From lojban-out@lojban.org Tue Jul 11 22:01:46 2006 Return-Path: X-Sender: lojban-out@lojban.org X-Apparently-To: lojban@yahoogroups.com Received: (qmail 18282 invoked from network); 12 Jul 2006 04:52:46 -0000 Received: from unknown (66.218.66.216) by m34.grp.scd.yahoo.com with QMQP; 12 Jul 2006 04:52:46 -0000 Received: from unknown (HELO chain.digitalkingdom.org) (64.81.49.134) by mta1.grp.scd.yahoo.com with SMTP; 12 Jul 2006 04:52:46 -0000 Received: from lojban-out by chain.digitalkingdom.org with local (Exim 4.62) (envelope-from ) id 1G0WfC-0001HU-RC for lojban@yahoogroups.com; Tue, 11 Jul 2006 21:49:31 -0700 Received: from chain.digitalkingdom.org ([64.81.49.134]) by chain.digitalkingdom.org with esmtp (Exim 4.62) (envelope-from ) id 1G0Wdt-0001Gh-Sk; Tue, 11 Jul 2006 21:48:11 -0700 Received: with ECARTIS (v1.0.0; list lojban-list); Tue, 11 Jul 2006 21:48:01 -0700 (PDT) Received: from nobody by chain.digitalkingdom.org with local (Exim 4.62) (envelope-from ) id 1G0WdP-0001GR-TQ for lojban-list-real@lojban.org; Tue, 11 Jul 2006 21:47:40 -0700 Received: from py-out-1112.google.com ([64.233.166.177]) by chain.digitalkingdom.org with esmtp (Exim 4.62) (envelope-from ) id 1G0WdO-0001GJ-R9 for lojban-list@lojban.org; Tue, 11 Jul 2006 21:47:39 -0700 Received: by py-out-1112.google.com with SMTP id x31so148699pye for ; Tue, 11 Jul 2006 21:47:37 -0700 (PDT) Received: by 10.35.63.2 with SMTP id q2mr396329pyk; Tue, 11 Jul 2006 21:47:37 -0700 (PDT) Received: by 10.35.39.7 with HTTP; Tue, 11 Jul 2006 21:47:37 -0700 (PDT) Message-ID: Date: Tue, 11 Jul 2006 22:47:37 -0600 In-Reply-To: <20060712013207.86831.qmail@web81310.mail.mud.yahoo.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Disposition: inline References: <20060712013207.86831.qmail@web81310.mail.mud.yahoo.com> X-Spam-Score: -2.4 (--) X-archive-position: 12140 X-ecartis-version: Ecartis v1.0.0 Errors-to: lojban-list-bounce@lojban.org X-original-sender: maxim.katcharov@gmail.com X-list: lojban-list X-Spam-Score: -2.4 (--) To: lojban@yahoogroups.com X-Originating-IP: 64.81.49.134 X-eGroups-Msg-Info: 1:0:0:0 X-eGroups-From: "Maxim Katcharov" From: "Maxim Katcharov" Reply-To: maxim.katcharov@gmail.com Subject: [lojban] Re: Cultural Neutrality X-Yahoo-Group-Post: member; u=116389790; y=qyMxYAB4r5Bbx-UboCJcEt-ni2tP5jgV2IoH2K90sgrJeXrenw X-Yahoo-Profile: lojban_out X-Yahoo-Message-Num: 26569 On 7/11/06, John E Clifford wrote: > > > --- Maxim Katcharov wrote: > > > > > > Cultural neutrality in Lojban comes down to creating a language that > > is easy for anyone of any culture or language to use. A large > > component of this is not using a single language as the base, because > > odds are, that language will be harder for one segment of the audience > > to learn, and easy for another. > > > > Favoring Lojban over other languages is acceptable. Lojban's > > phoneme-set is supposedly simple for one of any culture/language to > > learn, and offers variant pronounciations. 90% (arbitrary figure) of > > people should have no problems pronouncing Lojban. That all their > > phonemes are not included is no big deal. > > > > Neutrality isn't about including every language, giving every language > > a part to play (as if people will be sore that their language isn't > > included), it's about making Lojban easy for everyone to speak. > > Still one would hope that cultural neutrality was more than having a phoneme set that was easy for > everyone to pronounce -- it sounds like something important and exciting. And, of course, Lojban > is not too good on even this: every base langauge has a problem with at least one phoneme and some > with many more. And once you get off that top half dozen or so, the problems multiply. And then > there are those consonant clusters, which are problems altogether for some languages and > particular ones for most. To get a really "neutral" phonology you have to go to something like > toki pona, with only the five vowels and just ptkslnmy (spelled j)w. No initial clusters, no > double vowels, only syllable final is n (pronounced m before p and never occurring before m or n) > Some tradeoff must be made, I think, between cultural neutrality and not leaving the language with too few phonemes, and hence long words. Phonemes that were common to many languages were included, ones that were troublesome in many were excluded. Learning any new language is hard, I don't think that it's one of Lojban's goals to be ridiculously easy to pronounce (at the expense of...). Does Lojban now have any phonemes that are hard to pronounce in many languages? What options exists to aid the Spanish speaker who does not do well with the pairs that xorxes described? I think that it is better to come up with alternatives, like I think the ability to use the /th/ sound for /x/, than to chop out a phoneme. Neutrality is more than having an easy phoneme set, it's about doing our best to include all language speakers. /x/ may be hard for the English speaker, /b/ or /v/ may be hard for the Spanish, but /th/ isn't included at all. I think that a lot of people must attach some interesting meaning to culture-neutrality, though the major aspects of it aren't anything special in Lojban. Most of the things that Lojban treats as culture neutrality aren't really very cultural. I find it hard to imagine that the choice of including /t/ but excluding /b/ is culture-based. It's just the way some languages are. Same goes for SVO vs VOS. It's not like these restrict what we can say or how often we say it in any critical sense, they're just two variants. Truly cultural things would be hard to come by at this point. I assume that 'long' ago, bananas were only heard of in some parts of the world, while some other gismu-food only existed in some other part, and so excluding those from the gismu list would have been good, because supposedly the ability to think of one and not the other would affect us. Cultural neutrality isn't about sharing the 'language cake' with every child in a very fair manner, so that no crying ensues. I think that this is the way most people see it, as if we have to be extremely fair, and oh no, we shouldn't include a topping because English likes the bread and dislikes that over-sweet whatever. Cultural neutrality is about making all the options available, including sprinkled monkey-meat, and about not including peanuts if Arabic has a deathly allergy that would make her incapable of eating any of the cake. To unsubscribe from this list, send mail to lojban-list-request@lojban.org with the subject unsubscribe, or go to http://www.lojban.org/lsg2/, or if you're really stuck, send mail to secretary@lojban.org for help.