No language has separate words for odors. Let's create them.

[gleki]

Well, the title is wrong. Few languages have.

The point is that in most languages in order to describe smell we have to use words used for other senses.

pe'i this is not fair.

.e'u we create new words for smells in Lojban. 

.e'u they don't borrow roots from other arbitrary words like English classification does.

This is what Wikipedia says about odors.

It has been proposed that there are seven primary odors: (with examples)

1. Musky- perfumes/aftershave
2. Putrid- rotten eggs
3. Pungent- vinegar
4. Camphoraceous- mothballs
5. Ethereal- dry cleaning fluid
6. Floral- roses
7. Pepperminty- mint gum

[MorphemeAddict]

So what are your suggestions for the proposed new words? Are they all lujvo? 

stevo

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[John E Clifford]

It seems to me that the first problem is to get a list of odors for which we need names. As noted, English doesn't have such except contextual one (it smells like...).  Maybe the odor trades (perfumery and wine testing) can lend a hand.  Or other languages.

---

From: MorphemeAddict <lyt...@gmail.com>
To: loj...@googlegroups.com
Sent: Monday, April 2, 2012 11:20 AM
Subject: Re: [lojban] No language has separate words for odors. Let's create them.

[MorphemeAddict]

On Mon, Apr 2, 2012 at 11:24 AM, Pkfalu92 <pkfa...@gmail.com> wrote:

Consider that perhaps there are other distinctions, and that we don't notice them.

Or we don't notice them because we have no distinct words for them. 

stevo 

[la .lindar.]

...or because smell is intrinsically linked with taste we could just use those words? Do we perceive smells the same way we perceive tastes? Does something ever smell sweet or sour? Under what category is the taste of alcohol (whiskey, for example)? Under what smell category?

[guskant]

At least in Chinese and in Japanese, there are some categories of
smell. The signified things do not exactly match those of English
words odor, smell, fragrance, scent, stench etc.

In Chinese, there are following categories:
香(xiang1): good smell
臭(chou4): bad smell
芬(fen1): strong good smell, originally of sprouting herbs, not
necessarily edible.
芳(fang1): strong good smell, originally of herbs and flowers, not
necessarily edible.

In Japanese, in addition to the Chinese categories above, there are
expressions specific to smell:
つん (tsun): Sharp smell. Used for expressing wasabi, strong perfume,
ammonia, alcohol and any other stimulant smell.
ぷん (pun): Maximally strong smell, not necessarily stimulant.

However, I don't think we need separate words of Lojban for categories
of smell. An odor is a combination of various volatile chemical
materials. If you need to express precisely an odor, you should
perform chemical analysis of the contents of the odor. Lojbanize the
result, and you will get an expression to the odor.

mu'o

[Escape Landsome]

> However, I don't think we need separate words of Lojban for categories
> of smell. An odor is a combination of various volatile chemical
> materials. If you need to express precisely an odor, you should
> perform chemical analysis of the contents of the odor. Lojbanize the
> result, and you will get an expression to the odor.

Then by the same argument, should not a color be described as some
wavelength only ?

[gleki]

It's not. It's only our practice that merges our senses.

One of the discussions in Conlangery Podcast (Episode 6) mentioned that only five languages in the world have separate root words for odors.

I strongly against lujvo. It's non-neutral, not fair and non-scientific.

Then why not replace {titla} with {ka sakta} ?

If so few languages have separate words it doesn't mean that Lojban should follow it.

Lojban is for expanding our views on the world.

So I suggest either zi'evla or even gismu !

As for the sounding  we can take them from those five languages cuz most natlangs as I said just use descriptive words (in English they are Musky, Putrid,Pungent,Camphoraceous, Ethereal,Floral, Pepperminty).

[gleki]

On Tuesday, April 3, 2012 6:08:28 AM UTC+4, guskant wrote:

At least in Chinese and in Japanese, there are some categories of
smell. The signified things do not exactly match those of English
words odor, smell, fragrance, scent, stench etc.

In Chinese, there are following categories:
香(xiang1): good smell
臭(chou4): bad smell
芬(fen1): strong good smell, originally of sprouting herbs, not
necessarily edible.
芳(fang1): strong good smell, originally of herbs and flowers, not
necessarily edible.

In Japanese, in addition to the Chinese categories above, there are
expressions specific to smell:
つん (tsun): Sharp smell. Used for expressing wasabi, strong perfume,
ammonia, alcohol and any other stimulant smell.
ぷん (pun): Maximally strong smell, not necessarily stimulant.

However, I don't think we need separate words of Lojban for categories
of smell. An odor is a combination of various volatile chemical
materials.

It's not. There are elementary odors just like we have elementary tastes.

I mentioned them.

[gleki]

On Monday, April 2, 2012 8:43:34 PM UTC+4, clifford wrote:

It seems to me that the first problem is to get a list of odors for which we need names. As noted, English doesn't have such except contextual one (it smells like...).  Maybe the odor trades (perfumery and wine testing) can lend a hand.  Or other languages.

My strong suggestion that we only pay attention to chemistry to be as unbiased as possible.

stevo

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[gleki]

Color is somewhat different. The range there is continuous whereas tongue and nose have only few distinct, non-overlapping receptors for each smell and taste.

[Escape Landsome]

Well I know that our conscience of color is NOT set in the data of
wavelengths, at least there are three receptors, R G B, and then
post-treatment of the signal in other (cingular ?) areas, this is done
in a way such that if you look at a green spot in a red environment
you do not see the same color than in a light green one.

Yet, what then ?

The same is true with smell and taste, so ==> by the very same
argument that tells us we should lojbanize the chemical composition of
a taste, we should also, to remain logical, lojbanize

[ (R:100%, G:30%, B:60%) | Cingular Area : red context | and so on ]

which I find very logical indeed, but pretty scary

[gleki]

I remember reading that three color receptors send signals to two nerves. So everything is being mixed there.

May be I'm wrong about numbers. But it's just not that easy.  

[guskant]

On Tue, Apr 3, 2012 at 4:02 PM, gleki <gleki.is...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>>
>> However, I don't think we need separate words of Lojban for categories
>> of smell. An odor is a combination of various volatile chemical
>> materials.
>
> It's not. There are elementary odors just like we have elementary tastes.
> I mentioned them.
>

The number of variety of olfactory receptors is totally different from
that of taste.
remna have at least 347 olfactory receptors to distinguish volatile
chemical materials. Other animals have more. It is too difficult to
use so many categories for expressing smell.

As for color expressions, I agree Escape Landsome.
In addition, remna has only 3 kind of cone cells, but some other
animals have also that for ultra-violet. A robot may have more. In
that case, our set of color words is too small.

[gleki]

Update.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shape_theory_of_olfaction 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vibration_theory_of_olfaction 

To say in short it's not that simple. If we can distinguish between isotopes then 7 primary odors theory is false.

[Pierre Abbat]

On Tuesday, April 03, 2012 03:35:19 guskant wrote:
> The number of variety of olfactory receptors is totally different from
> that of taste.
> remna have at least 347 olfactory receptors to distinguish volatile
> chemical materials. Other animals have more. It is too difficult to
> use so many categories for expressing smell.
>
> As for color expressions, I agree Escape Landsome.
> In addition, remna has only 3 kind of cone cells, but some other
> animals have also that for ultra-violet. A robot may have more. In
> that case, our set of color words is too small.

Some animals have three, but a different range than we do, hence "bicnukni".
Birds may have four or five, with colored oil droplets that add shades of color
to each of their primaries. I've heard of a crustacean with ten primary
colors.

Pierre
--
lo ponse be lo mruli po'o cu ga'ezga roda lo ka dinko

[gleki]

My last links clearly showed that even sceintists couldn't agree on how many odor receptor human nose have.

Probably more than 50.

Therefore, I won't suggest creating any cnino valsi for them.

We can still use {ka xrula}, {cpina} and others.

But the problem is that the situation with tastes is also far from perfection. Humans have more than 10 taste receptors.

ju'o lo ponjo jbopre ku can immediately recall "umami" (fifth) taste for which we even don't have a jbovalsi whereas other tastes have gismu.