Date: Sun, 26 Oct 1997 02:18:55 -0500 (EST) Message-Id: <199710260718.CAA09937@locke.ccil.org> Reply-To: HACKER G N Sender: Lojban list From: HACKER G N Subject: Re: Dvorak (& Lojban) X-To: Lojban List To: John Cowan In-Reply-To: <0EIM00KOZOVASH@newcastle.edu.au> X-Mozilla-Status: 0011 Content-Length: 5130 Lines: 118 On Sat, 25 Oct 1997, George Foot wrote: > On Thu, 23 Oct 1997, HACKER G N wrote: > > > After a bit of thought on the matter, George, I've decided that this isn't > > really an appropriate analogy. The reason that Dvorak is easier to learn > > after qwerty than qwerty is to learn after Dvorak is that Dvorak is MORE > > INTUITIVE than qwerty, not necessarily more logical. The only way in which > > I'm not sure I follow what you mean by `intuitive'; surely this concept > depends upon what has been learned before? That's exactly what I mean. Dvorak is based more on what you have already learned before; Lojban isn't. > Or do you think some things > (like crawling and walking perhaps) are truly intuitive? Maybe, maybe not. I don't know. > If so, I'm not > sure I'd agree that a language can be intuitive in the same manner. Actually, according to Chomsky it would. I don't know. > The ability to speak takes a long time to develop; I'm not sure that any > (spoken) language can be classed as intuitive in the same way that walking > is intuitive. And I'm sure that's correct. > Perhaps the language of our thoughts is, though... Or the exact character of our thoughts, yes. > > > it is more logical than qwerty is that it is designed to make it easier to > > type the letters that are more common NATURALLY in English. By contrast, > > Lojban is decidedly UN-intuitive and UN-natural. Terminators aren't > > natural, a grammar based on predicate calculus is most decidedly > > unnatural, and there seems no rhyme or reason to which sumti places take > > I think I contest the above; perhaps terminators aren't natural because > English doesn't use them, the formalised grammer and its roots aren't > natural because English shares neither the level of formality nor the > derivation? But other languages don't either. Lojban was deliberately designed to have a DIFFERENT structure from existing languages. > Presumably the grammer seemed natural to those who created it, > and to others familiar with predicate calculus (with which I am not > familiar). Well, I'm sure that the grammar might well have been the most natural possible derivation from predicate calculus, but that's something else entirely from whether it's natural to an average natural-language speaker (a member of the general public). > > > an abstraction, and which take a concrete, as Mark Vines pointed out. If > > you were going to look for a keyboard that was the analagous equivalent of > > Lojban, I would say that it would be a keyboard with all of the keys in > > alphabetical order - I understand the original typewriter keyboards > > actually used this layout. Whereas, if you were looking for a linguistic > > analogue to a Dvorak keyboard, then probably something like Interlingua > > would be the go, which was designed so that all the most familiar words > > for a speaker of a European language were presented in Interlingua in > > their most universally recognisable forms. > > Meaning that Interlingua is intuitive to one who has previously learned > one or many European languages? Quite right; easy to pick up, just like Dvorak is for English-speakers. > Presumably, though, it would be no more > intuitive to a first-time speaker... or would it? That gets back into Chomskyesque territory. Again, I don't know the answer to that one. > > > This is to say that Lojban is logical but A PRIORI, whereas Dvorak is > > logical but A POSTERIORI. Analagously, the original typewriter keyboards > > were also logical and a priori, and Interlingua is logical and a > > posteriori. > > I see your point: > > > Level 1: The Dvorak and QWERTY keyboards both communicate the user's > desires to the computer/typewriter by way of pressing on an array of keys. > Lojban and other languages both communicate the speaker's desires by way > of either written/typed symbols or vocal sounds. > > Level 2: The Dvorak and QWERTY keyboards both generate one character per > keypress, in general, i.e. the output is formed from the keys you press in > the order they are pressed, one character per keypress. Lojban differs, > though, from English in the way phrases are formed. I can't speak for > other languages really. > > Level 3: The Dvorak keyboard generates different symbols, in general, for > each keypress to those the QWERTY keyboard would generate. Lojban uses a > different vocabulary, in general, to English. > > > So the keyboards differ at level two, whereas the languages differ at > level 3. An analagous comparison to that between English and Lojban, then, > would be the one-handed keyboards which involve pressing several keys at > once to generate a letter or word? I don't agree that an alphabetical > keyboard is any better an analogy than a Dvorak keyboard, though. I think so, because as I've already said, the alphabetical keyboard is a priori like Lojban, whereas the Dvorak keyboard is a posteriori like Interlingua. Nothing you have just said contradicts this, or addresses this point. Geoff