Subject: Re: [lojban] Vestigal Loglandians (was: Re: Re: Official Statement- LLG Board approves new baseline policy)

From: Robert LeChevalier <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 30 Nov 2002 10:47:04 -0500

At 07:08 AM 11/30/02 -0500, xod wrote:
>On Fri, 29 Nov 2002, Robert LeChevalier wrote:
> > 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.
>
>What are the latest figures on the size and well-being of the Loglan
>community these days?

I doubt that anyone has good figures for the size of either community. We 
know a minimum size for the Lojban community based on the size of Lojban 
List, and we know that most of those on the list have enough interest in 
the language to put up with the occasional flood of messages.

The Loglanists List rarely has any traffic, and when it does, it is a half 
dozen messages at most and then silence. Several Lojbanists are 
subscribed, so a raw membership count of the list would be misleading.
The only real sign of vitality other than McIvor's work in the last couple 
of years, was the efforts of a couple of Russians who were spreading the 
faith in their country and language, and the English speaking world has no 
window into how much is going on.

It is likely that JCB sold about the same number of his 1989 book as we've 
sold of the refgrammar, but he did so over many more years. We know that 
he has enough names that he has been able to use bulk mail at times, but we 
don't know how many of those names are really still interested.

They may have more money than us, because they had numbers of larger 
donations at times.

The TLI community was apparently significantly older on average, when we 
attempted to compare the two.

My guess is for various activity levels, at the number of 300 Loglanists 
would compare with the number 1500 for Lojbanists. The number of 50 
Loglanists would compare with the number 300 for Lojbanists. But the 
number of 5 Loglanists would compare with the number 100 Lojbanists. In 
short, they have a dearth of seriously active people who are competent in 
the language.

The question is whether Lojban can gain these people if TLI and its version 
disappear. Historically, the richest recruiting field for artificial 
language supporters has been among the supporters of other artificial 
languages. This has led to deep and antagonistic rivalries that are 
unhealthy to the artificial language community. I've tried to steer Lojban 
clear of this, while even so taking advantage of every opportunity to 
attract the interest of conlangers that support other languages. The TLI 
people would be among the best to recruit, since the TLI language really is 
quite similar to Lojban.

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