Date: Fri, 8 May 2015 02:32:26 -0700 (PDT)
From: spheniscine@gmail.com
To: lojban@googlegroups.com
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Subject: [lojban] It's been a long time.
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coi za'u re'u loi jbotadni

Wow, the memories are flooding back. I was part of that old mailing list 
waaay back when. Checking my email archive it was... 2008? Heh. In that 
time I had discovered much about myself I didn't know about before, found 
some new hobbies.

Well, a conversation about philology and linguistics, both natural and 
constructed, had suddenly reminded me of Lojban; I thought I'd take a peek 
a what happened when I was gone... and... wow. You guys have really gone up 
and remodeled the place. "Dot side", the "xorlo" reform, new *cmavo* like 
*mi'ai*, *la'oi*, etc. (I might still need some of these explained to me), 
rewriting the language primer... not to mention ongoing talk about reducing 
logical connectives to a single set, and even possible abolishment of the 
short *rafsi* system... I was even surprised at little things like the 
deprecation of *tirxu* in favor of *tigra*. After I got over the initial 
shock though, I found myself agreeing with pretty much all these changes.

I was never very fluent at Lojban, and I'm not sure how much time I have to 
dedicate to that goal now. But even through all these changes, which I 
quite appreciate for "cleaning up" a lot of clutter, including stuff I 
didn't realize *was* clutter, I still see the elements that attracted me in 
the first place; the idea of a language with both syntactic and semantic 
rigor as core ideals, that challenged assumptions about what language could 
be like. 

(Yes, I'm aware that this rigor takes different forms on both cases. The 
syntactic rigor of Lojban eliminates syntactic ambiguity if used correctly, 
but eliminating semantic ambiguity is impossible without specifying and 
tense-marking everything to oblivion. However, semantic *rigor*, though not 
perfect [see the ongoing discussion about *tarci* "star (celestial object)" 
versus "star (shape)"], means that each word represents one specific 
Platonic idea/relation, in contrast to English (and other natural 
languages), where words typically have {Platonic idea/relation + 
connotational baggage + figurative senses + other Platonic ideas/relations 
that may have had some tangential relationship with the original idea and 
figurative senses long ago + unrelated ideas from a completely different 
word that merged into this word}... as an amateur philologist this can be 
quite beautiful in its own right. But I also very much liked the idea of a 
language where one could "say what they mean and mean what they say".)

Anyway, glad to be reacquainted.

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<div dir=3D"ltr">coi za'u re'u loi jbotadni<div><br></div><div>Wow, the mem=
ories are flooding back. I was part of that old mailing list waaay back whe=
n. Checking my email archive it was... 2008? Heh. In that time I had discov=
ered much about myself I didn't know about before, found some new hobbies.<=
/div><div><br></div><div>Well, a conversation about philology and linguisti=
cs, both natural and constructed, had suddenly reminded me of Lojban; I tho=
ught I'd take a peek a what happened when I was gone... and... wow. You guy=
s have really gone up and remodeled the place. "Dot side", the "xorlo" refo=
rm, new <i>cmavo</i>&nbsp;like <i>mi'ai</i>, <i>la'oi</i>, etc. (I might st=
ill need some of these explained to me), rewriting the language primer... n=
ot to mention ongoing talk about reducing logical connectives to a single s=
et, and even possible abolishment of the short <i>rafsi</i> system... I was=
 even surprised at little things like the deprecation of <i>tirxu</i>&nbsp;=
in favor of <i>tigra</i>. After I got over the initial shock though, I foun=
d myself agreeing with pretty much all these changes.</div><div><br></div><=
div>I was never very fluent at Lojban, and I'm not sure how much time I hav=
e to dedicate to that goal now. But even through all these changes, which I=
 quite appreciate for "cleaning up" a lot of clutter, including stuff I did=
n't realize <i>was</i> clutter, I still see the elements that attracted me =
in the first place; the idea of a language with both syntactic and semantic=
 rigor as core ideals, that challenged assumptions about what language coul=
d be like.&nbsp;</div><div><br></div><div>(Yes, I'm aware that this rigor t=
akes different forms on both cases. The syntactic rigor of Lojban eliminate=
s syntactic ambiguity if used correctly, but eliminating semantic ambiguity=
 is impossible without specifying and tense-marking everything to oblivion.=
 However, semantic <i>rigor</i>, though not perfect [see the ongoing discus=
sion about <i>tarci</i>&nbsp;"star (celestial object)" versus "star (shape)=
"], means that each word represents one specific Platonic idea/relation, in=
 contrast to English (and other natural languages), where words typically h=
ave {Platonic idea/relation + connotational baggage + figurative senses + o=
ther Platonic ideas/relations that may have had some tangential relationshi=
p with the original idea and figurative senses long ago + unrelated ideas f=
rom a completely different word that merged into this word}... as an amateu=
r philologist this can be quite beautiful in its own right. But I also very=
 much liked the idea of a language where one could "say what they mean and =
mean what they say".)</div><div><br></div><div>Anyway, glad to be reacquain=
ted.</div></div>

<p></p>

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