From lojbab@lojban.org Fri Aug 03 09:54:49 2007 Received: with ECARTIS (v1.0.0; list llg-board); Fri, 03 Aug 2007 09:54:49 -0700 (PDT) Received: from eastrmmtao103.cox.net ([68.230.240.9]) by chain.digitalkingdom.org with esmtp (Exim 4.67) (envelope-from ) id 1IH0QG-0006uF-0w for llg-board@lojban.org; Fri, 03 Aug 2007 09:54:46 -0700 Received: from eastrmimpo01.cox.net ([68.1.16.119]) by eastrmmtao103.cox.net (InterMail vM.7.08.02.01 201-2186-121-102-20070209) with ESMTP id <20070803165437.ZBNV10435.eastrmmtao103.cox.net@eastrmimpo01.cox.net> for ; Fri, 3 Aug 2007 12:54:37 -0400 Received: from [127.0.0.1] ([72.192.234.183]) by eastrmimpo01.cox.net with bizsmtp id XUuX1X0033y5FKc0000000; Fri, 03 Aug 2007 12:54:36 -0400 Message-ID: <46B35DC1.1070304@lojban.org> Date: Fri, 03 Aug 2007 12:54:25 -0400 From: Robert LeChevalier User-Agent: Mozilla Thunderbird 1.0.7 (Windows/20050923) X-Accept-Language: en-us, en MIME-Version: 1.0 To: llg-board@lojban.org Subject: [llg-board] Re: Translating "What Is Lojban?" Into Hindi References: <20070802203248.GI18057@nvg.org> <20070803001716.GR12963@miranda.org> In-Reply-To: Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Spam-Score: 0.0 X-Spam-Score-Int: 0 X-Spam-Bar: / X-archive-position: 315 X-ecartis-version: Ecartis v1.0.0 Sender: llg-board-bounce@lojban.org Errors-to: llg-board-bounce@lojban.org X-original-sender: lojbab@lojban.org Precedence: bulk Reply-to: llg-board@lojban.org X-list: llg-board Matt Arnold wrote: > I respect that point of view, and you could be right in each point. > Were the board to reject this expenditure, I would understand. > > It seems inappropriate to me for the learning materials of a > culturally-neutral language to exist only in one of the six source > languages (and a smattering of Spanish). and Esperanto, and Russian, and probably a couple other smatterings. I think that there is more in Russian than any of the others. > Is it fair to say that ever > since its inception, the Lojban community as a whole has looked > forward the day that they would see that change? I'm not sure. > The reason I have pursued Hindi is that it's the only one which I see > as possible. I will be the first person to be overjoyed if you show me > that I'm wrong in this, but we have a choice between this language or > nothing. India has a reputation for inexpensive high-quality > outsourcing of white-collar labor, whereas the other source languages > only have blue-collar factory outsourcing at best. Ironically, the > very same grasp of English with which they can do the translation > makes them the most likely to read the original. If the object is to get language support in some other language - ANY language - I would suggest that we look to those languages where we DO have a small community of speakers, and people with some skill in the language who can supervise the hiring, spending, and quality of work. And they should be languages where we can provide follow-up support. "What is Lojban" is after all is a gussied up version of our advertising brochure. If they can't learn the language once they are interested, what is the point? And translating CLL, the gismu, and cmavo lists is a much bigger job. The language most suitable under these terms, which is probably not too expensive, is Russian. We've got people in Russia who might be able to manage the project for us, and deliver results if we are paying for results. We have a professional translator (Yevgenie) who can serve as quality control, not that I think our Russian Lojbanist colleagues would cheat us. We also have a draft gismu list (done by Yevgenie) and other materials in the language - for a while there was even a Russian-language web site and mailing list (though these may now be moribund). After Russian, I would consider Chinese to be the language of priority. It is harder to manage and support, but again, we have a few community members who are Chinese who could help us figure out how. We don't have that for Hindi. Now mind you, the fact that we have almost totally ignored the Hindi community should raise the priority. But I don't think we are robust enough to follow through. I also think that we should get prices for a translation into Spanish and French and German because again we much more capability to support people in those languages. And we shouldn't forget Esperanto, which is the non-English language that we most frequently get queries in - again a language where we have some translated materials. (I'd include Norwegian or one of the other Scandinavian languages, but I think we had this discussion before, and Arnt or someone else basically said that anyone who would be interested in learning Lojban can probably already read materials in English.) > Whether we do this translation or do something else, the bottom line > is to do *something* to fulfill our bylaws. My plan for what happens > next is simple: during our terms of office, this organization should > pursue its mission. While I understand your argument, I think that until the byfy finishes its work, it may be premature, because the followon teaching materials won't be translatable when they are subject to revision. Not that it wouldn't be good to promote the language before then, but I don't think we have a good idea what our grand plan is for when byfy is done. I also see an economic argument being omitted. We seem to be relative flush in cash, but that is an illusion. Remember that a good deal of that is unfulfilled obligations to people who bought JL subscriptions. No one has yet actually DONE something about this, though we've had a few people agree to take it on at various times. Most of the money will merely cover balances for other members who could in theory ask for their money back - indeed, I expect to ask for most of my balance back rather soon since my kid is starting college next month and costs will exceed $20K per year. I don't think it is invalid for us to spend this money to promote the language - that is in fact why I asked for people to contribute, but that non-donated money has the implied obligation to pay it back in goods or funds, so we can't spend it on things that don't eventually generate income. Spending on making materials available in a language for which we do not have support and a marketing capability is not going to generate the money to replenish the accounts. I think that before the board undertakes any significant new responsibility to "fulfill our bylaws" in a way that we have not done before, and one which will commit a lot of our funds, I think it should be discussed at a members meeting. If the members want the Board to start new initiatives, then fine. I suspect that the members' priority, as for the last 15 years, will be byfy and a finalized baseline followed by publishing a dictionary, and *only* then starting new marketing efforts. If the members do want such an effort, I think we need to overtly advertise seeking donations to cover some or all of the costs, rather than assuming that the money in the bank is free to be spent. We could also finally implement the paid "contributing membership" idea that was long authorized. That would give us a budget for continued language promotional efforts, rather than spending it merely because we've managed after many years to accumulate a large chunk. And since we need a members meeting in order to even HAVE terms of office, I move that the topic be added to new business for the needed meeting. > Any board member opposing this translation is > obligated to provide their own alternative for the Logical Language > Group to pursue its mission with these funds in some other way. See my note above on the funds. They aren't really free to be spent on anything we feel like. I think we are no longer technically bankrupt (having more obligations than funds), but we are hardly flush with excess cash either. We've only approximately reached the break-even point on CLL, which was somewhere between 400 and 500 copies sold. lojbab