:47 PM, Ivo Doko <ivo.doko@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> However, what if in the other five of the six languages
> there simply isn't a native analogue of the modern meaning of English
> word "cool"?

I think that would be unlikely, since it's such a basic concept.

> That would hardly be surprising, the modern meaning of
> cool has only been part of the English language since recently, before
> it used to mean nothing but "cold" and "calm".

But that doesn't mean English speakers had no word for the concept
before they started using "cool" for it. They would use "super" or
"dandy" or whatever the proper slang was at the time for that concept.
Using those oldfashioned words today would proably be uncool, but
slang is one of the most ephemeral parts of language.

> What would we do if there simply isn't a Mandarin, Arabic, Spanish,
> Russian nor Hindi analogue word with such meaning? Would we give up
> adding that word to Lojban vocabulary?

We already have a word for general approval in Lojban (zabna) so we
don't really need to add another one. What zabna and mabla may lack is
that they are perhaps not slangy enough, but I doubt that monster
type-3 fu'ivla will be what fluent Lojbanists come up with as their
slang words. Almost by definition, slang words can't be officially
created anyway, so we'll just have to wait and see what the fluent
speakers come up with.

mu'o mi'e xorxes

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