Re: [lojban] Questions about Lojban

2015-01-25 22:17 GMT+03:00 <afkecatha@gmail.com>:

Hello Everyone!

Following below is an email I recently sent to an email adress I found on lojban.org.

What was the first email you sent this letter to? It's important since if the website still lists incorrect or not appropriate e-mail addresses then they should be corrected by us.

I was redirected to this forum, and I was told I would be able to get better answers here. If any of you are willing to answer some of the questions asked, It would help me out a lot! Thanks in advance!! The email:

L.S.

My name is Afke and in my philosophy class we have recently discussed the Sapir-Whorf theory, and currently my classmates and I are working on a project concerning whether this theory is, according to us, correct or not. We are doing this through the means of setting up a hypothesis and testing this hypothesis on the basis of applying it to a specific case. Our group has chosen the Lojban language as our case, and we were very excited to have come across your website and discovering that the Lojban community is still very active. Therefore we thought it might be possible to contact you and ask you some questions concerning our project, which, if it is of no inconvience, we would very much like for you to answer.

Assuming that you are familiar with the idea of the Sapir-Whorf theory, which claims that people speaking a different language will percieve reality in a different way, our main question is whether you would agree with this theory or not.

I would agree but it has nothing to do with Lojban in particular. I think it was proved by the case of Guugu Yimitthir cardinal directions which you of course are familiar with.

In my opinion if this case isnt convincing for a person as a proof of the true views of Sapir and Whorf ... if it isnt convincing then this person can't be convinced at all.

So it's a psychological question, not a scientific one.

Of course, I can't agree with historically later distortions of SWH made by their followers like e.g. "Language puts insurmountable limits on how a person thinks".

Does being able to speak in a different, logical language also mean that you are able to think in a different, logical manner?

Speaking in any new language will make your mind expand.

Lojban can help you understand how all languages work.

Lojban can be an instrument of cognition.

All languages put limits on how we think. But every new language learnt expands those limits.

You will pay attention to such differences as

{la'e lu lo cmalu noltru li'u barda} = "The little prince" is big.

{lu lo cmalu noltru li'u cmalu} = "The little prince" (a quote, a text, a sentence) is small.

You will pay attention that all constructs belong to different classes which in English can be called "adverbs", "main verbs (predicates)", arguments of verbs (nouns, names and pronouns), "interjections" etc. Languages differ in this regard but Lojban will help you see similar constructs in other languages and boost your ability to learn logical parts of them.

Also Lojban will pay your attention to polysemy of words and ambiguity of certain constructs.

E.g.

"I saw a plane flying over Zurich" might mean:

1. I saw a plane [while I was] flying over Zurich.

2. I saw a plane [while it was] flying over Zurich.

3. The sentence is intentionally made ambiguous between 1. and 2. by its author.

Now without enough context while reading this sentence we have the fourth meta-case:

4. While reading this sentence we can't decide whether the author meant 1., 2. or 3.

And although Lojban allows for cases 1,2,3 it disallows the meta-case 4.

This is the field where Lojban can be developed into a tool for machine translation.

And seeing that Lojban (most probably) is not your first language, do you believe that people are able to learn to change the way they percieve reality, just like they are able to learn a new language?

For sure. English isn't my native language. I speak English to certain people and speak my native language (Russian) to other people.

Thus there are two people inside me speaking different languages.

So for example, does someone who can speak a Native American language as well as regular English have the possibility to view reality in two different ways?

When you are pouring water from a kettle you say "I'm pouring water from the kettle". It lasts for several seconds until the kettle becomes empty.

When water flows for thousands of years we no longer use a verb.

We no longer perceive it as a process.

We call it "river", an object.

No wonder Amerindian languages might not always put this distinction between objects and processes.

You may also read about gleki's fishy apples.

http://mw.lojban.org/lmw/Tl%C3%B6n,_Uqbar_and_la_gleki's_fishy_apples

Is this the reason you are so interested in Lojban, because it enables you to think and percieve the world more logically? And if not, where did your interest for the Lojban language come from?

Scientists, mathematicians, philosophers, businessmen, artists they all use language and can't jump over it. Learning or inventing new words, metaphors or languages just allows them to jump higher. All reasoning is done through language.

Lojban is a special language since it tries to deal with the syntax, i.e. foundation all languages are based on.

Lojban isn't perfect semantically although the live community shows aiming at it too (no language will ever reach it). However, syntax is already perfect, only in a sense of being completely described.

It doesn't mean Lojban is a completely described language.

We are still working on formalizing other areas e.g. specifying lambda-functions in valencies of verbs...

If it is possible for you to answer these questions, we would like to hear from you soon!

Thanking you in advance!

Sincerely,

Afke van Aller

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