gleki wrote:
Several recent messages mentioned the need for LoCCan3. I wonder is there really any demand for it? lojban.org wiki mentions <http://www.lojban.org/tiki/New+LoCCan>nothing special. 1. Fewer cmavo (but you are free to use fewer cmavo in current lojban) 2. There should be new cmavo for individuals, sets and masses 3. connectives 4. anaphoric pronouns (sorry, I didn't understand a word in #2,3,4, can you explain it to me in plain language?). 5. gismu with another number of sumti (but you are free not to use some sumti, to use sumtcita etc.) Anyway, even if so is there any need to break existing language?
The topic has come up intermittently for 25 years. There has been some support for directed evolutionary change of Lojban (i.e. "reform", of the sort xorxes often supports) but not much for redesign. There has been a little support for exploring what it would take to have a more rigorously "logical" language (look through the archives for writings of And Rosta for more)
If there has been any agreement regarding a possible redesign (and I'm not sure there has) it has been that any such redesign probably would not be a real improvement nor be a language that would succeed. Any major change would be a traumatic schism of the sort that hit Esperanto and Ido.
The bottom line is that any improvement would have to offer an unquestioned benefit worth the very significant effort of relearning (in a community, many of whom are not especially skilled at learning languages in the first place), and the loss of the last 25 years worth of usage and history, all of which would be invalidated. Consider the person-years of effort it would take to get as far as we have, which is great for an artificial language, but really isn't all that far, by the standards of natural languages.
I have occasionally suggested that any redesign should be done solely by fluent speakers of Lojban with all discussions conducted in that language. Only such collective mastery of Lojban would provide the insight that would be required to make a better "logical" language. But even such an attempt would likely be unsuccessful.
lojbab -- Bob LeChevalier lojbab@lojban.org www.lojban.org President and Founder, The Logical Language Group, Inc. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "lojban" group. To post to this group, send email to lojban@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to lojban+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/lojban?hl=en.