From nobody@digitalkingdom.org Mon Jul 10 16:48:46 2006 Received: with ECARTIS (v1.0.0; list lojban-list); Mon, 10 Jul 2006 16:48:46 -0700 (PDT) Received: from nobody by chain.digitalkingdom.org with local (Exim 4.62) (envelope-from ) id 1G05UD-0001zt-IT for lojban-list-real@lojban.org; Mon, 10 Jul 2006 16:48:21 -0700 Received: from manyas.bcc.bilkent.edu.tr ([139.179.30.24]) by chain.digitalkingdom.org with esmtp (Exim 4.62) (envelope-from ) id 1G05U9-0001zm-Ap for lojban-list@lojban.org; Mon, 10 Jul 2006 16:48:20 -0700 Received: by manyas.bcc.bilkent.edu.tr (Postfix, from userid 72) id 9FB4D26F0A; Tue, 11 Jul 2006 02:48:14 +0300 (EEST) Received: from [139.179.99.29] (bcc29.vpn.bilkent.edu.tr [139.179.99.29]) by manyas.bcc.bilkent.edu.tr (Postfix) with ESMTP id 640D026EB8 for ; Tue, 11 Jul 2006 02:48:14 +0300 (EEST) Received: from 127.0.0.1 (AVG SMTP 7.1.394 [268.9.10/383]); Tue, 11 Jul 2006 02:52:41 +0300 Message-ID: <44B2E849.8050001@bilkent.edu.tr> Date: Tue, 11 Jul 2006 02:52:41 +0300 From: robin User-Agent: Thunderbird 1.5.0.4 (Windows/20060516) To: lojban-list@lojban.org Subject: [lojban] Re: Alphabet proposal one. References: <20060707153327.57398.qmail@web81303.mail.mud.yahoo.com> <12d58c160607070930l59d5ed26kf1bb8267f38d0c20@mail.gmail.com> In-Reply-To: <12d58c160607070930l59d5ed26kf1bb8267f38d0c20@mail.gmail.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8; format=flowed X-Spam-Score: -2.6 (--) X-archive-position: 12077 X-ecartis-version: Ecartis v1.0.0 Sender: lojban-list-bounce@lojban.org Errors-to: lojban-list-bounce@lojban.org X-original-sender: robin@bilkent.edu.tr Precedence: bulk Reply-to: lojban-list@lojban.org X-list: lojban-list komfo,amonan wrote: > On 7/7/06, *John E Clifford* > wrote: > > --- Betsemes > wrote: > > > This leads me to a question. How is the latin alphabet culturally > > biased? Is it just because it comes from languages that comes from > > Latin or is it because some other reason? > > Well, the Latin alphabet is used for just about every language there > currently is (with local > modifications, mainly as to pronunciation) but it the alphabet of > the civilization/culture of > Western Europe and that (derivatively from the dominance of that > culture) is why it is so widely > used. So, I suppose that rejecting it as culturally biased is a > step in antiimperialism, > > > Well, more people use the Latin alphabet than any other, I suspect. But > given Chinese, Arabic, Russian, and the South Asian languages, there's a > *lot* of folks who *don't* use it. I counted 2 billion in the language > ranking list only going down to Punjabi (no. 13). As far as the number > of *languages* go, yeah, most of our 6000 languages have, like, 4,000 > speakers & are written in the Latin alphabet by western scholars. > > Of course it's culturally biased. It favors the people who already know > it. People who grew up writing in Greek, Cyrillic, Arabic, Korean, > Armenian, &c. systems have to learn it outright before they can get > started on Lojban. But whether Lojban's ideal of cultural neutrality > was ever intended to extend that far is another issue. > Almost certainly not. Cultural neutrality is not the same as being equally easy (or difficult!) to learn for everyone, regardless of their native language. This is simply impossible, a fact which is taken into account in the gismu algorithm, which is deliberately biased toward the more widely-spoken languages. robin.tr -- No virus found in this outgoing message. Checked by AVG Free Edition. Version: 7.1.394 / Virus Database: 268.9.10/383 - Release Date: 07/07/2006 To unsubscribe from this list, send mail to lojban-list-request@lojban.org with the subject unsubscribe, or go to http://www.lojban.org/lsg2/, or if you're really stuck, send mail to secretary@lojban.org for help.