From lojbab@lojban.org Tue Jun 13 02:28:18 2000 Return-Path: Received: (qmail 11843 invoked from network); 13 Jun 2000 09:28:16 -0000 Received: from unknown (10.1.10.26) by m2.onelist.org with QMQP; 13 Jun 2000 09:28:16 -0000 Received: from unknown (HELO mailman2.cais.net) (205.252.14.62) by mta1 with SMTP; 13 Jun 2000 09:28:16 -0000 Received: from stmpy-5.cais.net (stmpy-5.cais.net [205.252.14.75]) by mailman2.cais.net (8.10.1/8.10.1) with ESMTP id e5D8KHe00142 for ; Tue, 13 Jun 2000 04:20:17 -0400 (EDT) Received: from bob (ppp25.net-A.cais.net [205.252.61.25]) by stmpy-5.cais.net (8.10.1/8.9.3) with ESMTP id e5D8HWL65160; Tue, 13 Jun 2000 04:17:32 -0400 (EDT) (envelope-from lojbab@lojban.org) Message-Id: <4.2.2.20000613034311.00b3d220@127.0.0.1> X-Sender: vir1036/pop.cais.com@127.0.0.1 X-Mailer: QUALCOMM Windows Eudora Pro Version 4.2.2 Date: Tue, 13 Jun 2000 04:18:32 -0400 To: pycyn@aol.com, lojban@egroups.com Subject: Re: [lojban] Re: lujvo In-Reply-To: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"; format=flowed From: "Bob LeChevalier (lojbab)" At 05:32 PM 06/12/2000 -0400, pycyn@aol.com wrote: >In a message dated 00-06-12 16:05:25 EDT, aulun writes: > ><< I just wanted to have a Lojban equivalent to Italian > "Madonna" (ma donna=my lady/mistress; having a fixed - first of all > Roman-Catholic - meaning, comparable to German "Unsere > liebe Frau..."). >> > >I suppose that is where the singer got it -- she is of Italian descent, I >seem to recall. The >name does get around though -- consider Liebfraumilch for just one. > ><<(Since /mamta/ isn't necessarily meant biologically, why >not /seljbecevni/?).>> > >But this case IS meant biologically -- and wouldn't cevrseljbe fit the lb >patterns better? I'm probably completely missing the point of this discussion. There is a direct Lojban equivalent to Italian "Madonna = my lady" in terms of etymology of the tanru - I would make it "mibni'u", or if you want the connotations of mistress of higher class, you could insert "nol" as a modifier for nobility (mibnolni'u), ces for holy (mibycesni'u), or selse'u for one who is served. For the deific inference, you could stick in "cei" itself recognizing the pantheonic role of the Mother of God. But in Lojban, none of these would have the Italian MEANING of "Madonna" because Lojban tanru have all manner of interpretations, and lujvo select a single ad hoc one of these, but are not necessarily a part of the lexicon unless picked up by the speaking community (and/or enshrined in the dictionary). There is no guarantee that a given proposed lujvo will be understood as having a particular meaning unless it is used in Lojban text with that meaning and is is indeed understood as such. To get the importance of this, I suggest that people look at the thousands of untranslated lujvo in the working files at www.lojban.org. We have lujvo, often used several times, where we have no keyword, no place structure. In the few attempts I've heard of from random members of the community looking at these files, typically no more than half suggest a clear meaning, and even then it likely is not the meaning intended by the person who made the lujvo up - that takes context and/or lots of usage. We don't have 2000 years of Latin/Romance/Italian to back up our metaphor and there are other deities in the world that could be implied in "seljbecevni" or any of the other variations that have popped up in this thread. Hera help me. We ARE trying for a culturally neutral; language, so if I wanted a word for the mother of Christ, I would NOT use "cevni", I would use "xriso" as the basis for the lujvo. One need not be Christian to understand the concept "xismamta" (and whether she was biological mother and who/what was the biological father can be left for another debate). For the honorific implied in "Ma" donna - I would use the ameliorative of Lojban, so I would translate the name/title "Madonna" as "zanxismamta". lojbab -- lojbab lojbab@lojban.org 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