Received: from mail-gy0-f189.google.com ([209.85.160.189]:65496) by stodi.digitalkingdom.org with esmtps (TLSv1:RC4-SHA:128) (Exim 4.76) (envelope-from ) id 1RxNQq-00033o-2T; Tue, 14 Feb 2012 10:48:53 -0800 Received: by ghbg22 with SMTP id g22sf263378ghb.16 for ; Tue, 14 Feb 2012 10:48:45 -0800 (PST) DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha256; c=relaxed/relaxed; d=googlegroups.com; s=beta; h=x-beenthere:received-spf:date:from:to:subject:message-id :mail-followup-to:mime-version:user-agent:sender:x-original-sender :x-original-authentication-results:reply-to:precedence:mailing-list :list-id:x-google-group-id:list-post:list-help:list-archive :list-subscribe:list-unsubscribe:content-type:content-disposition; bh=rByi0I0AZLvUmFwCDAg3hXHRSfT6g3Qx772vPYIHbeo=; b=sRoUHk6ac8S/ONYqg/egjpHC8dlHKZMD4d1CiRtbdS7n0RxRhlJk5gCAdif+xVKQtt 4zhTvJjmtzKHAcL10rWw8z6+zVp/G+UqgQ6129k7S8HozgxqyBea8U8EVg2//D4FoXbk jZUDzA8MahYdC+BYLuNKgdhkSJW/3dQSsFOCA= Received: by 10.68.132.137 with SMTP id ou9mr4086654pbb.16.1329245323218; Tue, 14 Feb 2012 10:48:43 -0800 (PST) X-BeenThere: lojban@googlegroups.com Received: by 10.68.35.167 with SMTP id i7ls2444996pbj.1.gmail; Tue, 14 Feb 2012 10:48:42 -0800 (PST) Received: by 10.68.231.202 with SMTP id ti10mr13283057pbc.5.1329245322356; Tue, 14 Feb 2012 10:48:42 -0800 (PST) Received: by 10.68.231.202 with SMTP id ti10mr13283056pbc.5.1329245322348; Tue, 14 Feb 2012 10:48:42 -0800 (PST) Received: from stodi.digitalkingdom.org (mail.digitalkingdom.org. [173.13.139.236]) by gmr-mx.google.com with ESMTPS id p7si3166180pbq.0.2012.02.14.10.48.42 (version=TLSv1/SSLv3 cipher=OTHER); Tue, 14 Feb 2012 10:48:42 -0800 (PST) Received-SPF: pass (google.com: domain of nobody@stodi.digitalkingdom.org designates 173.13.139.236 as permitted sender) client-ip=173.13.139.236; Received: from nobody by stodi.digitalkingdom.org with local (Exim 4.76) (envelope-from ) id 1RxNQe-00033k-Pb for lojban@googlegroups.com; Tue, 14 Feb 2012 10:48:40 -0800 Received: from rlpowell by stodi.digitalkingdom.org with local (Exim 4.76) (envelope-from ) id 1RxNQd-00033d-TM; Tue, 14 Feb 2012 10:48:39 -0800 Date: Tue, 14 Feb 2012 10:48:39 -0800 From: Robin Lee Powell To: lojban-list@lojban.org Subject: [lojban] About the word "fluent". Message-ID: <20120214184839.GW2167@stodi.digitalkingdom.org> Mail-Followup-To: lojban-list@lojban.org MIME-Version: 1.0 User-Agent: Mutt/1.5.21 (2010-09-15) Sender: lojban@googlegroups.com X-Original-Sender: rlpowell@digitalkingdom.org X-Original-Authentication-Results: gmr-mx.google.com; spf=pass (google.com: domain of nobody@stodi.digitalkingdom.org designates 173.13.139.236 as permitted sender) smtp.mail=nobody@stodi.digitalkingdom.org Reply-To: lojban@googlegroups.com Precedence: list Mailing-list: list lojban@googlegroups.com; contact lojban+owners@googlegroups.com List-ID: X-Google-Group-Id: 1004133512417 List-Post: , List-Help: , List-Archive: List-Subscribe: , List-Unsubscribe: , Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Disposition: inline X-Spam-Score: -0.7 (/) X-Spam_score: -0.7 X-Spam_score_int: -6 X-Spam_bar: / (This sort of dovetails with the earlier thread about how "lock two people in a room and present them with two-person puzzles of various complexity" as a way of producing somewhat "objective" fluency tests) OK, so people keep asking me if I'm fluent. When I ask people what they mean by fluent, they usually say something that boils down to "you can say whatever you need to say". So, let me give you an example of why that metric *simply doesn't work* in the case of Lojban. The other day RJ was watching basketball, and I was playing with one of the babies, and she was, surprisingly, avidly watching the TV. Having nothing better to do, I decided to explain basketball to her, in minimal detail. This took me the better part of 10 minutes, and involved a great deal of stammering and long pauses. I could re-do it in a couple of minutes of smooth Lojban. The issue is simple: to the best of my knowledge, *no-one* has *ever* described or talked about basketball in Lojban before. So I had to come up with terms for the name of the game itself {ti poi nanmu cu ci'erkei la julne bolci}, the act of dribbling {bolci minra gasnu}, the concept of travelling {bajra se cau lo nu [go'i]}, and making a basket {punji le bolci le julne}. I think that anyone asking me if I'm fluent that saw that would say "that was halting and lame; no, you're not", but what if I explained to them that no-one has ever done that before? That I had to make everything up as I went along? The word "fluent" simply doesn't effectively apply in a context where the language is so under-used that any speaker *regularily* encounters situations in which no idiom or terminology exists, at all. It's like putting two bushmen in Time's square, asking them to describe what they see, and then accusing them of not being fluent in their native tongue, except with everything. -Robin -- http://singinst.org/ : Our last, best hope for a fantastic future. .i ko na cpedu lo nu stidi vau loi jbopre .i danfu lu na go'i li'u .e lu go'i li'u .i ji'a go'i lu na'e go'i li'u .e lu go'i na'i li'u .e lu no'e go'i li'u .e lu to'e go'i li'u .e lu lo mamta be do cu sofybakni li'u -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "lojban" group. 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