Re: The design of Lojban

[Ivan A Derzhanski <iad@MATH.ACAD.BG>]

Mark E. Shoulson wrote:
> >From: HACKER G N <c9709244@ALINGA.NEWCASTLE.EDU.AU>
> >Lojban forces a choice about whether or not to include the listener
> >in the "we" pronoun, and the only group of languages I know of that force
> >this same choice are the Melanesian languages of Papua New Guinea.
>
> Surely not that rare.  Cherokee and Hawai'ian also force this.

Yes.  It is the rule rather than the exception in their families, too
(Iroquoian and Austronesian).

> I shouldn't be surprised if it were quite common among Native
> American languages,

It's what happens in the Algonquian family, in Yucatec (Mayan) and Quechua
(Andean).  In Nahuatl (Uto-Aztecan) and Choctaw (Muskogean) it doesn't, in
Eskimo it doesn't either.

> and other language groups.

There is the Dravidian family, the Mongolic and Tungusic (though not the
Turkic) branch of Altaic, part of the Afro-Asiatic family, North Central
Caucasian (though not North West or North East), Svan (but not the other
Kartvelian languages), part of Sino-Tibetan, ... Ainu and Nivkh (but not
Basque).

> (Frankly, I find it a little surprising it's not more common.)

It's pretty common.  What is surprising is that it is not universal.

--
`Meum est propositum in taberna mori;    Vinum sit appositum sitienti ori:
 Ut dicant cum venerint angelorum chori "Deus sit propitius isti potatori".'
                          (Archpoet of Cologne, `The Confession of Golias')
Ivan A Derzhanski                              <iad@banmatpc.math.acad.bg>
H: cplx Iztok bl 91, 1113 Sofia, Bulgaria  <http://www.math.acad.bg/~iad/>
W: Dept for Math Lx, Inst for Maths & CompSci, Bulg Acad of Sciences