Date: Tue, 25 Nov 1997 19:04:59 -0500 (EST) Message-Id: <199711260004.TAA01280@locke.ccil.org> Reply-To: Ashley Yakeley Sender: Lojban list From: Ashley Yakeley Subject: Re: Irony and Cultural Neutrality X-To: Lojban List To: John Cowan Status: OR X-Mozilla-Status: 0011 Content-Length: 1685 X-From-Space-Date: Tue Nov 25 19:05:02 1997 X-From-Space-Address: LOJBAN@CUVMB.CC.COLUMBIA.EDU At 1997-11-16 09:01, Chris Bogart wrote: >If you were talking Lojban with a Nepali, it would be to your advantage >to avoid irony. If you were talking to someone from an unknown culture, >it might be safer to avoid it as well. Yes, it would feel constraining. > Dealing with people from other cultures can be stressful. I quite agree. But talking to Nepalis is only one application of Lojban. >I wouldn't hesitate to use irony speaking Lojban with someone I knew >could understand it, but it seems reasonable to me to have direct, >unironic, unmetaphorical exposition as the theoretical ideal, for a >langauge that aspires to provide a means of communication that's biased >towards what we call "logic", and which hopes to allow communication >with computers. I agree, but this ideal is (to me, at least) a matter of 'recommended use', and something easily separable from the grammar of the language. >I don't see why it matters if that verges on javni >rather than gerna -- after all, I'm capable of following either type of >rule if I want to. Not quite true. One can follow javni directly, since they simply say 'do this'. But gerna-rules (grammar) constrain sentences, not human behaviour. Of course, one can create a javni that constrains people only to speak sentences that follow a particular grammar, and then follow that javni. But at this point the question arises as to whether Lojban is essentially a language as a map between text and meaning (gerna, but including meaning), with secondary notes as to recommended use, or rules defining a community (javni), mandating a particular use of a language. -- Ashley Yakeley, Seattle WA http://www.halcyon.com/ashleyb/