Received: from mail-wg0-f60.google.com ([74.125.82.60]:52031) by stodi.digitalkingdom.org with esmtps (TLSv1:RC4-SHA:128) (Exim 4.80.1) (envelope-from ) id 1XRaoe-0005wW-A3 for lojban-list-archive@lojban.org; Tue, 09 Sep 2014 22:51:42 -0700 Received: by mail-wg0-f60.google.com with SMTP id n12sf632409wgh.25 for ; Tue, 09 Sep 2014 22:51:33 -0700 (PDT) DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha256; c=relaxed/relaxed; d=googlegroups.com; s=20120806; h=mime-version:in-reply-to:references:date:message-id:subject:from:to :x-original-sender:x-original-authentication-results:reply-to :precedence:mailing-list:list-id:list-post:list-help:list-archive :sender:list-subscribe:list-unsubscribe:content-type; bh=lrbvIRjdMSgm1ZqP8kbOVV3sEUWv0d3zvH+qDd0DnH4=; b=Vhw4YxqZTs1ZxyESJr+mK0eIOATEEo4cL3XEajVAhFy5TCXRJudGQScM6knTjWz0oS fGe6QibuE6WkkpKwol/qlhs0X5Jnib5W+xHlTEgjhAnsxDt7/I1VkKgdKsLT3Rv+edxv L9FMI58FYI+UB8+t29maknZGoplF4s5BgzTAlGYiIUpa/SeOVin/Fiq2UB4mzKD4FLVm HhVChdknGghrj6HOcwVevcQE3eKkAguUyFOUDltqjSAJddTK/1vR00Aws97/ivPEDXo7 aeGnSugiF4yySKki4z8NY0bBmhPWFvNR55Nc/pwnZlLb94FDAAdBudaSAb8F6f16WSlD zukw== X-Received: by 10.180.108.111 with SMTP id hj15mr184794wib.5.1410328293303; Tue, 09 Sep 2014 22:51:33 -0700 (PDT) X-BeenThere: lojban@googlegroups.com Received: by 10.180.97.232 with SMTP id ed8ls669468wib.4.canary; Tue, 09 Sep 2014 22:51:32 -0700 (PDT) X-Received: by 10.181.8.226 with SMTP id dn2mr3166916wid.4.1410328292733; Tue, 09 Sep 2014 22:51:32 -0700 (PDT) Received: from mail-we0-x22f.google.com (mail-we0-x22f.google.com [2a00:1450:400c:c03::22f]) by gmr-mx.google.com with ESMTPS id gg11si59479wic.0.2014.09.09.22.51.32 for (version=TLSv1 cipher=ECDHE-RSA-RC4-SHA bits=128/128); Tue, 09 Sep 2014 22:51:32 -0700 (PDT) Received-SPF: pass (google.com: domain of gleki.is.my.name@gmail.com designates 2a00:1450:400c:c03::22f as permitted sender) client-ip=2a00:1450:400c:c03::22f; Received: by mail-we0-f175.google.com with SMTP id w61so3211264wes.34 for ; Tue, 09 Sep 2014 22:51:32 -0700 (PDT) MIME-Version: 1.0 X-Received: by 10.180.75.9 with SMTP id y9mr4722871wiv.79.1410328292626; Tue, 09 Sep 2014 22:51:32 -0700 (PDT) Received: by 10.194.89.193 with HTTP; Tue, 9 Sep 2014 22:51:32 -0700 (PDT) In-Reply-To: <540F6802.3070709@gmail.com> References: <25B055499F67420FA34794323F9A95AB@gmail.com> <540B374A.9040409@lojban.org> <540B8D1B.8050807@gmail.com> <540F391F.5050002@lojban.org> <540F6802.3070709@gmail.com> Date: Wed, 10 Sep 2014 09:51:32 +0400 Message-ID: Subject: Re: [lojban] the future of Lojban's leadership From: Gleki Arxokuna To: lojban@googlegroups.com X-Original-Sender: gleki.is.my.name@gmail.com X-Original-Authentication-Results: gmr-mx.google.com; spf=pass (google.com: domain of gleki.is.my.name@gmail.com designates 2a00:1450:400c:c03::22f as permitted sender) smtp.mail=gleki.is.my.name@gmail.com; dkim=pass header.i=@gmail.com; dmarc=pass (p=NONE dis=NONE) header.from=gmail.com 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-Unsubscribe: , Content-Type: multipart/alternative; boundary=f46d0434bf8ce6182a0502afa42c X-Spam-Score: -1.9 (-) X-Spam_score: -1.9 X-Spam_score_int: -18 X-Spam_bar: - --f46d0434bf8ce6182a0502afa42c Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8 2014-09-10 0:50 GMT+04:00 And Rosta : > Bob LeChevalier, President and Founder - LLG, On 09/09/2014 18:30: > >> The other problem is that the "development" is supposed to already be >> done. Long done. And for a lot of people, the idea that they might >> have to go to Microsoft Lojban 8.0 from 7.0 is enough to make them >> throw up their hands in disgust and turn away from the language. They >> might accept small tweaks to fix bugs in "Lojban XP", but they don't >> want to relearn anything. >> > > It seems to me you're setting up a largely false dichotomy. Most of what > remains to be done is to complete the design where it is incomplete. So the > choice is whether to do that explicitly or leave it to usage. Not much > relearning entailed by that. There is the additional choice of whether to > make simplifications that require a handful of individuals to do some > relearning now, for the benefit of making the task for all future learners > much simpler, but that is a separate debate. > > People might have tolerated running across some new word on an IRC >> channel and looking it up; we deal with learning new vocabulary all >> the time in natural language. But they don't like someone telling >> them that the old way to do something is wrong, and there is a new >> and better way. >> > > Are there still many that feel thus? I wonder if it's a myth that gets > perpetuated because you propagate it so insistently. > No, this is true. > > In old usage, "le" was standardly not used in a baseline-compliant way; cf > how "le nu", "le ka", "le du'u" used to be default in usage. In old and new > usage (for new usage, I'm relying on Selpa'i's observation), logical scope > of syntactic clausemates is generally ambiguous. How many people are going > to want to preserve old ways that aren't baseline-compliant or are > rampantly logically ambiguous? The task is to adapt theory to facts, i.e. usage, not adapt reality to facts provided this doesn't lead to syntactic ambiguity which is a defining feature of lojban. > > This project is some 60 years old and we have a lot of history of >> people explicitly leaving because of changes imposed from on-high. >> > > Not in the history of Lojban proper, of course, because changes haven't > been imposed from on-high. So all the folk leaving for the last 27 years > have been leaving for other reasons; disgruntlement at the unfinished > design and the political sclerosis that prevents its completion must be the > major reason why people leave Lojban, out of all reasons that have to do > with some sort of disaffection with Lojban. > > More importantly, we have the history of dozens if not hundreds of >> conlangs whose usage has not spread because people wouldn't stop >> fiddling with the language design. >> > > I think you'd be hard-pressed to identify these dozens if not hundreds of > conlangs whose usage would have spread if people had stopped fiddling with > the language design. > He won't. I can confirm his words. I've got a lot of people from Russian group who immediately stopped learning Lojban when they learnt that CLL was no longer valid. With regret I have to acknowledge that Lojbab's task of creating a stable language failed when the not well thought out change called "xorlo" invalidated the refgram. May be it's still not too late to go back to pre-xorlo and formalize quantification problems so that they match CLL example as close as possible. Another example is Quenya. When new Tolkien's stuff was published the community shrinked fivefold. Yet another example is Loglan. That's why any changes to basic gismu, to common usage is a way to the final destruction of the language as it happened to other conlangs. > At some point, you have to stop allowing changes EXCEPT by *natural* >> language processes (which aren't so much "reviewed" as "documented >> after the fact". >> >> in my mind, there is no way Lojban can be "considered DONE as an >>> engineering effort". >>> >> >> Then we are fundamentally at odds. It MUST be "done" at some point. >> Engineering must stop, and we move to usage. >> > > Especially in the case of a language like Lojban, one expects that there > will always be a strong strand of prescriptivism, in areas where usage > deviates from the official design or from logic. Prescriptivism is a form > of engineering. It has a bad name in the domain of natlangs, mostly because > actual prescriptivists tend to be foolish, but to people attracted to > Lojban by its explicit definition and ostensible logical basis, rational > prescriptivism is likely to be welcome. > > The experimental gismu {kibro} >> >> never heard of it. >> >> and cmavo >> >>> {di'ai}. vu'o po'onai. >>> >> >> vu'o and po'onai should both be part of the baseline (not that I >> remember what the latter means; I am sure it was discussed back in >> the 90s). >> > > It was discussed back in the 90s, but is it in CLL? I can't find a way to > search CLL online (-- there must be one, but googling doesn't bring it up). > It's not in CLL Ch 13 where po'o is introduced. > > I have no idea what di'ai is. That is the problem with >> experimental usages. They aren't documented, and people like me would >> have no idea what to do with the word if we run across it in text. >> > > I went to the humungous effort of looking kibro and di'ai up in jbovlaste. > To find jbovlaste, one googles "jbovlaste". Or, even quicker, google > "jbovlaste kibro" and you get the answer in one step. For users of handheld > devices, Gleki has made an android jbovlaste app -- it's excellent! Huh? > And it's dead easy to use even for those of us who are weary at having to > learn new technology. > > --And. > > > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "lojban" group. > To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an > email to lojban+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com. > To post to this group, send email to lojban@googlegroups.com. > Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/lojban. > For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. > -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "lojban" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to lojban+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to lojban@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/lojban. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. --f46d0434bf8ce6182a0502afa42c Content-Type: text/html; charset=UTF-8 Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable


2014-09-10 0:50 GMT+04:00 And Rosta <and.rosta@gmail.com>:
Bob LeChevalier, President and Founder - LLG, On 0= 9/09/2014 18:30:
The other problem is that the "development" is supposed to alread= y be
done. Long done. And for a lot of people, the idea that they might
have to go to Microsoft Lojban 8.0 from 7.0 is enough to make them
throw up their hands in disgust and turn away from the language. They
might accept small tweaks to fix bugs in "Lojban XP", but they do= n't
want to relearn anything.

 It seems to me you're setting up a largely false dichotomy. Most of wha= t remains to be done is to complete the design where it is incomplete. So t= he choice is whether to do that explicitly or leave it to usage. Not much r= elearning entailed by that. There is the additional choice of whether to ma= ke simplifications that require a handful of individuals to do some relearn= ing now, for the benefit of making the task for all future learners much si= mpler, but that is a separate debate.

People might have tolerated running across some new word on an IRC
channel and looking it up; we deal with learning new vocabulary all
the time in natural language. But they don't like someone telling
them that the old way to do something is wrong, and there is a new
and better way.

 Are there still many that feel thus? I wonder if it's a myth that gets = perpetuated because you propagate it so insistently.
<= br>
No, this is true.
=C2=A0

In old usage, "le" was standardly not used in a baseline-complian= t way; cf how "le nu", "le ka", "le du'u"= used to be default in usage. In old and new usage (for new usage, I'm = relying on Selpa'i's observation), logical scope of syntactic claus= emates is generally ambiguous. How many people are going to want to preserv= e old ways that aren't baseline-compliant or are rampantly logically am= biguous?

The task is to adapt theory to fac= ts, i.e. usage, not adapt reality to facts provided this doesn't lead t= o syntactic ambiguity which is a defining feature of lojban.

=


This project is some 60 years old and we have a lot of history of
people explicitly leaving because of changes imposed from on-high.

 Not in the history of Lojban proper, of course, because changes haven't= been imposed from on-high. So all the folk leaving for the last 27 years h= ave been leaving for other reasons; disgruntlement at the unfinished design= and the political sclerosis that prevents its completion must be the major= reason why people leave Lojban, out of all reasons that have to do with so= me sort of disaffection with Lojban.

More importantly, we have the history of dozens if not hundreds of
conlangs whose usage has not spread because people wouldn't stop
fiddling with the language design.

 I think you'd be hard-pressed to identify these dozens if not hundreds = of conlangs whose usage would have spread if people had stopped fiddling wi= th the language design.

He won't. I= can confirm his words.
I've got a lot of people from Russian= group who immediately stopped learning Lojban when they learnt that CLL wa= s no longer valid.

With regret I have to acknowled= ge that Lojbab's task of creating a stable language failed when the not= well thought out change called "xorlo" invalidated the refgram. = May be it's still not too late to go back to pre-xorlo
and fo= rmalize quantification problems so that they match CLL example as close as = possible.

Another example is Quenya. When new Tolk= ien's stuff was published the community shrinked fivefold.
Yet another example is Loglan.

That&#= 39;s why any changes to basic gismu, to common usage is a way to the final = destruction of the language as it happened to other conlangs.


At some point, you have to stop allowing changes EXCEPT by *natural*
language processes (which aren't so much "reviewed" as "= documented
after the fact".

in my mind, there is no way Lojban can be "considered DONE as an
engineering effort".

Then we are fundamentally at odds. It MUST be "done" at some poin= t.
Engineering must stop, and we move to usage.

Especially in the case of a language like Lojban, one expects that there wi= ll always be a strong strand of prescriptivism, in areas where usage deviat= es from the official design or from logic. Prescriptivism is a form of engi= neering. It has a bad name in the domain of natlangs, mostly because actual= prescriptivists tend to be foolish, but to people attracted to Lojban by i= ts explicit definition and ostensible logical basis, rational prescriptivis= m is likely to be welcome.

=C2=A0 The experimental gismu {kibro}

never heard of it.

=C2=A0 and cmavo
{di'ai}. vu'o po'onai.

vu'o and po'onai should both be part of the baseline (not that I remember what the latter means; I am sure it was discussed back in
the 90s).

 It was discussed back in the 90s, but is it in CLL? I can't find a way = to search CLL online (-- there must be one, but googling doesn't bring = it up). It's not in CLL Ch 13 where po'o is introduced.

I have no idea what di'ai is. That is the problem with
experimental usages. They aren't documented, and people like me would have no idea what to do with the word if we run across it in text.

 I went to the humungous effort of looking kibro and di'ai up in jbovlas= te. To find jbovlaste, one googles "jbovlaste". Or, even quicker,= google "jbovlaste kibro" and you get the answer in one step. For= users of handheld devices, Gleki has made an android jbovlaste app -- it&#= 39;s excellent!

Huh?
=C2=A0
=
And it's dead easy to use even for those of us who ar= e weary at having to learn new technology.

--And.


--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups &= quot;lojban" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an e= mail to lojban+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com.
To post to this group, send email to lojban@googlegroups.com.
Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/lojban.
For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.

--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups &= quot;lojban" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an e= mail to lojban+unsub= scribe@googlegroups.com.
To post to this group, send email to lojban@googlegroups.com.
Visit this group at http:= //groups.google.com/group/lojban.
For more options, visit http= s://groups.google.com/d/optout.
--f46d0434bf8ce6182a0502afa42c--