Subject: Re: [lojban] Re: Usage deciding (was: RE: Re: [Announcement] The Alice Translation Has Moved And Changed

From: "Jorge Llambias" <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 10 Oct 2002 19:03:37 +0000

la djorden cusku di'e

> > {ka'enai} would seem to be the best example of that, not only
> > against CLL but also against the baselined grammar, and yet used
> > by many people in many contexts.
>
>ka'enai is not an example of that. There are not enough speakers
>of lojban for usage to decide *anything*.

Ok. I meant that it is the closest thing we have towards usage
deciding something against the baseline. It cannot be attributed
to any single user, since everybody discovers it naturally by
themselves.

>Changing CAhA to allow
>NAI deliberately is (a few) *people* deciding, not usage deciding.
>So CAhA+NAI remains bad grammar (what's so bad about saying "na'eka'e"
>anyway) for now (I suppose after the baseline CAhA+NAI may be
>adopted).

There is nothing bad about NAhE+KAhE. There is nothing bad about
KAhE+NAI either. When Lojban forbids some potential form, it is
usually because allowing it would cause ambiguity. In this case,
there is no reason for the rule, so the only possible argument
against using it is that the baseline does not contemplate it. A
very lame argument for some.

>So Lojbab needn't worry that your changes to the language will be
>adopted (that is, unless you start writing learning materials ;P)

I have written a few introductory pages in Spanish and posted
them to the ideolengua mailing list (the Spanish version of conlang).
Should I have submitted them to the LLG for censorship first? :)

> > Many objections arise only after I bring
> > the issue up myself in discussions.
>
>This is likely because for most lojbanists (myself included), sitting
>down and reading more than a page or so of text is still quite
>difficult (which is the whole reason that usage is not *yet* able
>to decide anything). But don't worry, I'll do my best to complain
>if I see you deliberately abusing something, though ;)

You're more than welcome. I love feedback on what I write, so I can
tell whether it is understandable or not. The revision and comments
of the little prince translation that you're doing is very useful.

>(barring
>obvious standing complaints on lack of dots, and that weird ---
>stuff for dialogue).

Weird for you but very normal for Spanish and French speakers.
Since I'm translating from French I thought I'd try it out for
Lojban and see how it feels.

mu'o mi'e xorxes

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