[lojban] Re: How to spread the word

[Auke Booij <auke.booij@gmail.com>]

On Fri, 2008-09-05 at 18:04 -0500, Chris Capel wrote:
> As someone who does not speak fluently, or even all that well, but who
> has actually studied most of Lojban in depth, I find the idea that
> Lojban would have any major advantages for scientific articles to be
> dubious. Language is simply not a roadblock in communication in
> science, except insofar as there is more than one language in the
> world. And while I think Lojban would be a great candidate for an
> interlingua, that's really a completely separate argument.
> 
> I wonder if you could be more specific about how you see English (or
> German) falling down as a language for scientific discourse. How is
> science materially harmed by the disadvantages English has compared to
> Lojban?
> 
> Chris Capel

Good question. To me, the biggest difference lies near the philosophical
and metaphysical field, where people often talk about undefined ideas.
And then they come to strange conclusions.
Trying to write this e-mail, it appears to be hard for me to find good
examples, while I experience inconsistencies in scientific texts every
day. So far, the only thing I can say is that Lojban forces you to
choose your words correctly, and, of course, evades ambiguity (which is
generally not a problem).

On Sun, 2008-09-07 at 10:24 -0700, arpgme wrote:
> Re: How to spread the word
> 
> Author: arpgme
> 
> I suggest making/translating blogs, websites, games, and programs into
> Lojban. Also, people should start subtitling videos into Lojban and do
> covers/fan-dubs into Lojban. In my opinion, this is the best way to
> get the average person to know about Lojban. It seems that most
> Lojbanists are trying to get other linguists to know about Lojban but
> we should also target the general public, too. Thus, letting much more
> people know and get interested in Lojban.

Ironically, I got to know about Lojban because of an xkcd strip. Since I
tried esperanto a few years back too, I thought it'd be interesting to
see what this "yet another" interlanguage had to offer.
But then again, there's also a lot of people who don't bother learning a
different language. I think a lot of americans are content with English,
sometimes plus one other language (usually spanish). Why would they
suddenly bother learning Lojban? I think we initially need to have
something to offer, something not available in a different language. And
then try to get attention. Esperanto got famous because it pretty much
is spanish with a few modifications, so it was easy for people to learn.
Similarly, Italian looks *a lot* like Latin, hence most people who had
Latin will have few trouble reading Italian. But Lojban is a completely
different language. With a reason. But what reason? That's unknown to
pretty much the entire world minus the handful enlightened ones amongst
us who learned Lojban.

tulcod.



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