the Glasgow Conversation

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  • And Rosta:
    • The Lojban conversation held between Nick Nicholas and Goran Topic in Glasgow in 1995. Famous for its as-remembered recordbreaking fluency. This conversation, Nick taperecorded and pledged to transcribe, without ever getting round to doing so (to the benefit of the myth?)!
      • He doesn't have to transcribe it. Digitize it and let's see if we can understand it!
        • I think I do have to transcribe it for those too lazy to try :-) , but by all means, you don't have to read along. (For linguistic analysis, I also want to do a linguistically detailed transcription: false starts, talking over each other, the works.) What I'm really worried about is, whether I'll be able to tell Colin Fine and Iain Alexander apart. Goran and Ivan will not be a problem...
        • nitcion:
          • I pledge to do so when I return to Australia (where my tapes are) in November 2001. Hopefully after six years (untouched!) the tapes are still in good condition... After I do so, I will solicit opinions on how best to digitize it and put it on line; my alma mater does this kind of stuff with Aboriginal linguistics, so I don't think facilities will be a problem.
            • A late, inebriated snippet, with transcript[1].
  • And, you've heard the tape; do you remember anything more about the conversation than I do?
    • Not really. It was six years ago. You were both very impressive. As I recall, you ummed and aahed more and seemed to be relying on intellectual bruteforce more. I remember other stuff about your spoken Lojban, but I think that was based on then you were speaking to me.
  • And's recollections at the time[2].
  • A similar event in Esperanto history was not when the first Esperantist who learned it from a book spoke to Zamenhof (this was Grabowski, but Zamenhof and Grabowski were both Polish), but when the first conversation was held between people with no common language. This was a Russian Esperantist visiting France in the 1890's; unfortunately I don't recall details. Lojban, lamentably, is very far from reaching that goal... (But see Lojban materials in other languages).
    • But since the Glasgow Conversationalists had a common language, wasn't it more comparable to Grabowski?

Transcript

la .nitcion.:

i've converted to MP3 and posted on my website 3 minutes of talk I 
had with Goran Topic in Glasgow in 1995, to see if this kind of thing 
is feasible. Let me know if i should continue with this; my intent is 
to digitise and post all the Glasgow conversations eventually, but 
it'll be a long while.

This tape was made under suboptimal conditions :-) ; it's the final 
day of the Glasgow Worldcon, the 'Dead Dog' party, and I'm already 
pretty hoarse. Our Lojban talk is interrupted by a bout of paper 
plate throwing, and the conlangers in our party spend the next 10 
mins (at least) singing bad filk, lapsing into Klingon, and throwing 
paper frisbees. The female voice in the background is Klingonist 
Chris Atherton. What the lead in to my chat with Goran was, I don't 
know, but I transcribe it something like this (and yes, the talk has 
gotten pretty drunken; I vaguely recall this being a plausible parse 
--- Goran was claiming divinity over various implausible spheres, and 
I was humouring him.)

G: ti xu ji'a (??)
N: .y ki'a .i do jarco ma
G: .i .i pau mi cu cevni ti ji'a
N: .y do jarco ma .i xu do jarco .y
G: jarco ki'a
N: show XXX .i do jarco ma
G: .i jarco .i jarco mi jarco lo degji pe
... what is the inalienable
N: po
G: po is inalienable
N: No, it's po'e
G: po'e .i mi jarco lo degji po'e lemi pendo
N: .i .i fau lenu do djica lenu ponse le ...
ponse so ... co cevni .y le degji [kei],
do ka'e go'i [= djica]
.i mi curmi .i mi na'e natfe
.i zifre munje .i zifre munje
.i zifre loi cevni ...
G: mi
N: ... pe mu'u do
G: mi .y bu'u ti noda natfe
N: XXX bu'u ki'a (??)
G: Here. At this place.
N: Ah, bu'u! Stop using that, I'm not familiar with it!
G: I'm sorry!
N: Those bloody... bloody.. loi mabla cnino
.y selckaji pe... be le gerna [be'o] poi na'e ke se djuno mi
.i .i do pilno roroi lei mabla cnino
.i mi na'e ka'e fraxu (??)
G: .i mi na pilno ro lei mabla cnino
N: .i do pilno loi zabna ... Ah shit (??)...
.i do pilno loi traji mabla cnino
G: .i mi na go'i
C: Are you talking about me?
N: Nah, I'm saying, stop using all these bloody grammatical innovations.
C: Yes, don't do it.
N: Yeah.
(Laughter)
G: .i mi .y cu pilno .y so'o po'o lo cnino
N: .y mi na'e djica (??)
.i do pilno zo ... zo bu'u noi banzu
noi banzu lonu .y
(C: says she is not a Lojbanist to someone else)
N: xlapajni do
(Other talk)
(Flying saucers)
N: Now this is just getting silly!
.i co'a se bebna!

Audio

References