Date: Sat, 25 Oct 1997 23:00:53 -0500 (EST) Message-Id: <199710260400.XAA03952@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: <0EIK001DVE7ZPK@newcastle.edu.au> X-Mozilla-Status: 0011 Content-Length: 1334 Lines: 23 > > On a different topic: I am quite concerned by the recent discussion on > this list about the difference in opinion about what certain phrases > mean in Lojban. Although I'm not able to follow the specifics (yet), it > appears that it is not at all obvious what certain phrases mean, > particularly when relating to abstractions (but again, I don't have a > clue what the specific ideas being discussed are). All I'm > understanding right now that there are ideas which should be simple to > express, but are not in fact easy to express in Lojban. Well I > currently know English, and (possibly with some difficulty) I can > express anything I want. It might be awkward, but I can express it. > The whole point behind wanting to learn Lojban is that expressions will > be easier and more logical. If the language doesn't do this, then it > has no advantage over English. What's going on here? > Hah! I seem only really to like Lojban because it's weird. I don't think it has any advantage over English. Everything I can say in English is harder for me to say in Lojban, and I can say anything I want in English without significant difficulty. But then again, I'm not looking for a superlanguage to reform my thought or my expression, and I consider such a goal to be unrealistically ambitious. Geoff