Re: [lojban] SAE was lojban and PR

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

On Saturday 29 October 2011 10:42:57 John E Clifford wrote:
> I see I should have used "allegedly" more freely in that note, especially
> since this is a "SWH is false" week. I'm not sure what a sentence from each
> such language would do, but I can cite the standard languages of the
> various types. The plug-and-socket types are shown by SAE languages,
> Chinese is usually given as a mass language (individuals as slices of the
> bulk), Trobriand Island as kind (whole present in all its 'manifestations')
> is usual.  Whorf's choices for flux languages are Menominee and Hopi.
> Another type of language often talked about, but rarely (if ever) seen, is
> the language which takes the world to be mere sense data popping into and
> out existence instantaneously (maybe a kind of flux language).

"lo xamgu be lo trobriando cu xamgu lo trobriando vau po'o"
That was all I knew about Trobrianders until I found out that the island is in 
the Kula ring (a ring of islands near PNG where jewelries called mwali and 
soulava are traded in opposite directions). I know nothing of the Trobriander 
language, Menominee, or Hopi, and just a few smatterings of Chinese.

> As for missing the class, this stuff is often not in classes (I had courses
> from both Leonard and Goodman and never saw any calculus of individuals)
> but in stray reading (xorxes is a pro at this, thank God, so the stuff does
> get down to us fairly rapidly).  There used to be a course on Whorf at
> UCLA, though,  whence many of these jokes (although with a Scandanavian
> like Harry Hoijer it is hard to be sure which ones are the jokes).
> As for characteristic instances, the Pidjin "one piecee man" does for
> masses, "gavagai" for kinds, and for processes, the Hopi name for Weeping
> Springs is literally "flowing downward whitely".  Whether there is anything
> to all this remains the question (Hoijer's last lecture "Any way you slice
> it, it's still baloney").

What pidgin is that? I know a fair bit of Tok Pisin, in which one 
says "wanpela man". "tu klok" and "tupela klok" are both valid Tok Pisin, but 
not synonyms; they mean "two o'clock" and "two clocks" respectively. It does 
have plural number, but not marked on nouns; the plural article "ol" (which 
also means "they") marks a noun as plural.

Pierre
-- 
.i toljundi do .ibabo mi'afra tu'a do
.ibabo damba do .ibabo do jinga
.icu'u la ma'atman.

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