Re: [lojban] Re: la .alis.

[Michael Everson <michael.everson@gmail.com>]

Mr Arnold,

On 28 Mar 2010, at 18:45, Matt Arnold wrote:

> 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.

I don't believe I agree with this. It would be Lojban in *non-standard orthography*, to be sure. But a language is not its writing system. 

Is Lojban written in Tengwar still Lojban? 

Is Lojban written in Cyrillic still Lojban? 

Is English written in IPA still English? 

Is Yiddish written in Latin still Yiddish?

> If you capitalize proper names and the start of sentences, it's not Lojban.

It's not standard Lojban orthography. The language tag for it would be "jbo" however. And if such a text were read out into podcast, it would be impossible to tell whether it were written in (1) standard Lojban orthography, (2) ad-hoc Victorian orthography, or (3) not written down at all but recited from memory. It would be the *same* language.

I am sure that my foreword would begin "This book does not use standard Lojban orthography."

> Maybe it's better! But it's not what Lojban is. Lojban is handed down ex-cathedra with no regard for usage.

Is it? 

> 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.

It has been successfully used for hundreds of languages for centuries, that much is certain.

> 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.

All it would mean is that my non-standard orthography might be more legible than standard orthography. 

> 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.

As I said, I am not interested in reforming standard orthography. That is outside my remit. I am interested in the conceit of a "Victorian orthography" for this particular book, in part because I think that just pouring the text into my Alice template and setting some fonts for it will look, well, pretty bad. I use **drop caps** at the beginning of every chapter for one thing. 

> Thanks for your inquiry, and thanks for taking our response so well.

And thanks for not burning me at the stake. :-)

> Sincerely,
> Matt Arnold
> President, Board of Directors, Logical Language Group

Best,
Michael

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