Re: [lojban] Re: criticism of lojban needed

["'John E Clifford' via lojban" <lojban@googlegroups.com>]

What is the point here?  Listing problems is not a good way to sell a product.  Better to find a positive spin on these (the vaunted derivation of the gismus is the best that can be done with most of the points above -- it's equally bad for everyone and is based on some sort of connection to real languages).  Rather than saying there is no machine translation, point out that it is the only language (well, you know what I mean) that has a real possibility of a machine translation (actually, it would be nice to see a machine program to convert Lojban into actual formulae of logic, the supposed underlying goal, after all.)  Rather than complaining about the number of forms, stress the ease of figuring out new terms.  Rather than complaining about the density (not just for cmavo), stress the simple resolution of strings (and the richness of vocabulary of various non-central sorts -- carefully avoiding the significant duplications at the core).  Avoid aesthetics altogether (the oldest comparison is with Albanian of the Italian variety -- I don't know whether that is Gheg or Tosk, Apache makes the present comparison feel not quite right since Lojban is not all that gutteral or nasal).

(What is a fart letter?)

On Monday, September 1, 2014 8:06 AM, TR NS <transfire@gmail.com> wrote:

On Monday, September 1, 2014 4:07:03 AM UTC-4, la gleki wrote:

the wikipedia article about lojban might need a short list of criticism of lojban with links (e.g. to posts in this mailing list). Balanced criticism actually makes languages more popular, so it's advisable to make such a list.

Here are some thoughts:

1. gismu are hard to learn by everyone (as the algorithm mutilates the initial form of words)

2. za'a/ga'a/zgana/zga is hard to remember (would be better to have one root instead of 4)

3. abundance of kafkylerfu

4. still no machine translation

ke'u, links needed, the list might need more items

LOL. Maybe there are other conlang lists that would be better to ask?

My thoughts:

* Somewhat high phonological density --nearly every possible CV and CV'V cmavo is used.

* gismu has no taxonomic (a priori) design at all

* sounds a bit like an Apache Polish American speaking atonal Chinese

Ok. That last one is subjective, but my point is simply that it is unlikely to rank high in a "best sounding" poll.

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