Re: [lojban] Cool

[Warrigal <ihope127+w@gmail.com>]

On Sun, Aug 22, 2010 at 6:03 PM, Jonathan Jones <eyeonus@gmail.com> wrote:
> Personally, I'm against fu'ivla in general, specifically because I think it
> is possible to make an appropriate lujvo for any concept and borrowed words
> should only be used as a last resort.
>
> For instance, "velociraptor " is Latin for "swift thief".

Yes, but a velociraptor is not actually a swift thief at all. Lujvo
*can* have meanings different from, or even unrelated to, the tanru
you'd get from expanding them, but they shouldn't. Besides, looking
down the list of language links at
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Velociraptor, every language whose
alphabet I can read (except Icelandic) uses essentially the same word
for "velociraptor". If I'm reading something in Spanish and I come
across the word "velocirráptor", I'll instantly know what it means. If
I'm reading something in Lojban and I see "verlokirapto", I'll
probably get it without much difficulty. If I see "sutyzerle'a", I'm
going to have no idea and I'll have to look it up in a dictionary.

You see, we have this thing called the International Scientific
Vocabulary. To a great extent, scientific words like "velociraptor"
and "fermion" are shared between almost every human language. Tossing
this out would be a folly.

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