From lindarthebard@yahoo.com Tue Jan 05 14:34:43 2010 Received: from web50406.mail.re2.yahoo.com ([206.190.38.71]) by chain.digitalkingdom.org with smtp (Exim 4.69) (envelope-from ) id 1NSHz3-0004YZ-NX for lojban-list@lojban.org; Tue, 05 Jan 2010 14:34:43 -0800 Received: (qmail 13809 invoked by uid 60001); 5 Jan 2010 22:34:30 -0000 DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha256; c=relaxed/relaxed; d=yahoo.com; s=s1024; t=1262730870; bh=esi4aGYS86z17VHma02fqvFEEFzhLet/hcE9iIkAc0U=; h=Message-ID:X-YMail-OSG:Received:X-Mailer:References:Date:From:Subject:To:In-Reply-To:MIME-Version:Content-Type:Content-Transfer-Encoding; b=hxvY5DS2dL4u77HeIpT80a847KqG3tajc81UT5SHvxDhsGrIf75mgt+arW/M9jgw3RXEbER5DxE7dAZPkO1CQmnQltZ4PHPlMjSZQeM0w7kzGjjbm+6bw0IVgXMUVRH06HYrqJa7VwgbVzPARns/CkJPhh1wHgTYtkEvia6hGHc= DomainKey-Signature:a=rsa-sha1; q=dns; c=nofws; s=s1024; d=yahoo.com; h=Message-ID:X-YMail-OSG:Received:X-Mailer:References:Date:From:Subject:To:In-Reply-To:MIME-Version:Content-Type:Content-Transfer-Encoding; b=KdDMCenCMZAj0TG2DpkOxdckP62iMglFt1Vt2w/ORQ0FdjQhqZvBD66Wk6Fltilo20DlInlrCZlfZ1krEIk/n8a0eG9kvGs/ooODfluKDePLplllxbUna+QwNS/VIMw3glkmLhsyleKG5nPu7yvdybDKLKe8nZaBzJEUnaB9j6w=; Message-ID: <883131.13347.qm@web50406.mail.re2.yahoo.com> X-YMail-OSG: pMJKDFkVM1nvbGb5GXjeQa.LgP2vSbcsjw6L8WxEzkXW0yngDJGz5LRn86Xi6xla6JUdUjyOGP3B7TBKw7yPrQ2B7qm.wIvo4fHvm..O9fPg8rNUubninIZ6.87FZyT2QLEE0NJd_fDUtfHSYBiLBlzjFTfM.ecauGiupEGcNsPeT3Hn8q2KDbT5b.d6ylqzVdsOG29E9vnSj1M68yGghGWXlsFf3sz10.nVLG0yFyIsqwKGpARDUeuFiQCgvr7xrw1aIJsR6vmmjByaRsMz.aH.10Zn34BueIGm0u3UmR1ILgWQnLRl3XXWn1npxbtYB62z0a89ZGBvXtL83M5N2ifeNJkCXARwwxoH2ehCcRNtYjvve57J24o6Mn.ozCQY85y6rphYw.Hi52KnLGQdBuwjrLUKgadtSlahEGpJzdRlH64dIZjAmYOpvWDr_eUdLHWKsfoAJKDLV.4jKJ4gOt85ZeP0zbwPwBinlpZu Received: from [173.196.20.139] by web50406.mail.re2.yahoo.com via HTTP; Tue, 05 Jan 2010 14:34:30 PST X-Mailer: YahooMailRC/240.3 YahooMailWebService/0.8.100.260964 References: <8CC5AA7171DCAE9-8FA8-1F578@webmail-d065.sysops.aol.com> <55b258c21001030921o36fa5cf6s2b1047ca0ddca20c@mail.gmail.com> <27513e551001050303p37e2744bx6da04dac2a29ef6a@mail.gmail.com> Date: Tue, 5 Jan 2010 14:34:30 -0800 (PST) From: Lindar Greenwood Subject: Re: [lojban] Re: Initial impression To: lojban-list@lojban.org In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8 Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable > But being strange and being culturally neutral are completely=0A=0A> diff= erent things. A monolingual speaker of English can also look at a=0A> text= in Japanese or Chinese (assuming it is written left-right) and=0A> get som= e sense of the structure from the punctuation. Likewise with,=0A> say, Ara= bic, assuming said speaker knows about the writing direction=0A> difference= . But with Lojban, there simply isn't anything that lets=0A> you structure= the text in this way, and the things that you think=0A> should structure t= he text (like periods and commas) are doing=0A> something totally different= . You can be culturally neutral without=0A> making it extremely difficult = to parse a text from sight...=0A=0AWhile these may be valid points, I have = to point out something (and I was guilty of the same thing at one point).= =0A=0ADo you actually speak Lojban? No? Oh, okay, then shut up. =3DP (zo'o)= =0A=0AYou find yourself caught up in these little minor imperfections (I wa= s the exact same way) and you're not actually learning Lojban. The more you= learn, the more you realise -why- things are the way they are. We can addr= ess absolutely every one of your concerns, or you can figure out the answer= s by learning Lojban. Hell, I'm also learning Japanese! I could gripe about= how kanji are WAY TOO HARD TO LEARN, or about how there aren't any spaces = (Oh and believe you me, I did bitch about them), but once I sat down and ju= st started learning how things are done, I realised that it's with good rea= son, and it's around because it works. We have punctuation, but everything = written in Lojban is said in Lojban, so we start sentences with {.i} instea= d of capitals and (optionally) end them with {vau) instead of periods. We'v= e been doing it for at least twenty years and it's worked out pretty well s= o far. =3DP=0A=0ASo, to address your concern in your previous paragraph, th= e quick-reading aspect of Lojban is there, you just don't know quite what y= ou're looking for. When you're really exposed to Lojban, you'll notice that= every gismu is CVCCV or CCVCV, one of two magical five-character sets with= a single consonant and a paired consonant. Every cmavo is .VV, CV, or CV'V= , (oh yeah, and there are some CV'VV cmavo, but those are experimental) whi= ch helps pull it out and draw it to the eye, because were there not a full-= stop in front of the VV cmavo, I would run right over it and accidentally b= lend it in with the previous or next word, get confused because it doesn't = make sense, and then have to reread it. Then CV'V and CV just look unique e= nough, they're obviously shorter than gismu, and it's just easy to pick out= . Finally, in lujvo they're usually EXTREMELY obvious because they're way e= ffing longer than any other word, and half the time they have .y'y floating= around somewhere in there. Each word is carefully constructed with a particular p= urpose in mind, and if you spend the time to learn it, you realise why thin= gs are the way they are. Lojban reading relies heavily on word -size- more = so than word -shape- or punctuation, so like the grammar, it's just as unus= ual to the English-eye. When you first start, it looks like *GIANT WALL OF = TEXT WTF IS THAT A FULLSTOP IN -FRONT- OF AN I?*, but when you progress, it= looks like *.V CV CV'V CVCCV CV CCVCV CV CV CVCCV .V CV CCVCV*, which brea= ks apart more cleanly. Even with that being a huge jumble of nonsense, you = can glean just from position and size that somebody is probably saying {.i = mi/do *gismu* lo/le *gismu*} etc etc. =0A=0AIt's a right of passage to find= something wrong with Lojban and then try to bring it up like you're going = to improve the language before you even learn how to speak it. Everybody di= d that, myself included. So we're not "making it extremely difficult to par= se a text from sight...", we've made it really easy for LOJBAN speakers to = parse a text from sight. You're still thinking in English, and you need to = start Thinking With Portals si Lojban.=0A=0A> I agree that something else w= ould probably be best, although it does=0A> have the problem of not being a= s "universal," although in the era of=0A> Unicode and easily-modified keybo= ard layouts, I'm not sure that the=0A> universality of the Latin system sho= uld be a motivation to not try and=0A> develop something new..=0A=0ASpend a= few minutes browsing http://jbotcan.org/ideas/ and pick one you like. I di= d "larlermorna", there are a few more floating around there, there are some= linked on lojban.org, and there are a million scripts in existence that yo= u could potentially modify to work with Lojban. Keep in mind two things: 1.= Make sure that a human could write it with a real pen on real paper. 2. If= it's just a letter-for-letter change with no difference from what we have = now (i.e. there's nothing featural about it), at least two people are going= to say it's stupid and that you should fall in a hole. My script (larlermo= rna) has this handy ability to be written multiple ways and directions with= the same amount of legibility, it has a diacritic system, and you can get = artsy-fartsy with it and it's still legible. There are plenty of others tha= t have interesting features, so take a look at the ones you can find on the= Lojban website as well.=0A=0A----=0A=0ASo in short, we do things for a rea= son, and when you really grasp the language, you'll see why we aren't keen = on changing such things and why we have things the way they are. Loglan has= been around for nearly 60 years, Lojban has been around for twenty-two (co= ming on twenty-three), so I think at this point we're pretty sure where the= full-stop goes. =3DP=0A=0AI encourage you to continue to ask questions abo= ut why things are the way they are, but I assure you wholeheartedly that yo= u aren't going to change anything about Lojban until you're able to explain= , in Lojban, why it should be changed. As far as I remember, there were -tw= o- changes made to Lojban since its inception; one was removing the word fo= r "mushroom" (oldbies like to gripe about this, but I don't get it, especia= lly since we have a word for fungus already), and one was the "xorlo" rule,= redefining {lo}, which to this very day confuses some people that learned = pre-xorlo Lojban, causes some ugly arguments to pop up from time to time re= garding -exactly- how it works, and caused a huge amount of grief and stres= s for the people administrating Lojban at the time regarding whether or not= they would do it, how they would employ the changes, what exactly it chang= ed, and so on. ((In case you're wondering, {lo} used to be more specific th= an {le}, and now it's less specific.)) So you can see why we aren't keen on changing things= .=0A=0AThank you for taking the time to address your concerns with us! Plea= se ask more questions, stop by the Lojban IRC channel, and even e-mail me p= ersonally if you like (I'm always glad to answer questions). We love inquis= itive students, because that shows everybody that you're interested! Study = study study!=0A=0A((As a side note for everybody else on the list: 1. Why d= o people get so bent out of shape over that mushroom gismu (gumri?) that wa= s dropped from the list? 2. Can we make an official FAQ regarding the frequ= ent suggestions from super newbies (i.e. all the questions/complaints/sugge= stions I had when I started in July) so we don't have to keep explaining wh= y we don't have an alternate script, why we don't have capital letters, why= {lo mi co'e} isn't a me-ish something, why we're not better or worse than = Esperanto because they aren't the same language nor do they have the same e= nd-goals, why Unambiguous=E2=84=A2 doesn't mean that you'll never be misund= erstood (I remember somebody on Twitter saying that she'll never learn Lojb= an and/or actively hates it because she likes the syntactic ambiguity of En= glish, which is silly because Lojban can easily surpass English metaphor, a= nd even say things more vaguely or even nonsensically than English could ev= en dream of), and why we laugh when people point out why Lojban is a poor choice for an int.= aux. lang.))=0A=0A=0A=0A