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[lojban] Re: Official Statement- LLG Board approves new baseline policy

I am not upset at the historical fact that Loglan is moribund. I accepted this long ago and began learning the new language. I have read about 3/4 of John Cowan's book. I have donated multiple copies of the grammer to libraries, and filled out requests for the book in many other libraries. There are 5 former Loglan fans who I've managed to interest in lojban. Another dozen or so newbies that I've convinced to buy the grammer or study the online materials. Whenever I meet somebody who I think might be interested, I tell them about lojban.
The toggle cmavo is not documented in Loglan, to my knowledge. So it "exists" only in lojban. If that is not a problem, than why not discuss it in the baseline documentation? I subscribe to the Loglan publications and listserv as well as the lojban listserv. Perhaps I've missed it, but I haven't seen any discussion in the Loglan community about transitioning to lojban.
My understanding is that many, but not all, of the refinements introduced into lojban have also been incorporated into Loglan.
I have posted to the lojban list many times in both English and lojban, although less often since the birth of my children. I read the listserv everyday. I visit Robin's lojban website everyday. I am teaching my children lojban, although I have been frustrated at the lack of a dictionary and better learning tools, particularly for children.
There are many people who bought the original JCB Loglan books, but were uninvolved in the political intrigues that led to the split between lojban and Loglan. I believe it would be politically wise to acknowledge Loglan in the baseline. Loglan is part of the history of lojban.
I am not suggesting that any changes be made to lojban, only that the lojban-Loglan relationship be addressed in the baseline. Why unnecessarily alienate people who are very likely to be interested in joining the lojban community?
JCB was a flawed human being, at times prone to petulance, mean-spiritedness, and poor judgment. So am I. Judging by your post, so are you. 

-Steven


On Saturday, November 30, 2002, at 01:58  PM, Invent Yourself wrote:


On Sat, 30 Nov 2002, Steven Belknap wrote:


lojbab has told us the decision of the Board, but not their reasoning.
Lojban is Loglan? Bah, humbug. Vacuous nonsense. Vigorous assertion
convinces me of nothing. Loglan is dead, long live lojban? Well, maybe. 
But those who do not remember their past are condemned to relive it.
There is a substantial body of written Loglan text extant, which
despite flaws should not be completely ignored. I memorized every
blasted one of those Loglan predicates. I was pretty damned irritated
when I learned that this was all for not due to the fracture in the
Loglan community, and the subsequent moribund state of the parent
language. I can not support a lojban baseline policy statement which
does not cover Loglan. A joint lojban/Loglan toggling cmavo would
satisfy me. So would a formal autotranslate utility of some kind
(although some syntactic problems in Loglan would still have to be
fixed, if they haven't already been fixed.)




So you're upset at the historical fact that Loglan is moribund, and you
want a Lojban baseline policy to "cover Loglan" but offer no justification except possibly to recover your lost hours learning Loglan words, and then 
you call for a toggle cmavo which exists already but yet was never once
seriously used (to my knowledge), and you imply that the Lojban community 
is somehow responsible to steward the Loglan community's corpus. And
finally, you close by calling for someone else to build software which
you're not sure is possible to build at all because of your lack of
familiarity with current Loglan.




What is the point of ignoring Loglan? This seems like pointless spite
towards a dead man. Whatever his shortcomings, JCB's memory deserves
better than this. In my conversations with him I was impressed by his
boundless optimism and creativity. I liked the guy. If this issue is
not resolved, I swear a mighty oath to use (wherever appropriate) the
word "simba" for "tiger" in all lojban communication henceforth.
I don't actually recall ever seeing any Lojban communication from you. I'm 
sure JCB was a wonderful man and a role model for us all, but Lojban
baseline policy is not the place to eulogize him. Some of us (I can speak for Nick and I) are seriously UN-interested in Loglan, and we vigorously 
resisted any hint that Lojban would twitch for that ancient dream of
rapproachment.




--
Sphinx of black quartz, judge my vow.





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