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[lojban] Lojban news - draft Web page - please comment
From: Bob LeChevalier-Logical Language Group <lojbab@lojban.org>
I am posting for comment the non-HTML text of the new LLG web site news
page. I am of course especially interested in additional projects,
volunteer efforts that you would like to see mentioned (I have so far
omitted projects that I have little involvement in, since I cannot say the
status; I will have a section for unofficial projects when I have material).
The pages have NOT yet been uploaded, and given the local weather
situation, may not get set up till after the weekend, though I am trying to
beat that.
lojbab
==============
What is new on this site - 26 January 2000
This site has been completed revamped as of 26 January 2000. There are
numerous minor differences in many information files, in order to enhance
consistency. Approximately 20 Megabytes of new material has been added.
Some highlights:
A new home page, with frame and non-frame versions.
The Lojban List FAQ is now the Lojban FAQ, and will be maintained with
current information.
This News page will be maintained, and include current project status (also
found in the FAQ).
There is a learning Lojban page (now currently a copy of the short FAQ
section on that subject) which is intended to guide newcomers and more
experienced learners as to what to do next. A volunteer is sought to
enhance this section.
Evgueni Sklyanin's Lojban-Links page is copied on this site, with local
links where stuff exists on the local Lojban site. A few links were added,
deleted, or edited from the original. Over time, the mirror may be
maintained, or this site's version may go in different directions.
Text - lojbab's text archive is now on-line. Much of this is old and
outdated. But it is all here. Some miscellaneous other texts have been added.
Dictionary - lojbab's current working archive for the dictionary is now
on-line. The dictionary files are updated. There is a book skeleton that is
archaic, but which embodies the last book outline. There are a few unedited
KWIC files that will eventually be added to the main dictionary file.
Finally, there are new word frequency lists for the various word categories
current to 5 December 1999.. The lujvo word frequency list also contains
the latest work done for the lujvo list place structures, as well as
thousands of new lujvo that we need volunteers to help define..
JL - all issues of JL, and the latest issue of LK are now available on-line
Etymologies - the current language population based weights are available
Software - Some software that had not been linked into the web pages, like
Nora's parser/glosser, have been added. LogFlash source is now available on
line.
History - A history section has been added with some key documents from
relatively ancient times (these may be somewhat obsolete). Minutes for old
LLG official meetings, and the Bylaws of LLG are also available here.
The finalized portions of Robin Turner's minicourse will be mirrored here.
Latest project update to the Lojban FAQ
18. What projects are being worked on? When will they be done?
The Reference Grammar is of course complete and published.
Dictionary - The draft Lojban dictionary is online, compiled primarily by
lojbab. It needs to have lujvo and cmavo added to it. Volunteers are
welcome at all levels of expertise for lujvo definition work; there are
thousands of words to be defined with more created all the time. Nora
LeChevalier serves as lead on the lujvo definition project. The set of
working files for additions to the dictionary, as of January 2000, may be
found here.
Introduction - John Cowan is leading the effort to produce a new set of
introductory materials that can be published as a cheap book, much less
expensively than our current printed introductory material.
Web site - Veijo Vilva maintains the Helsinki web site. lojbab maintains
the Lojban File Archive and associated web site. xod maintains the Lojban
Web ring, which has sites created by several other Lojbanists. Evgueni
Sklyanin maintains a set of links to Lojban Web pages created by several
others in the Lojban community; copies of this page of links will be kept
on the Lojban File Archive and the Helsinki site because of occasional
connectivity problems to the home site in Russia.
FAQ - lojbab now maintains this FAQ, but wants to delegate the job.
Textbook - a draft of the textbook is available online, but it is out of
date and incomplete. No one is working on it right now; it's considered
fairly low priority until the dictionary is done. The main limitation in
the existing draft is that a lot of beginner texts are needed which are
both interesting and without use of esoteric features of the language.
People tend to move beyond the beginner stage very rapidly once they start
trying to use the language non-trivially, and few therefore end up able to
confine themselves to the most basic features of the language.
JL and LK - these will resume publication as soon as the LLG address data
base is brought up to date, hopefully sometime during the year 2000.
Changes and additions were recorded on paper for around 6 years without
being entered onto the computer, and we are obliged to account to people
for their money balances. This process will start with the completion of
the Web page update.
Random Sentence Generator - this is being updated to be consistent with the
baselined grammar. The existing program on this site dates back to grammar
2.08, about 8 years old. The update is low priority.
LogFlash 2 - Nora LeChevalier is working on a version of LogFlash for
learning rafsi and lujvo-making. The prior version became unmaintainably
obsolete in 1989.
LogFlash Language Learning research - lojbab gathers data from all
Lojbanists willing to use LogFlash on a systematic basis for a few months.
This data will help prove or disprove the meaningfulness of the recognition
scores used to create Lojban gismu, and may lead to publishable general
research in the field of 2nd language learning. Contact lojbab if interested.
Lojban Adventure - Nick Nicholas translated the text portion of the classic
Colossal Cave text adventure game into Lojban several years ago. At the
time there were plans to update an old Adventure program to support the new
text, but the current state of adventure game design suggests that someone
use the game engine called Inform (which has a specific manual for writing
adventure games in translation). See the rec.arts.interactive-fiction FAQ,
http://www.davidglasser.net/raiffaq/ and the interactive fiction archive.
Eaton Interface - Helen Eaton's 1930s era list of the most frequently used
concepts in 4 European languages has long been a benchmark for completeness
of the Lojban lexicon. Volunteers are welcome to translate 1 or more pages
of words from this list to Lojban. The file eaton.zip contains word lists
by page and proposed TLI Loglan words for each concept (the tanru metaphors
for the proposed TLI words are often very poor, but could spark ideas).
Chrestomathy - This is a collection of translated and original writings
designed to show a wide sampling of a language. We will want to produce one
of these for Lojban after the core language description books are written.
We need translations of texts generally a bit longer than the typical
effort (1000-10000 words), and as wide a variety of texts and styles, from
as many different source languages as possible.
TLI Loglan Interface - If there is ever to be a reunification of the two
Loglan language communities, the first step will necessarily be a
translation interface mapping words and grammar from TLI Loglan to Lojban
(the other direction may also be desirable, but would be more difficult,
and we intend to coalesce the community around the Lojban baseline in any
event). The first step in this, a mapping of gismu and cmavo, has been
done, although there has been no accounting for place structures of the TLI
Loglan gismu, and the work may be slightly outdated. See oldlog.txt for the
work that has been done.
WHEN?
Projects are all being done by volunteers, and therefore will be done when
people finish them. We've promised dates in the past and invariably been
wrong. The priorities are for the dictionary and the introductory materials
book, with the latter more likely to come out earlier than the former.
Publication of books is severely hampered by finances (anyone with money is
welcome to donate!), and the lack of ability to publish in the short term
has tended to hurt motivation and productivity of those working on those
publications.
----
lojbab ***NOTE NEW ADDRESS*** lojbab@lojban.org
Bob LeChevalier, President, The Logical Language Group, Inc.
2904 Beau Lane, Fairfax VA 22031-1303 USA 703-385-0273
Artificial language Loglan/Lojban:
see Lojban WWW Server: href=" http://xiron.pc.helsinki.fi/lojban/ "
Order _The Complete Lojban Language_ - see our Web pages or ask me.
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