Subject: Re: [lojban] ma .uenai la lojban se klama

From: Invent Yourself <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 13 Feb 2001 12:45:00 -0500 (EST)

On Mon, 12 Feb 2001, Bjoern Gohla wrote:

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> perhaps i am too demanding, too optimistic or just wrong, but for the couple
> of years that i have been more or less following lojban, i have been having
> the feeling that inspite of all the microdetailed exploration of the most
> peculiar particles, i am missing the advancement on a larger scale.
>
> i have just been thinking of the esperanto community, not that lojban would
> gain a comparable number of users in the forseeable future, but that sense of
> inspiration and community surrounding it might well be borrowed from. and if
> i recall correctly this is hinted at in the textbook.
>
> surely you will call this foolish utopianism, but i am always bearing the
> idea of enlightenment making the world a more joyful place. and teaching
> lojban could play a big part in it.

I believe you're seeing that it's time for Lojban to reach a new level of
development. A level of usage and exploration with Lojban, as opposed to
creation and exploration of Lojban. However, most of the people involved
are biased in the direction of creation. Excellent theorists and
Linguists, yet precious few want to focus on usage. This is why there is
not much original work being written in Lojban, but hairsplitting
grammatical threads attract the most attention.

I am certainly grateful that Lojban does have this strong basis, which
other conlangs lack. It enables it to go places. Now I'd like to see it go
places.

I think that in terms of automated translation, going from Lojban --> Nat.
Lang. is a "simple" process, whereas going from a Nat. Lang --> Lojban or
any other Nat. Lang is a "difficult" process, and thus Lojban has
potential to be an inter-language.

I have also hinted at connections between Lojban and the forthcoming
Semantic Web, that will tie our systems together not by streams of data,
but streams of encoded meaning.

My own direction is to focus on trying to be able to think inside Lojban,
getting past the point of thinking in English and translating each
sentence. Let's explore Lojban on the next semantic level -- the level of
literature and thought. I am particularly interested in seeing how
philosophy looks and feels from inside Lojban, and I've started a series
of articles thus.

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