CLD

["Steven M. Belknap" <sbelknap@UIC.EDU>]

The proposed Committee for Language Design is so obviously necessary to the
successful development of lojban *after* baselining, that it is difficult
for me to understand what the objection to creation of this Committee is. I
don't care if the members of the Committee are democratically elected, or
randomly selected from a list of *qualified* candidates (at the moment, I
would consider myself unqualified), or appointed by lojbab, or even by JCB
for that matter (!!) A committee or academy is necessary to assure that
further developments/improvements/corrections in the language can be
periodically rebaselined.

This repetitive baselining is *not* proscriptive, as lojbab has repeatedly
implied; speakers always have recourse to slang. I have adopted and's
convention of using <h> instead of <'> in part because it is not a
completely official semi-slang (and in part because all those apostrophes
are ugly and cause problems with search functions on word processors). I
believe that slang is an invariable feature of a living language, and I
plan to use a lot of slang in my lojban utterances. (Actually, I do so now,
although this is largely due to incompetence, rather than intention.) Slang
is one way of exploring what a language can do. While I enthusiastically
endorse the use of slang, I also endorse the need for an "official"
language which is machine parseable, and as fault-free as is reasonable.
Only some versioning or official periodic baselining will allow these goals
to be met. Surely lojbab does not believe that the language will be
complete at initial baselining!

The arguments in favor of a lojban academy or committee for language design
or whatever have been given repeatedly. What is the argument *against* such
a deliberative body? I have yet to see any explanation of a downside.
(lojbab has repeatedly stated that the usage of the language will be
determined by its speakers, which is of course true. But considering
"unofficial" usage to be slang, and encouraging the use of slang will
address this concern. Presumably, widely used "good" slang would eventually
be given the blessing of the lojban academy, and incorporated into the
official language)

What exactly is the problem with having a language academy?

cohomihe la stivn



Steven M. Belknap, M.D.
Assistant Professor of Clinical Pharmacology and Medicine
University of Illinois College of Medicine at Peoria

email: sbelknap@uic.edu
Voice: 309/671-3403
Fax:   309/671-8413