coi

[Logical Language Group <lojbab@ACCESS.DIGEX.NET>]

SwiftRain wrote
>coi. doi ma
>    ni'o mi tadni Lojban .i xu do ctuca mi
>
>    ni'o xu de'u xamgu .i mi troci .a'i

i'e xamgu

>I have been using Logflash and the reference grammar and I have
>some comments/questions/suggestions:
>
>  - Logflash seems like a very good way to learn vocabulary.  I have
>been using it for a few days and I already know as much or more than I
>knew after several years of French. :)

Thank you.  I will be interested in hearing about your continued progress.
If you are truly doing it daily or nearly so, and putting in more than a
half hour a day, we are recommending that people change to Gaining Control
rather than New Word REview mode, since it works faster and better.  We
also can then get data for research, since LogFlash saves such data once you
get into Gaining Control Mode.

>I wonder, the order of the new words does not seem random, what is
>it based on?

The preset order was set from a word frequency compilation which included
the teaching materials, which explains why the words in the teaching materials
show up early.  The actual frequencies will be found around character position
160 in the gismu list.

>  - I do not yet understand the grammar very well.  I have looked around
>for some example text to give me more context, and I found things like
>MLK's "I Have A Dream" speech -- which I'm sure would be quite
>interesting if I understood it, but I am still downroundabouts in the
>"mi klama le zarci" level. ;)
>    What would really make this easier to digest is some sort of text
>which works very slowly from simple to complex, using each new idea in
>various contexts before moving on.


We have a dearth of text extracted and posted that is simple.  However
if you scan the Lojban List archives for the past couple of years, you
will find a lost more simple and conversational level text.

>  - One idea I've had for how to make learning vocabulary easier: Lojban
>picture books.  You know, like they have for little children: "gluta"
>with a picture of a gluta, and "plise" with a picture of a plise.

The main problem is finding the artists to do the artwork.  Clipart is fine
when you can find what you are looking for, but too much of it is cutesy
rather than useful for teaching.

>    That's about it for now.  But could those here who know Lojban well
>maybe help me with the grammar?  Perhaps I can try to write some simple
>stories, and you can show me if I do something wrong? :)


Write and post away.  I suspect that your grammar is going to be fine.  It
isn't as hard as it looks, andsome of the people who read the list are
pretty good at figuring out what you meant to say if you come even remotely
close in a conversational context.  (Things get a little trickier in
translations, because there is missing context and usually too much complexity
of ideas in the sorts of things that people try to translate.)

lojbab
----
lojbab                                                lojbab@access.digex.net
Bob LeChevalier, President, The Logical Language Group, Inc.
2904 Beau Lane, Fairfax VA 22031-1303 USA                        703-385-0273
Artificial language Loglan/Lojban: ftp.access.digex.net /pub/access/lojbab
    or see Lojban WWW Server: href="http://xiron.pc.helsinki.fi/lojban/";

From - Mon May 12 10:03:18 1997
          08:51:01 -0400
          -0400 (EDT)
Message-ID:  <199705111246.IAA07034@access4.digex.net>
Date:         Sun, 11 May 1997 08:46:50 -0400
Reply-To: Constructed Languages List <CONLANG@BROWNVM.BROWN.EDU>
Sender: Constructed Languages List <CONLANG@BROWNVM.BROWN.EDU>
From: Logical Language Group <lojbab@ACCESS.DIGEX.NET>
Subject:      Re; Lojban and SWH
To: Multiple recipients of list CONLANG <CONLANG@BROWNVM.BROWN.EDU>
X-Mozilla-Status: 0001
Content-Length: 2827

>Mr B.Philip.Jonsson wrote:
>
>> >In other words, the SWH is genuinely an open question, although
>> >the null hypothesis is that it is false, so our tests --- when we
>> >have any --- will test for its truth.
>>
>> Sigh! :-) I thought you people's null hypothesis was that SWH was true...
>
>No, no.  The null hypothesis says that no measurable effects exist.
>That is equivalent to the falsity of SWH (which for our purposes is
>formulated as a constraint, viz. "The way you talk constrains the way
>you think."
>
>I'm not sure what the smiley is attached to.

>It means that I'm relieved you don't think the SWH is true... That makes
>you sensible people. (Maybe you still think that logic reflects natural
>human thought processes, but not everyone can be perfect ;-)

"We" have no official opinions on either the truth or falsity of SWH, or on
whether logic reflects natural human thought processes.  Individual Lojbanists
often have strong opinions on these matters.  I for one tend to think that a
MILD form of the SWH will be found to be true, but that the stronger forms
often bandied about are not.  Last I heard, there was even some evidence of
this, though I haven't been keeping up the last year of two with Linguist List.

But other key Lojbanists think that SWH is completely false.  Who really knows?
Time will hopefullt tell.

As for logic reflecting natural human thought processes, I think this is seldom
considered to be an assumption.  The question is whether logical structure can
represent the OUTPUTS of the human thought processes in a consistent and
fairly complete way - more complete than any other system consciously
designed.

Remember that the logical structure of Lojban is meant  to be the strongly
DIFFERENT factor that forces SWH effects to become evident.  Therefore it
doesn't hurt if logic turns out to be quite unnatural for human thought - it
would then be a very artificial constraint on the language that would show
significant SWH effects by forcing people to think in unnatural ways.  If it
does not force people to think differently, then SWH is less likely to be
valid.  But there could remain questions of whether the mind is adaptable
enough to make the thought processes work like Lojban even by training.

Because of this, we are happy that we have several Lojban features unconnected
with logic that could be used as the basis for SWH testing.

lojbab
----
lojbab                                                lojbab@access.digex.net
Bob LeChevalier, President, The Logical Language Group, Inc.
2904 Beau Lane, Fairfax VA 22031-1303 USA                        703-385-0273
Artificial language Loglan/Lojban: ftp.access.digex.net /pub/access/lojbab
    or see Lojban WWW Server: href="http://xiron.pc.helsinki.fi/lojban/";