From saizai@gmail.com Fri Nov 10 10:39:22 2006 Received: with ECARTIS (v1.0.0; list llg-board); Fri, 10 Nov 2006 10:41:13 -0800 (PST) Received: from ug-out-1314.google.com ([66.249.92.173]) by chain.digitalkingdom.org with esmtp (Exim 4.63) (envelope-from ) id 1GibHS-0005os-5a for llg-board@lojban.org; Fri, 10 Nov 2006 10:39:20 -0800 Received: by ug-out-1314.google.com with SMTP id c2so572525ugf for ; Fri, 10 Nov 2006 10:39:08 -0800 (PST) DomainKey-Signature: a=rsa-sha1; q=dns; c=nofws; s=beta; d=gmail.com; h=received:message-id:date:from:sender:to:subject:cc:in-reply-to:mime-version:content-type:content-transfer-encoding:content-disposition:references:x-google-sender-auth; b=V/CstKC4uAGfOBmP6PJlbpOS3swCmt0JLQiZc1x39RS17r5z2kEnjVS0YqlpFNvXJM22gYyobxgyevwW0kOhqAWyH2N1d6LywiJEymBXzHFj8qKw2fMmvfzQgM8erYI1vwBNwFdPqpfM/Js4MdiGCPb0Dg251nlzB0jGSrmrgbg= Received: by 10.78.51.9 with SMTP id y9mr2861574huy.1163183947984; Fri, 10 Nov 2006 10:39:07 -0800 (PST) Received: by 10.78.105.17 with HTTP; Fri, 10 Nov 2006 10:39:07 -0800 (PST) Message-ID: <646661980611101039p59f008f3p20a9d30e90e8be47@mail.gmail.com> Date: Fri, 10 Nov 2006 10:39:07 -0800 From: "Sai Emrys" To: "Matt Arnold" Subject: [llg-board] Re: LCS Board of Directors (fwd) Cc: llg-board@lojban.org In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Disposition: inline References: X-Google-Sender-Auth: 96a9b33f290d549f X-Spam-Score: -2.5 (--) X-archive-position: 260 X-Approved-By: arj@nvg.org X-ecartis-version: Ecartis v1.0.0 Sender: llg-board-bounce@lojban.org Errors-to: llg-board-bounce@lojban.org X-original-sender: sai@saizai.com Precedence: bulk Reply-to: llg-board@lojban.org X-list: llg-board On 11/10/06, Matt Arnold wrote: > I'm excited to hear about all the activity. I look forward to seeing > what emerges. *grin* Likewise. > There are different ways to interpret the word "conlanging". Does this > mean what conlang inventors do, what conlang speakers do, or both? > This may turn out to be a bigger issue for your organization than you > may think. It is a distinction which, after further experience, you > might wish to draw. Primary the former, secondarily the latter. I would want the organization to mostly focus on promoting the art/craft/science of conlang*ing*, but encouraging the spread of all particular conlangs (without bias) and of otherwise learning, teaching, etc. is certainly within that mission. I would not want it, e.g., to become something akin to an Esperanto or Quenya or [insert language here] propoganda foundation; it should stay somewhat disinterested in particular languages, and promote all conlanging equally (on merit). > There are some in the conlang community, particularly in Esperanto and > Lojban, who I would refer to as community participants. (In the > interest of full disclosure I'll mention that I happen to be one of > them.) A community participant just wants to settle on one language > and concentrate on it hard enough to thoroughly learn it and use it. > In so doing we become part of that language community. We do not > necessarily have any interest in designing a new language of one's > own. *nod* I know. Many people are indeed like that. As I said, I believe that to be a minor aspect of the core mission. > There are those who can never resist the urge to tinker in conlangs, > sometimes at the risk of never settling on one changeless enough to > speak and be understood, because that is not their goal. They are > often less interested in language learning. If your organization will > be an umbrella organization, it may serve better as a useful valve > into which to vent the pressure of language inventors so they stop > trying to change our languages and start talking about it on your > forums instead. *laugh* I don't think we should be involved in trying to prevent people from changing specific languages or otherwise be engaged in disputes of that sort. Too dangerous a path. But certainly we would want to promote active language invention (though not necessarily 'indefinte'; people can certainly switch into simply considering the language 'completed'), so implicitly that 'valve' is served. > Where "conlanging" is defined as an interest in learning the whys and > wherefores of language invention, community participants perceive > "conlanging" as a tendency to schism communities. Where "conlanging" > is defined as conlang usage, successful communication demands that the > hearer and the speaker adhere to the same standard, sufficiently > settled that it won't change out from under them; therefore inventors > perceive "conlanging" as a tendency to stifle diversity and > innovation. *nod* I understand that. As I said, I don't think that we should be involved in disputes within particular language communities or particular language authors about whether or when to change a language, who has the right to do so, etc. That is best left to those people to work out amongst themselves. > Saying that your organization is only secondarily about the languages > themselves suggests that language learning and community participation > are secondary. It's possible for you to deliberately incorporate both > sections into your community, but whichever way you go, it would help > to do so explicitly. *nod* Agreed. It is I think a delicate balance. The main things I want to *avoid* are * favoritism * 'political' and factional disputes of the sort that are problems with Esperanto and its kin * loosing primary focus on the promotion & continuity of the craft itself Certainly as you point out many people do want to switch modes into, or simply join, a community of language *speakers*, and I think we should encourage those efforts. But I think that languages "belong to" their communities and/or authors, and thus we should not be involved in deciding anything like whether it should be stabilized, split off, or the like. > In terms of your publications, there are two ways to interpret the > language-neutrality of your mission. Think of it as a Venn diagram of > all conlangs, in which you publish a digest of all major content > published by all the major language communities-- for example, > highlights from the Lojban blog. Alternately, your publications could > be restricted to the spots on the Venn diagrams where most languages > overlap. Then you would print only articles that are relevant to a > broad number of conlangs. *nod* Again, good distinction. I would want it to be both. Again, primarily promote the intersection - e.g. material of the sort that was at the LCC, or Sarah Higley's article in M/C, etc - but also it could certainly serve to print good articles, essays, research, etc that are from specific subfields, such as Lojban, Klingon, Quenya, etc. I think a good mix of both would be important, both for the meta-mission of tying together our communities as conlangers, and for having an interesting and varied publication. > I hope this helps to clarify some mission-related questions that your > organization will have to make. I thank you for your efforts and wish > you the best of luck. *nod* And I thank you for your comments. > P.S. I like your flag. Thanks! Though I certainly can't claim credit for it. See http://wiki.frath.net/Conlang_flag. - Sai