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[lojban] Re: ZOI and culture neutrality
On 7/8/06, Hugh O'Byrne <hobyrne@gmail.com> wrote:
Knowing *all* of Lojban (particularly CLL chapter 18) *does* involve the
requirement of being somewhat an expert in mathematics: factorials,
logarithms, vectors and matrices, even calculus!
Now don't get me started on MEX! :)
As pc points out, knowing all of Lojban does include (unfortunately I add)
knowing how to construct grammatical mathematical expressions, but
not necessarily understanding them. In my opinion, having a separate
subgrammar for those mathematical expressions is a blemish of Lojban,
not a feature in its favour. I would never have included it as part of the
language.
> All you can do, in any language, when
> introducing foreign words, is to adapt them to the phonology of the host
> language.
All you can do in any previous language. I see a power that Lojban
(potentially) has, that no other language (to my knowledge) has. I'd be
disappointed to see Lojban restricted by "well this is how it's always
been done before".
I don't see Lojban being different from other languages in this respect.
What could prevent anyone, when using English, or Spanish, or Chinese,
or whatever language, from introducing foreign phrases in their speech
or written text?
I try to paraphrase your position so I can better understand: Let me
know if I'm putting words in your mouth you don't want there.
It seems your primary thought is to vote against *any* association
between Lojban and any one particular phonetic alphabet.
Correct.
Your secondary thought (thank you for sticking with the issue to have
such deeper thoughts) appears to be: If it comes down to the point
where there *is* a vote on one phonetic alphabet, your vote would be for
IPA.
No, I'd have to see first what the contenders were. But I really don't see
how that could ever come to a vote for the LLG, since most members of
the LLG (myself included) are not experts in phonetics.
My vision may be skewed in this area, but it seems to me that featural
aspects (conspicuously missing from the IPA) are gaining favour in the
group. Not that a vote for IPA will be discounted, I just wanted to
bolster my ego. :)
Designing a featural phonemic alphabet for Lojban would be a cool thing
to do. Selecting the features to include is the easy part, making the
design look good is the hard part. I don't imagine the LLG as taking the task
upon itself though. When and if such an alphabet is presented, I would
see the LLG making some sort of mention of it as an alterantive, though
not declaring it *the* official alphabet of Lojban. But a phonetic alphabet
is a tool for linguists, not something that the LLG should be concerned with.
mu'o mi'e xorxes
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