Re: CLD

[ucleaar <ucleaar@UCL.AC.UK>]

Lojbab:
> I do NOT want any "official" deliberation of changes tot he language to
> take place during the initial baseline period, because the mere
> existence of such a committee deliberating changes makes it explicit
> that such changes are planned, and hence seriously spoils the
> psychological commitment that the baseline is intended to make.

If your goal is to attract learners & users (which it indeed is) then
your attitude is very sensible. If your intention is to get things to
go the way you want them to, then you're going the right way about it.
If, though, you're also aiming to represent the interests of committed
lojbanists, then clearly you're failing (in this matter).

> It makes it clear NOT that the prescriptive phase is done, but that some
> group of people are convinced that the language is incomplete, and will
> need improvements imposed from on high, and that further prescription
> will be attempted. The more that a central body seems to be controlling
> the language, the more that people will feel that the language belongs
> NOT to the speakers, but to this endless chain of tinkerers and
> deliberators.

The chain of tinkering and deliberation is lojban's greatest asset. For
example, it's what makes lojban better than other conlangs. It's what
makes lojban so much better than tli loglan.

Since it is public domain, lojban "belongs" to whoever wants it, but
in some moral sense of the term it belongs to the tinkerers and
deliberators as much as it does to the speakers. But who it *really*
belongs to is the people prepared to write up the comprehensive and
comprehensible descriptions - i.e. chiefly John.

Since LLG declines to, I thought of volunteering to be custodian of
grammar change proposals that are generally felt to be for the better
(by those who don't reject ongoing change) - and indeed I still would
volunteer - but I don't think that would be very useful unless there
was a john cowan to write them up properly.

> Every language that has NOT managed to officially terminate the right
> of fiddlers to deliberate and make changes has failed.

For you the criterion of success is the number of speakers. For me,
the criterion of success is the quality of the product. We both care
about lojban, but nonetheless we each believe that what the other
believes is good for lojban is in fact bad for it.

Probably we also differ as to what we believe the product actually is.
For you, I gather, the product is the grammar(s) of the language that
actually gets spoken, while for me, the product is the design, and
mangled vernaculars are of little interest to me. Most of what you
say makes complete sense when said of jbobau be lai lojbab, but is
complete nonsense (or, at least, is completely wrong) when said of
jbobau be lai and. An example of this is what you wrote to Djer:
   > The net community WILL continue to influence the language heavily -
   > BY USING IT. Aftyer the baseline, if you don;t use the language,
   > you lose your "vote".

> Come publication time, the language is NO LONGER LLG's, and we have no
> more right to control it than the community chooses to grant us. And if
> we continue to act like we are and intend to be in control, most people,
> as they did for JCB, will simply acquiesce and act like it IS still LLG's
> baby. But the language will become alive ONLY if people "make
> Loglan/Lojban their own".

I thought Lojban was already public domain. Does LLG have more rights now
than it will have?

> After 5 years, if there seems to be need for some further prescriptive
> work, then people can debate doing so, hopefully in Lojban.

These people can do it now, not just after 5 years.

> The people who are qualified will be the ones who are using the language
> THEN, and not those of us who are pontificating about it now.

I have confidence in the competence of every current pontificator to
contribute to the progress of the lojban design.

> I feel that neither I nor LLG-present nor anyone else has any right to
> bind a community so distant from what it is now, by political
> decision-making taht none of them would have a say in.

Since no community is under any compulsion to be bound by what any of us
decide, I conclude that lae diu is irrelevant.

coo, mie and