From sentto-44114-16369-1033644718-lojban-in=lojban.org@returns.groups.yahoo.com Thu Oct 03 04:35:52 2002 Received: with ECARTIS (v1.0.0; list lojban-list); Thu, 03 Oct 2002 04:35:52 -0700 (PDT) Received: from n16.grp.scd.yahoo.com ([66.218.66.71]) by digitalkingdom.org with smtp (Exim 4.05) id 17x4Gi-0001Y2-00 for lojban-in@lojban.org; Thu, 03 Oct 2002 04:35:48 -0700 X-eGroups-Return: sentto-44114-16369-1033644718-lojban-in=lojban.org@returns.groups.yahoo.com Received: from [66.218.67.197] by n16.grp.scd.yahoo.com with NNFMP; 03 Oct 2002 11:31:58 -0000 X-Sender: lojbab@lojban.org X-Apparently-To: lojban@yahoogroups.com Received: (EGP: mail-8_1_1_4); 3 Oct 2002 11:31:58 -0000 Received: (qmail 26768 invoked from network); 3 Oct 2002 11:31:57 -0000 Received: from unknown (66.218.66.217) by m4.grp.scd.yahoo.com with QMQP; 3 Oct 2002 11:31:57 -0000 Received: from unknown (HELO lakemtao03.cox.net) (68.1.17.242) by mta2.grp.scd.yahoo.com with SMTP; 3 Oct 2002 11:31:57 -0000 Received: from lojban.lojban.org ([68.100.206.153]) by lakemtao03.cox.net (InterMail vM.5.01.04.05 201-253-122-122-105-20011231) with ESMTP id <20021003113156.JFPK16428.lakemtao03.cox.net@lojban.lojban.org> for ; Thu, 3 Oct 2002 07:31:56 -0400 Message-Id: <5.1.0.14.0.20021003064510.03166ac0@pop.east.cox.net> X-Sender: rlechevalier@pop.east.cox.net X-Mailer: QUALCOMM Windows Eudora Version 5.1 To: lojban@yahoogroups.com In-Reply-To: <002d01c26ac6$381a1ee0$50ecf8c1@ftiq2awxk6> References: From: Robert LeChevalier X-Yahoo-Profile: lojbab MIME-Version: 1.0 Mailing-List: list lojban@yahoogroups.com; contact lojban-owner@yahoogroups.com Delivered-To: mailing list lojban@yahoogroups.com Precedence: bulk Date: Thu, 03 Oct 2002 07:10:22 -0400 Subject: [lojban] Re: a new kind of fundamentalism Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII X-archive-position: 1858 X-ecartis-version: Ecartis v1.0.0 Sender: lojban-list-bounce@lojban.org Errors-to: lojban-list-bounce@lojban.org X-original-sender: lojbab@lojban.org Precedence: bulk Reply-to: lojban-list@lojban.org X-list: lojban-list At 12:17 PM 10/3/02 +0200, Lionel Vidal wrote: >Jordan: > > > Chapter one: > > > ... > > > You can learn the language described here with assurance that > > > (unlike previous versions of Lojban and Loglan, as well as most > > > other artificial languages) it will not be subject to further > > > fiddling by language-meisters. > > > ... > > > > > > If even the book's author disclaims that goal, as you claim he > > > would, then this language is seriously fucked. > >I always wondered why it should be so. Why any language evolution should >spoil it? Because a large percentage of possible Lojbanists will utterly reject attempting to learn a language that they think will change on them. If the changes are in the language prescription, this feeling seems to intensify, as evidenced by the history of Loglan/Lojban ("contact me if you ever stop fiddling with the language and start USING it"). Any change significant enough to render a statement in the reference work of choice (the word lists, CLL, and shortly Nick's lessons) incorrect, is sufficient to cause this despair. The people in question find learning languages to be *painful* and relearning to be obnoxious. They also tend to be perfectionists who do not like to ever be incorrect. The Lojban aim at unambiguity probably attracts such people and heightens their chagrin when something that they've learned no longer means what they thought it meant, or has become incorrect due to language change. Natural language evolution usually doesn't make things "wrong" so much as obsolete, and not necessarily even harder to understand. This makes natural language changes a little easier to take. Even so, in the English community, writers who decry novelties in usage as a decline in our education systems find a ready audience. >I mean, most of the proposed changes (and these are very few >anyway, as most of the time discussions deal more with interpretations) >are minor in the sense they do not change the fondamental structure or >flavor of lojban. They make the job of learning the language more difficult. They make even 10 year old texts in the language seem archaic (natural language doesn't evolve anywhere near that fast, except for teenage slang). People aren't willing to find something they wrote a few years ago considered to be unintelligible. >New cmavos, new usage of old ones, even new gismus >are just the sign that lojban is living like any other natlang. If it happens by prescription (and most of the jboske discussion is inherently prescriptive), then it is NOT like a natlang. When the language changes ONLY by someone initiating a novelty, usually without explaining it, and it propagates through the user community without ANYONE explicitly telling another that this is the way it "should" be done, then that is "living language". When Lojban reaches that stage, a baseline freeze will be harder to justify. > The chapter >one disclaimer could have as well made a list of minor things that >could changed: would that have hindered your lojban interest? For many people, yes. The growing lexicon, in the absence of a dictionary, is enough of a stress >The first time I've been in Australia, even after tuning my ears to the >local english phonetic understanding :-), I still needed to ask my >australian friends what they meant, because of specific local english >usage. You may say that was because I am french, but my american >fellows, although most of them were too proud to admit it, were often >as lost as me! Do you think that they LIKE being lost? They are forced into that circumstance if they want to survive in Australia, but they aren't going to seek out a language that consciously forces them to relearn stuff regularly in order to maintain their understanding of what others are saying. >Note also that in natlangs, linguistic norms, being grammatical or lexical, >have never prevented users to make their language evolve. Users don't consciously make the language evolve. It does evolve, but at a pace that is dictated by usage drift. >That being said, I do find reference manuals useful, as they are invaluable >as learning tools. And even minor errors in reference manuals probably cause you to distrust the value of the entire manual. > > So thankfully the massive amount of fiddling which you are hilariously > > referring to as "jboske" is more or less inconsequential. > >You seem to regret the existence of different kind of "lojbanists". But >every one is free to have his own objectives when considering lojban. Lojban tolerates the existence of many kinds of Lojbanist, but the existence of multiple language prescriptions is not so easily tolerated. The fear is that jboske will inherently lead to multiple and contradictory prescriptions. It is only by managing to label the jboske discussions "inconsequential" that many people will consider Lojban as being "done" and therefore worth spending the time to learn. lojbab -- lojbab lojbab@lojban.org Bob LeChevalier, President, The Logical Language Group, Inc. 2904 Beau Lane, Fairfax VA 22031-1303 USA 703-385-0273 Artificial language Loglan/Lojban: http://www.lojban.org ------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor ---------------------~--> 4 DVDs Free +s&p Join Now http://us.click.yahoo.com/pt6YBB/NXiEAA/MVfIAA/GSaulB/TM ---------------------------------------------------------------------~-> To unsubscribe, send mail to lojban-unsubscribe@onelist.com Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/