Message-Id: <m0tAVfz-0000ZRC@xiron.pc.helsinki.fi>
Date:         Wed, 1 Nov 1995 00:17:05 -0500
Reply-To:     Logical Language Group <lojbab@ACCESS.DIGEX.NET>
Sender:       Lojban list <LOJBAN@CUVMB.BITNET>
From:         Logical Language Group <lojbab@ACCESS.DIGEX.NET>
Subject:      gismu history
To:           Veijo Vilva <veion@XIRON.PC.HELSINKI.FI>
Content-Length: 912
Lines: 21

And wrote:
>It's surprising that none of them could better the eventual system.
>Jorge's idea is clearly superior.  Further, perhaps some of the
>requirements really were unimportant, or at least not so important that
>the system had to be as cumbersome and complicated and antimnemonic as
>it has ended up being.

Not all that surprising.  Even in 1979, relearning was an issue for JCB
and other Loglanists who were active.  I don't think they looked too
hard at approaches that would redesign the gismu.  After all, they were
already redoing every single lujvo and fu'ivla.

Arguing about the appropriateness of some of the requirements was
something we did not consider.

As for cumbersome and complicated - the current system is a paragon of
elegance compared to what went before, which had non-unique rafsi, no
special fu'ivla space, and basically resulted in everyone having to
memorize all lujvo.

lojbab