Received: from mail-lb0-f185.google.com ([209.85.217.185]:56543) by stodi.digitalkingdom.org with esmtps (TLSv1:RC4-SHA:128) (Exim 4.80.1) (envelope-from ) id 1XiRyX-0003t2-IU for lojban-list-archive@lojban.org; Sun, 26 Oct 2014 10:51:39 -0700 Received: by mail-lb0-f185.google.com with SMTP id u10sf488390lbd.22 for ; Sun, 26 Oct 2014 10:51:26 -0700 (PDT) DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha256; c=relaxed/relaxed; d=googlegroups.com; s=20120806; h=message-id:date:from:user-agent:mime-version:to:subject :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=N4BfUId0d5t3fEBjASIWH0jmeC6cIkLzVbMJ+0UHpnA=; b=LELmgPfQsFqIGPAOi4rvfd8n4d+6ZAjL6FJndFROSbtYwogeTlD4sQD01CZGPfBz0h r7DRD6UJxjCCgkpDNWiix/uwEBSPN+akugn37x/QBEpLVoRRbAzPH6ogdBGe4IfVlcHK IwNHWyWjIxdNf/VN0FLLDDCWkL8fuVy2rap91HUjRAnOl/dEYZh5RGcZqse9sI3h5uHc qul3UpZQpARZyTzYK9G+Gfn57Ojfk2S2/tsheiSJ2HBsYU4t/2oIwp9ntoIc0Pgd88M7 nMnFPvquiXdUNF9U3GPSgcPnXa2ocn8ITDnjU3j5e64R1E0iPTyOH2nqBU8Z79E3gdMs ecWw== X-Received: by 10.180.81.41 with SMTP id w9mr9228wix.8.1414345886177; Sun, 26 Oct 2014 10:51:26 -0700 (PDT) X-BeenThere: lojban@googlegroups.com Received: by 10.180.96.163 with SMTP id dt3ls180973wib.15.canary; Sun, 26 Oct 2014 10:51:25 -0700 (PDT) X-Received: by 10.180.73.73 with SMTP id j9mr1894077wiv.3.1414345885761; Sun, 26 Oct 2014 10:51:25 -0700 (PDT) Received: from mout.gmx.net (mout.gmx.net. [212.227.17.21]) by gmr-mx.google.com with ESMTPS id us10si1337628lbc.1.2014.10.26.10.51.25 for (version=TLSv1.2 cipher=ECDHE-RSA-AES128-GCM-SHA256 bits=128/128); Sun, 26 Oct 2014 10:51:25 -0700 (PDT) Received-SPF: pass (google.com: domain of seladwa@gmx.de designates 212.227.17.21 as permitted sender) client-ip=212.227.17.21; Received: from [192.168.2.118] ([93.220.99.86]) by mail.gmx.com (mrgmx103) with ESMTPSA (Nemesis) id 0MI5rO-1Xfhsh0Tq2-003scr for ; Sun, 26 Oct 2014 18:51:25 +0100 Message-ID: <544D34B1.7000000@gmx.de> Date: Sun, 26 Oct 2014 18:51:45 +0100 From: selpa'i User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 5.1; rv:24.0) Gecko/20100101 Thunderbird/24.6.0 MIME-Version: 1.0 To: lojban@googlegroups.com Subject: [lojban] Lojban's Biggest Problem or Why Still Nobody Speaks It X-Provags-ID: V03:K0:2Jtbc/uRx9Bw6h2Mlxu/k/vBD3gFR9VIXDpMIeg/eGEymgv3uQg R3Ymf6lN48XoKXSVORmSNvY9nKCgAgpoQgsGxSh35suCzaSIlwMb/xr8x5fR8U5OKwx9ed0 G4UmRUKEUfaY9mAOr4lFbyjV01AbPzIqGXgPqLBBpZl3TdObNgWdRphGz0bfT2MCazyGHXu sxsgsv7ilWW3oHj62+Qog== X-UI-Out-Filterresults: notjunk:1; X-Original-Sender: seladwa@gmx.de X-Original-Authentication-Results: gmr-mx.google.com; spf=pass (google.com: domain of seladwa@gmx.de designates 212.227.17.21 as permitted sender) smtp.mail=seladwa@gmx.de 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: text/plain; charset=UTF-8; format=flowed X-Spam-Score: -1.9 (-) X-Spam_score: -1.9 X-Spam_score_int: -18 X-Spam_bar: - Simply put, there aren't enough words, and the few words that exist do not enable us to make nuanced descriptions of the world. I see the two main aspects of the problem as being: 1) The existing words (specifically the gismu) are too vague by themselves (and yes, I know that this is by design) 2) Too many essential concepts are missing completely 1. "A logical language with the dictionary of Toki Pona" gismu cover wide ranges of meaning, but specifying specific points on those ranges is not as straighforward as the lujvo-fans advertise it to be. Right now, if you want to speak about your emotions, or about your clothes, or about almost anything, in depth and with nuance and subtlety, then you'll find that Lojban is not much different from Toki Pona. Both let you use tanru, but neither lets you be very exact. (This is only a slight exaggeration; Lojban and Toki Pona would be in one corner, and all the real languages in the other corner, with Lojban standing only a few steps in front of Toki Pona) The idea was/is to use lujvo to get specific meanings of tanru into the lexicon, but there is more than one problem with that. For one thing, there aren't enough veljvo to account for all the different nuances that one might want to base on a root gismu. Let's consider the following example of related words that the gimste says should be made by combining {banli} with something else: "extraordinary, illustrious, magnificent, impressive, awesome, grandiose, august, inspiring, special, majestic, distinguished, eminent, splendor, stately, imposing" If each of those words is to be a different lujvo with {banli} as tertau, what are the all the seltau going to be? This list isn't even exhaustive, it could easily be extended further, and at some point the lujvo would become nothing more than a random seltau + {banli}, and then why even bother with lujvo? 2. "Not enough words" What do the words traffic, traffic lights, traffic jam have in common? They are all examples of everyday words that are completely missing from the Lojban lexicon. I could name hundreds more. And it makes speaking the language beyond a certain level impossible. What's the fastest way to verify this? Try talking to yourself in Lojban for one day, no English. Write down every object and situation you encounter during the day that you cannot name let alone describe in Lojban (and no, TokiPona-like tanru do not count as nuanced descriptions). You will quickly fill your entire notebook. I did this myself a while ago but I gave up pretty quickly. There just aren't any words for the things we need words for if Lojban is to be used autonomously. It's doubtful whether lujvo can be the answer. Lujvo have many problems (apart from the issue that nobody can agree on which lujvo to pick for a given concept). Lujvo that try to be exact by using a lot of components (rafsi) naturally get very long, for two reasons: 1) obviously more components means more length, but 2) many gismu have no short rafsi, which means you get punished for using them as components. Recently, more and more people have started to make zi'evla instead of lujvo. There are different reasons for this. Length of the words is one, and recognizability is another. It's no coincidence there are more and more words like {sorpeka} (which is short for {sorprekarce} (which is just "bus" (1 syllable!) in English), {nonseka}, {pincivi}, {gapnifa}, etc. Normal lujvo are often too long. Try to make lujvo for all the things you wrote down on your list as you went a day speaking nothing but Lojban to yourself. Or make lujvo for all the parts of a computer, or of an engine. It's hard, sometimes it feels impossible and the results are often not satisfying. At that point I would stop and wonder if lujvo are really such a great thing. Do they help us move closer to a speakable and spoken language? - lujvo become very long once you try to inject nuance or specificity - Nobody knows all the rafsi (and IMO nobody should have to know such a list of irregular affixes in a language like Lojban), and the rafsi cannot be derived algorithmically from their gismu or cmavo - lujvo are made up of parts that describe a given concept, but sometimes there aren't any good parts (i.e. gismu) to pick in the first place (see {banli} above) (and rafsi are bad design in a language that wants to be simple and have no exceptions) Do we really need rafsi? What about lujvo? I say: Merge zi'evla with lujvo by getting rid of the concept of formal rafsi assignments, thereby achieving so much more freedom on the word creation level, which is Lojban's biggest construction site, and it needs every bit of resources it can get. (you can read more about this idea here: http://selpahi.weebly.com/lojban/how-to-get-rid-of-formal-rafsi ) Anyway, what to do? The needed words (thousands of words) must be defined, but it hasn't been done in the last 25 years. A lot of the time, people are unable to agree on a lujvo that they deem good enough as a translation of a given concept. Long discussions ensue about single words, and often result in no addition of a new word into the dictionary. Even if they did result in new words, we cannot take that long for each word or it's going to take another 25 years for all the essential words to exist, by which time the language might already have died and replaced by a language with a better dictionary. If the goal is to have true fluent speakers of Lojban, then this lexicon-shaped hole in the language must be filled as soon as possible. For some people this is the only thing keeping them from reaching fluency, and for the language as a whole it is the one thing that makes it impossible for anyone to be fluent. Having fluent speakers would be the best way to show that Lojban is both human-usable and human-used, it would be better advertising than anything else, yet it's the most lacking part of the language (for people who want to use the language and not only talk about it in English). Unfortunately, only being aware of the problem is not enough, because the solutions aren't obvious. People will not suddenly stop arguing about which lujvo is the best (will they?). People will not suddenly accept without double and triple checking (and then re-inventing) the lujvo someone else came up with and put in the dictionary (will they?). If you know a good solution, good, because I don't. Though what I find interesting (or bizarre?) is that we have the ability to define all the words we need using random word shapes and giving them the desired meanings very easily, but we don't. Not that I propose using randomly generated words, but it's interesting to note that we apparently prefer a state in which we can't say things to one where we can but with non-perfect words. We'd rather have no words than have bad words. And thus we remain silent. mi'e la selpa'i mu'o -- 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.