Subject: Re: Random lojban questions/annoyances.

From: "A.W.T." <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 19 Mar 2001 11:46:38 -0000

--- In lojban@y..., Robin Lee Powell <rlpowell@c...> wrote:

> I have checked, by the way, with both my roommates, both also
native NA
> English speakers, and they agree that English is truth-agnostic,
i.e.
> that the fact that I know something has nothing to do with its
objective
> truth. The had no problem with the sentence "I know Dave lives in
> Australia", even if that is in fact not true, and agreed that the
> _truth_ of the statement has nothing to do with the _validity_
(semantic
> or syntactic) of the statement.

If this really were true ("English is truth-agnostic"), up to now I
never even had been aware of that English and German thinking 
could be so different!! (and I still won't think so). Can it be that
this is the reason why German is a "philosophic" language (like 
Yiddish) while English never had been! ;-)

German: "wissen" (to know); mhd: "wizzen", ahd: "wizzan", as: "witan"
from g: "wait", also gt: "wait", anord: "veit", ae: "wat", afr: 
"wet", i.g.: "woida", ai: "véda", gr: "oida", akslav: "vede",
apruss: "waist", air: "rofetar" - expresses the state at the subject
that is 
reached by the action *weid- 'to find' (recognize, look at), hence:
'I have found/recognized' = 'I know'. The basic meaning in gr: 
"eidon" 'I looked at, recognized', air: "rofinnadar" 'finds out,
discovered'; durative in l: "video" 'I see', akslaw: "videti" 'see'
etc.

I can only "know" the truth about something, otherwise I failed
knowing (and just believed to know).

.aulun.