The Lojban Kalevala Project

[Ivan A Derzhanski <cbmvax!uunet!cogsci.ed.ac.uk!iad>]

>  Date:        Wed, 19 Aug 1992 20:57:37 +1000
>  From: nsn@AU.OZ.MU.EE.MULLIAN
>
>  Ivan writes (btw, welcome back;

Welfound.  (I mean, _kalws se brhka_.)

>  I trust you found the Black Sea coast pleasant again this year?)

Not really pleasant, but tolerable enough.

>  I was thinking of the flimsiness of establishing a Lojbanic culture through
>  sandpit references, actually. I'm not against it, but we musy remember not
>  to take what is a cliquey in-joke too seriously...

That is true as well.  Bother the sandpit references, but still I say
we mustn't try to guess how the Chinese or Hindus think about the world.

>  I think we should still keep the one
>  manager and five rotating staff, though.

I don't see why we need the staff to be rotating.  That's not how
coffeehouses in the real world are anyway.

>  The names will have to be native Lojban (rafsi): I propose

I don't get what you propose, but maybe I like it.  (Or maybe I don't.  :-))

>  >>  Do we have any minorities
>  >>  or "deviations" in the personas, or keep them mainstream?
>  >Assume, for the purpose of the game, that everyone's skin is the
>  >same colour.
>  Actually, I was thinking sexual minorities. I expect we can also assume
>  homophobia to have been eradicated in Lojbanistan.

Now I'm going to milxe disagree.  We aren't going to break all
existing conventions at once, are we?  We're in an imaginary land, our
characters talk in Lojban, that's about enough.  I think I could do
with three men and three women, all of them heterosexual.

>  Neutral, yes, but not characterless. Exploring stylistic stereotypes (the
>  sledgehammer JL15 I'm prone to) should be fun. I already had in mind
>  a tanruist, an attitudinalist, an anaphorist and an SVOist, as well as
>  the obligatory Prolog speaker :)

This will lead to all the attention being put into their respective
speech habits, and none left for the contents of the stories.  I vote nay.

>  >I don't think it's even quite necessary
>  >to have absolutely the same cafe in every story.
>
>  I do.

So do I.

Ivan