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From: Stela Selckiku <selckiku@gmail.com>
Date: Sun, 5 Nov 2017 16:03:54 -0500
Message-ID: <CAJHgu=8BCaGqRkrD66zEtFiPkbG77EZ1u5N3uEO-+1bT96p1ig@mail.gmail.com>
Subject: Re: [lojban] Re: CLL and modern Lojban
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The main problem with coming to a democratic agreement about Lojban is, who
should participate in that democracy? Lojban has a tiny number of fluent
speakers, overwhelmed by a much larger community of non-speakers. Any sort
of process whose participants were the community broadly would probably be
inclined to reach decisions like, "We think it would be a good idea to just
speak the way it says in the book and not change anything!" But from the
perspective of people who actually speak Lojban, the book was just a
theoretical proposal and there's practical reasons why it can't all be
implemented exactly as written.

It's not actually a large enough community to form "dialects" in the
ordinary sense. All of the fluent speakers understand one another. But
because Lojban is more precisely defined than most languages, we can make
formal distinctions between ways of speaking that in another language
community would just be ignored as the incomprehensible complexities of
language. If you make a change to English grammar, nobody necessarily even
exactly understands how the change works, because no one understands how
English works, because language. If you make a change to Lojban you can
precisely document it and then you can have a special parser that
understands that amended grammar. In other words being able to formalize
the grammar makes changes more evident by making it easy to document them.
The semantics of the base words has also been changing over the years, but
because there's no formalization of those meanings you can't so easily tell
it's happening.

On Sun, Nov 5, 2017 at 3:04 PM, <sukender1@gmail.com> wrote:

> Wow. This is even worse than I thought.
>
> One great thing about Lojban is that it is supposed to be unique. What I
> read here is like if people said "Hey, I invented a Lojban-French", and
> "Me, a Lojban-Chinese", and "Lojban-English"... That sounds so stupid.
>
> Let me be clear: I'm *NOT *judging anyone forking Lojban. Surely they had
> good reasons to do so. Actually nobody can pretend forseeing any case, and
> write an "immutable" language. So yes, it is obvious that the language
> evolves and will evolve, even an hypothetic "official an unique" Lojban.
>
> What is unfortunate is that all forking work should be reintegrated in
> some way to the "trunk", or else we'll end up with many "Lojbans" wich will
> actually kill Lojban (whatever version).
>
> I understand the lack of leadership, but it feels more like a lack of
> structures for democraty. It would be nice to have such structures, but
> unfortunately I don't know how this could be initiated. One idea would be
> to mimic software, a bit as OpenGL did, having the core, extensions, and
> proposals.
>
>
> <http://trac.openscenegraph.org/projects/osg/raw-attachment/wiki/Support/KnowledgeBase/OpenGL/OpenGL3Notes/OpenGL3DeprecationProcess.png>
>
>
>
> To be frank, I feel a bit betrayed. I feel bad because my hope was that
> Lojban was more that just an experiment. Someone, please, prove me it is...
>
> --
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>

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<div dir=3D"ltr">The main problem with coming to a democratic agreement abo=
ut Lojban is, who should participate in that democracy? Lojban has a tiny n=
umber of fluent speakers, overwhelmed by a much larger community of non-spe=
akers. Any sort of process whose participants were the community broadly wo=
uld probably be inclined to reach decisions like, &quot;We think it would b=
e a good idea to just speak the way it says in the book and not change anyt=
hing!&quot; But from the perspective of people who actually speak Lojban, t=
he book was just a theoretical proposal and there&#39;s practical reasons w=
hy it can&#39;t all be implemented exactly as written.=C2=A0<div><br></div>=
<div>It&#39;s not actually a large enough community to form &quot;dialects&=
quot; in the ordinary sense. All of the fluent speakers understand one anot=
her. But because Lojban is more precisely defined than most languages, we c=
an make formal distinctions between ways of speaking that in another langua=
ge community would just be ignored as the incomprehensible complexities of =
language. If you make a change to English grammar, nobody necessarily even =
exactly understands how the change works, because no one understands how En=
glish works, because language. If you make a change to Lojban you can preci=
sely document it and then you can have a special parser that understands th=
at amended grammar. In other words being able to formalize the grammar make=
s changes more evident by making it easy to document them. The semantics of=
 the base words has also been changing over the years, but because there=
9;s no formalization of those meanings you can&#39;t so easily tell it&#39;=
s happening.=C2=A0</div></div><div class=3D"gmail_extra"><br><div class=3D"=
gmail_quote">On Sun, Nov 5, 2017 at 3:04 PM,  <span dir=3D"ltr">&lt;<a href=
=3D"mailto:sukender1@gmail.com" target=3D"_blank">sukender1@gmail.com</a>&g=
t;</span> wrote:<br><blockquote class=3D"gmail_quote" style=3D"margin:0 0 0=
 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex"><div dir=3D"ltr"><div>Wo=
w. This is even worse than I thought.</div><div><br></div><div>One great th=
ing about Lojban is that it is supposed to be unique. What I read here is l=
ike if people said &quot;Hey, I invented a Lojban-French&quot;, and &quot;M=
e, a Lojban-Chinese&quot;, and &quot;Lojban-English&quot;... That sounds so=
 stupid.</div><div><br></div><div>Let me be clear: I&#39;m <b>NOT </b>judgi=
ng anyone forking Lojban. Surely they had good reasons to do so. Actually n=
obody can pretend forseeing any case, and write an &quot;immutable&quot; la=
nguage. So yes, it is obvious that the language evolves and will evolve, ev=
en an hypothetic &quot;official an unique&quot; Lojban.</div><div><br></div=
><div>What is unfortunate is that all forking work should be reintegrated i=
n some way to the &quot;trunk&quot;, or else we&#39;ll end up with many &qu=
ot;Lojbans&quot; wich will actually kill Lojban (whatever version).</div><d=
iv><br></div><div>I understand the lack of leadership, but it feels more li=
ke a lack of structures for democraty. It would be nice to have such struct=
ures, but unfortunately I don&#39;t know how this could be initiated. One i=
dea would be to mimic software, a bit as OpenGL did, having the core, exten=
sions, and proposals.</div><p class=3D"m_4839341677449897166separator" styl=
e=3D"text-align:center;clear:both"><a href=3D"http://trac.openscenegraph.or=
g/projects/osg/raw-attachment/wiki/Support/KnowledgeBase/OpenGL/OpenGL3Note=
s/OpenGL3DeprecationProcess.png" style=3D"margin-left:1em;margin-right:1em"=
 target=3D"_blank"><img src=3D"http://trac.openscenegraph.org/projects/osg/=
raw-attachment/wiki/Support/KnowledgeBase/OpenGL/OpenGL3Notes/OpenGL3Deprec=
ationProcess.png" border=3D"0" width=3D"320" height=3D"216"></a></p><div><b=
r></div><div><br></div><div><br></div><div>To be frank, I feel a bit betray=
ed. I feel bad because my hope was that Lojban was more that just an experi=
ment. Someone, please, prove me it is...</div></div><div class=3D"HOEnZb"><=
div class=3D"h5">

<p></p>

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et=3D"_blank">https://groups.google.com/d/<wbr>optout</a>.<br>
</div></div></blockquote></div><br></div>

<p></p>

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