From owner-conlang@diku.dk Mon Sep 30 23:51:50 1996 Received: from punt-4.mail.demon.net by stryx.demon.co.uk with SMTP id AA15620 ; Mon, 30 Sep 96 23:51:48 BST Received: from punt-4.mail.demon.net by mailstore for ia@stryx.demon.co.uk id 844065647:17733:0; Mon, 30 Sep 96 07:40:47 BST Received: from vidar.diku.dk ([130.225.96.249]) by punt-4.mail.demon.net id aa17388; 30 Sep 96 7:39 BST Received: (from daemon@localhost) by vidar.diku.dk (8.6.12/8.6.12) id IAA12392 for conlang-outgoing; Mon, 30 Sep 1996 08:23:42 +0200 Received: from access1.digex.net (ql/6O0AY1b.Cw@access1.digex.net [205.197.245.192]) by vidar.diku.dk (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id IAA12385 for ; Mon, 30 Sep 1996 08:23:39 +0200 Received: (from lojbab@localhost) by access1.digex.net (8.6.12/8.6.12) id CAA00663 ; for conlang@diku.dk; Mon, 30 Sep 1996 02:23:37 -0400 Date: Mon, 30 Sep 1996 02:23:37 -0400 From: Logical Language Group Message-Id: <199609300623.CAA00663@access1.digex.net> To: conlang@diku.dk Subject: CONLANG: Glosa Sender: owner-conlang@diku.dk Precedence: bulk Priority: non-urgent Reply-To: Logical Language Group Status: R pobart: > Definitely. A charge one often encounters is that Glosa is merely >"relexified English." I dont't think this charge is 100% so, but I >think there is a substantial degree to which Glosa _does_ resemble >relexified English. But so what? Suppose it were a regularised, >schematised, and relexified English. I think is it simple intellectual >prejudice to criticise an IAL on the ground merely that it resembles >this or that European natlang. There are respectable grounds on which >one may criticise such an IAL (and I am having second, third, and >fourth thoughts about Glosa), but one must criticise the IAL itself >taken as itself, and not merely glibly and shallowly dismiss it as >"relexified whatever." acadon@aol.com: > The grammar that Glosa does in fact have seems very close to that of >English. in some cases pidgin English. Now this is not bad, but the fact that >the authors of the project do not even realize this makes it difficult for >them to teach Glosa to anyone who does not already know English. It is not >surprizing that the Glosa moment is pretty much limited to England. Other >than also being an analytical language, I see no evidence that Glosa's >grammar reflects any real-world knowledge Chinese, only an idealized and >totally imaginary one. I will add to this that several of the samples of Glosa I have seen not only resemble pidgin English, but the words embody English semantic space in such a way that Glosa is really "pidgin colloquial English". I wish I could present some examples. But one problem with IALs in general is the need to avoid inappropriate semantic mapping to the cognate words of another language. I have mentioned for example, how the Russians do not have a distinct word for "hand", but use the same word for "hand" and "arm". Different cultures mean different things by their language-word for "morning". When a conlanginvented by an English speaker uses the semantics of English "morning" (e.g. I worked all morning, up until lunchtime), I am immediately suspicious. In the case of Glosa, the example that bugged me, whatever it was, was worse than this - it relied on using a derived/applied meaning rather than a basic root meaning of one of the words used - an example of this is to refer to "running a machine" using the word for "run" rather than the word for "operate". lojbab ---- lojbab lojbab@access.digex.net Bob LeChevalier, President, The Logical Language Group, Inc. 2904 Beau Lane, Fairfax VA 22031-1303 USA 703-385-0273 Artificial language Loglan/Lojban: ftp.access.digex.net /pub/access/lojbab or see Lojban WWW Server: href="http://xiron.pc.helsinki.fi/lojban/"