On Mon, Apr 4, 2011 at 3:08 AM, Joel T.
<joelofarabia@gmail.com> wrote:
Hi all Lojbanists...
First of all... Wow! Well done to everybody who's worked so hard with
this language over the years. I applaud the scientific objectives of
the Lojban project and the tirelessness of its community.
I discovered Lojban while doing researching for a hobby I pursue off
and on: a universal semantic writing system/syllabary. Imagine a
Blissymbols-Sona hybrid and you've got the general idea. After making
some headway on grammar it turns out that I'd stumbled on a Lojban-
style predicate logic approach, though I hadn't thought of it in those
terms.
Perhaps I should introduce myself properly: I have no formal training
as a linguist per se, but I am an English-Turkish bilingual with
training and several years' experience as an translator and
interpreter. I often find when reading up on linguistic theory that I
am just learning the proper terminology for things I have already
worked out "in the field." Although, don't get me wrong, I'm sure I
still have much to learn.
I just wanted to share my (probably flawed) impressions about Lojban
after taking my first few lessons on Lojban for Beginners by Robin
Turner and Nick Nicholas (http://www.tlg.uci.edu/~opoudjis/
lojbanbrochure/lessons/book1.html). Maybe I'm looking at the glass
half empty, and you can help me find a different perspective.
As I said, I earn my keep by working with English, which relies on
word order, and Turkish, which uses case endings. Switch two words in
an English sentence and the meaning can be the opposite of what it was
before. Completely randomize the words in a Turkish sentence and it
usually means the same thing. I had always thought the two systems
were mutually incompatible.
With Lojban, it feels like I'm being taught both systems at once:
Place structure (like English) and place tags (like Turkish). But
that's not the worst part. I have to be ready for a sentence
containing any possible combination of the two!
I know you will say that Lojban dictates word order, so the place tags
system is not akin to Turkish. But if I'm using place tags,
semantically speaking there's nothing stopping me from doing what I
want with word order. This is what happens in Turkish. Technically the
verb is supposed to come at the end of the sentence, and this is the
convention in written communication and publishing. But day-to-day,
people use "devrik cümleler" (flipped sentences) all the time.
Although the Turkish Language Institute might frown on such usages as
being "wrong", they're an indispensible part of the language.
Sometimes the flavour of a "devrik cümle" is completely different to
the "correct" word order.
If you're serious about letting usage dictate the direction the
language takes, you have to take this possibility into account. IMO.
It starts when people get into "bad habits", like using place tags to
amend sentences after they've been said. Then these usages start to
assume new roles, like adding emphasis. Before you know it the
language has whole new features you never planned for. I would venture
that this would almost certainly happen in any rigorous Sapir-Whorf
test.
In any case, surely running two systems side-by-side is asking for
dialectisation (is that a word?), where speakers in one area get used
to one system while speakers in another prefer the other?
Another grumble is that, if you'll grant me that place tags basically
amount to a case system, you've got a language where the case system
is irregular for practically every single verb (gismu?) with 3 or more
places. I understand the concerns about semantic inaccuracy. So invent
more cases. How many do you want, 5, 15, 50? I'd learn them all. I'd
rather learn 50 regular place tags than 5 irregular ones multiplied by
however many hundred verbs you have. Maybe I'm missing something here,
but it feels like the Lojban case tag system complicates things for no
good reason the same way that using abstract symbols instead of an
alphabet complicates things for no good reason.
Please don't misunderstand all this as a rant against Lojban itself. I
think all students of all languages have a rant from time to time
against bits they see as being unnecessarily difficult. I really
admire the elegance of Lojban, and nothing would make me happier than
to be proven wrong on all these points. Please see my comments as
nothing more than the first impressions of a beginner.
Thank you and all the best!
Joel