Re: live cultures (was: Promoting Lojban)

[Robin Turner <robin@bilkent.edu.tr>]

la kris. cusku di'e

> On Fri, 19 Feb 1999, xod wrote:
>
> > And yet, ironically for those who think intellect and emotion are
> > opposite poles, Lojban may be superior also for the transmission of
> > emotional states and poetry. I have had one poet approach me with
> > interest in Lojban in hopes that it would provide her with a culturally
> > neutral language.
>
> I doubt how effective culture-neutral poetry could be. Without culture or
> history, metaphor is impoverished and symbolism in non-existent. Doesn't
> sound much like poetry to me.
>
> What am I missing?
>

{zo'osai} the fact that people _do_ write poetry in Lojban!  {pe'i} Lojban is
culture-free in the sense of not being confined to any particular culture, not
in the sense of being culturally sterile.

>
> > The point approaches soon when computers will be able to deliver really
> > workable real-time language translation in text.
>
> How true that isn't.
>

{.iecai}

>
> > Of all languages to learn, English is one of the hardest,
>
> What are your sources for this? How are measuring difficulty? What are the
> language-internal implications of difficulty (on scope of expression,
> flexibility of syntax, ...) Who is it so difficult for?

Difficulty in learning languages depends on a lot of things, including what
other languages you know.  {mu'a} my (Turkish) wife doesn't know much English
grammar, but can get the gist of an English conversation because she has
excellent German.  Things which make English difficult irrespective of this
are its massive vocabulary, stupid spelling and heavy reliance on metaphor.

{ta'o} I've just put an essay on international languages on my website -
Lojban gets a plug, of course!  I eventually ditched the UDHR translation, as
one of my proof-readers said it made the language look dauntingly difficult.
It's at

http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Delphi/8309/ial.html

co'o mi'e robin. no'u lo glibau ctuca