What is Loglan/Lojban

[And Rosta <a.rosta@UCLAN.AC.UK>]

Lojbab (to Ashley):
> >>I do not presume to exclude this from language.
> >
> >Languages have no place making such rules.
>
> How can we possibly know what is or is not the limit of language.

It's a definitional issue, not an empirical one. Me and Ashley
seem to agree that the limits on what counts as a designable
language exlude matters pragmatic.

You then say you too take it to be a definitional issue:

> I'm
> far from being a Chomskyan, but the boundary between biology and
> conscious choice in expression is quite uncertain.  As fir what is
> language - I think it is a matter of definition.  I choose to include
> all means of expression which CAN be consciously controlled at least in
> part.  Lojban as a language design can prescribe for that entire range
> of expression.  Whether people will or will not follow that prescription
> is of course an individual decision.

This definition of the Loglan project is news to me. If it is
LLG policy, there ought to be a far more explicit articulation
of it. I doubt, for example, that any linguist would realize,
from the available documentation, that the scope of the project
was as broad as this.

> But Lojban is also among other things designed to test the sapir-Whorf
> Hypothesis.  If it did nothing that "language has no place doing" in
> terms of possible effect on human thought and culture, then it pretty
> much could NOt have a SWH -related effect.

I seem to remember having replied to this previously.
(One effect of my system crash was that old mail got sent to
me as if it was new mail.)

--And