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[lojban-beginners] Re: "I understand Lojban"

Approaching this from an English-speaker's viewpoint, when I say that I understand English, I don't mean to say that I understand ANYTHING which is discussed in English. Thus, most English speakers don't understand discussions of quantum mechanics.
Many people who are fluent in a language have little technical knowledge of the grammatical principles. On the other hand, they understand varying amounts of what is said or written.
Let's take 'Jabberwocky' as an example of where understanding a language is clearly differentiated from lack of understanding.
"`Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe."
English speakers understand that the action takes place in the past, and that some things referred to as slithy toves gyred and gimbled in some place/time/manner/fashion.
We recognize nonsense verbs, nouns, and adjectives.
There have been attempts to 'translate' Jabberwocky into other languages. Someone unfamiliar with the target language would be unable to 'understand' any of the poem, nor recognize which words are nonsense and which are actual parts of the language.

We can understand a language when we read it, but not when we hear it, or vice versa.
We can understand a language without being able to speak it.

When my math teacher in secondary school required us to use Spanish to express our need to sharpen our pencils, I understood that 'Puedo sacarle punto al lapis' meant 'May I sharpen my pencil', but I understood little beyond that, not even being taught that 'Puedo' meant 'I can' (or 'Can I').

As far as I can tell, there is a certain type of neurological activity when a person understands what is being read or heard, but does not occur otherwise. This understanding is at two levels. The first level is a general comprehension of the overall language/symbol system being used. The second level is a more specific understanding of the topic of the communication. The second level is what is apparently addressed by Lojban. The first level is apparently unaddressed.

When I watched 'The Passion' I understood about a quarter of the Aramaic, as I can read Syriac Aramaic with a little fluency, and have a little familiarity with Biblical and Rabbinic Aramaic. As the topics were simple, I easily understood them, in a way that I wouldn't had the actors been discussing obscure technical points of Rabbinic law ('prosbul' for instance).

In the 1980s I listened to a talk by Mar Babai Soro in Assyrian Aramaic, of which I understood perhaps 1 word in ten, if that. However, I was able to follow well enough to understand (2nd sense) something of what he was talking about. On the other hand, a discussion with a friend about string theory was barely comprehensible in the 2nd sense while fully comprehensible in the 1st sense (all the terms were common English).

It appears we need a term to handle the first sense of understanding--do I understand the words. The same term would be used for understanding someone's handwriting, or someone's accent.

mu'o mi'e .bobgrif. 
From: Robin Lee Powell <rlpowell@digitalkingdom.org>
Reply-To: lojban-beginners@chain.digitalkingdom.org
To: lojban-beginners@chain.digitalkingdom.org
Subject: [lojban-beginners] Re: "I understand Lojban"
Date: Wed, 9 Feb 2005 12:59:34 -0800

On Wed, Feb 09, 2005 at 09:57:31AM -0500, Adam COOPER wrote:
> I understand Lojban.
>
> {mi jimpe fi lo jbobau} - doesn't quite seem to cut it, as it
> could just as well mean that the speaker understands the ideas
> behind Lojban, how it was devised, its history, (x3 = subject)
> without necessarily understanding what's being said. So...

Well, of course it's inspecific.  So is the English.  "I understand
Lojjban" could mean any of those things too.

If what you meant is "I am able to understand most things expressed
in Lojban", that's something like "mi ka'e jimpe lo smuni so'e
selsku be bau la .lojban.".

-Robin

--
http://www.digitalkingdom.org/~rlpowell/ *** http://www.lojban.org/
Reason #237 To Learn Lojban: "Homonyms: Their Grate!"
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