Re: John Hodges on "Why Lojban?"

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

I tend to agree with you Ivan, than 't-boxes' are in general a matter for
the very distant future.  But note that John is specifically proposing
that the translation direction be from Lojban to nat lang, and not the
reverse direction.  He also specifically notes that crude, if syntactically
straightforward, translations, are an acceptable result.  That combination
is PROBABLY, if not definitely, readily achievable with current trnsaltion
technology, given that Nora's earlier Loglan subset and current Lojban
glosser are almost up to that standard with relatively minimal work on a
to-English basis.

The more obvious criticism, though, is how the Lojbanist/traveller will
understand the native's responses, which would presumably not be in Lojban
unless it really achieved universal language-hood, in which case the t-box
isn;t needed.  Otherwise the t-box has to go both directions, and getting
a computer in a t-box to unambiguously handle Enfglish or Russian speech is
a distinctly more  difficult problem (not to mention the translation
problem).

lojbab