From lojban+bncCNuStaWoDxDm5pfpBBoEX6Od7g@googlegroups.com Thu Jan 06 08:53:13 2011 Received: from mail-ww0-f61.google.com ([74.125.82.61]) by chain.digitalkingdom.org with esmtp (Exim 4.72) (envelope-from ) id 1Pat5I-0004zu-VT; Thu, 06 Jan 2011 08:53:12 -0800 Received: by wwb34 with SMTP id 34sf18205790wwb.16 for ; Thu, 06 Jan 2011 08:52:59 -0800 (PST) DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha256; c=relaxed/relaxed; d=googlegroups.com; s=beta; h=domainkey-signature:received:x-beenthere:received:received:received :received:received-spf:received:received:received:message-id:date :from:user-agent:mime-version:to:subject:references:in-reply-to :x-original-sender:x-original-authentication-results:reply-to :precedence:mailing-list:list-id:list-post:list-help:list-archive :sender:list-subscribe:list-unsubscribe:content-type :content-transfer-encoding; bh=IQrY3ezVTCj8dtLy0qusRw84IjT/W9YCL6hD6jqBbus=; b=HmYejLOZsdmvdUoGUErMKmPj0zDlTzSwj3D/j//BQJGvgds2CsFE6IU1fVnpXxYrPU SztVz5cHkifU8W8F0RW6/9JZXKTVo8pih4v9xQoa00WlrX4jwT7HsXsUql6hIlXOCmiV fN/u4bd4qzBudsYo3S/S9UZwhimkE8b4aaikM= DomainKey-Signature: a=rsa-sha1; c=nofws; d=googlegroups.com; s=beta; h=x-beenthere:received-spf:message-id:date:from:user-agent :mime-version:to:subject:references:in-reply-to:x-original-sender :x-original-authentication-results:reply-to:precedence:mailing-list :list-id:list-post:list-help:list-archive:sender:list-subscribe :list-unsubscribe:content-type:content-transfer-encoding; b=zJvSRfbki0uqqzfNn6g4JqbtxMjCy73UIGWe7MCjqmwuT0rpPw4hYKcIEa+MwoAH3v FOsclU2AHFhatAK7Uwn+av64KBN80QrCOLxirsz8fftCkwnhGZdZdUSgFItnYhBTvrk1 WLStx6rWnIDdYJmE4P8St4VIPV4rJKaU/JakI= Received: by 10.216.185.204 with SMTP id u54mr3349510wem.8.1294332774275; Thu, 06 Jan 2011 08:52:54 -0800 (PST) X-BeenThere: lojban@googlegroups.com Received: by 10.216.208.4 with SMTP id p4ls9651861weo.2.p; Thu, 06 Jan 2011 08:52:53 -0800 (PST) Received: by 10.216.157.7 with SMTP id n7mr42392wek.3.1294332773028; Thu, 06 Jan 2011 08:52:53 -0800 (PST) Received: by 10.216.157.7 with SMTP id n7mr42391wek.3.1294332772895; Thu, 06 Jan 2011 08:52:52 -0800 (PST) Received: from mail-wy0-f181.google.com (mail-wy0-f181.google.com [74.125.82.181]) by gmr-mx.google.com with ESMTP id c2si2046961wer.10.2011.01.06.08.52.51; Thu, 06 Jan 2011 08:52:51 -0800 (PST) Received-SPF: pass (google.com: domain of and.rosta@gmail.com designates 74.125.82.181 as permitted sender) client-ip=74.125.82.181; Received: by wyf22 with SMTP id 22so16520108wyf.12 for ; Thu, 06 Jan 2011 08:52:51 -0800 (PST) Received: by 10.227.107.99 with SMTP id a35mr2398480wbp.156.1294332724623; Thu, 06 Jan 2011 08:52:04 -0800 (PST) Received: from [192.168.1.65] (87-194-76-177.bethere.co.uk [87.194.76.177]) by mx.google.com with ESMTPS id 11sm16945271wbj.19.2011.01.06.08.52.02 (version=SSLv3 cipher=RC4-MD5); Thu, 06 Jan 2011 08:52:03 -0800 (PST) Message-ID: <4D25F32F.8000209@gmail.com> Date: Thu, 06 Jan 2011 16:51:59 +0000 From: And Rosta User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.9.2.12) Gecko/20101027 Thunderbird/3.1.6 MIME-Version: 1.0 To: lojban@googlegroups.com Subject: Re: Lojban is *NOT* broken! Stop saying that! (was Re: [lojban] Re: Vote for the Future Global Language) References: <9114501.161.1294150198377.JavaMail.geo-discussion-forums@yqhy19> <7c0687a1-deba-495a-9760-95d1d0649423@t8g2000prh.googlegroups.com> <20110105165231.GK17534@digitalkingdom.org> In-Reply-To: <20110105165231.GK17534@digitalkingdom.org> X-Original-Sender: and.rosta@gmail.com X-Original-Authentication-Results: gmr-mx.google.com; spf=pass (google.com: domain of and.rosta@gmail.com designates 74.125.82.181 as permitted sender) smtp.mail=and.rosta@gmail.com; dkim=pass (test mode) header.i=@gmail.com Reply-To: lojban@googlegroups.com Precedence: list Mailing-list: list lojban@googlegroups.com; contact lojban+owners@googlegroups.com List-ID: List-Post: , List-Help: , List-Archive: Sender: lojban@googlegroups.com List-Subscribe: , List-Unsubscribe: , Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Robin Lee Powell, On 05/01/2011 16:52: > Lojban is *FAR* more fully defined than Esperanto. Natural languages are defined by what their speakers know (or do). An inven= ted language may be defined either (A) explicitly, by means of formal gramm= ars and suchlike, or (B), like a natural language, by what their speakers k= now (or do). Esperanto is defined only (B)-wise. There are some Lojbanists,= such as Lojbab, who would prefer a (B)-wise definition for Lojban too, but= I guess most folk attracted to the idea of a logical language would want a= n (A)-wise definition for it. > No, really: it is. Esperanto doesn't have a formal grammar of any > kind, for starters. But nor does Lojban. Lojban's so-called formal grammar does nothing but def= ine a set of structures of phonological strings. What a real grammar would = do is define a set of correspondences between sentence forms and sentence m= eanings. However, even though Lojban has no true formal grammar, I think it would be= easier to write one for Lojban than for almost any other language that has= a speech community, though one expects it would be hard for the community = to accept it as definitional. =20 > We know far more about how Lojban grammatical structures work than > *any other actually spoken language on the planet*. This is one of the attractions of explicit,(A)-wise definitions. But of all= actually spoken languages on the planet, Lojban is the only one that has a= n explicit, (A)-wise definition, so Lojban wins this competition by having = no competitors. > We have already won that prize: Lojban is the most precisely, > formally specified language that there is, for any language with its > number of speakers or higher. Period. I challenge anyone to find > anything even *remotely close* to the CLL in terms of covering every > *possible* grammatical combination. Even if you can find such a > thing, the formal grammar takes it so far ahead of everything else > they can't possibly hope to catch up. The virtues of Lojban are indeed as you say they are, for any language with= its number of speakers or higher. But this is pf course far more of a trib= ute to Lojban's success in acquiring a user community than to its formal sp= ecification. =20 > The truth of the matter is that you really > *can* say anything you want in Lojban; LNC and alis prove that > pretty conclusively, I think. This is debatable in a number of ways. First, the formal specification does= n't explicitly cover everything ordinary language might require (cf. proble= ms with "if", with alternatival questions, etc.). Second, the claim could b= e true in only the trivial sense that the basics of predicate structure are= sufficient to express all needed meanings; i.e. you can ignore everything = but predicate structure and define new predicates to express whatever meani= ng you need. Third, some of the conventions that have arisen in usage to ex= press needed meanings are not compositional, so their status as licit Lojba= n is questionable. > 4. Nobody shouts "Wow this is well specified!!!" at the top of > their lungs, but they certainly shout their complaints. Geeks have > a shared culture that compliments are private and insults are > public; it's deeply fucked up. See > http://lesswrong.com/lw/3h/why_our_kind_cant_cooperate/ The impressive thing is the vitality of the user community, and the amount = of labour folk have invested in it, not the specification. It would be easy= -- with the benefit of experience -- to improve on the specification enorm= ously, i.e. easy to design a language better in every conceivable way. But = it would be nigh-on impossible to achieve a lojban-scale user-community for= it. > I can say anything I need to say in Lojban, modulo my own vocabulary > knowledge. It may well be that for any meaning you want to express, you have a way of = expressing it and find that others will understand you. This is not the sam= e thing, though, as it being possible to take your sentences apart and show= *how* they mean what you think they do. If you have cooperative interlocut= ors, you can speak a very broken mangled version of language X and still be= understood. Indeed, when all interlocutors know the language only very imp= erfectly, they may simply be oblivious to all the mistakes. And it can happ= en that some mistakes are so frequent that in actual usage they override th= e formal specification (e.g. prexorlo gadri). > This puts it ahead of 99.999% of conlangs. But maybe not ahead of 99.999% of conlangs that somebody is at all likely t= o claim are adequate to all ordinary communicative requirements. >Saying that > it is very far from being complete and functioning is ridiculous, > and pretty insulting to a lot of people's hard work. Whoever is insulted by that misunderstands what people's hard work has achi= eved. The design of the language itself has little intrinsic excellence (wh= en viewed ahistorically), and it is naive to deny that it is massively inco= mplete. The achievement has been in building and sustaining the user-commun= ity, so that of all languages with a user-community, Lojban is the one that= comes closest to being an explicitly specified logical language. The langu= age itself could not have been substantially improved without great detrime= nt to the user-community. --And. --=20 You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "= lojban" group. To post to this group, send email to lojban@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to lojban+unsubscribe@googlegrou= ps.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/lojban= ?hl=3Den.