Message-Id: <199511011351.IAA22057@locke.ccil.org>
Date:         Fri, 27 Oct 1995 20:44:39 -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:      Re: ckafybarja
To: John Cowan <cowan@LOCKE.CCIL.ORG>
Status: OR

>I just revisited the ftp archive after a longish time... and saw the
>file named cafe_papers.txt. Actually, that was the first thing I saw
>about ckafybarja project, like, what it is... All I read before was
>ckafybarja 1 & 2 by Nick. The papers said there were five stories
>written. Are they available?

They should all be in the Lojban List archives, within around a 6 month
period.  It started I think in summer 3 years ago (it might have been 2 yearsor
 4) at LogFest, and alas petered out by the end of the year.

>Is the project still running?

Well, it never was terminated, and I would LOVE ot have people write some
more for it.

> What about the fully lojbanic Cafe newsletter?

Well, we only got 5 stories ...  Not exactly enoigh to make into a newsletter.
After around 6 months, all the people who wrote the first stories got off on
other projects and no one wrote any more.  Veijo started working on the WWW
page, and the xiron machine is named after his ckafybarja character. Nick
started on his masters degree, then his PhD thesis, along with becoming a
big wheel in the Klingon community as well as the Lojban one.  Iain
Alexander still reads the list; he can perhaps tell you why he stopped
writing.  I think Mark Shoulson was the other who wrote a story, and he got
involved in Klingon and got married to boot.  John Cowan has a plot for an
as yet unwritten story, but we are using all of his Lojban time and more;
likewise mine and Nora's.  Ivan Derzhanski was the other skilled writer from
that timeframe, but he never did a ckafybarja story - though he translated
a Bulgarian folk tale that is worth tracking down - it should also be in the
archive.

Karen Stein, who instigated the project back at that LogFest, is now online
though not on the list, but she also never wrote anything for the project.
Part of the problem mayhave been a disconnect between the ones who started
thinsg at that LogFest, but who were not on line, and the ones on line who
took off and ran with it, but never interacted with the others.

Of course LK, and JL are pretty much suspended - we are trying to get an
LK out by the end of the year to go to both sets of subscriobers just to
let people know what is going on and why there have been no issues.

But I think the newsletter will not come to pass until/unless we get many
more actiuve Lojban writers, AND they are not all on Lojban List so that
you don't end up seeing each others' stuff as soon as it is written, which
kind of minimizes the value of a "newsletter".  Right now ALL the active
Lojbanists are those who are on the list, de facto since no one keeps contact
 with the Lojbanists who are not on the list.

>Do you still want texts?

You can write on that or anything for the list.  At some point the writings
for the list will be collected, and edited to the latest language standard,
and published in a book (with author's permission of course), but that isn't
even close.  i am sure that there are people who would read your story
should you write one, and perhaps someone will write one in respsonse and
the project will be reborn.

> Why is la jbolaz. ungrammatical?

la, lai, and doi are not permitted in names at the start of the name or
following a vowel, because the morphology will take THAT string as a cmavo
indicating a start of a name, and the proevious phonemes will be taken
as cmavo or brivla, probably ungrammatical ones.

There are some limited exceptions that would not cause morphology problems,
but it was easier to make a blanket rule forbidding these cmavo if there was
even a chance of a problem.

>Did I overwhelm you with questions?

No, but I'll let someone else handle the next wave %^)

lojbab