Re: <lojban polti> JCB on change

[Logical Language Group <lojbab@ACCESS.DIGEX.NET>]

>Regarding my <polti> construction, I want to point out that JCB wrote a bit
>on single-source primitives (gismu in lojban). For what its worth, he
>apparently accepted this activity for Loglan.

There was a period of time in the mid-70s, just before thedictionary was
written, when JCB attempted to make use of the language in everyday life in
his family.  He did not have a mechanism for fu'ivla.  Therefore he himself
coined many "I-prims" and "S-prims".  He eliminated a few of these
in the 4th edition, but not many.  But with GMR and the capability for
fu'ivla, his position significantly changed against single-source gismu.
(Technically one has trouble calling his "I-prims" single source, since his
claim is that these words are found in many  or most of the world's languages
in the indicated form.)

So I will ask for your references. Which edition and section number, or what
issue of TL.
The fact that almost none ofthe single-source gismu proposed in the TL era
made it into 4th edition Loglan 1 shows that he no loinger considers these
coinings very positively.

>I think we
>need to also acknowledge the admirable audacity and genius of the man for
>the mammoth task he undertook, and also acknowledge that perhaps his
>approach may have been well thought out, if perhaps not perfectly carried
>out.

I have been first in line for such praise, though I think it is safely said
that my comrade-leaders of the community haven't generally shared my opinion
to such an extent.

>I urge all interested in lojban to
>obtain a copy of loglan 1 (fourth edition) by James Cooke Brown. There's a
>lot of interesting stuff in there.

I guess I need to repost Athelstan's and mine review of 4th edition L1 - a
book that reflected most poorlt the genius of it author.  There is very
little in 4th edition L1 that improves on 3rd edition, and considering how
much the language evolved in 15 years, little sign that lessons were learned.

I must also say that we long ago expressly set an LLG policy diametrically
opposed to JCB's attitude regarding continuing change in the language.
Considering that he has a book and we don't, I would look at the
relative sizes and activity levels of the two communities to see which
approach is desired by the logical language community.

>It is a damn shame that JCB, McIvor and many others with much to contribute
>are not working on lojban today.

%^)

McIvor has many times said the reverse- Too bad that Lojbab and  others with
so much to contribute are not working on Loglan today.  JCB wasn't moved
by these comments, to say the least. %^)

>Perhaps if we were all fluent
>Loglan/lojban speakers we could have been more successful in our <polti>.

Since JCB rejects your "polti" as a legitimate Loglan community activity, I
venture to bet thatif you had been more successful, you would now be less
in opposition to Lojban Central's policy  %^)

I wont' go much into your long quote from L1, but I will note that JCB does
say that additions to the content words will be far more common than
additions to the cmavo, and these in turn will be more common than grammar
changes (highly paraphrased of course).  And that there would be massive
 resistence to the latter two.  He is right - massive resistance.

lojbab