Subject: [lojban] Re: a new kind of fundamentalism

From: "Lionel Vidal" <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 3 Oct 2002 12:17:36 +0200

Jordan:
> > Chapter one:
> > ...
> > You can learn the language described here with assurance that
> > (unlike previous versions of Lojban and Loglan, as well as most
> > other artificial languages) it will not be subject to further
> > fiddling by language-meisters.
> > ...
> >
> > If even the book's author disclaims that goal, as you claim he
> > would, then this language is seriously fucked.

I always wondered why it should be so. Why any language evolution should
spoil it? I mean, most of the proposed changes (and these are very few
anyway, as most of the time discussions deal more with interpretations)
are minor in the sense they do not change the fondamental structure or
flavor of lojban. New cmavos, new usage of old ones, even new gismus
are just the sign that lojban is living like any other natlang. The chapter
one disclaimer could have as well made a list of minor things that
could changed: would that have hindered your lojban interest?

The first time I've been in Australia, even after tuning my ears to the
local english phonetic understanding :-), I still needed to ask my
australian friends what they meant, because of specific local english
usage. You may say that was because I am french, but my american
fellows, although most of them were too proud to admit it, were often
as lost as me! And I am sure that even if you include all the up-to-now
proposed changes into lojban, that 'new' lojban will be much nearer
to 'old' lojban than australian english is to BBC english, or texan english
(another difficult one for us poor frenchies) :-)
This kind of situation, very usual for non english natives, has never
prevented anyone to learn english (ok, english is maybe a bad example
as there are stronger reasons to learn it anyway, but I could have said
the same for any other natlang, and also for esperanto).

Note also that in natlangs, linguistic norms, being grammatical or lexical,
have never prevented users to make their language evolve. Indeed it is a
fundamental trend of human mind to polish and improve its tools
for a better usage, and most people see languages as tools.

That being said, I do find reference manuals useful, as they are invaluable
as learning tools.

> However, I don't
> think that that goal would be disclaimed by all but a small (and
> unfortunately loud) minority of "lojbanists". Though there are
> certainly a few who would say they are in favor of that goal, but
> act the opposite.
> So thankfully the massive amount of fiddling which you are hilariously
> referring to as "jboske" is more or less inconsequential. 

You seem to regret the existence of different kind of "lojbanists". But
every one is free to have his own objectives when considering lojban.
I guess you will not call me a "lojbanist", but that only shows that
the semantic of "lojbanist" may have to evolve :-), or that new
words may have to be coined.

-- Lionel