[lojban-beginners] Some ideas that I hope will be interesting, and may help lojban ...

[riderofgiraffes <googlegroups_og@solipsys.co.uk>]

Greetings.


Firstly, I've been interested in, and a member of various lists for,
lojban
since the late 80s.  It's been interesting seeing how the number of
people
interested in the language has grown, slowly but surely, and the
number of
people able to communicate effectively has also grown.

I have a few ideas that I think would be of benefit to the lojban
community,
and I'd love to communicate them.  The problem is that I am, like so
many
others, quite simply over-committed with other obligations. I don't
have the
time to write up my suggestions, and I certainly don't have time to
engage
in the resulting discussion with people to try to get my ideas
adopted.  I
absolutely don't have time to chase them myself, much as I'd like.

So here are some ideas, and I'd be grateful for some feedback.  If
anyone
thinks they have some merit then I'd be happy to expand informally on
them
to communicate them clearly.  If you all think they have no merit then
I'll
quietly drop them.

* I think there should be an extremely simplified semi-formal grammar
made
available that beginners can start with.  They can learn the entirety
of this
simplified grammar and use it to generate grammatically correct
sentences
without huge distractions.  An obvious subset is just [sumti]* tanru
[sumti]*, but it's hard to say anything "real" in lojban without using
BAI or
modals (this may be wrong - this idea is old, and I'm working from
memory)

* The lojban community desperately needs written works that are
interesting,
but which beginners can read.  These need to be limited in grammar (as
per
above) and vocabulary, but have content enough to be worth reading in
their
own right.  A good source of material to translate would be "English
as a
Foreign Language" works.  These are written for doctors, lawyers and
high-
powered academics, but use simple language, suitable for learners.
Perhaps
some might be suitable for translation into, or re-writing in, lojban.

* Combining the above, we could have a web site that allows uses to
fill the
blanks in a recursive descent representation of the grammar,
guaranteeing
that the result is grammatical, and using on-line lookup to help find
the
words.  This is harder to describe than the other ideas, but the idea
in my
head is pretty fully formed.  I think this would allow relative
beginners to
produce simple texts to communicate, and over time, they will
internalise the
grammar and start being able to generate text without the web aid.


I originally sent this to Robin as a part of the process of getting
off the
mailing lists, but he is too busy to pursue anything of this nature,
and so
I have edited it lightly and am placing it here.  I have recently
managed
to crawl back from the brink of declaring email bankruptcy and have no
time
to pursue these ideas, but I think they are too good to let die
without
seeing the light of day.

So here they are.  I can occasionally respond to short emails if you
want
clarification, I may occasionally be able to join in discussions, but
for
now, I must suspend my already meagre lojban participation.  I hope
this
contribution is of non-negative value.


mi'e kolin

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