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Re: [lojban] Re: CLL and modern Lojban





2017-11-10 14:25 GMT+03:00 <sukender1@gmail.com>:


Gleki Arxokuna:

No, I just pointed out incorrect statements about Lojban in your list.

Good. I'll try to set up a fixed list then.


Just to make it clear: are you against evolving Lojban or not?

No answer from me.

Oh. Surprising answer, but... as you wish.


1. I was talking about Lojban only.

Defining Lojban via Lojban? Then why not "Lojban is Lojban" definition?

No, no! Maybe my English was not clear. I was just saying I'm trying to define basics without using comparisons to languages. Just "common words", not lang. comparisons.

 
2. This doesn't make other languages "non ambiguous" (in grammar).

How? Please, provide examples how other languages are ambigous. Notice that some constructed languages (like TLI Loglan) are said to have exactly the same as Lojban in the same formalism.

Sure, here are some examples. I'm not 100% sure they are relevant, but that's just a few ideas.

English:
  • "Sam likes you more that Max." => Does Sam likes you more than Max likes you? Or does Sam likes you more than (s)he likes Max?
  • "Prettly little girl's school" (CLL example)

{.i mi klama} = "I come, I came, I will have come" ? Ambiguous.


French:
  • "Le prévenu avoue à son avocat qu’il a tué sa femme" => "sa" is not clear about which one it refers. That may happen in Lojban too using (for instance) a vague meaning like "ra".
Right.
 
  • But French language has no means to make an unambiguous utterance here, except by adding a second utterance adding precision.

Right. Or referring by name. When you need precision you add words, similar in Lojban.
 
  • "Voyant l'éléphant prisonnier des braconniers, il prit sa défense" => Here the word "défense" has multiple meanings.

Lojban is not by definition free of polysemy.
 
  • "J'ai perdu mes fils" => Similar. But here a pronunciation difference that makes the sentence unambiguous orally, but ambiguous when written.
That's where I agree in regard to French. Lojban and Mandarin Chinese have unambiguous self-segregation morphology provided that communication channel has low noise.

  • "Je suis Max" => May mean "I am Max" or "I'm following Max"

I know Lojban allows the speaker to be vague, and allows usage of approximations. And it is also NOT a context-free grammar. But there is a huge gap between native languages and Lojban on the topic of ambiguity, IMO.

I hope my sarcastic but serious (ge'exo'o ge'ezo'onai) remarks proved that wrong.

I don't know for other conlangs, actually. Thanks for the info ; I'll have a look. Please note I'm NOT trying to "define how Lojban is unique compared to others".


It'd be imo more productive to simply remove from the analysis anything that looks like a conlang (proglangs, Esperanto, gua\spi)


 
I personally like Lojban because it is so unique

So is English, which is English and not non-English.
 
: compared to languages I speak, it removes a whole burden of exceptions, ambiguities, and weird stuff. Well, all of these particularities also make those natural langues unique, but not in the way it would help learning them.

Despite that more people speak Abkhaz than Lojban.

Yes. And...? What's the point?

Even if at some theoretical level Lojban is easier to learn no one learns it. It's like one of cryptic proglangs that geeks adore, discuss its pragmatic usefullness but almost no one uses.

 

As for cultural neutrality, yes, it is indeed discutable. Maybe this would be moved to the "desirable" section?

So you break descriptivism and move into either politics or some "Future Lojban".

Frontier is indeed not that clear, you're right. This is why I wrote "MAYBE desirable" in the original list. Those points may then be marked as such.

As for "Future Lojban", I must say I'm very happy with the current CLL and have no reason (apart from a few tiny fixes) to move. What I say is that despite of this, being against its evolution will induce more forks, more dilution, and finally will kill Lojban. I'm no seer/prophet and cannot be 100% sure of this, but many projects I saw ended this way. And thats seems obvious too, especially knowing how protectionism of Loglan ended.


But as many pointed out, and despite the fact gismu used some natural languages as sources, Lojban sounds/looks like no other.

Sounds to whom? To me (not a native English speaker)  Lojban is the language most close to English compared to major spoken languages in the world.

Yes, this is exactly what I mean: you think it sounds English, while others think it sounds Russian (I don't see how... but why not), and some others Portuguese... etc. So, it seems there are many answers. May that come from the initial gisu creation algorithm? I don't know.
Anyway, that was just a side note on my personal feelings...

 
And there is no emphasis on any culture, right?

Of course, therefore no word for Mozambique culture, a word for Malay culture is enough.

Really? Oh. Sorry then. I missed that kind of things. Maybe that could be a point to improve?


Maybe only some biases from time to time (to fix?). From my point of view, this is where it differentiates from Esparanto, which is closely related to Latin languages (I don't talk Esperanto, so correct me if I'm wrong).

To the languages the founder spoke (Latin, Polish, German, Yiddish, Russian and somewhat French, English ...)

Here also I suppose it may be one of the efforts to put on "future Lojban", to make it more neutral.


Thank you for having shared your point of view.

la .sykyndyr.

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