From lojban-out@lojban.org Tue Oct 08 13:49:59 2002 Return-Path: X-Sender: lojban-out@lojban.org X-Apparently-To: lojban@yahoogroups.com Received: (EGP: mail-8_2_2_0); 8 Oct 2002 20:49:56 -0000 Received: (qmail 21146 invoked from network); 8 Oct 2002 20:48:24 -0000 Received: from unknown (66.218.66.217) by m10.grp.scd.yahoo.com with QMQP; 8 Oct 2002 20:48:24 -0000 Received: from unknown (HELO digitalkingdom.org) (204.152.186.175) by mta2.grp.scd.yahoo.com with SMTP; 8 Oct 2002 20:48:24 -0000 Received: from lojban-out by digitalkingdom.org with local (Exim 4.05) id 17z1Kz-00050J-00 for lojban@yahoogroups.com; Tue, 08 Oct 2002 13:52:17 -0700 Received: from digitalkingdom.org ([204.152.186.175] helo=chain) by digitalkingdom.org with esmtp (Exim 4.05) id 17z1KN-0004xX-00; Tue, 08 Oct 2002 13:51:39 -0700 Received: with ECARTIS (v1.0.0; list lojban-list); Tue, 08 Oct 2002 13:51:39 -0700 (PDT) Received: from manyas.bcc.bilkent.edu.tr ([139.179.30.24]) by digitalkingdom.org with esmtp (Exim 4.05) id 17z1KJ-0004x5-00 for lojban-list@lojban.org; Tue, 08 Oct 2002 13:51:35 -0700 Received: from localhost (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by manyas.bcc.bilkent.edu.tr (Postfix) with ESMTP id 5632012B9D for ; Tue, 8 Oct 2002 23:47:40 +0300 (EEST) Received: from bilkent.edu.tr (ppp134.bcc.bilkent.edu.tr [139.179.111.134]) by manyas.bcc.bilkent.edu.tr (Postfix) with ESMTP id D504F12AAC for ; Tue, 8 Oct 2002 23:47:36 +0300 (EEST) Message-ID: <3DA345AE.5060103@bilkent.edu.tr> Date: Tue, 08 Oct 2002 23:53:02 +0300 User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-US; rv:0.9.8) Gecko/20020204 X-Accept-Language: en-us MIME-Version: 1.0 To: lojban-list@lojban.org Subject: [lojban] Re: Why linguists might be interested in Lojban (was: RE: Re: a new kind of fundamentalism References: Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; format=flowed X-Virus-Scanned: by AMaViS snapshot-20020300 X-archive-position: 1990 X-ecartis-version: Ecartis v1.0.0 Sender: lojban-list-bounce@lojban.org Errors-to: lojban-list-bounce@lojban.org X-original-sender: robin@bilkent.edu.tr Precedence: bulk X-list: lojban-list X-eGroups-From: Robin Turner From: Robin Turner Reply-To: robin@bilkent.edu.tr X-Yahoo-Group-Post: member; u=116389790 X-Yahoo-Profile: lojban_out And Rosta wrote: > Lojbab: > >>At 04:46 PM 10/6/02 +0100, And wrote: >> >>>Lojbab: >>> >>>>At 05:32 PM 10/5/02 +0100, And Rosta wrote: >>>> >>>>>Lojbab: >>>>> >>>>>>Finally and most importantly for one key Lojbanic purpose, >>>>>> >>>>>Remind us what purpose it is, and why it is important? >>>>> >>>>Use of Lojban for linguistic research (which requires that Lojban have >>>>enough properties of a natural language that any research findings are >>>>deemed "interesting" to linguists) >>>> >>>But why is it important, >>> >>We're getting circular. Because it is a key Lojbanic purpose, the main >>reason why the Loglan Project was started. >> > > Not quite circular: > > You: Lojban needs to go the Naturalist route in order to be interesting > to linguists. > Me: (A) Why does it need to be interesting to linguists? (B) It is more > likely to interest linguists if it goes the Engineerist route. > > If I remember rightly, the key purpose in question was to have a > language that was 'whorfianly neutral', so that usage could then be > examined to see if there were any whorfian interferences from the L1. > (Correct me if I'm wrong -- you're clearer on this than me.) But > the Naturalist route wants to complete the creation process through > usage, in which case there is inevitably going to be massive L1 > interference, but not of an interesting sort, because it won't > be counterposed to any defined whorfianly neutral grammar. .iesai From a linguistic point of view, it is exactly this potential tension between grammar and usage which would be interesting. to illustrate the point in a rather absurd way, I once ran a cyberpunk-style role-playing game in which Lojban was a lingua franca for geeks. The two Lojbanisms that really caught on amongst the players were "mabla" (correct usage) and "le do mamta cu gerku" (incorrect, in canonical Lojban). robin.tr -- "We do not imprison ourselves with laws, or impoverish ourselves with money" - Iain Banks Robin Turner IDMYO Bilkent Universitesi Ankara 06533 Turkey www.bilkent.edu.tr/~robin