Re: 'Letteral' (Was: comments on the batch of lujvo etc. psoted thus far)

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

I would agree with not glossing lerfu as jargon, except that ALL of the Lojban
"language" terms tend to be glossed as jargon.  I mean who among NORMAL
English speakers knows what a "predicate" is, and we already know what kind
of misunderstandings JCB got from using "primitive" for gismu. "Complex" is
only mildly less gross for "lujvo" - though And obviously thinks it an
appropriate gloss %^).  Using a word that is "English" for a concept that
does not map well to English is not necessarily the best solution if it causes
misunderstandings on non-understanding.  "letteral" for all the fact that
it is 'not an English word' resembles the word "letter", and in the long
definition is clearly defined as letter/numeral/symbol, so it is reasonably
 easyto learn this jargon.  If further advised that the "al" was added in
 parallel
to number/numeral letter/letteral, the word becauses even easier to learn.

Given that "letter" is ambiguous and is used as the keyword for "xatra" anyway,
and "symbol" to most people means "sinxa", I think most real English words
that could be used for the concept would be at least as abstruse as "letteral"
and less learnable.  I doubt if many people not into fantasy roleplaying have
heard of the word "glyph", for example - and I, having heard of it, would
not presume it to be a general term to cover any kind of symbol, but rather
is limited to those symbols which are ornate and somewhat cursive in style.
This is my sense of the word without actually looking it up in the dictonary,
of course.

lojbab