Philosophical differences.
I have spoken at great length with various people that frequent
the Lojban IRC channel, and it has been recommended that I draft out
issues that I have with various things in Lojban (which have been so
adequately described by broca as "not obvious mistakes, but rather philosophical differences").
Before anybody jumps down my throat, the whole "baseline" speech, and
every other counter-argument to date, has been made about why
absolutely nothing must be changed and the gismu list is handed down
from the very gods themselves. I understand that gismu space is not
meant to cover absolutely every concept known to man. That being said,
I would like to express my issues with a few words, and I welcome
responses which include either supporting statements or reasons (other
than the ones previously mentioned) why I may just be
confused/misguided/wrong/misunderstanding things/etc.
1. vlagi
It does not make sense to have a word which specifically refers to the
external female genitalia when we have "plibu". fetplibu and nakplibu
are perfectly adequate, in my opinion, for referring to the respective
genitalia of either sex. We have plibu, ganti, and pinji, which are all
non-gender-specific until we make a lujvo/tanru out of them, so we
ought to be consistent.
2. xagji
I've had this discussion at great length with people in the chat, over
and over again, until everybody pretty much wanted me to go die in a
fire. There is absolutely no way to describe "sleepy", and while my
personal usage of the word may differ from others, it doesn't change
the lack of such a concept in Lojban. tatpi means tired, as in
physically fatigued, and one must rest a moment before continuing any
activities. xagji means one is hungry, and must eat before continuing
any activities. taske means one is thirsty, and must drink before
continuing activities. None of these imply need, as there are plenty of
people that get hungry without needing to eat, there are plenty of
people that get thirsty without needing to drink, etc. This also does
not imply desire as there are plenty of people that desire to eat
regardless of hunger. Keeping this in mind, how do we express that one
is sleepy? One does not necessarily need sleep, as outlined in previous
examples related to food/drink/rest/etc., and one does not necessarily
desire sleep, as also outlined in previous examples. Therefore, we have
several concepts that have a unique value in common, which I could
inadequately describe as an intrinsic physical need, separate from the
desires of the mind, and separate from what constitutes actual need. I
would like either of the following to happen: two new gismu be created
to encompass 'sleep-hunger' (sleepiness) and 'sex-hunger'(there is no
non-slang word in English), which still leaves room for things like
air-hunger (again, no English word), exercise-hunger, and possibly even
something like entertainment-hunger (boredom, I suppose), OR that the
meaning of xagji be changed to reflect this concept, which can then be
used as lujvo/tanru to express a very large variety of concepts, such
as boredom, hunger, sleepiness, or any number of things that do not
necessarily imply need or desire, which would manifest as ctixagji
(hunger), sipxagji (sleepiness), glexagji, seljbexagji (a biological
desire to give birth, commonly refered to as the 'ticking biological
clock' in colloquial English), pinxyxagji (thirsty), pincyvi'ixagji
(which just sounds completely horrible in standard Lojban, but
considering the proposed change would mean something more along the
lines of the English phrase "I have to go pee."). None of these imply
an active and concious desire, nor are they always a need (I find
myself constantly being hungry and not wanting to eat, nor to I
actively need to eat for at least 24 hours after any given meal).
3. Cultural gismu.
Just fix it already.
4. Computer words.
Face it, we're pretty much all huge nerds. We need words for "window",
"website", "internet", "software", "hardware", and various other
things. We have computer and monitor, but not much else, and if we are
to put this language into full use as quickly as possible, I see this
as a dire necessity over most anything else.
So those are my philosophical problems with modern Lojban.
(Before you bite at problem number 2, plenty of people have already
pointed out, as the devil's advocate, that I may be making a wholly
unnecessary distinction that can be covered by need/desire, but this brings culture into play, and this concept may be wholly unique to my own personal culture. In my own concept of the universe, needing to eat, wanting to eat, and being hungry are different concepts.)
Disclaimer: I make no assertion that I am, in any way, flawless in my logic or beliefs. I admit that I could be severely wrong or mistaken about things, that I may just not have an adequate enough grasp of the language to know that there are ways to express these things, or that I am just wholly retarded and simply a barking lunatic that is annoying a good lot of people that have better things to do than listen to me.
I greatly appreciate your time, and look forward to your lovely and helpful responses.