[lojban] Re: Philosophical differences.

[Pierre Abbat <phma@phma.optus.nu>]

On Monday 20 July 2009 08:46:55 Lindar Greenwood wrote:
> 3. Cultural gismu.
>
> Just fix it already.

What's broken?

5. Animal names.

The gimste includes two words for Galliformes and two for Anseriformes, and 
none whatsoever for the largest order of birds, Passeriformes. There are more 
species of fish than of all land vertebrates combined, yet we have no gismu 
more specific than "finpe". The gismu don't distinguish arachnids from 
crustaceans; I don't know anyone who doesn't know a decapod from a spider, 
though they may not know what, say, a pillbug is.

6. Chemical names.

Chemical nomenclature is very similar to lujvo formation, much more than 
animal nomenclature is. There should be gismu (with rafsi of course) for 
common morphemes like "-ate" and "hypo-" and "iso-", and a way to distinguish 
between different uses of numbers in chemical names ("tri-" means there are 
three copies of a radical; "3-" means it's connected to the third carbon 
atom).

7. Folk units.

The Roman weight units include the libra and the uncia, which have spread 
throughout Europe, changing value as they went. The Indian units are maund, 
seer, chittak, and tola. All Lojban has is the bunda.

On Monday 20 July 2009 19:31:38 Stela Selckiku wrote:
> That's a much deeper sin of the gismu list: It completely conflates
> the purposes of creating a basic vocabulary and creating a library of
> combining forms, and thus does both terribly.

I agree. A basic vocabulary including a variety of short fu'ivla would have 
been good.

Pierre


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