How it should have been. And how it could be.
Muhammad Nael
I'm very much interested in the language but more so in its idea, I'm promoting a custom -not yet existing- form of it; so, my looooong list of questions is:
For all the gurus and regular Lojbanists out there, imagine you're back where it all started, but with your current experience, how would you like Lojban to be? Or, imagine that you're using the current Lojban as a template for creating the perfect logical language (as close to that), how would you want it look like say, in year 2090? or a bit sooner if that's too far.
What decisions do you know were made in the very initial years of Lojban that you wish weren't? is there any that you wish were made? and why?
If possible give examples. - the change should be enriching Lojban's efficiency, making it easier to learn and moving it a step closer to being a complete language.
I'll wait for replies, although I may not be able to make a reply myself today.
John E. Clifford
Sent from my iPad
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Luke Bergen
Another complaint I've heard is the discrepancy between the ".iTAGbo" constructs
Robin Lee Powell
> I'm very much interested in the language but more so in its idea,
> I'm promoting a custom -not yet existing- form of it; so, my
>
> For all the gurus and regular Lojbanists out there, imagine you're back
> where it all started, but with your current experience, how would you like
> Lojban to be?
I refuse. Sorry. Most oldbies will; going down that path leads to
too much frustration at the current state, and enacting such plans
would break up the (currently pretty impressive) community.
-Robin
--
http://singinst.org/ : Our last, best hope for a fantastic future.
Lojban (http://www.lojban.org/): The language in which "this parrot
is dead" is "ti poi spitaki cu morsi", but "this sentence is false"
is "na nei". My personal page: http://www.digitalkingdom.org/rlp/
Michael Turniansky
<rlpo...@digitalkingdom.org> wrote:
> On Thu, Jun 23, 2011 at 03:35:26AM -0700, Muhammad Nael wrote:
>> I'm very much interested in the language but more so in its idea,
>> I'm promoting a custom -not yet existing- form of it; so, my
>> *looooong* list of questions is:
>>
>> For all the gurus and regular Lojbanists out there, imagine you're back
>> where it all started, but with your current experience, how would you like
>> Lojban to be?
>
> I refuse. Sorry. Most oldbies will; going down that path leads to
> too much frustration at the current state, and enacting such plans
> would break up the (currently pretty impressive) community.
>
> -Robin
>
bother saying it.
--gejyspa
Robin Lee Powell
> On Thu, Jun 23, 2011 at 1:25 PM, Robin Lee Powell
> <rlpo...@digitalkingdom.org> wrote:
> > On Thu, Jun 23, 2011 at 03:35:26AM -0700, Muhammad Nael wrote:
> >> I'm very much interested in the language but more so in its idea,
> >> I'm promoting a custom -not yet existing- form of it; so, my
> >> *looooong* list of questions is:
> >>
> >> For all the gurus and regular Lojbanists out there, imagine you're back
> >> where it all started, but with your current experience, how would you like
> >> Lojban to be?
> >
> > I refuse. �Sorry. �Most oldbies will; going down that path leads to
> > too much frustration at the current state, and enacting such plans
> > would break up the (currently pretty impressive) community.
>
> bother saying it.
Heh.
Now, having said that, the community has made it clear that
baby-steps that happen to break past usage are acceptable if they
lead to more awesome, so over the next many years, we may be able to
fix a lot of the frustrtating stuff; if you want to see that happen
faster, help with CLLv1.1 (see
http://groups.google.com/group/lojban/browse_thread/thread/8e9bb19d63d97c87
) and with vocab (see
http://www.lojban.org/tiki/Functional+Vocabulary+List ).
Luke Bergen
Additionally I would recommend actually learning lojban as it is now before doing anything Muhamed. I cant even count the number of times that I came to the mailing list with a comment like "why does lojban X? That sucks and should be changed" only to have a jbocre come along and explain why I was being dumb.
Muhammad Nael
I'm very, very sorry for this overall, well, nonacceptance.
I was just asking you how you see it could turn out in the next decades, I'm not in a discussion for a new project here, I'm already learning Lojban as it is, but I want to hear suggestions from users with more experience as I'm promoting a imaginary form of Lojban in a school project, that's mainly it!
Again, I'm very sorry for provoking this overall pent-up frustration. I'll look at the links, however.
Robin Lee Powell
> Woohoo! slow down!
>
> I'm very, very sorry for this overall, well, nonacceptance.
Oh, that was us politely giving you some background; you should see
what happens when we're *actually* annoyed. :D
It's no problem at all, it just happens a lot.
[snip]
> but I want to hear suggestions from users with more experience as
> I'm promoting a *imaginary* form of Lojban in a school project,
> that's mainly it!
Oh! Well, why didn't you say so? :D
xorxes, your turn.
Remo Dentato
simplest part of Lojban would be enough. Gismu, bridi and cmene are
rather simply to understand and capture a great deal of what Lojban
is. The most complex part (cmavo) could be restricted to the most
commonly used ones (pro-sumti, gadri, ...).
Anyway, I think that trying to think to a "slightly different" lojban
it's a phase everyone is passed through. I had it in my second
iteration of being interested in Lojban. Now, in my third iteration of
interest, I just decided to learn the language as it is. Maybe when
I'll be very very proficient in Lojban I'll have something to suggest
to make it different but for now I've still a long way to go.
BTW, to resist the temptation it helped me a lot to constantly think
about Lojbanistan and native jbopre. I mean, would i ever think of
changing French just because I don't like the grammar? I surely
wouldn't. And Lojbanistan is such a lovely place! I wish I was an
artist or a writer and being able to "world-build" it
(http://makingplaces.tumblr.com). The Lojbanistan founding mythology
is probably related to the Babel Tower and while berjbopre lean toward
an extreme rigour, sunjbopre are more inclined to use {zo'e} and even
unbound {da}! But I digress ...
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Hugh O'Byrne
Heh. Apparently Robin's pretty impressive community consists of one
other person.
One thing that I would like to see is adoption of an alphabet such as
'Visible Speech'
http://www.omniglot.com/writing/visiblespeech.htm
- at least for written Lojban representation of other spoken languages.
Hugh
-- Good night, and have a rational tomorrow!
Remo Dentato
> Heh. Apparently Robin's pretty impressive community consists of one
> other person.
I disagree, the community is small but full of people that devote
quite some time to create useful things for others (maintaining the
wiki, cleaning up CLL, the BPFK, ... just to name few). I think it's a
small community but with a lot of worthy guys. Even if it may be
difficult to get along with some of them sometimes. And impossible to
get along with *all* of them :)
> One thing that I would like to see is adoption of an alphabet such as
> 'Visible Speech'
> http://www.omniglot.com/writing/visiblespeech.htm
> - at least for written Lojban representation of other spoken languages.
There has been a lot of work around lojban orthografy, You could check
the /ideas/ section of jbotcan.org. If you post an example of how you
would use visiblespeech, I'm sure you'll get useful feedback.
remod
.alyn.post.
> Heh. Apparently Robin's pretty impressive community consists of one
> other person.
>
Hugh,
The number of people speaking up on an issue isn't a fair
representation of the distribution of opinion on the matter.
The conclusion you draw above does not have a basis in fact.
Really, stating it is a request to have it falsified, no?
I'm solidly on Robin's side for this one. I do think that
Tinkerer's are a useful and valid part of the Lojban community,
and I think the fastest way to get what you want as a Tinkerer
is to follow-up with exactly the things Robin requested get
done.
(Which should not be construed to mean that the CLL work is
only appropriate to Tinkerers. Robin is requesting CLL work
because it has the highest utility for the Lojban community as
a whole, regardless of any one person's particular cliques.)
-Alan
--
.i ma'a lo bradi ku penmi gi'e du
Robin Lee Powell
> > baby-steps that happen to break past usage are acceptable if
> > they lead to more awesome, so over the next many years, we may
> > be able to fix a lot of the frustrtating stuff; if you want to
> > see that happen faster, help with CLLv1.1 (see
> > http://groups.google.com/group/lojban/browse_thread/thread/8e9bb19d63d97c87)
> > and with vocab (see
> > http://www.lojban.org/tiki/Functional+Vocabulary+List ). -Robin
>
> Heh. Apparently Robin's pretty impressive community consists of
> one other person.
The specific comment of mine about the community being OK with
breaking past usage (which is what I hope you're referring to,
otherwise I'm just confused) is a reference to the discussion that
resulted from an essay I wrote last year; here's the threads.
http://groups.google.com/group/lojban/browse_frm/thread/c67f210addc06a0c
http://groups.google.com/group/lojban/browse_frm/thread/ae71ea92dbbfd5b1
http://groups.google.com/group/lojban/browse_frm/thread/8c345f62e9f946ce
http://groups.google.com/group/lojban/browse_frm/thread/33d26e8385fed297
You will discover slightly more than two people involved; there are
something like 300 total messages in those threads.
I actually was quite shocked at the response, which was an
overwhelming preference for tinkering as long as the language wasn't
broken too much. I was expecting it to be more more even.
Luke Bergen
I think he was just being a pontz about the fact that only gejyspa really replied to back up your views (which I also agree with)
Muhammad Nael
On the other hand, regarding the suggestions posted; I'm using it now in a school project, but not necessarily a small one.
-I was asked at school to work on a complete short story to submit by the beginning of next year, that is the soon-to-come reason for the question. The same story but with different characters, plot and ending (hard to swallow!) exists currently as a draft on my PC, and that is the long-term reason for the same question. Being an SF story in the future, I was curious about how the current Lojban community see the future of Lojban, or what would they change if they're going to start an entirely new project based (or not) on Lojban as a template.
-I looked at the visual alphabet, and I think it would be an awful idea to try implementing it as is; its letters can so easily be confused if you put them as clusters, if you put them as individual components then you're asking the beginners to learn the science of morphology; and if they pronounce a letter different from the original pronunciation, Lojban loses its unique sound-to-letter mapping. In a word, I'd Tolkien's tengwar over Graham Bell Sr.'s visual alphabet, bearing in mind that I recommend neither.
I have to go, will follow up.
And Rosta
> I'm very much interested in the language but more so in its idea, I'm
> list of questions is: For all the gurus and regular Lojbanists out
> there, imagine you're back where it all started, but with your
> current experience, how would you like Lojban to be? Or, imagine that
> you're using the current Lojban as a template for creating the
> perfect logical language (as close to that), how would you want it
> look like say, in year 2090? or a bit sooner if that's too far. What
> decisions do you know were made in the very initial years of Lojban
> why? If possible give examples. - the change should be enriching
> Lojban's efficiency, making it easier to learn and moving it a step
> closer to being a complete language.
>
> I'll wait for replies, although I may not be able to make a reply myself today.
Whether starting from now, or if starting in 1960 but with the benefit of hindsight, the hypothetical neo-Lojban should start completely from scratch, preserving nothing of current Lojban (-- because everything in current Lojban could be drastically improved upon), but of course learning immensely from it -- which isn't an answer that is going to help you much with your short story. There is no community actively discussing a Neo-Lojban, but if there were, I imagine enge...@yahoogroups.com would be the least unsuitable forum for it.
--And.
Robin Lee Powell
There actually *is* a loccan 3 mailing list somewhere, but I've
never seen it actually have any discussion, and I can't find it
anymore.
How helpful is that??? :)
.alyn.post.
.i ra'u di'u pe do sidju simsa la'o .jy. loccan .jy. zo'o
.i mu'o mi'e .alyn.
Robin Lee Powell
.u'i sai mi cmila
Muhammad Nael
Just curious, have you (everyone here) tried getting support and funding from any large institution? Google, Microsoft or NASA maybe? to fund a Lojban 2 or <enter_logical_language_name_here> project? Or even linguistic support from any university to start working on a complete overhaul of Lojban? Maybe I'm being a bit optimistic, yes? no?
John E Clifford
From: Muhammad Nael <muhamm...@gmail.com>
To: loj...@googlegroups.com
Sent: Fri, June 24, 2011 3:01:10 PM
Subject: [lojban] Re: How it should have been. And how it could be.
I read about Loccan, the ideas are interesting but, they lack the most important ingredient that is the will to go along.
Just curious, have you (everyone here) tried getting support and funding from any large institution? Google, Microsoft or NASA maybe? to fund a Lojban 2 or <enter_logical_language_name_here> project? Or even linguistic support from any university to start working on a complete overhaul of Lojban? Maybe I'm being a bit optimistic, yes? no?
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "lojban" group.
John E Clifford
though I would recommend going back to the actual logic language and move from
that more carefully. The weird scheme for getting primitives would surely go
this time around -- it takes a lot of time and is of at best doubted utility.
Then the movement from sentential connectives to connective between
subsentential parts has to be rethought to prevent at least some of the
dubplication. and the question of scopes need another look. After that, the
frills can go just about any which way.
Of course, if you want to create a language for Loglan's original purpose, to
test SWH, Loglan/Lojban was a nonstarter from the get-go when else could it have
been a nonstarter?) since it is the most SAE language in existence. So, in this
case, yes we would have to start from scratch (but don't bother until you have
actually formulated a meaningful and testable version of SWH, something that has
not been achieved in 80-odd years).
----- Original Message ----
From: And Rosta <and....@gmail.com>
To: loj...@googlegroups.com
--And.
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"lojban" group.
Bob LeChevalier, President and Founder - LLG
> -I was asked at school to work on a /complete/ short story to submit by
> question. The same story but with different characters, plot and ending
> (hard to swallow!) exists currently as a draft on my PC, and that is the
> long-term reason for the same question. Being an SF story in the future,
> I was curious about how the current Lojban community see the future of
> Lojban, or what would they change if they're going to start an entirely
> new project based (or not) on Lojban as a template.
Being one of those with the "vision" to reform Lojban as a split from
the TLI language, I would have to doubt that a redesigned Lojban would
be the basis for a community. Slightly more plausible might be a space
colony or something that adopted Lojban as the common language, but
there is no especial reason why the language would be reformed for that
purpose.
Designing a language of the scale of Lojban from scratch is a BIG
project. We've been at it for almost 25 years if you ignore the 30
years spent on Loglan before that. And the ONLY impetus we had for
starting over were the policies and legal threats from language inventor
JCB. "Building a better Lojban" simply isn't enough. And building a
"better" Lojban than we have now would be harder than the time, because
we've set the bar higher.
The one other impetus I can imagine is a large funding source (which you
asked about anyway). Getting funding for any sort of artificial
language project "from scratch" would be extremely difficult. JCB tried
and got one small NIMH grant in the early 60s, but no one even knows
what it was for, and the language while then rudimentary wasn't
restarting from scratch. It is plausible that someone with a particular
application in mind might seek (and pay for) a specialized revision of
Lojban in order to achieve a specific goal. Another guy and I proposed
seeking funding from Reagan's SDI "Star Wars" initiative to do some sort
of Loglan application, but JCB was rabidly anti-Reagan and
anti-militaristic and rather vehemently and colorfully buried that idea
in about 20 seconds. Of course, it is pretty impossible to figure what
would be different in such a funded language project, since it would
completely depend on whatever application was being paid for, and the
constraints of the requirements.
A German has proposed using Lojban as the basis for the European patent
system. Such a purpose would tend to promote certain aspects of the
language over others, in the need for specialized technical and legal
terminology and the desire to avoid cultural artifacts and ambiguous
semantics. No redesign was contemplated, but such adoption would
probably bring about some funding to produce the necessary materials,
and producing them would undoubted skew the language in certain
directions. This would be evolutionary based on what the language is
now, not a redesign - no "real" application would pay for a redesign
that would take longer and not necessarily produce anything more usable.
So the best way to project Lojban into the future is to think in
language evolution terms. Imagine such a space colony as I mentioned,
and presume that the colony is populated largely by people with Arabic
and other Asian languages rather than the primarily English-centric
group that dominates the language now. How might they use the language
differently, for communications commonality among peoples of a very
different set of language heritages and cultures - say Arabic, Hindu,
Farsi, or pan-Africa - adopting Lojban because it is neutral between
those cultures. Different cultures and the novel environment would each
lead to demands on the language that we cannot foresee, and the
non-inclusion of Americans or English speakers might lead evolutionary
forces to avoid anything that seems like an English-language artifact or
borrowing.
But that kind of extrapolation isn't easy, and it would be driven by a
lot of thought about how the community speaking it would differ from any
present Lojban community, and what sort of cultural attitudes they might
have towards what had gone before. And I am still talking evolution
rather than redesign.
From the standpoint of stories, I do want to call your attention to the
fact that Loglan was in fact used as the basis for writings by at least
three SF writers. JCB himself wrote a science fiction utopian novel, in
which Loglan was the common language. Robert Rimmer (most known for
"The Harrad Experiment") in the early 70s wrote a different utopian
novel again with Loglan as the spoken language. And noted SF author
Robert Heinlein twice mentioned Loglan in passing as being a language
used for humans to talk to sentient computers, in The Moon is a Harsh
Mistress, and (IIRC) Friday. But nothing in these novels suggested
anything was different from the then-current version of the language.
(Heinlein's concept was more limited than what we actually achieved).
(There have been other writers who have communicated with me about using
Lojban in science fiction stories or movies, at least one of whom was a
published author, but none of them have communicated with me that they
finished anything, so I have no idea how they might have conceived the
language).
> -I looked at the visual alphabet, and I think it would be an awful idea
> to try implementing it as is; its letters can so easily be confused if
> you put them as clusters, if you put them as individual components then
> you're asking the beginners to learn the science of morphology; and if
> they pronounce a letter different from the original pronunciation,
> Lojban loses its unique sound-to-letter mapping. In a word, I'd
> Tolkien's /tengwar/ over Graham Bell Sr.'s /visual alphabet/, bearing in
> mind that I recommend neither.
> I have to go, will follow up.
A lot of people have talked about different visual representations of
Lojban, but until the current concept of the keyboard disappears, I
don't think that the Roman alphabet could be displaced. Other than
aesthetics, there is too little advantage to any change (remembering
that even alternate keyboards like the Dvorak keyboard which are
objectively much better than the standard QWERTY version used in the US
can't gain a significant following). Actually, I think that analogy
works for the language itself in your project described above. You need
to postulate a reason why a new language version would displace the
status quo, and being "better" simply isn't good enough.
Hope all this is helpful.
lojbab
--
Bob LeChevalier loj...@lojban.org www.lojban.org
President and Founder, The Logical Language Group, Inc.
John E Clifford
"readability scores".
----- Original Message ----
From: "Bob LeChevalier, President and Founder - LLG" <loj...@lojban.org>
To: loj...@googlegroups.com
-- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups
Muhammad Nael
Actually, it exists only as a communication medium between humans and AI’s so dominant at the time. Despite being an overused idea, its fresh blood comes from its Arabic-Eastern culture POV that, to my experience, is very rare in the western -and generally the global- market.
I’m currently working -if you'd call what I'm work- on (Renodré), a fictional language another ‘entity’ uses in the story; it’s, however, meant to be a personal language that is subject to normal flaws of natural languages. Its development didn’t help me in the logical human-AI language thing.
I understand that if a large institution funds such a large project, it will be greatly skewed in favour of its needs. However, how about seeking funding from several large institutions, each funds the aspect it needs (a bit shallow I know), but with general guidelines laid out to prevent any from gaining advantage over the other, and to make sure it meets its purpose for public usage.
If you can get academic support in form of linguists and mathematicians, I believe that although Lojban needed 25 years of development over Loglan’s 30, Loghnat (a name I chose) would roughly take 10 years over Loglan’s and Lojban’s 55 with merely academic linguistic and mathematical support and very little general public donations.
Just look at the amount of advertisement and support Na’ví gets, just because it was used in James’ Cameron’s gorgeous, shallow Avatar! How in life would primitive jungle-dependant life forms have formal and informal sentences in their language, let alone the tremendous amount of rules in it, they haven’t had the time to write all this, have they?
I’m one of the few who believe in pure-thought theory, although altered to replace language with visual clues instead of the undefined-pure-thought-raw-material in which others believed, so I never really had any interest in the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis, although I’m beginning to change my mind.
Google is currently funding several linguistic and artistic projects for Egyptian graduates, maybe you know someone here who might be a possible candidate to propose this to Google? I know it’s weird from to say this (living in Egypt and all!) but I’m afraid I don’t know any suitable ones here, I don’t know if you have any in your community however. I’ll and check the university but without promises.
I’ll write the two follow ups later, I need to go.
Hugh O'Byrne
Well, yes, I deserve that.
Robin wrote about "the (currently pretty impressive) community", gets
one supportive reply, then replies to *that* with
> Now, having said that, the community has made it clear that...
I thought I knew where that sentence was going. I was wrong, as it
turns out. I was careless, and a little cruel. I apologize. I'll
try and do better.
Hugh O'Byrne.
-- Good night, and have a rational tomorrow
On Thu, Jun 23, 2011 at 6:29 PM, Luke Bergen <lukea...@gmail.com> wrote:
> I think he was just being a pontz about the fact that only gejyspa really
> replied to back up your views (which I also agree with)
>
Muhammad Nael
Regards,
MN
John E Clifford
As a further strike, Lojban is looked upon as a cult language, like Klingon and Na'vi (and maybe Dothraki -- the first results aren't in yet) and so the people who know it and could teach it are considered flakes -- or worse. (As a flake, I have to note that the Na'vi clearly have a hierarchy and a relgion, so they almost inevitably have a high language and a common one. You can't talk to a chief or a god in the same way you talk to the schlump next door. As for complex rules, many languages of primitive people are as bad as Sanskrit or worse, so that isn't unrealistic. Na'vi is a second rate conlang, but seems to work OK, in context and out.)
Don't get excited about SWH -- every version presented so far has either had nothing to do with S and W or was a prima facie crock. And usually both.
Subject: Re: [lojban] Re: How it should have been. And how it could be.
John E Clifford
Subject: Re: [lojban] Re: How it should have been. And how it could be.
About Renodré, I'm pretty sure that you've heard about Ithkuil, Renodré is 10^99 times easier in its syntax and grammar, but its phonology is ten times more difficult; that may be because my ears aren't that good. I'd very much like some guidance here: links, books, articles or personal help; I'd be much obliged.
Regards,
MN
Muhammad Nael
Just to clear things up, Renodré is my first creation. Unfortunately, I can’t upload any guides for several reasons, the most apparent being that I only keep notes and it would be too much to digitize, especially in such an early phase, even the name can change!
I’m not very good in the phonology ‘stuff’, I’m mainly having problems in consonant clusters, I just can’t get it right. Renodré is a root-words-based language, so there are many possible combinations to make, which also creates many consonant clusters that I’m having headaches trying to deal with. Vowels within syllables also pose a problem, they’re long and sometimes hard to pronounce in certain combinations, mainly (CaCeC-) and (CaCoC-).
I’ll just say it that I’ll take Renodré as a 'tried and failed' attempt, I’ll most probably start it all over again, but I need some serious advice before I do that. I’ve read some articles on constructing languages, and making a tree diagram I went deeper and deeper but without any specific curriculum that aids me or a book that tells me the basics easily. I’ve looked into some known books (whose names I don’t recall), but they’re too big, too expensive and very difficult to find here in Egypt.
An example of it:
Renodré
R_n_d__ [to wonder] _e___ [tense: present] ___o_ [kind: general] ___r/é [subj: masculine/singular]
Clearly, I need urgent help! No pressure!
Best Regards.
Stela Selckiku
> Alright,
Alright! Hey, wait, you live in Egypt? Um, how are things going over there?!
> For all the gurus and regular Lojbanists out there, imagine you're back
> where it all started, but with your current experience, how would you like
> Lojban to be?
I'm not sure if this answers your question, but I've always thought
the biggest mistake made in the early history of Lojban was making too
much at once. The whole gismu list and cmavo for every imaginable
possibility were all invented and put in lists and then next everyone
sat down to try to see if they could say anything with them. We're
still catching up with that to this day. It's difficult to develop
many lujvo because everyone's always studying our mountain of gismu.
I think it would make sense to start a new language by releasing only
a tiny amount of words at first, and then adding more very gradually
on some sort of schedule. Each new batch of words would be explored,
defined, refined, clarified, and digested before any more would be
added. The life of a word is a body of imagery, pedagogy, references,
puns & rhymes, repeated explanations of subtleties of meaning, deep
relationships the word has with the whole language, not just a dry
association between a symbol and a sketch of a meaning.
> Or, imagine that you're using the current Lojban as a template
> for creating the perfect logical language (as close to that), how would
> you want it look like say, in year 2090? or a bit sooner if that's too far.
The main way I expect Lojban to change in the coming years is to
develop much more vocabulary. Particularly filling out the lujvo
space, and also probably more fu'ivla and I hope some interesting
zi'evla. Lojban feels like a language that wants to have a lot lot
lot of vocabulary. We insist that every word has just one meaning.
There's this sense that what you do is simply choose the word that
means exactly what you're actually saying. But so far we mostly have
these bland fuzzy gismu. I think Lojban will feel more like the
precise language we imagine it to be, with words directly capturing
all sorts of subtle flavors. People will always be saying, "You know
what I think is the perfect word to describe that?" and then pulling
out some rich obscure precise descriptive term.
mi'e la stela selckiku mu'o
John E. Clifford
Sent from my iPad
> --
> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "lojban" group.
Ian Johnson
develop much more vocabulary. Particularly filling out the lujvo
space, and also probably more fu'ivla and I hope some interesting
zi'evla. Lojban feels like a language that wants to have a lot lot
lot of vocabulary. We insist that every word has just one meaning.
There's this sense that what you do is simply choose the word that
means exactly what you're actually saying. But so far we mostly have
these bland fuzzy gismu. I think Lojban will feel more like the
precise language we imagine it to be, with words directly capturing
all sorts of subtle flavors. People will always be saying, "You know
what I think is the perfect word to describe that?" and then pulling
out some rich obscure precise descriptive term.
mi'e la stela selckiku mu'o
mu'o mi'e .latros.
John E Clifford
From: Ian Johnson <blindb...@gmail.com>
To: loj...@googlegroups.com
Sent: Sun, June 26, 2011 12:34:29 PM
Subject: Re: [lojban] How it should have been. And how it could be.
mohamad na.el (I think)
[la stela selckiku]
> Alright! Hey, wait, you live in Egypt? Um, how are things going over there?!
> ...the biggest mistake made in the early history of Lojban was making too much at once. The whole gismu list and cmavo for every imaginable possibility were all invented and put in lists and then next everyone sat down to try to see if they could say anything with them.
I imagine they wanted it to be ready, while not leaving it to the hands of time or users. It's a good point though, I'll it in mind.
> The main way I expect Lojban to change in the coming years is to develop much more vocabulary. ...... People will always be saying, "You know what I think is the perfect word to describe that?" and then pulling out some rich obscure precise descriptive term.
That may be, but I think that the problem with Lojban is that it wants to satisfy everyone. If they focused on a particular use for Lojban while in development, and built upon that as they gained experience, maybe into another bigger project, maybe it would have been better. You just can't have words that tells one meaning each, and expect to have words that equate to every thing expressible, at least that's what I think.
[clifford]
Have you seen my earlier post?
[Latro]
> There's a flip side to this in that essay by ..... other than with regard to things like jargon, or other highly specific things.
I'd agree on that too. Although I do like to use modifiers often!
PS. Has anyone seen 'mark'?
John E Clifford
From: mohamad na.el (I think) <muhamm...@gmail.com>
To: loj...@googlegroups.com
Sent: Sun, June 26, 2011 4:28:12 PM
Subject: Re: [lojban] How it should have been. And how it could be.
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "lojban" group.
mohamad na.el (I think)
mohamad na.el (I think)
Stela Selckiku
<muhamm...@gmail.com> wrote:
> That may be, but I think that the problem with Lojban is that it wants to
> satisfy everyone. If they focused on a particular use for Lojban while in
> development, and built upon that as they gained experience, maybe into
> another bigger project, maybe it would have been better. You just can't have
> words that tells one meaning each, and expect to have words that equate to
> every thing expressible, at least that's what I think.
Lojban has been slowly acquiring new domains of competence over the
years. At first basically no one spoke fluently in any style on any
topic. At that point people wrote dictionary in hand and expected
their reader to read the same way. As far as I know the first
community to develop conversational fluency in Lojban was on IRC; I'd
say the first topic the language successfully embraced there was the
conversation itself. Everyone there speaks English as well as Lojban,
so occasional Lojban can be used to decorate an English conversation.
It starts by taking over greetings and partings; people quickly pick
up on saying "coi" and "co'o" to everyone coming and going. There was
a lot of silliness in the Lojban at first, because we're silly people
but also because we couldn't maintain a conversation on any serious
topic. But gradually the Lojbanic parts of the conversations grew,
until there were lots of uninterrupted stretches of conversation in
Lojban and it started to explore various territories.
One terrain Lojban has been expanding into slowly for a while is
conversations about Lojban. I think that's a terrific step. We've
been figuring out Lojban words and phrases for talking about
grammatical categories and types of words and how to say the sorts of
things you say talking about each other's language use. At first in
IRC Lojban there developed some language for correcting people and
commenting on their usage, like "djisku" (and/or "skudji"). Now
there's enough words for structures and categories that a lot of the
metalojbanic conversation is moving into Lojban, which I've always
thought should be a constructive step for the language.
Those are clearly baby steps. I've heard proposals that Lojban should
be used for like, patent descriptions. Maybe in some future, but
certainly not next. Lately Lojban has been expanding into like,
children's stories and comics. If Lojban is used for profound serious
matters someday it'll be difficult to remember how all that rests upon
the strength the language gained playing and frolicking in the fields
of jbotcan.
But Lojban is meant to satisfy everyone. Eventually. Or at least
they could satisfy themselves, if they wanted to. There's a giant
ocean of lujvo. Even the three rafsi lujvo, never mind the four rafsi
lujvo, is a gigantic space. Whatever meaning you want Lojban to have,
you can pick somewhere in that space-- the closest place, even if it's
not really that close-- and put your meaning in with everything else.
Eventually someone will bother to make words about all sorts of
things. That people will forget most of them will only make it more
powerful and useful, if anything. You can bring out a word no one
knows, but it's not even just randomly invented, you're drawing out a
whole piece of history.
I'd like to make Lojban better at talking about feelings. There's no
way to do it except to dive in and use Lojban to talk about feelings,
I think. Language is a magical substance that becomes whatever you
use it for.
Muhammad Nael
-----
Regards,
MN
John E Clifford
Subject: [lojban] Re: How it should have been. And how it could be.
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "lojban" group.
Muhammad Nael
John E Clifford
Actually, a priori gismu generation shouldn't be too bad, since they have to fit into fairly narrow areas (phonotactic rules , CC in the first 4 letters, end in a vowel). I have tried it, but a couple of people have used http://wordgenerator.wakayos.com/Default.aspx?wordo=tokiponaV2.wordo. This version is set up for toki pona, but all the tools are there to work on your own system.
Subject: Re: [lojban] Re: How it should have been. And how it could be.
I'm aware of Lojban's multi-language origins, but just saying that it used 'algorithms' isn't enough. The rest of your post says clearly that it was so complex for 'normal' available word generation software or -to explain in a post for that matter-. For priori languages however, do you know of a good offline pattern based word generator?
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "lojban" group.
Muhammad Nael
Robin Lee Powell
Assuming you're still talking about
http://wordgenerator.wakayos.com/Default.aspx?wordo=tokiponaV2.wordo
, the very first link in the main text is to the original program,
which is a Windows app.
-Robin
--
http://singinst.org/ : Our last, best hope for a fantastic future.
Lojban (http://www.lojban.org/): The language in which "this parrot
is dead" is "ti poi spitaki cu morsi", but "this sentence is false"
is "na nei". My personal page: http://www.digitalkingdom.org/rlp/
Escape Landsome
> I think it would make sense to start a new language by releasing only
> a tiny amount of words at first, and then adding more very gradually
> on some sort of schedule. Each new batch of words would be explored,
> defined, refined, clarified, and digested before any more would be
> added.
> The life of a word is a body of imagery, pedagogy, references,
> puns & rhymes, repeated explanations of subtleties of meaning, deep
> relationships the word has with the whole language, not just a dry
> association between a symbol and a sketch of a meaning.
Indeed, a language is a lot of "intertextuality" or "pragmatic links"
between lexemes, or between lexemes/words and concrete situations or
cultural references...
A lot could be improved if we had such a thing... But, listen, this
is not *that* difficult : to bring intertextuality in, it *suffices*
(so to say !) to have a bunch of "canonical texts" that provides some
clues for the usage of a lot of words or "idiosyncrasic
expressions"... Consider for instance the case of a lot of natural
languages that don't have a written litterature : to make them have
one, it sufficed for some missionaries or ethnologists to record the
oral poetry of those people in books (and btw invent some
orthography), or to edit a version of the Gospel in the vernacular...
So, what do I suggest ? Simply to translate some important books
(not necessarily religious ones) into Lojban : first the translation
work in itself, then the work of commenting the translations, will
make it necessary to create a lot of translation trends and ways and
fashions of translating or "accomodating" reality. If, for instance,
we translated the Ethics of Spinoza, or Thus spake Zarathustra, or any
big philosophy book (but not a too obfuscated one), we would get both
a great deal of expressions-in-context, and efficient pragmatic
translations wisdom...
-- .esk
Michael Turniansky
> So, what do I suggest ? Simply to translate some important books
> (not necessarily religious ones) into Lojban : first the translation
> work in itself, then the work of commenting the translations, will
> make it necessary to create a lot of translation trends and ways and
> fashions of translating or "accomodating" reality. If, for instance,
> we translated the Ethics of Spinoza, or Thus spake Zarathustra, or any
> big philosophy book (but not a too obfuscated one), we would get both
> a great deal of expressions-in-context, and efficient pragmatic
> translations wisdom
So, what? You don't think the book of Esther is "important"? (or,
heck, "Alice in Wonderland"?)
--gejyspa
Escape Landsome
> heck, "Alice in Wonderland"?)
> --gejyspa
Certainly it is.
The problem with translating the Bible is that it would be a blatant
renouncement to cultural "neutrality" of Lojban. But I don't condemn
this neither, I find the Bible a very good book, as for myself.
"Alice's Adventures in Wonderland" is a tricky one, because it is
already a parody of other books and rhyme songs... and it is a second
degree book. I think it would be wiser to translate a "normal" book
first (so, Esther, if you like).
Remo Dentato
> So, what do I suggest ? Simply to translate some important books
> (not necessarily religious ones) into Lojban : first the translation
> work in itself, then the work of commenting the translations, will
> make it necessary to create a lot of translation trends and ways and
> fashions of translating or "accomodating" reality.
While I agree on the concept of creating more translations and having
threads for discussing them, I disagree with the notion of "important
books".
Apart as a way of making the language improving and stabilizing,
having reading material is, IMHO, of paramount importance for
attracting new people and keep them interested. If they have to
confront with ponderous books while, at the same time, trying to
understand how lojban works they will most likely turn away.
I strongly believe that we (as the Lojban community) first need more
simple translations and only after we will have more people going past
the basics we may start attacking areas as philosophy, religion or
even higher math and physics.
That's why I worked (and still will work) on comics and children books
(well, the other reason being that *my* lojban is barely at that level
:) ).
I really wish more jbopre (especially the most experienced ones) would
embark in translation projects, the more diverse topics we'll cover,
the more we'll have the chance to lure some new lojbanist.
remod.
Michael Turniansky
ALREADY been translated into lojban.
> --
> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "lojban" group.
Escape Landsome
Did you first translate the original rhyme song, then adapt to the
parody ? Or, were the parody translated directly with no translation
of the reference ?
This is an important question.
Well, at least, if there is a translation of A's A in W, there is
*some* pragmatic of lojbanic expressions, --- even if it is pragmatics
of a non-existent world, (alas).
Robin Lee Powell
> How were the mock rhyme songs of A's A in W translated ?
>
> Did you first translate the original rhyme song, then adapt to the
> parody ? Or, were the parody translated directly with no
> translation of the reference ?
>
> This is an important question.
You'd have to ask xorxes, but you can read it at
http://lojban.org/~rlpowell/alis/alis.html
> Well, at least, if there is a translation of A's A in W, there is
> *some* pragmatic of lojbanic expressions,
-_-
As the author of the longest Lojban work, the implication that it
can't be used pragmatically offends me.
http://www.lojban.org/tiki/Robin%27s+Palm+Writings%3A+la+nicte+cadzu
-- it's a bit of a mess right now in terms of web layout, but it's
none the less there, and quite pragmatic (even has a sex scene or
two, so far).
Escape Landsome
The point is, it will be a poetic usage of the language, you will
qualify something of "a bread-and-butterfly" as in Alice's Adventures,
for instance, or you will say somebody behave like the Cheshire Cat...
So, even if it derives from a non-existent world, it HAS a lot of
pragmatic content
tijlan
> So, what do I suggest ? Simply to translate some important books
> (not necessarily religious ones) into Lojban : first the translation
> work in itself, then the work of commenting the translations, will
> make it necessary to create a lot of translation trends and ways and
> fashions of translating or "accomodating" reality.
> If, for instance,
> we translated the Ethics of Spinoza, or Thus spake Zarathustra, or any
> big philosophy book (but not a too obfuscated one), we would get both
> a great deal of expressions-in-context, and efficient pragmatic
> translations wisdom...
On top of the problem of determining which books are 'important' for
the community to begin with, translating (& reviewing) a whole book
requires continuous commitment that many jbopre may not be able to
afford.
There's a much easier alternative: translating quotes. Famous quotes
are an expression-in-context with condensed pragmatics and wisdom.
Working on short axiomatic expressions that best represent the essence
of a book (and possibly the common significances among multiple titles
by different authors) would be a more realistic effort than plodding
through the single book's whole pages that may contain contextually
less significant phrases or rehashes of the same ideas throughout the
discourse the choice of which itself might have been controversial.
(Already jboselkei -- http://www.teddyb.org/jsk/ -- and tatoeba --
http://tatoeba.org/ -- offer platforms for such short-translation
activities.)
Here are some quotes from Thus spake Zarathustra:
http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Thus_Spoke_Zarathustra
How would we fare with this? If we didn't manage to translate these
quotes first, then we shouldn't embark upon any larger undertaking.
This one is resourceful too:
Do we even have words for all these topics? "faith", "fitness",
"inspirational", "pet"...?
Speaking of topics and "accomodating reality", how about we try
translate most common everyday ontologies such as used by Amazon.com?
An example:
Home, Garden & Tools > Kitchen & Bath Fixtures > Bathroom Sink Faucets
Clothing & Accessories > Dress > Jersey
Also selckiku mentioned the importance of talking about feelings for
the purpose of vocabulary expansion; how many brivla do we have for
the following list:
http://www.allmusic.com/explore/moods
mu'o mi'e tijlan
Escape Landsome
> are an expression-in-context with condensed pragmatics and wisdom.
> Working on short axiomatic expressions that best represent the essence
> of a book (and possibly the common significances among multiple titles
> by different authors) would be a more realistic effort than plodding
> through the single book's whole pages that may contain contextually
> less significant phrases or rehashes of the same ideas throughout the
> discourse the choice of which itself might have been controversial.
> (Already jboselkei -- http://www.teddyb.org/jsk/ -- and tatoeba --
> http://tatoeba.org/ -- offer platforms for such short-translation
> activities.)
I agree with this.
> Here are some quotes from Thus spake Zarathustra:
>
> http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Thus_Spoke_Zarathustra
>
> How would we fare with this? If we didn't manage to translate these
> quotes first, then we shouldn't embark upon any larger undertaking.
>
> This one is resourceful too:
>
> http://www.brainyquote.com/
>
> Do we even have words for all these topics? "faith", "fitness",
> "inspirational", "pet"...?
"Aye, here's the rub !" (Yeah, that's the problem !) (Hamlet)
If the way to derive new words from old ones or from "semantic roots"
is correct, there is no word or idea that cannot be created in a
well-formed fashion.
The worst thing that can happen is that there be many different
new-words to convey "the same meaning". But, even if this is to
happen, we have the ability to coin some of these words into "a
canonical translation", and thus, we create pragmatic layers of word
usage.
For instance, let's suppose we need a word for silence, and somebody
(A) says silence is "deprivation-of-noise", thus, some lojban word,
and someone else (B) says that silence is
"permanence-of-steadinesse-and-calm", thus, some other word.
Now, we would have to translate some well-known poems in which silence
is either the word A or the word B... And our choice, which would be
justified for other (e.g. metric, or rhythmic) reasons, would then
"establish" a differential usage, A vs. B... And, this would in turn
create a rather subtle distinction between the meaning A and the
meaning B, based primarily upon the lojbanic meaning, and secondarily
(in a less obvious way) based upon the pragmatic contribution of both
words A and B in the context of the poems...
So, this would not be different from defining logically the two words,
but illustrate them with exeamples taken in some poems...
> Speaking of topics and "accomodating reality", how about we try
> translate most common everyday ontologies such as used by Amazon.com?
> An example:
>
> Home, Garden & Tools > Kitchen & Bath Fixtures > Bathroom Sink Faucets
> Clothing & Accessories > Dress > Jersey
This seems to be a tremendous task, indeed !
Michael Turniansky
Well, you'd have to ask xorxes about that, but the list (and links)
of translated texts can be found here:
http://www.lojban.org/tiki/tiki-index.php?page=Texts+in+Lojban
Certainly, some things were adapted, as they always were when
translating Alice into different languages. The classic example in
the lojban was of the pun "We called him Tortoise, because he taught
us" is "mi'a te cmene ra lu ractu cafmi'a li'u ki'u lo nu ra ctuca
mi'a " ("We called him Lapine Frequent-laugher because he taught us")
("ractu cafmi'a/ra ctuca mi'a")
--gejyspa
Michael Turniansky
>
> If the way to derive new words from old ones or from "semantic roots"
> is correct, there is no word or idea that cannot be created in a
> well-formed fashion.
>
> The worst thing that can happen is that there be many different
> new-words to convey "the same meaning". But, even if this is to
> happen, we have the ability to coin some of these words into "a
> canonical translation", and thus, we create pragmatic layers of word
> usage.
>
Well, if that's the worst thing that can happen, then we're in
trouble. There are already words in lojban that are synonyms, and
others that are near-synonyms. But I don't personally think that's a
bad thing for a living language. Being able to choose the word that
suits you for aesthetic reasons doesn't necessarily imply there's even
the subtlest distinction between them.
> For instance, let's suppose we need a word for silence, and somebody
> (A) says silence is "deprivation-of-noise", thus, some lojban word,
> and someone else (B) says that silence is
> "permanence-of-steadinesse-and-calm", thus, some other word.
> Now, we would have to translate some well-known poems in which silence
> is either the word A or the word B... And our choice, which would be
> justified for other (e.g. metric, or rhythmic) reasons, would then
> "establish" a differential usage, A vs. B... And, this would in turn
> create a rather subtle distinction between the meaning A and the
> meaning B, based primarily upon the lojbanic meaning, and secondarily
> (in a less obvious way) based upon the pragmatic contribution of both
> words A and B in the context of the poems...
>
> So, this would not be different from defining logically the two words,
> but illustrate them with exeamples taken in some poems...
(BTW, there are plenty of jbo.wikipedia.org articles, too)
>
--gejyspa
Luke Bergen
Yeah I need to get back into that. I think I got through the first 2 or 3 chapters before I felt the pain of my lack of vocab and gave up.
I was loving it up till then though.
Do you have any idea of when you think you'll call it "complete" or is it kind of an ongoing series at this point?
John E Clifford
But original works are also important, as better reflecting the nature and culture of this language (not muddling that of another), so get to work on that, too.
What do you mean by "pragmatic" and related words? I have half a dozen notion flitting around in my head, none of which seem to fit very well.
From: Luke Bergen <lukea...@gmail.com>
To: loj...@googlegroups.com
Sent: Wed, June 29, 2011 8:53:13 AM
Subject: Re: translations and pragmatism (was Re: [lojban] Re: How it should have been. And how it could be.)
Escape Landsome
In semiotics, there are three levels : Syntax, Semantics and Pragmatics
Syntax tells us how to put words together, Semantics gives us their
meaning once assembled, and Pragmatics tells us how they relate to
"what we know about the world".
The frontier between Semantics and Pragmatics is somewhat blurry, as
for instance, a semantic import of the word "banana" would be "a
yellow long curve-shaped edible fruit" but a pragmatic content would
be that one slips over a banana peel in Merry Melodies, or that
monkeys do appreciate them a lot... But why not put "yellow" and
"curve-shaped" into pragmatics as well ?
-- .esk
John E Clifford
the formal sense of this into intertextuality (as in your examples) and general
cultural icons. I wish that had another name, since formal pragmatics is in
enough trouble without any help from Derrida et al.
----- Original Message ----
From: Escape Landsome <esca...@gmail.com>
To: loj...@googlegroups.com
Sent: Wed, June 29, 2011 9:53:34 AM
Subject: Re: translations and pragmatism (was Re: [lojban] Re: How it should
have been. And how it could be.)
-- .esk
--
tijlan
> The worst thing that can happen is that there be many different
> new-words to convey "the same meaning".
If those new words each *convey* one stable meaning as they should,
there wouldn't be much of a problem. It's ok to have "nanla",
"nakyve'a", "citnau", etc. with the same meaning, provided that the
meaning can be unambiguously understood. A worse case would be a word
with competing and equally-sound definitions.
Eli Frey
On Sat, Jun 25, 2011 at 10:44 AM, John E Clifford <kali9...@yahoo.com> wrote:
> Yes, but ... To be sure, the only hope of getting money for Lojban (et seq)
> is from computer uses. But if they want a language to use with computers,
> they will build one to fit computers -- without all the frills that human
> languages have. And, for that matter, if you have to learn a new language
> to use a computer, then a computer language is the way to go. Of course,
> some folks still hold out hope for being able to translate natural languages
> into computerese, but that is a much longer shot. So, I don't think that
> LoCCan3 is going anywhere (unless Lojban gets a new Napoleon type, which
> leads to a fragmentation again -- which will happen eventually, if the
> project lasts long enough).
> As a further strike, Lojban is looked upon as a cult language, like Klingon
> and Na'vi (and maybe Dothraki -- the first results aren't in yet) and so the
> people who know it and could teach it are considered flakes -- or worse.
> (As a flake, I have to note that the Na'vi clearly have a hierarchy and a
> relgion, so they almost inevitably have a high language and a common one.
> You can't talk to a chief or a god in the same way you talk to the schlump
> next door. As for complex rules, many languages of primitive people are as
> bad as Sanskrit or worse, so that isn't unrealistic. Na'vi is a second rate
> conlang, but seems to work OK, in context and out.)
> Don't get excited about SWH -- every version presented so far has either had
> nothing to do with S and W or was a prima facie crock. And usually both.
>
>
> ________________________________
> From: Muhammad Nael <muhamm...@gmail.com>
> To: loj...@googlegroups.com
> Sent: Sat, June 25, 2011 11:27:22 AM
> Subject: Re: [lojban] Re: How it should have been. And how it could be.
>
> Actually, it exists only as a communication medium between humans and AI’s
> so dominant at the time. Despite being an overused idea, its fresh blood
> comes from its Arabic-Eastern culture POV that, to my experience, is very
> rare in the western -and generally the global- market.
>
> I’m currently working -if you'd call what I'm work- on (Renodré), a
> fictional language another ‘entity’ uses in the story; it’s, however, meant
> to be a personal language that is subject to normal flaws of natural
> languages. Its development didn’t help me in the logical human-AI language
> thing.
>
> I understand that if a large institution funds such a large project, it will
> be greatly skewed in favour of its needs. However, how about seeking funding
> from several large institutions, each funds the aspect it needs (a bit
> shallow I know), but with general guidelines laid out to prevent any from
> gaining advantage over the other, and to make sure it meets its purpose for
> public usage.
>
> If you can get academic support in form of linguists and mathematicians, I
> believe that although Lojban needed 25 years of development over Loglan’s
> 30, Loghnat (a name I chose) would roughly take 10 years over Loglan’s and
> Lojban’s 55 with merely academic linguistic and mathematical support and
> very little general public donations.
>
> Just look at the amount of advertisement and support Na’ví gets, just
> because it was used in James’ Cameron’s gorgeous, shallow Avatar! How in
> life would primitive jungle-dependant life forms have formal and informal
> sentences in their language, let alone the tremendous amount of rules in it,
> they haven’t had the time to write all this, have they?
>
> I’m one of the few who believe in pure-thought theory, although altered to
> replace language with visual clues instead of the
> undefined-pure-thought-raw-material in which others believed, so I never
> really had any interest in the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis, although I’m
> beginning to change my mind.
>
> Google is currently funding several linguistic and artistic projects for
> Egyptian graduates, maybe you know someone here who might be a possible
> candidate to propose this to Google? I know it’s weird from to say this
> (living in Egypt and all!) but I’m afraid I don’t know any suitable ones
> here, I don’t know if you have any in your community however. I’ll and check
> the university but without promises.
>
> I’ll write the two follow ups later, I need to go.
>
> --
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Stela Selckiku
>
> If those new words each *convey* one stable meaning as they should,
> there wouldn't be much of a problem. It's ok to have "nanla",
> "nakyve'a", "citnau", etc. with the same meaning, provided that the
> meaning can be unambiguously understood.
I'm not sure that's how languages work. Words want to occupy their
own space. If you take a set of meanings where there's "nanla" and
you drop in "citnau" they don't want to mean exactly the same thing.
They start to bounce off of each other magnetically, until every time
you choose to say "citnau" or "nanla" you're implicitly conveying a
socially relevant distinction.
There's nothing inherently wrong with that-- that's how natural
languages came to be, and they're pretty useful-- but it does tend to
lead to malglico, since the most readily available distinctions are
preexisting ones. For instance I wouldn't be surprised to see the
nanla/citnau split try to follow the boy / young man split in English,
such that a nanla is much younger than sexual maturity, and someone
might start to prefer "citnau" and be offended by "nanla" at a certain
age. It's probably best to look for any Lojbanic difference we can
teach and emphasize when there are similar words, instead of just
leaving them as "the same" and letting them find their own subtleties.
> A worse case would be a word with competing and equally-sound
> definitions.
This happens all the time, to greater and lesser degrees. I think
we've informally created a fairly effective system for dealing with
it.
The first step is to make specific words that definitely produce the
various possible meanings that various people want, such as longer
lujvo. This clarifies the dispute, provides useful vocabulary for
discussing it, and ensures that no one walks away from the table
entirely empty handed-- you definitely get some word that produces the
meaning you wanted to express, you might just get a slightly longer
one than you'd hoped for.
Then the default solution is: The meaning of the shorter term is now
generalized to include both of the meanings, and the long forms can be
used as necessary to disambiguate. That solution is the first
considered because it's very often acceptable to everyone. None of
the past uses of the term are invalidated, they're just using a more
general term than they thought they were, but it'll still almost
always imply exactly the same thing in context. The language is
deepened by some specific vocabulary, while a broader word is given a
new shape and character that tends to make it a bit less malgli and a
bit more lobykai.
There are of course many cases where that solution doesn't work. Most
often because the meaning spaces aren't contiguous enough, so our
polysemy alarms go off. In these cases what almost always wins is
history. If a word has been used in a particular way for long enough
or prominently enough then that meaning has dibs. There are plenty of
other lujvo in the sea, go get your own.
This criterion of history is necessary to keep old texts from being
disrupted, but it's also fairly unambiguous, which helps provide
clarity. For instance, I don't especially like the word "lujyjvo".
As you may or may not know, it means lujvo that (like itself) have
matching consonants on the inside facing each other: "cucycau",
"samymri". I think complex-lujvo is (A) a word that doesn't
particularly suggest that meaning and (B) a waste of a word that could
have a very useful meaning. I would have put the meaning that's now
on "lujyjvo" somewhere else, like "cijyjvo" (wrinkled lujvo). But
it's very easy to resolve this dispute. You don't have to consider
whether I'm right at all (incidentally, I am). The word had already
been used for years before I thought to dispute it. The statute of
limitations was well up. I lose.
Another occasional result, though not an especially desirable one, is
that the battle rages on for a while. In that case the word in
question tends to become scorched earth. That's fine-- again, there
are plenty of words out there, there's billions of three part lujvo.
We simply avoid the area forevermore. Same thing with all the false
starts and malgli, the "le'avla" and "dikyjvo" that litter our
lujvoland, we just leave them there as monuments. Someday maybe it'll
be so crowded that we'll need to make use of this junk-- I've always
imagined le'avla as meaning the less usual situation of borrowing a
word from a language which then loses that word or dies, and perhaps a
dikyjvo could be a lujvo that appears regularly like for instance
seasonal ones the citsyjvo-- but today is not that day. Today we live
with this history while we work at making more mistakes with what's
left.
tijlan
> On Wed, Jun 29, 2011 at 7:21 PM, tijlan <jbot...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> If those new words each *convey* one stable meaning as they should,
>> there wouldn't be much of a problem. It's ok to have "nanla",
>> "nakyve'a", "citnau", etc. with the same meaning, provided that the
>> meaning can be unambiguously understood.
>
> I'm not sure that's how languages work. Words want to occupy their
> own space. If you take a set of meanings where there's "nanla" and
> you drop in "citnau" they don't want to mean exactly the same thing.
> They start to bounce off of each other magnetically, until every time
> you choose to say "citnau" or "nanla" you're implicitly conveying a
> socially relevant distinction.
>
> There's nothing inherently wrong with that-- that's how natural
> languages came to be, and they're pretty useful-- but it does tend to
> lead to malglico, since the most readily available distinctions are
> preexisting ones. For instance I wouldn't be surprised to see the
> nanla/citnau split try to follow the boy / young man split in English,
> such that a nanla is much younger than sexual maturity, and someone
> might start to prefer "citnau" and be offended by "nanla" at a certain
> age. It's probably best to look for any Lojbanic difference we can
> teach and emphasize when there are similar words, instead of just
> leaving them as "the same" and letting them find their own subtleties.
Yes, "nanla" and "citnau" may have different pragmatics. "citnau" may
be effectively more comparative than "nanla" to "citno / makcu" and
"nanmu / ninmu", which may give rise to a difference in usage between
"citnau" and "nanla".
The point of my response to Escape, though, was: If multiple words are
defined to mean the same thing, that itself won't be the worst thing
that can happen, since communication won't fail for such semantic
convergence.
je'e