From iad@MATH.BAS.BG Thu Jun 15 00:40:13 2000 Return-Path: Received: (qmail 29128 invoked from network); 15 Jun 2000 07:40:11 -0000 Received: from unknown (10.1.10.142) by m1.onelist.org with QMQP; 15 Jun 2000 07:40:11 -0000 Received: from unknown (HELO argo.bas.bg) (195.96.224.7) by mta3 with SMTP; 15 Jun 2000 07:40:04 -0000 Received: from banmatpc.math.bas.bg (root@banmatpc.math.bas.bg [195.96.243.2]) by argo.bas.bg (8.11.0.Beta1/8.9.3/Debian 8.9.3-6) with ESMTP id e5F7dpk16693 for ; Thu, 15 Jun 2000 10:39:56 +0300 Received: from iad.math.bas.bg (iad.math.bas.bg [195.96.243.88]) by banmatpc.math.bas.bg (8.9.3/8.9.3) with SMTP id KAA02726 for ; Thu, 15 Jun 2000 10:39:51 +0300 X-Mozilla-Status2: 00000000 Message-ID: <394790FE.EFDECE57@math.bas.bg> Date: Wed, 14 Jun 2000 17:04:46 +0300 X-Mozilla-Draft-Info: internal/draft; vcard=0; receipt=0; uuencode=0; html=0; linewidth=0 X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.6 [en] (Win98; I) X-Accept-Language: en MIME-Version: 1.0 To: lojban@egroups.com Subject: Re: [lojban] Re: lujvo References: <20000613202017.99646.qmail@hotmail.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=koi8-r Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit From: Ivan A Derzhanski Jorge Llambias wrote: > > >But why use a lujvo/tanru anyway? Why not a cmene? It is the name > >of one particular character, isn't it? > > I don't see a problem with either. We use lots of different > names and descriptions in other languages, Mary, Holy Mary, > Virgin Mary, Holy Mother of God, Our Lady of Mercy, Mystic Rose, > and so many others, But all of those are proper names -- they are terms rather than predicates, whether their meaning is transparent or not. A tanru such as {cevni mamta}, or a lujvo derived from it, is a predicate, and probably the main thing about predicates is that they can be predicated of different things or tuples of things, as long as they fit the definition, which in this case would be something like `#1 is mother of god #2, of religion #3, by father #4', or whatever. You see why this makes me think of one of the many mothers of members of polytheistic pantheons, and why I'd expect Christians to prefer a cmene. > there's no reason to restrain ourselves in Lojban. English, Spanish and Russian have developed into their present forms whilst being spoken by predominantly Christian societies, and as a result they have a slant towards Christianity. So `Mother of God' in English, or _Bogomater'_ in Russian, means the mother of the Christian deity without any further specification, and the use of such an expression does not require that the speaker believe in the existence of the said deity or its mother. But if the language is not a Christian one (loose turn of phrase here, but you know what I mean), a literal translation of `Mother of God' might not be appropriate. The Sanskrit means `mother of [Hindu] gods'. And Lojban has no particular connexion to any religion. So I don't expect `Our Lady of Mercy' to make sense if translated. Translating _Madonna_ is even more absurd, since that doesn't have a literal meaning in any current language -- it's a fossilised expression. > I also don't see what could be offensive about {lo mamta be lo > cevni} = "a mother of a god" and similar expressions, but then > people do tend to be touchy about godly matters. I don't see that as offensive either, although I wouldn't use it myself (not of Mary, that is). Nor do I see anything unusual in a god having a mother -- among the world's gods (that is, beings that have been imagined and worshipped in one place or the other) those without mothers are a distinct minority. --Ivan