JL17 and LK17 go to press

[Logical Language Group <lojbab@GREBYN.COM>]

I am pleased to announce that ju'i lobypli, our quarterly (we hope for
real starting now) journal, issue #17, has gone to press (along with the
abbreviated newsletter le lojbo karni).  JL is available by (signed)
requested subscription ($28/4 issues US/Canada; $35/4 issues most
overseas; by special arrangement with Major in Australia/New Zealand).
Single issue price (without signed subscription request) is $9
(US/Canada), $10 (overseas), or by arrangement with Major as above.

Some 135 copies are scheduled for mailing, 120 or so of those are
prepaid subscriptions.  Those who have sent in subscription forms or who
have been regular JL subscribers and have sufficient positive balances,
and a few overseas people getting one last grace issue under the
transition-to-subscription policy will get the issue automatically.
Most of you getting the issue automatically should know who you are,
based on one of those reasons.  US subscribers will get the issue by
first class mail, probably mailed next Thursday, so people should be
getting this issue relatively quickly after press time, unlike the
bulk-rate mailings of the past.

JL is 72 pages long, and contains news (especially a report on my trip
to Russia, LogFest 92 and the status of peace negotiations with The
Loglan Institute), Lojban text, and articles derived from exchanges on
conlang, Linguist List, Lojban List, and sci.lang.  These include
polished versions of an exchange between Dan Maxwell and John Cowan on
structural ambiguity in Lojban as compared with English and Esperanto,
John Cowan's and my responses to Rick Morneau's criticism of
Loglan/Lojban as an interlingua for machine translation, a discussion in
sci.lang on the current state and future possibility for fluent Lojban
speech, and Nick Nicholas's report on the first international telephone
conversation in Lojban.

A special section on the Sapir/Whorf Hypothesis derived from discussions
over the last 2 years on Linguist List features an excellent summary of
the scientific status of the hypothesis by Bruce Nevin, a report on
recent linguistics experiments supporting the SWH, discussions with
linguist Alexis Manaster-Ramer about using Lojban for SWH-related
linguistic research, and some additional bibliography items on SWH.

The largest section gives the current status of the Lojban Kalevala
project (or the ckafybarja project, as you may prefer), our efforts to
develop an organized project leading to a body of original Lojban
literature; a written literary language base is a feature of almost
every major natural language as well as Esperanto.  The section includes
Veijo Vilva summary of the project, his condensation of the complete
discussions that occurred on Lojban List (augmented by a few exchanges
that were not on the List and some that occurred after his summary was
completed).  The original descriptions of the coffeehouse that will
serve as the common tie of all works associated with the project are
included, along with relevant writings which augment this description.
This includes English discussion by Nick Nicholas, two sketches of
proposed shared characters by Veijo and by David Bowen (both in
English), 2 Lojban pieces by Veijo and 2 by Iain Alexander, 1 by Nick,
and 1 by Mark Shoulson.  Rough English translations exist for some of
these; Veijo's two pieces have parses and glosses generated
automatically by our in-progress automated parsing/glossing software
that we intend to evolve into Lojban-to-English translation program.
Only one story by Iain has no translation at all.  All Lojban pieces
have extensive footnoted commentary on language usage and stylistics.

Finally, the issue contains Ivan Derzhanski's translation of a Bulgarian
short story, "The Tale of the Stairs", along with Nora LeChevalier's
back-translation to English and an enormous quantity of discussion by
Nora, Ivan, Nick Nicholas, and me on language and stylistics questions.
Also included, without translation, is Nora's operettina "le ci cribe"
(The Three Bears) with familiar plot and set to familiar children's
songs, as presented at LogFest 92.  The combined Lojban text and their
translations and commentary totals over 20 pages of the issue.

LK is priced at $1.40/$1.68 for this issue, is 12 pages long (plus a 2
page order form), and contains only the news section from JL edited for
inactive followers of the project, discussion of Lojban fluency, a
slightly abbreviated version of Veijo's summary, the selected ckafybarja
original description, and two short Lojban texts with English
translations (Iain's first piece, and a short excerpt from Ivan's
translation).  It will be mailed to some 570 people, also probably next
Thursday, but in this case by bulk-rate post that may take a month to
get to some US addresses.  Included will be some 120 former JL subscribers
who due to low balance and/or non-response did not meet the subscription
criteria (you also should know who you are).

International copies of JL and LK will be sent surface or airmail to
Canada, and international airlift mail (ISAL) to most overseas locations
(Major will get his by normal airmail and remail locally made copies of
JL and LK to his subscribers).  ISAL seems to take from about 1-2 weeks
to the UK to 4 weeks to Australia.

Also, effective immediately, while we are still for a while taking
Master Card and Visa charges for subscriptions, balance payments, and
donations, we are having to raise our fee for this service to 10% of the
amount charged.  After a large increase in November, we are paying
$30/month to keep this option open, and took in Visa payments at an
average rate of less than $40/month over the past year.  Thus, even with
the higher fees, this option will not remain open for long unless we
find a much cheaper means of supporting the service.

I will start preparing JL18 on 5 March, with expected press date of 1
April, and pricing as stated above.  Between now and then, I'll be
working on the books, and hope to be announcing a publication date for
the first book in JL18 (or earlier).  JL18 is already 1/2 written, and
will contain the preliminary baseline of the Lojban rafsi list,
including the fairly extensive changes made as a result of the recent
reanalysis, an update to the Lojban E-BNF incorporating all changes
expected to comprise the rebaselining in the first book (a summary of
the changes will also be included), responses and new texts (all English
and Lojban vetted by our editorial board) received as part of the
ckafybarja project, and as much other Lojban text as space will permit.

JL19 is similarly scheduled for 5 June/1 July, but I haven't yet decided
on contents.

lojbab
----
lojbab                                                      lojbab@grebyn.com
Bob LeChevalier, President, The Logical Language Group, Inc.
2904 Beau Lane, Fairfax VA 22031-1303 USA                        703-385-0273