Re: On Lojban

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

Adding to my previous reply to this:
>>I understand your position. Your goal is that there be lots of
>>Lojban usage. You don't care what kind of usage it is, so long
>>as it doesn't involve too much of a certain kind of metaphor.
>>And the best way to achieve your goal is to do everything to
>>encourage people to use Lojban and nothing to discourage it.
>>
>>I don't think your goals are those of generic Loglan, and I do
>>think that the achievement of your goals is hindered by any
>>efforts to achieve my goals and those of generic Loglan.
>>
>>Actually, I should rephrase that bit about generic Loglan.
>>Perhaps the main, and rather fatuous, goal of generic Loglan
>>was to equip people with a culturally-neutral language (for
>>which end a lg based on logic seemed a good choice) and then
>>get them to use it, to see if there are any whorfian effects.
>>That does seem to be your goal. But a secondary goal of Loglan,
>>and one that I suspect holds more attraction for more people, is
>>that it be a logical language. This secondary goal conflicts
>>with the primary one. You favour the primary one and I favour
>>the secondary one.

I want to add that I think a key problem in choosing immediate vs long term
goals has to do with the pedagogical sophistication of those who are
teaching the language.  If I am writing the Lojban textbook, then the logical
aspects that are taught therein will be no more sophisticated than I have been
able to learn.  This will no doubt be a depressing thought for you and Jorge %^)

I have some reason to beleive that as the community gets larger, and Lojban
skill gets greater, that either I will come to be able to teach the logical
part of the language better, or someone else with better skills at those
aspects will come along to write a second textbook or add to my basic one
to improve the logical teaching.

You can make the logical aspects of the langauge as perfect as you like, but if
no one learns and uses them, it will be hard to prove that they work
communicatively, nor even that the resulting design is a "language".
The refgrammar, for all its apparent flaws to you, is more sophisticated
than any textbook I could have written before it was done, and thus represents
the limit to which the "logical language" goal can be reached at this present
time.

lojbab