From lojban-out@lojban.org Thu Nov 30 11:15:39 2006 Return-Path: X-Sender: lojban-out@lojban.org X-Apparently-To: lojban@yahoogroups.com Received: (qmail 47468 invoked from network); 30 Nov 2006 19:06:18 -0000 Received: from unknown (66.218.67.33) by m30.grp.scd.yahoo.com with QMQP; 30 Nov 2006 19:06:18 -0000 Received: from unknown (HELO chain.digitalkingdom.org) (64.81.66.169) by mta7.grp.scd.yahoo.com with SMTP; 30 Nov 2006 19:06:18 -0000 Received: from lojban-out by chain.digitalkingdom.org with local (Exim 4.63) (envelope-from ) id 1GprEU-0003oK-Br for lojban@yahoogroups.com; Thu, 30 Nov 2006 11:06:06 -0800 Received: from chain.digitalkingdom.org ([64.81.66.169]) by chain.digitalkingdom.org with esmtp (Exim 4.63) (envelope-from ) id 1GprCD-0003lV-5q; Thu, 30 Nov 2006 11:03:54 -0800 Received: with ECARTIS (v1.0.0; list lojban-list); Thu, 30 Nov 2006 11:03:36 -0800 (PST) Received: from nobody by chain.digitalkingdom.org with local (Exim 4.63) (envelope-from ) id 1GprBh-0003ko-Lr for lojban-list-real@lojban.org; Thu, 30 Nov 2006 11:03:13 -0800 Received: from ws6-3.us4.outblaze.com ([205.158.62.199]) by chain.digitalkingdom.org with esmtp (Exim 4.63) (envelope-from ) id 1GprBR-0003kX-F7 for lojban-list@lojban.org; Thu, 30 Nov 2006 11:03:13 -0800 Received: by ws6-3.us4.outblaze.com (Postfix, from userid 1001) id 6707F2FA22; Thu, 30 Nov 2006 19:02:56 +0000 (GMT) Content-Disposition: inline Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit X-MIME-Autoconverted: from quoted-printable to 8bit by Ecartis Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" MIME-Version: 1.0 Date: Thu, 30 Nov 2006 11:02:56 -0800 Received: from [68.238.190.37] by ws6-3.us4.outblaze.com with http for arika@okrent.com; Thu, 30 Nov 2006 11:02:56 -0800 X-Originating-Server: ws6-3.us4.outblaze.com Message-Id: <20061130190256.6707F2FA22@ws6-3.us4.outblaze.com> X-Spam-Score: -2.5 (--) X-archive-position: 13278 X-ecartis-version: Ecartis v1.0.0 Errors-to: lojban-list-bounce@lojban.org X-original-sender: arika@okrent.com X-list: lojban-list X-Spam-Score: -2.5 (--) To: lojban@yahoogroups.com X-Originating-IP: 64.81.66.169 X-eGroups-Msg-Info: 1:0:0:0 X-eGroups-From: "Arika Okrent" From: "Arika Okrent" Reply-To: arika@okrent.com Subject: [lojban] Re: (no subject)/Borges X-Yahoo-Group-Post: member; u=116389790; y=Od1KPDAfQnzxATQ2o6NrVeulZG7g_afpd_CSTHBoAAFMRGemsA X-Yahoo-Profile: lojban_out X-Yahoo-Message-Num: 27714 > > Examine your expectations for what "neutrality" means. What do you > think the language architects meant by "culturally neutral"? I believe > this selling point was specifically designed to remedy the famous > problem of Eurocentrism in Esperanto, not to remedy anthropomorphism. I take James Cooke Brown at his word. It was supposed to be free of culture -- otherwise it couldn't serve as a useful experimental tool in a test of the Whorf hypothesis (as he conceived it). Of course, lojban has moved on from loglan and the purposes have changed. As far as I can tell there is no explicit claim about what lojban is supposed to acheive (or if you try to pin one down you run into a healthy tornado of disagreement). In any case, in the story of JCB's massive 30 year effort, the Borges quote takes on a poignant irony. > reasonable limits. Lojban imperfectly achieves goals which few other > conlangs that get beyond the concept stage have the slightest interest > in attempting at all. Watch you don't make the Klingons angry! ;) But really, I agree with this. For the lojbanists the fun is in the trying, success or no. A far cry from JCB's original intent. > Of course, every discussion of vocabulary is just as much a discussion > about the reality of what the thing is, as a discussion about > language. > And this, I sense, is what you bananas are bananas over. If you enjoy this slightly disorienting, thought-provoking, argument-provoking pursuit, you will stay. If you're looking for a useful tool or a "better" Esperanto, you won't last long. Or maybe you come looking for one thing and find the other? I suspect this is how most of you ended up here. Ain't no shame in art for art's sake. ************ Arika Okrent arika@okrent.com http://www.wickedoasis.org/arika 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.