Fwd: Using cats for practice

["Bob LeChevalier (lojbab)" <lojbab@xxxxxx.xxxx]

This suggestion appeared on conlang list, and seem VERY useful for
Lojbanists, who seldom have a chance to talk to other Lojbanists in
real-time. Reposted without permission.

>From: James Campbell <james@ZEUGMA.FORCE9.CO.UK>

>I am coming to the opinion that a good way to practise speaking one's
>conlang is to use it when talking to the cat. Such conversations have a
>number of benefits:
>
>* It is essentially one-sided, so there is no need to spend time trying
> to work out what the other person is saying; this gives more time to
> concentrate on getting the right case, word order, etc for one's own
> next sentence. Cat speech, while somewhat ambiguous (see Conlang
> passim) is easy to parse.
>
>* The cat doesn't mind how long it takes to formulate each sentence.
>
>* Nor does it care what language you speak in (unlike humans, who are
> wont to react unreliably in response to anything 'foreign').
>
>* One finds the flaws in a language when speaking it - what bits are
> nigh-on impossible to work out on the fly, what sound combinations are
> just too difficult, where elision would naturally occur - and such
> experimentation is of no consequence to a cat, who won't be keeping
> track of changes.

Feel free to amend this to include any other pet, (including a "pet rock"
if necessary) %^)

lojbab