Subject: Re: [lojban] spatnrosace

From: "Bob LeChevalier (lojbab)" <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 04 Oct 2001 12:10:04 -0400

Having sent the following, the topic came up in Auxlang with useful 
corroberation
>There is no need to learn a zillion fu'ivla (type IV nonetheless and 
>therefore meaningless to any other person who hasn't memorized the same 
>list as you) to make the distinctions that people want to make in everyday 
>speech. For the distinctions used in scientific discussions, the proper 
>approach is the one that English scientists use along with most others in 
>the world: type I fu'ivla "la'o spat. Spiraeoidae spat." la'o was put 
>into the language specifically to avoid the need to solve the unsolvable 
>Linnean binomial problem. (If some particular species are being used a 
>lot in a paper or in a particular lab environment, the appropriate 
>solution is to use names - type 2 fu'ivla or any of the anaphoric 
>solutions. Type 3 fu'ivla are used when jargon is common enough to pass 
>between fields and there is risk that two different jargon-using groups 
>will fail to understand each other. Type 4 fu'ivla make sense only when a 
>word is being used so often that it will be the sort of word that 
>non-technical people would be expected to know and identify without context.

The following appeared in auxlang

>Date: Wed, 3 Oct 2001 11:48:17 +0300
>From: Risto Kupsala <[email-masked]>
>Subject: Universal scientific vocabulary
>
> > Samuel Rivier wrote:
> > do you have opinions on greek being a universal
> > vocabulary source? Does every language have the word
> > acrophobia as part of its vocabulary?
>
>Phobia is definitely widely recognized word.
>
> > There are certain terms used scientifically that I
> > feel should be borrowed into an IAL, such as canis for
> > dog (canis lupus), agora for public forum
> > (agoraphobia), and maybe tyrannus for emporer
> > (tyrannosaurus rex)
>
>Some biologists have the opinion that the common people
>should be educated to call animals with their two-word
>latin names.
>So, for example, instead of saying "dog", "hund", "cane",
>etc. everybody would say "canis lupus" in every country
>(and perhaps the accepted short form would be "canis").
>This would work well in Europe because many languages are
>already affected by Latin to great extent.
>Here's an article supporting the idea:
>http://saltaquarium.about.com/library/weekly/aa100600.htm

The article is worth reading and argues my position far better than I have, 
and gives relevant examples of where one might want to use a common (i.e. 
lojbanized) name when one is not concerned about being exact as to the 
species.

lojbab

--
lojbab [email-masked]
Bob LeChevalier, President, The Logical Language Group, Inc.
2904 Beau Lane, Fairfax VA 22031-1303 USA 703-385-0273
Artificial language Loglan/Lojban: http://www.lojban.org