Message-Id: <m0sPXn8-0000YoC@xiron.pc.helsinki.fi>
Date:         Sat, 24 Jun 1995 11:52:38 -0400
Reply-To:     Logical Language Group <lojbab@ACCESS.DIGEX.NET>
Sender:       Lojban list <LOJBAN@CUVMB.BITNET>
From:         Logical Language Group <lojbab@ACCESS.DIGEX.NET>
Subject:      discussing semantics in Lojban
To:           Veijo Vilva <veion@XIRON.PC.HELSINKI.FI>
Content-Length: 2114
Lines: 48

>> 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