From lojban+bncCMPA7-ejFhDK_pPpBBoE61tm_g@googlegroups.com Wed Jan 05 15:31:37 2011 Received: from mail-yx0-f189.google.com ([209.85.213.189]) by chain.digitalkingdom.org with esmtp (Exim 4.72) (envelope-from ) id 1PacpH-0006nE-JW; Wed, 05 Jan 2011 15:31:37 -0800 Received: by yxn35 with SMTP id 35sf14967383yxn.16 for ; Wed, 05 Jan 2011 15:31:25 -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:mime-version:received:received:date :message-id:subject:from: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; bh=FHP0Xtn4euWRIGyGeStmt1hmfCzRYscpvk9dR3acfXQ=; b=iS+N6E8alvuF0SNgOIMwskrButPq+P1IEmwA8ytibaey32vn1gdv9JYo3SedJvAH3T K+qjY9KDewX+LjRi94Y/CWZqDJjp0DnuGVxYjKk9qNuGE56yCRwyFDlFQvVsKnOpCn6C Lkv6FhKrD8o70jG2nrgIZeeV6iJEicHgZuUdk= DomainKey-Signature: a=rsa-sha1; c=nofws; d=googlegroups.com; s=beta; h=x-beenthere:received-spf:mime-version:date:message-id:subject:from :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; b=glRc8b3d7FGW82vo4L0X0D9dUVS9Tx1pPlDM2TfbK1iCXAXLk0jB0VSSioSz9uwRYF NY66DHnQUbG6UMY4f7u5qzSCuA1i/2y5sANmkujmumMx97S2T6RU9bRC3O9HMu6jPCtu a1QUFC02MCbV/UXL966/CTPkq8FF+GuW3vFfk= Received: by 10.236.95.41 with SMTP id o29mr881485yhf.14.1294270282416; Wed, 05 Jan 2011 15:31:22 -0800 (PST) X-BeenThere: lojban@googlegroups.com Received: by 10.150.48.32 with SMTP id v32ls9113514ybv.3.p; Wed, 05 Jan 2011 15:31:21 -0800 (PST) Received: by 10.151.113.19 with SMTP id q19mr495285ybm.14.1294270281627; Wed, 05 Jan 2011 15:31:21 -0800 (PST) Received: by 10.151.113.19 with SMTP id q19mr495284ybm.14.1294270281596; Wed, 05 Jan 2011 15:31:21 -0800 (PST) Received: from mail-gx0-f179.google.com (mail-gx0-f179.google.com [209.85.161.179]) by gmr-mx.google.com with ESMTP id u37si2335017yba.2.2011.01.05.15.31.20; Wed, 05 Jan 2011 15:31:20 -0800 (PST) Received-SPF: pass (google.com: domain of teapot.philosopher@googlemail.com designates 209.85.161.179 as permitted sender) client-ip=209.85.161.179; Received: by mail-gx0-f179.google.com with SMTP id 21so7652068gxk.38 for ; Wed, 05 Jan 2011 15:31:20 -0800 (PST) MIME-Version: 1.0 Received: by 10.100.44.17 with SMTP id r17mr7541685anr.222.1294270280437; Wed, 05 Jan 2011 15:31:20 -0800 (PST) Received: by 10.100.9.16 with HTTP; Wed, 5 Jan 2011 15:31:20 -0800 (PST) Date: Wed, 5 Jan 2011 23:31:20 +0000 Message-ID: Subject: [lojban] Possible Effects Of Widespread Use From: Brian Shannon To: lojban@googlegroups.com X-Original-Sender: teapot.philosopher@googlemail.com X-Original-Authentication-Results: gmr-mx.google.com; spf=pass (google.com: domain of teapot.philosopher@googlemail.com designates 209.85.161.179 as permitted sender) smtp.mail=teapot.philosopher@googlemail.com; dkim=pass (test mode) header.i=@googlemail.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 I can imagine Lojban getting two variants of the language, much like English, where ungrammatical phrases and whatnot are used in everyday speech but with a stricter variant for formal communication. I believe [language regulators] do quite well at maintaining and updating the vocabulary of their respective languages, including importing words from other languages. This sort of thing is how I would expect Lojban's vocabulary to be managed at some point. So I disagree that we're going to have an "ordinary" language in the end. And I don't believe any increase in ambiguity makes worthless the many other benefits the language has. [language regulators] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_language_regulators On 05/01/2011, Ivo Doko wrote: > On 5 January 2011 22:58, Pierre Abbat wrote: > >> Esperanto has at least one word which proves that its words cannot be >> unambiguously parsed... >> > > There are multiple, but that is irrelevant. Like I said, Esperanto never > even aimed to be fully unambiguous and as thousands of languages worldwide > (Esperanto included, because it has native speakers) prove, a language > doesn't *need* to be fully unambiguous to be a usable and working language. > > > The main thing that Lojban lacks for being used as a global language is not >> the precise definition of every corner case. It's vocabulary. > > > I.e. it's not finished, which is what I said. > > > ...its morphology is defined so as to prevent collisions like "avaro", it >> takes >> longer to invent vocabulary in Lojban. You can't take some Latinate term >> that's commonly used in many languages, some of them unrelated to Latin, >> and >> expect to make a brivla out of it just by changing "-us" to "-o". You have >> to >> consider whether a lujvo would capture the meaning better, whether the >> second >> consonant is in a cluster, and whether the same word could mean something >> totally different (such as "malpigi" which could be either an acerola >> fruit >> or an insect's kidney). >> > > Speaking of which, I think that, unfortunately, is the main flaw of lojban. > I understand that it can't possibly hope to be literally unambiguous if its > vocabulary doesn't operate like that, but that ensures that if people ever > do start to use lojban for everyday communication and if lojban ever gets > native speakers, its so praised unambiguity will very soon melt away. > Vocabulary assimilation is unavoidable and you can't possibly expect every > native speaker of lojban to know which new brivla will create an ambiguity, > so native lojban speakers would naturally start to incorporate words from > other languages in their vocabulary, those words would inevitably create > ambiguities, and after a couple of decades its precious ambiguity would be > nowhere. (And that's without even mentioning other ways in which a language > evolves when it's used by people as their main language for everyday > communication.) > > So... as far as I've understood it, this is how it goes: > > 1) Let's make lojban the world's official common language because it's > completely logical and unambiguous. > 2) lojban is made the world's official common language. > 3) People use lojban every day to talk to each other. > 4) As was the case with Esperanto, this eventually results in people having > lojban as their native language, who proceed to use lojban as their main > language for everyday communication. > 5) This makes lojban evolve. > 6) After a couple of decades, lojban is no longer unambiguous nor completely > logical and as time goes by is more and more like languages which have > naturally evolved among humans. > > Wait, so what was the initial reason to use lojban as the world's official > common language? After all, lojban's unambiguity and logicality seems to be > one of the main arguments for that, and yet if it did get chosen for that > role it will have stopped being unambiguous and logical not long after its > use became widespread. So if we're going to have an "ordinary" language as > the world's official common language in the end anyway, why not chose one > which is not unfinished? -- 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@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/lojban?hl=en.