[lojban] Re: Specific terminology - the case of philosophy terminology

[iesk <pa.fae@gmx.de>]

On Mar 18, 6:15 pm, Escape Landsome <escaa...@gmail.com> wrote:
> I want to translate some philosophical works into Lojban

May I ask which ones?


> but here comes the problem of terminology
>
> Many philosophical terms come in fact from vernacular usage, but are
> given in the meantime a new meaning...

… which is, more often than not, not universally agreed upon among
philosophers.

>
> For instance, "liberté" (liberty ? freedom ?) has not quite the same
> sense that the vernacular use of the word has

Nevertheless, the meaning which the word takes in the context of a
particular philosophical work is ‘carved‘ from its vernacular usage;
however esoteric the particular author’s take on ‘liberté’ (or
whatever)—by using that particular word the philosopher alludes to its
common-sense meaning (which the philosopher can then contort).


>
> In fact, either a philosophical term comes form a greek or latin
> etymology and the translation should convey the component meaning of
> its core and affixes
> either it is some very common term that has been "dignified" to a
> brand new philosophical meaning

In many cases those Greek or Latin terms were more or less ordinary
words when they became part of the philosophical discourse. In other
cases, granted, they are purposely coined neologisms. And often, they
are themselves translations (eg ‘substance‘ is, if I remember
correctly, a rather liberal translation of the corresponding Greek
term [which I don’ŧ remember]).


> So, I warn you, I don't know what termes already exist in Lojban, for
> philosophic purpose... (and I regret there doesn't seem to exist a
> page which lists such terms, by themas or something)

Cf. http://www.lojban.org/tiki/Vocabulary (to which your philosophical
terminology could be added?).


> But, admitting there are few (correct me if I'm wrong), how to create them ?

I think it is a challenge that Lojban words are not exactly cognate to
natlang terms. It might be interesting to investigate a translation of
a philosophical work into a genuinely ‘foreign‘ language and see how
the translator delt with the terminology. Like, I don’t know, in a
Korean translation of Spinoza, where translator, supposedly, could not
simply ‘copy‘ etymologically.

Not that this would be a helpful answer … :/

-iesk

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