Subject: Re: [lojban] Re: Chinese names

From: Robin <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 06 Jun 2000 19:02:49 +0300

The discussion of standardisation also has a bearing on the concept of a
cmene itself, I think. The whole point of a cmene, as I see it, is that
it is an arbitrary label, and thus can be anything you like, so long as
it conforms to the rules of Lojban morphology (zo'o not that mine always
do). To talk of a standard form for cmene seems contradictory. OK, I
know that the first of my Lojban lessons has instructions on how to
Lojbanise proper names, but this is simply an aid to (a) understanding
Lojban phonology and (b) assist people who want to make cmene which bear
some relation to the soundof the name they derive from, which most of
the time is what we want. However, this does not detract from the
essentially arbitrary nature of cmene. If Bob wants to refer to himself
as "lojbab." because his dialect pronounces "Bob" something like UK
English "barb", that's his privelege, but he could equally well cmenify
"Bob" as "glurp." or something. "la bab." does _not_ mean "a member of
the set of entities whose native-language names are pronounced similarly
to Lojban 'bab'."

co'o mi'e robin.