Date: Thu, 23 Oct 1997 20:34:11 -0500 (EST) Message-Id: <199710240134.UAA28288@locke.ccil.org> Reply-To: HACKER G N Sender: Lojban list From: HACKER G N Subject: Re: Linguistics journals X-To: Lojban List To: John Cowan X-Mozilla-Status: 0011 Content-Length: 838 X-From-Space-Date: Thu Oct 23 20:34:13 1997 X-From-Space-Address: LOJBAN@CUVMB.CC.COLUMBIA.EDU >This doesn't mean that a conlang can be of no interest to linguist, but it > is interesting *in a different way*. For example, once it has acquired a > community of speakers (better still, some that speak it natively), one can > look at the sort of things that the speakers do to it, the degree to which > they adhere to or deviate from the standard as set up by the creator, and > try to rationalise the observed phenomena and try to link them to linguistic > theory. But of course it'll be some time before Lojban gets to that point. Well, that is fair enough. I don't think any linguist should waste time trying to dissect the design of YET ANOTHER CONLANG unless it actually gains speaker viability. It will be interesting if this one does because it does work so differently from natlangs, which I take it was deliberate. Geoff