Subject: Re: [lojban] Re: New Members, Board of Directors, other LogFest results

From: Bob LeChevalier <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 24 Jul 2002 19:55:52 -0400

At 07:54 PM 7/24/02 +0200, you wrote:
> > IMO, it ought to be of the utmost importance for the LLG to try and end
> > this English-centrism, and at least get the word lists translated into the
> > 5 other major world languages. (If not declare it a "priority" that the
> > reference grammar and such be translated, as well.)
> >
>Although you probably all agree about this translation buisiness, I thought
>I'd just mention the following, in case you didn't realise how important
>this was (it's rather disorganised, as most my prose usually is, but the
>idea is that the problems I mention may start disappearing when stuff gets
>translated):
>
>For us to be able to actually do anything with Lojban as far as Sapir-whorf
>is concerned (as a matter of curious interest at any rate), we need people
>who are not *at all* anglophones to learn it. We also need people who are
>not "SAE"-ophones.
>
>At the moment, Lojban is (essentially) American - at any rate, this is, more
>importantly, the way it appears to be.

Actually around 30-40% of LLG is non-American, and growing. It might even 
be higher, because several non-Anglophones have recruited people whose 
names we never hear. Colin Fine for example has sold around a dozen copies 
of CLL in the UK. There have been study groups in Sweden, Italy, and 
Israel where I only know one name. There is a Russian Lojban group on 
yahoogroups (lojban-rus), and discussions are entirely in Russian and 
Lojban - there may be a not-at-all-Anglophone among them, though I suspect 
that most non-Anglophones on the Net have at least some reading knowledge 
of English.

There are several non-Anglo-primary-phones, and a couple 
non-SAE-primary-phones (indeed I just got a call today from a Tagalog 
native living in San Francisco who is interested). The largest numbers are 
from Finland, but only Veijo Vilva has written in the language at length 
and his English is flawless.

>Many Amercains fail/don't believe/don't want to know about the intense
>dislike of the US (for various political, social and economic reasons) and
>of anglo-centrism (for social, scientific and linguistic reasons) which
>occurs in the rest of the world - particularly in non-British Europe.

Actually we do know. Many don't want to know, but there is a large 
isolationist segment of the population that simply doesn't CARE what others 
think of us. But I won't say more, lest this turn political.

> The
>type of person who goes into Lojban is also frequently the type who has
>radical and outspoken views on things; and is likely to be put off by the
>fact that Lojban has been about for (again,what appears to be) 50 years, and
>nobody has made it available to people who have no wish to learn English.

TLI Loglan was started around 50 years ago, but Lojban only 15 years. More 
importantly, we did not even have a book in English until 5 years ago. You 
have to walk before you can run, and until we had something to translate, 
it was hard to think about translating it. (JCB never discussed foreign 
translation of TLI materials, and I'm not sure he would have considered it 
worth contemplating without research funding to pay for it. but since TLI 
has a policy against freezing/baselining the language, any translation is 
of an ad hoc nature.)

>As an example of this attitude, one of the first messages I got from Nicolas
>Buisson, after I had explained that there was no Lojban material available
>to people who spoke no English, explained his view that Lojbanists seemed to
>be satisfied with the audience they had so far and that Lojban would
>probably stay an American affair.

Please tell him that we aren't satisfied. Unfortunately, few Americans are 
competent enough in a foreign language to be able to assist a 
translation. My best second language is Russian, and I've found myself 
unable to read the language well enough to comment effectively on the 
Russian translations that are ongoing. Those Russian efforts are the best 
evidence we have, BTW, that Lojban is no longer entirely American/Anglo.

Furthermore, the most skilled speakers of Lojban are an Australian Greek 
(Nick), an Argentinian (Jorge), a Croatian (Goran Topic) and possibly xod 
(whose is American, but I'm not sure if he ranks himself at the level of 
the others yet). Our web site was originally developed/hosted in Finland

>So anyways (sez I, in truly American declamatory style), translation of
>stuff into other languages, paticularly na'e ropno) of Lojban material
>should be made a priority. I've looked at the vocabulary, nearly all chinese
>words contributed to the gismu, surely they should find Lojban reasonably
>easy - or even familiar?

We have had two Chinese as members of the list over time. Lin Zhe Min from 
Taiwan pops in and out (he has had flaky net access) and has translated the 
brochure into Chinese, but I don't know its status. Another Chinese person 
often trumpets the virtues of Lojban over Esperanto when the latter comes 
up on sci.lang, but he himself has never participated in the mailing list.

5-10 years from now I expect that there will be a lot of non-English Lojban 
activity, and that will be great.

lojbab

-- 
lojbab [email-masked]
Bob LeChevalier, President, The Logical Language Group, Inc.
2904 Beau Lane, Fairfax VA 22031-1303 USA 703-385-0273
Artificial language Loglan/Lojban: http://www.lojban.org