History: Borrowing from Klingon

Source of version: 2 (current)

Probably inadvisable for political reasons...but it would be nice to have such succinct terms as ''zoity. nur ty.'' ("dignity") and ''zoity. ruv ty.'' ("justice"). Why from Klingon? You can just as easily borrow from English; Klingon doesn't have that many terms that don't translate well to English. (Why borrow for that matter? Lojban may need weightier terms, but that's why we have ''cei'': define them once in terms of a lujvo or tanru, and assign them to something short. Better to define your terms in Lojban than to borrow and hope your interlocutor speaks the source language. Sort of defeats the purpose of Lojban, otherwise). ''--mi'e mark.'' believe it or not. Probably inadvisable for reasons of ''sanity''; and the same would hold whether the loan was from Klingon, English, or Uzbek. dignity: selsi'atra or zanpanpytra; justice: pairvu'e. Why on ''earth'' would you want to borrow such simple terms as fu'ivla at all? Besides, what is it about the Klingon concept of justice that makes such a loan preferable to, I dunno, zoigy. justice gy.? -- mi'e nitcion, shaking his head in amazement (particularly about the claim that a Type 1 fu'ivla can be regarded as succinct in any model of Lojban...) * It might be worth borrowing a term for the concept of "Gowachin law" from Frank Herbert's novels, but unfortunately we haven't ''got'' the original Gowachin term. Whatever it was, "law" turned out to be a poor translation. --((John Cowan|jc)) ** OK, I'll bite. "Gowachin law" ki'a??? ''--mi'e mark *** Herbert's ''Dosadi Experiment'' is out of print (though readily available used), but [http://www.geocities.com/Area51/Dunes/1352/dosadiexperiment.html|this set of quotations] basically tells the story. The following quotation gives the flavor: ;:No legal system can maintain justice unless every participant--magisters, prosecutors, Legums, defendants, witnesses, all--risks life itself in whatever dispute comes before the bar. Everything must be risked in the Courtarenas. If any element remains outside the contest and without personal risk, justice inevitably fails. --For their sheer ''outrageousness''? .i za'a su'o da djica lenu pilno la lojban kei mu'i leka cizra ra'u .i lenu fukpi loi valsi loi bangrtlingana valsi cu ji'a nu cizra .i mi ku'i na go'e djica -- mi'e nitcion ---- (One is reminded a little bit of the [http://www.clockworkorange.com/nadsat.asp|Russified teenspeak] in "Clockwork Orange"...)