[lojban] Re: [hobyrne@gmail.com: Alphabet]

[John E Clifford <lojban-out@lojban.org>]

--- Hugh O'Byrne <hobyrne@gmail.com> wrote:

> *sigh* I still didn't get to the end.  But I am determined.
> 
> John E Clifford wrote:
> >> I think we can all agree that the
> >>world is a better place (at least a more fun place, or a more mentally
> >>stimulating place, for us personally) for having Lojban.  I happen to
> >>think Lojban would be a better language for having an alphabet such as
> >>VS (or Lhoerr).
> > 
> > Ou would like it better.  How would it *be* better?
> 
> It would be better liked.  By at least one person.
> 
> Muh.  I'm getting tired.  That's not a good answer.  

Very true.  It is not even clear that having one's likes met is an unqualified good, so not
necessarily a contribution to better.  Some preferences fulfilled might make things worse.

> There's much more
> to it than my personal preferences.
> 
> Lojban implements reductionism on many levels.  This has advantage not
> only in each level individually, but in making Lojban as a whole a
> cohesive entity by its consistent adherence to the one principle across
> the levels.  The whole is greater than the sum of its parts.  I propose
> applying reductionism to the phonemic map.  (I could swear I've said
> that five times already.)

And I have mentioned or hinted each time that I did not understand what "reductionism" means and
been unable to find a common thread through the various things that were said to represent it in
Lojban.  The only clear case that looks like unquestionable reductionism is usng an alphabet
rather than ideogram or syllabary and that was done not on principle but on inertia.  To be sure,
if it had been thought about, the same conclusion would have been reached, not from reductionism
but simply from practicalities: Lojban has too many primitive words to learn them all individually
at the beginning and the same is true for syllables. And a purely featural alphabet, while
possibly smaller, does not lend itself to tidy generalizations (like CVCCV, say).  Now, wht else
counts as reductionism -- several examples please since it occurs in Lojban at many levels.

> Point one: I believe it will make the implementation of the phonemic map
> superior, in that reductionism in general improves many many things, and
> I believe this is one of them.  

Not obviously true.  We can reduce right out of intelligibility or practicalitym both making
matters worse.

> Point two: I believe it will improve the
> cohesiveness of Lojban as a whole, by implementing this principle more
> consistently (by that I mean, on more levels).  

This has to lie in wait for some evidence that reductionism (as some sort of single notion) is
manifest many times in Lojban.

>(Perhaps this is where
> I've failed communicating before: such explicit enumeration right next
> to the ideological framework of the previous paragraph.  But I could
> swear I've said each of these points five times before, too, at least
> sometimes in the proximity of the ideology.)
> 
> Counterpoint: How would it be worse, long-term?  I have not seen
> anything you have put forward yet that addresses this question, so it's
> about time I asked it.

I don't necessarily say it weill make things worse, I just question your claim that it will make
things better.  Insofar as that clajm is your reason why we should accept your suggestion, failure
to make this case is enough.
 
> Counterpoints (one): Do you believe reductionism is not, inherently,
> mostly a good thing?  

Unknown since unknown what reductionism is.

> Do you believe that the phonemic map is not an
> area of the language that can benefit from reductionism (independent of
> your personal preferences)?

Pretty much the same for the same reason.  Here, however, I would say that if reductionism in this
case means featural characterrs rather than simple, I think that is very useful FOR THE
DESCRIPTION OF THE LANGUAGE, but not necessarily for use within the language.

>  (In anticipation of a 'yes' answer, because
> all indications so far suggest that will in fact be your answer: Do you
> believe the word map is an area of the language which has benefitted
> from reductionism: which has created the phonemic map?  Do you see some
> fundamental difference, independent of your personal preferences,
> between the word map and the phonemic map that makes reductionism more
> applicable to one than the other?)

I don't understand this at all.  What is a word map, what a phonemic map?  What ro;le does
reductionism play.  Taking a stab: I do think that using an alphabet rather than an ideography is
a good thing, so, if that is reductionism, it would have been a good thing had it been used. As it
is, we get the effect without the principle.  For the rest, I don't know what is being asked so I
don't have an answer.  What are all these counters to, by the way?
  
> Counterpoints (two):  Do you believe Lojban design is not heavily
> weighted in favour of reductionism?  Do you believe that a consistency
> of form, extended to another level of Lojban, does not improve overall
> cohesiveness?
 Same answer, same reason. Although here I can say "No" since I don't believe what I don't
understand.
 
> - I'm trying to pin down the points on which we conflict, because right
> now I just don't understand it.

You think a featural alphabet would make Lojban better and I don't.  You think that Lojban is
built on principles that point toward a featural alphabet and I don't.  You think you have
explained and demonstrated these points and I don't.  You think that the second point at least, if
true, would be a reason for ado[ting a featural alphabet and I don't.  Anything else?

> >>I'm not interested in Lojban because of *need*.  I think it's *fun*!
> >>
> >>As to 'a consistent way to represent the [sounds] in the language":  VS
> >>is a symbol set that has a couple of *levels* of consistency, _within_
> >>its representations of sounds, whereas the current Lojban alphabet is
> >>just a set with no more meaning or depth than its superficial arbitrary
> >>definition. 
> > 
> > What relevant advantage does these purported deep consistencies offer.  Just having some
> > consistencies is not a reason for introducing something to Lojban, especially if it makes
> things
> > more complex in the process.  And consistency seems to be all that VS has to offer. 

Oh yes -- though this is a part of the second, I think -- you think that the fact that a featural
alphabet is coherent and systematic while the Latin is not is a reason for adopting the featural
and I don't.

> RPA offers deep meaning as well as deep consistencies.  It offers a
> gentler yet learning slope to someone who knows no alphabet.  It offers
> a smaller symbol set that is thus easier to learn.

 I don't know what meaning an alphabet might offer -- let alone what a deep meaning might be.  The
rest is empirical claims not pro9ven and not obviously true.  As for symbol sets, assuming that
there are x phonemes we still need x symbols, however they may be constructed.
 
> These are the relavent advantages on offer.  Do you believe that they
> are disadvantages, rather than advantages?

Well, I sure don't yet believe they are advantages,  I don't even know how to cash any of them in
for real effects in the language.

> >>VS is simply better at *being* 'a consistent way to
> >>represent sounds'.  The Latin alphabet is only barely adequate, its only
> >>claim to being anything more than completely arbitrary is its
> >>'familiarity' to a large portion of the world, which I address in 
> >>another post.  I prefer a usefully structured, tiered system over an 
> >>arbitrary, flat one.
> > 
> > But that familiarity is just what recommends it to Lojban (Lojban could have a much nicer set
> of
> > gismu for a number of of purposes if we did not want them to be familiar to most speakers, but
> > that familiarity is a design feature).  
> 
> I'm thinking long-term, apparently much longer term than you.

As you pointed out elsewhere, we need Lojban users now or there will not be a long term.  Any
block thrown in the way of learning Lojban decreases the number of takers on its offer.  A strange
alphabet is a block (there are a few constructed languages that have overcome this block but they
are all supported by external factors -- Trekkydom or Elvophilia).  If Lojban became a going
concern with an effective support system, an odd alphabet might be used,  But I don't see anything
to recommend RPA even then (I would go for improved -- i.e., more differentiated -- Latin first).

> Personally, I think this is a symptom that I have more hope for the
> language than you have.  

Sorry, this kind of appeal to my better nature won't work, since it makes assumptions about why I
am in Lojban, a factor about which you know zilch.

> But emotion is clouding my judgement right now,
> and I suspect I haven't yet really talked to your ideological core
> (which I look forward to, but I understand your reluctance to expose it
> to a boisterous stranger), so my evaluation is one made from a
> standpoint of ignorance.
> 
> What you and I are familiar with is irrelavent in the long-term.  In
> fact, social inertia is one of the biggest *impediments* to progressive
> improvements.  

Hey, I'm an Episcopalian, tell me about it. But this is only relevant if RPA is a progressive
improvement and that is what is yet to be shown.
  
> I invite you to clean your mind of preconceptions.  I
> suggest that a mind in such a state will be more sensitive to long-term
> trends, in that you'll be getting in touch with more fundamental levels
> of the human experience, deeper than the fleeting cultural fashions of
> this generation, or this era; that will be more a more consistent anchor
> for generations to come than current obsessions within this culture.

Sorry, I driftted off a minute into the waves of New Age ooey-ooey.

> >>>(and English doesn't even want that, since, like Chinese, it is probably more
> >>>important that all English speakers spell things pretty much the same way than that they
> spell
> >>>'em like they say 'em -- or we reproduce another kind of spoken mess).
> >>
> >>Irrelavent to the subject at hand.
> > 
> > Was a response to someone talking about English spelling reform, so relevant to the context
> but
> > that context was indeed irrelevant to whether to use VS in Lojban, which is not English and
> > already has a â??perfectâ?? spelling system.
> 
> Okay.  I should have pointed out the irrelavency at an earlier stage;
> pinning it on your paragraph was misrepresentative of me.  I apologise
> for the implied criticism.  I think we can let this part of the thread
> die now.

I'm worried about how I misrepresented you. But that aside, this is a (fascinating) side issue.

> 
> >>  Has Lojbanistan ground gotten so stale already?
> > 
> > I take these comments about not modifying an existing system to apply to VS (a century and a
> half
> > old) as well as the Latin alphabet.
> 
> :-) I see your point.  It's an amusing paradox.
> 
> VS is old (temporally stale), but is still insightful in the area it
> addresses.  Lojban appears intellectually stale (the way you represent
> it), in that it's (you're) not open to recognising benefits of such
> insightfulness.  Granted, the alphabet may not be considered a
> high-priority, *core* component of Lojban, but it is a component
> nonetheless, and an unavoidable one at that.

Both of these claims are, of course, what is to be proven, so hardly can be offered as evidence of
staleness etc. --Is VS or RPA insightful in some relevant area and does this insight offer
benefits to Lojban

> >  But (as noted several times) new alphabets never had a chance
> > for Lojban,
> 
> intellectual staleness?
> 
> > because they were unfamiliar to most people
> 
> short-sightedness

No both times; just practicalities.

> > (and, believe me, people have proposed
> > other alphabets â?? especially Tengwar â?? from the get-go and have devised quite a number of
> > totally new forms, many based on the same unfortunate principles as VS â?? at least to the
> > similarity of characters for similar sounds).
> 
> Your valuation of what is 'unfortunate' is not shared by everyone, and
> in fact is opposed by many people, you say.  Have you ever thought about
> that?

Of course; indeed even if I hadn't thought of it myself there have been a few proposers eager to
point it out.  It is unfortunate simply because it is so good in an area that looks to be close to
the question of alphabets, but is in fact not very useful there at all.  The old Wycliffe Summer
Institute used, after a good course in how to write a phonological description of a language, to
have a course in how to costruct an alphabet for a previously illiterate culture.  They were very
different, since one was from the outside looking in while the other was inside and looking around
therein (leaving aside some of the shortcomings, like the need to just use the letters on your
Remington).  Phonemes have a reality inside a language which external linguistics may miss (as
witness some of the rather hopelessly wrongheaded phonemic analyses linguists have come up with
from time to time -- less in the last fifty years happily but still occasinally weird. Facts of
the overall culture enter into the best solution for a writing system beyond the mere phonologic
data and the stock analyses.  It might turn out eventually that Lojban rally does call for a
featural alphabet, but I don't see it yet.
 
> >  They have all been rejected despite a good deal of
> > pleading in their behalf.
> 
> I happen to consider myself an above-average pleader. :)

So far you seem to be about median, though perhaps with extra points for persistence.
 
> >  And some of them were actually pretty and had other virtues.
> 
> I don't mean to rule out other virtues.  I used VS as a convenient place
> to point to, to indicate the ideological direction I was pursuing.  To
> be more clear, I now champion RPA.  And RPA doesn't even exist yet, so
> may have virtues such as prettiness and maybe some you haven't even
> thought of yet.  Maybe some *I* haven't even thought of yet, for that
> matter.  I look forward to discovering what such features might be.  I
> think it's unfortunate you don't, but... that's your choice.

I would say that you position would be a better one in a number of ways if you did have a real
alphabet to propose.  Your old proposal for VS was thus stronger -- or would have been if VS were
not so horrible as an alphabet in use.  As it is, along with the massive failure to demonstrate
any value to Lojban or an internal connection to Lojban, you are asking us to buy a pig in a poke.
 And it might then turn out to be a real pig indeed.


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