Re: RE: Re[2]: Dr. James Cooke Brown

["Bob LeChevalier (lojbab)" <lojbab@lojban.org>]

At 01:12 PM 02/18/2000 -0800, Ron Hale-Evans wrote:
>At 02:23 PM 2/18/00 -0500, you wrote:
>From: "Bob LeChevalier (lojbab)" <lojbab@lojban.org>
>
>>Incidentally, the latter discussion points out the one problem with the
>>"hoa" and "xo'a" introducers of the other language/dialect - while the two
>>words look different in print, in speech they would likely be heard as the
>>same word in either version, and thus be ineffective at indicating a change
>>in dialect. Indeed, in our alternate orthography originally established to
>>make rapprochement based on Lojban more attractive to the TLI Loglan
>>community, the alternate orthography form of "xo'a" is exactly "hoa".
>>
>>lojbab
>
>Why, Bob? Couldn't one treat them as _toggles_ rather than as indicators 
>of a particular language? In other words, whenever you hear hoa/xo'a, you 
>switch to the other dialect. IMHO, this would only be a problem if
>
>1) Your listener did not already know which dialect you were speaking 
>(unlikely), or
>
>2) There were more than two dialects of Loglan/Lojban.

A possibly valid point. Part of the reason I made the statement is that I 
gave examples in both dialects in my response to Slavik, and I was thinking 
about which word should label which switch, and I said them aloud and 
realized that they were not labelling a dialect. They could label the fact 
of a switch though.

I am not sure that, especially if the communities merge, that in the spoken 
language someone would necessarily know the version. There are indeed a 
small infinity of sentences that are grammatical in both dialects, and a 
smaller infinity of sentences that are identical in meaning in both 
dialects (infinities because both grammars allow recursion that might add 
words without significant affect on meaning). Nora (and more rarely 
myself) often slips in a classical prim instead of the Lojban word because 
she so thoroughly learned the original set (using LogFlash, our 
implementation of JCB's original flashcard algorithm, which is especially 
effective in implanting words in long term memory) and never forgot it.

(I mention the flashcard algorithm, because this is a somewhat less 
remembered but perhaps important part of JCB's legacy.)

lojbab
----
lojbab lojbab@lojban.org
Bob LeChevalier, President, The Logical Language Group, Inc.
2904 Beau Lane, Fairfax VA 22031-1303 USA 703-385-0273
Artificial language Loglan/Lojban: http://www.lojban.org (newly updated!)