From nobody@digitalkingdom.org Tue Sep 16 17:57:03 2008 Received: with ECARTIS (v1.0.0; list lojban-list); Tue, 16 Sep 2008 17:57:03 -0700 (PDT) Received: from nobody by chain.digitalkingdom.org with local (Exim 4.69) (envelope-from ) id 1KflLr-0002qS-39 for lojban-list-real@lojban.org; Tue, 16 Sep 2008 17:57:03 -0700 Received: from rn-out-0910.google.com ([64.233.170.186]) by chain.digitalkingdom.org with esmtp (Exim 4.69) (envelope-from ) id 1KflLn-0002qB-UY for lojban-list@lojban.org; Tue, 16 Sep 2008 17:57:03 -0700 Received: by rn-out-0910.google.com with SMTP id k40so2004890rnd.0 for ; Tue, 16 Sep 2008 17:56:58 -0700 (PDT) DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha256; c=relaxed/relaxed; d=gmail.com; s=gamma; h=domainkey-signature:received:received:message-id:date:from:to :subject:in-reply-to:mime-version:content-type :content-transfer-encoding:content-disposition:references; bh=JwHxm/KypH4aAxZwo8OIC9InVLpW96eeovzgnP6I1q0=; b=wjQJsl7oY9XWciIJOc7D9tgbJ08tneakKBo5AujQO5nhzwXayDuIIQbVAVv2XL0zE5 kwTT3iSupUKkk4hKTbvQ8oHIPdHeWh/SOaXFdFygWb4jkQXVhyaQzrCjoKNqmM/KN+Ey gVMzttiZPYRRm/GA1LbjajLgrVCAI5W7RwbrA= DomainKey-Signature: a=rsa-sha1; c=nofws; d=gmail.com; s=gamma; h=message-id:date:from:to:subject:in-reply-to:mime-version :content-type:content-transfer-encoding:content-disposition :references; b=WKe+FWn6AtCzZjWwX02gjDimrSjZmBTUFSMIBYLEJTFRvJkW74IjPIwBOO9lJiXMaz FEdIVpj5VDMtNsFN+Tc9gXbooC8XoE9oQVclinrnp9TDSHG6tWNr/RNc/fiaX/5SrsV3 nhzj/KxFFtqFmmecEQhpM3e18+xFOKiezWg5s= Received: by 10.151.112.3 with SMTP id p3mr2513114ybm.116.1221613018642; Tue, 16 Sep 2008 17:56:58 -0700 (PDT) Received: by 10.150.199.20 with HTTP; Tue, 16 Sep 2008 17:56:58 -0700 (PDT) Message-ID: <737b61f30809161756x2b7d69d8l5874e9b6b36e2e66@mail.gmail.com> Date: Tue, 16 Sep 2008 19:56:58 -0500 From: "Chris Capel" To: lojban-list@lojban.org Subject: [lojban] Re: How many fluent speakrs of Lojban are there? In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Disposition: inline References: <975a94850809132244tdf5f00fm941ba3703635da34@mail.gmail.com> X-Spam-Score: -0.0 X-Spam-Score-Int: 0 X-Spam-Bar: / X-archive-position: 14764 X-ecartis-version: Ecartis v1.0.0 Sender: lojban-list-bounce@lojban.org Errors-to: lojban-list-bounce@lojban.org X-original-sender: pdf23ds@gmail.com Precedence: bulk Reply-to: lojban-list@lojban.org X-list: lojban-list On Sun, Sep 14, 2008 at 03:09, Brett Williams wrote: > You can't really invent-on-the-fly your > way to that different level of precision; you just trade vaguenesses. The > raw materials of lujvo-making are just the gismu, so a nonce lujvo is > generally just vaguer than a suggestive phrase of the same gismu would be. Exactly right. > So you can't just invent a bunch of words as you're trying to say things, > and invent the language all at once. They sort of tried to do that once > upon a time, it seems to me, and got really stuck in it, and the real active > vocab of the language languished meanwhile. You can invent words for fun > any time you want, but in order to invent a word and really get it to stick > & become the language that we use, it has to be the right word at the right > time. Lojban can't actually absorb a word for carburetor right now, because > we don't have words for anything else in engines, we don't have that whole > terrain. To expand the language into a new terrain, you have to first lay > down a basic foundation, & gently lead the conversation to explore it. Well, I'd go further than this. Language is a tool. Like any other tool, people's primary use for it to get what they want, to accomplish their goals. The closest goals of any conlang are art (la alis, smaller works, poems) and bridging the language gap. So far lojban has seen quite a lot of the former, and very little of the latter. (Which isn't to say anything bad about Lojban, by any means. Developmental stages, etc. etc.) Art doesn't attract very many people, because there's plenty of it in other languages. But, in specific circumstances, Lojban as an interlang could have a very high *instrumental* value, which I think is the only compelling circumstance that could lead to heavy development of it. What other situations does Lojban have a high instrumental value in? Chris Capel -- "What is it like to be a bat? What is it like to bat a bee? What is it like to be a bee being batted? What is it like to be a batted bee?" -- The Mind's I (Hofstadter, Dennet) 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.