View source for lojbo karni number 10

<pre>Copyright, 1989, 1991, by the Logical Language Group, Inc. 2904	Beau Lane,
Fairfax	VA 22031-1303 USA Phone	(703) 385-0273
lojbab@grebyn.com

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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
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copy.

				 le lojbo karni

			    Number 10 -	August 1989
		Published by:  The Logical Language Group, Inc.
	       2904 Beau Lane, Fairfax VA 22031	USA (703)385-0273
		     Editor and	President:  Bob	LeChevalier

This is	the quarterly news and product announcements newsletter	of The Logical
Language Group,	Inc., known in these pages as la lojbangirz.  We are a non-
profit organization formed for the purpose of completing and spreading the
logical	human language "Lojban".  This issue (LK10) is being mailed at
publication to about 500 subscribers, about 10%	growth since last issue.  Press
run this issue,	650.

			     Loglan 1 Re-published
			     Book Review on Page 3

This is	our most news-filled issue yet.	 There is a lot	of things happening.
Are you	a part of them?

Welcome	to New Lojbanists				  - page 1
Your Mailing Label, About Voluntary Balances, Last Minute Notes	 - page	2
Book Review of Loglan 1, Editorial on L1 - What	Does It	Mean to	la lojbangirz?
- page 3
Other Institute	News, On Sailing - and a Correction, la	lojbangirz. files
     to	cancel 'Loglan'	trademark			  - page 7
Report on LogFest 89 and the 1989 Annual Business Meeting - page 9
Research and Development - Lojban Parser Status, Grammar Changes Proposed,
     Baseline Change					  - page 9
Growth and Publicity - Athelstan's Trip	Cancelled; Worldcon Details; New York
     Visit;
    Other Visits En Route from Worldcon?; Lojban Video Plans; Other Publicity
News							 - page	11
Education - DC Lojban Class Nears Completion; Blacksburg Class Making Excellent
     Progress;
    Other Classes; Self-Teaching Lojbanists; Textbook Status- page 13
International News					 - page	15
Products and Prices					 - page	16
Mid-Year Financial Report - Finances Improve, But Your Help is Still Vitally
     Needed						 - page	16
Future Plans - Textbook, After the Textbook, Dictionary, Reader, Classes,
     Grants						 - page	17
Response to a Letter on	Dictionary Plans - from	Adrian Bolt- page 18
Request	for Historical Anecdotes and Information	 - page	21
Contents of Ju'i Lobypli #10				 - page	21

Note:  References to 'Loglan' in this text, unless specifically	noted, do not
relate to the 'trademark' claimed by The Loglan	Institute, Inc., or to products
described by that 'trademark'.

			   Welcome to New Lojbanists

     Over 50 new Lojbanists have been added since the publication of LK9, with
most due to our	ad in Discover magazine, and to	reviews	in Factsheet Five and
recruiting at the UNICON science fiction convention.  Also, word of mouth is
finally	starting to aid	us, as a significant percentage	of new people are
joining	us through individuals telling others about this GREAT,	NEW, LANGUAGE!
Keep it	up; we'll happily supply copies	of the brochure	on request.  Our rate of
growth is accelerating;	we hope	to add more than 100 new people	at Worldcon
alone.
     People don't write	letters	'the way they used to in them olden days', and
therefore, after our first mailing to each of you, we tend to wait weeks,
months,	and occasionally a couple of years before we hear from you again.  In a
rapidly	evolving project like this one,	we'd rather take the chance of mailing
this newsletter	to all respondents, than to be forever trying to bring people
up-to-date on what has happened	since they last	heard from us.	We think that
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you read our newsletters, and that we are not junk mail	that is	relegated to the
trash upon arrival.  If	what we	are writing is of no interest to you, please let
us know	and we'll drop you from	our mailing list.
     New people	are assigned to	level 0	unless we hear otherwise from you; what
this means is that we send you the Overview of Lojban and the latest le	lojbo
karni newsletter, along	with a brochure	if you haven't received	one.  We also
send an	order form and registration form so you	can let	us know	what else you
might be interested in.	 See the descriptions of mailing codes below and reports
on ongoing activities, and write to us about any activities you	are interested
in.  We	want to	hear from you.

			       Your Mailing Label

Your mailing label reports to you 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
19 August 1989.	 Mailing codes (and approximate	annual balance needs) are
defined	as follows:

Level B	- Product Announcements	OnlyLevel 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	draft textbook lesson materials	as developed -
$50 balance or more
R indicates that you are receiving materials on	a review basis pending some
publicity we hope you will give	us.  If	your publication can reimburse us for
our costs, great, but it is not	mandatory.

Feel free to call or write to ask about	your balance account or	mailing	code
assignment.

You are	scheduled to receive Ju'i Lobypli if the level code on the top line of
your mailing label is "1", "2",	or "3",	but not	if it is "0".  If you are listed
as mailing code	"0":  YOU MUST WRITE TO	US IF YOU WANT TO RECEIVE Ju'i Lobypli.

			    About Voluntary Balances

     Our orientation is	non-profit.  Almost every dollar we receive goes
directly into producing	the products that we send out, with a surprisingly small
overhead and no	paid salaries.	We subsist entirely on your contributions
against	our costs of mailing to	you.  However, a large number of our respondents
are college students and others	with low incomes, who want our materials but
couldn't afford	them at	our costs.  Therefore, we operate on a voluntary balance
system.	 We ask	you to contribute what you can towards your balance, and maybe
to make	a donation to help cover those who can't afford	theirs.	 Only 40% of you
are making significant contributions now, and we need to raise this percentage -
a small	minority of you	are supporting the rest.  Please contribute, if	only a
little,	against	our costs.  Ideally, try to bring your balance up to 0,	or even
to a little surplus.  I	suspect	that most people who receive this newsletter get
more reading out of it than they do from a typical news-weekly or other
periodicals that require you to	pay in advance,	and you	don't have to wade
through	advertisements.
     Some generous donations since last	issue staved off the economic wolves for
a few more months, but publishing the textbook will be expensive and we	haven't
found the money	yet.  Please help!
     We	seek donations in addition to and independent of your contributions to
voluntary balances.  We	have filed with	the IRS	for Section 501(c)(3) status,
approval of which will officially allow	your donations (not contributions to
your voluntary balance)	to be tax-deductible.  We hope to have approval	by the
end of the year.  We are operating in accordance with that section, which means
that your  donations now should	be deductible if approval is obtained later,
although there is always the possibility of disapproval.  We will inform all
donors at the end of the year as to the	status of deductibility	of their gifts.
We also	note for all potential donors that our bylaws require that no more than

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30% of our expenses be for administration and legal fees, and that you are
welcome	to make	gifts conditional upon our meeting this	requirement.

			       Last Minute Notes

     There is still a computer bulletin	board conference reserved for Loglan and
Lojban on the AMRAD BBS	here in	the DC area.  It has, unfortunately, seen little
use.  I	will check it more often if people start leaving messages on it; we at
one time had some pretty lively	discussions going on the CLBB BBS.  The	phone
number is 703-734-1387,	and it is PC PURSUIT-able.

     On	a related matter, USENET, UUCP,	and INTERNET mail should now be	sent to
me via Darren Stalder at dstalder@gmuvax2.gmu.edu.  Darren will	shortly	have the
brochure and the gismu list available for on-line transmission via the net.
Contact	him to get either.

     Mike Gunderloy reported in	his new	issue of Factsheet Five	that there is a
cheaper	yet reasonably fast way	to send	international mail.  I may not find out
soon enough to try it this mailing, but	if he's	correct, our international
prices can drop.

			    Book Review	of Loglan 1
		       by Athelstan, and Bob LeChevalier

   Earlier editions of Loglan 1	(4th edition, The Loglan Institute, Inc., 1989)
have shown us only a shadow of a language promised.  In	this most recent
edition, Dr. James Cooke Brown says of his brainchild, "The long period	of
patient	engineering is over; the [language] is ready to	be used."  Unfor-
tunately, he's wrong.
  We had hoped to report to Lojbanists and all other members of	the Loglan
community that Dr. Brown's work	was complete and exemplary, a well-worked
description of his Loglan language version and source book of ideas for	others
working	with logical languages.	 Sadly,	the errors in this edition of L1 are so
variable in type and scope and so great	in number that we cannot describe it as
anything other than a work in progress.	 The promise lies unfulfilled; the
shadow still remains.
  Don't	misread	this as	being unabashedly negative.  There is a	lot of brilliant
work on	the language embedded in the pages of the new book.  But there are so
many problems and questions that are not answered; so many contradictions and
simply vague explanations, that	you already need to understand most of what
Brown's	telling	you in order to	find the gemstones and separate	them from the
dross.
  As an	example	of the intermittent genius reflected in	the book, there	is an
entirely new section on	testing	the Sapir-Whorf	hypothesis.  The theoretical
discussion here	is well	worth reading, clear and thorough.  While there	are
seeds of a useful approach therein, the	resulting experimental design is badly
flawed - he doesn't address obvious problems such as introducing bias in the
teaching of the	language, and the difficulty of	encouraging serious, experimen-
tally useful, long-term	effort on the part of disinterested subjects with no
long-term stake	in the results.
  Similarly, the new scientific	borrowing system is both comprehensive and
impressive.  However, it contains pervasive cultural biases in word choice and
in the linguistic implications of the phonology, as well as algorithmic	errors
that reveal incomplete analysis.  As described,	it won't work.
  Brown's numerous errors embarrass the	Loglan community that is heavily
credited with the changes in this edition, as well as the several qualified
scholars who purportedly read the text and helped Brown	"find the errors".  The
responsibility for the errors lies with	Brown himself; he chose	not to publicly
debate each proposed change and	did not	circulate a draft of this book among
knowledgeable loglanists, resulting in the draft quality of the	published prod-
uct.  Of course, only Brown knows the entirety of his current language version,
making review of the language design by	others especially difficult.
  Unfortunately, the obvious hard work,	additions, and improvements that went
into this edition do not guarantee overall quality.  While we would like to skip
over the clerical errors of form and detail and	concentrate on problems	of

				       4
concept	and method (the	rightful ground	of criticism), the former are so
prolific in form and number as to obscure the latter.  Some discussions	are so
confused or contradictory, that	it is impossible to tell whether the errors
therein	are minor or conceptual.

  In evaluating	a book of this complexity, we must use both internal standards
(how well the book meets the goals for which it	was intended) and external ones
(how the book measures by the common standards of technical prose).

  As to	the book's purpose, let	us judge Brown by his own standards:  Brown's
preface	claims that "... Loglan	1 must,	as I say, stand	alone.	It must	not only
serve the user as a resource book on the grammar, morphology, and usages of the
new language ...".
  Let us first examine large scope errors dealing with the text	as a language
description.
  The book is incomplete; it lacks the information needed to evaluate many of
his claims, including a	formal description of the grammar and complete
definitions of each structure word.  Such a formal description is promised for a
later book, Loglan 6; this does	not satisfy, especially	in light of Brown's
statements in Chapter 6	that he	expects	the language to	continue to change and
evolve.
  One can only respond by asking:  At what point will Brown be able to present
both a complete	formal description of the language and a current corresponding
explanation of the same	language version?
  An example of	this problem.  This version of Loglan is described as a	logical
language.  Yet no proof	is offered of its logical completeness,	nor of the
unambiguity of its grammar (the	latter is claimed "conflict-free", a term left
undefined).  A full grammar description	is needed for those who	might wish to
examine	these issues, which are	critical to Brown's claims for the language.
  Another example.  Brown claims that his product is a complete	language, yet
almost all samples of the language are single sentences	demonstrating individual
concepts.  By comparison, other	attempts to develop new	languages have tried to
demonstrate their workmanship and versatility in a 'chrestomathy' - a collection
of a wide variety of literary passages from several sources, and often from
several	cultures, showing how a	wide variety of	styles can be expressed.
Brown's	supplemental corpus contains only four 200-250 word extracts from
English-language scientific articles, all from the same	magazine; his
translations consist heavily of	scientific word-borrowings and have little vari-
ety of grammar.
  Cultural neutrality is claimed for the language, but several changes since the
3rd edition have significantly weakened	this claim.  The addition of 'h' as a
major consonant	might be tolerable, but	its ubiquitous use to create consonant
clusters in borrowings renders these words subject to severe mispronunciation
and misrecognition when	used by	native speakers	of different languages.	 A
Latinate bias is given by using	Spanish	(a language derived from Latin)	as the
check language in determining which Latin borrowings are international in
nature;	a reasonable alternative would have been to use	languages from several
families to determine international nature of a	word, and to verify that some
form of	the root is recognized in the 'scientific languages':  French, German,
and Russian (as	well as	English).
  Numerous biases remain that were criticized in earlier versions of the
language and the book, such as in the use of "madzo" (make...from...) as the ba-
sis for	causal metaphors, as in	"mormao" (dead-make = kill).  Also, while Brown
has ostentatiously incorporated	gender-less pronouns and excluded gender-based
grammar, his language examples,	are sexist (e.g., he uses the words for	"man"
and "woman" in examples	throughout the book where gender is unimportant, instead
of the gender-less words for "human" and "person"; or the gender-less occupa-
tions "teacher", "worker" would	have served as well).
  This is to be	a language for man-machine interaction,	but numerous
inconsistencies	in its rules and algorithms for	name-building, complex-building
and pronunciation will prevent progress	towards	this end.  Linguistic errors and
descriptive conflicts have made	themselves known even in the pronunciation
guides.
  There	is no index; for a scientific work of this size, this is a sore
omission.  In addition,	many references	in the text are	missing	from the

				       5
bibliography, making follow-up difficult.  The organization of the book, which
appears	to build from simple structures	to complex ones, is good for teaching or
for reading straight through from front	to back.  For a	reference work,	it is
poor, especially since Brown often diverges from the main point	of a section,
explaining related concepts that a reference reader would expect to find in
different sections.  The allocation of material	on the word structures of the
language between chapter 2 (on pronunciation and word forms) and chapter 6
(word-making) is incomprehensible.  Only by reading the	two chapters together,
skipping the intervening text on the grammar, can one see the complete picture
Brown intends to present; but then the contradictions between the two chapters
stand out more strongly.
  Adding to the	confused organization, several cross-references	were not updated
to match the new edition; one is led all over the book trying to find related
information.
  The heavy use	of old references and spotty mention of	recent linguistic works
suggests that Brown has	not maintained the current linguistic scholarship needed
in a project of	this scope; for	example, his footnote and bibliographic	ref-
erences	regarding case grammar,	language universals, logic, formal semantics,
phonetics, and natural language	grammar	date almost entirely from before 1970.
  To scholars, the book	is a disappointment.  Brown often does not defend his
ideas, but merely states them.	For example, he	states his disagreement	with
Chomsky's transformational grammar, thereby alienating many American linguists,
but uses only his own unpublished experience as	a basis	for his	claims,	saying
that he	has not	observed evidence supporting Chomsky's positions.  Since Brown
references none	of Chomsky's works from	later than 1963, it isn't clear	that
Brown knows those works	enough to criticize them.
  Brown	evidences little scientific detachment.	 He develops some truly
marvelous notions at various points in his exposition, but often appears too
self-impressed with their virtuosity.  Examples	include	his discussions	of
unambiguous syntax within metaphor; his	recurring references to	his theories
about metaphor,	thought, and the evolution of language (which may be interesting
and even valid,	but are	not yet	generally accepted and in any case are
irrelevant to his language description); and the enormous significance he at-
taches to having a few people haltingly	speaking a now-obsolete	version	of the
language back in 1977.	He compares this latter	feat favorably with the	fluent
speech of 30,000 to 100,000 Esperantists (these	numbers	are disputably low
unless they refer only to fully	bilingual speakers); Esperantists claim	as many
as 1 million speakers in China alone.
  Finally, while Loglan	has many features that optionally accommodate structures
and ideas from a variety of natural languages, one gets	tired of being reminded
of this	in every section.  In a	language description alone, Brown's repetitive
congratulation of the language design is merely	distracting; but since the book
also purports to be a scientific work, this tone is unseemly and detracting.
Scientists are likely to be less than impressed	when someone like Brown	seems
forced to 'blow	his own	horn'.
  Concluding the evaluation of the book	as a language description, we note that
inconsistencies	range from the spelling	and place structures of	his word lists
as compared with each other and	the text, to apparent grammatical conflicts that
cannot be resolved without the missing formal grammar.	Clearly, the book fails
to properly describe the language in a manner that makes it useful for the
typical	reader.

  By external standards	of quality for technical prose,	Brown fares badly.
Though Brown's enthusiastic though pedantic style (which does at times capture
the reader totally) occasionally obscures them,	all manner of errors can be
easily found in	both his language design and his writing.  Let us categorize
these errors by	type with a few	examples:
  - Editorial nits that	affect understanding - including duplicate footnote
numbers	and a type-face	that makes it almost impossible	to find	footnotes in the
text, and the cross-reference errors mentioned above.
  - Major Editorial Flaws - including inconsistencies in Loglan	words and place
structures, the	lack of	an index, the omission of bibliographic	entries, and an
outline	that divides closely-related material between Chapters 2 and 6 in a hap-
hazard way (leading to many contradictions).

				       6
  - Pervasive Lack of Clarity and Inconsistencies in his Rules and Practices,
suggesting errors of fact or analysis -	There are numerous errors in his
algorithms, and	several	places where his examples violate rules	found elsewhere,
while many of his examples are so contrived that they fail to suggest actual
usage.	His pronunciation guides are vague and self-contradictory, especially
his use	of /eigh/ as in	"mayo" for 'e' before vowels (cf. /ay/ for 'ei'), two
contrary pronunciations	of 'oi', and a mis-identification of the sound of his
'w' as /eu/ instead of the standard /ue/.
  - Errors of Omission - We've mentioned the missing formal grammar description,
but at least Brown tells you it	is not there.  Looking at his list of structure
words in the Appendix, though, there are several words that we haven't found
discussed in the text.	A reader constantly is looking for some	piece of
information or another that can't be found in the section being	read.  It may be
elsewhere, but will go unnoticed until too late	without	an index.
  - Errors of Scientific Fact and Linguistic Principle - such as his description
of /x/ as a "voiced h",	haphazard mixing of voiced and unvoiced	consonants in
clusters with no allowance for assimilation, and the statistical comparison of
Loglan speech to Esperanto.  Brown's intermittent linguistic errors throughout
the book suggest that his general knowledge of linguistics is uneven and spo-
radic, making all of his claims	that touch on linguistic theory	suspect.
  - Failure in Currency	- Beyond general linguistic error, the use of old
references suggests that much of the linguistic	knowledge Brown	draws on is
outdated; as an	example, Brown cites only Fillmore's original paper on case
grammar	as a basis for the development of an optional case system, suggesting
that Brown is unaware of the enormous developments in case theory since	then.  A
reviewer of an earlier edition (Zwicky,	1969) called some of Brown's ideas
"ante-diluvian".  He may have been right.
  - Failures of	Analysis - his theories	of potentiality	of tense-less usage are
either poorly explained	or they	break down with	rudimentary examples (by his
explanation, it	would appear that "da mrenu" translated	as "he is a man" is true
for females as well as males of	most any age - since this is a potentiality
achievable through a specific steps, i.e. a sex-change operation).  Of course,
Brown ignores his theory in almost every tense-free translation	except in the
one section in which it	is discussed.
  Brown	also inconsistently applies a philosophy for interpreting metaphors that
ignores	place structures of the	components, and	commits	errors and incon-
sistencies in set and mass description.	 Brown reveals careless	change without
proper analysis	in his non-intuitive (so he admits) right-grouping of vowels
which was changed only after looking only at a skewed set of scientific	bor-
rowings	that end in 'i'.
  Similarly, his new rules for joining borrowings can result in	complex	words
that break up in more than one way ("protonynerji" can mean "proton-energy" or
"produce-twist-energy"), and he	now permitting "la" at the beginning of	names in
the face of obvious counter-examples ("Pi,e'r, LaPla's,	mrenu" spoken aloud, can
mean either "Pierre!  LaPlace is a man"	or "Pierre LaPlace! Be a man!").
  - Bombast - Brown's self-impressed tone, his attitudes towards defending his
academic scholarship, his statements about "Institute Policy" regarding	word-
making and approval, his miniscule scientific corpus as	a demonstration	a
comprehensive and usable language, and the formal grammar that he is maintaining
as a trade secret; these reveal	a presumption that scientists and other	users of
his ideas (and those of	the other contributors to the language)	must (and will)
abide by his rules and attitudes.
  - Major Conceptual Errors - including	his culturally biased use of 'h' to
solve borrowing	problems, his use of a Latinate	language for identifying
International Scientific Vocabulary roots, and his inadequate analysis of the
Sapir-Whorf testing problem.

  Brown	fails one other	standard, that of the Loglan Project goals he first set
forth in his June, 1960	Scientific American article.  He has abandoned
audiovisual isomorphism	(the use of "rr" and haphazard use of pauses are
examples), incorporated	major cultural biases, and perhaps most	importantly,
taught that word-making	in a predicate language	is primarily a morphological
problem, rather	than a serious question	of place structures and	semantics.

				       7
  Although Dr. Brown has put a lot of hard work	into this book and into	the
language, the result bears the signs of	an extreme rush	to publish.  This is
sad.  Dr. Brown's good ideas are lost amidst the confusion.

  To summarize:	 Imagine the Mona Lisa - beautiful hair, eyes and enigmatic
smile -	but with a crooked nose	and blackened teeth, and structures in the
background that	are out	of proportion.	It wouldn't be a masterpiece; a	scholar
would recognize	the promise, but the errors would be too glaring to accept the
painting as a work of art.
  In the same way, the L1 errors are too great for the scope he	intends.  If he
had written a small book that didn't intend such comprehensive coverage, some of
these could be ignored.	 But in	a work of this scope, they can't be.  If an
artist can't, or won't,	learn perspective, no version of the painting will ever
be a great work	of art.
  Dr. Brown clearly intended this work to be his Magnum	Opus.  Alas, he	achieved
only a big work.

				   Important!
   The preceding is an abbreviated analysis.  Detailed supporting criticisms
  are in a longer review in preparation, which will be available on request.
     We	are also soliciting additional and alternative viewpoints; we will
	    collect these and make them	publicly available as well.


	     Editorial on L1 - What Does it Mean to la lojbangirz.
			       by Bob LeChevalier

  The older, 3rd edition of L1,	a product of the years of thought and experience
that JCB has invested in the Loglan project, has been invaluable in explaining
the ideas and philosophies behind the various language features.  Regardless of
the fact that I've believed the	Institute version of Loglan to be obsolete, I've
found several people who have benefitted from examining	those ideas and	philoso-
phies as a key to understanding.  An updated version, documenting the results of
another	decade of work by the community, would indeed have been	a valuable re-
source for furthering the discussion of	the language.  Unfortunately, the 4th
edition	is so flawed that I cannot use or recommend it for this	purpose.
  It would obviously have been better for the Institute	and its	version	of
Loglan had the 4th edition been	well-done, but it would	also have been better
for Lojban.  Both efforts would	benefit	from a clear statement of underlying
principles and philosophy such as L1 was apparently intended to	be.  It	would
have allowed the two versions to be compared on	their merits.  I believe that
Lojban has enormous improvements over the Institute's various versions of Loglan
in all of the technical	areas criticized, and the result would have demonstrated
this to	everyone concerned.
  (Incidentally, our two versions of Loglan differ primarily in	word choice,
which is why the philosophy and	ideas of L1 are	valuable.  Most	of the Institute
test corpus, by	simple word substitution, would	parse the same way by our
grammar	- though possibly not in reverse:  we have made	some (mostly subtle)
changes	and improvements.  Although I wouldn't willingly choose	it, the	strife
of the past few	years has benefitted us	by forcing us to rethink many ideas that
would have gone	un-analyzed, which is why Lojban is so much an improvement over
the old	language versions, rather than merely a	set of word substitutions.)
  But L1 is now	published, and is honestly so bad that I want to cry for JCB.
His pride and the undoubtedly large financial investment that he has made in
publishing and printing	costs probably make it impossible for him to withdraw
the book from publication, accept comments from	us and others, and re-issue it;
this would be the best overall for the project.
  I want to cry	for us,	the community, too.  Because whether the book sells or
fails, JCB will	feel forced to press on	to vindicate himself, not realizing that
his satisfactory place in history is better assured based on the first 20 years
of the project,	when virtually alone he	brought	a germ of an idea to flourishing
life.
  I've compared	Loglan to a child, which JCB raised to adulthood, but refused to
allow to leave the nest.  A better analogy is that the Father of Loglan	set
forth the seed of the language,	and the	last 15	years have been	the gestation

				       8
leading	to the current true birth of the language.  If we can work productively
with JCB, we will take pride upon completion of	a hard labor, and together enjoy
watching and helping the child grow up.
  I feel that la lojbangirz., its members and its correspondents, as members of
the Loglan community, have the right and the responsibility to participate in
the peer evaluation of such a significant work as L1.  We are working separately
on a common scientific project,	and progress requires a	certain	degree of
impartial cooperation.	(We do not subscribe to	the idea that la lojbangirz. is
a business competitor of The Loglan Institute.)	 In fact, the need to respond to
a work such as L1 is greater because the poor overall quality of the work, if
unanswered, will reflect on the	community as a whole.
  Half of our subscribers date from before I split with	the Institute, and many
of these have sat back and waited.  Some have told me that you are waiting to
see which language will	win out.  Others have been waiting, out	of respect for
JCB, for this long-promised "Going Public Again".
  We urge those	who have been waiting for the 'GPA' to act now;	it is time to
make your evaluations.	If you have access to a	copy of	L1, and	would like to
see the	full text of our critique (of which the	above review is	a brief
summary), please write or call and we will send	it to you.
  Now is the time to get involved.  If you have	time and or money, you can
support	both of	our efforts; it	doesn't	hurt us, especially if you've been
inactive.  la lojbangirz. (and Lojban) is strong enough	to survive and prosper
even with two ongoing scientific efforts.  There is some consideration of
splitting limited resources among these	separate efforts - a single united
effort would progress more quickly - but any increase in overall loglandic
activity helps move the	project	along.
   Of course, if you are disposed to choosing between the two efforts, I very
strongly urge you to choose la lojbangirz.  We are growing in activity and in
opportunities to use Lojban to interact	with others.  We will continue to move
into the future, beyond	L1. Please help	the child grow up.

			      Other Institute News

In addition to L1, JCB has issued a price list of other	products included as
part of	his 'GPA', or 'Going Public Again'.
  The products include several promised	for years to be	part of	GPA, as	well as
others that appear to have been	added based on our offerings or	announced plans.
(Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.)	As noted above in the review,
the details of his design will remain a	trade secret until publication of Loglan
6, which he indicates may be at	least a	year away.  (The trade secret claim
comes from a letter that went only to 'aficionados' who	signed an earlier
secrecy	agreement.)
  Institute products include updates to	Glen Haydon's old MacTeach programs.
(JCB promised perpetual	free updates to	buyers of this program,	but is now
charging $10 and you have to send your old disk	in.)  He is also offering
'MacTeach 2b' for the MacIntosh; from its description, this is believed	to be
essentially identical to our Mac Lojflash except for the word lists - though JCB
is inexplicably	charging $5 more in price.  Since this program allows you to
type your own word lists in, we'll gladly help save you	the money.
  JCB has also announced a new version of LIPtm	(a unneeded trademark that we
don't object to).  The formal grammar is not included with this	purchase and is
hidden from users, making this product relatively useless; you don't know what
might be valid input, and can't	easily or usefully interpret failures.	(If you,
like us, are familiar with YACC	parsers	and with JCB's earlier grammars, you can
probably eventually find all these details by systematic experimentation, but it
isn't worth the	effort.)
  A random sentence generator is apparently inspired by	Nora's program.	 No
details	are given.
  The Institute	is cutting its price for membership in half, to	$25/per	year.
Benefits include the occasional	publication 'Lognet'.  The Institute also has
announced a dictionary for this	winter,	but indicates that this	publication date
is heavily dependent on	getting	volunteers.  It	is believed that the dictionary
format will be similar to that used in the word	lists for L1, a	minimal	format
that provides no semantics and abbreviated place structures that are defined
only by	ambiguous prepositions.

				       9
  Lastly, JCB discusses	the possibility	of providing 5-day training workshop,
for which you would pay	air-fare, supply your own local	transportation,	and pay
an additional $300-$500.  These	are for	'prepared loglanists', so he probably
expects	you to have previously bought and used L1, MacTeach, LIP, and other
products, before attending.
  (You can save	a lot of money if you can come to DC; I	suspect	that by	winter
this household will be a full-time Lojban workshop, and	we'll be happy to trade
teaching for your help.)

			 On Sailing - and a Correction

JCB, in	a personal note	to Nora	(not to	me), asked for me to correct a 'false
impression' that I gave	last issue.  I reported	that I had heard that JCB had
gone sailing for a month, and that I had no news of L1's publication.  JCB
claims to have sent it to the printer before leaving on	this trip, and that my
statement implied that he had not kept his promise to not sail before the book
was done.
  Nora's order,	requested in mid-May, was not shipped until the	last day of
July.  To me, a	book that is sold by pre-order isn't 'done' until those	orders
are being shipped (the product offering	indicated a shipping date shortly after
the beginning of June).
  To explain my	LK9 announcement, on the day I was doing the final printout of
LK9, I received	a call from my lawyer.	(Those who are new to la lojbangirz.
need to	know that JCB had threatened us	with legal action over our use of the
name 'Loglan' in March 1988.  As reported in LK8, Jeff Prothero	- who was also
threatened - and I submitted a proposed	settlement of our disputes with	the
Institute in February.)	 This call from	my lawyer reported that	JCB had	written
to his lawyer, rejecting our proposal without comment or counter-proposal.  JCB
further	said that he was going sailing for at least a month and	would not be
reachable.
  I tried to confirm the situation with	the #2 person in the Institute,	Glen
Haydon;	he had not heard from JCB in months and	knew nothing about L1, (though
he is listed as	a critical reader).  Faced with	no solid information, I	simply
reported what I	knew, figuring that those who knew of JCB's promise not	to sail
before the book	was done, would	infer, like I did, that	he had kept his	promise.
The following day, I was able to find someone to whom JCB had reported the
completion of L1, but LK9 had already gone to press.  The actual product
announcement came out a	week later.
  To anyone who	felt misled by my statements as	to JCB's performance of	his
promise, I apologize.  I urge that JCB be more forthright in the future	about
what is	going on, so that future misunderstandings are avoided.	 We have always
committed to publishing	news from the Institute	in full, and JCB has our
continued promise to keep you informed,	should he submit such news to us.

	       la lojbangirz. files to cancel 'Loglan' trademark

  (For those unfamiliar	with it, the history of	our dispute with The Loglan
Institute, Inc.	and with JCB, is primarily one of intellectual property	and
control	of the fate of the language.  Does the language	belong to the inventor
who conceived of it, the organization he founded, to the hundreds of people who
have contributed ideas,	work, and money	over the years since, or to the	people
who use	the language?  Our position is that all	of these share in 'owning'
Loglan in its various versions.	 JCB disagrees.	 We can	supply additional
details	of our positions upon request, including documentary evidence and legal
background.)
  As indicated in the last article, JCB	waited 2 1/2 months to respond,	and then
gave no	evidence of intent to negotiate	an end to our disagreements over the use
of the word 'Loglan' (which he has claimed as an Institute trademark for
'dictionaries and grammars', not a language.)  Since JCB was going sailing for
at least a month, and his lawyer was going to be out of	the country for	a month
after that, we interpreted the events of the last few months as	an attempt to
stall a	settlement, possibly until after L1 came out.
  Faced	with no	prospect for a quick negotiated	settlement, the	la lojbangirz.
Board of Directors decided that	we could afford	to delay no longer, and	we filed
a Petition for Cancellation of the Institute trademark with the	US Patent and

				       10
Trademark Office in late May, claiming grounds that "the registration was
fraudulently procured, the mark	is the common descriptive mark,	or is merely
descriptive of the goods, and/or that the mark has been	abandoned" through non-
continuous commercial use, encouragement of derivative terms such as "loglanist"
and "loglandic", failure to police use of the term by others over a several year
period,	and statements that may	have placed the	entire language	irrevocably in
the public domain.  The	claim of fraud is that JCB knowingly included incomplete
and false data on his application, and that he apparently had no authorization
from the Institute Board of Directors to file the application.
  la lojbangirz. has a stronger	case that the trademark	is damaging to its
commercial interests (the basis	for trademark rights) than either Prothero or I
have as	individuals; la	lojbangirz. is trying to promote Lojban	and occasionally
needs to refer to the historical name of the project to	describe our efforts and
to reach the millions who may have heard of the	language under that name.
  The drawback of filing, though, is that we have directly involved the
organization in	the dispute, and have subjected	our expenses to	the 30%	adminis-
trative/legal limit called for in our bylaws.  This isn't expected to be a
problem.  We will avoid	allowing legal fees to draw resources away from	pro-
ductive	uses; the Board	also approved a	resolution allowing only donations
specifically earmarked for legal fees to be used for legal expenses.  Jeff
Prothero and I have committed to making	such donations as are needed, in
addition to our	regular	support	of the group.  But we also remember that, if
this dispute were resolved, these funds	could go to much more productive use.
  We will continue to hope that	JCB decides to resume negotiations and to settle
this dispute quickly, in the positive and cooperative spirit of	our editorial
above.	The trademark cancellation process is a	long, drawn-out	one that will
distract and drain both	of our efforts,	though JCB will	suffer more from this
since he has done less preparatory work	than we	have.
  We've	avoided	discussing the legal issue in these pages; most	of you aren't
that interested.  The issue is vital to	our rapid growth, yet doesn't actually
threaten to stop Lojban	from going forward; there is no	threat to us primarily
because	we have	chosen to fight	(if we hadn't, JCB could have taken ever more
aggressive positions until we either fought or gave up our effort completely; we
believe	JCB has	been using this	tactic since before the	trademark battle
started, including in earlier disputes with his	own Board of Directors and with
Jeff Prothero, Nora, and I, over copyrights).  Moreover, there are principles of
intellectual freedom at	stake, principles we cannot afford to abandon.
  We'll	report future developments, hopefully positive ones; the legal dispute
will, however, take second place to our	primary	effort to make Lojban
successful.  The la lojbangirz.	Board welcomes your comments and questions on
these issues, if you are interested.  Otherwise, enough	of these distractions!



	   Report on LogFest 89	and the	1989 Annual Business Meeting

  LogFest 89 was at least as successful	as earlier meetings, though we had a
drop in	attendance.  Instead, those who	came were more strongly	committed to and
knowledgeable of the language.	In addition, except for	the DC class, almost all
attendees were from out-of-town, enhancing LogFest's image as a	non-local event.
In contrast, previous years with higher	attendance included more local people
who came out of	curiosity to find out what was happening (which	was good - some
of these, such as Athelstan, have taken	their place among the la lojbangirz.
leadership)
  Main events included a lengthy discussion of testing the Sapir-Whorf
hypothesis, led	by Ralph Dumain, Dr. John Parks-Clifford (pc), and Athelstan.
We'll report on	these discussions in JL10.
  The DC class put on the 'Cinderelwood' skit written by Nora and published in
JL9; it	is the longest piece of	Lojban ever written (some of Jim Carter's works
in old Loglan were longer; we will soon	be updating these to the current
language with Jim C.'s blessing).  The performance was as humorous as the skit;
we didn't have much rehearsal time.  But everyone had fun, and even those who
had not	started	learning the language were able	to follow what was going on
between	words and actions - finding much of the	Lojban understandable in such a
context.

				       11
  More significantly, old Loglan apprentice Brad Lowry and new Lojbanist Elliot
Deal came down from Philadelphia and recorded much of the activities for the
Lojban mini-video, which we hope to first present at Worldcon.	Every attendee
was given the chance to	'tell the world' what attracted	them to	Lojban,	and we
got a lot of good footage.
  There	were several side meetings (including discussions of place structure
changes	and a couple of	baseline changes - see the R&D section below - as well
as mini-tutorials, and just plain gab sessions among people with many common
interests.  Art	Wieners	brought	his Lojban-speaking computer down (I don't think
it's named Sam), and people played with	teaching programs, the random sentence
generator, and the test	version	of the parser.	Athelstan suffered through the
weekend	with severe poison ivy,	but was	able to	participate, more or less, in
all of the activities.
  We also held the annual business meeting of la lojbangirz. at	LogFest, at
which Athelstan	and fellow DC-class member Albion Zeglin were added to the
Board.	Athelstan has been frequently mentioned	in these pages for his
contributory work; Albion joined us in January and wants to teach Lojban to
children as one	of his goals.  We also added John Hodges as a voting member of
la lojbangirz.	(In a sense, all of you	are members, but we have to maintain an
official entity.)  John, who has single-handedly put together the successful
Blacksburg VA class since May, declined	to serve on the	Board, since he	is non-
local and can be difficult to reach by telephone.
  Other	Board members and officers were	re-elected.  I remain as President, pc
as Vice	President, and Nora as Secretary/Treasurer.  Jeff Taylor, who is leading
the parser work, and Tommy Whitlock, who did much of the research in building
our gismu list,	also remain as regular Board members.  All of us are interested
in your	opinions on both technical and organizational matters.	We will	listen
to you!	 (Letters to me	are shared with	other Board members, but I will	supply
address	to anyone who wants to write to	them directly.)
  Next year the	annual meeting will be moved to	Sunday morning,	when it	will
interfere less with the	main activities, which are to work with	and use	the
language.  I've	also committed to improve the air conditioning for next	year.
Several	dozen people generate a	lot of heat (hot air?),	and Washington DC isn't
noted for being	cool in	June.  (I'm also going to move the TV downstairs to give
us more	distraction-free meeting space.)
  Mark it on your calendar NOW.	 The 3rd weekend in June 1990.	We expect to
have much larger attendance, and some entirely-in-Lojban sessions, next	year.
We hope	to see you there.


			    Research and Development

  Grammar Changes Proposed - Last issue	reported that a	number of minor	issues
had cropped up in the grammar.	As we've gone through the exercise of textbook
writing, we've discovered that little things that we thought were covered by the
machine	grammar	didn't work.
  Many of these	problems were holdovers	caused by our basing part of our machine
grammar	on ideas in the	old Institute grammar.	That grammar was developed using
a corpus of individual test sentences devised to reflect how JCB thought the
language should	work.  The sentences were 'constructed', and not natural.  It
has long been easy to find examples from JCB's writings	that would not parse the
way his	grammar	suggested.  (There is at least one sentence in the new L1 that
seems very unlikely to parse, though we	of course don't	have JCB's grammar to
check this with.)
  As Lojban usage has grown, we've felt	constant pressure to expand the	realm of
possible Lojban	sentences.  For	example, just the other	day in a letter	from
John Hodges reporting on the Blacksburg	class, he closed the letter "*?co'o lemi
re pendo ku".  (Goodbye! My two	friends...; the	asterisk means that the	text is
currently ungrammatical, but the question mark indicates that the grammatical
status may change.)  Under the current grammar,	this is	invalid	- vocatives take
only names, incomplete descriptions, and anaphora (pronouns).  In the example
above, John has	used a vocative	with a complete	description sumti, which we
don't now allow.
  There	is only	one way	to express what	he tried under the current grammar, the
stilted-to-English-speakers "co'o re pendo po mi" (Goodbye, two	friends	of

				       12
mine!).	 However, given	John's example,	it was easy to come up with something
needed but disallowed by the current grammar:  "*co'o. bab. .e noras.".	 There
is no valid way	to put an 'and'	in a vocative, and especially one based	on
names.	Thus, we added provision that a	vocative can take any sumti, although le
and la and their cmavo relatives will be left off names	and descriptions when
simple vocatives are used.  The	result is "*?co'o la bab. .e la	noras."
  There	are other examples of things that needed changing, mostly oversights.
We had never added a rule allowing a bare "coi"	vocative with no name, although
probably every Lojbanist who has used the language has used this vocative.
  Several months ago, pc had proposed a	re-examination of our elidible
terminator set in hopes	of making it easier to teach and use.  When examining
the grammar, I came up with some simplifications to the	grammar	with only a
little work.
  Of the proposed changes, it is these elidible	terminator changes that	most
affect students	in the early lessons.  Most significant	is that	"kei" will only
be used	to terminate lexeme NU abstractions; "ke'e" will be used to terminate
"ke" constructs.  (This	makes the text definition of "kei" in the LogFlash and
gismu lists incorrect, and will	require	us to eventually add an	entry for "ke'e"
with a rafsi, but these	are minor changes that will probably not be implemented
until the textbook is done.)
  Besides the terminator changes, almost every other change is an expansion of
what is	permissibly said in Lojban.
  Finally, events demanded a change.  Athelstan	decided	to USE the language
creatively, translating	a short	story by Saki.	Trying to capture Saki's
literary style,	Athelstan quickly found	several	constructs that	seemed perfectly
reasonable, but	which weren't allowed.	They were easy to add, but we now need a
new version of the parser to be	able to	test his translations.
  It isn't fair	to expect people to learn the language if we change things
haphazardly, even though the grammar is	not yet	finalized.  We decided last
spring that, except for	emergency problems and changes that don't really affect
use(that haven't happened), we'll use our post-baseline	procedures, especially
seeking	input from active students of the language who would be	affected by the
change.
  We decided to	seek input from	everyone who we	know to	have finished Lesson 3
of the grammar,	based on your actually having USED the language	and written
something to us.  Proposed changes have	virtually no effect until Chapter 3, and
only a fraction	of the areas affected are covered by the end of	Lesson 6.  A
description of the grammar changes, often fairly minor and technical, simply
won't mean much	to anyone who hasn't studied that far (although	we'll send a
copy to	anyone who asks; those who can read and	understand the machine grammar -
and have a copy	- may be able to work through the changes).
  Since	I was writing up a proposal, I collected together all the fine-tunings
of the last few	months.	 The DC	class spent a session going over the grammar
behind the changes, and	the changes themselves,	and has	agreed the changes are
worth the minor	relearning effort.  They also made some	useful suggestions for
improving the proposal which were added.
  By the time you get this, people will	already	be reviewing the changes.  Jeff
Taylor is trying to complete a parser with the changes before we go to Worldcon,
but in any case	before we get back.  We	are asking for review comments to be
returned within	a few weeks, and approval of the changes with any required
modifications will probably occur by mid-September, which is when we are plan-
ning to	send out JL10.
  Upon approval, we will send a	description of the changes as they affect the
published lessons to all level 3 people	(and others who	have received textbook
lessons	that are affected).  We	will also send updated machine grammars	to all
those of level 3 who have the current machine grammar, as well as to level 2
people with positive balances and the machine grammar.	(The existing machine
grammar	is quite usable	for understanding the basic grammar architecture, so we
will continue to send copies to	those who order	them.)
  There	are corresponding minor	changes	to the complete	cmavo list as well, so
we've delayed sending out a 1 or 2 page	update to that list until after	the
approval.
  Hopefully, this will be the last set of grammar changes before the textbook is
completed (early 1990).	 At that point,	we'll probably have a few more,	and then
the review period will start.  We now anticipate a grammar freeze will be

				       13
decided	at the 1990 LogFest, to	take effect when the 6 month post-textbook
review period ends if no additional problems have surfaced.
  Parser Status	- Other	than the grammar changes, the test version of the parser
has proven quite useful	in testing people's early Lojbanic writings.  We haven't
solved the problems mentioned last issue, but the grammar change proposal works
around the worst problems.
  Jeff Prothero	has done some more work	with PLOP, the alternative recursive
descent	parser.	 PLOP does not have a YACC parser's problems with certain
combinations of	elidibles, since it can	backtrack and correct its confusion, but
recursive descent is much slower on long text.	(Jeff Taylor's parser can
process	a full page of Lojban text in less than	10 seconds, much faster	than a
human can read it.)  We	hope to	merge Jeff Taylor's lexer with PLOP after the
new grammar change is incorporated.
  I'm hoping that we can start selling one or both parsers by LK11 in November.
(PLOP is also public domain, and Jeff Prothero will send a copy	to anyone who
asks, though it	has minimal use	until the lexer	is added.  I'll	supply his
address	to anyone on request.)
  Baseline Changes - LogFest approved exactly one change to the	gismu list
baseline, which	is now a full year old,	and that change	is minor.  The keyword
for "mukti" will be changed from "purpose" to "motive" to eliminate confusion
about the meaning of the word.	Something can be a 'motive' without being a
'purpose', and quite often the purpose resulting from a	motive is expressed as
part of	the x2 place of	"mukti".  Since, as may	be obvious, the	word "mukti"
actually derives from "motive",	the change should be easy to assimilate.
  We will not be changing the published	gismu lists at this point, nor LogFlash.
The approved change will be made in the	textbook, and the other	publications
will be	updated	in a few months	when the textbook is completed.	 Those with
flash cards can	make the change	manually if you	choose,	as can those willing to
use a text editor on the data file for Mac LojFlash.
  Other	Research News -	JL9 suggested a	proposed experiment in measuring the
actual learnability of Lojban words and	whether	there is an correlation	with
recognition scores.  We	need volunteers	who will commit	to using a special
version	of the LogFlash	program	DAILY (or as close as possible)	until they have
gone through the words at least	once and preferably twice.  You	should not have
used LogFlash before, and we need to know whether you have used	any other means
to study either	the Lojban words or the	old Loglan words.
  On pc's request, we are also planning	an experiment with the next few	classes
that start, asking them	to take	a standardized test that will allow us to learn
more about Lojban's possible effect on thought.	 This isn't a Sapir-Whorf test,
but it is a precursor that will	help researchers decide	how a Sapir-Whorf effect
might be detected.
  In another arena, Athelstan is making	translations from a variety of works in
different styles from English, and will	shortly	be trying some non-English
materials - probably Old Norse and ancient Greek.  These translations will
demonstrate Lojban's versatility as a language.	 Athelstan is attempting to
capture	the subtle stylistic variations	in each	language and author as part of
the translation	effort,	thereby	putting	our grammar through its	paces.
  A few	changes	to place structures were discussed and agreed upon at LogFest;
we are seeking additional inputs in this area.	We have	also made a few	changes
without	organized discussion while writing textbook lessons; the LogFest changes
were those that	involved some question as to which concept actually was	intended
to be represented by the gismu.	 I would estimate that about 30-40 place
structures have	changed	in the course of the one year since the	gismu list was
frozen.	 Since we have not frozen the place structures,	this seems like
excellent stability.
  Nora completed her version of	a lujvo-making program just before publication.
We've found that the proposed scoring algorithm	is not optimal;	she doesn't like
the choices it makes.  We will probably	test variations	on the algorithm over
the next month or two, while ensuring that the program works.  DC and Blacksburg
students may play with a teaching version of the program.  It should be
available for others with MS-DOS computers by LK11.


			      Growth and Publicity


				       14
  Athelstan's Trip Cancelled - As mentioned above, Athelstan contracted	a severe
case of	poison ivy the day before LogFest.  He was able	to attend LogFest, but
was laid up in bed for most of the next	week.  This allowed other problems to
crop up, and the result	was that he cancelled his trip to Los Angeles and
various	intermediate stops in June and July.
  We tried to contact the several people who had volunteered to	organize
meetings or supply sleeping space, so we hope that noone was left waiting with-
out knowing what happened.  Your response was great!  The stimulus of the trip
also served to get some	signs of community activity started in Seattle,
Portland, LA, Dallas, and Salt Lake City, and we are hoping to see this
increase.
  Worldcon Details - We've finalized our plans for the World Science Fiction
Convention - Noreascon III in Boston around Labor Day.	Nora, Athelstan, and I
will be	leaving	on the night of	30 August; Tommy Whitlock may also be coming
with us, or may	travel separately due to work schedule limitations.
  We hope to stop briefly in Troy NY on	the morning of Thursday	the 31st to
visit Lojbanist	Mike Gunderloy,	whose Factsheet	Five review magazine has been
responsible for	about 50 new Lojbanists, making	him our	top recruiter.	(Thanks,
Mike!)	We also	may stop to meet with Bob Chassell in western Massachusetts,
especially if we can't meet with Mike.	In any event, we should	arrive in Boston
on Thursday afternoon.
  We will be staying at	the '57	Plaza Hotel', and Bostonians and convention
attendees should be able to leave messages for us there.  The room is in my name
(Bob LeChevalier).
  We are scheduled for four presentations during the weekend, designed to
attract	a variety of new people	to Lojban, and to educate the attendees	about
our project goals.  Athelstan is taking	the lead on making these presentations,
instead	of me, as he is	a better public	speaker.  Nora and I will handle
questions; we may also have local Boston Lojbanists and	others who are attending
help out in the	presentations.	On Friday night, we will have a	general
introductory talk.  On Saturday	night, we will discuss Lojban and Computers, in-
cluding	machine	translation and	AI applications, as well as what we've learned
about computer-aided instruction.  On Sunday morning, Athelstan	will conduct a
Lojban mini-lesson similar to the one he conducted successfully	at UNICON last
month (see "Other Publicity News" below).  On Sunday afternoon,	in the spirit of
an internationally-oriented convention,	we will	discuss	International Aspects of
Lojban,	including the efforts towards cultural neutrality, Sapir-Whorf testing,
the international language movement, and our efforts and problems in spreading
the word about Lojban in other countries.  We hope to recruit many non-USA
active Lojbanists at Worldcon.
  We will have a table in the main traffic hall, and access to side meeting
rooms where Athelstan may give additional mini-lessons as required.  We	hope to
keep this table	staffed	during as much of the convention as possible in	order to
maximize our educational and recruiting	opportunities; if it is	ready, we hope
to be running the Lojban mini-video to introduce people	to the language	(and to
save our voices).  Based on our	experience at smaller conventions, we may add
more than 100 Lojbanists to our	community.
  As time permits, we may meet outside the convention with local Boston-area
Lojbanists.  Nothing formal has	yet been arranged, but Lojbanist Chris Moriondo
is taking the lead on local arrangements.  Call	him at 508-481-9986 (home) or
508-870-8927 (work) to find out	details.
  Our best hopes for a larger group meeting are	on Monday night	and Tuesday
night, although	Monday is Labor	Day and	we may therefore have attendance
problems.  We can also hold smaller meetings in	various	parts of the Boston
metro area on Monday and Tuesday with groups or	individuals.  You can contact us
directly at my home number on page 1, by leaving a message at the hotel, or
talking	to Chris M.
  We would like	to meet	as many	Boston Lojbanists as possible (and maybe get you
started	learning the language -	Athelstan's mini-lesson	takes less than	an hour
and you	will be	able to	say some things	in Lojban on your own afterwards.)  A
letter will be sent to each Boston-are Lojbanist the week before Worldcon, to
remind you, give an update on plans, and hopefully increase your attendance.
  New York Visit; Other	Stops En Route from Worldcon? -	We plan	to leave the
Boston area Tuesday or Wednesday, travelling back via Rhode Island and Con-
necticut.  Wednesday and Thursday (5 & 6 September) will be spent in the New

				       15
York City area,	where we hope to have meetings with local Lojbanists.  Thursday
night, we hope to participate in a local science fiction meeting that several
Lojbanists attend.  We also may	spend Friday in	the northern New Jersey	area.
As noted in "Education"	below, we believe that interest	in the New York	City
area has risen to the level where a class is possible.	As with	Boston,	we plan
on sending out letters a week before we	leave, giving our plans.  The following
people are contacts for	our New	York visit:

Deb Wunder (Richmond Hill) 718-846-2014
Nancy Thalblum (Bronx) 212-543-8295
Art Wieners (NJ) 201-271-1483(h) and 201-949-2784(w) - Art may be hard to reach
  at home.

  We plan on spending part of the weekend of 8-9 September with	Nora's family,
and can	possibly meet with Philadelphia-area Lojbanists	then.  We have no
organizer in Philadelphia, but we will try to contact some of you while	there.
If you are interested in meeting with us, try calling us here before we	leave,
or leave a message for us with our New York City contacts.
  Lojban Video Plans - As mentioned in the LogFest report, Lojbanists Brad Lowry
and Elliot Deal	recorded several hours of LogFest activities.  They work
professionally in the video field, and hope to have a short loop videotape
edited from the	recordings in time for LogFest.	 This is a major boon for us;
even a few minutes of quality video would normally cost	us several hundred dol-
lars, and the video will be very helpful at conventions	where we have to say the
same things to hundreds	of people.  Depending on costs,	we may be able to have
copies for others who want to make presentations at conventions.  Contact me
after Worldcon for details.
  Hopefully the	recordings will	eventually be used to make a longer video
suitable for distribution to cable and public TV stations for broadcast.
Decisions on this will be made after the shorter video is done,	and we know how
well it	serves our audience.
  Other	Publicity News - We attended the UNICON	science	fiction	convention in
Maryland in mid-July.  In addition to our normal introductory talk, Athelstan
gave an	introductory mini-lesson to 8 people who showed	up for the 10:30 PM
event.	This was a nice	amount for an experiment at a 500 person convention,
especially if you  extrapolate to a convention of Worldcon size	(6000+ atten-
dees.  All 8 people completed the session an hour able to speak	simple sentences
in the language	on their own.  All 8 also expressed interest in	learning the
language, and have received lesson materials.  Three of	these live in the New
York City area,	which is why we	are especially interested in getting a class
started	now.
  Thanks to Mike Gunderloy, we have been contacted by a	Washington Post	reporter
who plans a full-length	feature	about Lojban.  This feature will likely	be
distributed over the Washington	Post/LA	Times news service to over 300 other
newspapers.  We	are hoping for this article to appear around the end of	August.
Keep an	eye out; if your local paper ever prints articles from this service, you
may give them a	call and ask them to look for the article - knowing there is a
local person interested	may increase their interest in including it.
  Mike G. has also put us in touch with	the Whole Earth	Review,	and we are
hoping to be reviewed therein; they contacted me just before this publication.
Mike is	also publishing	an ad for us in	the next issue of Factsheet Five, in
addition to his	regular	reviews.
  See "International News" below for status on non-English versions of the
brochure.
  The only bad news in the publicity front is that Analog was not interested in
an article at this time, although Editor Stanley Schmidt suggested that	we write
an explanatory 'letter to the editor' explaining what we are doing.  This will
be a priority after Worldcon.
  All of this going on suggests	that we	are about to receive a rapid spurt of
growth.	 As classes are	offered	in more	and more areas,	this growth will
accelerate.  It	is still reasonable to hope that we will top 1000 people by the
end of 1989, 100% growth in 4 months.


				   Education

				       16

  DC Lojban Class Nears	Completion (An Invitation to a Party - with Strings
Attached) - The	first DC-area class is now 7 months old.  We intended to finish
before LogFest but didn't really come close; I can't write the textbook	as fast
as I had hoped.	 Therefore the class took a month-and-a-half off, and has
resumed, though	in a somewhat reduced form, since a couple of class members can
no longer regularly attend, and	will finish the	course in self-study.  We have
had active attendance from 4 people besides Nora and myself, who are now only a
bit ahead of the class,	primarily in vocabulary.  There	are 2 others who are
possibly going to resume attending, making a total active class	size of	8.
  Because the textbook-writing hasn't kept pace	with the class,	we have	moved on
ahead, covering	large portions of the grammar very quickly.  We	have found that
the basics of the grammar have been covered by the end of Lesson 6, and	most of
the rest of the	class is learning 'bells and whistles' that give additional op-
tions, solve problems in special contexts, and of course, giving practice and
confidence in using the	languages.
  The class now	begins each session with conversation practice,	and everyone has
been pleasantly	surprised by how much they can say and understand.  We
reorganized the	topics being taught, in	order to allow the class to effectively
review the grammar change proposals.
  Given	two weeks off for the Worldcon trip, the class will finish in mid-Oc-
tober, although	Sunday night Lojban conversations may continue indefinitely.
  As a 'final exam', the class is being	asked to take at least a full page of
some text that interests them, and translate it.  The other half of the	test is
an evening party, tentatively scheduled	for the	weekend	of 5 November, in which
ONLY LOJBAN WILL BE SPOKEN.  ALL LOJBANISTS WHO	ARE WILLING TO ABIDE BY	THE
CONSTRAINTS ARE	INVITED, even if you aren't in the class.  We are especially
inviting the Blacksburg	class, if they can come	up, and	any other self-studiers
or class members.  (We may have	the party on the holiday weekend of 15 October
to enable people from out-of-town to come, but you must	let us know soon.)  Con-
tact us	in late	September or early October for final details.  People coming
from out-of-town can stay with us.  There will be some time for	socializing -
optionally in English -	before the party officially starts.
  Blacksburg Class Making Excellent Progress - The Blacksburg class may	well be
ready to participate in	the party.  5 students,	led by John Hodges, are	meeting
on a when-convenient basis, and	working	through	the lessons together.  At last
report they were finishing Lesson 3 and	should be into Lesson 4	by now,	although
some students are already using	more advanced concepts.
  Their	efforts	have demonstrated that the self-study class concept works.
Already, every member of the class is writing perfectly	grammatical Lojban
sentences of a sophistication at least sufficient for normal conversation on
simple subjects.  When their vocabulary	grows, they may	outpace	the learning
rate of	the DC class.  John H.,	the nominal 'class leader', has	had trouble
staying	ahead of the others, but is challenged rather than bothered.
  The Blacksburg group is making a major contribution to the textbook writing
effort;	their problems have told us what needs to be changed to	make the book
usable in this type of situation.  With	the DC class ahead of the textbook, they
are now	in the primary feedback	role for future	lessons.
  Other	Classes	- As indicated above, we are hoping to kick off	one or more
classes	in the New York	area, following	the emergence of a team	of people who
can collectively lead the class	and an infrastructure that could help the Lojban
community grow quickly.	 It turns out that, of the 40 people in	NYC, as	many as
half are associated with each other through a local science fiction fan	group;
Lojbanists Marc	Glasser	and Donna Camp are among the leaders of	this group.
  Classes still	haven't	started	elsewhere, though Boston should	get a big boost
towards	doing so from new recruits at Worldcon,	coupled	with our visit.	 Brooke
Albert is no longer able to lead a class, at least for a while.	 Linguist and
language instructor Chuck Barton remains willing to help in teaching a class,
but not	by himself.  We're hoping that Chris Moriondo, listed under the	Worldcon
plans above, will have the time	to help	in this	way, but other volunteers are
welcome	to step	forward.  There	are over 50 Lojbanists in the Boston metro area.
  Los Angeles, San Francisco, Portland,	and Seattle all	seem just on the point
of a class, but	haven't	started	to organize.  Contact your local leader, listed
in LK9 (or write us and	we'll put you in touch).  A correction on our LA
organizer, Rory	Hinnen:	 his phone number is actually 818-796-8096 (Pasadena).

				       17
  It takes only	two to have a self-study class together, and there are two such
in Salt	Lake City.  John Hodges	even built the Blacksburg class	by himself,
recruiting the other 4 to study	with him.  Lojban sells	itself,	and there are
lots of	people who will	respond	if you tell them what it is.
  We are already talking about the next	DC-area	class.	Athelstan will probably
be teaching it,	with us	helping	him when needed.  It may start as early	as a
couple of weeks	after the 1st class ends, in November, or we may wait until
after the New Year, when the holidays won't interfere -	though we'll ask people
who know they are going	to participate to get a	head start on learning the
vocabulary.
  Self-Teaching	Lojbanists - Jamie Bechtel, among many self-studiers, has
completed Lesson 6, and	has sent his Lesson 6 writing to us - the first	original
Lojban science fiction story.  We hope to have it in JL10.  He also attended
LogFest, where he was approximately at the same	skill level as the DC-class.
  Some 55 people total now have	received textbook lessons; it is presumed that
many, if not all of these, are actually	studying them.	We'd like more feedback
than we've gotten.  The	best feedback is usage,	and 14 Lojbanists have given us
reasonably grammatical 'running' Lojban	text (connected	thoughts longer	than one
sentence).  A few who haven't have gotten commentary to	help them in usage with
which they are having difficulty.
  Over 100 people now have a version of	LogFlash, and another 22 have Mac
LojFlash.  This	is not counting	people who have	gotten copies from others and
haven't	told us.  About	20 people have flash cards.
  Our self-studiers range across the globe, from Anchorage AK to Austria, and
shortly	to Italy as well.  We have 3 non-native	English	speakers learning the
language, including one	German,	one Italian, and one Estonian (which is	non-
Indo-European like Finnish, although heavily Europeanized).
  Textbook Status - Only 6 lessons of the textbook have	been completed,	as I've
had to handle never-ending distractions	for the	last few months, and was ill for
a while	from the stress.  Things are moving again and I'm well into Lesson 7.
  There	will be	an update lesson written, based	on the grammar change proposal,
when it	is approved.
  Now that people have been learning the language, we are thinking about the
final draft of the textbook.  We've had	enough feedback	to know	a few things:
  - many more examples and exercises are needed, especially in the early
lessons;
  - there are too many unconnected points taught in Lesson 1, confusing	people;
  - while the basic idea of the	Lojban bridi gets across to people in Lesson 3,
it is supposed to be understood	in Lesson 1 and	2.
  - the	final textbook will start out like Athelstan's mini-lesson, and	get you
saying things in the language early.  The delay	of conversation	until Lesson 10
was a mistake.	People want to be able to say things earlier; it helps their
motivation, and	in a classroom setting speeds up their learning	the vocabulary.
Unlike the theorists who say that it is	easier to get people to	write since
there is no pressure, the DC class reminded us that Americans are so out-of-the-
habit of writing that they find	it harder to write a paragraph on their	own than
to produce a sentence aloud;
  - discussion of terminators, especially "cu",	needs a	lot of clarification; so
does the entire	discussion of elision in Lesson	4;
  - an embarassing error - we recently noticed that sometime just before
creating the gismu baseline, we	changed	the meaning of rafsi "kun".  We	must
either change it back, or the word "kunbri" that has been used in many of our
teaching materials must	be changed - as	it is, it doeesn't mean	the intended
"empty-predicate".  Most likely, it will become	the x2 place of	bridi, and the
word for the concept that has been labelled "kunbri" will become "selbri".
(Comments welcome!)
  - a few topics taught	in later lessons need to be moved earlier, including
specification with "be"	and "bei", simple possessives, number brivla, using "e"
between	sumti, and using "je" in tanru (the last derives from observations made
by JCB in the revised L1, which	point out a common misunderstanding about tanru
that cannot be discussed without "je";
  - most importantly, people either aren't able	or willing to maintain the pace
we asked for in	vocabulary-building.  This is unfortunate because it is	the
critical path to fluent	speech.	 Even now, most	of the time spent in
conversation in	the DC class is	spent in looking up words because no one has

				       18
made it	into Maintenance mode in the vocabulary.  At even 10 words per day, they
should be through the words twice, but people aren't doing vocabulary drill
daily.	You cannot ever	really learn a language	without	at least this minimal
level of daily activity, but we	can't allow the	student/reader to be held up by
this.
  We will reorder the gismu list to fit	the new	outline	and to set a slower
pace.  The next	version	of LogFlash will have other changes, cutting the error
practices from 6 repetitions to	3; related changes will	speed up the first
Gaining	Control	pass through the words.
  We've	learned	that for most people, learning the words really	starts when you
get into Maintenance mode.  When you've	seen all the words once, you no	longer
have the long New Word lessons,	and can	go through the words twice as quickly.
  The first time through, it seems the best approach is	to get exposed to as
many words as possible as quickly as possible, learning	the ones you easily can.
More important though is to learn the range of the vocabulary so that you can
use the	English	to Lojban gismu	lists effectively; it is embarrassing to have to
say 'I didn't know that	was in the gismu list'.
  For most people, that	first time through Gaining Control simply takes	too long
to be effective.  Serious students can do 40-50	words a	day, but it takes at
least an hour a	day; few people	have made that kind of commitment, even	though
the time to master the words reduces to	only a couple of months	as a result.

  There	may be additional changes as we	hear from people who are using the draft
lessons.  Thus,	the next version of the	textbook will be much different	than the
current	one.  As our way of showing thanks to you who have started early, Nora
and I are committing to	donating funds to return half of what you've spent on
draft lesson materials as a credit on the textbook provided that 1) you	have
sent some writings or comments to us showing that you've actually used the mate-
rials, and 2) you have a positive voluntary balance (or	are reasonably close) at
the time when we start taking orders.


			       International News

  As indicated above, we now have people actively learning the language	in
Austria, and shortly in	Italy.	Patrick	Bar, a	native German speaker, recently
moved to Austria.  He is attempting to organize	European Lojbanists and	may have
contacted you, if you are one.	New Lojbanist Silvia Romanelli,	who lives in
northwestern Italy has also indicated that she wants to	learn the language, as
has said that she will try to find others nearby to study with her.  Her mate-
rials are en route.  These two are translating the 'What is Lojban? la lojban.
mo' brochure into their	respective native languages.
  Quebecois French Andr Bilodeau is well along	towards	a French translation of
the brochure.  We have others who are helping check the	translation and	making
sure that it is	equally	usable in France; there	have been few problems thus far.
  We have 41 people from outside the US	on our mailing list, including 17 in
Canada,	and 20 in Europe.  Farthest away in both geographic and	language
distance is a new Lojbanist from Thailand who we're hoping will	be able	to start
learning the language soon.
  We hope to expand these numbers at Worldcon, which has several hundred
international attendees.  The commitments demonstrated by those	who have started
learning the language will add to our credibility in gaining new people, as will
our efforts to develop non-English materials like the brochure translations.
  Athelstan and	Tommy Whitlock are already making plans	to attend the 1990
Worldcon in Amsterdam, by which	time we	may have several European speakers of
the language.
  Another class	member,	Sylvia Rutiser,	may be visiting	the Netherlands	in the
near future, and will try to contact our Dutch Lojbanists.  She	doesn't	yet know
the dates for her trip.
  DC class student Paul	Francis	O'Sullivan wants to translate the Lojban
teaching materials (not	just the brochure) into	Esperanto.
  For any of you overseas who have trouble with	the language in	any of our
publications and teaching materials, feel free to write	and let	us know, and
tell us	of what	languages you can read better than English.  We	have access to
speakers of many languages who can help	in explaining technical	or other

				       19
confusing terms.  We can probably accept questions in your native language, if
you let	us arrange for a translator here ahead of time.	 We will do whatever we
can to help you	with our materials.
  We are investigating the possibility of grants to support our	European efforts
from a foundation sponsored by the West	German government.  We may be able to
get full German	teaching materials after the textbook is completed, especially
if those of you	in Germany let us know of your interest.

  On other matters, we are trying to obtain the	ability	to accept payment via
Master Card and	Visa (US people	will be	able to	use this too).	This apparently
is the best way	to send	money internationally.	Most checks sent internationally
(though	apparently not Canadian	checks)	can cost as much as US$30 to cash, which
isn't worth it for the amounts you are sending.	 Most Lojbanists in other
countries send US currency, wrapped in extra paper so it isn't visible to
someone	looking.  We can also get your country's currency converted to US money,
if this	is easier.
  We know that it is difficult to send money, and we are committed to supporting
you even if you	cannot afford to do so,	or if the procedures are too difficult.
We want	people outside the US to learn Lojban, and will	not let	a lack of money
prevent	a serious student from getting teaching	materials.
  NOTE:	An International Postal	Reply Coupon (IRC) is only worth US$0.40 (40
cents).	 We've been told that it costs much more overseas, so that this	is NOT a
good way to send money.


			      Products and Prices

  We have no new products to announce this time, although there	are or will be
updates	to the cmavo list and the machine grammar shortly, as described	above.
There also will	be several new products	around the end of the year, but	lets
wait till LK11 for them.  Most of you getting this haven't read	what we've put
out; you don't need more stuff.
  Lojban tapes have been put off yet again, since I'm redoing lesson 1.	 We've
got some others	who can	speak the language besides Nora	and me,	but no script. I
hope to	be able	to announce at least one sample	tape by	the time of next issue.
  What we do have now is a new order form, one that hopefully summarizes our
offerings in a way which is useful to you.  We want you	to know	where to begin,
what to	order first, and the order in which to read things.
   Our experience has shown us for that	some things I've written, if you read
them without the background that I expect, are unintelligible.	Lojbanists have
such a broad range of backgrounds that nothing I write is going	to satisfy
everyone; I therefore need to bring people to a	common point before proceeding.
Hence the suggested order on the order form.
  The price list shows our new pricing policy; I've tried to reflect our actual
costs better, yet make our order system	as automatic as	possible.  The more time
I spend	on each	of your	orders,	the less time I	have available to spend	on the
newsletters, the textbook, and in answering your letters.
  Note that the	draft cmavo list and machine grammar are lower in price	now.
These can be useful, but we recommend that you at least	study the first	6
lessons	first; as these	other documents	have less explanation and almost no ex-
amples.
  We still would like more feedback on our products.  Are we giving you	your
money's	worth (or ours)?  Can we be doing anything any better?	We want	your
opinion.


			   Mid-Year Financial Report

  Time for our quarterly beg for money.	 Our finances have improved since last
issue, but not nearly enough.  Your help is still vitally needed if we are to
keep our heads above water.
  We received income of	well over $1000	in May,	and about $2000	in June.  We've
grown, however,	and our	expenses are now running at $1100 per month.  We seem to
consistently spend about $20.00	per person per year, no	matter what we try to do
about expenses.	 As the	project	has grown, I've	spent more telephone time

				       20
consulting with	pc on grammar points, and with others attempting to coordinate
activities around the US.
  We haven't yet gotten	to textbook publishing,	which will cost	us several
thousands of dollars.  We need to be in	better financial state in order	to
publish.  Do you believe in us?	 Are you getting as much out of	our publications
as we're spending on producing them.  If so, then please help, at least	by
keeping	your balance positive!

Here is	an interim report:  a summary of our finances this year	up until 15
August.

Voluntary Balance Contributions	   $5828.55
Donations - Legal Fund$928.07
Unrestricted Donations$2328.10
Total Donations	       $3256.17
Total Income	       $9084.72

Non-Administrative Expenses$7037.00
Legal Expenses	     $828.07
Non-Legal Administrative Expenses  $471.52
Total Expenses	       $8336.59
Administrative/Legal Percentage	   16%

1989 Net Income		$748.14

Miscellaneous Totals:
Positive Balances Refundable$2567.53
Positive Balances      $4226.73
Actual Cash on Hand    $2045.82

You can	see from these totals that we have less	money than we owe.  Either the
deficit	must be	made up	from our inventory, which is of	uncertain value, or we
are technically	bankrupt.  Only	donations, and people paying off negative bal-
ances, can improve this	total.	People with positive balances who loan us
additional money improve our cash flow,	which is important in the short	term;
however, it doesn't help our long term solvency, since we have to pay them back
eventually.


Negative Balances    ($7845.63)
Write-offs due to Dropouts($620.02)
Donations Since	Formation$8534.80

Our donations serve almost entirely to cover our negative balances, and
therefore aren't free to be used to finance new	endeavors.

Totals By Level, % With	Positive Balances, % With Some Balance Contributions, %
Donating :

Level	#    %Posit %Some$    %Donate
  3    54     42%    77%    33%
  2   150     44%    77%    17%
  1    27     30%    59%    11%
  0   261      3%     8%     1%
  R	5      -      -

Of the Level 0 people, 77 are recent new additions who have never responded, and
115 are	people who have	been receiving our publications	for over a year	and have
never responded.  Another 15 of	you sent in a couple of	dollars	when you first
contacted us, but have never heard from	you again.  Are	any of you out there and
interested?  We	need to	hear from you!

As you can see,	those of you in	Level 0, getting only LK, are rarely
contributing anything towards your balances.  Yet yours	is the least that we ex-

				       21
pend - less than $10 per year.	We aren't asking that much of you: to cover this
expenditure on your behalf.  Please help!


				  Future Plans

  Here is the quarterly	speculation about our schedule and plans for the next
year or	two, based on what we know, and	what we	want to	do.  I haven't proven
especially accurate; Nora calls	me an incurable	optimist.  But I still believe
these plans are	achievable, if you let us know you want	them, and keep helping
out.  But, in deference	to the fact that she's usually been right, I'm going to
spend more time	on what	we plan	to do, and less	time on	when we	plan to	do it.
  Textbook - As	described above, I'm going to have to do a significant amount of
rewriting of the first several lessons.	 My productivity will probably be low
until the first	class ends.  By	the volume that	I'm writing per	lesson,	I expect
that the book will be divided into 3 volumes of	20 total lessons.  The first
volume will be about equivalent	to the first 8-9 lessons, the second will have
the remaining lessons.	The third will contain Appendices like word lists of
various	types:	gismu lists, rafsi lists, cmavo	lists, and perhaps some	lujvo
and borrowings (le'avla), as well as the machine grammar, synopsis, handy tables
for reference of the most frequently used constructs, a	glossary, and an index
for all	3 volumes.  In short, the 3rd volume will be the one you carry around
for reference when you've finished studying the	lessons.  When?	- probably in
late winter or early spring, allowing time for another round of	reviews; we
don't intend to	be rushed into repeating the L1	mistake.  We'd like the	first
volume to be a complete	draft by January, for use by the 2nd DC-area class.
  Tapes	- I hope to start producing tapes around Christmas, designed to	go with
the new	draft of the textbook.	Beyond that, no	predictions as to how many or
when.
  Reader - By summer, we should	have a collection of readings in Lojban	- some
original, and some translations	- to give people a chance to practice what
they've	learned.
  Teaching Programs - We have people working on	converting LogFlash PC to the
MAC, the Amiga,	to the Apple II, and to	UNIX-compatible	C.  Of course, different
people have committed to these conversions several times over the past few
years, so any promise of when has no credibility.  I'd like to think that our
current	wave of	volunteers is more likely to come through, but no promises.
  We should have an updated LogFlash PC	around January to go with new word
lists, and incorporating the changes we	described above	to make	it more	likely
that people will keep going once they start, at	least until they've gotten
through	the words a couple of times.  The place	structures in the new program
data will be much more readable.
  The instrumentation required for testing learnability	must be	added to a
version	of the program.	 We need volunteers for	this experiment; the main
advantage you will get is that your LogFlash copy is free.  I think this version
only volunteers	for that experiment will get this version, which may be	slightly
slower in operating than our commercial	version.
  A version of LogFlash	that teaches place structures and lujvo	may be available
in the spring, as well as a version that teaches the cmavo and grammar.
Constructing data files	takes a	lot of time, and we also want to minimize what
you have to type in for	each drill item.
  We will have a new update of the random sentence generator reflecting	the
latest change proposal to the grammar and cmavo	list changes in	a couple of
months.	 We need to revise the textbook	outline	first, so that we know what is
to be included at each lesson level.
  As mentioned above, we may shortly have a program that teaches lujvo-making
and recognition.  It will not be like LogFlash,	but may	well be	usable in tandem
with LogFlash 2, which teaches rafsi.
  Flash	cards to reflect the new word lists may	take longer; we	will not reprint
flash cards until the current sets are sold; the changes will primarily	be in
the order, not in the cards themselves,	so people getting cards	after the word
lists are redone will get a list of changes that they can make to the lesson
numbers	on each	card in	order to order them correctly.
  Word Lists - The word	lists in volume	3 of the textbook will NOT be a
dictionary.  There simply won't	have been enough usage to justify a dictionary

				       22
effort.	 Dictionaries should be	descriptive of actual usage, and not
prescriptive in	telling	you what you have to do, especially in a language de-
signed for experiments in linguistics.	The description	of "klama" in the
Overview of Lojban is only a part of what I would expect to include for	each
gismu in a dictionary.
  We will, though, by mid-year,	have built up a	large set of vocabulary	word
proposals, which we will be able to sort into lists of various types.  They will
be available on	computer media,	or in print, and will be put out as much for
comment	as for actual reference.
  Dictionary - We'll discuss this more in the next section, but	I don't	even
plan to	start on the dictionary	for another year.  We'll be expanding the word
lists for a while, and distributing them in English and	Lojban order, but these
will be	more of	a source book, they won't be 'official', 'baselined', or even
very complete.	We will	expect some level of comments and usage	before we try
the more ambitious dictionary writing project, for which we'll probably	seek
grant money.
  Growth - My target is	to hit 1000 people by the new year, 2000 by next
LogFest, and 5000 or more by the end of	1990.  This may	be ambitious, and will
take your help in recruiting; but this should become easier as more people
actually are speaking and writing the language,	and as word-of-mouth spreads.
If we actually accomplish these	goals, some of the dates mentioned above, but
probably for the better.
  Why?	At the 1000-person level, our prices will drop as we go	to offset
printing instead of copying; at	the 2000-person	level, we may be able to justify
part-time help.
  (There is a lot of overhead in filling mail orders, and we have to reach a
much larger size before	we can hire a part-time	employee to handle them	for me,
leaving	me free	to do technical	work.)
  A related note; the number of	people we have when the	textbook is done will
significantly affect the price we can sell it for.  If we can justify a	printing
of 5000	instead	of 1000, it will probably save several dollars per copy.  5000
copies is possibly a $50,000 investment, and I'm NOT rich.  We'll need commit-
ments from you to buy the books	and to use the language	afterwards, and	we'll
need a higher balance contribution rate, in order to get a loan	to finance the
printing.
  Classes - I'd	like to	see a dozen classes starting at	the beginning of the new
year to	give the 2nd draft textbook an acid test.  I foresee classes in	every
major metropolitan area	by the end of next year, and perhaps even some univer-
sity accredited	courses.
  Grants and Research -	I'm already looking at the possibility of an academic
paper telling the linguistic world why they should be interested in Lojban.  It
will have to be	good to	pass peer review; the people who write it won't	be aca-
demic linguists	(though	we may be able to get help and credential credibility
from pc	as a co-author.)  Such a paper is critical to getting research grants,
as is getting our 501(c)(3) status (which is still under review	by the IRS).
  I'd like to have a paper done	this winter, which means publication sometime
late next year.	 This will position us to start	applying for grants late next
spring (the cycle of grant applications	takes 6	months or more).  Serious
'funded' academic research (as opposed to the trial research projects proposed
in JL9 that will merely	back our credibility as	a scientific effort) may com-
mence around the end of	1990.
  A couple of our efforts may be financed by grants before then.  I mentioned
trying to get help for international lesson materials development; I'll	start on
this shortly.  I may also send out feelers after Worldcon to a couple of private
foundations that might support us based	on our goals, rather than on our
academic standing.
  AI Applications - These are funded primarily by governments, occasionally by
industry (but only if a	profit-making result seems likely.)  The process for
government funding is only slightly quicker than the grant process.  We	have
identified an AI-application defense research project that might justify using
Lojban,	but the	US defense budget is being cut,	and this is not	a fancy	weapons
system that is likely to attract congressional support.	 We're certainly not
counting our chickens before their hatched.
  More likely, unless we can find an ongoing project that will take Lojban under
its wing, real grant funding or	commercial AI research support will take at

				       23
least a	year, and will be dependent on our establishing	through	YOUR usage of
the language that Lojban deserve to be taken seriously as a tool for this
research.


		    Response to	a Letter on Dictionary Plans

Normally, we would answer letters in Ju'i Lobypli, but this letter came	from a
level 0	subscriber, and	addresses the plans covered in the discussion above, so
I'm going to presume my	answer to be of	enough general interest	to include here:

"le lojbo karni	#9, page 12: '... language dictionary, probably	taking several
years to achieve a final form'.	 I hadn't realized the gap between the textbook
and the	dictionary would be so long.  Isn't this going to drastically curtail
the learning of	the language?  What happens after I've read the	textbook - am I
to be stuck at that level of achievement/with that vocabulary until the	dictio-
nary?  If we get to coin our own words from the	language description then its
going to have to be 100% unambiguous - no mean achievement; I don't envy you.
..."
								     Adrian Bolt

  It may be difficult to convince English speakers that	you don't need a
dictionary to learn a language,	but after all, you did it as a child before you
could read a dictionary.  But this begs	the question; you are an adult and have
more sophisticated needs than a	child does.
  If you look at other languages that build much of their vocabulary via an
'agglutinating'	approach, such as German and Chinese, you will find that
dictionary usage is much lower among speakers of these languages than among
English	speakers.  German has a	secondary problem as a result, that many of the
words therefore	end up acquiring multiple meanings.
  Chinese also has this	problem	but more seriously.  Each of its root
pronunciations,	which correspond to our	rafsi, can have	several	meanings; there
may be as many as a couple of dozen different Chinese roots, each represented by
a different symbol in print, but pronounced identically.  They rely on context
to sort	out the	confusion in spoken Chinese, but they also do a	very Lojbanic
thing, they add	extra roots on as type markers,	just as	we will	add an extra
word on	to a tanru or lujvo to make our	meaning	more specifically clear.  Thus
Chinese	"ma" for "horse" will have the root for	"animal" attached if there is
any likelihood of confusion.  The Chinese do not generally use dictionaries at
all.  When we had a Chinese student visiting us, she looked at our dictionary
and found many words that she had never	heard or seen before; each local dialect
has its	own variations of words	for a concept, each built from a preferred
metaphor.
  During the first few years of	Lojban use, our	vocabulary will	grow in	this
manner.	 The problem will never	be too serious;	from the start we will be
collecting and recording words that are	used to	establish usage	patterns.  The
Chinese	had several thousand years to build their vocabulary, before people
first compiled dictionaries.
  Lojbanists aren't going to be	completely at a	loss for words before the
dictionary is finished.	 You will have 1300 gismu that have baselined, fixed
meanings (a small number of place structures change, but too few to be
noticeable).  Athelstan	estimates that another 7000 concepts of	more or	less
usefulness can be expressed as simple conversions or abstractions of the gismu,
and the	lujvo made from	these unambiguous manipulations	will be	as firm	in
meaning	as the gismu themselves.  Given	multiple English synonyms for these
concepts, you will probably have 10000 or more English words covered
unambiguously, although	not to as detailed a specificity of meaning as in
English.  You will use tanru to	restrict those meanings; this is ambiguous, but
less so	than the English words to which	they equate.  If tanru are insuffi-
ciently	unambiguous for	your needs, you	can use	longer,	more exact grammar and
place structure	expressions to convey any tanru	relationship unambiguously using
only the gismu,	or so we believe.
  We also will have initial lists of proposed lujvo, probably hundreds at the
time of	the textbook publication, but thousands	within a short while.  I have

				       24
some 5000-10000	lujvo proposals	on paper, some of which	are redundant or
contradictory, and I can make up new lujvo at dozens per hour myself.
  These	lists will be proposals	only - they may	have only tentative place
structures, though we will try to address the issue of systematizing the place
structure of the typical lujvo;	there will always be exceptions	that don't fit
such a system, but most	will, as Jim Carter demonstrated back in 1984.
  We will publish these	lists for review and comment, and for use when needed in
translation.  For normal conversation and composition, you won't likely	bother
to use the lists unless	you are	completely at a	loss for a tanru.  Perhaps not
then - you'll just talk	around the subject until your point is made.  'Natural'
language use seems to work that	way.  The lists	will be	used in	the manner of a
thesaurus rather than a	dictionary.  You probably never	use a thesaurus	in
normal conversation (even if you use a dictionary).  Why use one in speaking
Lojban?
  When people learn foreign languages, they do not use a dictionary for	every
word.  They guess, they	invent,	and they learn from the	usage of others.
  A typical English-speaking new college graduate probably has a vocabulary of
100,000	words or more.	This averages to learning over a dozen new words a day
for every day of your life, with growth	in the last few	years probably double
that rate or more.  And	I'll bet that few people look up that many words in the
dictionary every day.  In Lojban, as those who have written in it already have
discovered, new	words come to you almost as fast as you	need them even when you
first start.  Fluent Lojbanists	will be	unlikely to exceed their capability to
make the words they need.
  This will probably take a leap of faith on your part,	but it works.  But I can
answer a question I suspect is in your mind, especially	given your mention of
ambiguity.  Yes	these words are	going to be ambiguous, just as tanru are, in the
early days.  That is the only way that it could	be.  Even if we	defined	every
word exactly before we started,	people wouldn't	use those exact	definitions
simply because they can't use dictionaries in real time.
  Lojban is syntactically unambiguous -	its grammar does not lead to multiple
interpretations	- but Lojban's semantics is NOT	unambiguous.  We will minimize
the ambiguity by eventually assigning the most popular meaning of a lujvo as the
only meaning, making some checks and allowance for a limited set of rules.  This
will work ONLY because the choice IS the most popular usage, and is thus em-
bedded in actual usage.	 Language inertia of actual usage is the most powerful
force and the only effective one for stability and restricted meanings that we
have.
  As for the effects of	this ambiguity on Lojban's claim to allow 'speaking
nonsense' that cannot be extrapolated simply from context - for	the first few
years this will	not be easy - you'll have to be	long-winded to speak unambiguous
nonsense.  But few people will have the	command	of the language	to need	or want
to do this extemporaneously in speech.	In writing you'll have the time	to word
sentences carefully to meet your expressive needs.
  I haven't yet	mentioned borrowings from other	languages, which form a	large
part of	the technical vocabulary that a	person will use.  These	words are going
to be no more ambiguous	than the words they are	borrowed from, and possibly less
if you use my proposed rafsi-labelling convention so that people know that
"charm"	and "strangeness" are subatomic	concepts and not psychological ones.
  What I suspect will actually happen in Lojban	writing, by the	way, is	what
already	happens.  People who write in Lojban will add a	little mini-glossary,
often written in Lojban	itself,	which defines at least the tanru (or perhaps a
longer definition if the tanru isn't obvious) for each lujvo they use for which
the meaning isn't obvious from context.	 From these glossaries,	your vocabulary
will grow; and from these, so will we gather our dictionary data.
  Probably by the end of 1990, when work on a dictionary can probably begin, we
will have word lists of	thousands of words.  Actually compiling	a dictionary is
mainly an editing job, requiring much time and care, luckily aided nowadays by
computers.  But	a dictionary of	50,000 Lojban entries, small by	English
standards, will	probably a few million words of	text, several times the	length
of the textbook.  Small	wonder that I predict years to finish the dictionary.
JCB took a couple of years for the 8000	word 1975 dictionary, and most of that
work was keypunching and card sorting; the amount of editing done was minimal
(and it	showed).

				       25
  Remember though, it will take	years to get the dictionary in final form.
There will be intermediate forms and word lists, starting with the textbook
itself,	but as these get large,	they will be best used on computers - Lojban
word lists  can	quickly	become huge.
  If we	get grants, we can put more bodies to work on the project, and the
dictionary will	be done	more quickly.  But no dictionary is ever truly done.
the moment that	we finish publishing a dictionary, we will have	to add the new
words from another year	of usage.  My own reference, Webster's New World
Dictionary, Second College Edition has 160,000 entries and is updated about
every two years	with about 20,000 changes.  This is the	price of a living lan-
guage.	It will	be much	easier with Lojban; we have clear routes to making new
words, and the choice of meanings, if not unambiguous, is fairly limited.
  If you remain	unconvinced by my arguments on the nature and use of a
dictionary, I recommend	the introductory discussion in the Webster's above; it
gives a	linguistic view	on the making of dictionaries that defines the problem
better than I can.  Other editions probably have similar discussions.
  So don't let the lack	of a final dictionary stop you from learning and using
Lojban.	 There will be plenty that you can read	and write, do and say, without
using one.  Your learning of Lojban will not stop with the textbook; it	will
only begin.

				     P.	S.

  Adrian also mentions the Icon	programming language and MacIntosh hypercard.
We're looking at both Icon and SNOBOL for improving the	random sentence
generator and for the eventual translation program.  pc	is spending his
sabbatical this	year working on	a logic	teaching program written in SNOBOL.  But
neither	Nora nor I has time right now to tackle	a new programming language.  We
stopped	in the middle of learning Turbo-Prolog when JCB	forced us to break away
from the Institute with	his legal threats.
  At least two Lojbanists are looking at Hypercard applications	with Lojban,
Karen Stein in the Blacksburg class and	Board Member and DC-class member Albion
Zeglin;	possibly others	as well.  Others have talked of	adding sound to	Mac Loj-
Flash, but no one has ever done	any work on it - we have the pronunciation
algorithms.  I don't know much about the capabilities of the MAC, since	we don't
have one; I've had enough trouble just trying to get data transferred to the MAC
and getting copies of the MAC programs needed to fill orders.  This may	improve,
now that a couple of local people have MACs, but I won't promise great new
products for the MAC because I can't personally	fill those promises, and I won't
commit for others.


		Request	for Historical Anecdotes and Information

As I contact people from outside the community,	I am finding occasional	interest
in the history of the Loglan project.  I suspect this interest will grow as
Lojban becomes more well-known and successful; witness that many discussions of
Esperanto in the last few years	have dealt with	its early history (though this
may be due in part to that language's recent centennial).  The linguistics staff
of the Library of Congress is collecting and maintaining copies	of all of our
publications as	a chance to document the development of	an artificial language
while it happens.
  I joined the project in the early 1980's and have relatively small amounts of
information about the pre-1980 period, except what is recorded or implied in The
Loglanist (the Institute journal put out by pc from 1976-83) and JCB's NSF
proposals.  My personal	recollections are dominated by the recent politics, and
as a result, alas, so are my descriptions of the project history.  I'd like to
have a more neutral, historically balanced perspective.
  The new L1 gives credit to dozens of people, and summarizes the history
briefly.  Some of the people credited are among	you readers; some of you may
have heard of the language from	others who were	involved in the	earlier	years.
(We wouldn't mind getting them interested again, by the	way, but that isn't the
point here.)
  Therefore, I am seeking all varieties	of historical facts, anecdotes,	first
person accounts, and even rumors about Loglan (and Lojban) that	you may	have

				       26
heard through the years	(Try to	indicate whether you think the information is
true or	not, but rumors, misconceptions, and false data, if identified as such,
are also valuable.)  Also interesting are perspectives as to why and how you
became interested in Loglan and/or Lojban; we of course	keep all correspondence
we've received in order	to retain this type of information.
  I am slowly building a chronological history from the	information I gather.
When it	is presentable,	I will add it to the product offerings.
  An actual book about the history of the Loglan project will have to wait
years, until we	see how	the story comes	out.  By that time, the	project	founder
and early workers may not be around to tell their stories.  We urge you	all to
preserve your memories on paper; the book can then be written when the world is
ready for it.


			  Contents of Ju'i Lobypli #10

JL10 will mark a major threshold in Lojban history.  We	expect to have more
writings in Lojban than	ever before, and of a wider variety.  For the first
time, the torch	will be	passed from Nora and myself to those of	you whom we have
helped teach.  The Lojban text in JL10 will have been written by others, not by
us (though Nora	may find time for another comic	strip).	 Athelstan has already
committed to a Lojban article on Sapir-Whorf, and a translation	of a short story
by Saki.  He also wants	to finish sample translations from other languages, per-
haps ancient Greek and Old Norse that he is competent to translate from, thus
helping	to prove the language's	versatility.  We also hope to have writings from
other Lojban students, including Jamie Bechtel's short story, which is the first
Lojban science fiction.
  Athelstan also plans to write	about an idea he's had:	 the resurrection of
'skaldic poetry', the heroic poetry of the Norse and Icelandic sagas, in Lojban.
He believes that Lojban	is especially suited to	this poetic form, as well as
similar	forms that rely	on metaphorical	and figurative expression coupled with
extremely rigid	rhyme, meter, and alliteration rules.  Skaldic poetry forms
dominated northern Europe for over 400 years, incidentally, during the time
period when modern languages first developed; it would be ironic if skaldic
poetry led the evolution of the	first post-modern tongue, as well.
  Form and manner of expression	is relatively more important in	skaldic	poetry
than is	the abstractness of idea that dominates	modern poetry.	These features
are relatively easy to control in Lojban, with its regular pronunciation and
stress patterns	and its	optional terminators.  New Lojbanists may thus find it
easier to write	skaldic	poetry than other forms.
  Athelstan is noted locally for his skaldic compositions, so his discussion
should be informed and interesting.  He	may even be able to include a Lojban
sample by the time JL10	comes out.
  (Anyone want to try Japanese haiku poetry in Lojban; this poetry is similarly
form-oriented?)
  Poet Michael Helsem of Dallas	is also	learning Lojban, and his efforts are
getting	better as he gains a handle on the grammar.  Preston Maxwell has been
translating short stories from other cultures into Lojban.  We hope that we can
present	some of	their works next issue as well.
  4 people who attended	LogFest	and participated in the	discussion of testing
Sapir-Whorf made commitments to	write up their perspectives on the discussion.
Tommy Whitlock,	Athelstan, pc, and Ralph Dumain	- it's in print	now, so	I'd
better get something from you.	We may have some additional notes based	on JCB's
discussions of the subject in the new L1 edition.
  JL10 won't be	put together until we get back from Worldcon.  We'll have a
current	report on what happened, though	we'll also include a report in LK11.
  And who knows	what else ...?

So, until then:	 co'o.
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