Message-Id: <199510252131.RAA20932@locke.ccil.org>
Date:         Wed, 25 Oct 1995 21:25:05 +0000
Reply-To: ucleaar <ucleaar@UCL.AC.UK>
Sender: Lojban list <LOJBAN@CUVMB.BITNET>
From: ucleaar <ucleaar@UCL.AC.UK>
Subject:      Re: Incredible!
To: John Cowan <cowan@LOCKE.CCIL.ORG>
Status: OR

> The Loglan morphology was redesigned as late as 1979-82 as the Great
> Morphological Revolution, which is when unique assignment of rafsi was
> introducved and the current system of making lujvo was invented.
> A LOT of alternatives were considered at that point, and I have yet to
> see a single idea that meets all crtieria of the current language - you
> always seem to need to drop at leats one requirement as "unimportant".

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.

> The one that came closest was Nora's idea of reserving a specific
> letter for ends-of-words, but we considered that as a joke even when we
> porposed it - it just sounds too weird.

Rick Harrison outlined something like that on Conlang once - he
devised a system where a syllable could be word-final iff it belonged
to a specified list of permitted final syllables - or something along
those lines.

> Ususally proposals either assume that lujvo will be longer than their
> tanru by sticking some kind of glue in, that cmavo do not have to have
> a separate word-space from gismu and lujvo (and rafsi), etc.  None of
> these have seemed to be all that much nicer for what they give up. But
> then I LIKE the current system.

Here's mine, in brief.

There are 2 kinds of syllable, C(@) and CV. @ is schwa and can be
omitted between certain consonant pairs. Cmavo are all of form CV
or CVCV or CVCVCV, etc. Gismu are all of form C(@)CV (with 17 C
and 5 V, that gives 1445 possible gismu; Lojban actually has 7 V
phonemes and 22 C phonemes, so that gives 2904 possible gismu).
Lujvo are of form C(@)CV-C(@)-C(@)CV-C(@)-C(@)CV (e.g. "kkakkka",
"stendra"), where -C(@)- is "glue", but allows many distinct lujvo
to be made from the same gismu.

The result is greater simplicity and brevity than the present system
offers.

> So no it has not been frozen for 25 years, just 13.

What a shame, then, that the opportunity was wasted, and that 13
years ago was too early for discussion lists like this one.

> If you want a constantly evolving langauge, look at JCB's TLI Loglan.
> It changes more rapidly than Lojban and yet still hasn't caught up
> with us. I haven't figured out how this is possible.

It depends on who works on it, I guess. But can I believe you when
you say Loglan is backward? All I know about it is its orthography,
and as you know I find it much prettier than Lojban's. Oh, but I
also know that Lojban list is a million times interestinger than
Loglanists.

---
And