From lojbab@lojban.org Sat Dec 07 10:26:35 2002 Return-Path: X-Sender: lojbab@lojban.org X-Apparently-To: lojban@yahoogroups.com Received: (EGP: mail-8_2_3_0); 7 Dec 2002 18:26:35 -0000 Received: (qmail 97848 invoked from network); 7 Dec 2002 18:26:33 -0000 Received: from unknown (66.218.66.216) by m6.grp.scd.yahoo.com with QMQP; 7 Dec 2002 18:26:33 -0000 Received: from unknown (HELO lakemtao02.cox.net) (68.1.17.243) by mta1.grp.scd.yahoo.com with SMTP; 7 Dec 2002 18:26:33 -0000 Received: from lojban.lojban.org ([68.100.206.153]) by lakemtao02.cox.net (InterMail vM.5.01.04.05 201-253-122-122-105-20011231) with ESMTP id <20021207182633.NYU2203.lakemtao02.cox.net@lojban.lojban.org> for ; Sat, 7 Dec 2002 13:26:33 -0500 Message-Id: <5.2.0.9.0.20021207122552.03ab9b50@pop.east.cox.net> X-Sender: rlechevalier@pop.east.cox.net X-Mailer: QUALCOMM Windows Eudora Version 5.2.0.9 Date: Sat, 07 Dec 2002 13:19:50 -0500 To: lojban@yahoogroups.com Subject: Re: [lojban] More stuff In-Reply-To: <12A8B59C-0868-11D7-9FC7-003065D4EC72@optushome.com.au> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"; format=flowed From: Robert LeChevalier X-Yahoo-Group-Post: member; u=1120595 X-Yahoo-Profile: lojbab At 02:41 AM 12/6/02 +1100, Nick Nicholas wrote: >As to tei/foi specifically (see, one more monosyllable), Unicode >concretely says that tei .ebu .akut.bu foi decomposes as .ebu .akut.bu >(that e acute is two characters). Well, Unicode is a standard, and we could do OK to tie ourselves to a standard that will likely stick around. There was no standard 15 years ago. > I don't think the sky will cave in if >we say that in Lojban, all composed characters are read out as their >constituent parts, with diacritic after character. We adopt one way of >doing things rather than admitting complete freedom? Yeah, so? We do >that all the time in Lojban: it's called having a syntax. If you insist >that e-acute is to be considered a single character, then call it >explicitly .e'akut.bu . If you want to be frisky about whether >diacritics go before or after the letter (which tei/foi allow), I say, >to hell with you. Lojban enforces precedence like there's no tomorrow >in MEX; and it's to go all hippy with letterals? You can say either >{.ebu .akut.bu} or {e'akut.bu}; you don't need to also be able to say >both {tei .ebu ,akutbu foi} and {tei ,akutbu .ebu foi}. What possible >point does such freedom serve? As for digraphs, I'd much rather >{.a'ebu} than {tei .abu .ebu foi} for the ash (æ)... The only real issue here is respect for the cultures of other languages. Who are we (or Unicode) to say that n~ is really two letters rather than one, if Spanish speakers wish to allocate it separate status in their alphabet? Russian/Cyrillic likewise has diacritic characters in separate places of the alphabet from the non-diacritics. Of course the tei/foi thing was invented before name-bu, and in any case we were putting in multiple approaches because we did NOT want to favor one alphabetic system over another - unnecessary bias and all that. But if time and Unicode have rendered the argument moot, and all the characters of the world's orthographies, as well as the symbols of mathematics can be rendered with a Unicode strategy, then I won't fight too hard for maintaining a redundant form that no one will use if that level of baseline change is deemed worthwhile (I don't consider such changes to be justification for going to that level of baseline change, but if we are making changes at that level for issues of more import, justified simplification is a virtue worthy of consideration). For baseline changes, I think there is a hierarchy of stability, and for any part of the language definition, we want to think multiple times before elevating the to a higher level of change consideration, because opening the door to one change invites other changes at the same level and sooner or later you won't recognize the language. typo correction clarification that does not contradict a viable denotation of the existing definition clarification that basically admits I/we chose poor wording so that the denotation of the existing definition is misleading splitting of a word into two words to resolve polysemy addition of a new word not justified by polysemy on a currently unassigned cmavo (or adding a single line YACC grammar rule that changes no others, e.g. CAhA+NAI) deleting an assigned cmavo because it is useless addition of a new word reusing such a deassigned cmavo (seems much higher than using an unassigned cmavo - I would support using xVV before reassigning tei even if tei is deleted >{lau} is marginally more useful, but only marginally. Punct is not so >frequent that the world would cave in if {lau} had an extra syllable. >We've never used {lau} the one place where punctuation lerfu have been >used extensively --- We also haven't used multiple language notations. A lot of this came about because of MEX and other instances where languages use characters and punctuation from other languages/orthographies. We went for overkill because it was easy to see that any simple solution would be overwhelmed. Now people might thing MEX and multiple orthographies are not important enough to waste cmavo on, but importance is a philosophical/values argument - and such people needn't use that part of the language. The value of brevity is similarly a philosophical/values argument, but it is countered by the fact that Lojban already is probably beyond workable limits on communications redundancy in cmavo and lujvo (i.e. too many short strings of Lojban that sound too much alike are grammatical and have plausible relevance), so that replacing something brief and rarely used by something more common only increases the likelihood of collision. Lojban isn't Speedtalk, and was never intended to be. >Factions exist; I define 'em, I defend them. We have different >interests in Lojban, we don't want them marginalised. Bob may have >defined Lojban to test SW, No. JCB did, and many people are interested in the language from that point of view. > and uses that to justify his rejection of >defining any semantics. But if 90% of the community want a semantics, >they prevail (as Bob admits, which is why he's consenting to a BPFK in >the first place.) Actually no. I'm consenting to a byfy because it will get a dictionary done and get us out of design phase; it's the first workable approach to offloading the job from Lojbab. If it solves other problems, all the better. >And has no right to ban xod from pursuing SWism; xod >has no right to tell And to abandon jboske. I don't even have a problem >with individuals tinkering; I have a problem with it becoming >politically dominant in the community, to the point of endangering >language continuity. And factionalism seems to me the attenpt to make one's personal goal for the language politically dominant, rather than being big-tent inclusive of all accommodating multiple goals even at the possible expense of optimizing for one goal > (In fact, in yet another one of those reversals >that Bob has been gracing us with of late :-) Loosing up on the baseline in the short term, is precisely an example of what I just said - accommodating the jboskeists, and getting the dictionary done with multiple willing volunteers, at the expense of a relatively minor and temporary shift on baseline strategy, with your leadership providing a fundamentalist guardian of the baseline who is not tainted by aura of "cabal" accusations, with the need for consensus as a backup defense for ensuring language stability. I don't see it as a reversal at all, but fully in keeping with balancing the multiple interests of ALL who use the language. My own interest (whatever it is) has always played second fiddle to this concept of my leadership role. And I will consider a LOT of things if needed to keep the tent big and the community homogenized rather than factionalized. >he considers Lojbanist >tinkering to be legitimate in providing us with Lojban Mark II --- as >long as it happens after we're all dead or something :-) .) No. I consider tinkering as something not part of the Lojban (Mark I) effort and not to be supported. But I also see no reason to believe that Lojbanists of the future with their superior Sapir-Whorfianly Lojban-derived mastery of logic and language, won't eventually try to develop a Lojban Mark II. It isn't part of this project though - not in the present or the future, and I don't think anyone without native (or perhaps PhD-level acquired) knowledge of Lojban is going to have internalized the language to the extent needed to make a quantum improvement, which is the implicit assumption in calling it "Mark II"). >We must arrive at a common standard. But we do so, I believe, by >acknowledging we want different things, and seeing how we can work our >way around that; not by suppressing or ignoring that difference. > >But that isn't quite parliamentary democracy either. Parliamentary >democracy works by majority rule, not consensus, after all. > >Or maybe I'm just naive. :-) We'll see... You aren't naive. Consensus politics is difficult to learn and practice, and no discipline overtly teaches it as a skill, though the maneuvering of academia probably comes close. But it leads to superior results when it can be practiced. >Look, we gotta work together. If I have my way, >I'll get And and xod and Jay and Robin and Jordan and everyone with >something to say into the same place, and we'll all produce a >dictionary. That means we accept there are constraints on what we do. >It also means we accept each other's bonafides. (Rock!) to quote Robin. %^) You've just summarized everything I want for the byfy in one paragraph. lojbab -- lojbab lojbab@lojban.org 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