TEXT:COMMENTS dragons

[Logical Language Group <lojbab@GREBYN.COM>]

Nick on John Cowan:
>>la pyf. poi makfa cu'urcrida
>
>I've always used {cridrdrakone}, in any case, wouldn't {respycrida} be more
>appropriate?

I will vote for "respycrida", agreeing with Nick.  I did a little
dictionary lookup tonight - "wyrm", the Old English from which John
obviously got his metaphor, was defined etymologically to mean
"serpent/dragon", and not "worm".  There is no indication that the word
ever included "worms", though obviously etymology led eventually to do
so.  John's underlying tanru is thus mabla cliryglico, probably the
first such %^)

Nora pointed out that most dragons of mythology have legs, so "snake" is no
better than "worm", and indeed the family of reptiles labelled "Draco" are
lizards, as is the "komodo dragon" which is a kind of monitor lizard.

I have always used the same borrowing as Nick, but the etymology seems
to suggest that the "ne" on the end doesn't belong - the word "dragon"
is listed as being of Greco-Latin origin without the 'n'.

But on consideration, this borrowing would suggest that the dragon is
one of the Western mythologies, rather than an oriental dragon, and I
don't think there is anything in the song that suggests what kind of
dragon we are dealing with.  (I believe that oriental dragons do not
have wings and not all of them fly, hence introducing "wing" into a
tanru for dragon would also be culturally limiting.)

Because of the broad cultural occurance of "dragon", I'd like to avoid
culturally limiting Lojban words for it, which a borrowing would be.
Besides, I firmly come down on the side of tanru when you can come up
with one theat works and is short enough.

On the other hand, "respycrida" may be too broad, including the Central
American "couatl", a winged snake, that at least in Dungeons and Dragons
is not considered a dragon.  It would also include the smaller dragon
relatives found in McCaffrey's stories about dragons, which other
specific metaphors that come to mind might not fit as well.  So I guess
its best that in Lojban, a couatl is a kind of dragon, in spite of D&D.

lojbab

PS:  Reading John's reply, I guess my obvious question is
what "ka curnu" atributes do you attribute to dragons.  Worms have no legs,
wings, teeth, respiratory weapon, or skeleton (do dragons have skeletons?
not sure, but they always have seemed to me to be reptilian rather than
invertabrate)

lojbab