Subject: Re: [lojban] Official Statement- LLG Board approves new baseline policy

From: Robert LeChevalier <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 29 Nov 2002 20:54:46 -0500

At 04:47 PM 11/29/02 -0600, Steven Belknap wrote:
>The lojban baseline policy statement does not appear to explicitly address 
>the relationship between lojban and Loglan. The implication is that the 
>Loglan language and community is irrelevant to the new baseline policy. 
>Prior to voting, I would like comment from lojbab and other movers/shakers 
>on this issue.

The Board explicitly chose to NOT mention the relationship between Lojban 
and Loglan (and asked me to remove the small reference that I had made to 
the issue).

I continue to communicate with Bob McIvor, the successor CEO of The Loglan 
Institute, Inc., on ways in which the two communities can work together. I 
have also asked McIvor if he or someone he would designate as suitable, 
would like to participate in the byfy, so that the Lojban discussions can 
benefit from whatever relevant experience the Loglanists have had with 
their version of the language. If in doing so, we make choices that 
enhance the rapprochement between the two communities, this would be 
ideal. (Note that the byfy is open to all members of the community, and is 
not necessarily limited in number. Thus McIvor, who has participated 
usefully on Lojban List, would be welcomed in any event. But I made the 
invitation explicit to show that we are trying to be inclusive and not 
exclusive.

On the other hand, there is no question of even considering any significant 
changes to Lojban in order to remerge the two language. There have been 
ideas proposed that would allow the two versions to exist side by side or 
to transition back into a single language (which as far as we are concerned 
would be Lojban) - the alternate orthography is one, and was discussed in 
the refgrammar. Another that was discussed was assigning a cmavo as a 
dialect toggle, that would allow switching between the two versions. Other 
possibilities could be considered by the byfy, but I've told McIvor that 
there would not likely be much willingness to accomodate Loglan.

The other side of the coin is that The Loglan Institute, since the death of 
JCB and his first successor Alex Leith a year later, is barely extant as an 
organization. It is not clear that it has a long term future, or that the 
TLI language version will survive in any form. In 1992, the voting members 
passed a resolution stating that "Lojban IS Loglan", and that remains my 
guiding standard.

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