Date: Wed, 17 Dec 1997 17:01:06 -0500 (EST) Message-Id: <199712172201.RAA08716@locke.ccil.org> Reply-To: Colin Fine Sender: Lojban list From: Colin Fine Subject: Re: Linguistics journals X-To: Lojban list To: John Cowan In-Reply-To: <877836948.1012837.0@listserv.cuny.edu> Status: OR X-Mozilla-Status: 0011 Content-Length: 4126 X-From-Space-Date: Wed Dec 17 17:01:09 1997 X-From-Space-Address: LOJBAN@CUVMB.CC.COLUMBIA.EDU vecu'u le notci po'u <877836948.1012837.0@listserv.cuny.edu> la HACKER G N cu cusku di'e >On Tue, 21 Oct 1997, Chris Bogart wrote: > >> On Fri, 24 Oct 1997, HACKER G N wrote: >> > > Well if they've already done all this, why are *we* reinventing the >> > > wheel? >> > >> > Ha, ha, ha! That's the most insightful question I've seen anyone ask on >> > this list. Why indeed? I don't know. >> >> OK, let me be more specific. What interests *you* about Lojban enough to >> be subscribed to the list? > >Another good question. I've addressed a couple of these issues already in >different postings, but just for the sake of putting them all together in >one letter, here goes. > >I like conlangs. They're fun. The idea of a made-up language has always >appealed to me. On a more practical note, they enable me to write my diary >in a language that no one around me can understand, which I have used both >Lojban and Esperanto for in the past. But any conlang might fit this bill. > >I also like conlangs that are more rational than natural languages, and >both Lojban and Esperanto fit this bill, but not some other languages. >Klingon, for example, was designed to mimic some of the quirks of natural >language, and although I am a Trek-head, Klingon just doesn't interest me. > >Finally, I like languages that are really WEIRD, and Lojban is weird. It >was designed that way, to have a structure unlike natural languages. >Esperanto, by constrast, is so European that it's too familiar. It's >really boring, and I get little sense of the thrill of the exotic from it. > >Enough of what DOES interest me about Lojban; now onto what does NOT >interest me. > >I do not take Lojban seriously as a scientific project. Its original >purpose, to test the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis, is something that it is >already dubious to many people that Lojban can actually carry out, partly >because it is claimed not to be focused enough, and partly because >it is debatable whether the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis is actually testable. > >I do not think that there is anything that Lojban, or ANY language, >natural or constructed, can do to improve my thinking. I do not think in >Lojban, or English, or any other language; I just THINK. You usually have >to CONSTRUCT a language in which to express your ALREADY EXISTING >thoughts, and I consider that thought and language are separate things. > >I would not use Lojban for a computer language because I can see no >advantage to this. There are already computer languages around that are as >powerful as Lojban could be, if not more so. Plus, they have the advantage >that you do not have to learn a WHOLE NEW language just to learn to >program. That fact alone stops Lojban from being commercially relevant. > >I am not interesting in the prospect of an international constructed >language, mainly because I think it's a bit of a pipe dream. There will >always be too much of an advantage to be gained in learning a natural >language becuase of the enormous number of ALREADY EXISTING speakers of >that language - for better or worse, that language right now is English. > >I have doubts that any language can be culturally netural, any more than >an IQ test can be culturally neutral. Semantic space alone is so pliable >that it is dubious that any one language can adequately capture the space >of every other significant language. The Welsh word 'glas', for example, >covers all of blue, but also some (but not all) of 'green' and 'grey'. > >Despite all this, though, Lojban is just plain FUN. And while it continues >to be fun for me, I will probably continue to be here. > >Geoff I concur with pretty well all the above. -- ----------------------------------------------------------------------- | Colin Fine 66 High Ash, Shipley, W Yorks. BD18 1NE, UK | | Tel: 01274 592696/0976 635354 e-mail: colin@kindness.demon.co.uk | | "Don't just do something! Stand there!" | | - from 'Behold the Spirit' (workshop) | -----------------------------------------------------------------------