[lojban] Alphabet gedankenexperiment

[Hugh O'Byrne <lojban-out@lojban.org>]

Okay, starting fresh.  I've thought of a new way to put forward the
idea.  (Actually, it's two ideas now.  This is one of them.)  Hopefully
it will more clearly illustrate the value I see in the system I'm promoting.

To aid in an understanding of the following gedankenexperiment, you can
think of the following sounds: puh buh muh tuh duh nuh kuh guh nguh ah
eh ii oh uh.

(It has been suggested that my argument might be better, somehow, if I
used real Lojban, somehow, so I include this following list:
.py   .by   .my   .ty   .dy   .ny   .ky   .gy   zoi .gy nguh .gy.   .a.
  .e.   .i.   .o.   .u.
I don't see what value it adds, but *shrug* what do I know.)

Note in particular that the nine consonants form a logical 3*3 grid in
sound-space.  (Oops, that one almost got by me.  "Logical" in the sense
of "In the realm of concept", as opposed to "Physical", "In the realm of
reality".  I shall say a _regular_ 3*3 grid in sound-space.)

Are you ready?

Gedankenexperiment start:

A linguist is sent to a tribe in remote Elbonia with the task:  Make a
symbolic representation for the method of communication they use down
there.  His boss says:  "Make it a logical representation.  You don't
know what I mean?  Oh well, just make it a good representation, by your
own judgement.".

After landing at Elbonia International Airport, fishing his glasses and
suitcase out of the mud, and driving 100 miles in a Jeep, he finds the
tribe.  He observes and records their actions, and makes a note that
there appears to be 2025 distinct units of meaning, which he will call
'words'.

Scenario one: The linguist generates 2025 distinct symbols and goes
home.  He tells his boss there is one symbol per word.  He is happy to
see his wife, but feels unfulfilled.  Depressed, he commits suicide
three days later.

But, supposing he doesn't leave just yet.  As he observes more, he
realises that these 'words' all consist of two sections, he'll call them
'syllables', and anything that may appear in the first syllable, may
appear in the second, in the same word or a different word, and
likewise, anything that may appear in the second syllable, may appear in
the first syllable.

Scenario two: The linguist, relieved, realises he doesn't have to come
up with 2025 distinct symbols, only 45.  He tells his boss that two
symbols in order make a word.

As he observes more closely, he realises that syllables have two very
distinct components.  He calls one component of the syllable a
'consonant', and the other component a 'vowel'.  The set of syllables is
the cartesian product of 9 consonants and 5 vowels.

Scenario three:  He makes a list of 14 symbols (5 vowels and 9
consonants), a very simple set of rules to put them together (one
consonant and one vowel per syllable, two syllables per word), and
reports all this to his boss.

As he continues to observe, he realises that consonants have two
distinct components to them, each component taking one of three
properties.  The consonants are the cartesian product of three
properties along one 'dimension' and three properties along another
'dimension'.  He draws a grid and scrawls symbols like 'x1' 'x2' 'x3'
'y1' 'y2' 'y3' and realises that with six symbols, he can cover the
space that was occupied by nine symbols before.

Scenario four:  He makes a list of 11 symbols (5 vowels, 3 for one
property of consonants, 3 for another property of consonants), a very
simple set of rules to put them together (one symbol from each of the
three subsets per syllable, two syllables per word), and reports all
this to his boss.

Question: In which scenario did the linguist do the best job?

THE SURPRISE TWIST ENDING YOU NEVER SAW COMING...

Oh, you did?  Oh.  Well, good for you, I guess.

My notes on sounds were written *outside* *of* the gedankenexperiment.
On purpose, so that you'd carry that baggage with you.  What the
linguist saw was people jumping and hopping, flipping fingers, and
bizzarely winking and blinking.  A 'word' is a 'mini-dance' consisting
of two 'steps' ('syllables').  A 'step' consisted of the guy jumping,
holding up his right hand with a number of fingers extended, and winking
or blinking.  The 'vowel' is the shape of the hand (one of five
different configurations).  The 'consonant' is how he jumped and winked.
 One component of consonants is whether he lands on his left leg, his
right leg, or both legs (three options), the other component of
consonants is whether he winks his left eye, his right eye, or blinks
both eyes (three values).

In which scenario did the linguist do the best job?

My answer is:  The symbol set the linguist sends to his boss is: "One
finger" "Two fingers" "Three fingers" "Four fingers" "Five fingers",
"Left leg" "Right leg" "Both legs", "Left eye" "Right eye" "Both eyes".
 He thinks it is far superior to the previous symbol set he was
considering: "One finger" "Two fingers" "Three fingers" "Four fingers"
"Five fingers", "Left leg and left eye" "Right leg and left eye" "Both
legs and left eye" "Left leg and right eye" "Right leg and right eye"
"Both legs and right eye" "Left leg and both eyes" "Right leg and both
eyes" "Both legs and both eyes".  The linguist becomes world-famous, but
unfortunately, the high lifestyle of drugs and sex and always being on
the road for a celebrity linguist takes its toll, and he dies, unhappy,
7 years later, in a motel room rented for four hours, with a lady of
easy virtue who doesn't even notice until check-out.

INTERPRETATION:

With a new understanding of what's going on, I hope we can all agree
that alphabet four matches each of the criteria of 'representative',
'aesthetic', 'structured', 'meaningful', definitely 'small', just about
any desirable quality you wish to name, at least as much and in some
cases more, than alphabet three.  (The lady was pissed she had to file a
report with the cops, though.)  Speak now or forever hold your peace,
because I'm going to go on as if that were a given.

The Lojban alphabet, as it currently stands, is equivalent to the
scenario-three alphabet.

I put forth that the position of the plosive (lips, tip of tongue, back
of tongue) and the type of vocalisation (unvoiced, voiced, nasal) are
(qualitatively) as independent from each other as how an Elbonian hops
is from how he blinks, when he's dancing.

I said it already; I generalize - a *lot*.

I propose that the scenario-four alphabet is preferable in the long run.
 (By virtue of it being at least as desirable, and in some cases more
desirable, by any reasonable criterion.)

I propose that it is wise, if not beneficial, to at least prepare the
way for a more desirable system.

All this before I've even really touched on how this relates to Lojban
culture, or ideals.  Not that I think the above points are irrelavent.
They have value in and of themselves.

The reason I'm here, on a Lojban forum, is this.  The motivation I feel
in pursuing Mathematics is very like the motivation of that linguist
spending a couple more days in the jungle than he strictly *needs* to.
I gather that many people on this forum are like that, engrossed in the
development and refinement of Lojban.  I may be wrong: my wife tells me
naivete is another of my weaknesses, and I have good reasons to believe
she's right.  I guess it's closely related to idealism.  Anyway.  The
feelings I get from diving into Lojban, and RPA-type concepts, are the
same feelings too.  It is plain as day to me that they are
manifestations of the same ideal (perhaps best called reductionism), and
thus belong together.  (Insert shouts of "Delusional!" here, as
appropriate.)

If Lojban lives long enough, I think it's inevitable that it will end up
with an RPA-type alphabet.  If it takes generations, so be it.  But I
would enjoy seeing it.  I also think an RPA would make the language a
more cohesive whole, in implementing the reductionist philosophy already
so pervasive in Lojban, into yet one more level of the language.  And,
as I said earlier, I think it's wise to at least prepare a way for an
inevitable improvement.

Implementation details:  On the practical side, Matt Arnold's idea of
having an RPA as an additional feature, not to take the place of the
Latin alphabet for those who want to learn it that way, but there for
people like me who see more in the language than others, is (so far) the
only feasible solution I've seen that I imagine could work in both the
short-term and the long-term.  That's what gets my vote.  (Until I see a
better idea.)

mi'e .xius.
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