RE: [lojban] Dumb answers to good questions

[Invent Yourself <xod@sixgirls.org>]

On Sat, 22 Sep 2001, Nick Nicholas wrote:

> cu'u la xod.
>
> > And why must Lojban express every nuance of English?
>
> ?!
>
> Lojban must be able to be as expressive as any human language.


Any language? Which language should it duplicate? I am coming from the
assumption that there are expressions in a language that are difficult to
duplicate in others.


 It is so by
> design and ideology and intent. Besides, focus is as basic a nuance to
> human communication as any.
>

> I know we've got ideological differences about Lojban up the wazoo, but how
> can you imply Lojban needn't distinguish between "It was John that Bill
> helped" and "It was Bill that helped John"? Every language does that,



Well I think that's sufficiently handled with ba'e, personally. I am
willing to sacrifice some English expressiveness in Lojban, though. I
think we should all be so ready, to some extent. If we aren't, what is
stopping Lojban from becoming not an independent language but a superset
of all Earth languages?

Are you really able to carry all the nuances from English into Greek and
vice versa?



-----
It's said that Mullah Omar has met two non-Muslims in his life. Others say
even that's not true.

Sami ul-Haq, Osama bin Laden's closest friend in Pakistan, runs the
"University for the Education of Truth," a fundamentalist institution that
educated and trained nine out of the Taliban's top 10 leaders.