Re: Linguistics journals

[HACKER G N <c9709244@ALINGA.NEWCASTLE.EDU.AU>]

On Tue, 21 Oct 1997, Chris Bogart wrote:

> On Fri, 24 Oct 1997, HACKER G N wrote:
> > > Well if they've already done all this, why are *we* reinventing the
> > > wheel?
> >
> > Ha, ha, ha! That's the most insightful question I've seen anyone ask on
> > this list. Why indeed? I don't know.
>
> OK, let me be more specific.  What interests *you* about Lojban enough to
> be subscribed to the list?

Another good question. I've addressed a couple of these issues already in
different postings, but just for the sake of putting them all together in
one letter, here goes.

I like conlangs. They're fun. The idea of a made-up language has always
appealed to me. On a more practical note, they enable me to write my diary
in a language that no one around me can understand, which I have used both
Lojban and Esperanto for in the past. But any conlang might fit this bill.

I also like conlangs that are more rational than natural languages, and
both Lojban and Esperanto fit this bill, but not some other languages.
Klingon, for example, was designed to mimic some of the quirks of natural
language, and although I am a Trek-head, Klingon just doesn't interest me.

Finally, I like languages that are really WEIRD, and Lojban is weird. It
was designed that way, to have a structure unlike natural languages.
Esperanto, by constrast, is so European that it's too familiar. It's
really boring, and I get little sense of the thrill of the exotic from it.

Enough of what DOES interest me about Lojban; now onto what does NOT
interest me.

I do not take Lojban seriously as a scientific project. Its original
purpose, to test the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis, is something that it is
already dubious to many people that Lojban can actually carry out, partly
because it is claimed not to be focused enough, and partly because
it is debatable whether the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis is actually testable.

I do not think that there is anything that Lojban, or ANY language,
natural or constructed, can do to improve my thinking. I do not think in
Lojban, or English, or any other language; I just THINK. You usually have
to CONSTRUCT a language in which to express your ALREADY EXISTING
thoughts, and I consider that thought and language are separate things.

I would not use Lojban for a computer language because I can see no
advantage to this. There are already computer languages around that are as
powerful as Lojban could be, if not more so. Plus, they have the advantage
that you do not have to learn a WHOLE NEW language just to learn to
program. That fact alone stops Lojban from being commercially relevant.

I am not interesting in the prospect of an international constructed
language, mainly because I think it's a bit of a pipe dream. There will
always be too much of an advantage to be gained in learning a natural
language becuase of the enormous number of ALREADY EXISTING speakers of
that language - for better or worse, that language right now is English.

I have doubts that any language can be culturally netural, any more than
an IQ test can be culturally neutral. Semantic space alone is so pliable
that it is dubious that any one language can adequately capture the space
of every other significant language. The Welsh word 'glas', for example,
covers all of blue, but also some (but not all) of 'green' and 'grey'.

Despite all this, though, Lojban is just plain FUN. And while it continues
to be fun for me, I will probably continue to be here.

Geoff