TLI negotiations

[nsn@mullian.ee.Mu.OZ.AU]

I don't know how much I can say that is constructive. I know we must look
intransigent from the outside to demand Lojban be the base of any compromise,
and I know I could too easily get carried away by the image of Theophile
Cart's intransigence before Ido (even if we are the Idoists in this case) ---
but I have to say that I would scowl most severely on any proposal to change
even a letter of Lojban to accomodate the Institute OR its language community.
The alternative orthography is welcome, but as for the grammar... well, every
time we revise it, we keep saying "this is the last time", and each time
it isn't --- but we're moving close, and we will NOT detour. Given how proud
JCB is, in turn, we may end up in option B at best --- non-competition. I
can live with that --- I prefer it --- while recognising that damage it can
do. Lojban does not need (and I doubt it will get) mass support for it to
be successful in most applications we favour; having a split market will
not be a deathstroke.

That having been said, some political accomodation between LLG and TLI is
clearly desirable, and I'm not as sure it cannot make sense without the
languages converging (for as you know, we have worked too hard, and learnt
too much, to play second fiddle to a version of the language such, that
what little I know I abhor; it's annexation, or nothing; no hybrids).

I am of the school of thought that Lojban is *a* loglan, rather than
"Lojban is Loglan". My entry into the Board does not change this.

Your discussion of the negotiations background is apt. I, and most Lojbanists,
owe little allegiance to JCB, and have little interest in pre-'88 loglans;
Colin's voice will obviously be more moderate in this respect.

I am not inimical to an organisational merger (bearing in mind what I've
said about a language merger); I'm not ruling out the dissolution of the
LLG; but for us to be incorporated into TLI in the manner proposed is
laughable. We deserve more than one Nora and one PC.

Your counterproposal to the TLI makes perfect sense to me as a Lojbanist.
Were I an outsider, I may well have thought you unwilling to compromise.
As a Lojbanist, I think you're giving TLI all the slack you can, while
remaining responsible to your language community.

Work with the TLI, sure. See how far you can go on the grammar compatibility
programme, and on a political understanding. i ko ku'i baru'i.ei.e'osai morji
ledu'u ma'a cajeba.ai se bangu la lojban. e no xamgymleca. Whatever we or
they call the language is immaterial --- but it WILL stay identifiably
the same as the language I know today, including vocab, with maybe just the
most inobtrusive of grammar changes. If my Lojban is taken away from me,
I'll have nothing more to do with the project. I'm trying to sound as little
dramatic as possible, but it's the truth; I don't have a year free for
relearning anything. Nor, I fancy, do many other lojbanis.

But a failure to merge (if neither party can annex the other) still leaves
us room to maneuver. You have my support in exploring that room.