Re: [lojban] Balningau: The Great Update

Indeed, maybe some of those people will speak up for themselves. Hi, I'm one of them! I think Lojban is a beautiful language and I have immense respect for its designers. I also agree with many others in the community that there are parts that could be improved, and I want to help in this effort to explore that.

Reading through this thread I was surprised and disappointed by how fast it descended into personal attacks. Originally, I thought it was an argument about whether we should try to make slightly updated gimste. But it doesn't seem to be about that at all. I don't understand talking to an accomplished member of the community using words like "newbie" and "hubris".

Some of the points that have been raised as objections don't make sense to me.

One is that changing the gimste at all makes it harder to learn. Perhaps this is conflating learning (for new speakers) with relearning (for existing speakers). Of course, changing the place structure of a gismu presents a small but surmountable hardship for someone who has already memorized that word. The change may be unwelcome, if they liked the old place structure, or welcome, if they didn't. But for new speakers, a more internally consistent gimste can only be easier to learn. And Lojban needs new speakers if it is to survive and thrive. Now, there is a balance to be struck. Past and current usage is very important, and no word should (or would) be changed without careful consideration.

The "semantic categorization" part is a detail. We could go alphabetically; it would just be more difficult. It's not really relevant to the main point of whether we should do this. And of course the gismu can be categorized -- no categorization will be perfect, obviously, but some already exist, and they aren't simplistic sorting by the x1 places. It's also a learning aid for nintadni, if done well, to be able to study the gismu in an order informed by their meaning, rather than alphabetically.

And you've claimed at alternate points that Lojban is "done" and not done! The BPFK still has work to do, and so by focusing on the gimste we're looking at the "wrong" part -- that's fine. But it's not consistent with Lojban being a finished product. The BPFK has accepted official changes such as xorlo and the CLL itself points to isolated parts of the language (rafsi fu'ivla, na'e with gu'e constructs, etc) that needed work when it was published. Even if it were true that everyone who bought the CLL wanted Lojban to remain change-free forever (which is false) they can't wish for those problem areas, at least, to never be fleshed out.

You'll have to take our word for it that there is an active community on IRC. Actually, you don't have to believe us -- you can look at the logs. There are seven bots by my count, and a bunch of active users (and more inactive, but such is the nature of IRC). Evidence that people are interested in our efforts has already appeared on the mailing list.

Anyway we don't ask for legitimacy from the LLG at this time. Ridicule is fine, but it is a waste of time. We simply want to see what we can do with the gimste, and invite input from anyone and everyone who wants to participate. It is absolutely not my personal goal to be divisive or cause a schism, and I don't think that will result from our efforts, but I can't control what others view as schismatic. It's even possible that in the far future the BPFK would consider some of our changes. Some in the community and the LLG have expressed interest in that possibility, and I hope they will make themselves heard here, but it's not the point or the current goal. Hopefully the current argument has mostly run its course, so that those of us who want to can focus and the rest can resume ignoring us.

On 5/25/2014 10:50 AM, selpa'i wrote:

- Even if people knew that, lojbanists basically may be split into two
camps, the “before gismu rewrite” and the “after gismu rewrite” camp.

Already the case for cmavo and for several gismu. Consider Lojbab who
refuses to use xorlo even though it's official.

I don't "refuse" to use it. I don't understand it, and thus CAN'T use

it, except insofar as my usage just happens to be compatible with xorlo,

which xorxes says is essentially always.

And "xorlo" itself is an English coinage and not a gismu, so far as I know.

- The existing regular lujvo using this gismu may become irregular. A
person may wonder “Huh? Where did that X place come from?”. The lujvo
would still work, but remembering will be harder.

Regular lujvo will change automatically in usage

NOTHING changes automatically.

and where needed the definitions can be updated in the dictionary.

We can't get the existing stuff done.

I am not saying these problems are neccessarily unsolvable. But the
proposal does not seem to address any of these problems.

Well, instead of shooting it down categorically, you could have asked
for clarification. Afterall, this is supposed to be a joint effort.

You may think it is supposed to be, but it isn't. It is a small group

of you and your fellow-travelers going off half-cocked. Most people are

NOT interested in designing part of all of an artificial language. They

choose to use Lojban because it is DONE (even if not fully documented).

And they value our commitment against ad hoc prescriptive change.

You did not experience what happened when JCB did his redesign of his

gismu list. The rather small TLI Loglan community essentially

disappeared for several years.

There is a non-negligible number of people who support the revision and
who are going to take part. Maybe they are going to speak up themselves.

We won't stop them, but LLG cannot support them.

lojbab

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