We are not treating Lojban as an oddball; we're treating it as a
>> On Tue, Mar 30, 2010 at 09:24:52AM +0100, Michael Everson wrote:
>>
>>> What I can't do is anticipate the reaction of the community at
>>> large to an edition of a book which treats Lojban like a real
>>> language rather than an oddball.
>>
language with is own set of rules, like any other language, that's going
to be butchered. There are some freedom and openness, because it's a
growing language.
The freedom we have is the optional letters (don't forget "." and ","
are letters), putting "h" instead of "'", etc. It's established what we
can do without going outside the boundaries.
The openness is for discussing what should be part of the language,
what's wrong, what should be changed from what's already official, etc.
Of course, that last one is what need more time.
If you go beyond the boundaries, that's when we say it won't be lojban
what you're going to publish.
Starting a bridi and proper names with Caps isn't optional.
>> It is of course very good that you are trying to treat Lojban as a
>> real language. But if treating it as a real language is your goal,
>> why not respect the conventions of casing and punctuation that has
>> been adhered to in all serious writing for the past couple of
>> decades?
>
> Your conventions *already* allow for variation. Exclamation marks and
> question marks are optional. The dot is optional. The option of
> choosing between capitalization or the acute accent for stress is
> already there.
What's different about this, it's that you're going to use the "normal"
>>> We have all sorts of orthographies for Lojban by now, from
>>> Cyrillic to Tengwar, and nobody says that they are "not Lojban".
>>> I think I understand why some people don't like a
>>> traditional-Latin orthography: it's an instance of "the uncanny
>>> valley", just enough like what you're used to to be upsetting.
>>> But the very fact that the two orthographies are isomorphic shows
>>> that the essential Lojbanity of the text is preserved.
>
and official alphabet (that's a set of Latin alphabet; it's not that
lojban uses Latin typography), and use it the way you want (different
from the official and common one). If I use Tengwar or srilermorna, I
won't confuse any newbie, because it's clear it's not the common
typography.
If you would have used that very same conventions we are discussing, in
another alphabet, no one would have had any problems (well, yes, to read
it, but no one would've been upset).
That's why I think it's really *really* important that you clarify the
book isn't written with the normal conventions (like "experimental").
You didn't answer the question, as you didn't answered:
>> I don't understand what you are trying to accomplish by discussing
>> this, since you have evidently decided to ignore what we say
>> anyway.
>
>
> Some people have said "Don't do it! Change nothing!" Some people have
> said "Do it, but I'm sure I won't like it." Some people have said
> "Please do it; this sounds interesting."
>
> I seem to have been listening to all three kinds of comments.
>> For example, I could write a book in English, but I change all
>> >> characters 'a' with 'u', and all 'u' with '#' (saying it's because
>> >> it's more beautiful or readable).
> >
> > This is not analogous to what I am interested in doing.
> >
>> >> It would be a pain in the ass for all the English speakers, and,
>> >> assuming it's actually better, is not going to really help anyone,
>> >> since new speakers will be confused.
> >
> > The analogue would be to publish a book in English with all its
> > punctuation removed and with all capital letters converted to small
> > letters.
> >
> Nice analogy. As a English speaker, would you like a book like that
> (given the publisher claims it's more beautiful or sylish...)?
It's great that you are confident with this. If there would have been a
> I've decided that I don't want to publish the book, in my series of
> Alice books, without capitalization or punctuation. I've decided that
> I want to apply funky old-fashioned Victorian typographic standards.
> I think that it will make the text more legible to anyone who has
> never seen the language before. My market is Carrollian collectors as
> much as it is people who can read the text. I am confident that
> comparison of the English text and the Lojban text will be much
> easier for the reader if "normal" typographic conventions are used.
>
discussion of this internally, before it went to the open public, it
would have been really better. But, again, we can't stop you from doing
that, so we'll see if it's better this way.
mu'o mi'e .leos.
--
My lojban journal: http://learninglojban.wordpress.com
My personal blog: http://leomolas.tumblr.com