From @uga.cc.uga.edu:lojban@cuvmb.bitnet Mon Jun 26 00:24:26 1995 Received: from punt2.demon.co.uk by stryx.demon.co.uk with SMTP id AA3597 ; Mon, 26 Jun 95 00:24:24 BST Received: from punt2.demon.co.uk via puntmail for ia@stryx.demon.co.uk; Sat, 24 Jun 95 15:54:47 GMT Received: from uga.cc.uga.edu by punt2.demon.co.uk id aa24550; 24 Jun 95 16:54 +0100 Received: from UGA.CC.UGA.EDU by uga.cc.uga.edu (IBM VM SMTP V2R2) with BSMTP id 8856; Sat, 24 Jun 95 11:52:28 EDT Received: from UGA.CC.UGA.EDU (NJE origin LISTSERV@UGA) by UGA.CC.UGA.EDU (LMail V1.2a/1.8a) with BSMTP id 8790; Sat, 24 Jun 1995 11:51:33 -0400 Date: Sat, 24 Jun 1995 11:52:38 -0400 Reply-To: Logical Language Group Sender: Lojban list From: Logical Language Group Subject: discussing semantics in Lojban To: lojban@cuvmb.cc.columbia.edu Message-ID: <9506241654.aa24550@punt2.demon.co.uk> Status: R >> I don't think so. The Lojban PRESCRIPTION is massively incomplete. But >> one cannot say that the design is incomplete unless I cannot communicate >> with you and get across my point without relying on English-native >> semantic conventions. > >We don't really know if we can, we don't have anyone learning Lojban who >doesn't speak English. We have some people learning who are much less fluent in English than you are or Goran is. >> That Jorge and Tobar, native speakers of >> Argentinian Spanish and Croatian, have been able to carry on >> indefinitely long conversations in Lojban, > >That's Goran, not Tobar, but mixing up names seems to be a Lojban >tradition by now :). My apologies Goran. I seem to have made a lot of slips of the keyboard that night. >But we both speak English, so that doesn't prove much. I have been >guilty of many malglicisms when I felt like making myself understood >without trying too hard. One reason I don't feel as you do that writing Lojban sentences as examples necessarily clarifies things. Look at the last couple weeks' postings, and determine what percentage of Lojban sentences meant precisely what the writer intended. Our command of the idiom is not yet up to the standards needed for precise and logical discourse (the latter tanru meaning discourse that is both about logic, and logically sound). And the moment we write in Lojban, pc and Cowan and many others will be less likely to follow the arguments. It is safe to say that no one in Lojban Central has the time or energy to read more than an occassional Lojban sentence. If the translation isn't present, I generally skip the post unless some key easily recognizable and interesting word jumps out at me. And if it is present, I believe the translation since I don't have the time to check the poster, so writing in Lojban is no better than writing in English. I suspect that Cowan and others read even less Lojban text than I do. I understand that this is not a desirable state. But I have the choice of reading and writing the language, or making sure the prescription gets done. lojbab