Re: zo djuno ce zo jetyju'o

[Logical Language Group <lojbab@ACCESS.DIGEX.NET>]

>And when Ken Shan first learned this language, he showed me one phrase
>as:
>        mi na djuno la lojban.

This was not quite correct.  djuno does not mean "is familiar with"
or "is expert in", but is reserved specifically to knowing facts about a
subject.  If you wanted to say that you knew  a lot about Lojban, then you
could fill in "alot" into the x2 of djuno and put la lojban in x3:
mi djuno so'eda la lojban
I know many facts about Lojban.

But most people would say that knowing a language is being skilled in it:
mi certu tu'a la lojban
mi certu le nu pilno la lojban
I am skilled in Lojban
I am skilled in using Lojban.

My wife says that djuno is savoir in French, most closely.

The debate going on here is whether you can "know" something that
is not true, or more specifically, can  you say that Ken Shan knows something
when you know it to be false (Ken, by whatever means he uses to determine
truth, does not agree with you and considers it true).  It would be
intersting to know if zhidao or zhi alone can be used with false propositions.

>Why? When you say
>        mi na djuno zo djan.
>        (or, mi na djuno le cmene la djan. le'o)

This would mean
"I don't know some particular fact which is named John."
(not especially sensible, such a sentence)

There are several ways to translate "I don't know John" each with its own
subtle flavor.

mi  na djuno tu'a la djan
I don't know (unspecified facts) about John.
mi djuno noda la djan
I know nothing about John.
la djan na slabu mi
John is not  old/familiar/well-known to me.
mi punai penmi la djan
I not-in-the-past met John (I haven't met John).

and some less likely given the assumption that John is a person like your
original
mi na djuno la djan
I don't know a fact named John.
mi na  certu tu'a la djan
I am not expert in John
etc.

>However, to a 'pure' (i.e., native
>speaker. We never hate other races.) Chinese, he will NEVER understand
>        mi na djuno zo djan.
>It sounds bizzare. But if someone tell him,
>        mi na djuno le plice
>("Aha! You even don't know what is an apple!", will he think.)
>        .i mi na djuno la lojban.
>("Well, ... euh... lojban is a artificial language first developped in
> the U.S. and it means 'the logical language'",

Ah, those two clauses are "facts" that one might know "about" Lojban.

>("..?????... Oh! I see. You don't know who John is. Well, he is an
> American (sorry to those who live in Latin America. I can find NO
> simple word in English which means 'the one who has an U.S. nationality')
> who lives in the street", will he tell.)
>
>Ah.... May I ask, Bob, in the text book (those in .doc format), it
>indicated [merco] to be American. Does it mean 'those who have U.S.
>nationalities' or 'those who lives in the continent America, whether
>in north or south or in the Calebian sea or Indice ils.?

merko refers to the United States, much to the objection of Jorge.  One bit
of malglico of the merko variety is that I/we did not know at the time we
made the gismu that some languages usedthe word American to refer to the
combined North/South American unit as a single continent.  We have bemro and
ketco for North and South American respectively and xispo for Spanish-speaking
America (not quite identical to Latin America, which includes Brazil and
Belize which speak Portuguese and I think English).

lojbab