Re: [lojban] me'ispe was Rafybri

[Craig Daniel <craigbdaniel@gmail.com>]

On Wed, Apr 25, 2012 at 3:21 PM, Jonathan Jones <eyeonus@gmail.com> wrote:
> 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.

It's not broken at all. It's a type of spena, exactly as you would
expect from the form of the word. It's just that, in English, for some
reason we use one term for these two sides of that sort of
asymmetrical relationships, even though we wouldn't do the same with
"uncle" and "niece." Lojban removes the natlang ambiguity; that's kind
of what it's designed to do.

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