Re: [lojban] reform

[Yanis Batura <ybatura@mail.ru>]

-----Original Message-----
From: "Andrii (lOkadin) Zvorygin" <andrii.z@gmail.com>
To: lojban-list@lojban.org
Date: Tue, 31 Oct 2006 04:47:37 -0500
Subject: [lojban] reform

> 
> lOjban is great, but it's not as logical as it could be. For the next major
> revision, should we modify lOjban, or should we call it something else?
> 
> ...

There are languages for human interaction, and there are languages for instructing machines what to do. Humans are intelligent, and can resolve from context syntactical and semantical ambiguities. Machines (so far) are not, and require syntactical and semantical unambiguity, hence the formal languages for them.

There are no (and cannot be) unambiguous languages for human interaction. Lojban is intended for humans. It is perhaps the closest language to computer formal languages due to its syntactical unambiguity. But it is not a computer formal language in the sense of C or Pascal or the like.

You don't like many features of Lojban that make it semantically ambiguous, and suggest to eliminate them. Well, this will transform it to just another computer language (be it a pronounceable one), inappropriate for human interaction. What use will it be of?

mi'e .ianis