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Date: Wed, 24 Apr 2013 02:48:23 -0400
From: "Bob LeChevalier, President and Founder - LLG" <lojbab@lojban.org>
Organization: The Logical Language Group, Inc.
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Subject: Re: [lojban] Should I quit learning Lojban?
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John E Clifford wrote:
> Analogizing isn't encoding.  Lojban is basically the language of logic,
> which, for all sorts of historical reasons, is SAE, that is, English, by
> and large.  If you want something radically different, try Hopi or
> Menominee (Whorf's favorites).  Still, Lojban's vocabulary is not an
> English relex (fairly obviously) nor is its basic grammar conceptually
> like English.  It just is that the patterns of things turning up is more
> or less the same, {lo du'u} and "that" for example (which just turned up
> in something today, not perhaps a typical case).  They are relatively
> easy to learn -- or would be if rationally taught (but a word list and a
> pumping technique combined with a reference grammar is not rational
> teaching).

...

> But if I'm just going to use Lojban as encoded English, what's the point
> of learning it?
>
>        Unfortunately, there has not been until now a decent primer -- or
>     even a really bad one, so the process of learning what you really
>     need and what is window dressing or advanced work has to be by trial
>     and error.

I've seen sentiments like this before in the past few months, and it 
makes me wonder - doesn't anyone use Nick Nicolas's and Robin Turner's 
introductory textbook?  And if so, what are its flaws that make one 
describe it as not "even a really bad one"?

Nick expanded Robin's original primer lessons because everyone said that 
they were so great to learn from, and the links to the book are on the 
same web page as the links to the reference grammar.


As for learning methodology, it depends on what aspect of the language 
you are trying to learn.

Vocabulary in any language is difficult.  Even languages with high 
cognate levels are still difficult - one can learn Basic English rather 
trivially, since the vocabulary is essentially English words, but you 
have to learn which words are NOT in Basic English, and how to 
paraphrase around them.

Those with few cognates are but a little harder.  You invent your own 
hooks; Nora's association of "manci" with a Wonder bread truck, making 
her think of "munchies, since she likes to snack on bread, is the 
classic Lojban example.  And the need for cognates largely stops at the 
gismu list (and possibly the cmavo, many of which have ties to specific 
gismu), since lujvo are analytically decomposable.

Learning vocabulary basically comes down to memorizing some minimum 
number of words dependent on your desired fluency level, whether by 
flashcards or some other technique.  Greater fluency requires a larger 
vocabulary, though in Lojban one can cheat a lot by learning to compose 
tanru and lujvo quickly on the fly.  I used LogFlash (flashcards) to 
learn the Lojban lexicon, and it has stuck with me even though I rarely 
actually get around to using the language in non-trivial ways.

With Russian, I did little direct memorization, instead bothering to 
look up every word I did not know, repeatedly if necessary, in a 
dictionary.  After a half dozen times looking a word up, I usually have 
learned it to some extent.  The same is probably true for how I learned 
many of the cmavo in Lojban.


Place structures - well yes, it can be hard to learn the places of words 
with more than a couple of places.  But then, everyone who has learned 
English verbs has learned what ambiguous prepositions mean when attached 
to those verbs.  Not by memorizing them, but through usage.  If a gismu 
(or other brivla) has more than 2 places, learn the first two, and that 
there exist additional places (which you will look up if and when they 
seem relevant).  Then start using the words.  Again, the extra places 
that you use the most will be assimilated fairly quickly by looking them 
up when needed.  That many of the place structures have patterns common 
to a lot of words is a useful observation that aid in gaining those places.


Most of the logic of Lojban can be learned formulaically - "to say XXX, 
use the pattern YYY".  Once you learn the patterns, someone can explain 
the logical basis for those patterns if you really want to know.  But 
surely, Robin Powell is not going to need to teach his infants formal 
logic before they will understand what he is saying, just like no one 
needs to explain what a direct object and a prepositional phrase are in 
order for you to understand English.  You learn like a child does, and 
absorb the patterns, and then later go back to study the formalisms.

Covering the other of shanoxilt's expressed issues:

Much of the language debate on Lojban list, however esoteric, is not 
relevant or essential to being able to understand and use the language. 
  People can debate the "correctness" of "who" vs "whom", of "fewer 
than" vs "less than", etc in English, and the discussions can get 
esoteric, but you will likely be understood even if you use them 
incorrectly.  The best example of this for me is xorlo, which I find so 
esoteric that almost any explanation washes over me like so many words 
and is forgotten 10 minutes later.  But xorxes says that if I use Lojban 
the way I used it before xorlo was invented, I likely won't make any 
"errors", and I'll be understood, even if my style may seem a little 
antiquated because I use "le" sometimes when a xorlo aficionado might 
prefer "lo" (and I seem to have no more problem reading post-xorlo 
Lojban than earlier forms).

But for all the discussion of reforms, xorlo is the ONLY change that has 
been adopted by LLG in 15+ years.  English usage probably changes more 
rapidly than that, especially as people gravitate to new media with 
radically different styles (such as those needed to fit your thoughts 
into 140 character chunks).

I more or less agree with pc's (John Clifford's) comments about encoded 
English.  Lojban sentences of more than a few words seldom could be 
thought of as encoded English.  Look at the numerous literal translation 
examples in the reference grammar.  As to whether Western logic is 
fundamentally tied to European languages, I doubt that Loglan/Lojban 
would have been invented if normal speakers of European languages 
followed the rules of logic.  And I will especially point out to pc the 
work we did many years ago on negation in Lojban, which rather strongly 
deviates from English in several ways (though one can mimic English 
usage stylistically with naku for several of its aspects).

lojbab
-- 
Bob LeChevalier    lojbab@lojban.org    www.lojban.org
President and Founder, The Logical Language Group, Inc.

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