From xod@xxxx.xxxx Tue Oct 26 20:21:18 1999 X-Digest-Num: 267 Message-ID: <44114.267.1449.959273825@eGroups.com> Date: Tue, 26 Oct 1999 23:21:18 -0400 From: xod From: "Michal Wallace (sabren)" > > >.ui coi rodo > > I'm fairly new to lojban, curious, and confused. Over the >past few days I've been reading the lojban website and the >archives for this list, trying to decide whether or not to >learn lojban. I decided I want to... and so, I have a whole >bunch of questions! Some of these are kind of critical, so >forgive me if I step on some toes. :) Criticism is good! I look forward to hearing more from you in the future! > First of all, the written materials. As far as I can tell, >www.lojban.org hasn't been updated in about a year. Should I trust >it? I mean, the textbook is on hold until the dictionary comes >out.. But the dictionary is expected in late 1997! Was the dictionary >ever finished? If not, who's working on it? Yeah, ahem, this is why I have been agitating to make www.lojban.org reflect what is NEW in Lojban! (Where is Veijo's new and improved version??) At present, lojban.org is the best reference site, but the best Lojban portal is at http://euclid.pdmi.ras.ru/~sklyanin/lojban.html but it's in Russia and goes down from time to time! (Like, at the time of this mailing.) (Islamic bombs?) We also have a lojban webring that I have been pressuring people to join! (Robin and John: add those HTML fragments to your pages!) I host its main page at http://www.decadezero.org/lojban_webring.html but my sites are suffering growing pains this week. More about the dictionary below. > My understanding is that while there are many root words (gismu) in >lojban, they don't account for every noun/verb/whatever you could say >in a natural language. So most things are described metaphorically >(tanru) by combining gismu. If the tanru catches on, it gets cooked >down into a compound word (lujvo). There is some kind of magical trick >to this process that ensures that no two lojban words are ever the >same. (a sad attempt: xu valsi drata valsi [for: "is it true that any >given word is [means something] different from any other word?] ) > > Other than that lojban sentence, am I right so far? And if so, is >the textbook simply waiting on an expanded list of lujvo so people >don't have to talk in tanru as much? Isn't that a chicken and egg >problem? What mechanisms are in place for collecting new lujvo? In my opinion, most lujvo should be field-specific. So, a given lujvo might have one meaning with respect to automobiles, and another with respect to spaceflight. This is my own idea of the best solution to your above dilemma. You see, a lujvo selects one of the many, many interpretations of a tanru. Hence, I feel a general dictionary is a bad idea. Instead, specific glossaries should be created (grown and evolved, rather than written at one sitting). A document would refer to a glossary sort of the way source code might import macros, or an XML file refers to a DTD. I have initiated the formation of a computer-related glossary, but it's got a ways to go. Robin, Twery, Nicholas - your input here would be greatly appreciated. And yours too, Michal! Once my own site gets stable (ISDN --> DSL woes) I will host it myself. > It seems to me that this list itself is the most up to date >resource. One problem I've had is that it's hard to search. Onelist >will only let me search digests, egroups just has a terrible search >engine... I haven't reached the point of wanting to do this yet, but I >would suspect that words with periods and apostrophes won't be indexed >correctly, so searching the lojban texts in these two archives would be >especially difficult. Is there any other searchable archive? Not of this egroups list, I am afraid. > I'm considering creating a 'bot to get the entire archive from >egroups, saving it to my site, setting up my own little search engine, >and putting it all on my website... Sounds good! Check out glimpse on lojban.org, which searches gismu. It seems to work quite well. http://xiron.pc.helsinki.fi/lojban/gismu-search-form.html > What work has been done in mechanically translating lojban into >english? I found one article on the .org site, and of course the >glossary generator. But does anyone actually have code to suck up >lojban and spit out English? I've seen parsers, but they all seem to barf incomprehensible diagrams instead of sentences, even crappy sentences like babelfish. > LogFlash: Um.. I downloaded this. I ran it. It made me cry. :) >Looking through the archives, I managed to find references to it being >written in Pascal back in the 80's. Also, that Eric Raymond tried >porting it to C/C++. I couldn't find source for either. Basically, I >think this software was probably great back in the 80's, but it >obviously came out long before the dawn of the modern user interface. >Simply porting it to C really doesn't make much sense to me - but >making a web based version in flash, or a high level scripting >language does. I'm a web programmer by trade, and also have quite a >bit of experience with tutoring and accelerated learning methods.. I'd >be more than happy to lead a project to revamp the software. Would >anybody else be interested in this? Where could I get the legacy code? I considered doing a Java servlet version of Logflash. I haven't seen the DOS version - the Mac version isn't all that bad. If you spearhead a project, I will certainly consider joining. > Also on the topic of software, I saw references to a GUI lojban word >processor. This reminds me very much of some work being done with the >python scripting language.. There's an editor written in python for >writing python, and it does stuff like syntax highlighting and what >have you... Python in general is a really quick language to pick up, >and can be compiled to run on a Java virtual machine, and could be >easily tied in with the Java speech libraries. It might be a good >place to start.. I'm a big supporter of the emacs idea, too. Has >anyone done anything with these? There was a spate of discussion a while back, but I don't know what really exists. Others will know better than I. > On the LLG : I understand it's not well funded (yet), but is it >a full time operation, or mostly run by volunteers? What does it >actually _do_ on a day to day basis? > > I get the feeling that one thing it _doesn't_ do is advocacy. I >realize Lojban isn't really out to take over the world, but surely, >the more people that speak it, the more valuable it will be. Is anyone >doing anything about spreading the word? (Outside of conlang and >auxlang circles, I mean).. "Advocacy" might involve informing teachers >of alternative schools, organizing classes, keeping the website(s) up >to date, and coming up with more user-friendly learning materials, >books, CD roms, a phrasebook, etc, published under some kind of open >license so that the materials could be freely modified, copied, and >sold. [From my understanding, the LLG lost quite a bit of money on the >reference grammar. Perhaps that was avoidable.] You know, a CD rom sounds like a dandy idea. Although, if we had a decent Lojban --> English parser, which output on the level of babelfish, I think that would be even dandier. However, I personally know almost nothing about all that parsing stuff. I figure a nearly direct translation from the parser, with all the weird crap removed, and with maybe 20 - 50 rules for making the logician's English sound more like Standard English might be enough. This is what I REALLY want to see done! > Finally: is the flag/logo really working? I hunted it down to put on >the lojban website that I'm making... And decided against it. No >offense to whoever created it, but it's not a very powerful logo. The >lines and circles look kind of weak. Sickly, even. I haven't seen >anyone actually using it, so I kind of wonder if it ought to be >replaced. Is there a specific meaning to the arrows and interlocked >circles? > > I guess that's about it. Like I said, sorry if I stepped on any >toes. The newbie throws himself on the mercy of the list. :) > >co'o mi'e maikl Thank you for your observations! .i mi djica le nu zmadu casnu ----- Perpetual Progress, Self-Transformation, Practical Optimism, Intelligent Technology, Open Society, Self-Direction, and Rational Thinking. http://extropy.com/