From iad@MATH.BAS.BG Fri Nov 03 05:35:35 2000 Return-Path: X-Sender: iad@math.bas.bg X-Apparently-To: lojban@egroups.com Received: (EGP: mail-6_2_1); 3 Nov 2000 13:35:35 -0000 Received: (qmail 12161 invoked from network); 3 Nov 2000 13:35:34 -0000 Received: from unknown (10.1.10.27) by m2.onelist.org with QMQP; 3 Nov 2000 13:35:34 -0000 Received: from unknown (HELO banmatpc.math.bas.bg) (195.96.243.2) by mta2 with SMTP; 3 Nov 2000 13:35:33 -0000 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 PAA05999 for ; Fri, 3 Nov 2000 15:35:22 +0200 Message-ID: <3A02BF2B.4EAF@math.bas.bg> Date: Fri, 03 Nov 2000 15:35:40 +0200 Reply-To: iad@math.bas.bg Organization: Institute for Mathematics and Computer Science X-Mailer: Mozilla 3.01Gold (Win95; I; 16bit) MIME-Version: 1.0 To: lojban@egroups.com Subject: Re: [lojban] Re: weekday names References: <3A0142D4.32F6@math.bas.bg> <0011021532120Y.00904@neofelis> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit From: Ivan A Derzhanski Pierre Abbat wrote: > What are the Chinese names of the planets and the days? The names of the planets are the same in Chinese and Japanese (and Korean, I think), modulo phonetic shape. The ones that are visible to the naked eye are named after the five elements, the rest have their mythological names translated: Mer Water-Star Ven Metal-Star Mar Fire-Star Jup Wood-Star Sat Earth-Star (not to be confused with the Earth) Ura Sky-King-Star Nep Sea-King-Star Plu Nether-King-Star The days of the week are numbered in Chinese (all except Sunday) and named after the Sun, Moon and elements in Japanese (and Korean, as you say). > As to month names, having some based on gismu and others on lujvo > is OK by me, since they all end up being lujvo. But sticking > a fu'ivla "jukrskorpio" in there is ugly. Indeed. The unavoidable heterogeneity of the lexicon is justified by the fact that some concepts (eg `fish') are more fundamental and/or more frequent than others (eg `scorpion'). But all month names are of equal semantic complexity, so I'd like their names to be structurally similar to the greatest possible extent. Adam Raizen wrote: > [...] for practical purposes this is the system used. > The reason why it's at all appealing to use the zodiac signs is > because it's a traditional system that can be translated into lojban. > The important thing is [...] to give traditional names to the months. But are those traditional names of the months, as opposed to simply being a set of, er, conventional signs that are sometimes associated with the months? Is there a language in which one would say, literally, that Christmas Day is the 25th of Sagittarius-Month? (Note that someone born on that date is a Capricorn!) --Ivan