From nobody@digitalkingdom.org Fri Jan 11 14:36:25 2008 Received: with ECARTIS (v1.0.0; list lojban-list); Fri, 11 Jan 2008 14:36:25 -0800 (PST) Received: from nobody by chain.digitalkingdom.org with local (Exim 4.68) (envelope-from ) id 1JDSUC-0005e2-Ip for lojban-list-real@lojban.org; Fri, 11 Jan 2008 14:36:24 -0800 Received: from squid17.laughingsquid.net ([72.32.93.144]) by chain.digitalkingdom.org with esmtp (Exim 4.68) (envelope-from ) id 1JDSU8-0005dp-HM for lojban-list@lojban.org; Fri, 11 Jan 2008 14:36:24 -0800 Received: (qmail 24201 invoked by uid 48); 11 Jan 2008 14:36:10 -0800 Received: from c-75-68-233-37.hsd1.vt.comcast.net (c-75-68-233-37.hsd1.vt.comcast.net [75.68.233.37]) by webmail.ixkey.info (Horde MIME library) with HTTP; Fri, 11 Jan 2008 14:36:10 -0800 Message-ID: <20080111143610.bd3iw7hogws8ss4w@webmail.ixkey.info> Date: Fri, 11 Jan 2008 14:36:10 -0800 From: mungojelly@ixkey.info To: lojban-list@lojban.org Subject: [lojban] Things I Would Invent [se'o] About Lojban [.io.iu], If Lojban Didn't [da'i] Exist [.uinaisaibe'u] MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; DelSp="Yes"; format="flowed" Content-Disposition: inline Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit X-MIME-Autoconverted: from quoted-printable to 8bit by Ecartis User-Agent: Internet Messaging Program (IMP) H3 (4.1.4) X-Spam-Score: 0.0 X-Spam-Score-Int: 0 X-Spam-Bar: / X-archive-position: 14098 X-ecartis-version: Ecartis v1.0.0 Sender: lojban-list-bounce@lojban.org Errors-to: lojban-list-bounce@lojban.org X-original-sender: mungojelly@ixkey.info Precedence: bulk Reply-to: lojban-list@lojban.org X-list: lojban-list If Lojban didn't exist, I would wish for a language with an unambiguous grammar. I would look at the languages which exist in the world, the human languages where phrases attach wildly with semantics their main crutch, the computer languages with their beautiful fractal organization of fragile, hollow semantics, and I would wish for a third way, where words with human meaning are arranged in this grand complexity. If Lojban didn't exist, I can imagine myself imagining a language which deeply enhances the terrain of twisted & self-referential wordplay opened by such great artists as Lewis Carroll and Douglas Hofstadter, so that instead of explorations of the strange reaches of language, sentences which eat their own tails (like this one, dear Dei, does in the center of this parenthetical) could be admitted into the common language, could form a baseline for our future thought, so that the next round of exploration will find us even further. If Lojban didn't exist, I would stare into the sea of subtext churning under every statement, the undeniable truth that sentences do not only express their factual and literal meanings, but in fact establish a relationship between a speaker, an expression, and their world. I might imagine a language which reaches straight in to pluck these chords, like reaching inside of a grand piano to stroke and strum and hear an exaggerated resonance. I might imagine a language with a whole painter's palette of attitudinal, emotional, evidential, and discoursive colors, so that sentences can be painted directly with their subtexts while their surface meanings hang plain. If Lojban didn't exist, I would wish for a language where an infinite variety of new words were always at the tip of your tongue, where anything could be used as an affix on anything else. If I was very smart, I might think to wish for a language which could make distinct any number of new meanings, while still producing words whose component parts can be recognized by relative beginners, and even that they could be spoken in a special easily-understood long-form where every affix resembles a common word. If Lojban didn't exist, I like to think that I'd have been clever enough to imagine some parts of it, but on the other hand I'm sure that I wouldn't have been able on my own to construct so much of it. I believe that Lojban is something which must be done, which would naturally happen in our modern world even if it had not already been started. You, doi all Lojbanists, have begun this great project, and only a fool would try to begin it again when there are your shoulders here to stand on. If Esperanto didn't exist, the world would be ripe for Zamenhofs, but there has been an investment made over centuries in that quirky hatted language, and the weight of that investment is continuingly persuasive. The world needs a logji bangu in a similar way-- that is, if it weren't here, we would redream it-- and the investment made in Lojban over only a few decades is already gigantic. Lojban thus deserves to be believed in, strengthened & rallied around. It is truly THE logical language, for us, for the foreseeable future; it is the logical language which we must continue to invest in, if we are going to lift this vision of language up so high that it can join the great languages of the world. .e'osaibu'ocu'i ko sarji la lojban. mu'o mi'e la bret. 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.