On 29 Mar 2010, at 20:23, Christopher Doty wrote:
> On Mon, Mar 29, 2010 at 11:46, Luke Bergen <
lukeabergen@gmail.com> wrote:
> It seems a little type-o-centric to say "it uses latin characters, therefore, for some reasons or other, it should use the same typographic standards".
>
> But this isn't quite true. Lojban, with a couple of exceptions, uses Latin characters just like other languages that use Latin characters. "G" does not, for example, represent the sound [a].
> What Michael seems to be proposing is exactly the same thing--Lojban conventions for punctuation and capitalization should follow what is done for other languages which use the Latin script, in order to make it more accessible to people.
No, Michael is saying that he's going to set *this* Victorian book in the same style and to the same typographic standard as all his other editions of *this* Victorian book.
I have no idea what if any impact this will have on the users of Lojban. As such my project is, in addition to be part of a Carrollian collection, part of a dialogue with the LoCCan project.
> I am honestly kind of surprised to find this much debate in response to the idea that something be changed.
I have not proposed that the standard orthography, or standardly sanctioned options, be reviewed or revised. I don't necessarily oppose such a discussion, but I have not made a request for such a discussion to take place.
> Is there actually any reason to NOT make Lojban more accessible to people, except that people who are already proficient in the language don't like it?
Now, there's a good point.
> I don't mean that sarcastically; I missed the start of the conversation--what is gained by asserting that there should be no change?
Stability, and impenetrability.
I agree with the stability bit, but I don't agree that Lojban as written in the standard convention is impenetrable.
A bit difficult at first, and more so with Jorge's consistent lack of denpabu, but not impenetrable. (I would like to state that in my own experience, the difficulties I had when first reading Lojban have since been reversed- that is, what once difficult to read due to lack of that which I am used to seeing in English text is now difficult if those elements *are* there- with the exception of white space, and not counting my difficulty in reading {lonu lojbo bacru cu na ponse lo denpabu} ("Lojban without the {.}").)