Re: CLD

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

> >> The number of people who are discussing change proposals because they
> >> want the language to change further are fewer than a half dozen.
> >You are still representing only the majority view.
> Yes - in the event there are two diametrically opposing views, I cannot
> hope to represent both, so I better take the majoritarian one without
> good reason otherwise.

I think you can hope to represent both. I'm not opposed to baselines and
LLG opposing change, etc. etc. The law of diminishing returns has well
and truly kicked in, as defined by the proportion of debate to useful
conclusions. So there is no point in postponing publication.

What I want is ongoing email discussion on how to improve lojban, with
participants self-selecting, and powers of decision making determined
partly by consensus but mainly by who can be bothered to write up
thorough records (much as John currently has most power). These proposals
can be offered to the lojban community to be voted on, or ignored, or
opposed tooth and claw by LLG, or whatever.

> I consider that the enter hypertechnical discussion is about "change
> proposals" but that some are changes tothe semantics as opposed to the
> baseline stuff. But it does affect the refgrammar which has had to delve
> into semantics to some extent.

Most semantics discussion is, if it is about change, is about change from
nothing to something.

> It is important to meand most that Lojban be learnable by someone without
> advanced coursework in logic.  If a significant construct - one that will
> appear often in text- cannot be communciative wiothout such coursework
> than the idea of speakable logic in a natural language is a dead issue
> - it will just be speakable logic in an unnatural jargon.  I will sacrifice
> that goal in favor of other Lojban goals, if need be, especially since from
> what pc has said, JCB actually sacrificed the goal long ago, at least in
> anything resembling a pure, speakable logic.

To me, that's a betrayal of the languages' ethos and raison d'etre.
Logic is logic. Lojlan is first and foremost based on logic. The rest
is, as I've said before, sugar (or something more nutritious - stuffing,
say).

> >Given your goals, your conduct in leading the community is wise and
> >effective. I object only to those goals; and I rather suspect that
> >the goals have changed.
> Whose goals have changed? Mine? The community's? or merely the set of
> goals voiced my the outspoken on Lojban List. The latter has probably
> changed. The former probably has not.  The community is not a monolith,
> so its goals are probably a fuzzy set.

My impression is that the community's goalsremain the same. Those who are
now chafing to baseline have long been keen. Nor have goals voiced on
Lojban list changed much, as far as I've noticed. What seems to me to
have changed is your goals. A few years back, for instance, there was
a big change associated with "clefting/raising". That happened then,
and you didn't try to squash it. Now you would squash it.

You have the right to change your goals, of course.

> >For example, ease of learning vocab has been sacrificed to
> >the theoretically interesting but practically useless goal of
> >self-segmentation.
> I think you would find that most people consider the goal quite useful.

I doubt I would find that. Certainly, I think such people would be
wrong.

> Self-segmentation at the sound level was a major point of the 1960 SCiAm
> article and hence definitive of the language (as is the weighted
> multi-language word base), and it was that article that captured
> the interest and enthusiasm of a LARGE section of the community (and
> still brings us new people on a regular basis, BTW, even though it is 36
> years old).

Yes, well I, like most others, am in favour of self-segmentation. I
merely note that it is not very useful, and it evidences that certain
goals like "be theoretically interesting" have historically been put
above the goal of attracting lots of adherents.

> >> And yes, I do feel that a language that is not spoken is not a language,
> >> and hence the theoretical stuff that is not used or usable is largely a
> >> waste of time. But I do recognize that other people like the intellectual
> >> game. I can respect this, so long as they respect the needs of those who
> >> have other goals.
> >I'm not convinced that you do respect this, or even understand it.
> >As for those who value the intellectual game, everyone who such a
> >description appears to fit supports the goal of publishing the
> >reference materials as soon as their authors are able to finish them,
> >and, I imagine, supports the goal of building a self-sustaining
> >community around lojban.
> This has been less than clear to me, and the continuying agitation for
> a commitment to continuing change in the language tells me that those
> supoorting that type of commitment do not understand the concerns of the
> community that has largely held back from learning the language.

We all want a thriving lojban community. But the prices we're prepared to
pay for it differ. You're not prepared to simplify it to make it easier
to learn, but you are willing to stifle discussion. I don;t want to have
to stand around smiling like a politician or pr person pretending the
language is perfect and noone wants to change it.

> I myself have sympathy with the intellectual game aspect of the language.
> However, i haven;t been able to play the game for years - this is my work
> and not my play, alas , and I get too mentally exhausted from the work
> aspect to use it for play as well.  It also hurts that I haven't nearly
> the background to understand the intellectual games that have gone around
> inthe last year or  so.  I don;t have time to read the advanced
> linguistics works that will give me that background.

I sympathize. I struggle to keep up sometimes. And it's my work too. I was
getting fed up with teaching semantics by day and drowning in the fuzzy
logic stuff by night.

Anyway, not all of the threads require excessive technical knowledge.
It's just that it's hard to tell the threads apart.

pc:
> I do agree that changes ought to be discussed and that the
> discussion ought to have some influence on what changes are
> made (even changes only from relative uncertainty to relative
> certainty on an issue).

This sounds like what Lojbab objects to. He wants such discussion
to be officially discouraged.

> Almost all of the questions I have seemed discussed seem to me to
> be soluble either at the level of adding or interpreting vocabulary
> or existing grammar or to involve very minor expansions of the grammar.
> Most of them, indeed, seem to have involved not actually working
> through the resources already available and using them to the full
> (no names, but most of us know who you are -- and even you do
> eventually, though occasionally without stopping the debate).

??? mi na jimpe lae diu

coo, mie And