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Re: [lojban] Re: lojban and PR
Sebastian Fröjd wrote:
Probably better for me to just focus on becoming a more
skilled user and then start to teach lojban in Sweden in the future.
Excellent!
I understand the benefits of broad/vague meanings of gismu, but
sometimes I think the gismus are too vague.
Like in the discussion about colors. Some cultures without distinctions
between brown and purple probably define {bunre} and {zirpu} as
synonyms, but then I'm talking colors with someone I would like to be
sure that for example brown is brown and purple is purple.
One solution is lujvo with a reference, e.g chocolate brown, sky blue.
The fact that cultures have differences in how and what colors they
distinguish is one reason why we kept them vague.
My suggestion
is still therefore to use a technical reference of color as a set point,
and instead be pretty vague about the range.
skari could take among other things, a wavelength in x2, or some other
technical reference
When it comes to name species I usually interpret gismu as x1 is of some
species within a given genus, which is vague enough I think.
We avoided being specific here as well, but some of the gismu expressly
call for a species in x2.
I really don't want to make the language more tight and make it more
normative than it already is, but somehow I would like to use consistent
system of scientific terminology for them who are interested in using
lojban that way.
To get into technical and scientific terminology that varies from
colloquial usage ("varied" can include being especially precise),
fu'ivla are in order.
> I just don't know how to put this. Since I'm not
skilled in lojban and doesn't understand the more theoretical
discussions here,
I am moderately skilled and I don't understand them either, even while
being called "Founder" zo'o
> and also because the fact that I understand english
far more better than my actual usage of it, I feel pretty frustrated. I
think I just have to let it go right now and concentrate on
communication instead. But at the same time I would also like to invent
lujvo when I have use for it, and then again I think consistency is a
good thing.
Inventing lujvo is a good thing, especially if you think about place
structures when doing so. Consistency isn't really possible for ad hoc
coinages. Try to be consistent with your own standards; others will do
so with theirs. Eventually, when there are multiple words proposed for
the same concept, we can consider making choices (but we don't have to
do so even then). More important is that people be able to look up what
the word means if they cannot get the meaning from context+etymology.
In scientific writing, we tend to be more concerned with precision. On
the other hand, poets and others often invent new words which are in no
dictionary, and people still find the poems meaningful.
lojbab
--
Bob LeChevalier lojbab@lojban.org www.lojban.org
President and Founder, The Logical Language Group, Inc.
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