Re: [lojban] Re: la .alis.

[Robin Lee Powell <rlpowell@digitalkingdom.org>]

As a sort of follow-on general comment here:

No-one's actually going to *stop* you doing as you like with the "la
.alis." text.  Well, xorxes could, but I think he already
public-domained it?  Anyways, we're not going to sue you or anything
like that.  I doubt that we'd even get as far as the LLG publically
denouncing it (although it's not outside the realm of possibility if
the chosen orthography is particularly un-Lojbanic).  Some of us
will just be cranky about it.

Just wanted to make that super-clear.

My own significant crankiness about the whole idea aside, I
appreciate that you've come back to the community to discuss it; I
wasn't expecting that after the IRC interaction.

-Robin

On Sun, Mar 28, 2010 at 01:45:35PM -0400, Matt Arnold wrote:
> Mr. Everson,
> 
> I would welcome publishing Alice in Wonderland in Lojban. As you point
> out, that already exists. If you want to publish it the way you
> describe, that's fine-- so long as you don't call it Lojban, because
> it isn't.
> 
> If you capitalize proper names and the start of sentences, it's not
> Lojban. Maybe it's better! But it's not what Lojban is. Lojban is
> handed down ex-cathedra with no regard for usage. As a graphic
> designer with twelve years experience in the publishing industry, I
> have always found the traditional Latin capitalization structure to be
> more readable. But that is the first time anyone here has ever heard
> me say that. It is also probably the last. Because I don't care. All
> it would mean is that your non-Lojban would be more legible than
> Lojban. If so, that is a far larger issue than the small question of
> you publishing a book. And that larger issue is permanently settled,
> beyond even my reach. Do not confuse the two issues.
> 
> Thanks for your inquiry, and thanks for taking our response so well.
> 
> Sincerely,
> Matt Arnold
> President, Board of Directors, Logical Language Group
> 
> 
> On Sun, Mar 28, 2010 at 9:57 AM, Evertype <michael.everson@gmail.com> wrote:
> > Robin said:
> >
> > He "offered" to publish it for us.
> >
> > I suggested that I might publish it, yes.
> >
> > He then insisted on changing the layout and punctuation to match
> > English, and refused to publish it any other way.
> >
> > Layout? The layout is in paragraphs, which match one-to-one with
> > Carroll's paragraphs. In terms of fonts, yes, I would use Liberty and
> > De Vinne and Mona Lisa Recut and the Engraver's fonts.
> >
> > English? No, the suggestion was not to "match English", but to take
> > advantage of some conventions which have been common to all Latin-
> > script languages for centuries.
> >
> > Refused? You've already got a 69-page monofont text (looks like TeX to
> > me) PDF available, and electronic formats which your computers can
> > parse. What value would there be in me putting out a similar edition
> > -- especially in the context of a range of translations of Alice?
> >
> > Currently published are Cornish, English, Esperanto, German, and
> > Irish.
> >
> > In the works are French, Italian, Manx, Scots, Shaw Alphabet, Swedish,
> > Ulster Scots, and Welsh.
> >
> > Possibilities are at least Afrikaans, Danish, Dutch, Lojban, and
> > Scottish Gaelic.
> >
> > That is, he wanted it to look like this:
> >
> > Mi klama la Bast,n. I la Bab cusku "lu mi klama li'u"
> >
> > Not quite. But I'd be very interested to talk with people about the
> > various options one might have for punctuation markup.
> >
> > Caps at start of sentences, quote marks, a few other things I can't
> > remember.
> >
> > Caps for proper names (la Alis), and anomalous stress marked by acute
> > accents rather than by capitalization (which is thereby freed for
> > other use). Near as I can tell the only word in the text affected by
> > this is "la meri,An" ("la Meri,Án" or "la Meri,án"; the original is
> > "Mary Ann").
> >
> > We (people on IRC at the time), umm, kinda told him where to stick
> > that idea. In pretty clear terms.
> >
> > My memory of the IRC was not so black and white. You, and some others,
> > expressed a lack of interest in an edition with "Victorian"
> > typography, and criticized the notion of doing so. But everyone did
> > not share that view. Pages like http://www.lojban.org/tiki/Lojban+typography
> > and http://www.lojban.org/tiki/Punctuation suggest that there is no
> > blanket ban on punctuation, for instance.
> >
> > I don't think he likes us anymore.
> >
> > I like you fine. I just disagree with your stance on punctuation and
> > typographic conventions.
> >
> > I also like Lewis Carroll, and good typography. I find long paragraphs
> > with no clear visual indication of sentence boundaries to be
> > bewildering. I am sure that computers and savants find it quite simple
> > to parse. I as a multilingual trained linguist expert in writing
> > systems, I still find it much easier to navigate the language when
> > standard Latin-script conventions are used.
> >
> > My English and Cornish editions are used in Cornwall by learners who
> > find it helpful to compare the two texts. Thing which helps learners
> > to navigate a paragraph are sentence boundaries, capitalized proper
> > names, question marks, and so on.
> >
> > Indeed, in http://www.lojban.org/publications/reference_grammar/chapter3.html,
> > we find the following.
> >
> > "Technically, the period is an optional reminder to the reader of a
> > mandatory pause that is dictated by the rules of the language; because
> > these rules are unambiguous, a missing period can be inferred from
> > otherwise correct text. Periods are included only as an aid to the
> > reader."
> >
> > In for a penny, in for a pound. Full stops are not necessary; they are
> > redundant. So too are quotation marks, and since anomalous stress can
> > be more congenially marked with the acute accent (as in Spanish) than
> > by SHOUTING, there's no reason an edition of a text could not choose
> > to do that, and thereby permit capital letters to be used,
> > redundantly, to mark the beginnings of sentences, proper names, and
> > whatnot.
> >
> > You, Robin, and maybe even many Lojbanists, might believe that such
> > redundancy is irrelevant, un-useful, wrong-headed, ugly, stupid, or
> > just plain "wrong". I rather doubt that all 464 members of this
> > discussion forum will hold such extreme views, though. Redundancy is
> > harmless -- indeed, we don't speak with punctuation marks in English
> > or Irish or any other languages. Lojban's "audio-visual isomorphism"
> > is extremely cool. But centuries of Latin typographic practice have
> > evolved because those practices are *useful* to readers (as useful as
> > the full stop) and I can see no reason not to pursue my project just
> > because you and a few others on IRC, "umm, kinda told me where to
> > stick" the idea.
> >
> > I would appreciate it if anyone who *is* interested in this would say
> > so, as I'd like to discuss the options regarding redundant markup of
> > quoted material.
> >
> > Best regards,
> > Michael Everson * http://www.evertype.com/
> >
> > --
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> >
> 
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-- 
They say:  "The first AIs will be built by the military as weapons."
And I'm  thinking:  "Does it even occur to you to try for something
other  than  the default  outcome?"  See http://shrunklink.com/cdiz
http://www.digitalkingdom.org/~rlpowell/ *** http://www.lojban.org/

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