WikiDiscuss

On Thu, May 20, 2004 at 01:02:49AM -0400, Rob Speer wrote:
> On Wed, May 19, 2004 at 09:35:41PM -0700, Robin Lee Powell wrote:
> > > I don't know when I'd want to talk about Mr. Cat, and I don't
> > > think I'd want to accidentally be talking about him. I imagine
> > > that the concept will be similarly difficult to grasp for most
> > > learners of the language.
> >
> > Is there a difference between "ravens are tricksters" and "Raven is
> > a trickster"? Unless one is independetly worshiping Raven (in which
> > case it's "la raven" anyways), I don't see a difference.
>
> The words "Mr. Raven" simply don't explain anything to me. If "Mr.
> Raven" means "an unspecified general bunch of ravens", then the
> definition handles that case just fine without Mr. Raven needing to be
> mentioned.
>
> "Mr. Raven" is an English translation of a concept that comes from
> some other natlang, right?

Wow, I'm sorry, it never occured to me that you simply hadn't
encountered the concept at all.

Raven is, depending on how you want to look at it, the animistic spirit
that embodies raven-ness, the Platonic ideal of raven-ness, or something
like that.

You might want to start with http://www.boisestate.edu/art/lmcneil/

> It's just not useful in talking about Lojban in English, because your
> typical English reader will have no idea what it means. Also, it takes
> a good concept and makes it sound silly.

Please note that Mr. Raven is not actually mentioned in the proposal.

> Or is there some reason that it's essential that this unspecified
> general bunch of ravens is considered as a single entity and given a
> name?

Many, many other languages do this to talk about classes of things in
general. I suspect, although I don't know this for fact, that in Native
American languages you don't say "All ravens are black", you say "Raven
is black". Certainly that's how stereotypical native americans talk
when speaking in english on TV.

-Robin