From xod@sixgirls.org Thu Aug 09 19:46:54 2001 Return-Path: X-Sender: xod@reva.sixgirls.org X-Apparently-To: lojban@yahoogroups.com Received: (EGP: mail-7_3_1); 10 Aug 2001 02:46:54 -0000 Received: (qmail 60714 invoked from network); 10 Aug 2001 02:46:54 -0000 Received: from unknown (10.1.10.26) by l9.egroups.com with QMQP; 10 Aug 2001 02:46:54 -0000 Received: from unknown (HELO reva.sixgirls.org) (64.152.7.13) by mta1 with SMTP; 10 Aug 2001 02:46:53 -0000 Received: from localhost (localhost [[UNIX: localhost]]) by reva.sixgirls.org (8.11.3/8.11.1) with ESMTP id f7A2krD02533 for ; Thu, 9 Aug 2001 22:46:53 -0400 (EDT) Date: Thu, 9 Aug 2001 22:46:52 -0400 (EDT) To: Subject: Re: [lojban] RE: Re: Well I guess you do learn something new every day... In-Reply-To: Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII From: Invent Yourself X-Yahoo-Message-Num: 9388 On Thu, 9 Aug 2001, Nick NICHOLAS wrote: > > I don't want my lack of dexterity at Lojban to reflect upon Lojban itself. > > The fact remains that we don't know what fluent Lojban will sound like, > > and thus we don't know how complete the language is: how different will > > that fluent usage differ from the examples in the Book? > > I certainly don't want to cast aspersions on your usage; it would be > pretty brassy of me, since I had the prestidigitation but not the > persistence to keep speaking Lojban. :-) The point is, I think, that we > will get the Two Lojbans, like we've already discussed: formal and > colloquial. Colloquial Lojban, because humans are a tolerant bunch, > especially in spoken communication, will allow all sorts of things, and > will not test that much of the logicist content of Lojban --- people just > won't attempt it. I have been hinting around this point for the past few days. Can perhaps Lojban can make rigorous logical EASILY speakable? It's already speakable in English! But it's not easy and English doesn't lend itself to it. Does Lojban? People sprinkle in the occasional da and zo'u, but as a matter of course we reserve formal logical sentences for exactly the same cases we would in English. Prenexed sentences are not used in Lojban any more than they would be used in English by a group of pedantics. What does this imply? Formal Lojban is still a worthwhile thing though, I > think most people agree --- otherwise, they wouldn't have signed up for > Lojban, formal or colloquial, in the first place. But I now do not believe > that all the gaps perceived in Formal Lojban can or should be filled by > usage in Colloquial Lojban. (If there's a problem with termsets, I doubt > spoken Lojban will ever resolve it, because I doubt spoken Lojban will > even bother with them all that much.) This may be the case, but we need fluent people to settle even the formal issues. People can order coffee, or they can engage in deep theoretical dialogue on abstract issues. In learning, folks start with the former and move to the latter. Therefore it is critical to build a population of fluent people that can give Lojban the thousands of person-hours of dialogue and usage that are required to really settle these issues. The fact there may become two dialects doesn't change the fact that people interested in the formal must learn and learn well the colloquial. And for the most part, they haven't been. ----- "I have never been active in politics or in any act against occupation, but the way the soldiers killed Mizyed has filled me with hatred and anger. Now I'm ready to carry out a suicide attack inside Israel," one of the witnesses said.