Re: [lojban] me'ispe was Rafybri

[Jonathan Jones <eyeonus@gmail.com>]

On Wed, Apr 25, 2012 at 12:56 PM, Craig Daniel <craigbdaniel@gmail.com> wrote:

On Wed, Apr 25, 2012 at 2:53 PM, Jonathan Jones <eyeonus@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Wed, Apr 25, 2012 at 7:00 AM, Pierre Abbat <phma@phma.optus.nu> wrote:
>>
>> On Wednesday, April 25, 2012 05:15:25 Jonathan Jones wrote:
>> > The only time I have trouble with a Lojban word, however, is when the
>> > meaning is counter-intuitive, that is, when what it means does not seem
>> > to
>> > fit in with what is used to make it, such as me'ispe. Looking at the
>> > word,
>> > without knowing the definition, you would think it has something to do
>> > with
>> > the concepts of "marriage" and "sister", and you may even reach the
>> > conclusion that it's talking about someone who is a sister because of a
>> > marriage. This makes sense.
>> >
>> > me'ispe currently means "Brother-in-Law".
>> >
>> > My line of attack for lujvo like the above isn't to try to memorize the
>> > meaning, or to come with some addition to the language that will make it
>> > more complicated while seeming to make it more simple (any addition is
>> > automatically an increase in complexity), but to /fix/ the /broken/
>> > word.
>>
>> "me'ispe" isn't broken. It means "x1 is married to the sister of x2 by
>> custom/bond x3". This is not the same as brother-in-law, which also
>> includes
>> spebu'a. i la stiv. me'ispe mi .ije mi spebu'a la stiv. i mi me'ispe noda
>> .ini'ibo mi na speni
>
>
> me'ispe: s1 is a brother-in-law (sister's spouse) of m2 under
> law/custom/tradition/system/convention sp3.
>
> If you look up "brother-in-law", that ^ is what you find. So either the
> definition of me'ispe is "brother-in-law" and is broken for reasons stated
> previously, or it isn't and is broken because the definition is wrong.
>

In English, a brother-in-law can be two types of relatives - a husband
of a sibling (that is, most me'ispe and a few bu'aspe), or a brother
of a spouse (a spebu'a). The lujvo definition clarifies which kind it
means with that parenthetical (sister's spouse), but the gloss
"brother-in-law" was very probably written at a time when under all
western-world laws that relationship necessarily indicated a man.

That doesn't make it any less broken.

--
mu'o mi'e .aionys.

.i.e'ucai ko cmima lo pilno be denpa bu .i doi.luk. mi patfu do zo'o
(Come to the Dot Side! Luke, I am your father. :D )

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