From LOJBAN@CUVMB.BITNET Sat Mar 6 22:58:29 2010 Reply-To: And Rosta Sender: Lojban list Date: Wed Dec 18 11:31:25 1996 From: And Rosta Organization: University of Central Lancashire Subject: Re: lojban imperfections? X-To: LOJBAN@cuvmb.cc.columbia.edu To: John Cowan X-UIDL: fb45d90023b236ef9b1aaa592845724b Status: U X-Mozilla-Status: 0011 Content-Length: 993 X-From-Space-Date: Wed Dec 18 11:31:25 1996 X-From-Space-Address: - Message-ID: <482rGB0ip7F.A.U4B.V60kLB@chain.digitalkingdom.org> Lojbab: > >Is there anybody in the world fluent in Lojban, speaking fast and > >naturally, just as an Anglophone speaks English? > There is one such person, Nick Nicholas of Australia, who has seemed fluent to > his listeners, but since no one is a fluent listener (i.e. can follow him in > detail at that speed), he has to slow down a lot. He also might make a few > errors, but few detect them, and his written Lojban is of high quality. No discredit to Nick, but that is a great exaggeration. Admittedly, I heard him when he was some years out of practice, but it would be fairer to say that it was halting, due, I'd have thought, to his having noone to speak it to, rather than to a lack of knowledge of vocab. Maybe the fairest comparison is with non-native speakers of English who read and write English with ease but who never have the chance to speak it. I can't assess Nick's powers as a hearer, because I have not heard anyone fluent enough to put him to the test. coo, mie And