From lojban-out@lojban.org Thu Oct 03 15:40:07 2002 Return-Path: X-Sender: lojban-out@lojban.org X-Apparently-To: lojban@yahoogroups.com Received: (EGP: mail-8_1_1_4); 3 Oct 2002 22:40:07 -0000 Received: (qmail 92161 invoked from network); 3 Oct 2002 22:40:06 -0000 Received: from unknown (66.218.66.218) by m8.grp.scd.yahoo.com with QMQP; 3 Oct 2002 22:40:06 -0000 Received: from unknown (HELO digitalkingdom.org) (204.152.186.175) by mta3.grp.scd.yahoo.com with SMTP; 3 Oct 2002 22:40:06 -0000 Received: from lojban-out by digitalkingdom.org with local (Exim 4.05) id 17xEgp-0004lm-00 for lojban@yahoogroups.com; Thu, 03 Oct 2002 15:43:27 -0700 Received: from digitalkingdom.org ([204.152.186.175] helo=chain) by digitalkingdom.org with esmtp (Exim 4.05) id 17xEgE-0004lT-00; Thu, 03 Oct 2002 15:42:50 -0700 Received: with ECARTIS (v1.0.0; list lojban-list); Thu, 03 Oct 2002 15:42:49 -0700 (PDT) Received: from manyas.bcc.bilkent.edu.tr ([139.179.30.24]) by digitalkingdom.org with esmtp (Exim 4.05) id 17xEgA-0004lK-00 for lojban-list@lojban.org; Thu, 03 Oct 2002 15:42:46 -0700 Received: from localhost (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by manyas.bcc.bilkent.edu.tr (Postfix) with ESMTP id AF77912B79 for ; Fri, 4 Oct 2002 01:39:20 +0300 (EEST) Received: from bilkent.edu.tr (ppp148.bcc.bilkent.edu.tr [139.179.111.148]) by manyas.bcc.bilkent.edu.tr (Postfix) with ESMTP id 96E1012B53 for ; Fri, 4 Oct 2002 01:39:17 +0300 (EEST) Message-ID: <3D9CC84B.6070002@bilkent.edu.tr> Date: Fri, 04 Oct 2002 01:44:27 +0300 User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-US; rv:0.9.8) Gecko/20020204 X-Accept-Language: en-us MIME-Version: 1.0 To: lojban-list@lojban.org Subject: [lojban] Re: a new kind of fundamentalism References: <5.1.0.14.0.20021003064510.03166ac0@pop.east.cox.net> <002101c26aed$263fbd20$af9a0950@ftiq2awxk6> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed X-Virus-Scanned: by AMaViS snapshot-20020300 X-archive-position: 1883 X-ecartis-version: Ecartis v1.0.0 Sender: lojban-list-bounce@lojban.org Errors-to: lojban-list-bounce@lojban.org X-original-sender: robin@bilkent.edu.tr Precedence: bulk X-list: lojban-list X-eGroups-From: Robin Turner From: Robin Turner Reply-To: robin@bilkent.edu.tr X-Yahoo-Group-Post: member; u=116389790 X-Yahoo-Profile: lojban_out Lionel Vidal wrote: [snippet] >> > >Sorry, but this is not true: there are numerous example of natlangs dramatic >prescriptive changes (and on scale that has nothing to do with a few cmavos >more or less, with a population size that has nothing to do with lojban >community present size, and regardless of an existing voluminous existing >corpus), that were consciously accepted by users on a short period. >The reasons are numerous, but strive to improve the tool, I mean the >language. Indeed there are voluminous linguistic studies done solely >on that aspect (for instance, there is a french multi-volume books by > Hagège and Fodor 'Voies et destin de l'action humaine sur les langues', >but I am not sure of an english version). BTW, this is a fascinating domain >of linguistic as it has very often political and social deep implications. > Very true, but your point about numbers invalidates what you are saying. To use the example I'm most familiar with, Turkish went through a period of rapid and largely planned change in the early years of the Republic; the aim was to standardise grammar, replace Arabic and Persian loan-words with "pure" Turkish equivalents and adopt Turkified European scientific terms where no Turkish equivlent existed. It was largely successful due to the fact that in many cases they were simply replacing the Ottoman court language with something that would bemore comprehensible to the Turk in the street, partly because they had a dirigiste state, and partly becuae they had a user base of tens of millions to play around with. The same does not apply to conlangs with a user base of a few thousand (if that). A Turkish citizen has to speak Turkish, and if he/she wants to do official business, then that means using whatever kind of Turkish the Türk Dil Kurumu deem appropriate. A speaker of a conlang is more likely to say, in the immortal words of Eric Cartman, "Screw you guys, I'm going home." robin.tr -- "We do not imprison ourselves with laws, or impoverish ourselves with money" - Iain Banks Robin Turner IDMYO Bilkent Universitesi Ankara 06533 Turkey www.bilkent.edu.tr/~robin