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Re: [lojban] You're Doing it Wrong
Robin's essay misses one important point: if someone says "Let usage decide" he
means "Let my usage be decisive." Most of the conflicts (not quite all; some
come under problems of logic in one sense or another) arise when two usages
conflict (often under the disguise of the "correct" interpretation of some
remark in CLL or subsequently). The problem with setting up an authority is
then the same as the problem of letting usage decide: how to find the right
people to follow. That requires a set of objective guidelines and objective
judges to see that they are adhered to and so on. That is, we can still push
the starting date back indefinitely trying to do it right. So, someone just
needs to do what BPFK was designed to do, write a description of the language in
its current state (as he sees it) and then we can haggle. When you look at the
problems, they are rarely in the core of the language (the bits that actually
come from logic, say) but mainly in the plethora of cmavo, which seem to pop
into existence (mainly back in the early 90s, to be sure) like mildew. Happily,
like the French shepherd, you can live your whole Lojban life without ever using
the Lojban analog of the pluperfect subjunctive. Tell newbies (and oldbies, for
that matter) to avoid those spots and, when one comes up, make that a teaching
opportunity to expound the particular word/phrase/construction involved, to be
referred back to ever after. As for xorlo, it is at least 90% right (the places
where problems arise can be numbered in the dozens at most, I think, out of
thousands) and, with proper explanation (logic to the rescue again) the
remaining cases should give very little trouble at all, once the basic notion
(which everybody seems to get with 'le') is under control.
----- Original Message ----
From: .alyn.post. <alyn.post@lodockikumazvati.org>
To: lojban@googlegroups.com
Sent: Fri, October 8, 2010 12:31:30 PM
Subject: Re: [lojban] You're Doing it Wrong
On Fri, Oct 08, 2010 at 02:07:09AM -0700, Viral Lamb wrote:
> But this isn't the same language I left years ago.
I'm personally inspired by Robin's essay as well, and hope to
manifest as much of it as I can.
The quickest summary I have of the situation is this:
a) There are too few fluent speakers of Lojban.
b) There are influential people in Lojbanistan that resist change
to the status quo. Either actively or simply by non-engagement.
c) Some of these people *may* become less resistant to changing
the status quo with a greater number of fluent speakers.
Most particularly having enough fluent speakers to conduct
conversations about changing the baseline in Lojban, rather
than discussing it in English.
d) Even if that's not true, demographics are on the side of
changing the baseline. The timeline is only a matter of
our ability to create more fluent speakers.
e) The first and best thing you can do for Lojbanistan is to learn
Lojban. It would be great if you wanted to clean up and add
learning material while you go, but make that secondary to using
the language.
This community is still bootstrapping itself. We have the most
well-specified lanugage ever, and the situation you describe is
exactly where we're at. If you want something better than this
it frankly doesn't exist today, you have to help make it happen.
-Alan
--
.i ko djuno fi le do sevzi
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