From ragnarok@pobox.com Wed Jun 13 14:56:25 2001 Return-Path: X-Sender: raganok@intrex.net X-Apparently-To: lojban@yahoogroups.com Received: (EGP: mail-7_1_3); 13 Jun 2001 21:56:24 -0000 Received: (qmail 31730 invoked from network); 13 Jun 2001 21:54:25 -0000 Received: from unknown (10.1.10.26) by l8.egroups.com with QMQP; 13 Jun 2001 21:54:25 -0000 Received: from unknown (HELO intrex.net) (209.42.192.246) by mta1 with SMTP; 13 Jun 2001 21:54:25 -0000 Received: from Craig [209.42.200.34] by intrex.net (SMTPD32-5.05) id A11D522200B2; Wed, 13 Jun 2001 17:54:37 -0400 Reply-To: To: "Bob LeChevalier (lojbab)" , Subject: RE: [lojban] Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis Date: Wed, 13 Jun 2001 17:54:20 -0400 Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Priority: 3 (Normal) X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook IMO, Build 9.0.2416 (9.0.2910.0) In-Reply-To: <4.3.2.7.2.20010613161728.00a9ff00@127.0.0.1> Importance: Normal X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V5.00.2314.1300 X-eGroups-From: "Craig" From: "Craig" >> >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