Re: experimental crocodile phonology questions

Partly OT ....

On Wed, 27 Oct 2004 07:56:03 -0300, Pablo Flores
<pablodavidflores@...> wrote:
>
>On Fri, 22 Oct 2004 20:57:03 -0000, caeruleancentaur
><caeruleancentaur@...> wrote:
>> I am presuming from the context that, by "sentient," you
>> mean "speaking" as opposed to ordinary crocodiles that cannot speak.
>>
>> In reality, the word "sentient" does not mean that.  It means
>> either "conscious" or "experiencing feeling or sensation."  Thus,
>> ordinary crocodiles are, indeed, sentient.
>
>I've seen the word "sentient" used as a synonym of "self-conscius",
>i. e. "aware of _ego_" a lot. That's common use in science fiction,
>along with the much less common "sapient".
>
>> P.S. When the Buddhists speak of the Buddha saving all sentient
>> beings, they are not referring just to humans, but to all animate
>> life.
And, for some Buddhists, plants and minerals etc. are included indirectly,
since life and environment are said to be basically unified.

>I was thinking, "how can a non-self-conscious animal be saved?",
>when I realized that reaching salvation (Nirvana) implies abolishing
>self-consciousness. Could you elaborate?
I don't see a reply. I'm not clear about that variety of Buddhism. Do you
mean becoming unaware of self or becoming aware of non-self?

>ObConlang:
>I'm also remembering the character in (Delany's?) _Babel-17_ who
>had no awareness of self (or the 1st/2nd/3rd person split for that
>matter). Has somebody tried a conculture/conlang without that
>distinction?
Not yet! All of my *current* projects are supposed to have personal
affixes/pronouns at some point. But a *new* project perhaps ....

I think the Butcher *did* make a distinction, using some kind of sign
language (although perhaps not consciously) and eventually learned how to
use personal pronouns (that passage in chapter IV of part 3 is amusing),
despite Babel-17 not making the distinction.

>
>--Pablo
Jeff