From a.rosta@lycos.co.uk Sat Dec 07 15:37:57 2002 Return-Path: X-Sender: a.rosta@lycos.co.uk X-Apparently-To: lojban@yahoogroups.com Received: (EGP: mail-8_2_3_0); 7 Dec 2002 23:37:57 -0000 Received: (qmail 59779 invoked from network); 7 Dec 2002 23:37:56 -0000 Received: from unknown (66.218.66.218) by m6.grp.scd.yahoo.com with QMQP; 7 Dec 2002 23:37:56 -0000 Received: from unknown (HELO lmsmtp01.st1.spray.net) (212.78.202.111) by mta3.grp.scd.yahoo.com with SMTP; 7 Dec 2002 23:37:56 -0000 Received: from oemcomputer (host81-7-62-176.surfport24.v21.co.uk [81.7.62.176]) by lmsmtp01.st1.spray.net (Postfix) with ESMTP id 4E6131EC3E for ; Sun, 8 Dec 2002 00:37:54 +0100 (MET) To: Subject: RE: [lojban] More stuff Date: Sat, 7 Dec 2002 23:40:05 -0000 Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Priority: 3 (Normal) X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook IMO, Build 9.0.2416 (9.0.2910.0) In-Reply-To: <5.2.0.9.0.20021207122552.03ab9b50@pop.east.cox.net> X-MIMEOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V5.00.2615.200 Importance: Normal From: "And Rosta" X-Yahoo-Group-Post: member; u=122260811 X-Yahoo-Profile: andjamin X-Yahoo-Message-Num: 17722 Lojbab: > The value of > brevity is similarly a philosophical/values argument, but it is countered > by the fact that Lojban already is probably beyond workable limits on > communications redundancy in cmavo and lujvo (i.e. too many short strings > of Lojban that sound too much alike are grammatical and have plausible > relevance), so that replacing something brief and rarely used by something > more common only increases the likelihood of collision > > Lojban isn't Speedtalk, and was never intended to be As I said when I first introduced the issue of concision into discussion, I think it quite likely that a majority of competent speakers would eventually come to wish it were more concise, if concision could be achieved without being too disruptive. So it's certainly true that Lojban currently isn't Speedtalk and was never intended to be, but this is not a valid reason for vetoing our leaving the door open to the possibility of future changes to make it a little more Speedtalky. You are likely right about the lack of redundancy, but (a) it is unlikely to be a frequent problem, given that word recognition uses pragmatic as well as phonetic clues, and (b) adding devices to enhance concision would not have much of an effect on redudancy, pe'i. > >And has no right to ban xod from pursuing SWism; xod > >has no right to tell And to abandon jboske. I don't even have a problem > >with individuals tinkering; I have a problem with it becoming > >politically dominant in the community, to the point of endangering > >language continuity > > And factionalism seems to me the attenpt to make one's personal goal for > the language politically dominant, rather than being big-tent inclusive of > all accommodating multiple goals even at the possible expense of optimizing > for one goal That's not how factionalism works in the contexts where I see it (e.g. academic politics, national politics). Factions form for the mutual support of members -- "together we are stronger". There is no necessarily concomitant striving to dominate the entire polity. > I don't think anyone without native (or > perhaps PhD-level acquired) knowledge of Lojban is going to have > internalized the language to the extent needed to make a quantum > improvement, which is the implicit assumption in calling it "Mark II") If you are thinking of Mark II as a logical language, with its improvements being what makes it a better logical language than Lojban, then I don't think you're competent to judge, because by your own admission you have little interest or expertise in this side of things. It is not necessary to have internalized Lojban Mark I in order to design a better logical language, though it is helpful to be able to learn from Lojban's successes and mistakes. But perhaps you are thinking of Mark II as not merely a better logical language, but as somehow a better realization of the Loglan ideal. I can see how having profound expertise in Mark I would be key to developing a Mark II of that sort, but I have no idea what would count as an 'improvement'. Indeed, the very idea of 'improvement' seems a rather engelangy one. > >We must arrive at a common standard. But we do so, I believe, by > >acknowledging we want different things, and seeing how we can work our > >way around that; not by suppressing or ignoring that difference > > > >But that isn't quite parliamentary democracy either. Parliamentary > >democracy works by majority rule, not consensus, after all > > > >Or maybe I'm just naive. :-) We'll see.. > > You aren't naive. Consensus politics is difficult to learn and practice, > and no discipline overtly teaches it as a skill, though the maneuvering of > academia probably comes close. But it leads to superior results when it > can be practiced Lojban politics is very very similar to academic politics, in my experience. I have experience of some departments (such as my current one) that are like Lojban on a temperate day and some that are like Lojban on an intemperate day. (Of course it's far worse when the department is intemperate, because people's jobs and whole lives are affected.) --And.