The egocentrism of a Lojban community

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This page forms a part of my resistance against the egocentrism of a Lojban community.

A language derived from the official Lojban is considered as Lojban?

On recognition of a language as Lojban, there is a customary double standard.

  1. Some languages derived from the official Lojban are currently advertized as "modern dialects of Lojban" [1], "Lojban" that includes "experimental" words [2][3], or even simply as "Lojban" [4].
  2. Some languages [5][6] derived from the official Lojban are recognized as non-Lojban by some people [7].

Someone doing 1 and 2 are identical persons, and that seems to me a sign of egocentrism: only the derivations agreed on IRC are permitted to be called Lojban; the other derivations constructed on values different from those of IRC users are excluded from Lojban. Calling la altatufa [6] non-Lojban is not at all an objection to my view of the egocentrism. The reason for their recognition of la altatufa (or any other experimental parsers) as non-Lojban is that it is their own experiment of grammar, while their recognition of la zantufa [5] as non-Lojban is the exclusion from Lojban family of an unpleasant-to-them language that is actually used by a non-IRC person.

The egocentrism may cause any future (or possibly past) lojbanists who would be satisfied with neither the official Lojban nor the IRC dialects to leave silently from a Lojban community (especially of IRC). I am one of such lojbanists, but I'm sorry for doing it non-silently here because of my love for Lojban and my hate for the egocentrism of a community.

Do you need an official standard for recognition of a language as Lojban, or keep the current situation?

If you should decide on a standard, there are some incompatible alternatives.

  1. Only the official Lojban agreed by BPFK is called "Lojban", and
    1. any experimental gismu/cmavo and grammatical modifications don't form a part of Lojban;
    2. experimental gismu are recognized as a part of Lojban, and any grammatical modification does not form a part of Lojban;
    3. experimental gismu and additions of experimental cmavo to the official grammar are recognized as a part of Lojban, and any other grammatical modification does not form a part of Lojban.
  2. Any language derived from the official Lojban is called "Lojban",
    1. only with note of "unofficial", "experimental" or "dialect";
    2. with or without note of "unofficial", "experimental" or "dialect".
  3. Only the official Lojban and the derivations used on IRC are called "Lojban".
  4. Other.

Option 1 implies that many people including la gleki and me are culpable for calling derivation(s) of Lojban "Lojban". It is acceptable to me, but it means that a significant part of Lojban corpus is recognized as non-Lojban, not only the IRC Logs but also remarkable artworks {lo se manci te makfa pe la oz} [8], {ka catra lo verba} [9] and so on. Moreover, it may prevent the growth of Lojban.

Option 2 implies that some people including la gleki, la durkavore and la tsani are culpable for asserting that la zantufa [5] is not Lojban [7] (la tsani declared later that he supports Option 1, which is acceptable to me). It is a reasonable option considering the current conditions of the official Lojban and actual use of derivations of Lojban. Option 2.1 is my preference. If you choose 2.1, then the responsible person of the Lojban translation of Vivaldi must add a clear mentioning of "dialect" to the translation of Vivaldi browser [4], or remove {la'oi} from it [10].

Option 3 implies that only I am culpable for asserting that la zantufa is one of Lojban parsers based on an unofficial grammar [5] (or, possibly la xorxes is also culpable for la zasni gerna [11]). I don't support this option, but it is identical to the current customary standard that expelled me from Lojban community. Here is the proof [12]:

Assume that Lojban community consists of Lojban speakers only [S1]. Suppose that a person P speaks neither the official Lojban nor the IRC derivations of Lojban, but a non-IRC derivation of Lojban. Option 3 implies that P does not speak Lojban [S2]. [S1] with [S2] implies that P is out of Lojban community. I am P. Q.E.D.

References

  1. La Bangu, 2015-08-13
  2. Lojban Wave Lessons, 2015-10-21
  3. The Crash Course, 2015-11-27
  4. 4.0 4.1 Vivaldi browser snapshot 1.0.129.2 (Use of {la'oi}. Try command `LANGUAGE=jbo vivaldi`.)
  5. 5.0 5.1 5.2 5.3 La zantufa: a series of parsers created by me.
  6. 6.0 6.1 La altatufa: an unstable parser for experimental grammar created mainly by la gleki.
  7. 7.0 7.1 On IRC Lojban channel, not necessarily publicly recorded.
  8. The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum translated by la selpa'i. Almost the whole text is parsed by la maftufa noi va'i oz zei zantufa.
  9. Att döda ett barn by Stig Dagerman translated by la danmo rozgu. The whole text is parsed by la zantufa_1 cekitaujoibus. Divide the text into smaller parts in order to avoid range error in parsing.
  10. The problem was removed after discussion.
  11. La zasni gerna: "This is a version (not official) of the full grammar of Lojban." The dialects of IRC inherited only a part of it.
  12. Almost trivial, but written for those who guess wrongly the reason for the blame as their countless terms of abuse on la zantufa. I don't blame them for that. Their abuse on la zantufa is natural because it is constructed according to different values from theirs. I also wrote about dissatisfaction with la ilmentufa or la altatufa in the introduction to la zantufa in a more polite way than their terms of abuse on la zantufa.