Subject: Some remarks from a beginner

From: [email-masked]
Date: Fri, 12 Jan 2001 09:36:22 EST

I've been studying Lojban for some time now, and I *do* like its structures. 
However, it
seems somewhat too "human" in the sense that most of its concepts do refer to 
everyday
occidental-wise logic. Hence I have some remarks and preguntas to make.
1) The idea of "place structure" is indeed a good one. But, e.g. in Latin, 
most of the
litterature uses case-endings to emphasize some parts of a sentence (ifyou 
can read
Latin, see Virgil or Cicero). This is not possible in Lojban without using 
place permutators
(suvh as "te", "ve"...). You can argue that these particles are indeed 
equivalent to case
endings (after all, Swahili puts its flexions on the beginning of words). How 
can you keep
a "natural" structure? I mean, "focus" first, then the other parameters?
2) The idea of a (potentially) four-dimensional referential seems nonsense to 
me, at least
until mankind be able to time-travel. What about aspect, which is a purely 
timelike
structure? With a 4D referential, you should have the notions of "beginning", 
"continuing"
and "ending" in space as well as in time. Or you should treat time 
separately, as most
human languages do.
3) I've been (pleasantly) striked by the fact that there are about 2,000 
gismu. It happens
that *all* human languages have about this number of root words (e.g. 
Japanese have
1,850 essential kanji). It seems to be true for almost every communication 
system,
provided it can express enough concepts to convey an everyday life situation. 
This is
not a remark, but a question : was this deliberately chosen, or is it a 
consequence of
the "mankindness" of Lojban conceptors?
4) This *is* a criticism. I do *not* like Lojban's use (or, rather, un-use) 
of punctuation.
Using the dot and comma as "letters" is indeed legitimate, from a phonetical 
point of
view (Shaelian has only two punctuations, namely weak pause and strong 
pause). But
it seems that Lojban has been designed to be spoken and heard, rather than 
read. When
reading, signs such as semicolon, colon, interrogation, and so on, do replace 
the
mimics or intonation of the locutor. Why not use them, even if unnecessary in 
spoken
language? You do not read written text letter-after-letter (or I hope you do 
not) : you
normally grasp several lines at a glance, and then mentally parse them. This 
is why line-
or word- breaks are not a difficulty. In particular, i *do* hate this usage 
of ".i" to mark a
strong pause.
Now for purely technical questions :
a) Is there a "thematic" gismu dictionary? I mean, most gismu's fit into 
families with the
same place structure: x1 is an animal of species <gismu>, x1 is made of 
<material>, ...
This would greatly help in learning Lojban. I started to compile one, but I 
do not have
enough time.
b) It seems that Lojban's grammar is regularly updated (although it 
essentially remains
the same). What is the way to be kept informed about these evolutions?

Thank you all, and happy new year (should be Year I of my reign, but my 
doctor said
I am *not* paranoid) :-)