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Copyright, 1990, 1991, by the Logical Language Group, Inc. 2904	Beau Lane,
Fairfax	VA 22031-1303 USA Phone	(703) 385-0273
[email protected]

All rights reserved.  Permission to copy granted subject to your
verification that this is the latest version of	this document, that your
distribution be	for the	promotion of Lojban, that there	is no charge for
the product, and that this copyright notice is included	intact in the
copy.

						 Number	11 - March 1990
				   Copyright 1990,  The	Logical	Language Group,	Inc.
				   2904	Beau Lane, Fairfax VA 22031 USA	(703)385-0273

     Ju'i Lobypli (JL) is the quarterly	journal	of The Logical Language	Group, Inc., known in these pages as la
lojbangirz.  la	lojbangirz. is a non-profit organization formed	for the	purpose	of completing and spreading the	logical
human language "Lojban".   la lojbangirz. is a non-profit organization under Section 501(c)(3) of the U.S. Internal
Revenue	Code.  Your donations (not contributions to your voluntary balance) are	tax-deductible on U.S. and most	state
income taxes.  Donors are notified at the end of each year of your total deductible donations.	We note	for all	po-
tential	donors that our	bylaws require us to spend no more than	30% of our receipts on administrative expenses,	and that
you are	welcome	to make	you gifts conditional upon our meeting this requirement.  See news below regarding contributions
and donations via credit card, or via checks drawn on non-US banks.
     Press run for this	issue of Ju'i Lobypli: 350.  We	now have over 650 people on our	active mailing list.


						   Your	Mailing	Label

Your mailing label reports your	current	mailing	status,	and your current voluntary balance including this issue.  Please
notify us if you wish to be in a different mailing code	category.  Balances reflect contributions received thru	4 April
1990.  Mailing codes (and approximate annual balance needs) are	defined	as follows:

Level B	- Product Announcements	Only   Level R - Review	Copy for Publications
Level 0	- le lojbo karni only -	$5 balance requested
Level 1	- le lojbo karni and Ju'i Lobypli - $15	balance	requested
Level 2	- Level	1 materials and	baselined/final	products - $20 balance requested
Level 3	- Level	2 materials and	lesson materials as developed -	$50 balance or more

						 Contents of This Issue

This issue contains a complete news section.  As noted below, those of you receiving Ju'i Lobypli will no longer be
receiving le lojbo karni, since	the contents will be redundant.	 Also below is a series	of articles relating in	some way
to the value of	Lojban.	 Athelstan and Bob compare Lojban and Esperanto.  Robert Gorsch	reports	on his Semiotics course
at St. Mary's College in California, the first academic	course significantly incorporating Lojban into its curriculum.
His bibliography, and Ralph Dumain's annotated bibliography on language	and thought, are included.  There is also an
article	by David Morrow	on using Lojban	in writing fiction, Lojban text	is by Michael Helsem, including	the first
samples	of original Lojban poetry, and a variety of letters and	responses.  ko xamgu lifri

						   Table of Contents

News							       --3
   Finances, 1989 Financial Report, Master Card/Visa Now Accepted--3
   1990	Plans set by la	lojbangirz. Board - Textbook, Dictionary, LogFest, Logo, Grants	  --5
   1990	Priorities					       --6
							      2


   Research and	Development - Grammar, Parser Status, pc to Visit DC, Transformational Grammar --6
   Growth and Publicity	- Continued Growth, International Publicity, Computer Networks	  --9
   Education - New Classes Starting			      --10
   International News					      --10
   Products and	Prices - New Lojban Tape, Hypercard Mac	LogFlash, lujvo-Making Program,
      Papers Offered, 3	1/4" Diskettes,	Book Plans, LogFlash Porting  --11
   News	(with Comments)	About the Institute		      --15
Esperanto and Lojban - How many	rules are enough? by Athelstan--16
   On Comparing	Esperanto and Lojban, by Bob LeChevalier      --20
An Introductory	College	Course in Semiotics Using Lojban, by Robert Gorsch --25
   Questions from the Class, compiled by Dr. Gorsch, with responses by Bob LeChevalier	  --26
   Course Outline and Bibliography			      --33
Bibliography on	Language and Thought, by Ralph Dumain	      --36
Lojban and Stream of Consciousness Writing, by David C.	Morrow--39
le lojbo se ciska, all by Michael Helsem		      --40
   Self-Description, haiku, 3 limericks, and Free Verse	      --41
Translations of	le lojbo se ciska			      --45
Letters, Comments, and Responses: from Arthur Brown, jyjym., Eric Williams --56
Enclosures - Reprints from The Washington Post and San Francisco Chronicle/Examiner, Reference Outline of Lojban
      Grammar, Some Proposed Logos

						Computer Net Information

I want to remind people	that, if you have access to Usenet/UUCP/Internet, you can send messages	and text files
(including things for JL publication) to Bob at:

						  [email protected]

You can	join the Lojban	news-group by sending your mailing address to:

					    [email protected]

and traffic to the news-group can be sent to:	[email protected]

     Please keep us informed if	your network mailing address changes.
Compuserve subscribers can also	participate.  Precede any of the above addresses with INTERNET:	and use	your normal
Compuserve mail	facility (its possible that you	can send only to addresses in the '@' format).	Usenet/Internet	people
can send to Compuserve addresses by changing the comma in the Compuserve address to a period:
					       [email protected]

     Whether you wish to participate in	the news-group or not, it is useful for	us to know your	Compuserve address.  For
example, any decision for la lojbangirz. to obtain a Compuserve	account	will be	based on a need	to serve a goodly number
of you that want to exchange information.

						       IMPORTANT

     If	you have not received JL10 (and	expected it), please let us know.  JL10	and LK11 were mailed in	mid-December,
but there are still some people	known not to have received it.	If you are one,	we'll resend the issue.	 If you're not
sure, JL10 contained discussions of Lojban poetry and a	lot of Lojban text, including Athelstan's translation of Saki's
The Open Window.  We apologize to those	of you who did not hear	from us	for a long while due to	the very slow mail (and
our other, more	normal,	delays).

							  News
							Finances

     Our finances suffered a significant blow due to the serious delays	in US Postal delivery of JL10.	We paid	for the
issue in December, but have not	received income	to cover the cost until	this month.  Even now, we have money in	the bank
primarily because of Jeff Prothero, and	Nora and me, each maintaining balances over $1000, thus	in effect supporting la
lojbangirz. via	interest-free loans.  I	don't like this	situation, partly because Nora and I don't have	the money to

							      3


spare.	But I also dislike the conflict	of interest of being the principal financial source at the same	time that I'm
trying to serve	your interests as President of la lojbangirz.
     Some good decisions have resulted from our	financial pain,	though.	 We have now set up a credit account with our
printer, who is	our largest expense.  And we have advanced the publication date	for a Lojban textbook and dictionary
(you'll	see why	this helps our finances	in a little bit).
     The la lojbangirz.	Board has decided to add an incentive for those	who are	paying for materials and maintaining a a
positive balance, as well as for those who have	contributed to the textbook development	by studying the	language now.
Thus, starting 1 April,	if your	account	balance	is positive, we	will be	giving a 20% discount on orders	for software,
the cassette tape (see below), and our books when they are published, provided that either you prepay your order (or
have enough in your balance to cover the order)	or you are an active level 3 subscriber.
     Are you contributing what you feel	the Lojban materials are worth to you?	Please help!

						 1989 Financial	Report
					    The	Logical	Language Group,	Inc.
					     (Numbers rounded to nearest $)

	Income

	Contributions			$7988
	Donations			$7633
	Other				  $50
				     ________
	Net Income		       $15671

	Expenses

	Printing and Publications	$5644
	Non-administrative Postage	$1904
	Office Supplies			 $494
	LogFest	89			 $394
	Advertising/Publicity/Noreascon	III$1603
	Telephone			$1240
	Other				 $192
	Administrative Expenses	$519
	Legal Expenses	       $4100
			    ________
	Total Admin. & Legal   $4619	       29% of expenses
				      _______
	Net Expenses		       $16090

	Net Loss		     (418.34)

	For comparison:

					  1988 Summary (Incorporated + Unincorporated)

		    Income		       $6776.72
		    Expenses		       $8605.97
		       including Administrative	Expenses:
		       $452.42 or 7% of	income
		    Net	Loss		     ($1829.25)

				      la lojbangirz. Finances as of 1 January 1990

Assets				 Liabilities

Cash in	bank account   $666.02	 Subscriber Refundable Balances	 ($2673.06)
Undeposited checks     $189.70
Estimated Value	of Inventory$1260.30
		      ________			    __________

							      4


Net Assets	      $2116.02	 Net Liabilities    ($2673.06)

					    Estimated Net Worth	  ($557.04)


				       Subscription Accounts as	of 31 March 1990

The mailing list of The	Logical	Language Group,	Inc. consisted of 811 names.  Of these,	644 were currently active (level
0 or above); the rest were either deleted by request, or because mailings were returned	with no	forwarding address, or
are those that have asked to only receive product announcements	when the textbook is ready.  Known readership is about
50 more	than this, due to multiple readers sharing single subscriptions.

Payment	rates are highly correlated with level.	 40-50%	of those at level 1 or above maintain a	positive balance.  This
varies by 10-20% each mailing due to those whose balances drop below 0 and who then repay us.  Only 3% of the level 0
recipients have	positive balances.

As of 31 March,	there were 95 subscribers at level 3, 161 at level 2, 48 at level 1, 327 at level 0, 11	press reviewers,
and 32 at level	B for a	total of 676.

Sales or distributions of key products as of 1 January 1990:
gismu lists		 526
LogFlash/Mac LojFlash	 122
flash cards		  23
Lessons	beyond Lesson 1	  88

54 persons have	donated	a total	of $12935.78 since we started through 1	January	1990.  During 1989, Bob	& Nora donated
     $3203.02; Jeff Prothero donated $2245.68; others donated a	net of $2543.45.  $4099.68 of Bob, Nora, and Jeff's
     donations were applied to legal bills.

128 persons have net positive voluntary	balances
478 persons have net negative voluntary	balances.  This	is the principal cause of our worsening	financial position.


					     Master Card/Visa Now Accepted

     We	have arranged to be able to accept contributions to voluntary balances and donations on	your Master Card or
Visa, effective	immediately.  This is an experimental program; we'll see how much it is	used.  We have to pay a	fee of
6% on each transaction,	and will be passing that fee on	to your	balance.  We also have to pay a	minimum	fee of $15.00
per month for the service, even	if there are no	transactions; thus, our	continuing this	service	is dependent on	whether
you use	it.
     As	with most mail-order charge systems, we	need your card number and type,	expiration date, name as it shown on the
card, and signature, to	process	your charge.  We can accept telephone orders on	your credit card if you	follow it up
with a signed authorization.  We have to be sure to follow the rules carefully,	especially at first, because small mail
order firms are	considered high	risk for fraud,	and are	carefully watched.
     We	hope that providing this service makes it easier for some of you to contribute to your balances	and/or to donate
support	to la lojbangirz.

							   5


	  1990 Plans set by la lojbangirz. Board	    talled the expected	page count for gismu lists, cmavo
							    lists, machine grammar definition, and explanatory
     The la lojbangirz.	Board had its first meeting since   materials on how to	use these, the result was enough to
LogFest	to approve the above financial report, and to set   compile the	entire set of reference	data into a book.  It
the priorities for our activities during 1990.	We were	    should take	relatively little extra	work to	organize this
aided significantly by the responses to	the questionnaire   book as a reference	dictionary, so that is what we plan to
sent out with LK11 and JL10 (we're still interested in	    do.	 The result should be available	late this year.
getting	these responses	if you haven't yet sent	yours in).     The dictionary, like the	textbook, will be a limited
     The following paragraphs discuss the major	priorities  first edition.  We expect it to have a short life, perhaps
that were discussed.  The list of priorities is	summarized  1-2	years, before being republished	in a significantly
at the end of the discussion.				    expanded version (the first	edition	won't be obsolete then,
     Textbook -	Our numbers of active students (level 3)    but	later editions will presumably be much expanded	and
has topped 100,	and at the current rate, will exceed 200    perhaps better presented, as we learn from the first
this year even with no textbook.  Given	that the current    attempt).  As with the textbook, we	will be	pushing	for ad-
draft textbook lessons are already 300 pages long, printing vance orders, due to our finances.
costs for the year for draft lessons alone could exceed	       LogFest - LogFest 90 is scheduled for the third weekend
$2000.	I've gotten an estimate	that would allow us to	    in June this year; including the Friday and	Monday for some
publish	a textbook for probably	around $3000-4000 for 1000  activities.	 I've added air	conditioning to	our main
copies.	 Mailing books is also cheaper than mailing	    meeting rooms so that the expected larger-than-ever	crowd
individual lessons.					    can	be comfortable.
   Adding in postage and overhead, we will probably be	       The themes for the meeting will be learning the language
charging a base	price of $12-$15, with the discount	    and	getting	involved.  I hope to have review draft copies
mentioned above	for those with positive	balances; this will of the textbook by then for	people to examine.  We will be
exceed our costs enough	to help	pay for	our other	    discussing how each	of you can study Lojban	on your	own or
activities.  Yet it is much cheaper than the approximately  with others, and Athelstan will show how easy it is	to give
$23 we have to now charge for draft lessons - and we make   an introductory presentation on the	language.
no money on these.  We think we	can break even with about      We will have several short sessions where people	can
250 paid textbook sales.  Can we sell that many	books?	    join us in Lojban conversation, or just listen in to learn
That's up to all of you.				    that the language CAN be spoken.
   Most	important, your	questionnaire responses	indicate       Most important, we intend to discuss and	possibly
that when we publish a textbook, many more of you will then approve the	trial grammar baseline,	enabling the textbook
start learning the language.				    to be published and	verifying that the language development
   Dictionary -	Lest anyone think that they have no	    truly is completed.
influence over the decision-making process in la	       I hope many of you will be able to attend.  As in
lojbangirz., your questionnaire	responses have caused a	    previous years, we have sleeping room for at least a dozen
major change in	our plans (alas, we've heard from less than people inside, and will set	up tents outside as necessary
30 of you, only	half of	last years' response - but we'll    (bring sleeping bags if possible).	If you bring your
take what ever feedback	we get).  Whereas only a few months family, they can either get	involved, or go	sightseeing in
ago, we	planned	not to start producing a dictionary until   Washington DC.  We are 2 blocks from the Metro, which runs
we had a significant body of users of the language.  Lin-   straight into all of the attraction	of the capital.
guists believe that a dictionary is supposed to	describe a     You can call me for details at 703-385-0273.  Next issue
language as it is used,	not prescribe 'how it's	supposed to will include a map on how to get here, and whatever	final
be'.  Many of you are apparently unconvinced of	this	    plans have been made by then.  Much	of what	goes on	at a
argument, and your questionnaires indicated that you wanted Logfest is determined by the interests of the people who
the textbook AND the dictionary	done prior to learning the  are	there.	Local people come for part of the weekend, or
language.						    even drop in for a few hours.  We have moved the annual
   I've	talked to several of you who so	responded.  Those   business meeting of	la lojbangirz. to Sunday morning, when
placing	a high priority	on a dictionary	apparently are not  relatively few people are around, after finding that a
waiting	for a "Webster's Unabridged"; rather, you want an   slow-moving	meeting	last year disrupted the	lively
easy to	use word-list, more complete in	its definitions	    excitement of Logfest.
than our current gismu lists, and a feeling that the	       There is	no charge to attend LogFest, but we are	asking
language is sufficiently stable	that we	have the confidence people attending to	contribute perhaps $20 for the weekend,
to publish a book instead of Xeroxed handouts.	You want    or $10 a day, to help defray food costs and	other expenses.
enough examples	therein	so that	you can	see how	words are   (We'll be happy to accept more - our expenses for Logfest
made, how place	structures are determined, etc.	 I think we run	much higher than this.	Contributions in excess	of $20
can do this much.					    will be considered donations.)
   We had already planned to republish the gismu list later    Logo - As part of our effort to generate	publicity,
this year with better place structure definitions.  We also several people have	suggested that we adopt	a logo for la
are working hard on a good cmavo definition list, as we	    lojbangirz.	 We've had suggestions from several people, and
approach our initial baseline of the grammar.  When I to-   especially from Jamie Bechtel and Kit Archer.  We are

							   6


running	the sketches thus far submitted	for your comments,  and	conversation), and supporting this textbook with a
and asking you to contribute your own ideas (or	even draw   cassette tape.
them up	if you can - but others	can do the drawing if you   5. Preparing and publishing	a 1st edition reference
have more creativity than artistic talent).		    dictionary including revised, updated, and preliminary
   We will put the question of a logo to the LogFest	    baselines of grammar, cmavo, gismu place structures, rafsi,
attendees						    synopsis, and additional useful materials as possible.
   Grants - Now	that we	have our non-profit status, we will 6. Preliminary research in grantsmanship leading to	later
be starting to investigate possible grant opportunities.    decisions whether to actually seek grants.
Athelstan and I	have identified	several	possible sources or 7. Preparing updated and new software and other educational
small amounts of support, and we want to find out how much  materials unrelated	to book	publishing above, including the
work is	involved in obtaining such grants before committing Lojban parser.
our limited people and money resources towards pursuing	    8. Additional translation efforts by key people
them.							    (particularly Board	members).
   We will be concentrating on grants that will	help us
improve	our teaching materials,	translate them into foreign
languages and promote the involvement of non-U.S.			     Research and Development
Lojbanists to improve our cultural balance.  We	will also
try to obtain grants for developing some of the	ideas we've    The primary R&D activities in the last couple of	months
had for	using Lojban in	language education, and	in such	    have been attempting to resolve two	of the four open
classes	as Robert Gorsch describes below.  Finally, we will grammar issues discussed in	the last issue:	negation and
seek support for developing some of the	linguistics	    attitudinal	indicators.
research efforts using the language that were the original     A proposal on the latter	is out for review at this
goal for the Loglan Project.				    writing.  If you are level 3 or otherwise knowledgeable of
   We will probably not	seek major grants such as from the  the	attitudinal issue, and want to participate in the
National Science Foundation at this point.  We believe that review, let	me know	and I'll send a	copy.  The final
we need	to establish credibility as an academic	effort,	    proposal (incorporating any	comments by then) will be
attract	researchers who	know how to get	such grants, and    printed in JL12, and any decision will be approved at
possibly affiliate with	another	organization to	ensure	    LogFest.
accountability.	 We also need to show that we can work	       I have much of my time in the last few months working on
within the academic peer review	system,	and of course,	    a thorough treatment of negation which incorporates	hours
prove that we can manage grant money wisely.  I	believe	    of discussion among	Nora, Athelstan, pc, and me.  The
that Jim Brown failed to get grants for	his Loglan work	    discussion is being	written	somewhat in the	style of the
after he left the University of	Florida	primarily because   textbook lessons, with dozens of examples, and also
he never established this kind of outside accountability.   includes explanation of logical connectives.  I hope to
We should do much better - we've had a couple of years of   involve as many people as possible in reviewing the	result,
practice now in	demonstrating that we are accountable to    which I hope will appear in	JL12.  The entirety may	be too
you, our supporters.					    long, so I may have	to abridge it or send it separately to
							    level 3 people only	- it depends on	our finances, and your
							    expressions	of interest in the topic.
		      1990 Priorities			       Negation	is likely to be	the last 'big' language	issue
							    that can be	reasonably understood without knowing the
   The Board adopted the following priorities as its policy language; the issues to be resolved	are semantic, and thus
for day-to-day business	activities (i.e. spending money	and not	much dependent on Lojban's grammar and word lists.
receiving 'official' support).	We ask that people work	to  Your ability to contribute will depend more	on your
support	these goals.  The Board	recognizes, of course, that understanding of how negation works	in natural language
we are a volunteer-based organization and everyone should   than on how	Lojban works; the object is to make sure that
be free	to work	with or	on the language	in the way that	he  we have the	means to cover everything involved in negation
or she chooses:						    in a logically consistent manner.  The grammar of negation
							    in Lojban is quite simple, and easily adapted once we are
1. Maintenance of a stable business posture, fulfilling	    sure that we understand the	problem.  We may be trying to
legal requirements (including lawsuit-related),	filling	    get	linguists not otherwise	involved in the	language to
orders,	etc.						    review our results for correctness and completeness.
2. Producing timely newsletters	of comparable quality to       The other two big issues	are tense grammar and MEX.  I
current	practice.					    suspect that our tense system will be among	the hardest
3. Responding to correspondents, especially submittals of   things to teach in its entirety to new people, since so few
Lojban text, in	such a degree as to support continued self- people realize how much hidden tense structure there is in
learning.  Supporting classes started by others, and	    natural languages -	all made open and optional in Lojban.
Athelstan's DC-area class.				    pc,	as an expert in	tense logic, will be the primary
4. Preparing and publishing a 1st edition textbook covering reviewer of	the proposal.  Others will have	trouble	getting
about half the language	(the portion most used in writing   involved in	this one; the proposal will not	be written up

							   7


until the textbook lessons are written,	although its	       It isn't	clear what such	a parser tool would mean to
essence	will be	evident	in the annotated sections of the    Lojban.  It	could allow us to make significant
machine	grammar	dealing	with tense.			    simplifications in the grammar, such as perhaps re-
   The MEX issue is one	mostly of philosophy - whether to   coalescing the variety of logical connectives into a
try to make MEX	comprehensive, or to make it easy to use.   smaller and	easier to learn	set.  It would certainly allow
Until we have people skilled enough in the language to try  much of the	hand-coded lexer routine in the	parser to be
using MEX, we won't really be able to test our design.	We  replaced by	table-driven rules in the automatically-
may have to omit the esoteric parts of MEX from	the 5-year  generated portion of the parser, eliminating several of the
grammar	baseline, or else to simply recognize that MEX	    invisible 'machine lexemes'	that allow the parser to
grammar	is likely to change after that point.  (I favor	the emulate human grammar analysis.
former - the need for a	baseline is to ensure that there is    We'll report next issue on whether Doug's researches of
a stable language for people to	learn.	If we know in	    the	topic have led anywhere.
advance	that an	area will be significantly revised, the
stability is illusionary.)  A possibility to be	considered			  pc to	Visit DC
is that	we put two competing MEX grammars into the language
and to see which survives.				       Just about the time this	newsletter is mailed, pc will
   Other than writing up the proposals,	the major work to   be visiting	Bob and	Nora in	the DC area for	a long weekend.
be done	is reflecting the changes in cmavo lists and in	the Although he's coming for other reasons, pc has budgeted a
machine	grammar.  The attitudinal proposal affects the	    significant	amount of time for us to work together on
cmavo list a lot, with no grammar changes.  The	negation    resolving the open grammar issues.	Since pc is probably
change is primarily semantic, with minimal impact on either the	most expert of all in the combination of logic,
grammar	or cmavo list.	The tense proposal is a		    linguistics, old Loglan design and current Lojban
regularizing of	the already radical approach that I took in implementation, his	review and agreement will set the tone
my redesign two	years ago; it has been taught conceptually  for	the decision-making to take place in June.
to the DC-area class, and what remains (other than pc's	       In addition to going over the 4 biggies,	we will	also be
verification) is to make sure that the machine grammar	    discussing place structures	of gismu, textbook plans, and
completely reflects the	concept.			    the	style to be used in producing the dictionary.  We'll
   The MEX decision will affect	very little or quite a lot. probably slip in a little Lojban conversation, too,
If the status quo is deemed acceptable,	there will be few   although pc	has just recently resumed studying the
changes.  If there is a	strong move towards an easier-to-   vocabulary after lapsing for several months.
use MEX, then the grammar will have to be substantially
rewritten in this area.							     Transformational Grammar
   In short, things are	moving along well towards our
intended June decision point.				       It is a common myth among linguists that	the
							    Loglan/Lojban project ignores and/or runs counter to the
		       Parser Status			    various transformational grammar theories developed	by Noam
							    Chomsky.  Transformational grammar theory has dominated the
   Jeff	Taylor hasn't had a lot	of time	to spare for the    field of linguistics, especially in	the U.S., since	shortly
parser,	and has	put his	emphasis on the	cmavo list instead. after Jim Brown started the	Loglan project.	 Jim Brown
This isn't a problem, because most of what remains to be    lends credence to these myths by attacking some of
done is	dependent on the decisions to be made in the four   Chomsky's ideas in the new edition of Loglan 1.
open areas discussed above.  The parser	worked fine on the     Contrary	to this	myth, the Lojban redevelopment team has
text samples in	JL10; what remains is to incorporate the    tried to bring ideas in from a variety of linguistic
results	of the pending design changes -	primarily the final sources, while trying to make sure the language meets
tense design which is substantially embedded in	the hand-   whatever criteria make a natural language 'natural'	and
coded lexer.  We've reduced the	priority of the	parser to   learnable.
make sure that we get the textbook and dictionary done this    Briefly,	transformational grammar (tg) theory says that
year.							    there is an	underlying structure to	all natural languages
   An alternative possibility for the parser has recently   (called 'deep structure') which is often well-hidden from
shown up.  Doug	Landauer, who along with Sheldon Linker	did our	conscious thought.  The	argument for deep structure is
much of	the germinal Loglan machine grammar work in the	70s based on the fact that children learn language so quickly
has volunteered	to investigate and to possibly write a	    and	easily,	and before they	understand anything about
parser generator especially tailored for Lojban	grammar	    grammar, that some amount of 'innate grammar' must be
work.  Key aspects - for those who know	parser terminology  genetically	coded.	What we	perceive as the	widely varying
- are that the new generator, which would replace our YACC- grammars of	everyday natural language are 'surface
based program, will be able to look-ahead more than 1	    structures'	based on transformations from this innate 'deep
'token'	- the exact number of look-aheads hasn't yet been   grammar'.  These transformations are then what is actually
decided.  We would also	try to have the	generator save	    learned when we learn language.  From this theory, if
tables that allow for better processing	of elidable	    Lojban is truly 'different'	from natural languages in some
terminators.						    basic way such that	tg theory does not apply, then it

							   8


cannot be a natural language.  Arguing in the reverse
direction, if such a 'deep structure' of Lojban	can be	       Our growth in the last few months has been phenomenal,
found, and the language	indeed turns out to be speakable    especially since it	is almost entirely due to word-of-mouth
by, and	teachable to young children, then the deep	    advertising.  We've	added about 50 people since the	start
structure of Lojban must be tied to that of the	natural	    of the year, with new contacts averaging more than 1 every
languages.  This has implications for the validity of a	    2 days.
Sapir-Whorf test, while	allowing Lojban	to serve as a test     Some of these new people	have joined us due to several
bed for	tg theory developments.	 Meanwhile, the	extreme	    of you giving talks	to groups about	Lojban,	and some are
simplicity of Lojban's grammar means that its consistency   due	to distributions of brochures at conventions.  I want
with tg	theory may say something basic about the deep	    to expressly thank all of you who are serving as emissaries
structure of natural language.				    of Lojban in this way.  The	list is	getting	too long to
   Esperanto and most other artificial languages have	    name every convention or talk we have collectively given;
generally been of no interest to tg linguists, since their  you've ensured a Lojbanic presence at some half-dozen
grammars usually are merely simplifications of standard	    science fiction conventions	in the last 3 months that I
European language grammars that	provide	no useful basis	for know of, and probably as many that I don't know about.
research.						    Keep it up!
   pc did a simple transformational study of old Loglan	       We've had good response following an October ad in the
back in	the 1970's and found nothing unusual.  Now,	    Mensa national bulletin donated by a Lojbanist, which has
Lojbanist Greg Higley has been more thoroughly researching  led	to a follow-up article in the Mensa SIG	publication
the applicability of tg	theory to Lojban using the current  'Science Quest'.  We got a scattering of responses from
language definition.					    around the country following Don Oldenburg's newspaper
   Greg's results are still preliminary, but he	has found   article (reprint enclosed with this	issue),	and the	follow-
that the basic Lojban sentence structure is indeed	    up Copley News Service release, and	radio interviews with
consistent with	tg theory.  Furthermore, he says, in a	    various stations in	the US,	Canada,	and United Kingdom.
recent letter to Bob, that the surface structure of Lojban     The various press releases led to a contact with
is nearly transparent:	"It is very rare for a language	to  reporter Dominique Schroder	of the French news agency ASP
have the ability to display its	deep structure while	    (their equivalent of the AP).  After a pleasant several
maintaining grammaticalness, especially	in complex	    hours of interview and discussion, her story was released
sentences, but Lojban does this	admirably."		    in several languages.  It is known to have been printed (in
   Greg	is trying to ensure that his research lives up to   French) in the Quebec Soleil during	February.  Lojbanist
academic standards, and	that his results will be	    Andre Bergeron saw the article, contacted the paper, and
publishable.  If so, Lojban may	significantly gain in	    convinced them to print our	address	a few days later, and
credibility within the community of linguists, and the goal we've had 5	new responses (4 of them in French, leading us
of using Lojban	as a vehicle for experimental linguistics   to test our	network	for multi-language correspondence
will be	greatly	forwarded.				    support).
   We're trying	to identify within our community, people       We have no reports of other publications	of Dominique's
with sufficient	training in tg theory to assist	in	    story, mostly because it did not include our address, and
reviewing Greg's results, to the extent	that he	desires	our because it would have appeared primarily in	publications
assistance.  Identify such people will also be important to serving locales where we don't have	a lot of existing
us in the event	that we	decide to seek research	support	    people who would have noticed and reported it.  Some of
based on Greg's	efforts.  Let Bob know if you want to	    these people will eventually find us by contacting ASP, but
participate in reviewing Greg's	work.			    we mostly gained international name	recognition.
   (A good understanding of Lojban grammar and/or	       Our most	significant recent growth has been through the
principles of transformational grammars	will probably be    computer networks.	With the assistance of Lojbanist Eric
vital -	Greg's work so far makes very technical	statements  Raymond, we	have an	international news forum on the	Inter-
about Lojban grammar which would be hard to evaluate	    net/Usenet/uucp circuit, which also	can tie	in to
without	such knowledge.	 Indeed, the sophistication of	    Compuserve (see page 2 for instructions on how to join this
Greg's work is extremely heartening; he	has demonstrated a  group or to	send messages to me).  The network presence has
sophisticated and thus far error-free understanding of	    attracted the attention of a couple	of dozen new people,
Lojban grammar,	yet is totally self-taught from	the draft   and	more importantly has allowed us	to respond quickly to
textbook lessons and other materials. Readers may recall    people's questions.	 (Now all I need is a connection to the
that Greg skillfully found a subtle but	important error	in  net	here in	DC, so I don't have to spend money on long
the textbook lessons, as he reported in	JL10).		    distance bills to Eric's computer near Philadelphia.)
   This	is an exciting prospect	for Lojban, one	which	       We've also been able to respond to inquiries on the
heightens our sense of contributing to our understanding of Usenet linguistics newsgroup 'sci.lang' about Loglan and
language.  We'll try to	have more on Greg's work in one	of  Lojban.  We	have even profited from	Jim Brown's advertising
the next two issues of JL.				    efforts, as	people who have	bought Jim's book inquire on
							    the	net looking for	others working with the	language; al-
							    most invariably, people who	find out that there are	two
		   Growth and Publicity			    groups and that our	group is larger, more organized, and

							   9


supports a public domain version of the	language, end up			     Education
choosing to study Lojban.
   The same effect has occurred	on Compuserve, where a copy    We've believed that Lojban has a	major potential	to
of our brochure	was placed in the Foreign Language	    contribute to various aspects of education.	 Finally, this
Education forum.  This has brought us several new people,   has	been proven.  Dr. Robert Gorsch	of St. Mary's College
including some who have	started	using the AMRAD	BBS to	    in California used Lojban as a major component of an
contact	us.						    intensive course in	Semiotics taught during	the interses-
   We've gained	no new people as a result, yet,	but Mark    sion in January.  The course proved	popular	and quite
Manning	published an article reviewing Lojban in his	    successful;	a surprising number of these very bright
science	fiction	'fanzine' Tand #2, last	fall.  Since the    students were not aware of Lojban OR Esperanto, or the
article	included several misunderstandings, Mark agreed	to  various other attempts to invent a language	throughout
print a	rebuttal written by Athelstan and Bob, which just   history.  The class	will be	expanded to a full semester
appeared in Tand #3 a couple of	weeks ago.  There is the    course for next school year.
possibility of continuing dialog in the	magazine, which	       The course is described in detail by Dr.	Gorsch below,
relies on letters of comment on	previous issues	for much of including an outline and bibliography for others who are
its content.						    interested in Lojban and Semiotics (which Gorsch says has
   A high percentage of	new respondents	have been moving    been heavily influenced by the Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis), and
quickly	from level 0 to	levels 1-3, and	most of	them are    for	others who would like to develop similar courses.
paying for their materials.  The count of level	3's has	       Otherwise, education has	been a bit of a	disappointment
been growing at	10% per	month.				    these past couple of months.  After	months of promises from
   My only complaint is	that filling orders takes a lot	of  the	organizers, the	New York and Boston classes are	no
time away from other Lojban activities,	especially because  closer to starting than last fall, when we gave talks en-
I personalize the response to many of the people I send	to  route home from Worldcon.  In Boston, things have been
with information about other Lojbanists	nearby,	etc.  HEAR  complicated	by the fact that both of our organizers	are
THIS!  I want to continue to have THIS complaint!	    unemployed and job hunting in a bad	labor market; one has a
							    new	baby and no telephone making his life even more
							    complicated; there is some evidence	that things will
							    eventually come together there.  Boston people at least
							    have a place to meet, since	everyone seems to find MIT a
							    good location.
							       I can't say what	is going on in New York.  The principal
							    hang-up seems to be	difficulty in finding a	place that
							    everyone is	willing	to travel to, and a day	to meet.  I've
							    suggested that they	divide into multiple groups which study
							    on their own and get together to interchange on a less
							    frequent basis, or by telephone.  The same suggestion might
							    be appropriate for San Francisco and Los Angeles metro
							    areas, which also have large, geographically disperse
							    groups of Lojbanists.
							       Things are going	much better in the self-study arena.
							    The	best evidence of this is the collection	of material
							    written by self-taught Lojbanist Michael Helsem.  I'm also
							    including with his writings	a sample of the	feedback that
							    we gave him, thus showing that we support those of you who
							    try	to learn Lojban	on your	own, and also that WE WANT YOU
							    TO SEND YOUR ATTEMPTS AT USING THE LANGUAGE	TO US, EVEN IF
							    YOU	DON'T THINK THEY ARE VERY GOOD!	 Because Michael did
							    so,	his current Lojban is much improved.  Moreover,	WE
							    learned a lot from his attempts, which will	in turn	improve
							    the	textbook when it comes out.

									       New Classes Starting

							       While New York and Boston haven't yet jelled, we've
							    demonstrated further viability as a	language here in DC and
							    in Blacksburg VA, where new	classes	are starting and are
							    being taught by graduates of the last set of classes.  This
							    is the best	sign that our teaching was successful, that
							    those who have studied the language	have enough confidence

							   10


to feel	that they can lead a new group up to their skill    too, if we can find	a translator who will get it done by
level in Lojban.					    then).  (Athelstan is also brushing	up on 6	languages at
   Athelstan is	teaching a new DC-area class, under the	    once besides Lojban, so that he can	deal with people in
auspices of the	University of Maryland 'Free University'    their own language - a truly heroic	endeavor!)
Program.  This program gives the class an on-campus meeting    Athelstan will be spending about	4-6 weeks following
point, coincidentally in the foreign language education	    Worldcon travelling	around Europe by Eurorail, and
building.  Unlike the first class, this	class is only 8	    eventually to Israel in October.  He will be visiting
weeks long with	one 2-hour session per week.  The students  'friends', a label which includes every Lojbanist on the
are not	expected to master the vocabulary, and only the	    Continent that he can work into his	itinerary.  He
basics of the grammar will be covered.	The lowered	    specifically plans to make it to John Negus	in France and
expectation takes the pressure off both	students and	    Silvia Romanelli in	Italy, and possibly to others in
instructor.  The class will probably be	followed up with an Germany, Switzerland, and Austria.	Again, he will be
advanced class after people  have learned more of the vo-   giving talks on Lojban and mini-lessons everywhere he goes.
cabulary.  Eight students showed up for	the first meeting,  Lojbanists who can organize	sessions for him to give talks
with a couple of additional people who didn't show up	    at will gain precedence on his itinerary.
indicating that	they want to join in late.		       If you are a European Lojbanist who wants Athelstan to
   The 2nd Blacksburg class will be taught by Karen Stein   stop through for a visit, please let us know as soon as
starting in April, after people	are recruited at a local    possible.  We'll provide more details on his plans next
science	fiction	convention and the VA Tech campus.  John    issue.
Hodges,	who taught the first class, is struggling under	a
full class load	and a full-time	job, but will be advising		       International Finance
Karen as needed.
							       We have finally arranged	with an	international service
							    firm, Deak International, to process currency exchanges for
		    International News			    us with a corporate	account.
							       This means that we can now accept checks	drawn in your
   Much	of the international news has been covered under    country's currency as payment to contribute	to your
'Growth	and Publicity' above.  We have gained significant   voluntary balance, or to donate to the project.  The
numbers	in Canada through the ASP story	and other contacts, currency must be convertible to US dollars,	and will be
such that there	could potentially be classes or	group	    exchanged at the official rate.  The service is MUCH
studies	organized in Vancouver,	Toronto, and Quebec.	    cheaper than what it would cost you	otherwise to send us a
   The ASP story is good news to Lojbanist John	Negus, in   check.  We pay a service charge of US$3.50 for each	check
Bessas,	France.	 John is serving as our	'French		    (which we will charge against your voluntary balance since
correspondent',	agreeing to serve as a local point of	    we charge people what it costs us, so please allow for it).
contact	for any	new French Lojbanists.	John has also been  Above all, PLEASE make sure	that you keep any such check
making his own attempts	to recruit new people, and has	    covered until it clears, which might take a	few weeks - we
written	a one-page description of Lojban emphasizing its    are	charged	US$50.00 if Deak cannot	collect	on the check.
international language aspects for his own distribution.       We also now can accept contributions and	donations via
   The French language version of the brochure (translated  Master Card	and Visa credit	cards, as described above under
by Andre Bergeron) has now been	entered	onto computer, just 'Finance'.	We originally sought this service for our
in time	to receive an 'acid test' by being distributed to   international customers as an alternative to sending US
the several French-speaking respondents	to the ASP article. currency through the postal	system,	and hope that it is
It will	receive	one more review	pass before being printed   useful to you.
up in bulk.
   The Italian language	brochure (translated by	Silvia
Romanelli), is being typed up.	After Silvia reviews it, we			Products and Prices
will be	printing bulk copies of	it as well.  Silvia has
plans to actively recruit people in the	Italian	city of	       Our emphasis these last few month has been on polishing
Asti, near her home.					    up design features of the language,	working	towards	the
   Board member	Tommy Whitlock recently	visited	Germany	on  grammar baseline, rather than developing new products, but
a personal trip.  We don't yet have a German brochure, and  we do have a few, primarily	due to the efforts of others
the trip occurred during a university break period, but	    among you who have helped me out.  These include two com-
some 50	English	brochures were distributed, and	Tommy made  puter programs, a cassette tape, and several technical
contact	with a couple of Lojbanists who	are linguistics	    papers of a	length or of a more limited interest group such
students in Germany.					    that we can't justify printing them	in a JL	issue.
   Athelstan will be attending the 1990	World Science
Fiction	Convention (Worldcon) in Amsterdam, which takes				  New Lojban Tape
place the last week of August.	He will	arrive prepared	to
give several talks at the convention and to distribute	       We have finally made the	long-promised cassette tape
brochures in the 3 languages completed (and possibly German designed to	accompany the first few	lessons	of the

							   11


textbook.  The tape was	made on	very short notice, since    functionality (and of course if any	bugs need fixing); our
Robert Gorsch wanted to	use it in his class described below normal update price	is $6 for each update (with the	20%
(although a U.S. mail foul-up meant that it didn't get to   discount per above).
him in time).						       We are offering the program for now under similar
   Bob,	Nora, Athelstan, Tommy Whitlock, Sylvia	Rutiser,    restrictive	terms as the cassette tape - priority will be
and new	Lojbanist David	Young participated in the various   given to advance paid orders, to level 3 subscribers, and
pronunciation exercises	and dialogues on the tape.  The	    to people needing the program for a	demonstration; no
recording includes samples from	the first three	textbook    guarantees that we can fill	unpaid orders.
lessons.						       We are also offering the	20% discount on	both Mac
   We are announcing availability of this tape under rather teaching programs as described under 'finances' above.
restricted conditions.	Because	of our strained	finances
and the	impending textbook rewrite, we cannot afford to			       lujvo-Making Program
mass produce the tape.	Also, since the	text associated
with the tape is derived from the draft	textbook lessons,      Nora has	pretty well tested her new lujvo-making	program
it is fairly worthless to give the tape	to anyone who	    for	PC/MS-DOS machines, and	we're going to start offering
doesn't	have at	least the first	3 draft	textbook lessons.   it for sale	now.  The program, unlike LogFlash and its
   Since we aren't mass	producing the tape, Bob	has to	    variations,	does not use a ladder technique, nor is	it
manually copy each tape	that we	distribute, which is not    solely a teaching program.
quick.	And since the tape is not being	widely distributed,    lujvo-maker has two modes, one for reference, and one
we can't afford	to put a lot of	effort into polishing and   for	drill.	One mode allows	you to type in up to 5 keywords
editing	it (although Lojbanist John Vengrouskie	has vol-    from the list of gismu English keywords, and it will form
unteered to assist us in this, when we finally do so.)	    the	set of possible	lujvo, listing up to 32	valid forms in
   Enough qualifications.  The bottom line is that, for	now order of highest 'score'.
at least, we will probably accept orders for the tape only     The scoring algorithm differs from both proposals
from a)	people who need	the tape as examples for a group    included in	the Synopsis - these latter failed the most
presentation they are giving on	Lojban,	and b) level 3	    important test of all - usability by a Lojbanist trying to
people who specifically	ask for	the tape.  Among the	    make words 'on the fly'.  The new algorithm	stresses word-
latter,	high priority will be given to paid orders, and	to  length, with adjustments minimizing	hyphens	and consonant
people who have	been trying to use or write in the language clusters.  It generally selects the	intuitive 'best	word'
or have	otherwise contributed.	I won't	promise	to fill	    from the list, and at least	can be predicted 'on the fly'.
unpaid orders at this point; we	can't afford it.	       The drill mode selects a	random tanru of	1 to 5
   The price for the 60	minute cassette	is $9.00, with a    elements, and displays the English keywords.  It then asks
20% discount ($7.20) as	announced in 'finances'	above for   you	to type	in what	you think is the 'best'	lujvo.	When
people with positive balances who are either level 3 or	who you	respond, it displays the set of	correct	values,	and
prepay their order.					    tells you whether you chose	a valid	lujvo, one in the top
							    few	in the list, or	optimally, the best lujvo on the list.
		  Hypercard Mac	LogFlash		    At this point, it keeps no statistics, although we may
							    eventually add such	a function for research	aimed at
   Dave	Cortesi	has written a Hypercard	implementation of   evaluating how well	people learn rafsi and lujvo-making.
LogFlash for the MacIntosh which is available on special    For	now, the program is fairly simple - not	even requiring
order.	The program, being new,	and on the Mac,	has not	    a users manual.  Just start	it up and follow the menus.
undergone Nora's exhaustive testing program; it	has,	       We are offering lujvo-maker on a	separate disk at this
however, been tested by	at least three users and found to   point for $10, with	a 20% discount for those with positive
be a worthwhile	product.				    balances etc., per 'finances' above.  At some point, we
   The main feature of the program, other than its	    will probably offer	it in combination with the random sen-
Hypercard design that allows you to use	the program for	    tence generator on a single	diskette.
word look-ups as well as for testing, is that it interfaces    Unlike the above	new products, there are	no restrictions
with the standard MacIntosh speech generator.  Thus, unlike on ordering	lujvo-maker; I can make	copies fairly easily.
Mac LojFlash, and other	LogFlash versions, you can hear	the The	program	is very	effective at teaching lujvo-making,
word on	request.  This makes this program especially	    especially if used after or	in conjunction with LogFlash 2,
valuable to newer Lojbanists who are unfamiliar	with the    which teaches the rafsi independent	of lujvo-making.  After
sound of the language, although	the Hypercard		    reaching 80% on LogFlash 2,	it took	me only	about an hour
implementation is apparently noticeably	slower than Mac	    of practice	to regularly be	able to	predict	either the top
LojFlash, especially on	the older and slower models.	    scoring lujvo, or at least one of the top 3	scorers.  Since
   Because Hypercard Mac LogFlash is of	comparable	    all	lujvo forms based on the same root tanru have the same
functionality with Mac LojFlash, we are	offering it at the  meaning, this is more than acceptable for everyday use.
same price - $20.  Since the program is	still in a late
development stage, we will include in this price 6 months		     Technical Papers Offered
of update support:  free updates will be provided during
that time if a new release provides meaningful new

							   12


   Over	the last year or two, as many of you know, I have   try	something else,	but I want to do something to bring
been building a	linguistics reference library, and a	    more of these writings to interested readers.
Loglan/Lojban historical archive.  Your	correspondence over    I'll try	to start this service with the next JL issue.
the two	years amounts to about 4-5 feet	of filing cabinet   I'm	interested in anyone's comments	about the idea,	and how
space.	Most of	this correspondence is short letters,	    it might be	made to	work best.
questionnaire responses, etc., that are	primarily of
interest for statistical or historical purposes.  Some of			 3 1/4"	Diskettes
you, however, have written article length essays and
comments, etc. reviewing some aspect of	Lojban or	       With my new 386/25 machine, I have a 3 1/4" disk	drive,
linguistics.  T. Peter Park, Paul Doudna, and Jim Carter    and	can now	offer PC/MS-DOS	software in that format.  For
have been especially prolific, and Michael Helsem has writ- now, we'll charge the same price, since the	higher cost of
ten more Lojban	text than we can review	and print in JL	(I  the	diskettes is approximately countered by	my not needing
get a new letter every week or two.  Keep it up, Michael!). to use expensive disk mailers, and by slightly cheaper
For a while, I published almost	anything printable in JL.   postage.
We can't do so anymore.	 Readers want me to be selective
about length, relevance	to general interest, etc.				    Book Plans
   The writings	I'm talking about are NOT low quality.	In
some cases, they are written for readers of a particular       Here's the way I	think things look for the textbook at
experience background that I don't think is representative. this writing.
To give	an example, a year ago Jeff Prothero wrote a proof     After I finish whatever needs to	be done	on the four
of Lojban elidable-terminator disambiguity.  It's only 1    open grammar issues, I will	start working intensely	on the
page long, but if I added enough explanation of	Jeff's	    textbook.  First priority is to write up Athelstan's mini-
terminology and	its relationship to our	standard usages,    lesson, which will serve as	a new opening lesson.  I may
and also explained the point of	the proof to those who are  also revise	the Overview for incorporation in the introduc-
unfamiliar with	the machine grammar design, the	result	    tion.
might be a dozen pages - and since I'm not sure	that the       I have long planned to scrap the	existing Overview as an
proof is correct, or that people are interested, I can't    introduction to the	language for new people	and to replace
use that much space on the article (nor	can I spend the	    it with a derivative of one	of T. Peter Park's outstanding
time writing the explanation).				    efforts at overview-writing	(these will be among the papers
   A similar reason explains why I've never printed Jim	    made available per the above discussion).  T. Peter's
Carter's descriptions of the evolving versions of his	    overviews are heavy	with examples and have a much more
Loglan-derivative language.  The text is too long, of	    personable style than the stilted, fairly technical
insufficient general interest, and filled with vocabulary   overview we	distribute now.	 But the latter	is useful for
and usages that	are peculiar to	Jim's writing (and often    the	textbook, perhaps blended into the mini-lesson write-
contradicting our own terminology) to print in JL.  But	    up,	because	it covers the whole language, and defines our
some among you want to read about other	artificial language special usage vocabulary and jargon	that is	found
proposals, and Jim and others have given me their efforts   throughout JL, the textbook, and all of our	other writings.
presumably so that I can bring their ideas to a	wider,	       I will then be revising the 6 existing lessons, probably
interested, audience.					    breaking them up into smaller chunks - as many as 20.  I'll
   What	I'm going to try to do over the	next couple of	    try	to add more examples, and to bring a student to	a
months is to assemble a	list of	such special papers that I  greater feeling of competence earlier in the text.
think can be made available to the Lojban readership, and   Athelstan has people making	good sentences after an	hour
I'll include it	as a separate page of ordering materials.   mini-lesson; the textbook takes 2+ lessons to get to the
I'll also put the oldest issues	of JL and its predecessor   same point.
newsletters on that list, freeing up space on the main	       Next, I will finish the equivalent of Lessons 7,	8, and
order form for new products.				    9 of the textbook outline, using the same organization and
   I suspect that I have a couple dozen	such papers,	    lesson size	that I develop for the first 6 lessons.	 Much
ranging	in length from 1 page to 75 (for Paul Doudna's	    of this material will come from the	write-up on negation
detailed analyses of Loglan/Lojban gismu categories).	    that I'm putting together for next issue.
   I'm going to	start with a base price	of 15 cents/page,      Finally,	I'll put together a vocabulary list Appendix,
which is my estimate of	what it	costs for special order	    Glossary, Index, and perhaps a couple of appendices	on
printing and mailing of	such papers.  I	will apply the 20%  using the textbook more effectively	for self-study and for
discount to these papers for advance paid orders - if we    classroom study.  I'd also like an appendix	dealing	with
lose a little money on this, I'll consider it a	well-spent  common errors made by new Lojbanists.
reward for those who are supporting us with cash.  So I	can    Nora will be assisting me by devising more examples - my
keep going on more normal orders, I will have to fill these main weakness in textbook writing and teaching is an
orders on a time-available basis, unless you give me some   inability to devise	good examples to illustrate a
time-dependent reason for rushing your order.		    particular point on	demand.	 I will	also be	using examples
   If we lose too much money on	this service, or if it	    out	of the various writings	that Lojbanists	send me	for
takes too much of my time, we'll have to raise the price or

							   13


review.	 This textbook will thus be a creation of many	    specifically towards textbook publication, or towards
people,	not just a few.					    paying for copies for people who legitimately cannot afford
   As I	said above, I want to have a draft finished by	    them.)
LogFest	in mid-June.  This is probably optimistic, since I     Your feedback on	our plans is important.	 Let me	know
haven't	gotten started on it yet, but I	think it will move  your opinions.
quickly	once I get going.  (Now	where have we heard this
before!)  But I've made	a commitment; the textbook, and	the			 LogFlash Porting
dictionary, will be done this year.
   As for the dictionary - the primary efforts to be done   We've had volunteers to port LogFlash to CP/M, the Amiga,
in prerequisite	are the	completion of the new cmavo list,   and	the Apple II, during the last 3	months,	all of which
which Jeff Taylor has been working on for several months,   I've tried to discourage:  people who start	this effort
and a word by word review of expanded gismu place	    don't seem to finish it, and I'd rather see	people not
structures that	I actually prepared about 8 months ago.	    waste their	time on	an incomplete effort.  Perhaps a half
These will form	the core of the	dictionary, which will be   dozen people have volunteered for each of the portings
enhance	by a data base of alternative English keyword	    mentioned, and only	one (an	Amiga version by Carl Burke)
equivalents, and entries for conversions and abstractions   got	partially running.  LogFlash is	apparently surprisingly
of the gismu and their corresponding lujvo.		    complex - 2000 lines of Turbo Pascal, and this will	proba-
   I haven't yet figured out how I want	to write such	    bly	be increased later this	year when we have longer
entries, but the first dictionary will be prepared with	    English definitions	for the	gismu list.
fairly mechanical definitions to make sure that	it gets		 CP/M is the only porting possibility that seems
written.  We'll	then revise it based on	your feedback on    meaningful;	older Turbo-Pascal versions exist for CP/M so
the First edition.					    that conversion would be easy.  Speed, small diskette
     Finally, I'll be adding in	the (hopefully)	baselined   sizes, and the infinite variety of terminal	interfaces and
machine	grammar	and an explanation of how to use it,	    diskette formats make a conversion a problematical
various	supplementary lists, such as Lojbanizations of	    investment of effort in the	rapidly	declining CP/M market.
common names, an index of rafsi, etc., and a revision of	 Eric Raymond had completed an 85% conversion of
the Synopsis, which belongs in a reference work.  Probably  LogFlash to	portable Unix C, using a Turbo-to-C translator
to be added to a later edition will be a revised an	    that he is modifying as he goes to make sure that we can
completed grammar synopsis that	I once started writing,	now always generate working Pascal from	the C and vice-versa.
available as the partial 'grammar description' we list on   There have been hang-ups due to incompatible I/O between
our order form.						    Turbo-Pascal and C;	LogFlash uses 'random access' to disk
   Right now, I	am hoping to sell each of these	books for   files, which is apparently difficult to match in C.
about $12-15, with the 20% discount ($10-12) for positive   Otherwise the project would	be completed.
balances described under 'finances' above.  At least one	 Volunteers who	have significant amounts of time to
person has pointed out that we probably	should charge more, contribute and a good knowledge of both C and Turbo	Pascal
since quality technical	paperbacks generally sell for $15-  can	contact	Eric on	uucp/Internet at:
20 nowadays.  At this point, I'm inclined to go	the cheaper			 [email protected]
route.	I want students	and Lojbanists overseas	to buy the
books, and I want more people buying them, rather than	       If the conversion is completed it can perhaps serve as a
having fewer people buying, and	giving books away to the    basis for portings to several other	machines, given	the
others because I don't want anyone who wants to	learn the   attempt to maximize	portability of the C code.  If the
language to be deprived	by an inability	to afford the	    porting is completed, we will consider making the C	version
books.							    the	main 'baseline'	version.  The problem with this	is
   Another possibility I'm considering is that the prices   support, since neither Nora	nor Bob	is proficient with C.
given above will be advance order prices only to repay all
of you who have	stuck with us over the years with a special
lower price, and that within a few months after	publi-		     News (with	Comments) About	the Institute
cation,	we will	raise prices to	start earning money in
support	of our other activities.			    (For newcomers, The	Loglan Institute, Inc. is the
   I am	noting people's	requests for textbooks now, but	    organization headed	by James Cooke Brown, the founder of
don't have a mechanism in place	to record advance orders,   the	Loglan Project.	 While la lojbangirz. has serious
so please don't	send 'orders' yet.  You	CAN, of	course,	    disputes with Brown	on availability	of the language, and
send money now to bring	your balance positive before the    the	politics of the	Loglan/Lojban community, we respect his
textbook comes out, and	to even	put in enough to have paid  achievements and contributions to Loglan/Lojban.  We will
for the	'advance order price' needed for the 20% discount.  strive to continue to present reasonably fair outside
A large	number of people bringing their	balances positive   reports on his efforts, especially reporting on how	his
will probably lead to keeping textbook prices lower,	    organization's activities affect Lojban and	Lojbanists.)
because	we'll have the money and orders	to print more
books, and to not have to take out a loan to pay for the       Jim Brown's 4th edition of Loglan 1 has been out	for 9
printing.  (We'll also accept your donations made	    months now.	 The Loglan Institute, Inc. has	advertised the

							   14


book in	Scientific American, Analog, and a couple of other  form, but it did have the first paragraph of text in
magazines (If you see anything about Loglan or Lojban in    Institute Loglan that has been seen	in years (other	than in
any publication, or receive anything from Jim Brown, please Loglan 1), and a couple of articles	other than by Brown,
consider sending me a copy for the historical archive, or   also a rarity.
at least asking	me if I	need it	- I am already getting most    Other than cartoons, the	quality	has a long way to go to
things put out by the Institute, since our information	    match JL, so I'm not threatened (we've asked Rex to	draw us
network	is spread wide).				    some cartoons, too).  Disturbing is	Brown's	announced
   We've noted that the	Institute is spending a	LOT of	    intent to give several issues of Lognet to new book
money on advertising (thousands	of dollars), which must	    purchasers and inquirers; this is disturbing not in	its
certainly be adding significantly to Institute prices.	In  threat to us - that	is after all what we do	with le	lojbo
contrast, la lojbangirz. is trying to minimizing	    karni and Ju'i Lobypli, but	rather in ethical sense	that it
advertising costs by building an extensive word-of-mouth    seems unfair to charge Institute members $25 for such a
network	in advance of the textbook.			    meager publication,	and then give it to everyone else who
   Incidentally, the number of books Jim, and we, can sell, doesn't pay	for it,	for free.
is an uncertain	question.  Most	small press print runs are     The three relatively technical articles included	a
for 500, 1000, or 2000 books, with significant per book	    proposal by	Rex May	on non-Loglan alphabets, which is
savings	on the larger numbers.	We don't know how many	    similar in many ways to Lojban's scheme for	the same
copies Jim had printed,	but I believe he only sold 2000	    problem.  An article by Brown reported on problems in
copies of the 3rd Edition of Loglan 1 back in 1975-7 (at a  Loglan 1 that were detected	by 'several persons' (he quoted
MUCH lower price), and he advertised in	Scientific American only problems and examples Athelstan and I reported	in our
at least 3 times.  He also didn't have Lojban and la	    review in LK10).  Brown claimed that the problems were
lojbangirz. around as a	'competitor'.			    minor and offered a	contest	for the	best solutions.	 I
   We haven't been hurt	in the slightest by Brown's	    barely resisted the	temptation to submit the simplest
publication.  In fact, we have profited	some thereby.	    solution:  switch to Lojban.
People come up to us at	conventions and	ask about the	       An essay	written	by Robert McIvor proposed that gismu be
relationship between Lojban and	Loglan,	and we tell them -  assigned 5 different place structures, depending on	the 5
generally doubling our response	rate.			    different final vowels possible at the end of a word (in
   We also gain	through	our extensive grass roots network.  both versions of the language, two gismu are not permitted
Perhaps	once a month people post a message on Internet	    to differ only by final vowel.  Unlike Lojban, the
saying that they've bought Loglan 1 and	asking whether	    Institute version makes an exception for 'cultural words',
anyone else is studying	Loglan.	 We answer, and	have added  and	this proposal is a major expansion of that exception
a couple of level 3 language students as a result, because  into a universal.
these are people that want something like la lojbangirz. to    I won't go at length into the problems with the
support	their language learning	activities.  Similar	    proposal, but its adoption would spell the end of the
messages are posted on Compuserve, Genie, and other	    Institute version as a true	predicate language.  The
national networks, and Lojban volunteers have been quick to proposal calls the varying place structures	'cases'	- and
answer.							    indeed the proposal	is in effect reinventing declensions.
   Meanwhile we've lost	exactly	1 person in each of the	    More important, the	gismu are divided into a bunch of cate-
last 3 years who has chosen to study the Institute's	    gories, including 'nouns' and 'verbs', 'culture words',
version	of the language	over Lojban			    'people', 'body parts' and a few others.  Each category
   Turning to other Institute activities, we've	heard that  would have its own peculiar	set of declensions.  Thus the
Robert McIvor has revised the 8-year-old draft of a paper   assumption of a predicate language that all	predicates are
intended for submission	to Communications of the ACM on	the alike is violated at the start - major 'Whorfian effects'
supposed unambiguity of	the Institute's	version	of the	    that might derive from the fact that things	traditionally
language, and that he again plans to submit the	paper.	Jim 'verbs' can	be treated as 'nouns' in Loglan, and vice versa
wrote to several of the	co-authors of the paper	to tell	    would be eliminated.  There	are other problems, some
them; most of these co-authors are studying Lojban.  One    identified by McIvor himself, any of which should be
co-author, Jeff	Prothero, who devised some of the major	    sufficient to kill the idea.
schema for making the language truly unambiguous, indicates    There is	some letter feedback and questions on Institute
that he	now thinks the paper's concept is too flawed to	be  equivalents	of LogFlash and	other programs.	 It appears
worth publishing, and that the hand-waving evidence for	    that those programs	are being sold without proper testing.
'unambiguity' needed to	explain	the Institute's	grammar	    But	I won't	pretend	that la	lojbangirz. hasn't had its own
would be laughed at by the computer community.	I have an   software support problems, especially with MacIntosh
old draft of the paper in the archives and tend	to agree.   software.
   The Institute published its first issue of Lognet in	       Finally,	Brown calls on readers to do a lot of things to
over a year just after JL11 went out.  Jim recruited Rex    promote the	Institute version of the language.  A lot of
May, a nationally known	cartoonist and libertarian author   the	proposals are things that we've	been doing.  la
as the new editor.  The	result was a much improved Lognet,  lojbangirz.	is honored by the extent that Brown values our
if small.  It included a dozen pages or	so, including a	    methods.  If only he would realize that our	methods	require
couple of pages	of sales offerings comparable to our order  a public domain language in	order to work.

							   15


   Alas!									  Feature Topic:
   Next	issue, and a lot more news.					       Esperanto and Lojban

							    [Whether you have (or should have) interest	in Lojban as a
							    candidate for an "international language" is not a question
							    addressed in the following two articles.  To achieve most
							    of its goals, including the	scientific ones, Lojban	needs
							    to develop an international, multi-cultural	speaker	base.
							    Lojban can be helped in this effort	by the "international
							    language" community, or it can be hurt by it.  Perhaps one
							    of the best	ways to	spread Lojban into other cultures will
							    be to translate the	introductory and teaching materials
							    into Esperanto (any	volunteers?)  In any case, it is to all
							    Lojbanists'	advantage to clarify the relationship between
							    Lojban and Esperanto, and to ensure	that supporters	of each
							    language do	not see	the other language as a	'rival'.]

							       Probably	the most commonly asked	questions from new or
							    potential Lojbanists relate	to various comparisons between
							    Esperanto and Lojban.  Many	of these questions come	from
							    Esperantists, who of course	are the	ones most familiar with
							    their language.  Some of these are friendly	and curious;
							    others are defensive and hostile, seeing Lojban as a threat
							    or competition to Esperanto.  Others come from people who
							    have dabbled in Esperanto, and they	then want to use their
							    knowledge of Esperanto as a	standard for evaluating
							    Lojban's qualities with respect to their personal priori-
							    ties or goals.  And	then there are the genuinely confused,
							    who	often have seen	one of the short eye-catching
							    advertising	flyers used by Esperantists to whet people's
							    interest.  These questions generally lead to discussions
							    along one of several lines:

							    - Why another international	language?  Isn't Esperanto good
							    enough?  After all,	it's already spoken by [insert
							    questionable statistic of your choice between 25,000 and
							    10,000,000]	people.

							    - Is Esperanto a European language?	 Does the answer mean
							    that non-Europeans will or won't be	able to	easily learn
							    it?	 Is Lojban any better?

							    - Can Esperanto be used in testing the Sapir-Whorf
							    Hypothesis?	 Can Esperanto be used for machine translation?
							    (and similar questions about applications for which	we
							    think Lojban is especially well-designed).

							   16


- Esperanto had	speakers within	a few months of	its publication, but Loglan/Lojban has been around for 15/25/35	years
before even the	first speakers gained competence.  (This leading to the	humorous aside that Loglan is the first	artifi-
cial language to undergo a schism before anyone	spoke it.  Probably not	true - Lojban is the first language to SURVIVE a
schism occurring before	anyone spoke it.  la lojbangirz. is now	far stronger and less-divided than the Loglan/Lojban
community has ever been.)

- I want a language that I can use NOW for speaking and	writing	to other people.  Lojban doesn't have anyone speaking
the language, especially in other countries.

- There	are also comments commending the short,	free correspondence course that	Esperanto supplies.  These generally are
compared to our	considerably more complicated teaching materials.

And finally, sparking the following article:

- You say Lojban has 600 rules.	 But Esperanto has only	16.  How can you say Lojban is simpler than Esperanto?

Athelstan will answer this question, and then Bob will follow with an essay tackling the other issues that stem	from
trying to compare Lojban and Esperanto.


					How many rules are enough? by Athelstan

     Many people are confused or dismayed that Lojban has 600 rules while Esperanto has	a mere 16.  The	key is in the
different kinds	of rules these are:  Lojban's are computer parsing rules, similar to the types of rules	used by	compiler
writers	to describe computer languages.	 Zamenhof's 16 Rules of	Esperanto are essentially commentary on	16 topics of
language.
     I have concocted 11 rules of Lojban that approximately correspond to Esperanto's 16.  Like	Zamenhof's list, the
Lojban rules are often groups of rules concerning a single topic.  Also, following Zamenhof's example, the rule	set is
incomplete:  the rules do not describe word or sentence	order, relative	and subordinate	clauses, relative pronouns, and
numerous other topics of grammar and vocabulary.

The 16 Rules of	Esperanto
Corresponding Rules for	Lojban
1)  There is no	Indefinite Article, there is only a definite article (la), alike for all sexes,	cases, and numbers.
1)  The	articles la, le, lo, li, and lu	are the	name, non-veridical, veridical,	numeral, and utterance articles,
respectively.  lai, lei, and loi are the mass articles and la'i, le'i, and lo'i	are the	set articles corresponding to
the first three	above.	lo'e is	the typical/average article, and le'e is the stereotypical article.  None vary by
number,	case or	sex.

Comment:  This is the one rule where Lojban is not as succinct as Esperanto in covering	the same ground.

2)  Substantives end in	o.  To form the	plural j is added.  There are only two cases: nominative and accusative; the
latter is obtained from	the nominative by adding n.  Other cases are expressed by preposition (genitive	de, dative al,
ablative per, etc.)
2)  sumti (arguments) assume the case of the sumti place they occupy.  The place tags fa, fe, fi, fo, and fu may be used
to explicitly state the	place.	Also, the case tags bai, bau, di'u, etc. may be	used to	specify	the case.

Comment:  Lojban words do not change endings, so the corresponding rule	only deals with	determination of cases.	 Note
that this is a conglomeration of four rules, each in its own sentence.

3)  The	Adjective ends in a.  Case and number as for substantives.  The	Comparative is made by means of	the word pli,
the Superlative	by plej; with the Comparative the conjunction ol is used.
3)  Any	selbri may modify any other selbri by position.	 Comparatives and Superlatives are formed by simple
modification.

Comment:  The Lojban rule describes a secondary	function, as there are no separate words that act only as adjectives in
Lojban.	 The Esperanto rule consists of	six rules this time; the second	sentence is short but refers to	two separate
rules inside Rule 2.

							   17


4)  The	cardinal Numerals (not declined) are: unu, du, tri, kvar, kvin,	ses, sep, ok, nau, dek,	cent, mil.  Tens and
hundreds are formed by simple junction of the numerals.	 To mark the ordinal numerals a	is added; for the multiple, obl;
for the	fractional, on;	for the	collective, op;	for the	distributive, the preposition po.  Substantival	and adverbial
numerals can also be used.
4)  The	digits are pa, re, ci, vo, mu, xa, ze, bi, so, and no (zero).  pi is the decimal point.	 Numbers are formed by
junction of the	digits.	 li ...	boi surround simple numbers as sumti.  To mark the ordinal, the	post-position moi is
used; similarly	mei for	the collective.	 pi ...	mei surrounds the fractional.

Comment:  These	two Rules correspond closely for the first seven parts,	but the	last sentence of Zamenhof's rule invokes
rules from Rule	2 and Rule 3, adding ten rules in all for a total of seventeen rules directly and indirectly contained
in this	paragraph.

5)  Personal Pronouns: mi, vi, li, si, gi (thing or animal), si, ni, vi, ili, oni; possessives are formed by adding a.
Declension as for substantives.
5)  Anaphora: ko'a, ko'e, etc; mi, do, ko, ti, ta, tu, ri, ra, ru, zu'i, zo'e; possessives are formed by position or
with prepositions pe, po, po'e.

Comment:  These	are of similar length except that Rule 2's substantive declension rules	are included.  I count six
rules, therefore, to Lojban's three.

6)  The	Verb undergoes no change with regard to	person or number.  Forms of the	verb: time being (Present) takes the
termination -as; time been (Past) -is; time about-to-be	(Future) -os; Conditional mood -us; Imperative mood -u;	In-
finitive -i.  Participles (with	adjectival or adverbial	sense):	 active	present	-ant; active past -int;	active future -
ont; passive present -at; passive past -it; passive future -ot.	 The passive is	rendered by a corresponding form of the
verb esti and a	passive	participle of the required verb; the preposition with the passive is de.
6)  The	selbri undergoes no change.  The tense markers pu (past), ca (present),	ba (future), vi, va, vu	(space), etc.
may be used with any selbri or within sumti.  nu, ka, ni, etc. are the abstraction operators.  For the imperative, use
the anaphorum ko.

Comment:  Without reference to any other Rules,	Zamenhof has packed Rule 6 with	sixteen	rules.	Lojban's nine include
the abstraction	operators, which have no counterpart in	Esperanto.  Also, I have counted the tense markers as three
separate rules,	but they should	probably count as one, like any	of the other lists.

7)  Adverbs end	in e; comparison as for	adjectives.
  (not applicable)

Comment:  This is covered under	Rule 3 on modification.

8)  All	Prepositions govern the	nominative.
  (not applicable)

Comment:  Lojban has no	cases in the sense used	here, so it needs no rule corresponding	to this	one.

9)  Every word is Pronounced as	it is Spelt.
7)  Every word is Pronounced as	it is Spelt.

10)  The Accent	is always on the second-last syllable.
8)  The	Accent is always on the	second-last syllable (names may	be marked for irregular	stress).

11)  Compound Words are	formed by simple junction of the words (the chief word stands at the end).  Grammatical
terminations are also regarded as independent words.
9)  lujvo are formed by	simple junction	of the gismu or	rafsi, substituting or inserting y where appropriate.

Comment:  As Zamenhof left off variant compounding rules, I felt equally free in leaving out the more extensive	lujvo-
making considerations.

12)  When another negative word	is present the word ne is left out.
10)  na	acts to	negate a bridi,	and is never an	intensifier.

							   18


Comment:  I have recently examined a treatise on the scope of negation in the natural languages.  It is	medium-sized,
and an inch and	a half thick;  both of these two Rule statements obviously miss	a lot of ground. [Bob's	note: the
current	Lojban negation	proposal covers	all of the ground of negation with 4 cmavo, and	involves 47 of the 600-odd
machine	grammar	rules.	But it requires	a lot of explanation to	cover all of natural language negation,	as will	be seen
in JL12.]

13)  In	order to show direction	towards, words take the	termination of the accusative.
  (not applicable)

Comment:  see comment on 8, above.

14)  Each Preposition has a definite and constant meaning;  but	if the direct sense does not indicate which it should
be, we use the preposition je, which has no meaning of its own.	 Instead of je we may use the accusative without a
preposition.
  (not applicable)

15)  The so-called Foreign Words, that is, those which the majority of languages have taken from one source, undergo no
change in Esperanto, beyond conforming to its orthography; but with various words from one root, it is better to use
unchanged only the fundamental word and	to form	the rest from this latter in accordance	with the rules of the Esperanto
language.
11)  Nonce le'avla are marked with le'a	and a marker rafsi as appropriate, and should conform to Lojban	orthography.

Comment:  Zamenhof's Rule here does not	seem to	admit of any major group of languages that are not closely interrelated.
That is, he assumes that if a word varies, it varies from one fundamental root word.  I	have included a	description of
borrowed terms as the closest approximation to this rule.

16)  The Final Vowel of	the substantive	and of the article may sometimes be dropped and	be replaced by an apostrophe.
  (not applicable)


     Please note the overall structure of the 16 Rules.	 The first 8 cover eight major parts of	speech in Graeco-Roman
grammar; articles, nouns, adjectives, numerals,	pronouns, verbs, adverbs and prepositions.  The	last 8 cover seven
aspects	of the same grammatical	philosophy:  pronunciation, accent, compounding, negation, case	usage, borrowings, and
elision.  (Rule	14 should really be divided and	shared between Rule 8 and Rule 13.)
     This means	that any language with a Graeco-Roman grammar form can be described by similar rules.  They may	be long
rules, including lots of sub-rules, but	Zamenhof started this practice with the	Esperanto rules.  They may ignore a lot
of the grammar,	but again this is in keeping with the example set.
     In	fact, with slight adjustments to the Rule topics, any language may be described	with approximately 16 rules, if
the rules are sufficiently complex (and	allow for all the exceptions that are inherent in natural languages).  In some
cases, a language's rule set may not even be as	complex	as Esperanto's;	this is	the case with Lojban.
     In	order to have a	meaningful comparison between numbers of rules,	the complexity of those	rules must be nearly
uniform; the machine parsing rules (of which Lojban has	about 600) come	closer to meeting that ideal.  Unfortunately,
there are no figures on	the number of such rules required by Esperanto;	we must	rely on	indirect evidence of their
number.	 Esperanto's dependency	on case	declensions probably alone requires a complete set of rules comparable to
Lojban's FOR EACH CASE.
     It	is not my intention here to prove that Lojban is 'better than Esperanto' or that Esperanto is in some way
'defective'.  It is rather to show that	the comparison of two languages	is a complex task, and not to be decided by
comparing raw numbers.	Each of	these languages	is complex in itself, and yet much simpler than	the natural languages.

[Bob's note: Even comparing languages by counting machine parsing rules	is risky, unless you count rules the same way.
We've used the number 600 as the machine rule count for	Lojban in the above article.  However, that number is a	count of
each individual	rule line in the current machine grammar proposal, which was not written to minimize the rule count, but
to modularize the grammar into separate, small chunks that can be readily understood.  An earlier JL article compared
Lojban's rule count to the 'BNF	rules' used to define common computer languages	like C,	Pascal,	or ADA;	such a
comparison can only be approximated.  The Lojban rules are much	simpler	than those used	in BNF rule descriptions, which
are generally use compression conventions that are not directly	testable with YACC for unambiguity.  Eventually,
probably after we baseline the YACC grammar, someone will rewrite the Lojban rules in the shorter, more	readable BNF
format.	 The result will be much shorter than the current rule set - perhaps 250-350 rules, within the same order of
magnitude as computer languages.]


							   19



				 On Comparing Esperanto	and Lojban, by Bob LeChevalier

     First let me state	a guiding principle for	evaluating the two languages.  Lojban is not 'in competition' with
Esperanto.  These are two separate languages with separate goals and applications.  These may overlap, but are not
identical.
     Evaluating	two languages is like 'comparing apples	and oranges'.  If forced to choose between an apple and	orange,
you will do so for purely personal reasons, based on your needs	and desires of the moment.  Similarly, if your goal is
to learn an artificial language	and you	don't have time	to learn both Lojban and Esperanto, you	will end up choosing
based on your own personal reasons.  (Learning a language, even	an artificial one, is a	fairly abstruse	goal in	itself -
you usually have some longer range purpose for such a major effort, a purpose that will	probably dictate the language
you learn).
     Competition would be pointless.  Partisan support for one language	doesn't	make that language 'better' for	others;
it can,	however, spark counterproductive rivalry.  Far better instead to work to attract new people into discovering
reasons	for learning our respective artificial languages.  By encouraging these	new people, as well as supporters of our
respective languages, to be as informed	as possible about both languages, intelligent choices can be made towards indi-
vidual goals.

							   20


   If Lojban becomes widely used, it might become a	    le lojbo ciska this	issue may demonstrate this to you.
meaningful candidate as	a universal 'second language', just Whether you	like his poetry	or not,	he clearly has found
as Esperanto now is.  If Esperanto continues with healthy   something in the language that inspires him	to explore
growth,	then at	that time there	might be a basis to speak   further.  He couldn't have found this without trying to
of a 'choice' for 'world language' between Lojban, Es-	    express his	own ideas in the language.
peranto, and possibly other candidates.	 The decisions will    Most people make	a first	evaluation of Lojban based on
then be	made by	nations	and cultures on	the basis of THEIR  two	sentences in the brochure, and a couple	more if	they
personal desires and goals - the same non-competitive	    get	the Overview.  These sentences can be evaluated	by a
situation, but at a higher level.			    newcomer only in translation, and whatever virtue Lojban
   For Lojban to reach that level of viability,	its various has	is obviously going to be lost by translation into En-
applications will have to be proven - there must be	    glish.  The	sentences are longer than the colloquial
computer implementations, accomplishment of useful	    English translation, so Lojban seems complicated
scientific research, and thousands or millions of speakers, (heightened	by people's perception that logic is
before Lojban can be talked of as a 'world language' as	    complicated).  The frequent	reference to 'logic' in	our
Esperanto now is.  If Lojban becomes such a force for	    introductory materials makes people	think of Vulcans,
consideration as a world language, then	I think	that demon- whereupon they presume that	a logical language must
strating enough	growth to 'catch up to Esperanto' as well   inherently be cold and inhuman.
as enough usefulness OUTSIDE of	the international language     Similarly, people criticize our 'Chicken	McNugget' gismu
movement to survive until then,	will be	convincing evidence - it seems like the	wrong way, to them, to build a 'warm,
that Lojban is suited for world	acceptance.  Furthermore,   human' language.  A	newcomer sees a	heavy emphasis on the
if Esperanto hasn't succeeded as an international language  rules of the language, on computer applications, and on
by the time Lojban is proven viable for	global consider-    linguistic principles, in our introductory descriptions,
ation, then Lojban's 'higher momentum' and extra	    which makes	Lojban seem 'cold' and 'mechanical'.
applications should the	cause it to be considered 'more'       A third group of	critics	see Lojban words as unaesthetic
viable.	 Meanwhile, if Esperanto does succeed, then Lojban  because of particular sounds that they find	difficult to
will continue to be used and useful for	its other purposes. say, or simply because the words are enough	different from
Each language will succeed or fail at its own goals on its  English that they think it will be hard to learn them.
own merits.						       I believe that all of these evaluations are based on
   Neither language has	been accepted yet, and neither	    misconceptions caused by the way we	describe the language
language will be accepted at the expense of the	other.	    and	by the readers'	cultural prejudices.  However, we can't
There is no point in talking of	competition, especially	    possibly tell a casual newcomer enough about the language
when many Lojbanists are at the	same time Esperantists,	and for	him/her	to aesthetically evaluate it.  There are too
who have no desire to 'make a choice'.	Let's keep the	    many possible misconceptions to deal with; in this
community of artificial	language aficionados together,	    newsletter alone I've written 3 or 4 essays	that try to
bucking	the tendency in	that community towards disharmony   dispel misconceptions among	readers	with far more
and schism.						    information	than the person	who casually picks up our
   So let us try to compare apples and oranges.		    brochure.
   There are four major	areas of criteria wherein Esperanto    Esperanto appeals aesthetically to European-family
and Lojban can be compared - aesthetics, usefulness,	    newcomers because they grasp the simplified	European
scientific or linguistic merit,	and success.  I'll discuss  principles relatively easily.  They	can read Esperanto text
each in	turn.						    and	recognize dozens of cognates, giving them a feeling
							    that they already practically know the language.  Esperanto
			Aesthetics			    will always	have this advantage over Lojban, since Lojban
							    requires an	interested person to learn a bit more before
   The first basis of comparison is aesthetic.	There are a she/he can see the simplicity and the patterns.
few aesthetic qualities	- sound, rhythm, ease of	       We need to make introductory Lojban materials good
pronunciation, simplicity, elegance, completeness - but	the enough that	a newcomer feels compelled to learn enough
standards of 'good' in these qualities are cultural at	    about the language to properly evaluate aesthetic features.
best, and individual at	worst.	I am most irritated by peo- WHEN PEOPLE	LEARN ABOUT LOJBAN, THEY STAY WITH US.	Our
ple, not having	made an	effort to learn	the language, who   dropout rate among such people is only a couple of percent
say that Lojban	seems 'cold', 'mechanical', 'inhuman',	    per	year.
'complicated', 'hard to	learn',	or deficient any other	       Several people have tried to write a one-or-two page
measure	of aesthetic quality; they have	absolutely no	    handout on Lojban, but it's	awfully	hard to	describe
knowledge basis	on which to make such an evaluation!	    something as complex as a human language in	just a couple
   The aesthetics of language is totally determined by	    of paragraphs.  On the other hand, at Worldcon, we saw
knowledge.  All	languages have beauty, when looked at from  numerous 1-page Esperanto handouts that showed great
an internal perspective.  You have to see, and to	    advertising	sophistication,	reducing all of	Esperanto to
understand, the	sounds,	the forms, the structure, and the   some graphics and a	catchy slogan that plays to the
poetry,	before you can determine whether a language has	    emotions.  I would feel dishonest trying to	do the same.
properties that	attract	you.  Michael Helsem's writings	in  Our	handouts give information, quite dense information at

							   21


that.  Our only	catchy slogan so far is	".e'osai ko sarji			    Usefulness
la lojban.", which of course also loses	something in the
translation.						       Turning to the second major area	where Esperanto	and
   Perhaps Lojban promoters can	learn from Esperanto in	    Lojban may be compared, we examine the qualities of
other ways.  Esperanto has a correspondence course for	    usefulness - what are the uses to which each language may
newcomers, which Lojban	doesn't.  It isn't even	on our	    be put, and	how well does each language serve those
priority list yet, although Athelstan's	mini-lesson may	    purposes.  Esperanto was designed solely as	an
eventually serve much the same basic purpose - to give peo- international language.  Other purposes that could be
ple the	warm, fuzzy, feeling that they can indeed learn	the devised for	it are accidental.  Lojban was first designed
language, and that it is aesthetically pleasing	- then they as a linguistic tool, but with specific requirements
will be	willing	to start the hard work necessary to	    (cultural neutrality, ease of learning, simplicity)	that
actually learn it.  Only the people who	move beyond such    probably are important in an international language, and
introductory lessons actually learn and	use the	language.   one	(extremism in one or more areas	of language structure)
   On a	more practical note, it	will be	impossible to	    that is a disadvantage.  For various reasons, the disadvan-
evaluate the aesthetics	of Lojban until	it is spoken by	    tage of extremism has been ameliorated; most of the
reasonably fluent speakers.  Only the first tidbits of	    extremes in	Lojban are optional, and can be	avoided	by an
Lojban poetry have now been written, by	one poet, so the    international user.	 The advent of computers and the large
enormous power of the language to convey ideas has hardly   number of computer professionals has led to	a secondary
been tapped.  The aesthetics of	Lojban are being evaluated  goal of useful computer applications while the language was
on such	trivial	grounds	as whether one likes the apostrophe still being	formed,	making this a third area of usefulness
as a representation for	the vowel buffer (pronounced like   that is in effect designed into the	language.
an h - but NOT an h), or whether the consonant clusters	at     Unless we've really fouled up, Lojban HAS to be
the beginning of "cfari" and "mrilu" seem pronounceable.    potentially	useful in more ways than Esperanto is.	IT WAS
Esperantists have a similar problem, with four alphabetic   DESIGNED TO	BE.
letters	not found on any typewriter or computer	keyboard.      This doesn't suffice for	a comparison, though.  Lojban
But Esperanto has speakers, poetry, novels - a community of may	have a great deal of unrealized	potential, but
people using the language - to give it the aura	of	    Esperanto has realized most	of its potential.  It HAS been
'humanity'.  It	did not	have these 100 years ago, when	    used for international communication.  It is NOW being de-
people first made the choice to	learn the language.  Lojban signed into	an elaborate machine translation system	that is
will have these	things,	too, and in a very short while.	    expected to	bear fruit by 1992.  And while most linguists
							    ignore Esperanto because it	is not a 'natural language',
							    has	few native speakers, and is in effect a	simplified
							    European tongue, there are some linguists who have re-
							    searched Esperanto as a language, and who have used	it in
							    linguistic studies such as language	education.
							       Lojban is not yet being used for	any of these things.
							    However, every application 'discovered' for	Esperanto has
							    been designed for in Lojban, and a few more	besides.
							    Esperanto has an advantage in application now, but if
							    Lojban survives at all, it will eventually have more and
							    better applications.  And because all of these applications
							    are	conceived of and being worked on from the start, Lojban
							    won't take 100 years to achieve that large variety of
							    useful application.

									    Scientific/Linguistic Merit

							       In the third area, scientific or	linguistic merit, there
							    is also no competition possible.  Lojban has 'won the race'
							    by starting	at the finish line that	Esperanto can never
							    reach.  Yet	in another sense, Esperanto is also at a finish
							    line, which	Loglan/Lojban has had to strive	for 35 years to
							    finally reach.
							       When Esperanto was invented, there wasn't a science of
							    linguistics.  A few	seeds had been planted,	mostly along
							    the	lines of historical evolution of languages.  The
							    concept of inventing a language significantly different
							    than European languages was	inconceivable -	at least in
							    Europe.  Indeed, until my generation, all languages, even
							    Oriental ones, were	taught using Latin as the pure,

							   22


perfect, ideal if dead language	that was the model of what  mark of the	amount of work that went into the language, a
a language 'should be'.	 Of hundreds of	international	    sign that this spoken language is different, but not
languages invented before Lojban, almost none have a non-   inferior to, any that have existed before.
European grammar.  They	were simplified	forms of Latin with    Since Lojban's purposes include linguistic
some a priori or derived set of	words to fit onto that	    experimentation, evaluating	Lojban's merit requires	noting
Latinate architecture.	Indeed,	most of	the hundreds of	    the	mechanisms built into the language that	allow, even
languages I've seen in the Library of Congress stacks are   require, the use of	the language for linguistic
described only as dictionaries,	with some small	set of	    experimentation.  There are	roots of redundant expression
rules at the front telling what	simplifications	have been   forms for several types of expression.  They will compete
made to	standard European (read	Latin) grammar.		    with each other for	usage as Lojban	grows.	The choices
   Esperanto's 16 rules	are just such a	set.  Indeed,	    made by real speakers should reveal	NEW facts about
Zamenhof apparently intended all things	not covered by the  language.
rules to be done 'like they are	in your	own language', as      Lojban also has the cultural neutrality needed to test
if all languages were alike in such reference.	The 16	    the	Sapir-Whorf hypothesis.	 (Yes, 'logic' could be	a
rules are confusing to anyone who doesn't know a European   European bias.  Indeed, Jim	Brown intended that Loglan have
language, just as Lojban's machine grammar is confusing	to  an extreme bias that would have measurable effects - that
anyone not versed in YACC grammars.  What is an		    is the requirement for a Sapir-Whorf experimental test.
'accusative' in	any of the Amerind languages, an	    But	beyond logic, Lojban is	exceptionally free from	obvious
'adjective' in Chinese,	or perhaps a 'passive'?	 You can't  bias.)  It has structures built into it that allow
teach Esperanto	without	teaching these concepts, which are  comparison with languages of many different	families, not
inherent to the	design of the language.	 A non-European	    just European ones;	such comparison	will unmask observed
can't learn Esperanto without first learning the concepts   Sapir-Whorf	effects	that are European artifacts in
and mind-set of	European language.			    disguise, and will be possible because Lojban's grammar is
   The Loglan Project was started some 40 years	after what  non-European.
is considered the birth	of modern linguistics.	Then, in       And you don't 'have to be logical' in Lojban.  The
the 1950's, the	language was a skeleton	- a simple	    redundant structures allow both hyperlogical and illogical
structure with a few hundred words - based on predicate	    ways of expressing things; you can be as erudite, or
logic, which has been thoroughly studied for 2000 years.    nonsensical	as you choose.
By the time the	language meaningfully took shape, in the
1960's,	modern linguistic theory had undergone the				      Success
revolution that	had pretty much	thrown out the Latin ideal.
Older versions of Loglan show obvious Latinate biases.	       Finally,	the last criteria - success.  Lojban has NO
Newer versions leading up to Lojban have successively	    fluent speakers.  Esperanto	has some large number -	the
weeded out more	and more of them.  The Lojban version now   value dependent on your source and whether you or the
being taught has had input from	dozens of linguists, and    source is trying to	promote	or denigrate the language - but
has been examined in comparison	with a variety of	    certainly a	lot more than Lojban.  Where's the comparison?
linguistic theories that weren't around	when Esperanto was  Where's the	competition?
developed.  Loglan/Lojban has changed to account for the       You cannot compare Esperanto's numbers with Lojban's
rapidly	developing field of linguistics.  Only recently	has numbers and	gain any useful	information regarding their
there been enough confidence that a baselined Lojban is	    relative potential for success.  Lojban's couple of
'good enough' to meet the stringent linguistic tests that   speakers are too small to deal with	statistically.	Thus
we believe are required	for a totally new language to seem  you	can use	our numbers to prove practically anything.
'natural'.						       For example, the	number of Lojban students is growing in
   Loglan/Lojban has striven for 35 years from scratch to   excess of 8% per month, or 100% per	year.  Extrapolating on
achieve	the finish line	of 'natural' language.	100 years   this trend,	Lojban would pass Esperanto in 15 years, and
ago, Esperanto started at the European finish line, taking  would be universally spoken	15 years after that.  Reduce
a few steps back to 'simplify' the European grammar before  the	growth rate and	the results will be identical -	just
again 'completing the race'.  Lojban moves beyond the	    take longer, as long as Lojban grows faster	than Esperanto.
restrictions of	European grammar.  It overtly incorporates  This extrapolation is ridiculous of	course,	and almost any
linguistic universals, building	in what	is needed to	    method of predicting numbers is equally worthless, because
support	the expressivity of the	whole variety of natural    changes will occur in the world every year that will
languages, including non-European ones.	 Esperanto, on the  invalidate any prediction.	Just ask the peoples of	Eastern
other hand, will always	be constrained to some degree by    Europe.
its Latinate structure.					       Esperanto is growing in numbers too, though not nearly
   I am	particularly bothered by comparisons that note that as fast as Lojban.	If it did, there would be no question
Lojban has taken 35 years to achieve meaningful		    about ITS eventually being a world language.  But Esperanto
conversation, while Esperanto had hundreds of thousands	of  right now isn't growing fast enough.  When the population
speakers within	35 years of its	founding, including some    of the world grows by hundreds of millions per year, Es-
native speakers.  The fact that	Lojban took 35 years to	    peranto is losing ground every day - just as Lojban	is.
reach a	point of development where it was speakable is a    Both languages are failures.

							   23


   Two paragraphs, opposite conclusions.  Counting speakers language, or is 'beaten out	by Esperanto' as a world
is meaningless.	 Based on numbers, anything will happen	    language, it will still have succeeded in its original aim
tomorrow.  Or nothing.					    - to teach us more about language.
   Numbers of speakers are meaningless anyway, if the peo-     This is one aspect in which I can comfortably say that
ple don't USE the language.  The biggest shock for me at    'Lojban is better than Esperanto'.
Worldcon was sitting next to the Esperanto table for sev-
eral days and NEVER HEARING A SINGLE CONVERSATION IN			    Side Note on the Discussion
ESPERANTO.  I won't say	that none occurred (some of the
people at the Esperanto	tables are reading this), but I	       Philosophically,	I am unconvinced that personal and
didn't hear any.					    political decisions	should be made in a competitive
   We didn't talk much Lojban at our table either.  But	our environment.  The prevalent	idea seems to be that "for me
audience of potential conversationalists was much smaller - to be right, you must be wrong" or "for me to be good, you
those of us who	had driven up to Boston.  The same group of must be bad" is unrealistically simplistic.	 Within	human
us did speak Lojban for	hours in the car going to and from  endeavors, there is	no absolute right or absolute good.
Boston.	 But Esperantists visiting from	all over the	    Whether a language or a person, a candidate	should be
country	and all	over the world were speaking English in	    chosen on the basis	of how well the	varying	needs of
preference to Esperanto	at their table.			    everyone concerned will be served, preferably not at the
   Only	if a language is used can it be	judged successful.  expense of others' needs.
And neither language is	being used to its potential (Nora      An interesting side note	occurred to Nora in reading
and I COULD set	time aside each	day to talk in Lojban, but  this.  The Lojban gismu "xamgu", representing the concept
we don't.)  This will have to change if	either language	is  of 'good', has the place structure "x1 is good for x2 by
to achieve 'success', in the sense of being widely used.    standard x3".  Comparatives	were also removed from other
   Lojban has a	long-term advantage there, based on the	    place structures when the language was redesigned.	While
greater	potential uses discussed above.	 If the	language is Lojban can express comparisons quite easily, they are now
USED by	the people who learn it.  If the 100-or-more level  avoided in gismu place structures.	Thus one need not
3 people out there start sending me sentences, then para-   consider everything	as being 'more'	or 'better' than
graphs,	then texts in Lojban, and eventually start	    something else in order for	a basic	predicate relationship
interacting with each other because they don't need us to   to be claimed.  One	needn't	decide what something is "bluer
tell them that they are	using the language correctly, then  than" in order to decide that it is	"blue".	 One needn't
Lojban will be used for	its intended purposes.	If not,	    decide that	something is "better than" something else in
Lojban will be just another dead artificial language.  The  order for it to be "good".	This seems metaphysically
same is	true for Esperanto.				    simpler, and now appears to	be a more significant quali-
   Any Esperantist/Lojbanist who gives me the argument that tative difference from earlier versions of the language
they can use Esperanto now, but	cannot use Lojban, is	    than we've perceived before.
arguing	a self-defeating position.  If you want	to use a       The metaphysical	difference is perhaps significant to a
language, you will find	a way to use it.  We have the	    Sapir-Whorf	test, since if S/W is true, the	earlier	design
network	in place for Lojbanists	to interact with each	    could lead to a culture where people see the world as a
other, including some people from other	countries (though   competitive	place where everything always strives to be
the numbers are	still small).  But you have to learn the    more 'broda' (~whatever) than something else, a culture
language first in order	to use it.			    that doesn't seem very pleasant to me in an	aesthetic
   The same argument follows for people	who are	'waiting    sense.
for some practical application'	before learning	the			 ________________________________
language.  The people who are waiting should be	making the
known applications a reality, and should also be creating      The following article is	taken from a letter received
new ones.  Some	of the brightest people	in the world are    from Dr. Gorsch in which he	described his recent class.
reading	this essay; you	certainly have the ability to make  Those of you interested in the evolution of	the Sapir-Whorf
Lojban (or Esperanto) applicable to your life -	but only if Hypothesis since 1955, and those of	you interested in
you choose to.						    developing useful applications for Lojban in education
   Lojban applications will naturally spring up	from the    should find	the letter an following	course outline very
seeds we've planted.  The time that no one seems to have    useful.  We	ask anyone else	who considers using the
available now for learning the language, could bear fruit   materials below to develop their own course, or for	any
and be ripe with reward	in just	a few years.		    other purpose, to let us know their	results	in a similar
   Meanwhile Lojbanists	have the ultimate consolation.	    fashion.  We also ask that appropriate credit be given Dr.
Unlike Esperanto, Lojban can achieve one of its	goals even  Gorsch for his germinal work.
while failing as a language.  While most of the	linguistic
community has yet to realize it, the efforts of	the past 35 An Introductory College Course in Semiotics	Using Lojban by
years have probably taught more	about the nature of				   Robert Gorsch
language than any other	experimental effort.  Every day	and
every new Lojban speaker adds to that knowledge.  If Lojban    Thanks for sending the wonderful	tape.
suddenly is abandoned 5	or 10 years from now as	a dead

							   24


   Alas, it arrived too	late for me to use it in my class.     Semioticians like Eco also analyze the way in which a
Don't worry, though.  I	will use it when I reorganize this  given language organizes human experience by relating
occasional course in "Semiology" into a	regular	course in   culturally pertinent units ("signifieds") to one another
"Language/Culture/Society."  We	are planning to	make this   through a network of connotative or	associative links.
course in "Language/Culture/Society" a regular part of the  Thus, as Eco explains in "Social Life as a Sign-System," a
curriculum of the English Department, and "Artificial	    language not only differentiates each cultural unit	from
Languages" (including Lojban) will be a	unit of	this	    other, "adjacent" units ("orange" is differentiated	from
course.	 I expect to be	offering it for	the first time in   "red" and from "yellow"), but links	each cultural unit to
the Spring of 1991.					    other units	in other "semantic fields."  The signified of
   I have enclosed the reading list for	my course in	    the	word "rose," the idea of a certain kind	of flower, is
semiology, together with copies	of the readings	most	    linked connotatively to other signifieds, "romance,"
closely	related	to the Whorfian	Hypothesis and the	    "sexual passion," "male reverence for the female,"
development of modern sign-theory.  Please note	that this   "courtship customs (giving flower)," "femininity," "youth,"
is an "intensive" course:  each	meeting	represents 2 1/2    "freshness," and so	on without limit.  In this way each
hours of class-time or something like a	week in	a regular   language is	"contaminated" by traces of the	cultural
semester.						    history of those who have used it:	connotations are the
   Let me briefly sketch the context in	which I	introduced  links, arbitrary and mostly	culture-specific, between one
students to Loglan and Lojban.				    "semantic field" and another that speech communities
   In my course	we began with an examination of	the way	in  inherit and	take for granted.
which sign-systems, linguistic and non-linguistic, organize    This thesis about the segmentation of "raw" human
the raw	experience of the human	mind.  We concentrated on   experience is not incompatible with	the Whorfian
developments in	Continental linguistics	and culture-theory  Hypothesis.	 Indeed, to the	extent that Whorfians
that derive from the Swiss linguist Saussure.  This tra-    concentrate	on the structure of the	lexicon	and ask, for
dition,	associated with	the terms "structuralism,"	    instance, how many words the Eskimo	has for	snow, the
"semiotics" or "semiology," and	"post-structuralism" and    Whorfian Hypothesis	can scarcely be	distinguished from
"deconstruction," anticipates, parallels, and from the	    Eco's argument about the "form" or "content" in the	sign
1960's on elaborates the speculations of Sapir and Whorf.   (see "Social Life as a Sign-System").  But,	to my mind, the
Saussurean "sign-theory," with all of its quasi-Whorfian    Whorfian Hypothesis	is concerned more with grammatical
implications, is extremely influential today in	academic    structure rather than with lexicon.	 This is why I assign
circles, particularly in such fields as	literary studies,   the	essay "Science and Linguistics"	in my course (see
anthropology, and communications.  Indeed, it has been	    enclosed).	I selected this	from a number of possibilities
practically the	intellectual orthodoxy in literary studies  as Whorf's clearest	articulation of	the thesis that	the
since the mid-1970's.					    grammatical	structure of a language, and not just the map
   Some	semiologists look back to the Whorfian Hypothesis   afforded by	its lexicon, shapes the	perceptions of its
as a kind of corroboration of Saussure's thesis	that the    speakers.
sign consists of the arbitrary correlation of a	signifier,     In my course, I used some introductory materials	on both
for example, an	arbitrarily selected segment of	human	    Esperanto and Loglan/Lojban	to illustrate possible escapes
speech sounds, and a signified,	an arbitrarily defined	    from the constraints imposed on thought, according to the
segment	of human thought or experience.	 This thesis	    Whorfian Hypotheses, by natural languages.	It was my hope
concerning the relation	between	language and thought is	    that students would	perceive the relations between the
developed, in particular, on pp. 111-22	of Saussure's	    organizations of experience	embodied in Esperanto and
Course.	 Umberto Eco uses the terms "cultural unit" and	    Logan/Lojban and those embodied in Indo-European languages
"culturally pertinent unit" to refer to	what Saussure and   like English, Spanish, and French.	Anyone who examines
his followers would call the "signified" (see the enclosed  Esperanto will see that it is Indo-European, even Romance-
selections from	Eco).					    Germanic, to the core.  Lojban, in contrast	reflects a
   For writers in this Saussurean tradition the	lexicon	of  serious attempt to fashion a syntactic structure
each language is of especial interest.	Eco, for example,   significantly different from that which structures English
makes much of the fact that speakers of	Latin had no word   and	other Indo-European languages.
for "rat" as opposed to	"mouse."  They did not (or did not     I believe that you will find the	enclosed readings on
easily)	make a distinction where speakers of English do	    language and culture useful:  they place the Sapir-Whorf
make a distinction.  Through the lexical items they make    hypothesis in context and reflect the importance of	the
available to their speakers different languages	embody	    thesis of linguistic relativity in modern "culture-
different segmentations	or divisions of	potential human	    criticism."	 You should be able to locate the other
experience.  Each language constitutes a "map" of human	    readings assigned in my course using the information found
experience.  Takao Suzuki's discussion of the English words in the syllabus (I would be	happy to provide copies	of any
break, drink, desk, water, and lip is designed to show that readings that you find difficult to	obtain).
these maps do not coincide.  It	is as though English and
Japanese cartographers--to say nothing of Turkish and
Swahili	cartographers--organized Earth's land masses into     Questions	from the Class,	compiled by Dr.	Gorsch,	with
political units	in quite different ways.				   responses by	Bob LeChevalier

							   25


							    families from which	the artificial language	derives:  the
[Dr. Gorsch compiled some interesting, provocative, and	    ideal artificial language would be derived from an analysis
very perceptive	questions asked	by his students.  I'll try  of,	say six	languages representing six utterly unrelated
to answer them here, for everyone's benefit, and to hope    language families rather than from an analysis of those six
that Dr. Gorsch	is able	to pass	the answers back to	    languages which yield the largest possible "target
appropriate questioners.]				    audience."

   Following is	a digest of comments, reflections, and	       Bob's response:	I think	it a quite perceptive
questions prompted by my students' encounter with materials observation, and a true one, that marketing	mentality has
relating to Loglan and Lojban.	We discussed Loglan and	    had	an influence on	the design of the language, although I
Lojban in class	and students wrote about them in their	    can't say for sure that it is the case in the word-making.
"intellectual diaries" (which I	read).			    Brown never	mentions such a	criterion in discussing	why he
   Needless to say, all	of my students were dazzled by the  chose the particular algorithm that	he did in either Loglan
very idea that anyone would attempt to fashion an	    1 or Loglan	2.
artificial language, and the brightest ones were intrigued     Without evidence	to back	me up, I would tend to think
by the idea of testing the Whorfian Hypothesis.		    that it was	Brown's	background as a	social scientist in the
   I would like	it to be understood that all of	the	    50's that led him to maximize an algorithmically-derived
following questions and	remarks	were framed in a skeptical  and	weighted statistical score.  In	social science,	this
spirit:	 my students are trained to question things,	    has	been a frequently used and accepted methodology.
everything in fact, in a skeptical spirit.  Furthermore	       Looking at his goal, it is not an unreasonable approach.
they are based upon an introductory acquaintance with the   The	goal was a culturally neutral word-set,	but also a
idea of	the language.  I hope these questions and remarks   maximally learnable	one.  This is unquestionably a 'market-
will be	of interest to you.				    minded' goal, though whether Brown chose it	for market
							    reasons is uncertain.  I think he was concerned about
   1.  As one of my brightest students argued, the	    learnability, trying to balance it against neutrality.  The
architects of Loglan/Lojban seem to have taken a "marketing most learnable words to a culture are the one's most like
approach" to language design.  For example, they worried    that culture's words.  The most culturally neutral of words
more about the size of the target audience of the language  would give no link back to the native tongue.  For what was
-- by attempting to maximize the number	of potential	    originally thought of as a small short-term	language
learners whose native languages	would be incorporated, in   experiment,	learnability among test	subjects was important
part, into the artificial language -- than about the cul-   enough to get a weighting factor.
tural neutrality of the	language.  J. C. Brown,	at least,      Brown scored words based	on the appearance therein of
seems unreasonably impressed by	mere numbers (how many	    phoneme sequences that could be used as cognate memory
hundreds of millions of	speakers have been targeted by	    hooks.  As a result, English speakers find "klama" easy to
having their native languages incorporated in some way into learn for "come", while Chinese speakers will find "cadzu"
the artificial language?).  As compared	with Loglan, Lojban easier to learn for	"walk",	and both find "blanu" for
clearly	seems to take a	step forward by	including a Semitic "blue" relatively easy.
language among its source languages; but it takes a step       JL9 had a more extensive	discussion of the word-making
backward, too, by the elimination of Japanese.	As things   algorithm and learnability.	 Briefly, it is	believed that
now stand, four	out of six of the source languages	    Brown never	actually tested	whether	his algorithmic	score
(English, Hindi, Russian, and Spanish) are Indo-European.   actually measured learnability.  Nor is it clear that it
Thus, only three independent language families are	    measures cultural neutrality.  Eventually linguists	can
represented (Indo-European, Hamito-Semitic, and	Sino-	    study both questions - the language	as a tool is there for
Tibetan).  Even	if one limited oneself to languages spoken  the	studying.
by over	fifty million speakers,	one could, in principle,       The choice of languages was not a 'marketing' decision,
represent three	additional language families, for a total   but	a practical one.  Again, I don't know enough about
of six families: the Malay-Polynesian (e.g., Javanese and   Brown's reasons, but I know	what we	considered, tried, and
Malay-Indonesian), the Altaic (e.g., Turkish and probably   rejected.  Brown used 8 languages; we used 6 for the Lojban
Korean,	and perhaps Japanese), and the Dravidian (e.g.,	    version, because these now are the 'top languages' in terms
Tamil and Telugu).					    of population.  While Japanese is sociologically, if
   An important	compromise seems to have been made here:    anything, a	more important language	than it	was 35 years
"inter-culturality" seems to have been sacrificed to	    ago, the number of speakers	has remained constant in a
maximal	"target	audience" (or, from another perspective,    growing world population.  Chinese and Hindi have swelled
maximal	"learnability").  Legitimate questions could be	    enormously.	 With the end of colonialism, French and German
raised about the cultural neutrality of	any language which  are	on the retreat,	and so to a lesser extent is English
rooted in a set	of languages four out of six of	which are   (although English has increased as the language of science
Indo-European.	Questions might	also be	raised about your   and	technology).
methodology:  have you chosen source languages according to    Given that the object of	the algorithm is the creation
the best possible criterion?  My own instincts tell me that of 5-letter	words with 3 consonants, it turns out to be
one should maximize the	number of independent language	    meaningless	to use more than 3 language families to

							   26


generate scores	under Brown's algorithm.  First, regardless fects, it might invalidate Lojban as a test	tool.  Though I
of the number of languages, you	must use uneven	weights, or doubt if such biases will prove meaningful,	there is always
you get	ties among possible words, and we didn't want our   a risk that	any new	scientific tool	may have such flaws
own personal aesthetics	to be what chose the words.  If	an  that invalidate the	research results.  Lojban is such a
uneven weighting is to be used,	populations of speakers	is  tool and is	subject	to the same risks.
certainly as rational a	weighting to use as any.	       An essential factor in the word-making algorithm	is
   Then, given that language roots are most often reflected appearance,	and this is a 'market-minded' goal.  The method
in their consonants, a 4 language family set results in	the we used gives an objective approach	to word-making that
least-reinforced language being	thrown out, and	a lot of    eliminates personal	biases,	and it demonstrates a mind-set
low, approximately equal scores	for widely differing rules  towards protecting cultural	neutrality.  Loglan/Lojban has
- again	a formula for randomness and aesthetic selection on attracted researchers and students by using	its word-making
my (the	word-maker's) part.  A lesser, but real	factor in   algorithm as an obvious symbol for cultural	neutrality, a
our remaking of	the words was the tradeoff of time vs.	    symbol which your students have correctly noted is at least
quality	of language scholarship.  We didn't have very good  somewhat illusory.
dictionaries for languages of other families, and we didn't
have time to acquire the language expertise to properly	       2.  In the design of Lojban, how	were the lexical items
research languages with	unfamiliar alphabets.		    selected?  From the	perspective of semiology, this is a
   By the way, we did experiment with both equal-weighting  crucial question.  A sign-system constrains	thought	above
of languages, and with adding additional languages into	the all	(or at least significantly) by virtue of the
calculation.  Neither gave useful results.		    organization of experience it imposes on a community
   While 4 of our languages are	in the same family, Indo-   through (a)	the "cultural units" or	"signifieds" it	defines
European, they are from	different subfamilies that have	    and	(b) the	web of connotative relations that it estab-
relatively minimal sharing of roots.  Indeed, about the	    lishes between these "cultural units."  See	the articles by
only obvious reinforcing that we observed was some En-	    Eco	and the	selections from	Suzuki.
glish/Spanish matches where we allowed a Latinate root in      If one were simply to devise new	signifiers, new
the English calculation.  There	was probably a good deal of "words," for the signifieds	given by Indo-European schemas
subliminal sharing, but	a high percentage of the words are  ("man," "woman," "blue," "sky," and	so on),	one would be
primarily a blending of	Chinese	and English phonemes.	    producing a	kind of	code into which	speakers could simply
   What	was achieved, I	think, is better than a	set of	    translate discourse	already	structured by a	natural
random words.  Because the weighted scores included phoneme language like English, Spanish, or Russian.
frequency and order, we	have words that	have a phoneme
frequency that is consistent with the weighted average	       Bob's response:	First, I'll note that the first
concept.  We have an extremely non-random distribution of   paragraph of this question assumes the validity of Sapir-
sound sequences	that emphasizes	those sound sequences that  Whorf; if S/W is false, then sign-systems would not
are pleasing to	the widest possible distribution of	    constrain thought.
speakers, because those	sound sequences	came from the words    How were	Loglan/Lojban word concepts chosen?  From a
of their own languages.					    variety of sources,	all probably biased in their own way.
   Cultural neutrality is served in that the words are	    The	hope that we have a neutral word set derives from the
sufficiently different from the	roots of any one language   variety of ways that words have come into the language, and
family that no language	sees a too high	level of cognate    the	large number of	people involved	in the project over the
reinforcement.	  Even with 4 Indo-European languages, no   years, have	neutralized any	major biases.
linguistic historian would ever	recognize Lojban as having     When we rebuilt the vocabulary for Lojban, we heavily
an obvious Indo-European heritage instead of a Sino-Tibetan based our concept selection	on Brown's.  The source	of each
one.  Thus we counter to some extent the cultural biases    of Brown's concepts	may be buried in his notes, but	has not
caused by semantic transference, where Lojban words end	up  been published.  Brown has presented some of his basic
with the meanings of the base language.			    ideas, though.
   Furthermore,	since we use the same concept (as near as      - Brown started with some number	of root	concepts that
possible) from each source language, our vocabulary has	a   had	been identified	by linguists in	the 50's as being found
universality not biased	towards	a single culture.  Such	a   in 'all' languages.
bias towards one culture is the	main threat against	       - To this list, he apparently added the work of Ogden in
Lojban's usefulness in testing Sapir-Whorf, especially if   creating the word list for BASIC English.
it is an unrecognized one.				       - Recognizing that linguistics hadn't dealt effectively
   We can say that any biases in Lojban	word-making are	    with taboos, he added explicit roots for a variety of
consistent, identifiable and to	some extent measurable;	    biological functions that tend to be primitive in every
however, they are probably not important.		    language.
   Researchers will be able to verify this.  If	the biases     - Brown did a study, using the most frequent concepts in
are meaningful,	linguists of the future	will be	able to	    Helen Eaton's list of the most frequent concepts in	4
look at	Lojban and measure some	resulting effect, corre-    European languages.	 While this list undoubtedly has a
lating it with the known and measurable	bias.  If such an   European bias, it served as	a check	on the primitive word
effect exists and can be tied to apparent Sapir-Whorf ef-   list.  Brown checked the first 3000	words of this list, and

							   27


required, according to Zipf's law, that	the most frequent   err	on the side of inclusion; the inclusion	of a word does
concepts be the	shortest words,	i.e. primitives.	    not	mean that it will be used, while the exclusion of a
   - Brown added concepts proposed by him and others rather word means that it won't be.
haphazardly over a period of 30	years.	Loglan thus ended      (Lojban development has often accomplished cultural
up with	words for 'olive', 'billiards',	and 'blonde'.  (An  neutrality by inclusion, rather than by exclusion.	The
exception is that the entire collection	of concepts	    existence of a language feature in any culture makes that
proposed in The	Loglanist between 1975 and 1982, dis-	    feature a candidate	for incorporation.  Lojban thus	allows
appeared without a trace when Brown rebuilt his	word list   many competing features as alternative expression forms; we
in 1981-2.)						    choose one feature over another only when there is an
   Is there bias in these methods?  Yes, especially when    unreconcilable conflict.)
the decisions were made	by Brown alone.			       Our gismu list, considered as 'basic concepts', could
   Brown has expressed a strong	bias towards theories that  not	be thought bias-free.  No list could be	- the very
claim biological innateness or instinctiveness of certain   adopting of	a set of words as 'basic' would	bias the
concepts.  Thus	he retained concepts for father	and for	    language towards concepts associated with those words.
mother as 'biologically	primitive', rather than	choosing to Lojban instead emphasizes providing	'semantic coverage' of
make them as the tanru 'male-parent' and 'female-parent'.   the	entire space of	potential human	thought, through the
To Brown, mother is something more than	'female-parent'	for combination	of gismu, tanru, and lujvo.  The form of the
biological reasons.  For similar reasons, noting the wide   word is not	intended to be an indication of	semantic import
use of human and animal	body parts as the basis	for	    or primtive	merit.	This philosophy	frees us from much
metaphor in all	languages, Brown decided that a	large list  excessive concern that biases in our gismu list invalidate
of body	parts are primitive 'biological' concepts.	    Lojban's linguistic	usefulness.
   The theory of biological innateness may be true; its	       As a result, the	exact mapping of the gismu to the
assumption without proof is an identified bias.	 Because it semantic space, expressed by their use in tanru, does not
is a known bias, it can	be used	positively in watching for  yet	exist.	The speakers of	the language will make that
Sapir-Whorf effects.					    mapping.  They will	determine exactly 'what	the words
   Brown's individual biases have been corrected, or at	    mean', and this will be the	final elimination of a priori
least ameliorated, by the extensive redevelopment of the    cultural bias from the word	set.
language over the last several years.			       Since Lojban's set of gismu concepts is significantly
   Over	time, the Eaton	list analysis was expanded.  This   different from any other language, the semantic map	that
analysis gave birth to the dissenting opinion that	    will result	must also be different for this	reason.	 Three
primitive words	should be selected on the basis	of	    examples follow:
usefulness in making tanru, and	not on some innate	       - Lojban	has a gismu for	computer, a concept that didn't
'basicness'.  Brown disagreed, and while he was	in charge   exist a hundred years ago.	Clearly	the Lojban semantic map
of the language, usefulness per	se was not a factor unless  of concepts	related	to computers must be different than any
the chosen primitive could be justified	on the basis of	    natural language.
Eaton frequency.					       - In kinship terminology, Lojban, possibly uniquely, has
   When	we remade the words for	Lojban,	we accepted the	    sex-neutral	concepts for all kinship relationships (as well
'usefulness' criterion as a primary consideration, choosing as 5 pairs of sex-linked words to allow specification of
to make	the gismu list a set of	'root' concepts	chosen	    sex	where it is important to a person); it also allows se-
primarily for building tanru, and not a	set of 'basic'	    mantic distinction at the primitive	level between
concepts (more on this below in	the response to	jyjym.)	    biological parent and rearing parent, and there is even a
   We reviewed Brown's list word by word, attempting to	    current proposal for a gismu that would permit one to avoid
justify	each in	terms of either	its ability to be used in   making such	a distinction.
tanru covering the most	frequent words in the Eaton list,      - In colors, we have a set of about a dozen colors,
on one of Brown's scientific criteria, or on high frequency which can be equally modified in tanru to indicate blends,
in the Eaton list coupled with an inability to express the  or for 'pale' or 'intense'.	 tanru can also	be made	for
concept	as a tanru of other gismu.  Where there	was doubt,  association	with physical objects (sea green vs. pea green,
we deferred to Brown's earlier decisions, in order to	    etc.)  The size of the set of colors is towards the	maximum
enhance	chances	for reconciliation.			    found as 'primitive' in language.
   During this review, one final criteria was adopted,	       Each of these cases should have a significant effect on
based on the work of Paul Doudna and others.  The words	    the	Lojban semantic	map, causing it	to differ from any
were divided into semantic categories.	If there were	    natural language.  Multiply	this effect by all of the other
several	words in a semantic category, we added other words, gismu and Lojban's map will	undoubtedly have patterns that
even if	of lesser frequency, to	complete the set.	    we can't yet even imagine.
   Our re-evaluation actually took place at least 4 times,     The best	assurance that we have that Lojban will	not be
with concepts being added and removed.	A final	review	    a code for another language	is its grossly different
against	Roget's	Thesaurus sought to verify that	we had	    structural basis:  predicate grammar.  Any Lojban predicate
allowed	for the	entire range of	semantic thought, although  word (brivla) has exactly one place	structure, and hence
there is plenty	of room	for addition of	new concepts if	    one	denotation.  This immediately militates	against
admissions are identified.  In general,	we have	tried to    transferring connotations.

							   28


   The place structure effect is especially strong when	    tested?  I must admit that I don't quite understand	what
forming	tanru, and hence lujvo,	which will eventually form  one	would test and how.
the bulk of the	language vocabulary.  Thus, when Michael
Helsem attempts	to transfer the	odd English metaphor	       Bob's response:	I think	the first half the question was
'purple	prose' to Lojban in his	writings below,	his tanru   answered by	the previous discussion.  By necessity,
"zirpu lojbo" or "zirjbo" is obviously invalid for Lojban;  learning to	think in Lojban	will require a drastic
one would have to be able to define in the place structure  reforming of one's semantic	maps beyond that achievable by
what chromatic aspect of the "signified" is "purple", and   translating	from the native	tongue.
by what	standard.  Similarly, a	"computer run" is not going    We have no proof	that "thinking in Lojban" is possible.
to be expressed	in Lojban as "skami bajra", which would	    We'll undoubtedly know within a year or two.  We do	have
more likely connote the	'Bionic	Woman' running down the	    much anecdotal evidence.  Lojbanists, who tend to be
street in tennis shoes while a printer built into her back  creative people and	word-players in	the first place, have
spits out digits of 'pi'.				    habitually used Loglan/Lojban to create metaphors, then en-
   At first, people will no doubt make such semantic	    tertained themselves with the implications of the place
transferences.	But assuming that people learn to think	in  structures as I did	above with "computer run".  Some
Lojban,	it will	quickly	prove difficult	to continue such    Loglan/Lojban usages, where	they most clearly express what
encoding.						    the	speaker	wants, have already crept back to English.
   Meanwhile, those of us who assemble dictionaries and	    Thus Jim Brown has for years used old Loglan anaphora in
word lists militantly watch to prevent any obvious	    English as sex-neutral pronouns, in	place of various
transference of	Englishisms, our worst problem while we	    English pronouns.  "malglico" and other "mal-" pejoratives
have mostly native English speakers.  Indeed, I	suspect	    are	slowly coming to replace English pejoratives in	Nora
that we	have a bias against English metaphor, and are prone and	my everyday English speech.
to turn	to our Chinese dictionary to confirm any permanent     I myself	have minimal experience	in actually learning
choice.							    other languages, but I've been told	that to	learn a
   Sticking with gismu place structures, we similarly avoid language fluently, you have	to be able to 'think' in it,
problems.  As noted in the Esperanto discussion, "xamgu"    and	adopt the 'maps' associated with the second language.
("good") is not	a comparative.	A different word ("xagmau") In the case	of Lojban, this	will be	a Lojbanic map - not an
would be used for the comparative, and a third ("xagrai")   English one.  Can a	Lojbanic map be	learned?  Second
for the	superlative.  But also in the concept "xamgu" is an language learners have learned new languages (and their
'observer/evaluator' who opines	the property of	goodness    maps) both similar and drastically different from their
and a 'purpose/beneficiary' so that the	concept	is really   own.  Studies of English speakers using BASIC English
"good for".  The claim that there may be an absolute good   indicate that if the new language is too similar to	the
that isn't 'for' someone or something requires a different  old, it is actually	harder to learn	the new	map.  The
concept, shall we call it 'virtue' for argument, that has   Lojban map will have some similarities with	the Chinese
to be a	different word with a different, derived or primi-  one, since they have similar methods of compounding	tanru.
tive place structure.					    It is unclear whether Lojban's unique grammar will cause
   The final obvious effect of predicates is the blurring   any	problems in learning its map.  I suspect not.
between	nouns, verbs, and adjectives.  While this might	       Whether second language learners	are adequate candidates
have less drastic an effect on Chinese semantic		    for	a Sapir-Whorf test has been subject to debate.	Some
transference, Lojban uses a single word	for "caringly",	    believe that proper	use of controls	will allow a
"caring", "take	care of", and "caretaker".  While the four  significant	Sapir-Whorf effect to be verified.  Others
are obviously related in English, each has unique	    believe that we won't be able to test Sapir-Whorf until we
connotations tied to its nature	as noun, verb, adjective,   have speakers who are raised to be bilingual, or even
or adverb.  In Lojban, all of those connotations which	    monolingual	in Lojban from birth.  Such a requirement won't
remain consistent with the single place	structure are	    be viable for some years, of course	(there have been small
combined and blended, forming a	new meaning for	the	    numbers of Esperanto 'native speakers', so it isn't
predicate word "kurji".					    unthinkable	that Lojban will one day support 'natives',
							    too.).
   3.  One question, related to	the preceding concerns,	to     The second half,	on testing Sapir-Whorf,	can't be fully
which my students kept returning was this:  will speakers   answered.  Jim Brown proposed a flawed approach in his new
of Lojban really be able to escape the "maps" of experience edition of Loglan 1.  John Parks-Clifford (pc) has written
imposed	upon them by their native languages?  Will they	    on the subject a couple of times.  See JL6,	JL7, and the
really be able to think	in Lojban, instead of translating   essays at the end of the last issue	JL10, for details on
into Lojban, and, if so, is Lojban sufficiently	inter-	    the	topic.
cultural to permit its speakers	to escape the "maps" that      Skepticism is valid and useful.	We believe we've
they acquired in learning their	native languages?	    created a tool that	will display Sapir-Whorf effects if
   Students were accordingly somewhat skeptical	about the   there are any, and which is	sufficiently independent of
feasibility of an empirical test of the	Whorfian	    natural language to	allow isolation	of effects to determine
Hypothesis.  How, exactly, would the learning of Lojban	as  if their cause is a	Sapir-Whorf effect, or something else.
a second language enable the Whorfian Hypothesis to be	    The	problem	now is to build	a speaker base,	and develop the

							   29


means of measuring any perceived effect	and ruling out non-    Eventually, Lojban will (hopefully) indeed become a
Sapir-Whorf causes.  Skeptics are the best source of people 'natural language' in the sense of having its own culture.
to poke	holes in inadequate methods.  (I should	note that   If the culture is built by native-speaking Lojbanists, this
pc, our	most 'forward' methodologist at	this point, does    culture would be the subject of massive sociological and
not believe that the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis is valid.	    linguistic experimentation,	and we would know the answer on
Truly a	healthy	skepticism for an experiment like this.)    Sapir-Whorf.  This indeed is the most desirable test for
							    Sapir-Whorf, and methodology questions are generally based
   4.  Once Lojban comes to be used as an instrument of	    on the assumption that we want to know the answer before,
communication, won't idioms naturally develop, thereby	    and	whether	or not,	such a culture comes to	exist.
undermining its	designed explicitness?	The development	of
idioms is a natural phenomenon in any language that is	       5.  Students seemed to be obsessed with the idea	that
actually used.	And yet	idioms are, arguable, the products  languages are contaminated (or enriched) by	culture.
of the culture-community of those who use a language.	    Lojban as presented	seems innocent of culture.  Yet	if it
Wouldn't the inevitable	emergence of idioms and	"slang"	    were to be used it would be	"corrupted" by culture and
defeat some of the purposes for	which Lojban was created?   would therefore escape the intentions of its architects, in
   Consequently, students asked, wouldn't Lojban be	    particular through the emergence of	idioms and slang.
contaminated by	the cultures of	those who used it--and,	as
a result, lose not only	some of	its explicitness and	       Bob's response (brief for once):	 I hope	more than
univocality, but also some of its cultural neutrality?	    anything else that Lojban grows beyond my meager
							    conceptions	and intentions for its potential, and develops
   Bob's response:  The	development of idiom and slang is   its	own unique culture.  Language is a bigger thing	than
not well understood, although it is perceived to be uni-    any	one person or small group can control; the French
versal.	 The processes of slang	development may	indeed be a Academy knows this for sure.  We have resisted Brown's
measurable Sapir-Whorf effect.	What type of idiom, if any, attempt to create a	Loglan/Lojban Academy.
develops in Lojban, and	to what	extent is explicitness	       We hope merely to channel our loss of control away from
lost?  We'll certainly find out.			    destructive	trends.	 But if	they occur anyway, we still
   Lojban has, by the way, a methodology for importing	    learn something.
words from other languages by borrowing.  these	words are
considered '2nd	class' words already, and hence	slang of a     6.  When	languages are used, webs of connotative
sort.  Yet they	will be	the basis for labelling	foods, ani- relations emerge:  every natural language reflects in this
mals, plants, chemicals, indeed	all manner of jargon words  way	the history of the community of	those who have used it.
and concrete terms that	have minimal semantic associations. One	signified (rose) suggests another signified in another
Lojban 'slang',	will, like names, probably never really	    semantic field (say, romance), which suggests any number of
acquire	deep semantic associations.  It	will probably tend  other signifieds.  See Eco,	"Social	Life as	a Sign System."
to be avoided where possible, since borrowings tend to be   In any language actually used this web of a-logical
longer,	less clear, and	harder to combine into compounds,   relations would emerge.  Wouldn't the emergence of such a
than other words.					    web, in the	community of speakers of Lojban, undermine its
   Lojban slang, in the	creative sense of the word, will    claims to be culturally neutral, fully explicit,
probably turn towards the creation of new tanru	for old	    unambiguous, and so	on?
ideas.	In this	way the	basic semantic mapping will slowly
drift to keep the rigid	place structures in line with	       Bob's response:	If the web develops totally internally,
usage.	There will probably be evolution of place	    from a spontaneous cultural	development, it	would not
structures as well, but	it isn't clear how significant this violate cultural neutrality.  I've already said that Lojban
will be.  Probably the occurrence of such drift	will be	    need not be	explicit, nor, especially in the area of tanru,
tied to	the formation of that peculiarly Lojbanic culture   is Lojban semantically unambiguous.	 I think that we have
that we	discussed above.				    retained enough flexibility	in the creative	aspects	of
   Lojban is not, by the way, inherently explicit.  It has  Lojban to make the internal	cultural development of	such a
an elaborate, carefully	thought	out, or	at least much	    web	consistent with	the areas that we have kept rigid.
debated, system	for ellipsis.  I suspect that Lojban idiom     Indeed, we have retained, primitives chosen by Jim Brown
will occur in the direction of simplification through the   for	body parts, animals, and materials that	are
use of ellipsis, and that therefore, the idiom won't really metaphorically used	by many	cultures; yes, even 'rose'.  We
mean anything other than what it says.	If you want a non-  recognize that they	are the	potential seeds	of bias.
idiomatic reading of the same predicate, you will fill in   Because we know these words	are there, we can watch	for
the non-obvious	places normally	omitted	by the idiom.	    their use and guide	the community away from	biased use in-
   Lojban will,	to some	extent,	borrow idioms from natural  sofar as we	can recognize it.  If the canary dies, we'll be
language cultures, when	those idioms are compatible with    wary of poison.
Lojban grammar and semantics.  This isn't necessarily bad,
as long	as the borrowing isn't excessive (turning the	       7.  Languages in	use cannot be stabilized:  they	develop
language into a	code), or linked to one	particular culture  organically	through	usage by a community, adapting
(causing a bias).					    themselves to the needs of their speakers.	Wouldn't that

							   30


be the case with Lojban?  What would be	the consequences of
this inevitable	organic	development?

Bob's response:	 I think this was answered in response to
4. and 5., with	a little hint in the last question.  While
I don't	see a Lojban Academy trying to prevent organic
development, there may be an organization trying to keep
the development	moving in a positive direction.	 This has
generally been the function of poets; more recently of
English	teachers.
   Note	that we	have talked about 'baselining' the language
only long enough to ensure that	critical mass exists
internally among speakers of the language to resist
external forces	for change.  We	don't mind change if it	is
done by	Lojban speakers	thinking in and	using their lan-
guage in the way they choose.  That is how culture
develops.
   On the other	hand, except in	vocabulary growth, I think
that linguistic	drift has drastically slowed in	the 20th
century	due to the printed word, nearly	universal
education, and mass communication.  Where drift	exists,
language has tended towards uniformity among speakers
rather than variation -	hence the increasing use of "The
Queen's	English" dialect in Britain.

   8.  Is the syntax devised for Lojban	truly culturally
neutral?  Derived as it	was from the formal logic that has
evolved	in Western European culture, what claims does it
have to	cultural neutrality?  In Whorf's essay "Science	and
Linguistics" (enclosed), Whorf wonders whether our logic is
truly universal.  Does it really derive	from something
other than an analysis of the shape of thought constrained
by Indo-European languages like	Greek, Latin, German, and
English?  Whorf's article implies that we would	possess	a
very different "science" had our science been bequeathed to
us by the American Indians rather than the Western
Europeans.

   Bob's response:  Predicate logic is probably	not
culturally neutral, nor	the assumptions	that would cause it
to be valued.  This is the essence of Brown's original
concept	for Loglan/Lojban in a Sapir-Whorf experiment:
that metaphysical assumptions and cultural biases be kept
to a minimums so that the one extreme bias causes an unde-
niably significant change.

							   31


     Since Brown started, we've	identified other potential sources of Sapir-Whorf effects, most	notably	the elimination
of constraints on thought that develops	from our minimization of metaphysical assumptions (like	singular/plural	and
us/them	distinctions).	These effects WOULD BE culturally neutral, and probably	would show up in spite of minor	biases
other than the big 'L' logic bias.
     (John Parks-Clifford notes	that the content of formal logic, if not the exact form, was independently derived in
India and to a lesser extent in	China.	Every problem in Western logic turned up and was solved	in India.  Chinese
logical	thought	was equally sophisticated, but its development was aborted after only a	few decades, by	political
turmoil	rather than by direct cultural rejection, and never re-emerged.	 Meanwhile, the	Western	form embraces
contributions from Arabic as well as European sources.	Logic was chosen as the	basis for Lojban due to	its simplicity
of structure as	well as	for predictably	significant Sapir-Whorf	effects.)
     Note that while logic is not the only strong force	guiding	Lojban development that	stems from Western thought.
Other forces include the counters to logic such	as 'liberty', 'free choice', and 'romantic ideals'.  Funny that	no one
worries	about these forces destroying Lojban's cultural	neutrality.  Maybe we should.
     For that matter, as this question implies,	modern science and the interest	in the question	of whether the Sapir-
Whorf hypothesis is true also are based	on Western tradition.
     I think this type of question should be left for the philosophers,	who may	come up	with a useful answer.
Otherwise, in the extreme, we end up questioning whether the fact that we do our science the way we do causes the
universe we observe to change, making the observations,	and the	science	thus invalid.  Sort of a Heisenberg Uncertainty
Principle on a grand scale.
     Science is	valuable as an endeavor	if it gives useful results.  Does knowing more about the nature	of language give
useful results?	 If Lojban is a	language, will studying	it teach us more about language?  Does the fact	that we've
defined	some measurable	control	on the design of the language improve the chances that we can learn useful information
from study Lojban?  If the answer to these questions is	'yes', then Lojban will	be worthwhile as a project, and	valuable
to those who learn it, those who study it, and the world that will be affected by it.


					    Course Outline and Bibliography
													   Robert Gorsch
													   January, 1990
TELL-TALE SIGNS:
An Introduction	to Semiology

Required Texts:
   Marshall Blonsky, ed., On Signs (Baltimore, 1985):  selections from Blonsky's collection will be marked with	the
letter "B" in the schedule.
   Other readings to be	distributed in class:  these readings will be marked with an asterisk (*) in the schedule.

							SCHEDULE

M  Jan 8/ THE FIRST DAY	OF CLASS

T  Jan 9/ INTRODUCTION:	 SOCIAL	LIFE AS	A SIGN SYSTEM
	  *Umberto Eco,	"social	Life as	a Sign System,"	from David Robey, ed., Structuralism:  An Introduction (1973),
	       pp. 57-72.
	  *Pierre Guiraud, Semiology (1975), pp. 1-4 and 82-98.

       THE WHORFIAN HYPOTHESIS:	 LANGUAGES AS WAYS OF SEEING
	  *Benjamin Whorf, "Science and	Linguistics" (1940), Language, Thought,	and Reality:  Selected Writings	of
	       Benjamin	Lee Whorf, ed. John B. Carroll (1956), pp. 207-219.
	  *Clyde Kluckhohn, "The Gift of Tongues," Mirror for Man (1949); rpt. in Introductory Readings	on Language,
	       Fourth Edition (1974), ed. Wallace L. Anderson and N. C.	Stageberg, pp. 38-47.


W  Jan 10/	    Umberto Eco, "How Culture Conditions the Colours We	See," B	157-715.
	  *Anthony G. Wheeler, "Pitfalls of Perception," The Skeptical Inquirer, Summer, 1988; rpt. in The Utne	Reader,
	       Sept./Oct. 1989,	p. 100.

       HOW LANGUAGES WORD AS SIGN-SYSTEMS
	  *F. de Sussure, Course in General Linguistics, pp. 7-17, 65-78, 111-122.
	  *Takao Suzuki, Words in Context:  A Japanese Perspective on Language and Culture (1984), pp. 7-44.

							   32



Th Jan 11/     ARTIFICIAL LANGUAGES:  THE ATTEMPT TO ESCAPE CULTURE:
       Read these selections in	the order indicated.  Try to get a sense of how	each of	these languages	sounds and how
       each "works" as a way of	expressing ideas.  Where the texts tell	you how	to pronounce words and phrases,	try it
       on your own.  Where the readings	provide	texts in the languages and literal translation,	examine	these carefully.
       In examining the	Esperanto passages look	for words that you recognize from your knowledge of English, Spanish,
       French, and other European languages.

       --ESPERANTO
	  *George Cox, "Preface	to the First Edition" and "L'Espero," A	Grammar	and Commentary on the International
	       Language	Esperanto, Second Edition, pp. v-xvii and xx-xxi.
	  *Arthur Baker, "The Alphabet," "Sounds," and "Exercise 1," The American Esperanto Book (1907), pp. 7-11 and
	       78-80.
	  *Baker, "Rules of the	Grammar," pp. 12-18.
	  *Cox,	"Conversation (Interparolado),"	pp. 311-315.

       --LOGLAN/LOJBAN
	  *Don Oldenburg, "Tongue-Twister of a Language," San Francisco	Chronicle: Sunday punch, Nov. 26, 1989.
	  *James Cooke Brown, "Loglan,"	Scientific American, June, 1960, pp. 52-63.
	  *The Logical Language	Group, "What is	Lojban?	(la lojban mo)," 1989.
	  *The Logical Language	Group, "Translation of Lesson 6	Reading	Text: lenu vitke lei rarna (Visiting Nature),"
	       [Lojban Textbook] (1989), 6.43-6.46.

M  Jan 15/     DUE:  ANNOTATED BIBLIOGRAPHY.  Hand in a	xerox of your annotated	bibliography (keep a copy for yourself).
	       Consult the Borzoi Handbook to refresh your memory on the proper	form for entries in a bibliography.
	       Annotate	each entry:  after reviewing the item, briefly describe	it and explain how it might be useful to
	       you in your investigation.

       A MODEL OF COMMUNICATION
	  *Guiraud, Semiology, pp. 5-21.
	  T. Sebeok, "Pandora's	Box:  How and Why to Communicate 10,000	Years into the Future,"	B 448-466.

       SIGN-THEORY
	  *Guiraud, Semiology, pp. 5-21.
	  M. Blonsky, first part of "Endword," B 505-7 (to middle of the page).

T  Jan 16/     SEMIOLOGY AS A METHOD OF	ANALYSIS
	  New York Times, "What's the real message of 'Casablanca'?  Or	of a Rose?" B 424-5.
	  Wlad Godzich,	"The Semiotics of Semiotics," B	421-26 only (you need not read beyond Sec. 2:  "On Cowboy
	       Boots").
	  M. Blonsky, "When Cains of Difference	Intersect:  A Lesson," B 441-43.
	  Umberto Eco, "Casablanca, or the Cliches are Having a	Ball," B 35-38.	 (Think	of Who Killed Roger Rabbit?, as
	       well as Casablanca, if you have seen them.)
       REPORTS (Second Half)


W  Jan 17/     SOCIAL LIFE AS A	SIGN SYSTEM
	  *P. Guiraud, Semiology, 82-98:  review.
	  *Eco,	"Social	Life as	a Sign System":	 review.

       INTRODUCTION TO BODY LANGUAGE
	  *Charles Downey, "A Guide to No-Fail Flirting," San Francisco	Chronicle, May 17,1989.
	  *E. T. and M.	R. Hall, "The Sounds of	Silence" (1971); rpt. in Introductory Readings on Language (1975), ed.
	       Anderson	and Stageberg, pp. 318-29.
	  *Leonard W. Doob, "Communication in Africa" (1961), rpt. in Introductory Readings on Language	(1975),	ed.
	       Anderson	and Stageberg, pp. 330-35.
       REPORTS (Second half)

Th Jan 18/     READING OTHER CULTURES
	  Jean Franco, "Killing	Priests, Nuns, Women, Children," B 414-20

							   33


	  M. Blonsky, "The Way of Masks," B 186-87.

	       Review:
	  *E. T. and M.	R. Hall, "The Sounds of	Silence"
	  *Leonard W. Doob, "Communication in Africa."
       REPORTS (Second half)

M  Jan 22/     LOOKING AT MODERN CULTURE:  BECOMING AWARE OF "CULTURE"
	  *P. Guiraud, Semiology, pp. 99-104.
	  *Roland Barthes, Mythologies (1972), pp. 9-12, 50-52,	58-64, 84-87, and 109-31.
       REPORTS (Second half)

T  Jan 23/     U. Eco, "Strategies of Lying," B	3-11.
	  Edmundo Desnoes, "Cuba Made Me So," B	384-402.
	  M. Blonsky, "Introduction . .	.," B xxvii-xxxv and xl-xliv.
       REPORTS (Second half)

W  Jan 24/     MARKETING AS APPLIED SEMIOLOGY
	  M. Blonsky, "Semiotics in the	Marketplace," B	434-5.
	  Milton Glaser, "I Listen to the Market, " B 467-75.
	  Ronald Weintraub, "Lifting the Veil,"	B 475-480.
	  M. Blonsky, "Endword," B 505-11.
	  Matthew Klein, "And Above All, Please	Do Not Disturb," B 481-87.
       REPORTS (Second half)

Th Jan 25/     HOW THE MEDIA (RE-)CREATE THE EVENTS THEY REPORT
	  Daniel Dayan and Elihu Katz, "Electronic Ceremonies:	Television Performs a Royal Wedding," B	16-32.
       REPORTS (Second half)

M  Jan 29/     REPORTS
T  Jan 29/     REPORTS
W  Jan 29/     REPORTS

Th Feb	1/     SIGN-SYSTEMS:  CULTURE-BOUND WAYS OF SEEING
	  Robert Scholes, "Is There a Fish in This Text?" B 308-320.
	  Michel de Certeau, "The Jabbering of Social Life," B 146-54.

			     _____________________________________________________________

The following was written by Ralph Dumain over a year ago.  We haven't printed it until	now, because, as a bibliography
relating to Sapir-Whorf, it is incomplete in omitting some of the basic	references needed to understand	what the Sapir-
Whorf hypothesis is.  Dr. Gorsch's course outline at least partially remedies this.  Readers seeking more on Sapir-Whorf
should also investigate	the bibliography of either edition of Loglan 1.

					  Bibliography on Language and Thought
						    by Ralph Dumain

     The question of the relation of thought to	language is a multifaceted one and has been approached by such
disciplines as philosophy, linguistics proper, sociology of language, sociology, anthropology, psychology, political
science, and educational policy.
     This selected bibliography	is not representative of the field of language and cognition as	a whole, nor of	its
historical evolution, nor of its most current work, nor	of its most significant	contributions.	I have selected, in a
nonsystematic way, works which illustrate different angles from	which the issue	may be considered and which illuminate
the problems to	be confronted.	This bibliography reflects my interest in the high-level aspects of language and
cognition, e.g.. the strong version of Whorf's hypothesis [the world view issue], particularly the human ability to for-
mulate and critique concepts.  For me, the issue of the	ability	to form	and interrelate	abstract concepts is exclusively
an issue of semantics.	The practical and political issue is the mastery of word meanings and the conquest of the
opacity	of semantic systems.
     Omitted are works by William Labov	and Basil Bernstein, two of the	foremost researchers of	the 1960's on issues of
cognitive ability and social dialects.	Bernstein was a	pioneer	in the comparison of standard English vs. British work-

							   34


ing class dialects, the	formulation of the notions of elaborated and restricted	code, and the investigation of different
uses of	language as social reinforcements.  Labov presented a wealth of	ethnographic data to prove that	ghetto-dwelling
Black Americans	using so-called	Black English were perfectly capable of	abstract thinking, refuting assertions to the
contrary.  Labov also used transformational-generative grammar to analyze the syntax of	Black English and to refute
superstitions about linguistic deficiency.
     Besides paying more attention to recent developments in linguistic	theory,	one must also delve into the pragmatics
of language more thoroughly, where much	of the hidden dynamics of language and social control lie.  There is much in the
literature of philosophy, especially philosophy	of science, that bears upon the	tacit assumptions of Loglan ideologists
about the nature of language, the limits to thought, the role of formal	logic, and the nature of creativity and	novelty
in the progress	of thought.

						 Annotated Bibliography

Bisseret, Noelle (1979)	- Education, Class Language and	Ideology.  London: Routledge & Kegan Paul.
     Bisseret examines the views of sociologists of language who analyze class dialects, such as Basil Bernstein.
Bisseret asserts that the logicality and coherence of the world	belong to the dominant class.

Carroll, John B. (1964)	- Language and Thought.	 Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, Inc.  See	chapter	7: "Language and
cognition", esp. the section "The linguistic-relativity	hypothesis" (p.	106-110).
     Carroll is	skeptical of the strong	Whorfian thesis.  Evidence is lacking that grammatical differences between
languages signify cognitive differences.  He gives examples to show misleading extrapolations based only on linguistic
evidence.

Chomsky, Noam (1973) - See Schaff, Adam.

Friedrich, Paul	(1979) - Language, Context, and	the Imagination:  Essays by Paul Friedrich, selected and introduced by
Anwar S. Dil.  Stanford: Stanford University Press.
     Friedrich disagrees with Whorf's views on language	and metaphysics, but accepts the strong	thesis in the realm of
poetic language	and its	relation to the	imagination.


Gyekye,	Kwame (1977) - "Akan language and the materialist thesis:  a short essay on the	relation between philosophy and
language", in Studies in Language, vol.	1, no. 2, p. 237-244.
     Gyekye opposes linguistic relativity in philosophy.  Examples are given of	mentalistic linguistic expressions in
English	 which are expressed physicalistically in Akan.	 A linguistic relativist would conclude	that the Akan people are
materialists, yet Akan ontology	is actually dualistic, with an absolute	distinction between body and soul.

Havranek, Bohuslav (1964) - "The functional differentiation of the standard language", in: A Prague School Reader on
Esthetics, Literary Structure, and Style, selected and translated from Czech by	Paul L.	Garvin.	 Washington: Georgetown
University Press; p. 3-16.
     On	lexical	and syntactic aspects of standard vs. folk speech, different modes of utilization of the devices of
language, intellectualization, automatization and foregrounding.  Intellectualization of language makes	possible
precision, rigor, and abstractness.  Syntactic devices enable an integrated structure of sentences.  Automatization is
the creation of	conventional expressions with definite meanings; once established, an automatization does not attract
attention to itself linguistically.  Foregrounding is the use of language (usually uncommon) that attracts attention to
itself,	e.g.. live poetic metaphor.  An	expression automatized in one context may be foregrounded in another.
Automatizations	of science are different from those in conversation.
     This article is important for two complementary reasons: (1) It proposes requisites of intellectual language,
especially the ability to express abstractions,	which I	believe	is the key issue in being able to formulate and	change
one's world view; (2) automatization, in creating conventional expressions, not	only makes possible the	expression of
concepts, but an automatization	as such	is no longer metaphorically alive and so no longer binds a thought to its
particular linguistic expression (thus negating	a putative Whorfian limitation on thought).
     Foregrounding is relevant to Loglan because as Loglan is entirely new, there are no cliches, no tiresome or worn
expressions.  Loglan seems poetic to some of its propagandists because the entire language is foregrounded.  What might
otherwise be banal seems to be exquisitely poetic.  Whorf foregrounded Hopi grammar, making it a source	of live
metaphors for him if not for the Hopi themselves.

Jackendoff, Ray	(1983) - Semantics and Cognition.  Cambridge, MA:  MIT Press.

							   35


     Deals with	grammatical constraint,	semantic structure and conceptual structure, and theory	of representation.  This
reference is included not as an	endorsement of a particular semantic theory but	as an example of one of	the more
sophisticated recent treatments	of semantics.

Kahane,	Henry and Renee	(1984) - "Linguistic aspects of	sociopolitical keywords", in Language Problems and Language
Planning, vol. 8, no. 2, p. 143-160.
     The Kahanes examine the semantics of ideologically	loaded words (keywords)	and the	processes by which they	evolve
over time.  I think that ideological semantic systems create the most crucial biases in	language, and so this article is
important.

Lakoff,	George and Johnson, Mark (1980)	- Metaphors We Live By.	 Chicago: University of	Chicago	Press.
     The authors make an important study of the	metaphorical basis of language.	 In the	final chapters they argue for an
extreme	relativism.

Langacker, Ronald W. (1976) - "Semantic	representations	and the	linguistic relativity hypothesis", in Foundations of
Language, vol. 14, p. 307-357.
     Langacker tries to	formulate the hypothesis in a non-vacuous manner, and ultimately rejects the strong version,
basing himself on a distinction	between	primary	conceptual structures and the semantic representations into which
thought	is coded.  Langacker uses the framework	of generative semantics.

Levitas, Maurice (1974)	- Marxist Perspectives in the Sociology	of Education.  London: Routledge & Kegan Paul.	See
chapter	7: "Language and deprivation"
     Levitas articulates the basic ideas of Vygotsky's view of language	and thought and	its educational	implications.
He accepts Vygotsky's view that	word-meaning is	the unit of verbal thought.  Using Vygotsky and	Luria, Levitas argues
that working class children must be helped to master the elaborated code and to	achieve	in linguistic expression freedom
from the context.

Macnamara, John.  1970.	 "Bilingualism and thought", in	Georgetown University Round Table on Languages and Linguistics
1970: Bilingualism and Language	Contact, edited	by James E. Alatis; Washington:	Georgetown University Press; p.25-45.
     Includes discussion by other participants.	 The inadequacies of Whorf's formulations are analyzed.	 Macnamara
urgently emphasizes the	need for a semantic theory.

Newmeyer, Frederick J. (1983) -	Grammatical Theory: Its	Limits and Its Possibilities.  Chicago:	University of Chicago
Press.
     Newmeyer clarifies	the nature and intent of generative linguistics, answering common objections.  Newmeyer	deals
with distinctive advantages of generative linguistics, its potential applications, and the role	of other types of
linguistics that deal with aspects of language outside of the reach of grammatical theory.

______ (1986a) - The Politics of Linguistics.  Chicago:	University of Chicago Press.
     This is an	excellent treatment of the history of linguistics and its internal and external	politics.  Newmeyer
attacks	Whorf's	notions	about grammar and world	view and gives practical examples of Whorfianism's racist implications.

______ (1986b) - Linguistic Theory in America. 2nd edition.  Orlando: Academic Press, Inc.
     This differs from the first edition in that it abridges treatment of earlier developments such as rise of abstract
syntax and generative semantics	in the late 1960's while adding	information on recent developments.  This book gives a
feel for the problems and evolution of theories, and shows how the rise	and fall of competing theories or versions of a
theory come about as responses to real problems.  A reader can also see	that Chomsky's particular theoretical
formulations form only part (and not always the	most influential current) of the stream	of modern linguistic theory.

Rossi-Landi, Ferruccio (1973) -	Ideologies of Linguistic Relativity.  The Hague: Mouton.
     This book analyzes	the shortcomings of and	the ideology behind the	doctrine of linguistic relativity, including the
white liberal guilt about Indians.

Schaff,	Adam (1973) - Language and Cognition.  Translated by Olgierd Wojtasiewicz; edited by Robert S. Cohen;
introduction by	Noam Chomsky.  New York: McGraw-Hill.  [Originally published in	Polish,	1964.]
     Chomsky's introduction is a valuable critique of Whorf and	of superficial understanding of	languages.  He shows
that the imputation to a language of a conceptual system about time based on its tense system does not hold up to
examination.  The English tense	system with its	use of verbal auxiliaries (including modals) suggests a	different
conception of time than	idea of	time characteristic of modern English-speaking and other European peoples.

							   36


     Schaff gives a history of ideas (mostly in	philosophy) about language and thought from 18th century German
idealism, through Neokantianism, conventionalism, logical positivism, to the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis, and then adds his
own thoughts on	the matter.  Brown's Scientific	American article on Loglan is referenced in the	bibliography but is not
mentioned in the text.

Vygotsky, Lev (1986) - Language	and Thought.  2nd edition.  Translation	newly revised and edited by Alex Kozulin.
Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
     Vygotsky was a pioneer in the area	of developmental psychology, language and thought.
				________________________________________________________


     I said in one response to Robert Gorsch's class questions that I hoped that Lojban	would move beyond the ideas that
I had for it.  It already has.	The following essay describes a	potential use for Lojban that I	never had thought of,
and have absolutely no experience that would help me form an opinion on	its viability.
     So	I won't.  Let's	let David speak	for himself.  I	welcome	other's	comments on his	ideas, and I'll	print any that
seem of	general	interest.

							   37


       Lojban and Stream of Consciousness Writing	      may not be common	at all;	Classical cultures regarded ro-
		   by David C. Morrow			      mantic love as a form of lunacy.
								 Historical writers, who are nearly always depicting
   Stream of consciousness, or subjective writing, was	      foreign cultures even when their setting is the
developed by Joyce, Proust, Woolf, Faulkner, and others	      recognizable antecedent of the readers' own, generally
to convey a character's	immediate awareness and	mental	      commit such anachronisms.	 Often they make their story
activities (an "interior monolog").  Leon Edel,	who terms     accessible by depicting "progressive" characters in re-
works using it "Modern Psychological Novels," lists four      bellion against their culture.  That device is an
salient	elements.					      anachronism in most cases, since tolerance even of one's
   Each	work or	section	of a work takes	the consistent	      own nonconformity	is largely a Modern Western value.
viewpoint of a single character.  The reader must puzzle	 Subjective writing might serve	better in depicting
out what is happening from the character's interior	      social changes.  One might wish to show why history took
monolog.  Time moves according to the associations of the     this turn	once and another when a	like situation again
character's thoughts and memories rather than a	a simple      arose, or	to examine through the eyes of characters, who
linear flow.  Finally, although	authors	using this mode	      likely did not intend their actions' present results, the
are realists, these very devices force them to be sym-	      origin of	some philosophical or religious	idea.  An
bolists	in order to create the impression of being alive.     example of this last might be someone who	realized that
   It is the second and	fourth elements	that present	      human sacrifice does not necessarily make	the crops grow
problems for author and	reader.	 Part of the difficulty	      or that paternity	is part	of reproduction.
is that	persons	whose background enables them to enjoy		 Such persons' concepts	and motives would differ so
piecing	together the subtle but	objective clues	of	      vastly from ours that even were an author	to reconstruct
mystery	novels may not be so adept at empathizing with	      their consciousness with a degree	of accuracy, the story
other's	feelings or seeing the clues that reveal them.	      value would be lost because it would be difficult	for
About that the writer can do little but	keep following	      readers to untangle them without corresponding schol-
(or decide not to follow) his or her artistic bent.	      arship.  Unless, that is,	there were also	some such way
   But these complex puzzles hold difficulties even for	      of clarifying them as anchoring description in physical
persons	who enjoy them that their creators may not have	      reality as we know it.
foreseen.  It is hard enough to	show the thoughts of		 When a	character in a subjective narrative lacks
individuals contemporary to a reader; when a novel has	      knowledge	or understanding the author may	juxtapose some
become noncontemporary,	like those of the writers	      other person's viewpoint or even an omniscient one.
mentioned above, or is about an	earlier	time (consider	      Faulkner used both to clarify his	retarded character
McKinlay Kantor's Andersonville, written in the	1950's	      Benjy's innocent and atemporal impressions, and Durrell
and intended to	represent the consciousness of par-	      provided an entire volume	of his Quartet with the
ticipants in the War Between the States) the difficulty	      omniscient viewpoint on one character.
is increased.							 This would not	be enough in many cases.  If the
   This	is because, for	example, few modern persons	      characters have very primitive ideas, believing, say,
depend on horses for transportation and	so most	lack the      that the sun is a	beetle or that there is	no natural
associations with them or the knowledge	of their behavior     death but	that everyone always dies of injury or sorcery,
that must have been common to people at	and before the	      then much	of their thinking -- the internal monolog
turn of	the Twentieth Century.	The same might apply to	      comprising the story narrative --	would seem ridiculous
candles	or to certain foods.  Again, the little	sidelines     or psychotic if not incomprehensible.  In	this case it
of style and fashion, the political and	social quirks and     would not	help to	play one character's consciousness off
nuances	of a time, like	geographical localisms,	would	      against another's, since they would all share the	same
figure large in	the mind of a participant yet disappear	      assumptions even if their	intellects differed.  The use
even from historical footnotes.				      of a deliberate anachronism would	only work for current
   Even	if a storyteller can discover and work there into     readers, even when dealing with contemporary characters,
a character's mind, they may require as	much explanation      since nobody can know with what values or	types future
as unfamiliar elements in an old text.	During the 1982	      readers will identify.  Only objective narrative of some
and 1986 episodes of murder by poisoned	Tylenol	capsules,     type will	enable one to make such	a tale both universal
offering someone -- stranger, boss, spouse -- that	      and particular.
medicine carried a host	of special if temporary	meanings.	 This is where Lojban can be useful.  A	writer could
To one not alive then, the unexplained appearance of such     use a natural language to	construct a symbolic flow of
an incident in a story set in those years would	be	      consciousness belonging to the characters, filled	with
puzzling.						      verifiable and if	necessary imagined elements, im-
   The same thing must apply even to ordinary narrative	      pressions, feelings, and motives.	 Linguistic devices can
writing	about members of another culture; the readers may     be used, and purely idiosyncratic	character traits
not be as familiar with	that life-way as the author.	      developed	within a strange conceptual frame.
This often forces the artist to	employ what are	supposed	 To clarify what is objectively	happening or convey
to be common human traits, such	as romantic love, that	      meanings of invented symbols and transitory elements
							      without interrupting the story's dramatic	movement, and

							   38


do so in a way that will (we hope) remain accessible to		 Michael has done this only with the level 3 materials
future readers,	the writer can use lojban to describe the     including	only the 6 textbook lessons so far published,
physical setting, the movements, the actions, even in	      and the outdated cmavo list.  While he has studied other
some cases the dialog of the characters	whose interior	      languages, Michael is not	a linguist.  He	does not have
monolog	is in some artificially	specialized form of	      LogFlash or flash	cards -	he's learning the vocabulary by
English	-- or French, or Spanish, or whatever.	Lojban	      using it.	 But I don't mind it a bit if someone gets a
descriptions may either	be given in separate chapters or      word wrong because they don't yet	know it.  You can't
sections, or interspersed with the streams of characters'     learn a language without making mistakes and learning
awareness.						      from them.
   Not only would this provide the readers an anchor in		 It's that easy	- you have to be willing to try	writing
relating the characters' minds to theirs, but also in the     a	couple times, and wait for us to review	them (which
case of	completely abnormal persons in alien cultures	      will get easier as we get	more of	you up to Michael's
allow insight into their minds.	 Finally, the story could     level of proficiency), read the examples printed in these
retain its unity as an artistic	whole without		      newsletters, and then write a little more	- in a few
anachronisms or	intrusions from	outside.		      months you'll be writing as good Lojban as Michael is (no
							      -	I'm not	promising to make you a	publishable poet in a
							      couple of	months - just a	reasonably competent
		    le lojbo se	ciska			      Lojbanist).
		    by Michael Helsem				 So let's see some more	Lojban from the	100 other level
							      3	Lojbanists, most of whom I haven't heard from.
   All of this issue's Lojban writing comes from one
person.	 This is partially due to space	and time, and
partially because Michael Helsem has been so prolific in
Lojban over the	past few months.  Michael has taken to
heart what I've	said too many times:  the language is
easy to	learn if you just try to use it.  The writings in
this issue prove that point.
   You've seen a couple	pieces of Michael's work in JL10,
written	before Michael ordered the textbook lessons last
fall.  Michael wrote the following after reading Lesson
4, which calls for a student to	write a	self-description;
it wasn't particularly grammatical, as you'll see in the
translation section which shows	what he	actually wrote.
We didn't get a	chance to provide feedback to Michael
until after JL10 was out.
   When	Michael	received JL10 in late January, he had
still not had direct feedback from us.	However, seeing
his own	article	saying that Lojban could be used to write
poetry,	Michael	took up	his own	challenge.  We had 2
limericks and 2	longer poems in	February.  Although he
had merely finished the	lessons, the JL10 samples gave
Michael	enough good examples of	good Lojban that I had
only to	change two or three words in each to make the
grammar	correct.  These	poems are also printed below.
   Finally we responded	to Michael's self-description
with Nora's detailed review, which is given in the
translation section.  I	have since gotten a letter from
Michael	every week or two - 2 or 3 pages handwritten in
Lojban (with interlinear translations -	please don't send
me untranslated	Lojban until we	both know that you are
writing	nearly error free.  Otherwise, if your Lojban
isn't close to correct,	we'll get extremely confused, and
if it's	reasonably close, we won't be able to comment on
subtle shades of meaning - we have to take the Lojban as
meaning	what you intend).  The lot includes a couple more
poems, and a couple of typewritten sheets of 'poetic
tanru'.	 While there are occasional malglico anglicisms,
Michael	has in 6 months	and about 5 or 6 writing attempts
become about as	good a Lojban writer as	there is outside
of those few of	us working on defining the language.

							   39


					    Self-Description (28 Sept 1989)

ke'u coi
.i di'e	du lu'a	le ve seirskicu	poi mi pu ciska	sepu'a lemi bazi ckupra	 .itu'e	ko'a goi la maiky'elsym. me la'e zoi
.zy. gnostik .zy. gi'e jbeta'uxa'u la delys.  .i baziki	lenu ko'a jbena	kei  da'i so'i finpe pu	farlu fi le tsani
.ibabo ca le ko'a pacimoi nanca	ko'a se	darxi lo karce gi'e ba stali nenri lo roktu'u ca ze'e ta'e so'o	masti  .ibabo
tezu'enai leza'i cfari zvati le	bancycu'e tai lo tadni pe loi ratske kei ko'a mulno gi'e te dunda lo ckulypikta	pe loika
vidni cu'i  .ibabo ko'a	litru re tumplita lu'a	.i kiku	ca'o ko'a pu vi'o zgikei lo skami .e lo	damri vau .ui to ji'a ca
ranji toi  .i ko'a no'u	lo tadni pe la vitgenctain. .e la'i latmo rampemcyzba ge'u o'o paroi pu	lifri lenu tirna lenu
ko'a se	pifyzifydi'a lo	rupnu be li panononono .uecai  .iri'o ko'a pujeca zbasu	so'i cimpi'a ne	pa'a lei pemci gi'e pu
finti pa rapnerpluja clacku ri'i  .isa'u ki ca ku ko'a ne pa'a leko'a ractu no'u me'e zo byroz.	sei ta'o ri
nalcumselfanva valselkei se'u cu xabju la .ok. klif. no'u lo jarbu vau tu'u  .i	.ia ro leivi jufra cu vasru su'opa le
ci'i mu'e srera	ri'o fe'o

									    .i mi stali	ledo memi tai loi zirjbo .i co'o

     Included in the self-description letter, was a postscript,	also in	Lojban:

ni'o ca'o di'e cu me la'e zoi zy haiku zy me'e lu ca le	puzi cerni li'u	.i tu'e

						   fi le pamoi stapa
					       ra'i le ckana .oi fa mi pu
						     catra lo jalra

tu'u  .i ke'u fe'o

						      3	limericks

     The first two limericks were Michael's first attempts at original Lojban poetry after the self-description.  They
each needed a little work, but his errors were minor.  He wasn't too happy with	the changes to the first one, since they
end up stretching the rhyme and	rhythm scheme to the limit of what is acceptable in a limerick.	 However, if you read
with the annotated stress given	in the pronunciation guide, running the	syllables together into	a single beat where
marked (or in one case running three syllables into two	beats).


						   1. (As corrected)

		    la .uorf. .e la saPIR. pu pensi
		    lenu loi rembangu lei mensi
			 cu simsa leka lanzu
			 gi'e pamei nalbanzu
		    .i ku'i leva sidbo ca genytsi

	       /lah .WOHRF. .eh,lah,sah,PEER. poo,PEHN,see/
		 -    /	     ----,----	 /     -   /	-
	       /leh,NOO	loi,rehm,BAHN,goo,lei,MEHN,see/
		 -   /	 -   -	  /    -   -   /    -
		    /shoo SEEM,sah leh,kah LAHN,zoo/
		       -   /	-   -----   /	 -
		    /gee,heh,PAH,mei nahl,BAHN,zoo/
		      -----   /	  -   -	   /	-
	       /. ee KOO,hee,leh,vah,SEED,bo,ca	GEHN,uh,tsee/
		  -   /	  -   -----   /	   -  -	 /   ------



				       2. (Minor corrections approved by author)

		    loi	ve cusku cu mo loi se cusku
		    cumda'i  .i	mi danfu lu le sisku

							   40


			 cu nitcu pa jaspu
			 .uu  .i ku'i na vasru
		    fa ri rixiCI pe'i li'u

	       /loi,veh,SHOOS,koo,shoo,MO,loi,seh,SHOOS,koo/
		 -----	  /    -    -	/  -   -    /	 -
	       /shoom,DAH,hee .	ee,mee DAHN,foo	loo,leh,SEES,koo/
		  -    /   -	-----	/    -	  ----	 /    -
		    /shoo,NEE,choo,pah,ZHAHS,poo/
		       -   /	-   -	 /    -
		    /.woo.ee KOO,hee,nah,VAHS,roo/
		       ----   /	  -   -	  /    -
	       /fah,REE	ree,khee,SHEE peh,hee LEE,hoo/
		 -   /	 -    -	   /   -   -   /   -

						    3. (20 Mar 1990)

     The third limerick	was written after I gave him feedback on the first two,	and received while I was typing	this
newsletter in.	It was almost perfect as written.  He had left out a "cu" and not terminated some "nu" clauses -
mistakes I still make a	lot - but his translation and his notes	on intent made it trivial to fix them.

		    sei	lu leka	sarcu li'u cmene ni'o

		    lo cizra zasmunje lo'e skami
		    cu nenri  .i RA mi se prami
			 .i ku'i le pratci
			 cu nu sisti kei batci
		    le nunmenxru .uu TA'i loi glaslami


	    /sei,loo leh,kah,SAHR,shoo lee,hoo,SHMEH,neh nee,ho/


	       /lo,SHEEZ,rah,zah,SMOON,zheh lo,heh,SKAH,mee/
		 -   /	  -   -	   /	 -   ----    /	 -
	       /shoo,NEHN,ree .	ee,RAH mee,seh,PRAH,mee/
		  -   /	   -	 -  /	-   -	 /   -
		    /. ee KOO,hee,leh,PRAH,chee/
		       -   /   -   -	/    -
		    /shoo,noo,SEES,tee,kei,BAH,chee/
		       -----   /    -	-   /	 -
	       /leh,noon,MEHN,khroo . woo TA,hee loi,glah,SLAH,mee/
		 -----	  /	 -     -   /  -	  ------    /	-

						       Free Verse

     The first of these	is Michael's translation from the Latin	of Catallus, which he wrote on 26 Nov 1989, prior to
receiving any feedback from us.	 His grammar had already improved significantly	over the self-description, with	most of
his mistakes being wrong choices of cmavo.


					     seide'e se	sanga bimumoi ni'o

						 prami joi xebni fa mi
					      .i lu la'edi'u ki'a vau li'u
						  do nu'o cusku	 .i mi
					       genai caca jimpe	la'ede'u
						  gi ru'i lifri	cai je
							dunku ri

							   41


				   /sei,deh,heh	 seh,SAHN,gah  bee,MUU,moi . nee,ho/

					   /PRAH,mee,zhoi,KHEHB,nee  fah,mee/
				   /. ee,LOO  lah,heh,DEE,hoo  kee,hah,vau  LEE,hoo/
					   /doh	 noo,ho	 SHOOS,koo . ee	mee/
				    /geh,nai . SHAH,shah,ZHEEM,peh  lah,heh,DEH,hoo/
					   /gee,roo,hee	 LEE,free  SHAI	zheh/
						     /DOON,koo ree/

The next two poems were	written	at about the same time as the first two	limericks (10 Feb 1990).  These, however, are
poems of some substance.  For whatever reason, Michael made fewer and less serious errors in the longer	poems than in
the limericks:

di'e lojbo pemci gi'e se cmene lu
		      le firgai	pu'u se	vimcu vau li'u
.i tu'e
		      fe zo pei	ca rapcpedu cai
		      fa mi .ei	ne tai do pe pu	fi mi
		      fo po'i loi so'iplo senta

		      .i mi vimcu ro lei firgai	levi
		      sluni po'u lonu djica .ice'o
		      ju'ido'u rixire mujytisybanro po'a

		      .iku'i pu	najenai	ca ku
		      mi djuno leri cumyme'e
		      .e lejei ri se skicu

		      fo po'i lonu kansa kazmaksi
		      .a lo nalsti nu fasnu cictcima
		      po'a .a sa'u pa drata nu ka bebna
tu'u

/dee,heh  LOHZH,bo,PEHM,shee gee,heh seh,SHMEH,neh  LOO/
	      /leh,FEER,gai  poo,hoo,seh,VEEM,shoo  vau,LEE,hoo/
/.ee,too,heh/
	      /feh zo,PEI  shah,rahp,SHPEH,doo	SHAI/
	      /fah,MEE	.EI  neh,tai,DOH,peh,poo  fee,mee/
	      /fo,poh,hee  loi,so,HEE,plo  SEHN,tah/

	      /.ee,mee,VEEM,shoo  ro,lei,FEER,gai  leh,vee/
	      /SLOO,nee	 po,hoo	 lo,noo,JEE,shah . ee,SHEH,ho/
	      /ZHOO,hee,doh,hoo	 ree,khee,REH  moo,zhuh,tee,suh,BAHN,ro	po,hah/

	      /. ee,koo,hee  POO  nah,zheh,nai	SHAH,ku/
	      /mee,JOO,no  leh,ree  shoo,muh,MEH,heh/
	      /. eh  leh,zhei  ree  seh,SKEE,shoo/

	      /fo  po,hee  lo,noo,KAHN,sah  kah,ZMAHK,see/
	      /. AH  lo,NAHL,stee  noo,FAHS,noo	 sheesh,CHEE,mah/
	      /po,hah .	AH,sah,hoo  pah,DRAH,tah noo,kah,BEHB,nah/

     In	the following, Michael came close to perfection	in grammar.  He	omitted	only the hyphen	'r's in	"caircinla", and
the "mei" in the final line, while inserting a couple of superfluous but permitted "ke"s that I	left in	to avoid
changing his sound qualities any more than necessary (plus - as	an editor, I prefer to defer to	the author where
possible).  Of course, Michael's result	differs	slightly in meaning from the translation he gave me; however, since it
is supposed to be Lojban poetry, I'm letting the Lojban	take precedence	over the English, although I'll	mention	the
changes	needed to match	his English translation	in the appropriate section below.


							   42


di'e se	cmene lu
		      loika zvati vau li'u
.i tu'e

		      ti'e lonu	zgana
		      be lemu'e	ke lunra
		      ka cuklymulno cu xamgu
		      .iku'i mi	drata salci
		      lemu'e ke	lunra ka caircinla
		      .i mi ckini ri leka manku
		      .e lo mipri nu zasti .e .a'u
		      lenu ka vlipa po'u piro lo
		      te pencu be le munje se rinka
		      .i ca lemu'e ke lunra ka caircinla
		      ku le lunra cukla	cu binxo
		      leri pamei zgana
		      .i mi go'i gi'e ku'i roroi
		      pubi'ica zgana lemi ka nomei ji'a

tu'u


/dee,heh  seh,SHMEH,neh	 LOO/
	      /loi,kah,ZVAH,tee	 vau,LEE,hoo/
/.ee,too,heh/

	      /tee,heh	lo,noo,ZGAH,nah/
	      /beh  leh,MOO,heh	 ke,LOON,rah/
	      /kah,shoo,kluh,MOOL,no  shoo,KHAHM,goo/
	      /. ee,KOO,hee  mee,DRAH,tah,SAHL,shee/
	      /leh,MOO,heh  keh,LOON,rah  kah  shai,r,SHEEN,lah/
	      /. ee  mee,SKEE,nee,ree  leh,kah,MAHN,koo/
	      /. eh,lo	MEE,pree,noo,ZAH,stee .	eh . ah,hu/
	      /leh,noo	kah,VLEE,pah  po,hoo  ro,lo/
	      /teh,PEHN,shoo beh,leh,MOON,zheh,seh,REEN,kah/
	      /. ee,shah  leh,MOO,heh  keh,LOON,rah  kah  shai,r,SHEEN,lah/
	      /koo  leh,LOON,rah,SHOO,klah  shoo,BEEN,kho/
	      /leh,ree	PAH,mei,ZGAH,nah/
	      /. ee  mee,GO,hee	 gee,heh,koo,hee,RO,roi/
	      /poo  bee,hee,shah,ZGAH,nah  leh,mee,kah,NO,mei  zhee,hah/

/too,hoo/



     The following was dated 12	Mar 1990.  It was perfectly grammatical	as written, although we've changed two lujvo
minimally after	discussion with	Michael.

di'e se	cmene lu
	       mela saPIR. .uorf. li'u
.i tu'e

	       ko leido	se mipri le
	       sutrai nalmorji ca dunda

	       .i lo narju joi rijno
	       fasnu ba	snuji ro lei drata

	       .i zo'e tagji logji


							   43


tu'u

/dee,heh  seh,SHMEH,neh	 LOO/
	       /meh,lah	 sah,PEER . wohrf . lee,hoo/
/.ee,too,heh/

	       /ko  lei,doh,seh,MEEP,ree leh/
	       /SOOT,rai,nahl,MOR,zhee,shah,DOON,dah/

	       /. ee,lo,NAHR,zhoo  zhoi,REEZH,no/
	       /FAHS,noo,bah,SNOO,zhee	ro,lei,DRAH,tah/

	       /. ee  zo,heh  TAHG,zhee,LOHG,zhee/

/too,hoo/

Michael	has also sent me a couple of pages that	he's created as	exercises in making tanru and lujvo, but I'll save them
for next issue.


					   Translations	of le lojbo se ciska


Orig: ke'u coi
Rev : ke'u coi
Tran: Again, Greetings!

Orig: di'e du lu'a le ve seinskicu noi mi pu ciska sepu'a lemi bazi ckupra
Rev : .i di'e du lu'a le ve seirskicu poi mi pu	ciska sepu'a lemi bazi ckupra
Tran: The following has-the-same-identity-as, loosely speaking,	the self-description which I write to-please my	imminent
     book-producer.
Comments:
     "seinskicu" vs. "seirskicu": You must glue	on a CVV to the	front of any lujvo, unless there are only two terms and
	  the second term is a CCV.  The 'glue'	is a vocalic 'r' unless	the second rafsi begins	with "r", in which case
	  use vocalic 'n'.
     "noi" vs. "poi": "poi" says the following gives further information to identify WHICH self-description is being
	  talked about;	"noi" assumes you know which self-description is being talked about, and just gives incidental
	  information about it.	 See Less. 5 & 6.



Orig: .i tu'e ko'a goi la maikl. 'elsym. du lo lea zoi zy gnostik zy joi lo vazyjbe xabju be la	delys.
Rev : .i tu'e ko'a goi la maiky'elsym. me la'e zoi .zy.	gnostik	.zy. gi'e jbeta'uxa'u la delys.
Tran: (Long scope beginning) He, standing for Michael Helsem, is a-referrent-of	"gnostik" and (is) a born-city-
     inhabitant	of Dallas.
Comments:
     On	"du..."	vs. "me...":  "la maikl. 'elsym." is not necessarily equal in identity to "a gnostic-and-there-born-
	  dweller-of-Dallas"; there is a lot more to Michael Helsem than that, and probably there are other Gnostic
	  natives of Dallas, too.  What	you want to say	is that	Michael	Helsem IS a Gnostic...,	like saying that this IS
	  a letter ("ti	xatra").  To do	that, you want to make a selbri	out of Gnostic,	which you do with "me".	 The
	  "la'e" changes the following quoted piece into it's referent.
     "joi" vs. "gi'e":	"joi" means the	combination is true, but probably NOT each individually.  For example, if we
	  carry	a piano	up the stairs with you on one end and me on the	other, NEITHER of us has individually carried it
	  up ("gi'e"); but, both of us together	have ("joi").
     "vazyjbe" vs. "jbeta'uxa'u":  Just	a suggestion [Michael agreed.]	The "va" part doesn't really necessarily pick up
	  Dallas.
     [Michael revised the preferred spelling of	his name after reading a separate note from me.	 His original form is
invalid, because ' is NOT an 'h', even though it is pronounced like one. The apostrophe	is a vowel buffer, and is
permitted only between two vowels.

							   44


Orig: .i bazi leko'a nu	jbena sei da'i se'u so'i finpe pu farlu	fi le tsani
Rev : .i baziki	lenu ko'a jbena	kei  da'i so'i finpe pu	farlu fi le tsani
Tran: Shortly after the	event of his being born, really, many fish fell	from the sky.
Comments:
     "ki":  This resets	'story'	time for all further discussion	(until re-reset) to "shortly after the event of	his
	  being	born".	Sentences coming after with no time referent are assumed to progress somewhat in time.
     "le ko'a nu jbena"	is "his	event of birth", meaning an event of birth relating to him; possibly his son's birth.
	  "le nu ko'a jbena" makes it clear that the one being born was	him.
     "kei" closes off the "nu" clause so it doesn't presume the	"so'i finpe" is	another	sumti on "jbena" of the	clause.
     "da'i" is a discursive and	therefore somewhat parenthetical to begin with.	 You can still close it	in parentheses,
	  but not with "sei...se'u", which takes a bridi (it is	meant for a metalinguistic statement which is otherwise
	  not permitted	in the position	because	it would be ungrammatical); if you do want to put "da'i" in parentheses,
	  you can use "to...toi".


Orig: .ice ti'u	paci nanca ko'a	se pu darxi lo karce joi pu stali lo roktu'u ti'u so'o masti
Rev : .ibabo ca	leko'a pacimoi nanca ko'a se darxi lo karce gi'e ba stali nenri	lo roktu'u ca ze'e ta'e	so'o masti
Trans: Then, at-the-time-of his	thirteenth year, he is hit be a	car and	will be	stayingly-inside a rock-tube at-
     [unspecified size interval]-continuously several months.
Comments:
     "ice" vs. "ibabo":	 "ice" means "and", but	implies	nothing	about the timing; for "and-then" you want ".ibabo".
     "ti'u" vs.	"ca":  "ti'u" means "dated", like a letter is dated with a certain date	even though it was perhaps begun
	  earlier and finished later, and it remains a letter even after.  For "at-the-time-of", "ca" is much better.
     "paci nanca" means	"thirteen years", making your phrase into "dated thirteen years".  The "moi" makes it into
	  "thirteenth",	and prefacing by "leko'a" makes	it into	"his".
     "se pu darxi" is ungrammatical; it	would have to be "pu se	darxi".	 However, since	the time was already set as "in
	  his thirteenth year",	the indication of past tense would mean	something earlier than then:  "During his
	  thirteenth year, he earlier had ...".
     "pu stali lo roktu'u" is "remained	a rock-tube".
     "ti'u so'o	masti":	 Once again, you don't want "dated".  The tense	I put in I would not expect you	to have	built,
	  but it does mean during.


Orig: .ice tezu'enai leke za'i pu cfari	bancycu'e tai lo se ctuca po'u ratske kei ko'a pu fanmo	se du'a	lo ckulypikta
     po'u zu'o vidni cu'i
Rev : .ibabo tezu'enai leza'i cfari zvati le bancycu'e tai lo tadni pe loi ratske kei ko'a mulno gi'e te dunda lo
     ckulypikta	pe loika vidni cu'i
Tran: Then, ungoaled-by	[i.e. despite] the state of startingly-attending the beyond-school by method of	a taught-one of
     atom-science, he was complete and was given a school-ticket of videonesses.
Comments:
     "leke...":	The "ke" is not	needed since it	all groups the same with or without.  The "kei"	at the end will	end the
	  clause by ending the "za'i" abstraction.  (The ending	cmavo for "kei"	was changed to "ke'e" anyway.)
     "za'i cfari bancycu'e" = "state of	startingly being-a-college".
     "po'u" (now "pe") takes a sumti; "ratske" is a selbri.  You need a	descriptor to turn it into a sumti.
     "fanmo" is	"is-an-end-of",	like "le fanmo"	of a rope.  "mulno" means "is-complete"
     "se du'a...":  I guess you	could use this form.  It is a lot more vague than my suggested change.
     "zu'o vidni" = "activity of being a video [screen]"
     "se ctuca":  have you considered "tadni" (student)? [he hadn't and	asked us to change all occurrences of "se ctuca"
	  to "tadni"]


Orig: .ice ko'a	pu litru re tumplita lu'a
Rev : .ibabo ko'a litru	ji'i re	tumplita
Tran: Then, he traveled	via approximately two land-planes.
Final: .ibabo ko'a litru re tumplita lu'a
Tran: Then, he traveled	via two	land-planes, loosely speaking.
Comments:
     "lu'a" vs.	"ji'i":	 "lu'a"	is a discursive; discursives apply to text metalinguistically.	In your	usage, "lu'a"
	  was applying to your tanru for continents, and not to	the number two.	 For "approximately" to	apply to the
	  "two", "ji'i"	is much	better.

							   45


     [Michael responded	that his intent	was metalinguistic - he	was 'loosely speaking',	and that he preferred "lu'a".
I'm not	sure whether the result	means quite what he intends, but it isn't necessarily 'wrong'.]

Orig: .ica'o ko'a ki pu	vi'o zgikei pi'o skami je damri	.ui to joi ca toi
Rev : .i kiku ca'o ko'a	pu vi'o	zgikei lo skami	.e lo damri vau	.ui to ji'a ca ranji toi
Tran: Incidentally, he did occasionally	music-play with	a computer and [with] drums, (whee!) (additionally now
     continuing).
Comments:
     "ki":  Without a specific time reference to reset to, this	jumps back to current time.  Since the timing of this
	  and following	pieces was not clearly specified as continuing in progression from previous events, I will
	  specify these	specifically and only in reference to the present.
     "pi'o" not	needed since the first place of	"zgikei" (based	on "kelci") would be what is played on/with.
     "je" vs. ".e":  Again, like "joi" vs. "gi'e", I assume it is true of each separately, and not that	you played music
	  on your computer-drum.
     "vau":  I used this to close off the sentence so the ".ui"	would apply to the sentence as a whole.	 Generally it
	  applies only to the preceding	word, or following a structural	cmavo, the construct that the preceding	word
	  initiates or closes.
     "joi ca" is not grammatical as a complete utterance, unfortunately.  I rephrased.



Orig: .i ko'a neke lo se ctuca po'u la vitgenctain. joi	la'i latmo rampemcyzba kei .o'o	paroi pu lifri nuke tirna le
     nike ko'a pifyzifydi'a la'u panononono rupnu .uecai
Rev : .i ko'a no'u lo tadni pe la vitgenctain. .e la'i latmo rampemcyzba ge'u .o'o paroi pu lifri lenu tirna lenu ko'a
     se	pifyzifydi'a lo	rupnu be li panononono .uecai
Tran: He, a taught-one relating	to Wittgenstein	and the	Latin love-poem-makers,	(indignation), once did	experience the
     event of hearing the event	of his being prisoner-free be-priced by	dollars	in-amount-of 10000 (strong surprise).
Comments:
     "ne" vs. "no'u":  These have been switched, probably after	you wrote this.	 Since we in the class found that the
	  non-restrictive qualifier was	used a lot more	than the appositive, we	made it	the shorter word, "ne".	 Thus
	  "ne" means "(incidentally) is/does/is-related-to-in-some-manner", and	"no'u" means "is incidentally the same
	  identity as".	 Similarly "pe"	and "po'u" have	been switched (used later in the sentence).
     "ke lo...kei":  "ke" does group some things, but they are always selbri; it is ungrammatical before a sumti.  The
	  "no'u" phrase	is closed by a sometimes-elidable "ge'u", so I have used that instead of the "kei" that	isn't
	  allowed there	either.
     I rephrased the last piece.  The literal translation would	otherwise have been (after putting "le"	before the "nu
	  ke tirna"): "experienced the event of	hearing	the amount of (he was a	prisoner-free-price relating to
	  approximately	10000 dollars)".
     Instead of	"panononono" you can use "panoki'o"; it's a matter of taste.  Your choice, being longer, emphasizes its
	  size.	 [Michael responded that he was	engaging in a little word-play.]


Orig: .iri'o pa'a pemci	ko'a pujeca zbasu so'i cimpi'a joi pu pa rapnerpluja clacku ri'i
Rev : .iri'o ko'a pujeca zbasu so'i cimpi'a ne pa'a lei	pemci gi'e pu finti pa rapnerpluja clacku ri'i
Tran: Anyway, he did-and-does make many	paint-pictures besides poems, and did create one repeat-inside-complex long-
     book, etc..
Comments:
     On	placing	"pa'a":	 Usually there is one sumti you	wish to	parallel with what follows "pa'a".  Is the poem	in
	  parallel with	you in the making of many paintings?  Or, is it	in parallel with the paintings as being	made by
	  you?	I assume the latter.  It really	should be attached, then, to the paintings to show that's what it is in
	  parallel with; you attach it with "ne".  If it is left unattached totally, the only interpretation I can think
	  of is	that "the poem"	is in parallel with "I make many paintings and ...".
     "joi pu" vs. "gi'e	pu finti":  Alas, ungrammatical.  "pu" before "one repeat-inside-complex long-book" (which is
	  what you have) means "before one ...".  You just can't leave out another selbri if you want to change	the
	  tense	from "did-and-do" to just "did".  There	is a proposed addition,	parallel to "go'i" that	will refer to
	  the current sentence's selbri.


Orig: .isa'u ca	ko'a xabju la .ok. klif. sei jarbu se'u	pa'a le	ko'a ractu me'e	la byroz. sei se ta'o ri du lo
     nalcumfanva valkei	se'u vau tu'u

							   46


Rev : .isa'u ki	ca ku ko'a ne pa'a leko'a ractu	no'u me'e zo byroz. sei	ta'o ri	nalcumselfanva valselkei se'u cu xabju
     la	.ok. klif. no'u	lo jarbu vau tu'u
Tran: Simply speaking, now he, besides his rabbit who is named "Burroughs" (by the way,	that is	an untranslatable pun),
     inhabits Oak Cliff, which is a suburb (end	of long	scope).
Comments:
     "ki ca ku":  The "ki" is there to make sure time is reset to the present so the "ca" won't	be taken to mean
	  "simultaneous	with the previous sentence's time".  The "ku" is needed	to close off the "ca", which otherwise
	  would	pick up	the "ko'a" into	a phrase meaning "at the time of him".
     "pa'a" again has been linked to what it's in parallel with.
     "la byroz." vs. "zo byroz.":  "la byroz." means "that which is referred to	by the name 'byroz.'", namely your
	  rabbit; the sentence then winds up stating your rabbit is called by his furry	self, making you have to
	  reproduce him	to call	him.  "zo byroz." is "the word 'byroz.'", which	is a much better thing to have as a
	  name.
     I stuck in	a couple "sel-"s into your lujvo to make it clearer that the second place is what is wanted in the
	  corresponding	tanru.	"nalcumselfanva" = "not-possible thing-to be translated", as opposed to	"nalcumfanva" =
	  "not-possible	translator".  Similarly	"valselkei" = "word thing-played-with",	vs. "valkei" = "word player".


Orig: .i .ia ro	brivla cu vasru	pa le ci'i mu'e	srera ri'o fe'o
Rev : .i .ia ro	jufra cu vasru su'opa le ci'i mu'e srera ri'o fe'o
Tran: (Certainty), All sentences contain at-least-one of the infinitely-many achievements of being-an-error, to	return
     to	the point (over-and-out).
Final: .i .ia ro leivi jufra cu	vasru su'opa le	ci'i mu'e srera	ri'o fe'o
Tran: (Certainty), All of these-mass-of	sentences contain at-least-one of the infinitely-many achievements of being-an-
     error, to return to the point (over-and-out).
Comments:
     "brivla" is "relationship word"; from your	translation, you want "jufra", which is	"sentence" (or possibly
	  "bridi"). [Michael correctly improved	on our correction.]
     "su'o" is what you	wanted to get the "at least" for "at least one".


Orig: co'o tai zirjbo
Rev : .i co'o sei tai zirjbo
Tran: Bye (observing a methodically purple-lojbanic thing).
Final: .i mi stali ledo	memi tai loi zirjbo .i co'o
Tran: I	remain your pertaining-to-me-thing, by methods purple-lojbanic.	 Bye.
Comments:
     Because "co'o" can	take a sumti-tail (the sumti without the "le" or other descriptor), the	original translated as
	  "Bye,	O methodish purple-lojbanic-one" (similarly "co'o ractu" would be "Bye,	rabbit").  The revised splits
	  off the second part into a parenthetical observative.	 An alternative	would be to "co'o  .i tai le zirjbo
	  vau",	meaning	"Bye. By-method-of the purple-lojbanic-one."; the "vau"	is needed to end a sentence with just a
	  sumti	(a machine grammar peculiarity).
     [Michael made another attempt, based on the Anglicism "I remain yours", but it didn't quite come out the way he
	  intended.  The final text is after discussion	with him about what he wanted.]
     [Note that	'purple	Lojban'	is "malglico" -	a cultural metaphor dependent on knowing the English phrase "purple
	  prose"; Michael continues using this as a standing 'inside joke' between us, but we don't encourage others to
	  do so.]


Orig: ca'o ca'o	le di'e	du lo zoi zy haiku zy me'e lu ti'u ti cerni li'u tu'e
Rev : ni'o ca'o	di'e cu	me la'e	zoi zy haiku zy	me'e lu	ca le puzi cerni li'u .itu'e
Tran: (New paragraph) Incidentally, the	following is the-referent-of "haiku", with name	"At-the-time-of	the past-by-
     just-a-bit	morning".
Comments:
     "ca'o ca'o" is fine, but I	thought	breaking off into a new	paragraph would	give the same feel as one of the
	  "ca'o"s.
     "du": see previous	comments about "du" vs.	"me ...".
     "ti'u", again means "dated".  "ca"	means "at-the-time-of".
     "ti cerni"	is a sentence meaning "This is a morning".  For	"This morning" you really mean the just-passed morning:
	  "le puzi cerni".

							   47




Orig: fi le pa stapa
Rev : fi le pa nunstapa
Tran: By means of the one act of stepping.
Final: fi le pamoi stapa
Tran: By means of the first-stepper.
Comments:
Originally, "By	means of the one stepper".
[Michael didn't	like either Nora's version, or Bob's first attempt listed afterwards (he hasn't	seen the second	or third
attempts until this printing).	His intent was to emphasize that it was	the FIRST step out of bed.  The	modified version
says what he intended, but is not perfect haiku, which has a syllable count of 5/7/5.]

Orig: ra'i ckana .oi mi	pu
Rev : ra'i le ckana .oi	fa mi pu
Tran: from source of the bed (annoyance), by me	was
Comments:
     A modal ("ra'i") may either be used as a sumti tag	(as I assume you intended) or as an inflection for the selbri.
	  To make "ra'i" a sumti tag, you need a descriptor on the selbri "ckana" (otherwise it	will be	taken as the
	  sentence selbri, on which "ra'i" is a	descriptor).
     "fa":  Since you used "fi"	previously to get at the third place of	"catra", the next non-sumti-tagged item	will be
	  assumed to be	the fourth place; since	you want the first, you	will have to tag it again.


Orig: catra lo jalra
Rev : catra lo jalra
Tran: killed a cockroach.
Comments:
     Of	course,	all these changes kill the haiku form.	Bob has	suggested the following	alternatives:

			 mi poi	sa'akla
			 (The me who step-goes)
			 fi le ckana ku'o .oi
			 (from the bed,	(annoyance))
			 catra lo jalra
			 (kills	a cockroach.)

[As mentioned above, this doesn't say what Michael wanted to say, so Bob tried again.  Two alternatives	are the	result,
depending on whether you want to complain about	the bed	(too hard, too soft, too inviting) or being a killer.  Note that
to properly complain about getting out of bed, the ".oi" must be placed	after the "ra'i".  Thus	the English translations
of the earlier attempts	are only approximates.]

			 pamoi nunstapa
			 (Observative!)	First act-of-stepping
			 ra'i le ckana .oi .i
			 out-of	the bed	(Complaint!).  And
			 mi jalra catra
			 I am a	cockroach killer.

			 pamoi nunstapa
			 (Observative!)	First act-of-stepping
			 ra'i le ckana .i .oi
			 out-of	the bed.  And (Complaint!)
			 mi jalra catra
			 I am a	cockroach killer.

Orig: tu'u
Rev : tu'u
Tran: (End of block text)

							   48


Orig: ke'u fe'o
Rev : .i ke'u fe'o
Tran: Again, ending.

						      3	limericks

				   1. (As submitted - not good Lojban) - 10 Feb	1990

		    *la	.uorf. .e la sapir. pu pensi
		    ke lo'i rembangu lei mensi
			 cu simsa leka lanzu
			 .eka pamei nalbanzu
		    .i ku'i ta sidbo ca	gentsi

				      1. (Final	form - with approved corrections)

la .uorf. .e la	saPIR. pu pensi	Whorf and Sapir	wondered about
lenu loi rembangu lei mensi	human languages, sisters
    cu simsa leka lanzu		   being similar, in relatedness
    gi'e pamei nalbanzu		   and in singular insufficiency.
.i ku'i	leva sidbo ca genytsi	But this nearby	idea is	now a knot-seed.

							   2

loi ve cusku cu	mo loi se cusku	The means-of-expression	has-what-
				relation-to the	expressibly
cumda'i	 .i mi danfu lu	le sisku   possible-objects.  I	answer "The seeker
    cu nitcu pa	jaspu		needs one passport
    .uu	 .i ku'i na vasru	(Alas!).  But not-a-container,
fa ri rixiCI pe'i li'u		it is, of him (I think)."

							   3

sei lu leka sarcu vau li'u cmene ni'o	("The Necessity" names.)

lo cizra zasmunje lo'e skami	A strange temporary-universe, the
				(typical) computer
cu nenri  .i RA	mi se prami	inside is.  It (the universe), I love.
    .i ku'i le pratci		   But the producer-tool
    cu nu sisti	kei batci	   is a	cessation-biter.
le nunmenxru .uu TA'i loi glaslami of the mind-returning (Alas!) like
				hot-acid.


						       Free Verse

For the	first example, I am assuming most readers don't	know Latin, I'm	including his English translation.  Note that
the Latin original has two lines, but that it takes 3 sentences	in both	English	and Lojban to translate	it:

seide'e	se sanga bimumoi ni'o		Carmen LXXXV   Song #85	(The following is Song 85th)

 prami joi xebni fa mi			odi et amo     I love-and-hate.
.i lu la'edi'u ki'a vau	li'u		   quare id facium, "What's that?"
do nu'o	cusku  .i mi	 fortasse requiris. /	  you may say.	I
genai caca jimpe la'ede'u		Nescio,	  don't	understand it,
gi ru'i	lifri cai je	 sed fieri sentio et but continuously experience(!)-and-
dunku ri		 excrucior.	-am-anguished-by such a	state.


							   49


Bob's note:  If	brevity	was desired without significantly changing the meaning,	the last Lojban	sentence could be
shortened:

ni'o prami joi xebni fa	mi		odi et amo     I love-and-hate.
.i lu la'edi'u ki'a vau	li'u		   quare id facium, "What's that?"
do nu'o	cusku  .i mi	 fortasse requiris. /	  you may say.	I,
la'ede'u jimpe	      Nescio,		this state, don't understand,
gi'e ru'i lifri	je	 sed fieri sentio et but continuously-experience-and-
dunku			 excrucior.	-am-anguished-by (it).

     Michael's original	had "je" instead of "joi".  "je" is a logical connective, while	"joi" is a mixture-connective.
The logical connective can expands out into logically equivalent sentences; these mean,	of course: "I love" and	"I
hate".	The paradox causing the	confusion is probably the poet's mixed emotion of love and hate, but this must be
inferred from context, since the Latin is no less ambiguous than the English. Athelstan	reads the Latin	differently than
Michael	and suggests (not being	too sure himself without more research)	that the first line be interpreted as "I love-
and-hate.  'Why	do you do this?', you might ask".  This	reading	would require changing "cusku" to "dafcpe" (answer-
request) in line 3, and	the question on	the 2nd	line becomes ".i lu go'i mu'i ma li'u",	which translates as "This-last,
with what motive?".


For the	next few, we'll	give interlinear literal translations, and then, as appropriate, Michael's colloquial English
translation.

di'e lojbo pemci gi'e se cmene
The following is a Lojbanic-poem, and is named
	  lu le	firgai pu'u se vimcu vau li'u
	  "The face-cover (mask) [type-of] process of being removed"
	  [Note	that no	"cu" causes the	abstraction to be absorbed into	a big tanru.]
.i tu'e
[
	  fe zo	pei ca rapcpedu	cai
	  Request "How do you feel about?", repeatedly-request (!)
	  fa mi	.ei ne tai do pe pu fi mi
	  I (Obligation!), in the manner that you, who were past [did],	of me.
	  fo po'i loi so'iplo senta
	  in-the-manner/form-of	(Figurative):[many-folded layers.

	  .i mi	vimcu ro lei firgai levi
	  I remove all the face-covers from the-here
	  sluni	po'u lonu djica	.ice'o
	  onion, the state-of-desiring.	 And then, sequentially,
	  ju'ido'u rixire mujytisybanro	po'a
	  (Attention, you!) it (the onion) universe-fillingly grows.]:(End figurative)
	  ["ri"	was probably sufficient, since he's said that the onion	is the desiring-state.]

	  .iku'i pu najenai ca ku
	  But, neither-before-nor-presently,
	  mi djuno leri	cumyme'e
	  do I know its	(the onion's) possible-name(s)
	  .e lejei ri se skicu
	  and  the-truth-of its	(still the onion/desiring-state) being described

	  fo po'i lonu kansa kazmaksi
	  as (figuratively):[an-event-of together-magnetism
	  .a lo	nalsti nu fasnu	cictcima
	  or an	unceasing event	of being occurring wild-weather
	  [The "fasnu" seems redundant here.]

	  po'a .a sa'u pa drata	nu ka bebna
	  ]:(end figurative), or (simply) one other [=another] event of	foolishness.

							   50


	  The "nu ka" seems malglico - an attempt to match an English phrasing.	"nu bebna" is and event	of something
	  being	a fool,	i.e. an	event of foolishness. "ka bebna" is a property/quality of foolishness.	"nu ka bebna"
	  thus has the place structure "x1 is an event of (x1a being a property	of (x1b	being a	fool), which translates
	  approximately	the same way into English but implies some meaningless sumti.
tu'u
]

Michael's colloquial English translation:

A Lojban poem entitled "The Unmasking":

	  "What	is it you feel?" -- now	I must keep asking
	    myself, as you once	did to me,
	    like laminations.
	  I remove all the masks from this
	    onion of a desire.	Then
	    Lo!	it grows-to-fill-the-world...
	  But still not
	    do I know what to call it,
	    nor	whether	it's described
	  by 'a	state of together-magnetism'
	    or 'an unending storm'
	    -- or simply one more folly.

     Note the fairly complex tense-negation in the 3rd stanza.	This appears correct, but is exactly the type of
construct that we are pondering	in our open-issue discussions of tense and negation.  I	may even find a	way to use this
stanza as an example in	the text.
     This is why we want people	to try to use the language, before its nailed into unchanging form.  If	people don't try
complicated expression,	we don't have examples of all the ways people might try	to use the grammar we've defined, thus
risking	an error that will later come back to haunt us.	  We can only accomplish so much by thought-experiments, and the
relatively small number	of texts and examples that the few of us making	decisions can generate ourselves.

     The second	poem:

di'e se	cmene lu
The following is called	"
		      loika zvati vau li'u
		      Being-at-nesses (Presences)":
.i tu'e
[
		      ti'e lonu	zgana
		      (I hear) states of observing
		      be lemu'e	ke lunra
		      the (specific) achievement of lunar
		      ka cuklymulno cu xamgu
		      round-completeness (full-moon-ness) is good.
		      .iku'i mi	drata salci
		      But I otherly-celebrate
		      lemu'e ke	lunra ka caircinla
		      the (specific) lunar superlative-thinness	(new-moon-ness)
		      .i mi ckini ri leka manku
		      I	am related to it (the achievement) in the (specific) properties	of darkness,
		      .e lo mipri nu zasti .e .a'u
		      and in secret states of existing,	and (I wish!)

		      lenu ka vlipa po'u piro lo
		      the (specific) properties	of powerfulness, all of	a
		      te pencu be le munje se rinka
		      means of touching	the world-cause.
		      .i ca lemu'e ke lunra ka caircinla

							   51


		      At the (specific)	achievement of lunar superlative-thinness
		      ku le lunra cukla	cu binxo
		      ,	the lunar disk becomes
		      leri pamei zgana
		      its (the disk's) single observer.
		      .i mi go'i gi'e ku'i roroi
		      I	too (become the	disk's single observer (sic), but always
		      pubi'ica zgana lemi ka nomei ji'a
		      from-earlier-until-now an	observer of my zerosome-ness, also.
tu'u
]

     Michael didn't provide a colloquial translation - this poem is sufficiently Lojbanic that such a translation would
miss some things.  I noted that	in a few places, Michael's interlinear translation did not always match	what he	wrote,
so the above interlinear is my modification of his.
     I like this poem; the images to me	are powerful.  The lengthy set of comments that	follow have nothing to do with
its quality, which I think is outstanding.  I hate picking apart something this	good, lest I trivialize	it, but	teaching
is right now the important thing, and Michael will no doubt make the poem better still as a result, for	the enjoyment of
future Lojbanists.  But	note that my comments, though occasionally picky, are of a different nature than, for example,
Nora's comments	on Michael's self-description.	Now we are not concerned with Michael writing a	grammatical Lojban
sentence, but how he can best convey the subtleties of his ideas.  In short we are now talking about the art of	Lojban
expression.
     - As noted	previously, the	"ke"s are unneeded.  Michael probably included them based on the textbook lessons
written	before we had changed the rule (Feb 89)	and no longer require "ke" after the abstractor	clause to indicate long-
scope abstraction, which is now	the default.  Instead, if he had wanted	short-scope abstraction, he would put a	"kei" in
to indicate the	termination.  The "ke"s	are not	harmful; the parser would merely assume	a matching elided "ke'e" at the
end of the selbri.
     - I have emphasized a little bit of inconsistency in his choices of "lo" vs. "le" by highlighting the difference in
translation.  "le" implies that	the speaker has	(a) specific one(s) in mind.  "lo" makes a statement about at least one
non-specific representative of the described type.  Thus, I would expect that the descriptors on the three properties by
which Michael claims to	be akin	to the disk would either all be	"le" (if he has	specific properties in mind, which I
suspect), or they should all be	"lo" (if any old property of the type described	will do).  Other places	in the text
could stand re-examination of his choice of descriptor to further improve his clarity.
     - As another example of a possibly	inadequate descriptor choice, I	think the two 'achievements' of	new-moon-ness
and full-moon-ness should be described with "loi"; this	not only means that he doesn't have specific new moon and full
moon achievements in mind (unlikely for	an abstraction), but it	heightens the sense of abstraction by referring	to those
achievements as	being of a mass	of lunar achievements, presumably most or all alike in possessing the properties to
which Michael refers.
     - Also relating to	the properties of kinship: if they are all properties, they probably all should	use the	"ka"
abstractor.  These would translate in a	decidedly non-English manner, which may	be why Michael made what I think are
errors.	 Thus "leka mipri zasti" (the quality of secret	existence) or "le mipri	ka zasti" (the secret essence [quality
of existence]).	 "leka vlipa" (the powerfulness.  The latter would then	better be qualified (I think) as "leka vlipa poi
piromei	curmi lonu pencu le munje se rinka" (the powerfulness that wholly-is-a-permitter of touching the universe-cause.
     - Is Michael akin to the moon, or to its achievements, in those properties	of kinship.  What he says is that he is
akin to	the achievements.  If he means to be akin to the moon, he needs	to move	the moon out of	a tanru	relationship so
he can refer to	it anaphorically with "ri".  The best way I see	to do this is (assuming	use of "loi" as	mentioned above:
"... salci loimu'e le lunra cu caircinla  .i mi	ckini ri ...".	This picks up "ri" as "le lunra".
     - That the	rephrasing I just proposed would work suggests to me that the "ka" is not needed on "cuklymulno" or
"caircinla".  An achievement is	itself an abstract state.  You don't achieve a property, but rather a state
characterized by the property.
     - I would have chosen "dukti" rather than "drata" as a modifier of	"salci", thus clarifying that he is contrasting
with a celebration of the 'opposite state'.
     - The use of "mi go'i" confuses; I	think Michael is relying on a poetic sense that	tells an English reader	what is
meant here by "me too".	 As he has it written, "go'i" captures the bridi based on "binxo", and the "mi"	replaces the
first sumti of that bridi.  The	x2 place remains unchanged - the  Thus,	instead	of the moon becoming its own observer,
the poet now is.  They can't both alone	be observers.  The solution here is tricky, and	depends	on what	exactly	he
means.	The use	of "mi'u" (UI -	discursively indicates a parallel) marking the sentence	might help.  Changing the
wording	of the x2 place	of "binxo" might also play a role:  saying that	the moon becomes "lo pa	sevzi zgana" (a	self-
observer, of which there is exactly one	in the set) or "lo pamei sevzi zgana" (a solitary self-observer).  "sepli" might
be used	in either form in place	of "pamei", if the intent is to	convey the apartness of	the observer, rather than the

							   52


singularity.  If the parallel he is trying to make allows for both he and the moon to be observing the same thing,
though apart (from each	other and/or from humanity) then "pamei" misleads.
     - Astronomers would dislike Michael's expressions for "full moon" and "new	moon".	The moon doesn't significantly
change shape either being completely-round or most-thin.  Rather it is the observed moon (selzga lunra or, perhaps
better,	lunra selzga) ,	or possibly the	lunar disk (lunrycukla or just leave it	as a tanru) that changes shape.	 The
latter might cause a problem with interpreting the later use of	"lunra cukla" near the end of the poem:	 is it the lunar
disk (the planar projection that we see) that becomes an observer, or the lunar	orb (lunra bolci = lunryboi), or maybe
just "le lunra"	(the moon), since the self-observing moon would	not see	what we	see from Earth.	 But we're dealing with
poetry here, and the place structure of	"lunra"	is that	of a 'name predicate' (see the discussion of culture words in
the response to	jyjym. below)
     - Incidentally, Michael may have chosen not to compress the lujvo for "full moon" for sound reasons, but "cukmu'o"
is a valid shortening.	Also, the rafsi	for comparatives and superlatives are oriented towards final position use, so I
would prefer "cinlycai"	to "caircinla",	all other things being equal.
     I think I'll stop commenting on this one; these comments are getting too picky even by my rather perfectionist
standards.  The	next poem is decidedly weird, but I think that was Michael's intent - to stretch one's mind.

di'e se	cmene lu
The following is named "
	       mela saPIR. .uorf. li'u
	       Pertaining to Sapir-Whorf (Sapir-Whorf-ly)"
.i tu'e
[
	       ko leido	se mipri le
	       (Imperative you), your secrets, to the
	       sutrai nalmorji ca dunda
	       fastest non-rememberer, now give!

	       .i lo narju joi rijno
	       Orange-and-silver
	       fasnu ba	snuji ro lei drata
	       events will be sandwiches, filled by all	of the other things.

	       .i zo'e tagji logji
	       Something unspecified is	snugly logical.

tu'u
]

     I will leave this one for your imagination.  I can't suggest any improvements.  My	mind is	still trying to	grasp
"orange-and-blue events", and figure out how they can be sandwiches.

							   53


	     Letters, Comments,	and Responses		    too	soon] 3) to have a competitive proposal	when most NSF
							    proposals are written with the help	of professional
   Due to the length of	this issue, I'm	going to try to	    consultants	[I have	proposal writing experience, but I'm
keep my	comments short in response to the following.	    not	that good] and 4) to live down Jim Brown's actions of
Arthur Brown is	a mathematician	and has	followed the Loglan the	late 70's when he accused key individuals at NSF of
Project	fairly closely since it	was made public	in 1960.    improprieties in handling his proposals.  Bureaucracies
His comments are in response to	the Mathematics		    have long memories,	and Jim	Brown leveled serious charges.
Intelligencer essay.
										    from jyjym.
		     from Arthur Brown
							       I've been working on an outline,	a very rough one, of
   There are some things about translation.  In	my opinion, the	Lojban words on	the 8/9/88 baselined gismu list.  I
a thorough knowledge of	the jargon used	in the target	    think I'm going to try to learn Lojban, and	the outline
language (in my	case English) is essential.  I remember	a   gives me a constructive way	to learn some gismu.  A
case in	which the Office of Naval Intelligence used a	    completed outline should be	useful in various ways.
broke-down Russian emigr‚ lawyer to translate some	       This effort, combined with learning more	about Lojban in
technical documents:  the poor chap used a "wide-striped    general, has led me	to an awareness	of something
catcher" instead of a "broad-band receiver".  This was good unfortunate.  The gismu corresponding to particular	cul-
Russian, but not good English, because the jargon was	    tures/nations/languages/religions, from "African" to
missing.  (In fact, the	Russian	authors	intended the	    "Urdi," have to go.	 I mean	that those gismu are imposters;
English	jargon,	because	a broad-band receiver was an Anglo- they are cmene in "gismu-clothing" and they	must be
American technical development,	I think.)  The Chinese	    abolished.	They are nothing other than a "Most Favored
might use a "wide one-long-piece ribbon	electric-listen	    Cultured List" (MFCL).  This does not apply	to "mekso"  It
thingamajig", for all I	know.  One would have to settle	on  does apply to "lojbo", but that can	be fixed.
Lojban terms for the thing-in-itself, and let the	       I'll list a few things, in no special order, to show
translators into target	languages cope with the	jargon.	    what drove me to this conclusion about the MFCL.
   A lot of mathematics	is repetition, of stereotyped	       1.  Lojban is all grown up now and stands on its	own.
language.  But some of it isn't.  Occasionally,	and I think All	other languages, including the target languages, are
regrettably, the authors break loose and become		    now	foreigners.  If	it fails to treat all foreigners
picturesque; this outbreak poses a real	problem	for the	    equally, it	is biased.
translator.  What do you do when there isn't any jargon	in     2.  The inclusion of the	MFCL was justified by pointing
the target language, or	even worse, when there is jargon    out	the vast numbers of people covered by those labels.  No
but it means something else (e.g. Khrushchev's "We will	    other gismu	are judged in that way.	 For example, the
bury you", which is good Russian for "we will outlast you", inclusion of "civla" was not justified by citing the extent
but in English means the annihilation of cities).  This	    of the infestation.
will be	a problem for Lojban as	a single intermediate	       3.  The language	was made to have ample grammatical
language; overcomable, obviously, but a	problem.	    tools for borrowing	names from other languages.  It	is
   I suggest that, for Lojban generally, you get hold of a  irrational for the makers of the language to ignore	the
copy of	William	Empson's Seven Types of	Ambiguity,	    rules of what they have themselves created,	and to write
published some 40 or 50	years ago.  Empson was a disciple   borrowings directly	into the gismu list, to	take up	fifty
of I. A. Richards and C. K. Ogden; the book is about the    extremely valuable spaces.
richness that a	language gets from compression,	where the      4.  The gismu are words which speakers are forced to
reader is uncertain about which	meaning	the author in-	    use, unlike	cmene and tanru	which are a matter of personal
tended,	and so settles for all the meanings possible.  Loj- preference.	 Who are you to	decide that a speaker must
ban, if	I understand it, intends to be unambiguous; if	    acknowledge	certain	groups of ordinary people as basic
Sapir-Whorf takes ambiguity into account, as relating to    concepts, and call them by the words you deem fitting?
real cultural languages, then I'm not sure that	Lojban will    5.  Practical difficulties may arise.  For example, Tao
give a complete	test.  But that	doesn't	relate to science;  is officially proscribed in	China.	Some Chinese bureaucrat
so the broader aims of Lojban should not be allowed to	    may	see a description of Lojban, note that it includes Tao
interfere with its use as Intermath.			    as a basic concept,	and stamp it "counterrevolutionary."
   Is there any	hope of	getting	the National Science	    That's the end of Lojban for a billion people.  Easy come,
Foundation behind Lojban?				    easy go.  But of course no one could even imagine that
							    happening to a culturally neutral language.
   Bob responds	to the last question:  As described in the     6.  The MFCL words convey no meaning in the way that
news section, we are currently seeking to establish	    gismu have to.  gismu convey a meaning by excluding	other
academic credibility before tackling the NSF.  People have  possibilities.  For	example, (dog) is (not cat), and
told us	that we	need 1)	to have	been published in a	    (sorrow) is	(not bliss).  But is it	correct	that (American)
refereed journal [not yet in the works]	2) to be willing to is (not African)?  Words which do not exclude each other,
wait several months for	decision and funding [we live from  such as (clock) and	(timepiece) are	synonyms.  The MFCL
month to month,	hoping that I don't have to go back to work words are synonyms,	if they	are gismu.

							   54


   7.  Increased knowledge makes it easier to select a word 'pertaining	to the Bible' (as an adjective - 'biblical')
if that	word corresponds to a concept.	For example, if	we  would be "Christian-sacred-book" (as opposed to the	Torah,
gradually learn	that X has something to	do with	an emotion, which is the "Jewish-sacred-book").
whispers, a crystalline	mineral, and a carving on wood in      There is	a second type of word that uses	culture	words,
the shape of a bodily organ, we	may begin to suspect that X which we in	English	use all	of the time without realizing
is "love."  Given more information we will know	for sure.   what we are	doing.	These are those	words that have	a
(Actually, if the carving is in	the shape of a bodily	    hidden etymology that is a name - often a place name.
organ, it MUST be love.)  But which MFCL word applies to a  While we would be unlikely to use these particular tanru in
Toyota built in	Tennessee?  If more information	is needed   Lojban, "emerald" derives from "esmeralda",	a word for
to decide whether this car is "America-concept"	or "Japan-  East, and "turquoise" from "Turkey".  When we orient
concept," I will add that it is	owned by the Reverend Dr.   ourselves in a new situation, we hearken back to the time
Smith.	He is a	resident of Berlin.  His pet name for it is when people	oriented themselves in new places by facing the
"Romulus."  More and more specific information only leads   sunrise (the Orient).
to greater and greater doubt about which MFCL word is	       Apparently, all natural languages build metaphors from
appropriate.						    names.  Lojban is different	than natural languages in
   8.  That's enough.					    providing short, regular, combining	forms for those
   Oh yes, about lojbo--why not	just define it to mean the  believed to	be likely to generate often-used words.	 Other
name of	the language.  Let future Lojban speakers choose    names will have to be Lojbanized into le'avla, and then
their own names	for their culture, nation, etc.	 Those	    made to combine using a non-abbreviated combining form
names are likely to be metaphors anyway.		    (?toionta +	karce =	toiontykarce)

   Bob responds:  jyjym. is absolutely correct in that the    In point 6, jyjym. has made a distinction	between	cmene
MFCL words are 'cmene in gismu-clothing'.  I'll	go further  and	gismu, saying that "dog" is "not cat".	From modern
and say	that "mekso" also fits this, and so to a small	    science, we	believe	this the case, but there are cultures
number of other	words like "lunra", "terdi", and "solri".   that might believe in cat/dog half-breeds.	To them, the
You can	identify all of	these words by their artificial-    statement "dog" is "not cat" is not	obvious.  To use an ex-
sounding place structure "x1 pertains to ... in		    ample, we saw just above, we have gismu for	'love' and also
property/aspect/action x2".				    for	'hate',	but these abstract concepts, though considered
   Not surprisingly, this is also the place structure used  opposites, do not exclude each other - else	we would never
when you turn a	cmene written as a sumti into a	brivla by   hear of a 'love/hate relationship'.
using the cmavo	"me".  Thus "me	la iunaitedsteits." has	the    The assumption in Lojban	is that	all words are 'names'
grammar	of a brivla, with the place structure x1 pertains   for	concepts.  A selbri (of	which gismu are	only a part) is
to the United States in	property/aspect/action x2.  The	    a name for a concept expressed as a	relationship.  A cmene
function of turning a name into	a predicate is vital to	    is a name for a concept expressed as a substantive label.
language.  That	is the only way	you could say "This is a    The	cmavo "me" and "la" exist to blur the lines between
Toyota car".						    these two categories so that selbri	can be turned into
   Why do we have them,	if they	are names?  Because they    cmene and cmene into selbri.
are much used in practical everyday speech by people.  Not     There is	a common misconception,	which jyjym. appears to
directly as gismu, but in tanru	and lujvo.  Even if a	    share (#4),	and that is the	concept	that gismu are some set
Toyota is built	in Tennessee, most people will identify	it  of 'basic concepts'.  It is	precisely to avoid this
with the tanru Japanese-car.  The answer to your last	    misconception that we started using	the Lojban word	gismu
question (8) is	that people will use whatever culture label instead of "primitive".  An	idea that some words or
they wish to, to identify that feature,	trait or stereotype concepts are 'basic' and others are	not IS ITSELF a	bias -
that they are attributing to the car, person, item, or	    a bias toward certain concepts being more important	than
concept.						    other ones.	 No two	human beings, much less	cultures, would
   If this sounds like catering	to prejudice, it may indeed be likely to agree exactly on the set of basic words.  Why
be.  But on the	Eaton list of concepts,	the name for 'one's should 'cat' and 'dog' be gismu, and not 'lobster' and
own culture/nation' is on the first page of the	frequency   'amoeba'?
list, and the concept of 'specific other culture/nation	       Surely, there are some concepts represented in the gismu
besides	one's own', a combination of all the other culture  that are universally considered basic, but they are	a small
names put together, isn't far behind (the specific list	of  minority.  Some cultures divide the	color spectrum into as
'other cultures	talked about' is going to vary in each	    few	as two or three	colors - Lojban	uses about a dozen.
country/culture).					    Are	those dozen 'basic' in some absolute sense?  No.
   In Lojban, these words will be used even more frequently    The gismu set that we have is chosen on the basis of
in tanru and lujvo than	in the natural languages.  The most pragmatic usage.  The notes	in response to Robert Gorsch's
obvious	uses are for concepts tied to nationality or	    class indicate that	the evolution of our gismu list	was
culture	such as	'American dollar', as opposed to 'Canadian  anything other than	ideal.	For example, some words	were
dollar', and 'Japanese yen', 'English system of	measures',  considered by Jim Brown to indeed be biologically basic.
and a large number of religious	concepts that inherently    When we redid the list, we required	some justification for
include	the religion in	the concept.  For example,	    eliminating	a word that Jim	Brown had declared 'primitive'.

							   55


But the	criteria for adding a word were	that it	either had  preference,	to determine which were	included.  But it is,
to complete an incomplete set of concepts, or be useful	ei- in a sense,	arbitrary.
ther in	terms of usage frequency, or in	terms of usefulness    Let me turn to jyjym.'s individual points briefly:
in making tanru.  The latter become more important as time     1. Lojban does not yet stand on its own.	 We are	highly
has passed.						    dependent on native	speakers of the	12 MFL,	which include
   There is a category of Lojban concept represented	    nearly all languages used in more than one nation.	The 50-
neither	by gismu, nor tanru, nor cmene - these are the	    75%	of the world that speaks one of	the MFL's have the
le'avla, or borrowings.	 le'avla are predicate words, like  capability to make lujvo for the words they	use often in
gismu, but they	are formed by Lojbanizing from a word in    their culture; this	will enhance Lojban's acceptability.
another	language, like cmene.  The rules for Lojbanizing       As I've said a couple of	times in this newsletter,
are a bit more strict than for cmene, and harder to learn,  Lojban IS biased.  The point is to have biases minimized
so we de-emphasize using le'avla, preferring to	use a tanru and	identified.  Our list has less of a Euro-American bias
instead	when we	can; in	the long run, however, le'avla may  than Jim Brown's list.  Note that all of our gismu can be
be the largest class of	words in the language, covering	    said to be even more biased	than the MFCL, in that they
most foods, animals, plants, and technical jargon words.    maximize learnability for people of	only 6 languages.
   The words that are gismu have an 'advantage'	over	       None of these presumed biases are believed significant
le'avla	in that	they are shorter.  More	significantly, they for	a Sapir-Whorf test, although such an assumption	must be
are the	only words considered for assignment of	rafsi.	All verified at	some point by testing MFCL members as well as
of the MFCL words have rafsi, which is not the case for	all non-MFCL members.
gismu.	The reason, based exactly on jyjym.'s logic, is	       2. Actually, "civla" was	included because of the
that if	we couldn't assign a rafsi to a	name-gismu, we	    ubiquity of	lice and fleas,	and properly covers all
shouldn't have it as a gismu.				    skin/hair parasites	in its definition.  Similarly, "jalra",
   There is indeed an effective	bias in	including some	    "sfani", "bifce", "toldi", "manti" and "jukni" are
cultures as gismu, and in not including	others.	 The bias   ubiquitous - the gismu for these are intended to cover the
is that	speakers in those cultures find	an easier time	    rest of "bug-dom".	(Do we need one	for
talking	about concepts peculiar	to their culture as lujvo,  "locust/grasshopper"?)
while people of	other cultures will use	le'avla.	       All gismu were considered from the standpoint of	whether
   Jim Brown had gismu for each	of his 8 source	language    they would be useful to people of all cultures.  Some
cultures, and Lojban.  But he also added some odd additions limited sets, like the MFCL, some animals and plants,
like 'Italian',	'Roman', 'Amerind', and	the distinction	    grains, and	some metals, are exceptions that were included
between	'American' and 'British' within	'English' (but he   for	a combination of historical continuity,	and because
left out 'Canadian' and	'Australian', and all of the Span-  some of the	12 MFL cultures	use the	words metaphorically in
ish-speaking countries of Latin	America).  His choices	    their own languages.
struck us as biased and	arbitrary, and made worse by the       3.  As stated, we have 3	ways to	borrow names, into 3
assignment of 3	gismu to each of his MFCL.		    different word categories.	To use one set of rules	is not
   We chose to minimize	bias by	adding gismu to	the point   to ignore the others.  There is nothing 'more basic' about
that we	covered	the 12 most common languages, the primary   one	set of rules as	compared with another.
cultures (down to some minimum population) that	spoke them,    4. I don't understand this claim.  You can use, or not
and the	primary	religions and continents so-associated,	    use	gismu, as you choose.  There is	nothing	forced.	 I'll
etc.  It was at	this level that	we reached the conflict	    admit that if you use LogFlash, you	would have to edit out
stage for rafsi, and were starting to have to choose	    some words to not be 'forced' to learn them, but you are
between	assigning them to MFCL words or	to other gismu	    not	required to use	them.  And what	makes cmene and	tanru
judged to be useful in tanru.				    more a matter of personal preference?  You can creatively
   (jyjym. is incorrect	in a sense - gismu word	space is    make a different tanru if you don't	like how one sounds,
not all	that precious.	We could have twice the	number of   but	it will	mean something different.  If you use a	cmene
gismu we have now.  The	number we stopped at was based on a as a label,	which differs from someone else's label	for the
consensus among	the word-makers, strongly influenced by	a   same thing,	they may not recognize who or what you are
historical tradition of	1000-1500 concepts in artificial    talking to/about.
languages, and indications from	foreign	language education     Again, gismu are	not 'basic concepts'.
research that this was a minimum vocabulary size for	       It occurs to me that people can choose to ignore	the
conversation.  We also were starting to	get an increasing   MFCL gismu if they choose, and use cmene or	le'avla	if they
number of conflicts over rafsi,	and highest scoring word-   prefer.  I don't see any advantage to this,	since it is
form.)							    extra work for no gain.
   The 12 language level (our 'most favored languages' -       5.  If we were to include or exclude concepts from our
MFL) was historically significant - it included	all of Jim  list based on local	politics, that would indeed be biased.
Brown's	languages plus our own set, and	included all	    I could say	that ALL religions are proscribed in some
languages that we had considered using in making gismu.	    countries.	Does this mean that we should eliminate	"lijda"
   The number 12 had a non-arbitrary feel to it	- we were   from the gismu?  Incidentally, to ban something, you have
using an fairly	objective standard, rather than	personal    to label it.

							   56


   There are a million and one possible	ways for people	in     In general, we've omitted comparatives from place
a given	culture	to become offended by something	in Lojban   structures because there is	almost always a	use where
which differs from their own culture.  For example, we have comparatives cause problems.  In fact, we've followed a
the gismu "gletu", "ganxo", "pinji", "kalci" which repre-   'less is better' philosophy	of place structure
sent concepts taboo in our culture.  The fact that Lojban   determination for all of the gismu.	 It is easy to 'add' an
by rule	forbids	taboos on any word could offend	religious   extra place	using a	sumti tcita 'case tag';	it is
people.							    impossible to remove a place.  So we try to	keep out the
   6. I've dealt with this partially above.  It	sounds like non-mandatory ones.	 This has the side advantage of	making
jyjym. is claiming that	no gismu overlap in meaning except  the	place structures easier	to learn, because there	is less
the MFCL, and that words that do overlap are synonyms.	    to learn.
Neither	of these is true.  For example,	"nanmu", "prenu",      (There IS a proposal to amend the place structure of
"bersa", "bruna", "patfu", "remna", and	"panzi"	all overlap "barda" and	"cmalu"	to add "as compared to standard	x3.
in a set that includes all fathers who aren't the only	    This is different from a true comparative.	Comments are
child of their parents.					    welcome.)
   7.  I'm lost	on interpreting	this one.  The exact
mapping	of associations	to words is an individual, or at       Question	#2 - Why have Lojban pronouns been assigned
least a	cultural thing.	 I suspect that	there are some	    both singular and plural meanings?	(If the	S-W Hypothesis
cultures that, given the list of clue concepts,	could	    is correct,	one might argue	that Lojban would create a
decide that jyjym. is referring	to lust	or worship, or	    cultural bias towards a pluralism -	a society such as the
both.							    one	in Ayn Rand's Anthem, which had	done away with the word
							    "I"	and hence, with	man's ego.)  Is	there a	method for
   All in all, this is a valuable discussion.  We get more  stating "me, to the	exclusion of all others"?  If so,
questions about	the culture words than any other gismu,	    please let me know.
usually	asking why they	were included, or complaining about
having to memorize them.  There	is a 'bottom line' - if	no     Bob's response -	Predicate logic	ignores	the difference
one uses a gismu, or any other word, it	will eventually	    between singular and plural, so Lojban, at its most	basic
fall out of the	language.  I'm betting that while most	    level, also	does.  This might cause	a S-W effect such as
Americans will have little call	for using "xurdo", they'll  you've described; that is why Lojban was created - so that
have trouble avoiding the use of "merko" and "glico".  To   such drastic differences in	world view in a	society	can be
eliminate all of the MFCL that one doesn't personally use   clearly tied to grammatical	constructs.
would be "malglico" - oops, I just used	one.  Perhaps if       When we say that	Lojban is culturally neutral, we mean
you have memorized "xurdo", you'll find	a use for it.	    not	that the language has no effects on the	culture	- that
							    would be assuming that Sapir-Whorf is false, and minimizing
		    from Eric Williams			    just the types of effects we'd be looking for.  Rather, we
							    try	to eliminate the cultural biases of existing cultures
   Question # 1	- Why are words	for 'large' and	'small'	    of the world, the sources of natural language speakers that
included in Lojban?  When a person says	"ta cu barda", he   will eventually form the Lojban speaker base.
or she has only	expressed something very vague,	since "ta"     Lojban achieves cultural	neutrality by trying to
is not 'larger than' something.	 It seems that the proper   minimize metaphysical assumptions, and the singular/plural
way to express this concept is 'more' (or 'less') than an-  distinction	is one such assumption.	 Does there have to be
other in height, weight, surface area, or whatever.	    such a distinction?	 If so,	why not	a 3- or	4- way
							    distinction	expressing singular, dual, trial, and
   Bob's Response:  If you want	to express a comparison,    multitudinal (there	are languages with more	than 2 number
you indeed should use "zmadu", or "ckamu"; they	are	    categories,	though I don't know of any with	exactly	this
comparative by nature and it shows in the place	structure.  set).
"barda"	and "cmalu" are	the same concept without an	       Lojban tries to remove constraints.  Therefore, you CAN
inherent comparative.  As you've noted,	these provide less  express number, tense, and the various other optional
information than the comparatives - exactly one	sumti	    grammatical	features if it is important to the truth of
place's	worth.	Based on English usage,	there are cases	    your statement, which isn't	that often.  You have a	couple
where a	comparative could be misleading	- a large negative  of ways of expressing singular more	clearly:  "mipezi" (the
number is less than a small negative number.		    right-here me, limits by location rather than number.  It
   Quite often,	we don't know what the basis of	comparison  is only plural if there are	several	people by me, and you
is.  What is a 'big house' bigger than - possibly nothing   are	off across the room).  "mipoipamoi" is the ultimate
in particular -	and each person's standard of comparison    singular - "I, the onesome".
might be different, so we can't	use "zu'i", the		       You can make a whole bunch of other distinctions	that
'unspecified typical' sumti place filler, unless we also    you	can't make in English, of course, but I've no room for
add an observer	place.	Since some comparatives	are ob-	    them here.
server independent, you	can't put the observer place in	the
basic place structure.

							   57


   [Eric also asked about the place structures of culture
words, but his question	was answered in	the response to
jyjym.,	so I've	not repeated the answer	here.]

	      Last Minute Request for Comment

   In discussing some of the topics in this issue, and in
discussing negation, a question	of bias	arose.	At present
"zmadu"	has 3 rafsi, including "mau" which also	serves as a
sumti tcita (lexeme BAI) for adding "more than ..."
comparatives.  The 'opposite' word, "ckamu" has	no rafsi,
partly because in English we seldom make comparatives in
this direction,	so few have built tanru	from "ckamu".
"ckamu"	also has a sumti tcita,	but it is not as clearly
connected to the gismu.
   There are no	good available solutions based on "ckamu".
The possible rafsi permitted in	any position for this word
are "-cka-", "-cau-", "-kau-", "-ca'u-"	and "-ka'u-", and
each of	these is in use	by a reasonably	important gismu, in
terms of use in	tanru.
   We thus are proposing the first change in a gismu since
the baseline was established 20	months ago, and	setting	the
precedent by encouraging comment from all who have started
learning the words (and	others)	before even a single word
change.	 The proposed replacement is "mleca" with rafsi	"-
mec-" and "-me'a" and the latter becoming the sumti tcita.
The issue will be decided at LogFest 90	after consideration
of all comments.  What do you think?



			   co'o.