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Date: Sat, 4 Aug 2012 22:11:08 -0700 (PDT)
From: Jim Carter <jimc@math.ucla.edu>
To: lojban@googlegroups.com
Subject: Re: [lojban] gua\spi
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On Sat, 4 Aug 2012, selpa'i wrote:

> First of all, sorry if this doesn't belong here, but I'm trying to find more 
> info about gua\spi, and I know for a fact that at least some jbopre had some 
> involvement with it. (And it's a sister language of lojban)

Well, maybe "bastard offspring" might be a better term.

> I read the "Introduction to Gua\spi" and the "Gua\spi Reference Manual", but 
> I felt that those texts were not enough to really get to a point where I 
> could even construct a single bridi. In fact, had I not had a lojbanic 
> background, I would probably not have understood any of it.
> I read that the inventor James Carter is not working on the language anymore, 
> but maybe he'd be interested in getting back into it, if there was an 
> audience of interested people.

Unfortunately I've had to make some choices about what to commit time
to, and other issues pushed ahead of gua\spi.

> I know that John Cowan came to Lojban *from* Gua\spi,

Well, actually he was very active in Lojban at the beginning, and
commented occasionally on gua\spi.

> so please, could you 
> share some of your experiences with the langauge and maybe even point me in 
> some direction? (I really hope the language is hopelessly dead, like another 
> conlang I once wanted to learn, only to find out that the author had 
> abandonned it.)

I hope it could be of some use to the Lojban community at this point;
I hope it's not hopelessly dead.

> If anybody knows of any other learning materials for this langauge, and a 
> more easily searchable dictionary, I'd be very grateful to be made aware of 
> them.

Sorry about the vocabulary lookup CGI.  The database package had a major
version jump and the script was not finding anything.  I rebuilt the
database and that brought it back to life.  I've also learned a whole
lot about writing CGI scripts since 2001, and I gave it a little love.

For people not familiar with gua\spi, here are some major points where
it could be interesting to the lojban community:

* The grammar is radically simple.  Of course, replacing the grammar is
out of the question for lojban, but possibly someone could spot small
tweaks, or shifting grammar into semantics, that could be helpful for
lojban's problem areas.

* I followed John Clifford's lead in defining what a sentence actually
means, and I did my best to specify how the words join to create
meanings, rather than relying on pragmatics and wishful thinking.

* Virtually all compound words can be transformed algorithmically into
phrases containing only primitive words (lujvo), and the connection
between arguments in such phrases follows regular patterns rather than
being handcrafted for each lujvo.  This feature was a badly needed
(but not politically correct) improvement in Old Loglan, and I think
it would still be attractive in lojban.

* The vocabulary words are grouped in "thesaurus categories", an aid
to learning, and common argument patterns in these categories, already
present in Old Loglan, were strengthened, also an aid to learning.

* One of my major goals for gua\spi was to bring some sanity to
mathematical expressions (MEX) which were being designed at that time.
You might say that MEX grammar was tacked onto the core of Lojban,
whereas MEX *is* the core of gua\spi, and I didn't have to tack on
anything to express non-MEX meanings.  Particularly, MEX has to
express a meaning because the semantic specifications say it does,
not because words are somehow similar to the conventional way of
writing mathematics, and the same clarity of meaning carries over to
everyday life.  One could consider how the semantics and philosopy
of MEX in gua\spi could contribute to lojban, though of course not
the grammar and vocabulary.


James F. Carter          Voice 310 825 2897    FAX 310 206 6673
UCLA-Mathnet;  6115 MSA; 405 Hilgard Ave.; Los Angeles, CA, USA 90095-1555
Email: jimc@math.ucla.edu  http://www.math.ucla.edu/~jimc (q.v. for PGP key)

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