Message-Id: <199509150519.BAA07414@locke.ccil.org>
Date:         Fri, 15 Sep 1995 00:04:42 +0100
Reply-To: "Steven M. Belknap" <sbelknap@UIC.EDU>
Sender: Lojban list <LOJBAN%CUVMB.BITNET@uga.cc.uga.edu>
From: "Steven M. Belknap" <sbelknap@UIC.EDU>
Subject:      why lojban
To: John Cowan <cowan@LOCKE.CCIL.ORG>
Status: OR

Goran Topic gives four reasons:
1) as a linguistic plaything, or weights for a mental gym
2) proof/disproof of Sapir-Whorf hypothesis
3) communtication with AIs and machine translation
4) international language

I would add a fifth reason: As an influence on the future evolution of
natlangs, particularly English.
I really hated BASIC when I first was programming, but really liked PASCAL,
APL, SmallTalk and LISP. Yet BASIC survived and evolved, influenced by
PASCAL and other structured languages. Visual Basic is similar in
conception to smalltalk.

I am more optimistic about reason 4 than Goran, in part because I think
reason 3 might be the "killer app" that encourages the use of something
like lojban. If computers become fluent english speakers and listeners,
then they will force something like lojban on us to limit ambiguity,
methinks. I've always had a much easier time learning math than language,
but I'm slogging through the lessons. Don't be disheartened by all the
chit-chat about language redesign. Much of the language seems essentially
unchanged from earlier versions and even from Loglan, its parent. It would
be helpful if there was some more discussion about those areas where there
is concensus. Could there be somethinglike this on the email list?

-stivn


Steven M. Belknap, M.D.
Assistant Professor of Clinical Pharmacology and Medicine
University of Illinois College of Medicine at Peoria

email: sbelknap@uic.edu
Voice: 309/671-3403
Fax:   309/671-8413