From sbelknap@UIC.EDU Sun Dec 01 10:07:05 2002 Return-Path: X-Sender: sbelknap@uic.edu X-Apparently-To: lojban@yahoogroups.com Received: (EGP: mail-8_2_3_0); 1 Dec 2002 18:06:16 -0000 Received: (qmail 30558 invoked from network); 1 Dec 2002 18:06:16 -0000 Received: from unknown (66.218.66.217) by m11.grp.scd.yahoo.com with QMQP; 1 Dec 2002 18:06:16 -0000 Received: from unknown (HELO birch.cc.uic.edu) (128.248.155.162) by mta2.grp.scd.yahoo.com with SMTP; 1 Dec 2002 18:06:16 -0000 Received: (qmail 12879 invoked from network); 1 Dec 2002 18:06:10 -0000 Received: from dial0-298.dialin.uic.edu (HELO uic.edu) (128.248.172.115) by birch.cc.uic.edu with SMTP; 1 Dec 2002 18:06:10 -0000 Date: Sun, 1 Dec 2002 12:06:13 -0600 Subject: Re: [lojban] Loglan Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII; format=flowed Mime-Version: 1.0 (Apple Message framework v548) Cc: lojban@yahoogroups.com To: Nick Nicholas In-Reply-To: Message-Id: <9451F704-0557-11D7-BAFA-000393629ED4@uic.edu> Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Mailer: Apple Mail (2.548) From: Steven Belknap X-Yahoo-Group-Post: member; u=810567 On Saturday, November 30, 2002, at 10:10 PM, Nick Nicholas wrote: > Steven, I don't get what you want the baseline statement to day. > > That Loglan is ancestral to Lojban? Sure, but that's history, it has > nothing to do with the baseline. Yes it does. If things go well, the lojban baseline will also be the Loglan baseline. > That Lojban is Loglan? I've never accepted that either, but that is > current LLFG policy. I considered raising a motion against it, but > decided it honestly wasn't worth the effort. Possibility 1: lojban is Loglan. If so, then the baseline is the baseline for both languages. Possibility 2: lojban is not Loglan. If so, then the baseline could serve to attract Loglanders to lojban if they are dealt with in a respectful manner. You are underestimating the importance of emotion in human decision-making. > That strings of Loglan be acceptable in Lojban? Absolutely not, Lojban > is its own language, Agreed. > That there shall be a Lojban to Loglan toggle cmavo? The BPFK will > consider such a motion, and you already know there is at least one vote > against. The toggle cmavo will seem like a good idea to all those who read the 1960s Scientific American article. ("Oh, I see, the community had a squabble and is now united. The language was flawed, but has been revised and is now believed to be stable. Good...") I realize it doesn't make much sense to waste a cmavo on a toggle from the pragmatic position that lojban is flourishing and Loglan is dying. But sometimes, perception is reality. Most artificial languages die due to schisms of one sort or another. It would be prudent to resolve this schism, as this will reassure artificial language enthusiasts that lojban is not going to mutate. An alternative to the toggle cmavo would be some means of formally describing the differences between the two languages and putting a mapping of the predicates to each other on the web site. I'm not suggesting this should be a high priority at the moment. Also, most of this work should be done by former Loglanders, I would think. Simply committing to do this at some point in the future and having the approval of the Loglanders to do so would be reassuring to newbies who fear the worst: memorizing a list of words only to have their hard work discarded for some stupid political reason. I was fairly pissed off about this when it happened to me. > That any work be done to merge Lojban and Loglan into the same > language, or even into similar languages? I have no interest in that, > and I doubt many Lojbanists dating from after the split (the clear > majority) do either. I am not interested in merging the languages. I've forgotten most of my Loglan anyway. > That we recognise Loglan is a sibling language, and that Loglanists may > have insights of value to Lojban? Doesn't do any harm, but I don't see > the big deal. McIvor is welcome to sit in on the BPFK, I suppose. But > he sits on it as a Lojbanist, not a Loglanist: I'm not doing a thing to > advance language merger, only to advance the interests of Lojban. McIvor is not on the BPFK, is he? Why not invite him? What about Alex Leith? What about tracking down those Russians? I understand that lojbab has some native Russian speakers in his house. :-) > Personally, I think the best respect to Loglan is done by leaving them > alone, to their own language. We're not at war, but I really don't see > the point in actively pinching people. A little bilingualism never hurt > anybody. Au contraire. I found abandoning my Loglan vocabulary painful. > So Steven, please clarify what you'd want. More wisdom than has been shown so far, nothing more. > (And btw, rejoice! We finally have an Academy [of sorts] :-) ) Umm, well, I have no objection to the Academy as it was created. I posted extensively about this topic to the listserv about this in the past. And by the way, thanks for your work to more lojban forward. I do appreciate that. -Steven