[lojban] Re: (no subject)/Borges

["Arika Okrent" <lojban-out@lojban.org>]

> 
> Examine your expectations for what "neutrality" means. What do you
> think the language architects meant by "culturally neutral"? I believe
> this selling point was specifically designed to remedy the famous
> problem of Eurocentrism in Esperanto, not to remedy anthropomorphism.

I take James Cooke Brown at his word.  It was supposed to be free of culture -- otherwise it couldn't serve as a useful experimental tool in a test of the Whorf hypothesis (as he conceived it).  Of course, lojban has moved on from loglan and the purposes have changed.  As far as I can tell there is no explicit claim about what lojban is supposed to acheive (or if you try to pin one down you run into a healthy tornado of disagreement).  In any case, in the story of JCB's massive 30 year effort, the Borges quote takes on a poignant irony.

> reasonable limits. Lojban imperfectly achieves goals which few other
> conlangs that get beyond the concept stage have the slightest interest
> in attempting at all.

Watch you don't make the Klingons angry! ;)  But really, I agree with this.  For the lojbanists the fun is in the trying, success or no.  A far cry from JCB's original intent.


> Of course, every discussion of vocabulary is just as much a discussion
> about the reality of what the thing is, as a discussion about
> language.
> 

And this, I sense, is what you bananas are bananas over.  If you enjoy this slightly disorienting, thought-provoking, argument-provoking pursuit, you will stay.  If you're looking for a useful tool or a "better" Esperanto, you won't last long.  

Or maybe you come looking for one thing and find the other?  I suspect this is how most of you ended up here.  Ain't no shame in art for art's sake.






************
Arika Okrent
arika@okrent.com
http://www.wickedoasis.org/arika



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