Subject: RE: [lojban] Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis

From: "Craig" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 13 Jun 2001 17:54:20 -0400

>> >Myself, I am not sure that we won't eventually have Lojban attitudinals
>> >that are NOT translatable to other languages.
>>
>>You mean they aren't already untranslatable?

>They certainly are in terms of the way people are TRYING to translate them
>in the ongoing discussion, and to some extent I am irritated that people
>are trying to turn attitudinals into bridi when that is one thing that they
>explicitly are NOT, even if/when there is some degree of propositional
>import to the attitudinal.

Actually, that's agreeing with my point (although I guess that I wasn't
clear enough) in that we're having an argument about how to translate and
use the translation of something inherently untranslatable. I'm guilty of
this too, but that doesn't stop me from saying this: If we were all fluent
lojbanists and we only spoke in lojban. I don't think we'd have ever started
this argument because we'd all understand EXACTLY what each other were
saying - our attempts to describe it in English terms takes something really
very simple and makes it confusing. One of the most primitive, basic
concepts of anguage (emotion) is expressed quite simply in lojban.

Are our thoughts constrained by English? yes.
.ui do klama is a very simple sentence. It says that you come, and attaches
an emotion of happiness to it. But if we try to do that in English, we spend
twelve days (so far, I'll bet its not over yet) arguing over how to
translate it, and whether .ui do klama is the same as do klama .ui or do .ui
klama because .ui has no English counterpart. We can all agree on it when we
speak in lojban. and understand each other just fine, but when we try to
translate .ui to English we waste two weeks dissagreeing about how. QED.

Now that I look at it, the first 'approach to attitudinals' post begins "It
is clear that atitudinals are not used to make claims. If I say 'ui' I am
not claiming that I am happy, I am simply showing you that I am happy. A big
smile might accomplish the same thing. They are not claims." (You can check
this if you want, it's from la xorxes. on july first at 7:00 (my time, which
right now is EDT))
So why are we wasting our time over whether the bridi is asserted? Nobody
has contradicted la xorxes. on this, and if it changes the meaning of the
bridi then it is making a claim, so unless somebody didn't speak up almost
two weeks ago, we're arguing over something we all agree about!

--la kreig.daniyl

'segu temci fa le bavli gi mi'o ba renvi lo purci
.i ga la fonxa cu janbe gi du mi'
-la djimis.BYFet

xy.sy. gubmau ckiku cmesanji: 0x5C3A1E74