Re: Unilang: the Lexicon

Oskar Gudlaugsson wrote:
>On Sat, 21 Apr 2001 15:45:54 -0400, Andreas Johansson <and_yo@...>
>wrote:
>
> >Hm, while the idea of "a mediori" seems good, I disagree about the last.
>If
> >a word is found in most of the major langs of the world I think it
> >definitely should be used in the Unilang too. As for "long nonsense
>words",
> >I don't think that applies to "democracy" - even to English-speakers that
> >know squat of Greek, its connection to "autocracy", "theocracy" etc is
>quite
> >obvious.
> >
> >BTW, I assume you're intending to keep the "international" scientific
>terms?
> >I see VERY little point in ditching words like "deoxiribos" ...
>
>The point might be that someone uninitiated (such as me) would have a clue
>what the word means; I can't even tell what academic field "deoxiribos"
>belongs too! :)
Well, 'deoxiribos' is a kind of sugar. Together with nucleinic acids it
forms DNA.

But the point was that those who need to know this already knows it in
English (or French or Swedish or Czech or whatever language they happen to
speak), and so will find it easier if the words occures in recognizeable
form in the unilang, while the rest won't care much what it sounds like in
unilang. And even for native speakers of the unilang, a "native" word for it
will be of little help since they, if they study chemistry, will have to
learn a huge and esoteric vocabulary of technical words anyway.

FWIW, the prefix 'deoxi-' means something like "without oxygen" - if you add
an atom of oxygen to deoxiribos you get another kind of sugar called
'ribos'. What 'ribos' itself means, I haven't found out, but the ending
'-os' indicates that we're dealing with a kind of sugar.

>
>But I see your point, nonetheless. "Nonsense words" may be an overly harsh
>judgement on my behalf.
>
>It's difficult to solve this issue, whether "higher thinking" should simply
>be expressed in Greek (as some English-speakers seem convinced to be the
>only possible way -- no offence!), or in more transparent composed words.
For the purpose of systematic chemical and medical terms, I think the answer
is definitely "yes". As for "unsystematic" latinisms and graecisms (is that
the correct term?) like 'democracy', well I'm in favour of keeping such that
occures in most world langs, but I guess it's down to a judgment for each
individual word.
>
>One way might be to artificially assign the common Greek components an
>independent meaning, as per their original value: thus /'krase/ might be
>selected to mean "control/ruling/governing/management". However, this
>tempting solution would call for an extensive Hellenization of the
>lexicon: "people/the public" would have to be /'demo/, "self" would have to
>be /'auto/, etc. It's simply a quick route to enslaving your
>supposed "Universal Language" to a single source.
Hm, yes, this might be a problem. But having /krasi/ or similar as the word
of "consitution, type of government" while the normal word for "to govern"
is a-priori might perhaps work? English 'autocracy' is afterall not
synonymous with 'self-rule' ...

                                                          Andreas
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