Subject: Re: [lojban] RE: Rabbity Sand-Laugher

From: "Bob LeChevalier (lojbab)" <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 05 Jun 2001 17:04:36 -0400

At 04:37 PM 06/04/2001 -0400, [email-masked] wrote:
>In a message dated 6/4/2001 12:09:35 PM Central Daylight Time,
>[email-masked] writes:
>>.i la'aru'e vu'enaidai le xa'o troci cu burna le selfrati be do
>
>Maybe, but people always ask for advice and comment. They shouldn't, if they
>are going to get huffy and quit just because the first show it wide of the
>mark. Of course, they should not publish their first shot until they have
>some reason to think they are going to do a fair job of it.

I will disagree with this. We WANT new people learning the language to try 
to write in Lojban - anything, whether it be translation or original 
writing. If they publish it on the list, or on the CVS site which clearly 
is an extension of the list in the way it is used (and because of the 
reports that are posted here of changes thereto), then this is a way to 
seek comments on ones efforts to learn the language.

Now I might agree with you that of we were to publish a chrestomathy or a 
print publication or set up a site of polished translations to serve as 
examples or actual reading matter, that we want only "fair jobs". But I am 
not sure the language is at the point where such translations are going to 
be the primary sort of thing that anyone does with Lojban.

>>.i .uu .u'ecai .o'anaidai za'a ca'o le nanca be li 30 ge no dada'o vajni
>>selsku sera'a le ju'oske gi mo'a dada'o selsku bau po'o la lojban .i li'a
>>na drani
>
>Well. I once ran over everything back to 55, so I guess I can remember the
>last 30 ears or so. I thought there was some pretty good stuff on
>epistemology, though not all of it made the transition to Lojban (the only
>thing I can be sure that did off hand was {li'i}). So I agree that the claim
>is not quite correct. The part about not much being in Loglan or Lojban is
>correct, of course, but tends to follow from the fact that not many people
>are comfortable in the language. Of course, it is a vicious circle, for you
>can't get better without trying. And when you do try, you launch a
>landslide of advice and comment which all too often wanders off into a
>discussion of something else or into a mere 'tis-'tain't discussion of the
>passage. I don't know how to solve this; it has been around since the
>beginning and is still here.

And it will still be here as long as people publish translations for 
comment rather than as finished products. The nature of all CVS 
translations is clearly "for comment".

But I do think that advise and comment should generally be encouraging and 
positive, or it will turn people off, though I myself have criticized 
people's choices for translations before as you just did (and I would tend 
to agree that the language may be robust enough for translating Alice, but 
I'm not sure most of our skills are robust enough for translating Alice.)

> JCB tried an Academy, which, for various
>reasons, did not work very well but may have cut down on the discussion
>problem a bit. Of course, he revised everything published himself, which
>helped get good stuff (not always) but slowed down the process. How is the
>Lojban- only list faring?

Very little appears, and it is mostly posts of a couple of lines. But then 
there may be many newcomers who do not know it exists since it is seldom 
mentioned. The better Lojban writing is appearing on websites or sometimes 
on this list.

>>.i se'o le prenu poi dukse terpa le kamsrera cu zukte fi li mo'a .i se'o
>>le li'i cumki srera cu ferti le pu'u farvi .i ju'ocu'i sarcu .i ku'i do
>>sarji le ka dukse terpa le srera ku joi le ka dukse snura ku joi le za'i
>>ze'e darlu ja'e no dada'o .i ku'i .a'i ro jufra cu ckape kalte le cnino
>>kampilno
>
>Well, aside from not being perfectly sure about what kind of an end the
>number few is, I don't think I agree with this at all. Making mistakes is
>useful for development, if you learn from them and can correct them within a
>viable framework.

Which is the point of CVS as well as commentary on this list.

>But not having any significant success, not finding a
>framework, is fatal. So, I don't want excessive fearfulness of mistake
>makers -- or of making mistakes, for that matter -- nor of excessive
>security, but I would like enough to provide a chance for growth not a
>guarantee of death.

I think we would be much more fruitful in this regard by encouraging 
original writing in Lojban rather than translation. I'd love to see some 
new ckafybarja writings.

> Shrimp can adapt to handling an amazing amount of
>arsenic in their water over a period of years, but not to the same amount if
>it is poured in all at once. Is the arguing here so constant as to appear a
>state and to no purpose at all? I don't think so, nor apparently do most
>others, since they join in with considerable vigor.

And indeed we do not have a massive unsubscription everytime posting gets 
hot and heavy as we once did. I can therefore assume that most of the 238 
subscribers (last time I looked) know what this list is about, and want to 
read it at least some of the time. 238 is about at the peak level that The 
Loglanist ever achieved, Lojban List is published daily instead of 
intermittently, and while your editorship of TL was of good quality, I 
think we get at least as good writing in both English and Lojban on the 
list as we ever did in TL.

> And that is because
>problems do get solved in the arguments (at least sometimes) and so each
>sentence does not have to be a whole new perilous hunt for good usage. Some
>bits get settled.

Yes, and your summaries of the bits that get settled have been a useful 
service. Can I suggest collecting them and putting them up, now that you 
are setting up Lojban stuff on your website. Much easier than searching 
the archives (and you have the privilege of revising what you have 
summarized earlier in case things have changed since then).

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