At 01:44 AM 10/4/02 +0300, Robin Turner wrote:
Lionel Vidal wrote: [snippet] >Sorry, but this is not true: there are numerous example of natlangs dramatic >prescriptive changes (and on scale that has nothing to do with a few cmavos >more or less, with a population size that has nothing to do with lojban >community present size, and regardless of an existing voluminous existing >corpus), that were consciously accepted by users on a short period.
...
Important to note here is that at this point a large portion of Lojbanists are English speakers, and English is historically anti-academy prescription. There has never been much chance of English speakers accepting an academy telling them that the language has changed (or for that matter that they are "saying it wrong"). Norms in English come about through lots of example usage setting an example (e.g. the spread of British or American English overseas through educated speakers and through television). As long as many Lojbanists are English natives, there will be prejudice against academy-dictated prescription. Hence the Cartman words.A speaker of a conlang is more likely to say, in the immortal words of Eric Cartman, "Screw you guys, I'm going home."