me lu ju'i lobypli li'u 13 moi

From Lojban
Revision as of 07:06, 9 July 2014 by Gleki (talk | contribs) (Created page with "<pre> Copyright, 1990-1, by the Logical Language Group, Inc. 2904 Beau Lane, Fairfax VA 22031-1303 USA Phone (703) 385-0273 lojbab@grebyn.com All rights reserved. Permission...")
(diff) ← Older revision | Latest revision (diff) | Newer revision → (diff)
Jump to navigation Jump to search
Copyright, 1990-1, by the Logical Language Group, Inc. 2904 Beau Lane,
Fairfax	VA 22031-1303 USA Phone	(703) 385-0273
lojbab@grebyn.com

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

						Number 13 - August 1990
				   Copyright 1990,  The	Logical	Language Group,	Inc.
				   2904	Beau Lane, Fairfax VA 22031 USA	(703)385-0273
	   Permission granted to copy, without charge to recipient, when for purpose of	promotion of Lojban.

						Lojban Grammar Baselined

						  cmavo	list Completed

					       Details Inside, and More.

     Ju'i Lobypli (JL) is the quarterly	journal	of The Logical Language	Group, Inc., known in these pages as la
lojbangirz.  la	lojbangirz. is a non-profit organization formed	for the	purpose	of completing and spreading the	logical
human language "Lojban", and informing the community about logical languages in	general.   la lojbangirz. is a non-
profit organization under Section 501(c)(3) of the U.S.	Internal Revenue Code.	Your donations (not contributions to
your voluntary balance)	are tax-deductible on U.S. and most state income taxes.	 Donors	are notified at	the end	of each
year of	their total deductible donations.  We note for all potential donors that our bylaws require us to spend	no more
than 30% of our	receipts on administrative expenses, and that you are welcome to make you gifts	conditional upon our
meeting	this requirement.
     Press run for this	issue of Ju'i Lobypli: 360.  We	now have over 680 people on our	active mailing list.

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 identified by that 'trademark'.

						   Your	Mailing	Label

Your mailing label reports your	current	mailing	status,	and your current voluntary balance including this issue.  Please
notify us if you wish to be in a different mailing code	category.  Balances reflect contributions received thru	15
August 1990.  Mailing codes (and approximate annual balance needs) are defined as follows:

Level B	- Product Announcements	Only		Level R	- This is a Review Copy	for Publications
Level 0	- le lojbo karni - $4 initially	+ $5/year balance requested
Level 1	- Ju'i Lobypli - $20 initially + $20/year balance requested
Level 2	- Level	1 materials and	baselined products - $25 initially + $25/year balance requested
Level 3	- Level	2 materials and	lesson materials - $50 initially + $40/year balance requested

OUR FINANCES HAVE REACHED A CRISIS; we will have to take action.  Please read the news on Finances inside.  If you have
a negative balance over	-$50, we must reduce your mailing level	to level 0 unless you contact us with a	very special
reason.	 If you	have a balance between $-25 and	$-50, we are also likely to reduce you to level	0, but can be more
flexible, especially if	we hear	from you.  Those with lower negative balances will be reduced on a case-by-case	basis.
If you have a negative balance,	write to us, and try to	contribute something towards your balance; even	if you only send
$5 or $10.  Those who contribute some money will not be	cut back yet, but we need to hear from you by 20 October.  Note
that, due to size, the base price for this issue of JL is just short of	$10.00.

						 Contents of This Issue
							   2


     This issue	marks major milestones,	but reports our	serious	financial situation.  The issue	was delayed almost a
month because we didn't	have enough money to pay for it.  This issue includes the new grammar baseline and the cmavo
list as	separate enclosures to an over-50 page issue.  However,	if our finances	do not improve significantly, future
issues will be much shorter.  The choice is up to all of you.
     Bob LeChevalier starts a regular 'column' written directly	in Lojban, and without translation.  As	of this	issue,
all the	materials needed to read Lojban	text have been distributed - its time to set an	example	of using the language.
We also	include	Lojban writings	from Michael Helsem, who has written some 40 poems in Lojban, and from Athelstan and
John Cowan.
     Our regular news section discusses	results	from LogFest 90, an update on the textbook plans, and our financial
woes.  We also include two items from the editor of the	Esperanto League for North America newsletter, Don Harlow, a
response to JL11's Esperanto article and an article by Don on artificial languages, reprinted from his newsletter with
permission.  We	have some writings from	Andy Hilgartner, outlining his several decades of General Semantics research
that have recently been	affected by his	contact	with Lojban.
     Finally, LogFest attendees	chose to have the community vote on the	logo and another issue.	 Please	respond	by 20
October.  If you are level 3, or have used LogFlash, we	are also asking	you to report on where you are at in learning
the language by	then.  There will be another weekend get-together at Bob and Nora's place that weekend and everyone is
invited.  Let us know you are coming.

						   Table of Contents

News
  LogFest Results - Lojban Grammar Baselined, gismu List Baseline Changes  --3
  cmavo	Dictionary Progress				       --8
  Finances						       --9
  Language Definition Status Summary			      --11
  Products Status (including Textbook Update)		      --13
  International	News - Athelstan's Travel Plans		      --15
  News From the	Institute				      --16
JL11 Esperanto Discussion - A Response from Don	Harlow	      --16
Masters	of Tongue Fu, by Don Harlow			      --24
Two Papers by Andy Hilgartner				      --29
Letters, Comments, and Responses			      --32
le lojbo se ciska					      --40
Enclosures - Baselined Machine Grammar,	Abbreviated cmavo List,	Ballot/Questionnaire

						Computer Net Information

     If	you have access	to Usenet/UUCP/Internet, you can send messages and text	files (including things	for JL
publication) to	Bob at:	    lojbab@snark.thyrsus.com
     Join the Lojban news-group.
Send your mailing address to:		  lojban-list-request@snark.thyrsus.com
Send traffic for the news-group	to:	  lojban-list@snark.thyrsus.com
     Please keep us informed if	your network mailing address changes.

     Compuserve	subscribers can	participate.  Precede any of the above addresses with INTERNET:	and use	your normal
Compuserve mail	facility (its possible that you	can send only to addresses in the '@' format).	Usenet/Internet	people
can send to Compuserve addresses by changing the comma in the Compuserve address to a period:
nnnnn.mmmm@compuserve.com

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

							   3


  We've	been requested to more explicitly identify people     Several people are working on condensed versions of the
who are	referred to by initials	in JL, and will	regularly   grammar that are more understandable to everyday people.
do so in this spot, immediately	before the news	section.    These versions, written in a format	called 'Extended BNF'
Note that 'Athelstan' is that person's real name, used in   are	only two to three pages	long.  The primary weakness of
his public life, and is	not a pseudonym.		    E-BNF grammars is that they	cannot be verified by YACC; we
							    therefore want to ensure that the versions are thoroughly
  'pc' - Dr. John Parks-Clifford, Professor of Logic and    checked before publishing them.
Philosophy at the University of	Missouri - St. Louis and      Anyone interested	in working on the E-BNF	effort should
Vice-President of la lojbangirz.; he is	usually	addressed   contact us.	 John Cowan and	Carl Burke are leading the
as 'pc'	by the community.				    effort, and	will respond to	you.  Include a	Compuserve or
  'Bob', 'lojbab' - Bob	LeChevalier - President	of la	    Usenet/Internet/ Bitnet address if you have	one, and want
lojbangirz., and editor	of Ju'i	Lobypli	and le lojbo karni. to communicate via net.
  'JCB', 'Jim Brown'- Dr. James	Cooke Brown, inventor of
the language, and founder of the Loglan	project.	      gismu List Baseline Changes - The	list of	proposed new
  'The Institute' - The	Loglan Institute, Inc.,	JCB's	    gismu swelled just before LogFest from the list presented
organization for spreading his version of Loglan, which	we  in the last	JL issue, making for a lively, if long,	session
call 'Institute	Loglan'.				    at LogFest devoted to going	over the proposals.  About 3/4
							    of the changes were	adopted, with a	couple of issues left
							    up in the air for further comment from the community.
			   News				      Almost all of the	changes	are additions to the list of
							    gismu, the type of change having least impact on someone
		      LogFest Results			    learning the language.  There was one word change accepted,
							    the	change from "ckamu" to "mleca" discussed in the	last
  Lojban Grammar Baselined - By	consensus, the attendees at issue.
LogFest	approved a preliminary baseline	of the Lojban gram-   There are	three changes to keywords for existing gismu,
mar, subject to	minor corrections and typos that were	    specifically the gismu for some of our basic Lojban
expected to show up before publishing in this issue.  (An   language concepts ("gismu",	"tanru", and "lujvo"); these
awful lot of work was accomplished in the last two weeks    word changes are not changes to the	meaning	of the gismu,
before LogFest,	and the	copies printed for LogFest were	    but	are instead corrections	to eliminate misconceptions.
rather hurriedly prepared.)				    The	existing keywords are the words	that Jim Brown used in
  A final baseline is expected in about	6-9 months, after   his	writings for the concepts, and have historically been
the textbook is	completed.  However, given the extremely    criticized as being	'the wrong word'.  We've stuck with
slow rate of change to the grammar up until now, few if	any them for tradition,	but reactions from the community when
substantive changes are	expected before	the final baseline. the	proposals were circulated on the computer network
All major subsections of the grammar have now been examined indicated that the keywords	were causing confusion and that
at least twice,	and Bob	was able to give lectures on the    it was time	for a change.
attitudinal, tense/modal, negation, MEX, and lerfu systems    The problem is, of course, that these concepts are not
at LogFest with	minimal	preparation, demonstrating that	    commonly used in English, and no English word accurately
these new developments are teachable.			    reflects their meaning.  LogFest came up with the phrase
  The grammar has of course been verified through usage,    "root word"	to serve for gismu, but	was unable to agree on
with translations and original materials in a variety of    new	phrases	for "tanru" and	"lujvo".  Some of the proposals
styles and on a	variety	of subjects, as	well as	in	    are	described below.  For purposes of discussion at
conversation.  The design has proven solid and robust.	    LogFest, we	limited	keyword	proposals to 15	characters or
  The grammar still requires formal usage testing (as	    less, the existing LogFlash	limit.	Since we are increasing
opposed	to disambiguity	testing	with the computer tool	    that limit to 20 characters	to support the cmavo keywords,
'YACC'), and no	one has	stepped	forward	to update the	    some of you	may be able to devise clearer phrases than we
parser to the new grammar.  In lieu of this, we	will be	    did	at LogFest; for	example, some of Bob's preferences for
updating the random sentence generator to the new grammar,  "tanru", "modification pair", "modified concept", or
and examining its outputs manually.  We	also will be using  "modified relation", are now permitted.  We	need your
the older parser to examine Michael Helsem's poetry and	any suggestions	within the next	month or two.
other Lojban text that is submitted during the preliminary    For the new words	that have been approved, and for the
baseline period, and will ensure that discrepancies are	    open issues	that have obvious new word implications, we
accounted for by known changes to the grammar.		    have already started the word-making process.  For the
  A copy of the	approved grammar is included with this	    first time,	we are able to use a native speaker for	the
issue.	The grammar is a 'machine' grammar, and	designed    primary research in	a non-English source language.	Vijay
primarily for computer use.  However, people can understand Vaidyanathan of Albany NY, a native	Tamil speaker who is
and use	it, too, with explanation.  We've provided such	an  fluent in Hindi (and whose wife is a native	Hindi speaker)
explanation as front matter for	the grammar copy, and would is providing the original Hindi research.  Mimi Herrmann, a
appreciate comments, especially	from non-computer people,   DC-area language aficionado, is researching	the Arabic
as to its understandability and	usefulness.		    words.  We turned to Russian translator Gary Burgess for

							   4


aid in Russian,	and Bob	did the	other three languages using favor, since Bengali is Indo-European and confined almost
his shelf of dictionaries.  When all of	the contributors    entirely to	two countries.
get finished, hopefully	in a few weeks,	Bob's new 386
computer should	make short work	of building the	possible    Language  Native 2nd  Net	1990  1987
words, and we'll be able to tell you the results next				 Score	 Wt.   Wt.
issue.							    Chinese    754M  339M 923M	35.5  33.5
  Lojban gismu are made	by searching for sound patterns	    Hindi      288M  478M 528M	20.5  16.5
that most match	the words from the source languages.  A	    English    299M  228M 413M	16    18
score, called a	recognition score, is calculated based on   Spanish    300M   38M 319M	12    12.5
weighted averages using	the speaker population for each	    Russian    170M  118M 229M	 9    12
source language.  The weighting	system for language popula- Arabic     181M   22M 192M	 7    7.5
tions takes the	number of native speakers and adds half	of  Bengali    176M   26M 189M	 -
the number of second language speakers.			    Portuguese 156M   12M 161M	 -
  Bob researched how the last several years affected the
language population weights.  We had expected a	significant   We will experiment with both sets	of weights in making
growth in speakers of other languages, but was surprised to the	20 new gismu to	be constructed;	there is no policy on
find that English has receded, and rather rapidly.  While   whether to update weights periodically, since we don't
it is still the	language of choice in international	    anticipate making many more	gismu.
business and in	science, there are now considered to be	      Now, here	is the summary of decisions made by the	LogFest
fewer speakers of the language worldwide than there were    attendees:
just a few years ago.  If we use the new data in making	the
gismu, English drops to	3rd place well behind Hindi, and is
being threatened by Spanish.
  The most striking cause of this change is in India.  When
India first became independent in 1948,	English	was often
the language of	choice as a lingua franca for communication
between	speakers of the	several	hundred	different languages
spoken in India	(there were some 15 languages cited as
'official' at the time of independence).  Now, however,
only English and Hindi are considered 'official', and there
is a decided bent towards Hindi.  There	are some 230
million	native Hindi speakers (and perhaps another 60
million	Urdu speakers -	Urdu is	considered by linguists	to
be the same language as	Hindi, but is written in Arabic
script).  This is about	the same number	of native speakers
as English has world-wide.  In second language speakers,
the real difference shows up.  Hindi is	the lingua franca
of around 400 million speakers in India, and this number is
rapidly	increasing under the Indian literacy program.
English	is now spoken by only 21 million Indians, only 2%
of the population.
  English is also receding in Africa, although not as
dramatically.
  The Russian numbers have also	changed, as greater
recognition has	been placed on the non-Russian
nationalities in the Soviet Union.
  The numbers are confirmed in another source, a survey
description of the world's languages edited by B. Comrie,
an expert on language universals.  The section on English
estimates the number of	speakers as 350	million, whereas
quotes as high as a billion were easy to find when we
started	surveying languages in 1987 before the initial
gismu-making effort.
  Following are	the numbers of speakers	in millions derived
from the 1990 Britannica Book of the Year.  The	final
column gives the weights normalized to 100.  We've given
numbers	for the	next two languages behind Arabic, which	are
rapidly	gaining.  However, we are unlikely to replace
Arabic with Bengali until the numbers are solidly in its

							   5


The following proposals	were approved with little	    2. Add "tears";
controversy:						    3. Add "ugly", the opposite	of "beautiful";
							    4. Add "diffuse", the opposite of "concentrated";
1. Change "ckamu" to "mleca" for rafsi considerations;	    5. Add "deficient",	(after discussion, it was decided that
2. Add "daytime", change keyword for "day" ("full day"?,      "deficient" is the opposite of "excess" with "sufficient"
  "24hr	day"?);						      as middle	ground.	 The opposite of "sufficient" then,
3. Add "virtue", as distinct from "good", to parallel with    encompasses both excess or deficient;
  "evil";						    6. Add "alfalfa";
4. Add "citrus";					    7. Add a common term for the Western Hemisphere continents.
5. Add "cabbage", to include broccoli, cauliflower, and
  perhaps lettuce;					    The	following are still open issues:
6. Add "hemp", to include natural rope,	burlap,	marijuana,
  and hashish;						    1. The definition of "arm" was not discussed; we forgot.
7. Add "protein";					      The issue	was based on our learning that different
8. Add "buckwheat";					      cultures include/exclude the hand	and the	shoulder from
9. Add "cassava", to include taro and yam, and other	      the concept of "arm".  Tentatively, we will define an
  starchy roots	(not tubers);				      "arm" as a non-supporting	limb, without specifically
10. Add	"sorghum";					      excluding	or including the extremity.
11. Add	"magenta" and "cyan" as	the missing two	subtractive 2. It was decided to change	the keywords for "tanru" and
  primary colors;					      "lujvo".	Unfortunately, there has been no consensus on
12. Change the keyword of "gismu" from "primitive" to "root   what to change them to.  The clear sense is to avoid
  word";						      linguistic jargon	and words that have multiple meanings
13. Add	"North America", the continent,	as distinct from      in English such as "compound".  There is some sentiment
  "merko", referring to	the U.S.;			      for keywords that	show a parallelism in definitions of
14. Add	"South America", the continent,	as distinct from      the two concepts,	though alternatively the parallelism
  "xispo", referring to	Latin America;			      could be made clear in the extended definition.  The
15. Add	"Antarctica".					      proposed choices,	in roughly chronological order are:

The following proposals	were added with	considerable debate   tanru		     lujvo
and discussion:						      open compoundclosed compound
							      relation phraseaffix compound
1. Add "glimmering" to cover the concepts of morning and      relation phraserelation compound
  evening twilight, as well as the phenomena of		      word cluster    cluster word
  "astronomical	terminator" and	"penumbra"; the	poetic	      word cluster   affix cluster
  usefulness and the astronomical extension of the concept    word grouping affix grouping
  led to passage;					      grouped words  affix word(s)
     a.	"dawn"/"morning	twilight" and "evening twilight"      modified phrasemodified word
  were voted down.					      phrase relationaffix relation
2. Define "morning" and	"evening" symmetrically;
     a.	The specific symmetry required much debate;	      As noted earlier,	some slightly longer keywords can be
  consensus was	finally	built around a culture-dependent      considered, since	we have	to create a version of LogFlash
  definition, wherein morning is the time between sleep	and   supporting the 20-character keywords for cmavo data.  Bob
  work,	and evening is the time	between	work and sleep,	      is adding	the following based on this new	option:
  according to the cultural norm.  In a	tanru this could be
  modified to a	personal norm.				      modification pairmodification word
3. In a	discussion of "decrease" as an opposite	of
  "increase", initial sentiment	for adding it was weak;
     a.	It was noticed that the	existing place structure of
  increase was transitive; it was proposed that	by changing
  the place structure to the intransitive "x1 increases	in
  property x2 by amount	x3", an	opposite gismu for "de-
  crease" would	be better justified.  Without the change,
  the semantic difference from "adjust"	and "add" was felt
  to be	too small.
     b.	The vote to add	"decrease" in parallel to the new
  meaning of "increase"	was then successful.

The following changes were voted down:

1. Add "text";

							   6


3. The familial	relationships never quite seem to satisfy.    Other options:
  It was agreed	to add "sire" and "dam"	to the definitions  a. Change "panzi" to be its	inverse, making	"se panzi" into
  of "patfu" and "mamta".  Later it was	suggested that we     "offspring";
  retain some unsatisfactory holes and combinations, which  b. Add a different gismu to	be the inverse of "panzi", with
  are of uncertain importance.	The fact that American	      a	keyword	something like "engender";
  culture is shifting away from	traditional family	    c. Add two gismu to	specifically represent the genetic
  structures makes it unlikely that we (who are	almost all    relationships "sire" and "dam" as	distinct from the
  Americans) can decide	on a culturally	neutral	solution.     social terms "mother" and	"father";
  The choices are then to be maximally inclusive of the	    Other options are possible.	 Note also that	"rirni"	is not
  possible relationships, or to	pare the list in ways that    quite the	same as	"mother/father", so we may need	another
  ignore American sensibilities.  The general preference      genderless general term here.
  seems	to be for the former.  Thus, we	can make the
  following matrix:					      For now, we are making up	gismu for "engender" as	one of
							    the	20 words.  The actual word that	results	may affect the
Gender-neutral	Male	 Female	  Gender-neutral	    decision.
but genetic			 not-necessarily-
				     genetic		      In addition to the above,	there is also the question of
							    the	extended family, which we have long ignored.  We can be
panzi		bersa	  tixnu	      se rirni		    very specific about	"mother-mother", "father-sister", and
offspring	son	  daughter    reared		    other extended family relationships, but we	cannot be
							    general.  Most cultures either use very general terms or
				      verba		    very specific ones (Hindi and Chinese distinguish between a
				      child		    father's older brother and younger brother as different
							    word-concepts); in American	culture, of course, divorce and
				      cifnu		    remarriage is causing extended family relationships	to
				      infant		    become so complex that specific terms will not suffice.
							    For	discussion purposes then, Bob is proposing (and
		bruna	   mensi      tunba		    making):
		brother	   sister     sibling		      a. "elder/ancestor" for family members of	generations
							    preceding the parents (including non-direct	line, the
se panzi	patfu	   mamta      rirni		    relationship is more social/ethnic than biological).
   ?		father	   mother     rearer		    Gender would be added via tanru, as	would explicit
		sire	   dam				    biological lineage (or a place could be used for specifying
							    lineage, with specific names used in alternation with
se jbena						    properties of the lineage of relation).  The conversion
mother/father						    would give "descendant" as well as "grandkids" in the
							    broadest sense.  This was independently proposed by	John
  Note that as currently defined, "patfu" and "mamta" are   Cowan as "x1 is an ancestor	of x2 of degree	x3".
defined	biologically, whereas their counterparts (except      b. "aunt/uncle/godparent"	for non-lineal (socio-ethnic)
"se jbena") need not be.				    family members of the parental generation.	The conversion
  An obvious suggestion	is to make "patfu" and "mamta" non- would give "niece/ nephew".
biological.  However, it can be	argued that with animal	      c. "cousin" for non-immediate (socio-ethnic) family
breeding and genetics, and in some less	transitional	    members of the same	generation.
cultures, the biological parents have a	uniquely important
role enough to be considered 'primitive'.  If so, the tanru   The generalized family relationship is still expressed by
"mamta se panzi" and "patfu se panzi" may be too long to be "lanzu", which can be modified via tanru.
satisfactory.  (We asked Vijay,	our Hindi/Tamil	expert,
though,	and at least for human parents,	the biological	      Related Discussion - Days	of the week were dis-cussed
aspect is secondary to the social relationship - non-	    prior to the gismu baseline	discussion, and	it was decided
biological parents are called by the same 'mother' and	    to add color- and continent-based names as alternatives to
'father' terms as biological parents.  If this is the case, the	number based names that	have been standard (it was at
the longer tanru for specifying	biological parents may be   this point that we realized	that we	were missing 3 of the 7
acceptable.)						    continents).  In addition, the number based	names will be
							    set	to run from 0 to 7, with Sunday	serving	as both	0 and
							    7, depending on speaker preference and cultural
							    orientation.
								 John Cowan expressed great skepticism that any
							    alternate system would catch on.  They seem	too much like
							    crackpot 'calendar reform' efforts,	and also aren't	well
							    supported in numerical date	representations.  He also noted

							   7


that not all cultures have a 7-day week.  The generic	    adopted, although with no change to	the period before the
concept	of a week is the time between successive market	    "i"	at the beginning of the	sentence (see JL12 for both the
days, which ranges from	4 to 9 days in agrarian	non-Western original proposals and the counters).  All typography
cultures.  He thus suggested that "jeftu" add a	place to    symbols are	optional, and do not affect grammar or
indicate the culture (it was later realized that a	    pronunciation - symbols of punctuation are used IN ADDITION
'standard' is already in the place structure).	He is using to the Lojban punctuation words.  We won't promise to use
days of	the week based on the International names of the    them in most JL writings.  We type Lojban text slowly
classically known heavenly bodies, thus	allowing him to	    enough now,	without	trying to master some new conventions.
parallel Romance languages that	did likewise.  (English	and However, we	will accept and	print Lojban text that uses the
the Germanic languages loan-translated the Roman gods used  optional conventions.
in planet names	to the corresponding gods' names from
German mythology.)					      Annual Member's Meeting -	On Sunday was the annual
  Athelstan notes that in Israel, the days are number-named meeting of Members of la lojbangirz., which	ran over as
from 1st-day to	6th-day, followed by the Sabbath; this is   usual, ending rather hurriedly at 3pm after	5 hours	of most
similar	to our adopted system.				    lively discussion.
							      While everyone in	the community is considered a member of
  Other	LogFest	Results	- LogFest only had about 18	    la lojbangirz., we must maintain a formal membership for
attendees, but they were a truly exceptional crowd that	    election of	Board members, changes to Bylaws, and as it
demonstrated by	their commitment to the	language that	    turns out, whatever	else the membership decides to act on.
Loglan/Lojban is going to continue to grow and prosper.	    We added 4 new formal members, making a total of 12.
More than half were from out of	town; three graduates of      One major	item of	business was adoption of the grammar
the Blacksburg class came.  Almost all were level 3 active  baseline, and this was pro forma, almost a letdown after
language students; thus	we never really	got to exercise	our the	intensity of the previous day's	work.  We also moved
plans to support activities for	newcomers at the same time  LogFest back a week, effective in 1991.  Next year it will
as a main track.					    be on the weekend of June 23, 1991.	 Make your plans early.
  Unfortunately, a lot of key people we	thought	were going    If June is a bad time of year for	you, there may be
to come	didn't.	 For example, Dr. Yorke, scheduled to lead  another chance.  A second get-together will	be held	this
a discussion of	his proposal (printed in JL12),	didn't make fall at Bob	and Nora's house (so save your maps to
it, but	won an award for the best excuse ever for not	    LogFest), tentatively the weekend of October 20-21.
coming to LogFest.  He called Friday evening to	tell us	    Because the	next JL	issue will come	out too	close to then
that his house was surrounded by fire trucks.  (The lengths to allow meaningful	publicity, this	is your	only notice.
people will go to avoid	coming!	 Luckily, the fire was not  This year's	'Log-Fair' will	be an experiment that will be
too serious.)						    repeated if	there is interest.  This year's	meeting	may
  We discussed Dr. Yorke's proposal anyway.  There was	    also serve as a textbook review party, if Bob has gotten
little support - the people working on Lojban are	    sufficient done to justify this.
interested in a	full language, not a hybrid form.  la	      Electronic mail distribution of our materials was	also
lojbangirz. thus will not change its goals and plans to	    discussed in the meeting, and a committee was formed to
match his ideas, although we are willing to support and	    devise a policy on what things will	be released in this
encourage anyone who wants to develop the idea further and  form.  We will use the Planned Languages File Server
give it	a proper test.	Most participants, though, said	    (discussed in JL12), as well as similar forums such	as the
that a hybrid LogEnglish might as well use straight English Compuserve Foreign Languages Forum,	as official
words for the predicates.  The loss of audiovisual	    repositories.  All electronic media	distributions will have
isomorphism is not significant until someone comes up with  some type of header	giving its status as a draft or
a speech recognizer.  It was also suggested, and we will    baseline, 'copyleft' (similar to Free Software Foundation
consider, using	such a hybrid form in teaching materials    policies) or public	domain status or full copyright	if
for beginners, so that they do not need	to master the	    appropriate.  In general, our books	and major publications
vocabulary to get a start on the unique	grammar	features of that we need to get	income from to survive will be pro-
Lojban.	 This will not be used for the initial textbook,    tected - unless events transpire to	eliminate need for that
however.  If someone wants to try this technique in	    income.  All material that defines the language will be
teaching a class, let us know.				    public domain, along with some other things	like the
  Saturday was primarily devoted to technical presentations brochure that we want widely distributed.  Most of our
on the major areas of the grammar that had been	reviewed    stuff will be 'copyleft', allowing distribution without
for the	baseline.  Athelstan gave his mini-lesson during    charge as long as various notices attached are retained.
one gap	in this, and we	had a short period of Lojban	      One fear of public domain	status before the language has
conversation during another gap	(Bob was able to make do    a solid community was that there is	no way that electronic
without	his word lists.	 But especially	gratifying was that media readers can be certain that they have	gotten the
several	others participated, including some who	had not	    'real thing'; someone could	modify the official documents,
been part of a class.)					    attach any labels we put on	to certify 'officialness', and
  We also discussed John Hodges' proposals on time and	    redistribute them.	The 'correct' solution lies in
typography.  Bob's counter-proposals on	these issues were   trademark law, but we are reluctant	to go in that direction

							   8


given our disputes with	the Institute.	Since we are com-   explanatory	in some	cases; John is working on expanding
mitted to a public domain language, we will probably just   them.  You can use the partial cmavo list from JL10	to make
say that if you	want to	be absolutely certain you have the  additional notes on	many of	the cmavo; the exercise	will
latest and greatest version of something, you will have	to  also help you to learn those cmavo that were on that list.
order it from la lojbangirz.				      In many cases, you will need to look up the lexeme for
  The electronic media committee was also charged with	    each cmavo in the machine grammar in order to know how it
developing an introductory lesson for distribution on	    is used; some 100 cmavo are	each 'in a class by itself' - a
electronic (and	paper) media.  This will be tied in with    lexeme with	only 1 member whose meaning is solely grammati-
our policy on who gets materials without paying	for them    cal.
(see Finances below).  The lesson may have some	similarity    Most of the remaining cmavo are found in a very few
to the Esperanto postal	mail course.  Athelstan	has	    lexemes.  Members of lexeme	UI are the attitudinals,
prepared a draft mini-lesson for this purpose, which is	    discursives, and observationals used to comment
being tried by a few people.  The mini-lesson will also	    metalinguistically on what you are saying.	Lexeme BAI
partially replace the current, rather unsatisfactory,	    contains the modals; these can be used somewhat like
Overview that we send to new people.			    adverbs to modify the selbri, or can be used somewhat like
  A second committee was charged with developing a plan	to  prepositions to tag	sumti that are not part	of the place
restore	our fiscal integrity.  The details will	be	    structure, thus tying them into the	bridi relationship
discussed in the next section.				    being expressed in the sentence.  Lexeme KOhA has the 'pro-
  Most surprising about	these two committees is	that the    sumti', which act somewhat like English pronouns.  Lexeme
membership insisted that Bob not be actively involved.	    COI	has vocatives, which are like attitudinals but are
"These are NOT Bob jobs!" said Karen Stein.  The membership addressed specifically to a	listener.  Lexeme BY is	the
seemed concerned that Bob has been spread too thin, and	    lerfu - the	letters	and symbols of the alphabet, and
these committees could handle things without his active	    various auxiliary shifts and markers.  Lexeme PA are the
involvement.  So all of	the preceding is subject to change  numbers and	related	symbols	used to	read off numerical
by the committees; your	Editor doesn't know much more than  strings.
you beyond what	has been said.	The formal membership will    The English 'keywords' intended for use in LogFlash 3
hopefully have a report	from each committee in August, in   (which will	teach the cmavo), all 20 characters or less,
order to allow decisions before	Athelstan leaves for Europe are	included in the	abbreviated cmavo list.	 Bob and Nora
(he is on both committees).				    reviewed John's list, adding these keywords	(needed	for
  Bob comments:	 It is gratifying that the members feel	    LogFlash 3 - Bob has learned most of the cmavo now in
enough commitment to volunteer significantly firmly to	    testing that program.  See the products section below).  We
relieve	me of what has become too much responsibility.	    want comments from the community on	the keyword choices
This is	your language, not mine.  Finally, a group of	    before releasing LogFlash 3.  Do the keywords make sense to
people is acting like they believe me, and acting like it   you	(assuming that the cmavo definitions do)?
is THEIR language, and taking the responsibility needed	to    The shortened definitions	in this	list will be expanded
make it	succeed.					    into full text definitions for the dictionary, and John
							    intends to devise examples for each	grammatical usage of
							    each cmavo.	 This effort is	only a goal, and may not be
		 cmavo Dictionary Progress		    practical for all words.

  John Cowan has assumed responsibility	for producing a
draft version of the cmavo portion of the dictionary,				     Finances
taking over from earlier work done by Jeff Taylor.  His
first product for us is	the abbreviated	definition cmavo      LogFest attendees	recognized that	our finances have
list included in this issue.				    reached the	point of crisis.  The 18 attendees, in
  John has proven extremely productive in the last few	    exceptional	gestures of support, donated over $1000	to la
weeks, helping with the	grammar	baseline and the E-BNF	    lojbangirz., but this was merely enough to keep our	bank
effort,	compiling the cmavo index included with	this issue, balance positive, allowing this issue to be	printed.
and volunteering for major work	responsibilities on the	      Even with	these donations, our income for	this year is
dictionary, while contributing valuable	suggestions on a    running well behind	the income for last year, in spite of
variety	of other topics.  He also has started writing a	    the	fact that our audience/customer	base is	some 50%
'daily'	Lojban journal,	believed to be a first in that	    larger.  We've kept	expenses down; they are	also running
category (although Jim Carter reported doing likewise with  behind last	year, but this is primarily due	to firm	con-
an earlier version of the language in the early	1980's).    trols on non-vital expenditures.  Our new 501(c)(3)	status
John first learned about Lojban	only a couple of months	    makes U.S. donations tax deductible, but donations are also
ago, thus showing how quickly a	motivated person can master well below last year even with the recent influx from
enough of the language to take a leading role.		    LogFest.
  The cmavo index included with	this issue is the first	      The problem is that, while most people who order stuff
complete list with definitions since the draft list of	    pay	for it,	not all	of you do.  Our	prices have been set at
October	1988.  The definitions are short, and not very	    a non-profit level,	so each	non-paid sale is a pure	loss

							   9


that has to be made up from donations.	Sales of our	    enclosed with this issue is	an opportunity to respond
software, the only products with a price that makes us some without writing a letter.
profit,	are down, and probably will continue to	be until      Of course, we would strongly prefer that you bring your
the textbook is	published.				    balance up to the desired support level listed on the front
  Less than 100	people had positive balances at	a recent    of each issue for your level ($40 for level	3, $25 for
audit.	Only a couple of dozen have the	balance	amounts	    level 2, $20 for level 1, and $5 for level 0); that	way we
corresponding to each level that we request on our	    don't have to keep asking for money	each issue.  We'll
registration forms and in the mailing label summary in each accept whatever you	can contribute.	 But the bottom	line is
JL issue.  Most	magazine publishers require you	to pay for  that those who want	the language to	succeed, and can afford
subscriptions in advance - we cannot afford to have people  it,	should have balances over $20, or even $50, for	our use
paying for issues after	their balance goes negative.	    as operating funds,	and are	contributing a little extra on
  Several of our largest contributors, who are footing the  the	side to	help us	with those who do not pay.
bill, are starting to get angry	about all this,	and have      If you feel that your balance charges have been unfair,
demanded changes in policy.  They want their money going to that we've charged you for something you haven't gotten,
promote	growth in the language,	and not	to finance	    let	us know, and we	will make the situation	right.	If you
'deadbeats'.  (Harsh words, but	that is	a direct quote from question whether our material to you isn't worth what we
one major contributor.)					    are	charging you, let us know what you think it is worth,
  The most extreme position is that everyone should be able and	we may be willing to negotiate - but be	aware that we
to afford to contribute	something towards their	balances -  are	spending what we charge	you.
the price of an	order of french	fries every couple of weeks   Your negative voluntary balance is not a 'bill'.	We have
would fully pay	for a level 1 subscription.  Anyone not	    no legal way to collect it if you don't want to pay	it.
willing	to contribute this amount simply isn't interested   But	if we can't get	much higher percentages	of people
in supporting us.					    paying for the stuff we send them, we will be in serious
  The counter to this position recognizes that some people  trouble.  The question is whether you want us to succeed.
don't have the money for french	fries, or for Lojban.  We   If so, you'll contribute.
don't want to exclude prisoners, students, and people from    Even if most people bring	their balances positive, this
other countries	where incomes are a fraction of	those in    won't be enough; our expenditures will be rising as	we get
the U.S.  Lojban is not	supposed to be a language for the   ready to publish the textbook, and as our numbers continue
'monied' class,	but for	everyone.			    to grow.  We actually need to convince many	more of	you to
  An intermediate position, which may win out in the long   keep the specified positive	balances to support your
run, is	that we	are going to have to insist on payment from subscription level.	 Those positive	balances are our
most people, and make exceptions on a case-by-case basis,   operating funds that allow us to keep day-to-day business
only by	special	request, and often with	strings	attached    going; we currently	spend about $1000 a month.
such as	required volunteer work	or the submission of	      We've also learned more about the	realities of the book
writings to show that the beneficiaries	are actually using  publishing business, and why book prices have gone up so
what we're giving them.					    much in recent years; bookstores and distributors demand
  Regardless of	the final decision, something must be done, and	get 40-55% off list price, and even then don't pay for
and now.  Less than 20%	of our people have positive	    3 months or	more and expect	to return the covers of	any
balances, and we must get the rest of you to pay some	    books they don't sell (they	discard	the books - postage and
amount towards our expenses on your behalf or we'll have to labor is too high to send the whole	book back) for credit.
cut you	back, or cut you off.				      Based on this, we	need enough income from	sales within
  Some decisions have been made.  If your balance is more   the	existing community to pay the entire pre-publication
than $50 negative as of	20 October, you	will be	cut to	    print and marketing	bill, or we'll be bankrupt.  Either
level 0.  Only a special pleading will change this.	    that or get	a lot of donations, which seems	unlikely.
Contributing some money, even a	little,	will probably put     As a result of our financial situation and this future
off a cutback, if we are convinced that	you are	likely to   reality, all existing discounts are	terminated as of 1
continue using the material and	contributing some money.    August 1990	pending	any decisions from the finance
If you can pay off your	balance, or make a commitment to do committee and the membership.  Overseas people (excluding
so by a	specific time, all the better.			    US/Canada/Mexico) will be charged a	flat 20% surcharge to
  If your balance is more than $20 negative as of 20	    handle the increased postage.  The primary impact of this
October, you being put on notice that we may have to drop   will be that JL prices inside the US will no longer	be
you to level 0 as well.	 You should write to us, and try to discounted for bulk	mail.
send some money, even if it is only $5 or $10.	Ideally,      A	20% discount will be given on any order	over $20 which
you will bring your balance positive.			    is prepaid - i.e. you have enough in your balance, or
  If your balance is negative at all, and we haven't heard  contribute enough to cover the price. (This	discount will
from you in over a year, we need to hear from you, or you   cancel the surcharge for people outside North America.)
also may be dropped in level.  Even a short note to let	us    At textbook time,	there will probably be a further carrot
know you are still interested and reading the material we   for	those with positive balances.  Everyone	in the
send you will help; if you send	some money to bring your    community will get an offer	to buy the textbook in advance
balance	positive, all the better.  The Ballot/Questionnaire of the official publication	date at	some discount from list

							   10


price.	We expect that for prepaid orders from people with
positive balances, we will be discounting the textbook	    Phonology -	Lojban pronunciation has not changed since
price as much as $10.  This of course means that the price  being baselined over 2 years ago.  Few questions have been
will be	that much higher for everyone else.  Those with	    raised about the design.  There is no reason to expect
negative balances will likely receive little or	no dis-	    changes for	the indefinite future, although	we will	be
count.							    trying to make the Synopsis	discussion more	readable to the
  In addition to all of	the above, the finance committee    average person before incorporating	it into	the dictionary.
will probably be recommending that we send a fund-raising
letter to each of you, independent of JL, pointing out how  Morphology - The Lojban morphology has also	been baselined
much we've accomplished	on a mere shoestring and asking	you for	over 2 years without significant questions being
to contribute so that we can continue to produce your	    raised.  There is a	remaining open issue on	the exact rules
language.  We still need donations above and beyond paid    for	borrowing words	from other languages.  The required
sales in order to finance our continued	growth (and to pay  form - the essence of the design - is firm,	but whether
off existing debts).					    there needs	to be additional constraints on	borrowing forms
  With our finances as they are, we are	at a disadvantage   remains a matter to	be decided by the people who use the
in seeking outside grants; donors look for financial	    language.
stability and community	support, and we	just aren't getting   There has	been a proposal, supported most	notably	by
enough.	 It also costs money to	prepare	grant proposals,    Michael Helsem, that would allow either 'r'	or 'n' as the
and we don't have it.					    'hyphen' after a CVV rafsi,	unless the following consonant
  The finance committee	will be	considering how	to value    is the same	letter.	 This is a simple change that would
volunteer efforts on our behalf, and we	may offer volunteer only increase options (currently, you use only 'r',	unless
work as	a way to ameliorate a negative balance.	 The	    the	following letter is an 'r', in which case you use 'n'),
offerings will be slim;	there isn't much volunteer work	    but	we are reluctant to make the change.  One reason is
that we	can place value	on, and	we can't afford	to 'pay'    that it seems too unimportant to justify a baseline	change.
much.							    Another is that it further increases the number of possible
  Volunteer activities include translating materials into   forms for a	lujvo, making it harder	to produce the dic-
foreign	languages, giving talks	and recruiting new people,  tionary (and taking	up more	space).	 Finally, the change
and writing significant	amounts	of Lojban text.	 In the	    would constrain le'avla (borrowing)	space, something we
short term, we're looking for volunteers in the	DC area	to  should avoid unless	we have	a good reason.
come over to Bob's house and type several hundred addresses
into the computer - these are addresses	of book	dealers	and Orthography	- The Lojban alphabet and required writing
reviewers that we will have to contact before the textbook  conventions	are unchanged since the	baseline over 2	years
is published.						    ago.  In JL12, Bob proposed	some additional	optional
  Your response	to all these measures will determine where  conventions, which were adopted at LogFest.	 We've been
we go from here.  The 350 JL subscribers are Lojban's best  given a proposal to	use different letters to represent the
supporters but also the	biggest	drain on our resources.	 If 'i'	and 'u'	glides in diphthongs, since these technically
we can go from 100 people with positive	balances (the cur-  are	different sounds than those in the non-diphthong
rent number) to	250, we	will probably survive.	If we can   vowels; we'll probably discuss this	proposal prior to next
get to 300 or more with	balances over $10, the Lojban	    issue, but expect no changes.
project	may again be fiscally healthy.
  We welcome all suggestions for other ways to raise money, gismu - The	gismu list was baselined just about two	years
to gain	donations, and get more	balance	contributions.	    ago.  Specifically baselined were the gismu	themselves and
							    the	corresponding English keywords.	 (The rafsi and	place
							    structures are discussed below.)  Exactly one gismu	was
	    Language Definition	Status Summary		    changed at the recent LogFest; no other changes have been
							    even proposed.  There have been 4 changes to keywords,
  With all that	hand-wringing about finances, it is worth   including the three	for "gismu", "tanru", and "lujvo"
reviewing what your contributions have bought so far in	    mentioned above as just approved.  All 4 changes were
terms of products and services,	and most important, in	    instigated by Lojban learners who expressed	confusion about
terms of the language itself.				    the	meaning	of the word based on the keyword, and suggested
  The design of	the language is	basically complete; we	    a clearer word; none of the	gismu meanings,	as expressed by
await various write-ups	before final baseline of the	    the	keyword, have changed.	Further	changes	are not
design,	because	we need	to have	a clear	written	statement   expected.
of what	the design is in order to protect that design	      The recent LogFest provided the first additions to the
against	change.						    gismu list since the baseline.  There are looser controls
  The language is stable.  Preliminary baseline	changes	    against adding words, since	these cause no relearning;
have been minimal, and have almost entirely been additions  we've been surprised to go two full	years (until the
to the language	that have no impact on people who have	    recently approved changes) with no additions at all.  The
already	started	learning.  Let us look at each design area  couple of open issues mentioned above may lead to further
to see where it	stands:					    additions, and there is an ongoing re-review of the	gismu

							   11


in thesaurus fashion that may reveal one or two	possible    put	the selbri in the 2nd place; the x2 place of the place
words, but we don't expect many.			    structure for "bridi", as printed in the gismu list, makes
  Two noted Lojbanists,	Athelstan and Michael Helsem, have  no sense - a bridi is a sentence/relationship and has no
voiced the opinion that	we should be much more willing to   'meaning' independent of context.  The change, of course,
add new	gismu to the existing set.  Tommy Whitlock, on the  rendered "selbri" as the appropriate word for the concept,
other hand, is adamantly opposed to adding new gismu, since since the word relates by definition to the	x2 place of
he thinks there	are too	many already.  This balance of	    "bridi".  ("kunbri", for those who were not	aware or have
opinions among the most	senior Lojbanists, and the	    forgotten, is an artifact-word from	before the gismu base-
increasing number of active students, means that additions  line, and should be	replaced by "selbri" where ever	you see
will occur slowly if at	all, and with extensive	review from it.)
several	members	of the community.
							    Grammar - The Lojban grammar is defined by a computer-
rafsi -	The rafsi list has proven as stable as the gismu    verified definition	called the machine grammar.  As
list, even though it was not baselined.	 The reluctance	to  reported above, this grammar has now been baselined.  Even
change anything	that has been released via LogFlash lists   before the baseline, there had been	only 3 or 4 changes in
has been enough	to defer change	proposals indefinitely.	    the	last year as we	wrote the draft	textbook lessons and
There was one change early on, when we changed the rafsi of re-examined	entire areas of	the grammar.  These changes
"narge"	to "-nag-", freeing "-nar-".			    were in the	more esoteric portions of the grammar that were
  The recently adopted negation	proposal split the negation seldom being used, and text	written	in Lojban since	around
cmavo "na" into	three words, two of which needed rafsi.	 "- JL8	(including all of the draft lessons) is	nearly as
nar-" was assigned as the rafsi	for "na", while	"-nal-"	was grammatical	now as it was when written.
assigned to "na'e".  All of the	other grammar changes led     The new baseline is a 'soft' baseline, that will allow us
to the addition	of perhaps a half dozen	rafsi assigned to   to make minor corrections that show	up in textbook writing.
cmavo, and a couple of the rafsi being freed.  (See the	    Few	such changes are expected, but we may find that	we can
summary	with the JL12 attitudinal proposal for a list.)	    allow some constructs that are currently forbidden,	as well
  There	are two	change proposals to be considered prior	to  as rules that we thought were in the grammar that were
the next LogFlash release, to make more	'hyphen-friendly'   omitted typographically.  These changes will not 'enter the
rafsi for the abstractors "ka" and "ni"	which are being	    language' officially until the textbook is published.
used more commonly in lujvo that require hyphen	'y' than      The strength of the grammar is that each of the special
originally estimated.  Again, no other changes are planned, areas like negation, tense,	MEX, and attitudinal
although we will be looking at the rafsi more thoroughly at indicators,	has received thorough 'end-of-development'
the time the dictionary	is written, when the rafsi list	    analyses that make it unlikely that	the language will prove
will be	formally baselined.				    inconsistent or incomplete in these	areas.	As recently as
  We don't want	to freeze the rafsi list until we've	    last issue,	we were	uncertain that our MEX design would
analyzed a lot of lujvo	made by	as many	different	    stand up to	analysis; the final design proved quite
Lojbanists as possible,	thus minimizing	the likelihood that versatile, and we believe that we have met the goal	of
usage statistics (applied to 'fine-tuning' the selections)  being able to readily express any mathematical expression
are skewed towards words favored by one	or two Lojbanists   'reading it	off the	notation'.
who do not know	all the	gismu equally well.		      The weakness of the grammar is that we do	not have a
							    parser that	reflects the final grammar; such a parser is
Place structures - Place structures will also not be	    needed to test the grammar against a corpus	of prepared
baselined until	the dictionary is written.  A very slow	    sentences, ensuring	that the grammar breaks	sentences up
review and rewrite of all of the place structures is in	    the	way we think it	does.  We are thus forced to use the
progress, and will be completed	for the	next release of	    random sentence generator as a 'backwards test tool',
LogFlash and the textbook.  The	new versions of	place	    looking at the sentences it	generates from the baseline
structures being examined will be expressed in greater	    grammar, and seeing	that they match	our intended grammar.
detail than those included with	the current gismu list,	and   Still, we	don't anticipate that the grammar will change
should be easier to understand.	 (The maximum definition    much before	its final baseline when	the dictionary is
size will be 96	characters instead of the current 40.)	    published.
  A change to the place	structure is inherently	a meaning
change,	and we try to avoid them.  Almost all changes have  cmavo - The	cmavo list in this issue is the	first complete
been additions and deletions to	the last trailing places    one	in two years, and reflects a lot of changes.  There
that few have learned or used.	More commonly, the changes  could be a more cmavo added	prior to final baseline, but
are clarifications to better let a reader know what type of probably very few (there isn't a lot of spare words
sumti value is expected	in a sumti place.		    available for adding); we expect almost no changes other
  Of all parts of the language design, the place structures than additions.  The fact that the list has	been published
are the	least stable and finalized, but	Bob can	testify	    will serve as a stabilizing	factor.
from his experience that only a	few changes have ever	      The keywords for the cmavo are likely to change.	Simply
affected anything he's written.	 (Most significant of these put, they haven't been looked at by	many people, and are
is the place structure of "bridi", which was modified to    inherently less valid than the gismu keywords.  Since cmavo

							   12


have little semantic meaning, we have to use short phrases  introduction and the single	overview lesson, will tell you
that don't say a lot to	try to convey the memory hook that  about Lojban, lightly introducing the basic	concepts and
an English keyword is supposed to provide.  We'd like	    giving you the 'big	picture' of the	language.  Some	areas
feedback on the	keywords, while	recognizing that most	    are	treated	very lightly - pronunciation is	conveyed only
readers	don't know that	many of	the cmavo.		    by guides that tell	you how	to say each word and sentence.
							    This is because pronunciation is a 'big subject' and a very
  All in all, we've accomplished a lot in just 3 years.	    boring one to start	off with.  We want you to be motivated
With your support, imagine what	the next 3 years will	    to speak the language, not bored.  Some of the topics are:
bring.							    the	concepts of bridi, cmavo, selbri, tanru, sumti,	place
							    structures,	conversion, ellipsis, elision, descriptions,
							    abstractions, questions in Lojban.	We include a brief
		      Products Status			    summary of several other unique features that are too
							    difficult to cover in the first lesson.
  First	a reminder that	the discount policy has	been
drastically changed, effective 1 August.  A flat 20%	      Part II will be about ten	lessons	long, each much	shorter
surcharge outside of North America; a 20% discount for a    than the draft lesson size.	 This part of the book will
paid order (positive balance exceeding the price at the	    build depth	on the basic concepts presented	in the
time of	shipment) over $20.  (The discount will	cancel the  introduction and explain many of the secondary structures
overseas surcharge.)  Virginia orders should add 4.5% sales that you need to say what you want in Lojban.  The Part II
tax.  Note also	that for software, there is no surcharge    lessons continue to	use a much smaller vocabulary than the
for MS-DOS 3 1/2" diskettes, but you must specify in your   draft lessons (perhaps 300 words), but expect you to look
order if you want them.					    up some words that are not formally	part of	the vocabulary
  Remember that	we cannot promise to fill your order unless to be learned.
it is prepaid; our finances are	too thin right now.	      A	major change is	that we	will not expect	you to learn
							    most of the	gismu vocabulary within	the first 8 or 9
  Textbook Status - Believe it or not, the textbook is	    lessons.  While some people	have demonstrated that it can
finally	started	(again).  Spaced around	3 issues of JL and  be done, most students in the classes have not kept	up with
one issue of LK	in 3 months, planning and conducting	    the	expected pace.	The current plan is to add an extra
LogFest, researching MEX and tense grammar in time for the  stage in LogFlash, before Gaining Control, that exposes you
grammar	baseline, and assisting	John Cowan in assembling    to a lot more words	quickly, but does not expect you to
the gismu list,	along with some	major work on our legal	    master them.  There	will be	only 'New Word lessons', 'error
battle,	Bob finally sat	down at	the keyboard shortly after  practices' and some	brief reviews in this introductory mode
midnight on July 4.					    - the object is to have you	quickly	able to	recognize more
  The new version of the textbook is already unrecognizable words in Lojban text and to	learn the scope	of the vo-
as compared to the first, even though only 20 odd pages	are cabulary.  Many who	have learned part of the vocabulary
written	so far.	 The first lesson, which will serve as a    have tried to write	sentences, but have not	been able to
language overview, is divided into short sections only a    find the right word	because	they didn't know it was	there.
page or	two long, with many examples and exercises in each  You	should do better using this modified technique.
section	to help	you see	whether	you understand.	 Using a      The goal is that by the end of Part II, you will have
much smaller vocabulary	(perhaps only 25 gismu in lesson    completed this initial review of the words,	and will be
1), we will examine much more of the basic grammatical	    started in 'Gaining	Control', which	will hopefully go much
features of the	language.  By page 20 you will be making    smoother for you as	you work through Part III.  We are
Lojban sentences, hopefully with little	trouble; in the	    hoping to shrink the huge demoralizing bubble of error
draft lessons you did not make sentences until late in	    words in the 'Failure Pile'	that seems to afflict many
lesson 2 - about 80 pages along.			    people.
  The textbook will be more interesting	to read.  We are
trying to put more interesting examples	in (difficult with
very little vocabulary).  Several pages	have boxed and
highlighted recaps of the key points of	the text.  Many	of
the most significant and unique	features of the	language
will be	touched	on by the end of the first lesson.  You
will know that Lojban is a truly different language quite
quickly.  The text also	ties back to English examples,
helping	you understand better how English works, based on a
comparison with	Lojban.	 Thus, even if you never find a
practical use for Lojban, you will receive benefits in
terms of expressing yourself better in English (and any
other language you learn).
  Under	the current outline, the text is divided into three
parts.	The first part,	which will consist of an

							   13


  Following are	the topics to be covered in Part II,	    in that we pay for the printing bill without waiting for
according to the current outline.  This	is of course	    distributors and vendors to	pay us,	and it rewards you for
subject	to change as the book is written:		    sticking with us up	until now.  But	to receive the best
							    discount you must have a positive voluntary	balance.
Lesson 2 -     Pronunciation and Word Forms Some Classroom    Another progress report will be given next issue,	and
       Expressions					    perhaps we'll be able to guess at a	date by	then.
Lesson 3 -     Learning	Vocabulary; Simple tanru
Lesson 4 -     Making Names				      Other Products - With the	baseline of the	grammar	and the
Lesson 5 -     Numbers					    preparation	of the cmavo list, we are moving forward on a
Lesson 6 -     tanru and lujvo;	selbri Structure	    variety of teaching	products.
Lesson 7 -     sumti and Place Structures; Relative Clauses   Most directly dependent on the grammar and the cmavo list
Lesson 8 -     Tenses and Modals; se tcita sumti	    is the random sentence generator, which will also be used
Lesson 9 -     Logical Connectives and Negation		    to test the	grammar.  It takes only	a few days to
Lesson 10 -    Discursives and Vocatives		    incorporate	the new	standards, and we will probably	have an
Lesson 11 -    Keeping Lojban Unambiguous and Clear	    update available by	1 October.  The	update price will be
							    $10; due to	our financial situation, we can	no longer
  By the time you start	on Part	III, you should	know some   provide updates any	cheaper	than this.  The	original price
300 gismu and 50 cmavo by actually having used them in	    will be $12.
sentences.  You	will not be expected to	produce	longer text   The lujvo-maker has now been completed, providing	drills
than single sentences.	In Part	II, grammatical	features    and	demonstrations of both lujvo-making and	decomposition.
will be	pretty much covered in isolation to help you rec-   Updates are	available for $10; the original	price will be
ognize the key point of	each section; this is a	bit like    $12.  The only future enhancement to the lujvo-maker that
Jim Brown's technique in Loglan	1, but the earlier	    seems to make sense	would be a feature that	builds and
introductory lesson will allow us to keep the concepts tied tests le'avla (borrowings) for proper structure.  Because
together much better than he was able to - you'll know the  the	lujvo-maker does not take a lot	of space on a 360K
destination while travelling a most interesting	journey	    floppy disk, we will include computerized text copies of
through	the language.					    various word lists and the grammar on the disk.
  In Part III, we will start presenting	longer texts and      The only stalled product based on	the grammar is the
dialogues, which will have enough vocabulary available to   Lojban parser; we have had no volunteers to	complete the
be meaningful and adult.  Exercises will require you to	    work.  There is a possibility, however, that Jeff Prothero
more spontaneously produce original Lojban sentences,	    will soon have a new version of 'PLoP', his	"Public	Domain
especially in a	classroom or study group.  Unlike the draft Loglan Parser" updated to the Lojban grammar.  This	would
lessons, though, you should have the knowledge and	    be an 'unofficial' parser, using the YACC grammar, but not
confidence you need to make up sentences by the	time we	ask the	YACC algorithm.	 PLoP is of a type called a 'recursive
you to do so.  In classroom use, bits of Lojban		    descent' parser, which is more flexible than a YACC	parser,
conversation should start occurring.			    but	can be much slower.  It	will work fine on individual
  After	the first few lessons in Part III, the remaining    sentences up to some length, taking	at most	a few seconds,
lessons	will be	less oriented around specific concepts in   but	it is very slow	on blocks of text.  By comparison, the
the language than Part II.  Instead, we	will explore the    last version of Jeff Taylor's parser processes a full page
vocabulary associated with some	topic, present some of the  of text in a couple	of seconds, albeit based on an older
more esoteric grammar points that are useful for talking    grammar.
about that subject, and	then use the language to do just      A	new version of LogFlash	for MS-DOS machines will be
that.  Some problems in	translation and	original	    prepared and hopefully released this fall, and it will be
composition in Lojban will be covered.			    significantly enhanced.  First of all, we are already
  Whereas Part II is called 'Learning Lojban', Part III	is  testing 'LogFlash 3', which	teaches	the cmavo (we can
called 'Using Lojban'.	You will be expected to	write	    provide this test version now to people who	are ready to
and/or converse	in the language	throughout Part	III, and    learn the cmavo and	don't want to wait for the full	re-
should be comfortable doing so by the end of the book, with lease, but please don't ask	for it unless you are ready to
vocabulary limits as your main constraint.		    use	it).
  There	is a lot of writing ahead, but the book	is off to a   Second of	all, we	are adding an initial review stage
good start.  Moreover, with the	baselined grammar and the   prior to 'Gaining Control' that will quickly expose	you to
compiled cmavo list, we	are much more confident	that what   a lot of words in 'New Word	Recognition mode', hopefully
gets written will not have to be continually rewritten.	    allowing you to read language text earlier while enhancing
  We're	not going to promise a publication date.  As	    scores when	you advance to the more	difficult stages.
mentioned above, we've learned a bit about the lengthy	      We are also adding several user-friendly features.  First
process	of publishing a	book if	you want to make money at   will be an installation program that will ensure that
it (and	we can't afford	to lose	money).			    floppy disk	users have 'COMMAND.COM' available, and	unpack
  What we can promise is that the book will be available to any	packed data on disk automatically.  LogFlash will ask
the Lojban community (you) in advance of the official	    you	for confirmation before	overwriting an existing	file.
publication date at a substantial discount.  This helps	us  It will allow you to tune the program by changing the

							   14


default	of 6 repetitions in error practices and/or the	    revised lists would	also be	very expensive - the bi-
number of review words from the	'Under Control'	pile that   directional	gismu list might run up	to 60 pages, and 100
are presented in each session.	It will	also allow you to   pages if we	add a thesaurus-sorted list.  At those sizes,
more easily switch between learning modes.  We will also be it would be	cheaper	to produce the dictionary; we don't
try to make large error	practices more friendly, giving	you have the money to maintain such large documents in
a sense	of progress by telling you how many times you have  inventory.
done a word successfully.  An option we	are considering	      We also want to publish a	'tiny gismu and	cmavo list',
will allow you to look at the entire list of words for a    having only	keywords on the	English	side, that would be
lesson prior to	taking the test.  We may also allow you	to  small enough to carry in your pocket or purse.
add or update your own memory hook data	during the review     Of course, the textbook and dictionary will be the
portion	of a lesson. (We welcome additional suggestions	on  centerpiece	of our product line.  We hopefully will	be able
how we can make	the program more friendly, but we need your to follow up these two books with a	'Best of JL' and a
responses quickly.)					    first book of Lojban writings during 1991 -	but this is
  We want to increase the speed	of the program by reducing  again dependent on money.
the amount that	it has to read files from disk.	 We aren't
sure how much work this	will be, and are not making
specific promises.								International News
  Finally, we will also	be adding instrumentation that will
allow LogFlash to be used for scientific research into how    We don't have a lot of news this time that is specific to
different people learn words, most especially to see if	    the	international Lojban community.	 We have now
recognition scores used	to make	Lojban gismu have any	    successfully processed Master Card/	Visa orders from
correlation with actual	learning rates.	 Depending on	    overseas, as well as one larger Canadian-denominated check.
finances, we may be offering a volunteer credit	to anyone   We ask that	those of you sending checks from Canada	clearly
who (learns the	words and) returns their instrumentation    indicate whether the check amount is in Canadian or	Ameri-
files within a specified time after we send you	your order  can	dollars; apparently some of your banks will issue U.S.
(instrumentation data is only useful to	us if you work at   dollar checks, and we do not need to use the more expensive
LogFlash consistently -	the time limit will help motivate   service to process them.  We can't be sure,	however, that
you to keep at it).					    our	banks here will	process	your check correctly if	you are
  Finally, the new LogFlash version will support the	    non-specific as to the currency.
updated	gismu list.  The gismu list as it is being revised    Our major	international event in the next	few months is
will allow 20-character	keywords instead of 15,	and the	    Athelstan's	planned	visit to Europe.  On that, we have
definition field will be 96 characters,	instead	of the	    worse than no news.	 Just as we were going to press	with
current	40 character limit.  As	a result, the definitions   this issue,	some problems came up that threaten whether the
will be	much clearer and you should have a better idea what trip will take place as planned.  It is possible that the
a Lojban word really means.  We	may be providing an	    trip may be	delayed	(causing Athelstan to miss Worldcon at
editable hint field that you can use to	add mnemonic aids,  the	end of August),	and possibly even cancelled.
and we may also	allow you to change the	keywords from their   Assuming the trip	does come off as planned, we have few
official values	to something more memorable (most useful to additional itinerary details - only	two of you have	written
British	users who have suffered	American spellings for too  to us letting us know you want Athelstan to	visit.
long).							    Athelstan does now have a point of contact in Europe.  He
  Not included in this update are LogFlash versions that    plans to visit Peter and Mary Lynn in Goettingen, West
will teach place structures and	grammar	(although learning  Germany around the first week of September.	 If you	haven't
the modal cmavo	of lexeme BAI will teach you a lot of	    made contact with Athelstan	by writing to us here, you can
important place	structures).  Maybe next year.		    contact the	Lynns:
  We are hoping	to have	Eric Raymond's UNIX version of
LogFlash available by the end of the year.  Unfortunately,  Peter and Mary Lynn
due to the lag in development time, both the UNIX version   Schopenhauer Weg 13
and the	Mac LojFlash version will be stuck with	the current Goettingen D3400 FDR
file formats for a while.  Dave	Cortesi	plans to update	his WEST GERMANY
Hypercard flash	program	for the	MAC to use the new file
formats; if so,	this program will also be available at ap-  home telephone: (49)-551-706485
proximately the	same time as the new version of	PC
LogFlash.						    Peter is also working on a German translation of the
  We are undecided about whether to produce and	distribute  brochure, which may	or may not be ready by Athelstan's
the revised gismu list separately, as well as John Cowan's  visit.
cmavo dictionary, or wait a few	extra months and try to	get
it into	a first	edition	dictionary format.  The	textbook      Athelstan	also plans to be in northern Italy around 21-23
effort will probably be	the determining	factor.	 Publishing September, visiting	Lojbanist Silvia Romanelli (who	also
these revisions	will be	lower priority,	since you can use   reports having translated some of the draft	textbook
copies of the existing lists for most purposes.	 The	    lessons into Italian).

							   15


							    Esperanto's	"16 rules" with	a similar set of rules for
							    Lojban.
		  News From the	Institute		      Athelstan	is quite right in suggesting that "the rule set
							    is incomplete."  In	fact, the "16 rules" are largely a
  The Loglan Institute published another Lognet	around mid- heuristic device created to	introduce Esperanto to persons
July.  Dr. Brown has apparently	assumed	editorship with	Rex with a late	19th-century European education, by describing
May's resignation reported last	issue.			    Esperanto in very simple terms relating the	language to
  There	is little news in the issue.  The issue	was	    something more familiar to the student -- i.e., the	Indo-
dominated by half of a paper by	Rex May	challenging some of European languages.	 This can be seen by the reference in
the basic design points	of the language.  The second half   rule 2 to the "two cases of	Esperanto" (Esperanto has as
of the paper is	supposed to be in the next Lognet issue,    many cases as any other language), the reference in	rule 6
and will present Rex's proposal	for radical changes in the  to the passive voice of verbs formed by compounding	(there
Loglan morphology.  (Rex sent a	copy of	his paper to Bob    are	no compound verbs in Esperanto), by the	reference to
for comment independent	of submitting it to Dr.	Brown.)	    the	"imperative mood" in the same rule (the	-U ending
  Dr. Brown discusses and responds to each of Rex's major   subsumes, but is hardly restricted to, the traditional IE
points.	 Bob observes that Dr. Brown's discussion is an	    imperative), and particularly by rule 8; logically,
excellent defense of the basic language	design,	providing a prepositions (which	are basically case-forming morphemes)
few previously unknown historical details about	the	    should govern an unmodified	noun form, and it is only
language design	process.  Most important of these is the    because of the contrast with the Indo-European languages,
revelation that	Dr. Brown did conduct some 'engineering	    where they usually do not, that this rule is necessary.
tests' of the recognition scores algorithm used	to make	      The so-called "Fundamento	de Esperanto" is, in fact,
gismu, something we had	no evidence of when we responded to about 200 pages long, and includes the "16 rules" (repeated
Sheldon	Linker's questions on the subject several issues    in five different languages), a complete dictionary	of some
ago.  While we could wish that such tests were better	    four thousand roots	-- an additional four thousand or so
documented, it is reassuring to	be able	to say to critics   have been added to the canon since that time, plus between
that they were conducted.  All in all, our plaudits to Dr.  eight and sixteen thousand unofficial roots	that need not
Brown.							    be considered part of the language -- and a	series of some
  Dr. Brown also reports on solutions to two outstanding    42 exercises designed by Zamenhof to demonstrate aspects of
morphological issues in	Institute Loglan; these	problems    syntax and the Esperanto word-formation system.  The "16
were discovered	by Nora	and raised in Bob and Athelstan's   rules" themselves are, as I	say, a heuristic device, and a
review of the 4th edition of Loglan 1 last year.	    convenient skeleton	on which to hang the language's
  Nora is skeptical that the solution devised for names	    "flesh."  Most of the material in these rules would, today,
containing "la"	will work universally, but with	the	    be better presented	in tabular form.
Institute grammar a 'trade secret', it is impossible to	      A	few points about Athelstan's presentation:
analyze	the current design.  (Unlike Institute Loglan,	      1)  Athelstan does "not describe word or sentence
Lojban forbids the various name	markers	from being embedded order...."	This seems a bit ingenuous to me, since	as far
in names to prevent such problems.)			    as I can tell word and sentence order play a more
  The solution to the other problem, that of hyphenating    significant	role in	Lojban than they do in Esperanto, and
borrowings, is similar to our own solution for Lojban.	    so to describe a "set" of Esperanto	rules and equate them
  There	is brief mention that the Institute plans to revise to a single	Lojban "rule" that is at a much	higher level is
The Loglanist under a new name,	possibly by the	end of the  not	quite cricket.	An example is rule 3.  The Esperanto
year.  There also is a report that one of the Institute's   presentation of the	morphology of the adjective is quite
software packages had a	bug that is now	fixed, but there    complete in	four lines; the	Lojban presentation says only
were no	details	given.					    that "any selbri may modify	any other selbri by position,"
							    but	does not define	how this is done (do selbri modify
	   _____________________________________	    other selbri preceding them? by following them? by sitting
							    in the next	line up?)  This	is like	saying that Lojban code
							    is more concise simply because the reader is presented only
		 JL11 Esperanto	Discussion		    with a subroutine call, while in the Esperanto code	the
		A Response from	Don Harlow		    reader is shown the	entire content of the subroutine.  The
							    content is there in	Lojban;	Athelstan has merely found it
  [Don Harlow is editor	of the Esperanto League	of North    convenient to overlook it.1
   America newsletter.	His position makes him a natural    ____________________
 spokesperson for the Esperanto	community in responding	to  1Your example on p.	25, "X1	is good	for X2 by standard X3,"
  our essays in	JL11.  However,	see also Ralph Dumain and   which I presume is written in Lojban -- from your past
    John Hodges	in the 'Letters' section below for more	    references to Prolog -- as something like "Good X1 X2 X3" -
	    comments on	Lojban and Esperanto.]		    - would indicate that the position rules in	Lojban are much
							    more complex than those in English,	and vary from property
  Thanks for the latest	copy of	Ju'i Lobypli.  I was	    to property.  With regard to my later comments on case, the
particularly interested	in Athelstan's comparison of	    descriptive	rule for speakers of Indo-European languages

							   16


  2)  Granting Athelstan's contention that several of	      whether Loglan and Lojban	treat the single sound written
Esperanto's "single rules" contain other rules,	he does	      in English as "ts" as two	sounds (again as a stop
himself	the favor of counting some of those sub-rules more    followed by a sibilant, rather than as a single harsh
than once, if they are referred	to in another "super-rule."   sibilant)	or as a	single sound/letter ("c") as in
For instance, he counts	the rule that the direct object	is    Esperanto.  (A similar use of two	letters	to designate an
shown by affixing the -N ending	at least three times (rule    intermediate sound is the	occasional use of "kh" in
2, rule	3, rule	5).  The computer equivalent would be	      English to describe the Esperanto	"h^", a	sound
rewriting the subroutine each time it was called -- at	      intermediate between "k" and "h".)
which the compiler would, no doubt, burp.			 c)  Esperanto's Rule 11, of course, refers to the
  3)  Given that Esperanto's "16 rules"	are a heuristic	      Ekzercaro	-- see particularly Exercise 42.  Athelstan
device,	they are certainly more	complete and successful	      refers to	some sort of "variant compounding rules"; I
than those presented by	Athelstan for Lojban.  Speaking	      would be interested in seeing these.  The	actual rules
"quantitatively," they are accessible to a much	wider range   describing the word-formation system are neat but
of people than the Lojban rules.  The Esperanto	rules refer   complex; they were first formulated as late as 1910 by de
largely	to nouns, verbs, adjectives, past tenses, etc.,	      Saussure,	writing	under the pen-name "Antido", and
which are terms	that are generally recognizable	to	      expanded by Kalocsay in the 1920's in a well-known essay.
graduates of the seventh grade,	or equivalent (my ten year    The latest set appear in the Plen	Analiza	Gramatiko de
old daughter is	familiar with them, from school).	      Esperanto	(1985 edition),	where they fill	some 148 pages
Athelstan's Lojban rules, on the other hand, use unglossed    and differ little	form Kalocsay's	earlier	rules.	That
terminology that might confound	a college graduate --	      these rules are of little	use and	less interest to the
anaphora, non-veridical, place tags, etc.  (I consider	      practicing Esperantist can be seen from the fact that
myself moderately well educated, but I had to look up	      their earliest codification occurred some	23 years after
"anaphora" in a	dictionary -- and was not much wiser for      the language began to be spoken; most people can figure
the experience.)					      the system out after looking at a	page or	so of examples,
  4)  Speaking "qualitatively,"	Athelstan in many places      and never	bother to refer	to the rules, to which they
describes his Lojban rules using Lojban	terms that will	      don't have access	anyway.2
have no	meaning	to the casual reader --	a rather recursive	 Unfortunately,	a couple of Athelstan's	comments
sort of	action,	if you ask me.	"Lujvo are formed by simple   suggest that he isn't really qualified to	comment	on
junction of the	gismu or rafsi???  The definition of each     Esperanto	in general, any	more than I am on Lojban (which
one of those terms should be counted as	a separate rule	      is why I keep correcting you on Esperanto	rather than
(axiom,	if you will).					      commenting on various points of Lojban grammar, syntax,
  5)  Some comments on individual rules:		      etc.).  For instance, on p. 20 he	refers to "Esperanto's
     a)	 The description of participles	in Esperanto rule 6   dependency on case declensions."	There are no
  is not properly part of this rule but	belongs	in the	      declensions in the traditional/IE	sense in Esperanto.
  hidden (also for Esperanto!) working of word-building	      The -N ending, to	which he is probably referring,	defines
  (rule	11 see below); the description of the passive voice   the target of an action (direct object) or, if no	action
  properly belongs to the Ekzercaro.  I	do not,	however,      is committed, the	destination of a movement3; it can be
  fault	Athelstan for taking these items as he found them.    applied to adverbs as easily as to nouns and their ac-
     b)	 "Every	word is	pronounced as it is spelt."  Pardon   companying adjectives.  Again, the terms "nominative
  me for referring to Loglan rather than Lojban	-- and if     case" and	"accusative case" in this sense	are sops to
  this is not also true	for Lojban, you	need not pay	      Indo-European sensibilities; Esperanto has neither one in
  attention to this comment -- but this	is not completely     the narrow sense of a declension.	 In the	broader	sense,
  true for the language.  Loglan treats	the sound written     of course, it does have nominative and accusative	cases,
  in English as	"CH" as	a stop "t" followed by a fricative    as do English, Chinese, or -- one	presumes -- Lojban; it
  "sh",	written	"tc," rather than as, more correctly, a	      also has genitive, dative, instrumental, ellative, termi-
  single harsh fricative halfway between the stop and the   ____________________
  fricative.  Brown was	here apparently	influenced by the   2Some of these rules have not yet been codified.  For in-
  (not invariably phonetic) International Phonetic	    stance, Kalocsay and Waringhien, the authors of PAG,
  Alphabet, which in this case appears to have been heavily recognize that Esperantists	regularly use adjective	roots
  influenced by	French.	 Esperanto more	correctly treats    as prefixes	for noun roots -- novedzino, dikfingro are
  this single sound with a single letter.  I am	not sure    common examples -- but do not admit	that this usage	is
___________________________________________________________ grammatically justified.  Most Esperantists	go on doing
would be:  "The	property good relates a	noun in	the	    this anyway, and they definitely obey a particular rule of
nominative case	in the immediately subsequent position,	a   word-formation in doing so -- one that, so far as I	know,
noun in	the dative case	in the third position, and a noun   has	never been written down, and would be difficult	to cod-
in the "standardize" case in the fourth	position."	    ify	in a few simple	sentences.
Hopefully Lojban's rules are more consistent than some of   3Which, if we suppose the -N ending	to mark	the accusative
those of English, in which, for	instance, the accusative    case in the	traditional Indo-European sense, makes vers
succeeds a positional dative but precedes a prepositional   such as "to	go" transitive in Esperanto -- something most
one...							    IE languages would not allow.

							   17


  native, sociative, etc. cases, as do English,	Chinese,    publication, the number of Esperanto speakers grew at a
  and -- I again presume -- Lojban.			    rate of more than 100% per month.  (This high figure, of
							    course, like your own, comes from starting with such a
  Regarding your own essay "On Comparing Lojban	and	    small base;	and it dropped considerably by the early
Esperanto" let me make several short (I	hope, as, I am sure 1890's)
you do)	comments:					      4)  You attribute	some significance to the fact that you
  1)  Under "aesthetics" you mention a couple of sentences  "NEVER [HEARD] A SINGLE CONVERSATION IN ESPERANTO" at the
that "are longer than the colloquial English translation";  Esperanto table at Worldcon.  I personally have met	only
and in an earlier issue	you begged off translating a song   one	of the people who worked at that table (and he was
from English into Lojban because the translation would be   there for only an hour or so), and I know that he speaks
longer than the	original.  This	seems to me to be an ac-    fluent Esperanto; I	can't answer for the others.  But when
ceptance of the	old saw	that "any translation into any	    you've sat at a few	more tables at conventions, and	have
other language will average about 25% longer than the	    carried on a few conversations in Lojban under such
English	original" -- and (a word to the	wise) it seems to   circumstances, you will learn an interesting fact:	more
be a very dangerous attitude to	take.4	Every translation I people -- or at least Americans -- are repelled when they
make into Esperanto from English comes out significantly    hear a conversation	they don't understand than are
shorter	then the original.  More than that, so far as I	    attracted.5	 When possible,	I always use English under such
know a competent translator can	get the	same results in	    circumstances.  (This is not always	possible; at the last
just about any language	going.	I would	hope, for the sake  three conferences of the Foreign Language Association of
of Lojban, that	this "expansion	effect"	is a function of    Northern California	that I've attended as an exhibitor, my
the translator rather than a function of the language.	If  co-exhibitor and I have spoken nothing but Esperanto --
not, it	is a strike against Lojban.			    because he's a Rumanian, and not terribly comfortable in
  2)  You have again quoted the	"like it is done in your    English.)
own language" comment, which was not made by Zamenhof, but    Hope that	you have found all this	of some	interest.
in the basic Interlingua textbook of 1950!!!  Esperanto	is	      ______________________________________
extremely well-defined,	partly through the 16 rules as
described above, but mainly through the	Ekzercaro, which      Bob responds - That the 16 rules are intended only a
also appeared in the Unua libro	in 1887.  No reference to   heuristic device seems to be lost on many Esperantists, who
outside	languages was or is necessary.	I thought we'd been often try compare the 16 rules to our set of YACC rules,
over that ground before!  As to	the Europeanness of	    which number about 550; Athelstan's	effort was an answer to
Esperanto ... proof of the pudding.  Esperanto's greatest   those critics.  See	Ralph Dumain's discussion and my re-
successes in the past few years	have been outside of the    sponse in the letters section below	for more on this.
Indo-European language area.  (From May	to October of this    Don effectively supports our assertion that the 16 rules
year, a	nationwide Esperanto course is running on Chinese   have as a subtext the entire grammar of European languages.
television -- a	more significant matter, I think, in a	    "The Esperanto rules refer largely to nouns, verbs,
country	with only one national TV network instead of four   adjectives,	past tenses, etc., which are terms that	are
or five, and no	more than two or three channels	in even	the generally recognizable to graduates	of the seventh grade,
largest	cities.)					    or equivalent".  But these terms are only recognizable to
  3)  The comment that "Lojban took 35 years to	reach a	    students of	European languages.
point of development where it was speakable" might perhaps    The emphasis should be on	'student', by the way.	While
have been avoided.  Esperanto took some	12-14 years to	    Don's 10-year old may find the terms familiar, we have
reach the point	(1887) at which	Zamenhof considered it	    found college graduate English speakers who	have long since
optimal; but the Ur-Esperanto of 1878 was already	    forgotten the terminology of grammar classes.  To many of
speakable, at least according to the anecdotal information. our	audience, 'noun' is as bad as 'anaphora' (maybe	worse,
That it	took Lojban (I presume you mean	Loglan)	35 years to since no one feels guilty that they	don't know what
reach the point	at which it was	speakable is not, I think,  anaphora are.  Anaphora are, by the	way, the superset of
a point	in its favor as	a means	of communication.	    'pronouns' - the things that stand for and refer to	earlier
  The rapid growth of Esperanto	in its first years after    referents in the discussion; 'cataphora', the opposite
public release was a spontaneous affair.  You quote a	    term, cover	variable words that refer to things in future
figure of 8% a month growth in the number of Lojban	    discussion,	but 'anaphora' also is used as the general term
students.  Based on Zamenhof's published address lists --   covering both sets of variable reference words.  Based on
and making a conservative assumption that only ten percent  Don's comment, however, we will start using	a Lojban lujvo
of those who claimed to	be able	to speak Esperanto could    "ba'ivla" -	/bah,HEE,vlah/ for the general concept of 'ana-
actually do so -- in the first half year after Esperanto's  phora'; the	source metaphor	'replacer-word'	should help
____________________					    people remember what the word means).
4When I	was young I read -- in a number	of places -- that
no other language is nearly as good as English for	    ____________________
swearing.  In fact, English is a rather	pale language in    5I was carrying on a private conversation in Esperanto on a
this regard; compare it	with any Eastern European language, BART train a week ago, and was excoriated for this by the
for instance.						    middle-aged	lady sitting next to me.

							   18


  Athelstan intentionally used specialized Lojban terms	    represent a	European bias, albeit unintentional.  The
that were as opaque to a European language speaker as they  intent is to include places	in approximate order of
would be to a speaker of a non-European	language.  This	may frequency of use in	discourse; our model for usage
help point out what a Chinese or Swahili speaker suffers    frequency is unfortunately the English language we hear
reading	the Esperanto rules.  We don't seriously intend	    most often.	 The desire to bring in	a broader perspective
using the 11 Lojban rules as a heuristic device; as Don	    before finalizing the structures is	one reason why we are
says, they just	aren't very understandable.  Furthermore,   avoiding baselining	the place structures until the last
they cover no more of the Lojban grammar than the Esperanto possible minute, and why place structures will be among the
rules cover of its grammar.  However, they do help point    first things to be re-evaluated after the 5-year freeze.
out some ways in which Lojban is similar to European	      In any event, the	resemblance does not give Lojban the
languages, including Esperanto.				    Indo-European cases	of Esperanto.  There are no case
  I remain unconvinced that Esperanto's	grammar	is unlike   endings, no	grammatical requirements such as that
Indo-European languages.  As an	example, contrary to what   adjectives must 'agree' with a particular case.  We	have
Don implies, the number	and specific cases in a	language    'case tags'	in Lojban, but these are optional and even
are not	universals, and	are significant	aids to	classifying frowned upon for 'cases' in	the place structure, and anyway
them.  That a language has 'nouns' and 'verbs' and 'adj-    resembles a	combination of 'prepositions' and 'adverbs'
ectives' that work in ways familiar to us, that	most	    more than case inflections on words.  (They	also resemble
sentences have a 'nominative' agent case as the	subject,    what Don calls 'case-forming morphemes'; however, in Lojban
usually	appearing before the verb, and an 'accusative'	    they are separate words that do not	'govern	the form' of
object case that usually appears right after the verb.	    any	other word.)
These are anything but universal, though they are found	in    Lojban has no 'passive voice' either - a 'passive	voice'
most, if not all Indo-European languages.  Many	languages   is an artifact of Indo-European grammar which is used less
have no	nominative or accusative cases,	being organized	    in English and Germanic languages than in other European
around cases called 'ergative' and 'passive'.  Some	    languages.	In Lojban, there are various methods of
languages do not even have a clearly identifiable subject,  rearranging	the sumti places of a predicate.  One might
and Japanese has both 'subjects' and 'topics' that each	    label any arrangement that doesn't have an active agent in
serve some of the purposes of the Indo-European	'subject'.  the	x1 position 'passive', but again, this isn't the same
  Now what Don says later about	the "-N" ending	could be    as the European 'passive voice'. (See B. Comrie's books The
used to	argue that Esperanto's cases are different from	the World's Major Languages and	Language Typology and
Indo-European ones, but	by standard linguistic terminology, Linguistic Universals for excellent	discussions of the
that ending is a 'declension' that marks its word as being  typological	features of language.)
in a case (grammatical role) which differs from	the	      Lojban is	distinctly different from any natural language
grammatical role it would be in	if the declension were not  in several ways.  The first	step in	learning Lojban,
present.						    therefore, involves	stepping out of	the constraining ideas
  Lojban has NO	grammatical cases.  Linguists and	    of natural language	to learn these new concepts.  Once that
artificial intelligence	people can assign 'case	labels'	to  is accomplished, then for European speakers, Lojban	is
the various sumti places in the	structure, but these are    probably comparable	in learning difficulty to Esperanto;
not grammatical	cases.	They are semantic cases	that	    Lojban has a somewhat simpler grammar, but Esperanto's
indicate the semantic relationship between the place and    roots are more highly recognizable to Europeans (and
the rest of the	sentence.  In Lojban there are as many po-  English speakers).	For Chinese speakers, Lojban may
tential	semantic cases as there	are words in the language - actually be	easier,	since many features of Lojban's	grammar
an infinite number.  The places	defined	in the place	    at least superficially resemble Chinese features.
structure are merely those most	essential to conveying a
relationship.  We list the places in the definitions of	the   "Athelstan ... describes his Lojban rules	using Lojban
words partly to	remind people that Lojban bridi	express	    terms ... The definition of	each one of those terms	should
relationships, and to remind them of the essentials of the  be counted as a separate rule (axiom, if you will)." -
concept	to be related.					    Should the definition of each of the Indo-European
  In one sense,	Lojban doesn't even have a 'subject'.	    grammatical	terms used in the Esperanto rules have also
Technically, all of the	sumti places are 'objects' that	are been counted as 'axioms'?  If so, I	think Esperanto	comes
related	by the selbri.	However, in at least two ways, the  out	far the	worse for the added criteria.  The number of
1st (x1) place of any given bridi predicate, whichever of   specialized	Lojban words we	need to	discuss	the grammar is
the sumti it happens to	be in a	given arrangement, has a    fewer than the number of words needed to discuss a European
unique role among the places which might as well be	    language.
labelled as 'subject', for consistency with the	terminology
of linguistics.	 We'll let linguists determine if the x1      "Athelstan does 'not describe word or sentence order....'
sumti really is	a 'subject' in the traditional sense, or    This seems a bit ingenuous to me..." -  There are two types
whether	another	term better applies.			    of word order that can be talked about.  The order of words
  Now it turns out that	many of	our relations resemble	    of particular grammatical type in a	sentence is specified
European languages in that the first place is often an	    by the entire set of rules of the grammar.	There is no
agent and the second place is an object.  This may	    meaningful 'rule' or 'rules' that govern this kind of word

							   19


order.	The order of the places	for a given brivla, on the    "Athelstan refers	to some	sort of	'variant compounding
other hand, is not a grammatical issue in Lojban at all,    rules'" -  I believe Athelstan was referring to the
unlike European	languages and Esperanto	 (I understand that extensive set of additional	rules, not conveyed in the set
Chinese	is also	relatively free	in word	order).		    of 16, that	take 148 pages to describe, as well as rules
  Thus,	Athelstan did not discuss word order because it	is  such as the	ones Don describes as not written down.
not part of the	Lojban grammar.	 The order of the places is
part of	the semantic meaning of	each word, just	as the	      "... he does himself the favor of	counting some of those
meanings of 'subject' and 'object' for each Esperanto verb  sub-rules more than	once, if they are referred to in
are part of the	meaning	of that	verb.  From our		    another "super-rule." -  Athelstan was merely trying to
perspective, such semantic rules are at	a lower	level of    show that the 'super-rule' grouping	concealed the true rule
the language than grammatical rules.  Lojban has no higher  count.  The	exact number of	rules, I'd hoped we had
level rule that	can be said to govern the order	of places.  demonstrated, was quite irrelevant.	 Lojban's 550-odd
There may be some patterns, but	we haven't really tried	to  stated rules, by the way, are expanded by YACC into	about
find them.						    800	unique computer-labelled 'states' which	correspond to
							    expanding and repeating each of the	'subroutines' Don
  "The Esperanto presentation of the morphology	of the	    refers to as often as is necessary.
adjective is quite complete in four lines; the Lojban	      A	Lojban-based computer process does not choke on	such
presentation ... does not define how this is done (do	    expansion, since the expansion is a	natural	product	of
selbri modify other selbri preceding them? by following	    YACC.  When	we say Lojban is grammatically unambiguous, it
them? by sitting in the	next line up?)"	-  The Lojban	    is because in each of these	800 states, by looking at the
'morphology of the adjective' is complete in zero lines,    next word only, a Lojban processor knows what state	to go
since we don't have adjectives.	 selbri	modify other selbri to next.  The grammar process consists simply of jumping
in many	ways, some of which are	adjective-like.	 The	    from state to state	until the end is reached.
modification can be left-modifies-right	or right-modifies-
left, logical connection, or non-logical connection.  In      "Loglan treats the sound written in English as 'CH' as a
all but	the simplest left-to-right modification, there are  stop 't' followed by a fricative 'sh', written 'tc,' rather
cmavo that can be translated literally into English or	    than as, more correctly, a single harsh fricative halfway
other languages, revealing the order, and we believe that   between the	stop and the fricative.	 Brown was here	ap-
all possible orders and	groupings can be represented in	    parently influenced	by the (not invariably phonetic)
some way.  Athelstan simply didn't find	anything to say	    International Phonetic Alphabet, which in this case	appears
about Lojban that corresponded to what was being said in    to have been heavily influenced by French.	Esperanto more
the Esperanto rule.  What he said was complete and accurate correctly treats this single sound with a single letter..."
- position in a	Lojban sentence	totally	determines what	    -  Correct by whose	standard? (Correctness always has a
modifies what.						    standard, as any Lojbanist knows from the place structure
  As for Don's facetious suggestions on	how selbri might    of "drani").  The IPA is the standard alphabet of
modify each other by position, I reply in kind:	 do Es-	    linguistic phonology, and hence is the way that one	must
peranto	adjectives get written on the line before?	    describe sounds when talking to a linguist.	 To claim that
  Interestingly, in other places, Don excuses his 16 rules  the	linguistic standard phonetic alphabet is wrong because
for non-specificity:  "the description of the passive voice it doesn't agree with Esperanto seems a bit	backwards.
properly belongs to the	Ekzercaro" and talking about word-    The combination of a stop	and a fricative	is called an
formation rules	"they fill some	148 pages".  Again, our	    'affricate'	and can	be treated as either one sound or as
purpose	was to compare what was	present	in the Esperanto    two.  In Lojban, we	treat all affricates, including	'tc'
rules with a corresponding level of detail about the Lojban and	'ts', as two sounds; so	do most	linguists.
rules.	We recognize that neither set of rules is complete;   This is due to the simple	reason that if you say the stop
we want	to be able to point this out to	Esperantists that   and	the fricative together,	they phonetically blend	to form
cite the 16 rules as a statement of Esperanto's	simplicity. the	affricate in a way indistinguishable to	most listeners.
So Don has made	our point for us.			    Thus, if we	were to	write the affricates as	a single
							    letter, we would have to forbid the	two-letter combinations
  "Most	Esperantists ... definitely obey a particular rule  that are equivalent.  Since	no other single	letter sound in
of word-formation ... -- one that, so far as I know, has    Lojban can alternatively be	expressed as two sounds, to
never been written down, and would be difficult	to codify   match the Esperanto	distinction in only a couple of	cases
in a few simple	sentences." -  Hopefully Lojban	is	    would be inconsistent.  (Does Esperanto forbid the two-
sufficiently regular that no one ever will have	to say this letter equivalent combinations of the affricates to	prevent
about the language.  Our word compounding rules	are quite   confusion?)
rigid, and yet fairly unrestricted.  We	don't constrain	any   Esperanto's approach causes untold heartache to typists,
word from modifying another, and provide some fairly	    forcing the	addition of non-standard diacritical marks to
esoteric grammatical conversions to allow you to combine    several letters to fit the language	within the Roman
concepts that are grammatically	incompatible.		    alphabet.  (There is at least one typo in the Esperanto
							    rules because of this - I forgot to	manually go back and

							   20


add an Esperanto diacritical mark that is not supported	by  readers are	missing	useful and perhaps important
my word	processor or printer.)				    information.
  Esperanto is not consistent on the matter of the	      In Lojban, there are other factors, based	on its unusual
affricates, by the way.	 While representing the	affricate   grammar.  Where logical structure is always	explicit, the
sounds that are	expressed by Lojban 'tc' and 'ts' with a    convoluted logic of	some English sentences has to be
single letter, as well as the voiced equivalent	of the	    expanded to	great length; on the other hand	the English "it
first ('dj' = English 'j'), Esperanto does not have the	    is not the case that" is expressed briefly as Lojban "na".
voiced equivalent of 'ts' as a single letter as	consistency When Athelstan translated Saki (see	JL10) he found the
would require.	The sound of 'dz' in it	is expressed using  resulting text was about the same length or	shorter.
two letters in Esperanto words (an example is found in one  (There are actually	more words, since Lojban words seem to
of Don's footnotes), even though it is a 'single sound'	by  average about 30% shorter than English words; there	are
the identical logic as the other three.			    also more syllables	- Lojban words seldom have syllables
  In Comrie's book on the languages of the world, similar   more than 3	letters	and certainly not as long as
comments to mine are made in explaining	why 'ts' and others 'strengths'.)
are not	considered as one in Germanic languages.  It is	      I	doubt that Don's objection to the old saw proves true
pointed	out that linguistically, any stop can be combined   for	all languages, by the way.  I suspect that regardless
with any fricative, and	each such 'affricate' combination   of the translator, most Romanized Chinese (where most words
could be treated as one	sound or as two.  Examples include  are	one or two syllables) translates to Russian (with in-
'ps', which will be recognized from Greek, and 'pf' from    flectional suffixes	that are one or	two syllables long on
German.	But neither Esperanto nor English nor Lojban treat  most words)	resulting in a longer text.
'ps' or	'pf' as	a single sound.
  Don is wrong in equating the 'kh'/Lojban 'x' sound with     "That it took Lojban 35 years to reach the point at which
the two	affricates.  'x' is a pure fricative - called an    it was speakable is	not, I think, a	point in its favor as a
'unvoiced velar	fricative' or an 'unvoiced palato-velar'    means of communication." -	Wrong.	It shows that we were
fricative depending on exactly where the tongue	is placed   diligent in	our research.  And with	good reason; we	know
(these are the sounds of German	'doch' and 'ich', respec-   much more about language now than in Zamenhof's time, and
tively).  The 'x' sound	linguistically has nothing to do    we have a tougher and more skeptical audience (the academic
with an	'h' sound, which is actually formed in the	    world) to please.  We also had a bigger job	to do, since
epiglottal region.  That we represent 'x' as 'kh' in	    Lojban was designed	from scratch.
English	is a convention; it has	nothing	to do with sounds     Whether or not Don is right about	the Indo-European-ness
(notwithstanding this, trying to combine a 'k' with an 'h'  of Zamenhof's grammar, there is no doubt that Zamenhof
will give a reasonable 'x' sound).			    started with European grammar and simplified.  We
  Unlike English and German, IPA does use a single letter   (originally	Brown and later	others as well)	started	with
for this sound.	 (The true velar affricates - combinations  nothing except a goal of matching predicate	logic
of stops and fricatives	- aren't pronounceable either as    structures,	and the	vague notion of	speakability.  Because
single or double sounds	for English speakers - in Lojban,   we had no working language to emulate, there were un-
they would be expressed	as 'kx'	and 'gq', if 'q' is defined doubtedly going to be false	starts and re-engineering of
as the voiced equivalent of 'x'	- found	in Arabic as the    major features.  I suspect that much of Zamenhof's
sound at the beginning of Libyan leader	Qaddafi's name.)    development	period was used	to select the root word	stock;
							    only a small fraction of Loglan/Lojban development time has
  "... the old saw ... 'any translation	into any other	    gone into word-making.
language will average about 25%	longer than the	English	      In a sense, Esperanto took the entire evolutionary period
original' ..." -  Almost any literal translation will take  of Indo-European grammar to	be developed.  (Of course, by
longer than the	original.  Translating Lojban to English    the	same logic, Lojban took	2500 years, since predicate
literally is usually even more expansive than 25%, often 2- logic was invented,	to be developed).
to-1 or	greater; just look at any of our translations here    (You can also compare the	actual Esperanto development
in JL.	On the other hand, the reverse direction gives the  period with	the time that we've taken to redevelop the
same result.						    Lojban version of Loglan from scratch to avoid copyright -
  The translator's art involves	producing idiomatic non-    less than 3	1/2 years so far, and I	suspect	that our design
literal	translations that capture the approximate sense	of  is far more	intricately specified than Zamenhof's was when
the original.  This will sometimes be shorter, sometimes    he published.  By Don's histories that I've	read, I	gather
longer,	since the source language may be using an idiom	    that Esperanto was not complete in a sense of being
that has no counterpart	in the target language (which is    standardized until sometime	after 1900.  Depending on your
always the case	with Lojban at this point).  Also, almost   definitions, we will be comparably standardized either when
any culturally-based word has to be expanded into a phrase  the	textbook and dictionary	are done or after the 5	year
in another language if meaning is to be	preserved.  If Don  baseline period proves the language	is stable.)
is 'always shorter' as he claims, he is	undoubtedly	      I've been	told that a major milestone occurred as	late as
omitting subtleties of the source language version that	he  1905 when the annual Esperanto meeting was first conducted
considers either obvious or irrelevant given the context.   in Esperanto; at this meeting it could first truly be said
If he is correct, he is	a true artist; otherwise, his	    that Esperanto was a 'living language'.  Lojban should

							   21


achieve	that status in a much shorter time, although	    the	average	American is going to think that	you are
possibly with a	smaller	speaker	base.			    speaking English because it	is easier or more convenient
  I note that Jim Brown	considered his language	speakable   than Esperanto.  And if it IS easier for you to speak
in 1977, or possibly even earlier (there are reports that a English than Esperanto to another Esperantist, you are
group called the 'Loglan Sogrun' conversed to a	minimal	    missing out	on a prime opportunity to learn	to speak it
extent in the 60's).  Brown actually tried to teach the	    better, while demonstrating	that the language is useful to
language to college students in	the 50's - though with no   passers-by (something most of them are probably unconvinced
particular success -  and sold books teaching the language  of).
starting in 1966.					      When I can speak Lojban fluently I will try to speak
  Brown's books	of the 60's were probably as complete as    Lojban at convention tables	promoting the language,	if the
Zamenhof's 1888	book, but Brown	did not	have the follow-    other people manning the table also	speak comparably well.
through	that Zamenhof did, nor the 'market' ripe for the    If I have problems with people who seem repelled, I'll add
language that Zamenhof had with	the simultaneous collapse   a sign inviting them to ask	us what	we're saying.
of VolapЃk.  Also, to put it simply, Brown's books, while     This will	entice people and cause	them to	see that we
they explained things in considerable detail, had no text   think the language is worth	speaking when we could be
longer than individual sentences.  They	were thus at best   speaking English instead; they will	also be	curious	as to
mediocre in teaching the language for actual use.  But this what we are	saying,	and we'll happily explain.  This may
was not	a flaw in the language or its design, but rather in not	be how it works	out in reality,	but this is our	goal,
its inventor's teaching	and writing style.		    and	our limited experience so far is that using the
  Loglan/Lojban	has had	an added handicap over Esperanto -  language in	public prompts curiosity and not repulsion.
a changing plural set of goals which is	more than mere	    (We've done	nicely at conventions with people who notice
'speakability',	and rising standards on	what it	takes to    our	buttons	with the slogan	"e'osai	ko sarji la lojban.")
achieve	those goals.  The standard of unambiguity changed     If we're wrong, Don can say "I told you so".  But	if this
with the development of	computer tools like YACC, and a	    turns out to be the	case, then I am	most pessimistic that
language thought to be unambiguous suddenly wasn't.  I	    any	language will be acceptable as an International
believe	I've done more work researching	language universals language to	Americans.  At any given time on the path to
than Brown did.						    acceptance,	there will be Americans	who don't know the
  The whole point of the JL11 discussion, of course, was    language.  If a foreigner is not going to learn English (in
that comparison	of development periods just isn't	    which case English is the international language), then the
practical, and the various numbers in the above	discussion  American must learn	Esperanto or whatever before the need
should prove this.  But	Athelstan and I	were trying to	    arises where it must be used, or she/he won't be fluent
respond	to comments and	questions that have been frequently when that need arises.  And	this means speaking the
raised by Esperantists.	 If the	'35-year' development	    language extensively with English-speaking cohorts before
effort can be claimed as a strike against us, we have the   then, by definition.
right to argue it as a virtue instead.			      In any event, to go from a few thousand to 250 million
							    Americans speaking a particular foreign language will take
  "... more people -- or at least Americans -- are repelled some aggressive (and skillful) marketing which may be
when they hear a conversation they don't understand than    offensive to some people.  Possibly	as offensive as	the
are attracted.	When possible, I always	use English under   USEnglish people are in promoting English (whether one
such circumstances." -	I was merely observing that at a    agrees with	their opinions or not, their words and tactics
convention table 'selling' a language, it seemed strange    are	pushy and offensive).  The trick is to market
not to hear the	language.  I would expect that Americans    aggressively while minimizing offense.
are not	much repelled to hear a	'strange' language if they    I	should note that I while I disagree with Don on	this
expect to hear one, and	one would expect to hear one at	an  point, I find many of the Esperanto	marketing techniques
Esperanto table, which is not a	BART train.  I certainly    quite skillful, and	hope that we Lojbanists	can learn from
did, which is why I made the comment.			    them.  This	is only	practical under	a cooperative, as
  (On the other	hand, Americans	are often offended to hear  opposed to competitive relationship	between	the two
a language other than English when visiting a foreign	    communities.
country, but this is the Americans' problem, not the
natives.  In the US these days,	perhaps	10-20% of the
people have a native language other than English, so			       Masters of Tongue Fu
Americans will have to get used	to hearing things other				by Donald J. Harlow
than English.)
  I also have a	different philosophy as	to what	it takes to	    originally published in The	ELNA Newsletter
sell a new language to Americans.  If you use English			     reprinted with permission
whenever that is a possibility because it is a common
language, you merely support the argument that 'we don't      When people say "International Language" today, they are
need Esperanto (or Lojban) because English is already	    probably talking about Esperanto.  In China, in fact, the
spoken by most everyone	who wants to talk to people from    language is	better known as	shi jie	yu, which simply means
another	culture'.  Regardless of whether it is true or not, "international language," than as "Esperanto."  In those

							   22


parts of the world where "interlinguistics" is an accepted  Auguste Kerckhoffs.	 The resulting struggle	destroyed the
part of	the science of linguistics, articles on	the subject language, many of whose proponents in any case were
-- if they are not purely historical in	nature -- will	    shifting their allegiance to the rising (green) star of Es-
almost certainly refer almost exclusively to Esperanto.	    peranto by the end of the eighties.	 By the	beginning of
Discussions of the literature of artificial languages will  the	new century, VolapЃk was all but dead, though at least
concentrate totally on that of Esperanto, since	only very   one	(very small, very irregular) bulletin in the language
underdeveloped literatures exist for other artificial	    seems to have appeared as late as 1960.  When Bernard
languages, and for most	of them, don't exist at	all.  Any   Golden went	in search of speakers of VolapЃk on the	lan-
study of the sociology of an artificial	language, too, will guage's 100th birthday, he found a total of	ten -- all of
concern	itself only with Esperanto, since only two other    whom also spoke Esperanto.
artificial languages ever had populations of adherents even   It is worth noting, however, that	at its peak VolapЃk
remotely comparable to that of Esperanto, and then only	for boasted perhaps 100,000 adherents -- though	how many of
very short periods of time.				    them could actually	speak the language is open to question.
  But Esperanto	is neither the first not the only	    In this regard, it is interesting that it shared several
"international language."  Attempts to create such a	    characteristics with Esperanto.  The two of	these that are
language go back at least to the thirteenth century, when   perhaps most important, in my view,	are:  (1) an
the Abbess Hildegarde of Rupertzberg, a	lady more recently  agglutinative system of word-formation, in contrast	to the
exhumed	-- and justly so! -- by	the women's movement, the   standard Indo-European system (more	correctly:  lack of a
gnostics, and various musical organizations (how refreshing system); and (2) the desire	of the inventor	to solve the
it is that Hildegarde, one of the earliest of the	    problem of communication between people of different
"Renaissance Men," was a woman!), created her "Lingua	    languages, not just	to invent an artificial	language.
Ignota."  The philosophers Comensky, Leibniz, and Descartes   I	don't want to go into Esperanto's history in any detail
all wrote about	the international language; Bishop Berkeley here.  If you want to read a good book about the early
worked at developing one.  In the last century,	the	    period, get	a copy of Edmond Privat's Historio de la Lingvo
Frenchman Sudre	created	Solresol, a language meant to be    Esperanto, or his Vivo de Zamenhof.	 I would only wish to
whistled or trumpeted, and it enjoyed a	very long period of say	that, more than	a hundred years	into its existence, Es-
popularity in some circles in France; at one point the	    peranto's eventual fate has	not yet	been decided.  Given
French military	even considered	adopting it, possible	    that over its history the language has had few friends,
because	trumpets can be	heard over greater distances than   except for a (relatively few) far-sighted and courageous
shouted	commands.  Who knows?  Had the French followed	    souls who have actually gone out and learned it, while it
through	with this idea,	their defeat in	the Franco-Prussian has	succeeded in gaining for itself	a notable array	of
War in 1871 might not have occurred, and all later history  enemies -- Adolf Hitler and	Josef Stalin spring immediately
would have been	different.				    to mind -- the staying power that the language has
  No one knows how many	"international languages" have	    demonstrated is quite encouraging.
actually been proposed.	 The figure certainly exceeds a	      Let me only add here that	Zamenhof, like Schleyer, was
thousand.  These range from genuine a priori languages,	all interested not in creating and artificial language but in
of whose material is invented out of whole cloth, to	    finding some viable	solution to the	problem	of
slightly modified ethnic languages, such as Basic English.  communication between different peoples.  And in Zamenhof's
But of the thousand or so such languages, only a few have   case -- he was a Jew living	in late	19th century Russia --
ever attained any degree of popularity,	and most of that    the	problem	was far	from a theoretical one.
has been spurious -- a creation	of the news media, ever	in    Zamenhof stated (in his First book) that Esperanto was
search of some new and interesting story.  Chronologically, not	our typical European language.	Arguments over
these most famous of international languages have been:	    Esperanto's	Europeanness go	on even	today.	Certainly,
VolapЃk, Esperanto, Ido, Occidental, Basic English, and	    despite recent modest accretions from Japanese and other
Interlingua.  For those	who know little	or nothing about    non-European languages, Esperanto's	lexical	material
the origins and	fates of these languages, I would like to   remains primarily European,	chiefly	Romance, in origin.
give an	introduction to	them.				    Other aspects of the language's structure are less
  VolapЃk was invented in 1880 by a German priest,	    convincingly European.  Certain tendencies in popular use
Monsignor Johann Martin	Schleyer.  Schleyer, a polyglot,    of the language -- for instance, the occasional doubling of
recognized among his less talented parishioners	the need    short adjective roots to show emphasis, rather than	through
for a language to communicate across national boundaries,   use	of the -EG suffix -- show a pattern of thought in the
and set	our to create on.  The result was VolapЃk.  The	    language reminiscent of Chinese.
language enjoyed tremendous popularity over the	next	      I	don't intend to	argue here over	whether	Esperanto is
decade,	but, because of	certain	aspects	of its grammar and  fundamentally European or non-European; but	certainly many
vocabulary, it generated a strong movement for reforms	    early speakers of the language in Western Europe found it
among many of its speakers; and	Schleyer, who saw himself   less European (more	particularly, less West-European) than
as the language's Pope,	so to speak, refused to	even	    they would have liked.  This was particularly true in
consider such reforms.	The language's most vocal adherents France, where many early leaders of	the national Esperanto
split into two factions, one supporting	Schleyer and on	    movement would have	preferred a more Francophone, or even
supporting his chief opponent, a French	professor named	    Anglophone,	tone to	the language.  A few of	these

							   23


gentlemen, in fact through a rather underhanded	process,      The language's very name gives away De Wahl's motivation.
set themselves up as "reformers" of Esperanto, and in 1907  An early Esperantist, he also abandoned the	language early
produced a version of Esperanto	that appeared much more	in  on,	apparently in protest against its non-traditional
tune with the linguistic norms of the world -- i.e., French structure.	Whether	he was ever a practicing Idist,	I don't
and English.  For a while, they	expected that their new	    know, but suspect that from	the time he left Esperanto he
language would replace classical Esperanto, but	when this   followed a very different and more radical route.
did not	happen -- a vast majority of ordinary speakers of   Occidental,	built upon the basis of	an earlier project,
the language refused to	make the necessary changes in their Julius Lott's Mundolingue, can best	be described, I	think,
habits -- the "reformed	Esperanto" split off and became	an  as a late and very highly rationalized Romance dialect,
artificial language in its own right, Ido.		    with noticeable German accretions.	It was,	in fact,
  While	Ido shows a decided shift away from Esperanto's	    nothing less than an attempt to codify West	European
agglutinative word-formation system, back towards a more    thought processes in a constructed language.  Supporters of
Western	European orientation, it does not represent a	    Occidental justified this by asserting that	civilization,
complete break with the	linguistic ideas expressed first in being essentially European in nature, should be represented
VolapЃk	and then more clearly in Esperanto.  The real	    by an essentially European language.  In this way, the
difference between the two languages lay in the	motivations language would help	make the blessings of European thought
of the men who developed them.	It is fairly apparent that  available to the rest of the world -- or help keep the rest
the problem of communication was of little interest to	    of the world under the European thumb, as the more cynical
Prof. Louis Couturat, Louis de Beaugront, and Major Charles might tend to think.
Lemaire, the primary motors behind the development of Ido;    The nineteen thirties were, in some ways,	the apogee of
they were more concerned with what they	saw as Esperanto's  language construction; Occidental was merely the most
linguistic blemishes.  This is hardly surprising; the	    successful and best	known of a series of attempts to create
pleasant little	conspiracy into	which they entered for the  a new international	language.  The famous Danish linguist
purpose	of replacing that Russian Jewish eye-doctor as the  Otto Jespersen, for	instance, a long-time mainstay of the
guiding	force in the international language movement shows  Ido	movement, abandoned the	language in favor of his own
in them	an ethical blind spot that would not fit well with  project, Novial, which was largely a clone of Occidental.
a genuine concern for the communications needs of ordinary  But	the best-known project of this period probably remains
people.	 Insofar as Ido	did prosper -- and it prospered, in Basic English.
fact, much more	than did any other "international language"   Basic English, invented in 1930 by the Englishman	C. K.
except VolapЃk and Esperanto --	it did so, I believe,	    Ogden, was an attempt to simplify English and make it more
despite	the people behind it, not because of them.	    suitable for international use.  Ogden claimed to have
  Ido, in fact,	appears	to have	attained a maximum	    reduced the	entire vocabulary of the language to 850 words.
population of about 10,000 adherents by	the early 1920's -- The	problem	was that his claims were spurious; the language
not all	that far behind	Esperanto in that period.  But as   included far more than 850 words (Ogden did	not count
the ranks of Esperanto swelled through the twenties, to	    "international" words such as alcohol in his 850 word
reach more than	a hundred thousand by 1930, those of Ido    vocabulary,	though they were considered part of the
appear to have declined.  It nevertheless remains extant    language; and he added several 1000-word technical
even today, though in what seems to be a basically moribund vocabularies).  Also, many people felt that	Basic English
state.	Ido, like Esperanto, has actually produced a small  was	merely a "Trojan horse"	for a more standard brand of
original literature -- though, strangely enough, so far	as  the	language.  The event proved this latter	group correct;
I know the only	genuine	literary work ever published in	    in the 1960's, the British Council,	a government-sponsored
Ido, a collection of original poetry, was published by the  organization devoted to spreading English among the
Kultura	Centro Esperantista in Switzerland.		    heathens, bought the rights	to Basic English, and since
  A recent newspaper article about another constructed	    that time it has been used only as in introduction to stan-
language project referred to Esperantists as "verbal	    dard (read:	British) English.  Though several famous
hobbyists."  As	a matter of fact, Ido did much to cull the  English-speakers supported the language from time to time,
verbal hobbyists out of	the Esperanto movement very early   among them Winston Churchill and H.	G. Wells (who, in The
on.  One result	of this	is that, for many years, the Esper- Shape of Things to Come, had the whole world speaking Basic
anto movement has been remarkably free of individuals who   English), no popular movement for this language was	ever
see the	language only as an interesting	project, whose main generated.
purpose	in existing is to improve itself by adopting their    Because of the growing number of language	projects, there
recommended reforms.  Another result is	that the Ido	    was	some confusion as to which one would be, or even should
movement ended up consisting mainly of just such people.    be,	the ultimate international language.  This confusion
It is hardly surprising, then, that when yet another	    had	begun when VolapЃk, which had offered such high	hopes
"improved" international language came along, it would skim to the world, fell apart and was replaced by Esperanto; and
off a far greater percentage of	members	from the Ido	    it had become endemic when the Ido schism occurred in 1907.
movement than from the Esperanto movement.  This language   By the late	twenties, with Esperanto and Ido and Occidental
was Occidental,	proposed in 1922 by the	Estonian Edgar De   and	who knew how many other	projects vying for attention,
Wahl.							    it was understandable that the ordinary individual would
							    throw up his hands in disgust.  An American	Esperantist,

							   24


Mrs. Alice Vanderbilt Morris --	of the New York
Vanderbilts, I believe -- funded the establishment of a	new   Although Interlingua is not the only postwar entry into
organization to	do research into the problem and find some  the	international language competition, it is the only one
sort of	acceptable solution, for instance a compromise	    to receive any publicity and to generate a supporting
between	the different language projects.  The organization  movement of	any size.  And it is a product of the year
was called the International Auxiliary Language		    1950.  It appears that, to a great extent, the production
Association, or	IALA for short.				    of such languages peaked in	the 1930's, and	went largely
  IALA,	located	in England, though it did valuable research out	of style after the Second World	War.  Why?
work, had little luck in convincing anyone to compromise.     I	would tend to blame the	apparent "success" of English
The Romance-based "naturalistic" languages such	as	    for	this.  The War gave French, already in decline,	a
Occidental and Novial would not	be ready to yield in the    deathblow, and by about 1950 it was	apparent that English
direction of "schematic" Esperanto; and	Esperantists at	    was	destined to become the international language, by
that time were not yet ready to	forgive	the Idists for the  default.  So what need for Esperanto, Interlingua, Ido, and
dirty work at the 1907 crossroads.  In any case, the	    other entries into the competition?	 The outcome was
Esperantists, who even then made up between 80 and 95% of   already decided.  The other	postwar	projects -- the
the entire International Language movement, felt that they  Romanids, Neos, Intals, Loglans, etc. -- were doomed to
had no need to compromise.  Furthermore, by the	mid	    obscurity.	Esperanto survived this	period,	and even
thirties they had other	and more pressing problems to at-   prospered to some degree, not because people saw it	as the
tract their attention -- proscriptions in Germany and the   coming world language (though there	were those who never
USSR, for instance.					    lost this hope) but	because	(a) it had already developed an
  Eventually, IALA, after moving to the	United States at    independent	infrastructure that could keep it going	even
the outbreak of	war, came under	the directorship of Dr.	    through the	most difficult periods -- as Soviet
Alexander Gode,	and set	out to create its own language,	    Esperantists proved	during the period from 1937 to 1956 --
which was published in 1950 and	given the name Interlingua. and	(b) it had already developed other reasons for
  Interlingua is even more quintessentially Romance that    existence besides as a solution to the world language prob-
Occidental, and	in its turn attracted away many	of the	    lem.
remaining adherents of Occidental, which tried to stave	off   But the success of English has always been more apparent
the inevitable by renaming itself "Interlingue."  But again than real.	The growth of English in the intervening period
its creator really had no interest in resolving	com-	    carried the	language from 11% of the world's population to
munications problems; he himself stated	that his real	    about 8.5% -- not the most inspiring rate of growth.  Where
purpose	was to provide the world with a	"standard average   English has	failed,	of course, we have tended to blame
European" vocabulary, culled from the Romance languages.    local conditions for this, or to assume that this failure
Interlingua made modest	inroads	in the American	press's	    is non-representative of the world as a whole -- as	when,
coverage of attempts to	solve the language problem through  for	instance, after	a hundred years	of concentrated	English
the fifties and	early sixties, and there exists	a small	    teaching has not produced a	nation of English-speakers in
Interlingua movement, mainly in	Europe,	even today; but	the Japan, we insist that "improved teaching methods" would no
language never had the widespread support that Esperanto    doubt resolve this problem,	or when	columnist Neal Peirce,
developed even in its earliest years.  Its one notable	    supporting California's English-only initiative, insists
success	was in giving the coup de grace	to Occidental,	    that we tend to retreat from English in this country "while
whose last magazine bit	the dust in 1985.		    the	rest of	the world stampedes to English."
  To recap the situations of these various languages today:   Forty five years after the end of	World War II it	is, I
  1) VolapЃk is	a dead issue and has been for the better    think, apparent to anyone that if English has not failed as
part of	a century.  It is not and has not ever been	    THE	international language,	it has certainly come nowhere
represented by any kind	of corpus of literature.	    near fulfilling all	those promises that were made for it at
  2) Esperanto continues to grow, and today boasts at least that time.	Nor is it likely to do so in the foreseeable
two million speakers, perhaps more, of whom some one	    future, even granting continued U.S. military and economic
hundred	thousand actively use the language and participate  primacy in the world -- a very unlikely possibility.
in the movement	to promote the language.  Some 150 to 200     Which means that the whole question of the international
periodicals appear regularly in	the language, not counting  language is	open again.  It	means that the Esperanto
local club bulletins.  It has a	large and growing body of   movement, barring the sort of deliberate repression	we've
literature, both original and translated.		    seen from time to time in Russia and China and Rumania and
  3) Ido retains a small movement and several periodicals   Germany and	elsewhere, will	prosper	anew.  Indeed, it has
to link	that movement, though none of them seem	to appear   been doing so since	the mid-seventies.
more often than	quarterly.  It has a very small	body of	      And it means that, in the	field of artificial languages,
original and translated	literature.			    Esperanto may begin	to see some aspiring competitors spring
  4) Occidental	is dead.				    up.	 In fact, those	competitors are	already	here.  In 1972,
  5) Basic English as a	separate language is dead.	    an Englishman, Leslie Jones, published his Eurolengo, a ba-
  6) Interlingua has a small relict supporting movement,    sically Romance language based on English and Spanish.  A
mainly in Europe.  It has few if any periodicals, and no    young French teacher made the pages	of the Guardian	in
body of	original literature to speak of.		    Britain (favorably)	with his Uropi.	 Two summers ago,

							   25


several	Esperanto clubs	in this	country	received letters    probably be	able to	get a book out the state library, but
from a young man developing a project he called	Linguos.    nowhere else will any information be available.
Loglan,	a product of the late fifties which made the pages    Esperanto	remains	the only truly viable artificial
of Scientific American in June,	1960, has recently been	    international language: easy to learn, relatively neutral,
revived	in two different forms.	 And just the other day	the with a wide	base of	cultural and practical services	for the
ELNA Central Office received a booklet,	mostly in German,   user to call on around the world.  Of all the artificial
about a	new Romance-based project called Unitario.	    languages extant today, only Esperanto is, not the result
  None of these	projects has, at least in this country,	    of an attempt to create a language,	but the	result of an
received the sort of publicity that panicked Esperantists   attempt to solve a problem.
in the early fifties when Interlingua appeared.	 A recent     And only Esperanto lives.
article	on Lojban (a schismatic	variant	of Loglan) that	was
picked up by the wire services and published in	many			__________________________________
newspapers around the country, appears to have been less
than enthusiastic about	the language; with the exception of   Bob responds (actually not very much):  Funny, I thought
Uropi, none of the others listed above have even been	    Don	Oldenburg's article was	quite favorable	towards	the
mentioned in the American press.			    language (and so did he), though I'll admit	that the
  But I	think that we will hear	more of	them --	and others  headlines used in some newspapers could be taken as
like them -- in	the future.  And much of what we hear, as   satirical.	Certainly the amount of	print space given the
was the	case with Ido and Occidental and Interlingua, will  language was quite significant.  But a good	news story
not be why they	are ideal solutions to the problem of	    reports facts rather than conveys enthusiasm, so I can
communication between different	peoples, but why they are   understand Don not finding much enthusiasm therein.
superior to Esperanto.
  Are they superior to Esperanto?  Probably so,	at least on   "In Esperanto's own terms	-- facility of learning,
their own terms.  Ido was superior to Esperanto	in its	    cultural and political neutrality -- none of these
adherence to West European linguistic norms.  Occidental    languages was in any way superior to Esperanto, nor	even
was superior to	Esperanto in its similarity to other	    equal to it." -  This invites all kinds of disagreement.
Western	languages.  Interlingua	was certainly superior to   Facility of	learning is of course an open question.	 Esper-
Esperanto as a quintessential Romance language.	 And if	    anto probably has better teaching materials	at the moment
what you wanted	was a watered-down form	of English, Basic   because of 100 years to develop them; probably many	of the
English	certainly filled the bill better than Esperanto.    other languages proposed would be equally easy to learn.
  In Esperanto's own terms -- facility of learning,	    As to cultural neutrality, Don admits early	on that
cultural and political neutrality -- none of these	    Esperanto derives its lexical materials from European lan-
languages was in any way superior to Esperanto,	nor even    guages.  Even if Sapir-Whorf is true, it is	likely that a
equal to it.  The same can be said, I think, about recent   language's word-stock has far more overt ties to culture
and future projects.					    than does grammar.	Don has	(in letters to us) written
  The mentioned	projects fall basically	into two	    about the ideology held by Esperantists - a	language with
categories, from what I	have seen of them, Eurolengo,	    an ideology	is the antithesis of politically neutrality.
Uropi, Linguos and Unitario appear to be fundamentally what The	goal of	being a	world language is itself inherently po-
we may call Euroclones,	like Occidental	and Interlingua.    litical; some cultures will	view such a concept as a
The designers of these languages, apparently unfamiliar	    threat.  Lojban's goals as a whole are basically non-
with the work of De Wahl, Jespersen and	Gode, are making    political; international language aspects are a side-
the same mistakes again	-- assuming that the world will	    benefit rather than	a primary goal.
best be	served,	and will let itself be served, by an	      (In one letter to	Dr. Brown, Don actually	criticizes us
artificial language with nothing to recommend it but its    for	not having an underlying ethic other than ensuring
Europeanness.  They don't realize that if this is what the  clear communication	- a purely linguistic goal.  Apparently
world wants, it	is more	likely to learn	Spanish.	    Don	doesn't	realize	that a non-linguistic ethic is
  Loglan and its offshoot Lojban fall into quite a	    inherently a cultural bias.	 If Esperanto has such an
different category.  Of	the mentioned languages, they have  underlying ethic, it is false to claim that	it is cul-
been getting the most publicity.  But it should	be noted    turally neutral without demonstrating that the ethic is
that no	language as a priori in	its origins as Loglan has   universally	accepted in all	cultures - an unlikely
ever succeeded in generating a body of speakers.  To add to prospect.)
Loglan's difficulties, it was originally created as a means
of testing the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis (now largely	      "Of all the artificial languages extant today, only
discredited), and for this reason its author claims to have Esperanto is, not the result of an attempt to create a
made it	as far from ordinary linguistic	patterns as he	    language, but the result of	an attempt to solve a problem."
could.	This may be a fine way of establishing an experi-   - Don says this right after	saying that Lojban was designed
ment, but for purposes of communication	it's a non-starter. to test the	'untestable' Sapir-Whorf hypothesis, which was
Loglan will most likely	go the way of Barnett's	Suma; a	few 'discredited' primarily because it was untestable (which is
years from now,	if you want to learn about it, you will	    obviously bad science).  Testing an	untestable hypothesis
							    as important as Sapir-Whorf	sounds like an attempt to solve

							   26


a problem to me.  So is	developing a speakable language	    persist in relying on them will, I predict,	lead us	into
with an	unambiguous syntax, as well as developing an a	    species suicide and	extinction.
priori language	that removes constraints on thought rather
than imposing them (as all other attempts I know of tried).   I	DECLARE	the possibility	of intentionally revising our
There are other	problems in the	world relevant to language  lived assumptions.	We can re-build	these patterns we live
besides	the one	Esperanto is associated	with.		    by so that we live not from	the practice of	defending our
							    presumed "absolute certainties" (or	from what I call self-
  "And only Esperanto lives." -	 A nice	slogan,	but	    defending),	but rather, from the practice of testing our
questionable at	best.  Don seems to base this on the	    own	guesses	(which I call self-correcting).
existence of an	original literature.  (By most other	      In other words, I	declare	that we	humans now have	it
standards of 'living' Don mentions in his article, at least within our grasp to	produce	a fundamental, principled,
Interlingua would be considered	'alive', if sick-a-bed.)    conscious, and deliberate revision of the structure	of
Michael	Helsem seems to	be on the road to matching the	    human social transacting.  For example, we can build up
entire original	literary production of Ido and VolapЃk	    social patterns with which to replace our non-viable social
before Lojban has a single fluent speaker, and I know of at institutions: the self-defeating or	self-eliminating
least two or three others that have more than contemplated  aspects of our dealings with ourselves, and	the self-
literary efforts in Lojban, but	either want to acquire more defending patterns in what we now call "nuclear family,"
skill before trying or (in at least one	case) are waiting   "friendship," "social group," "corporation," "local
for people who can read	the language without translating it government," and "nation-state."  We can come to recognize
first.							    our	patterned dealings with	the-human-species-as-a-whole.
	  ______________________________________	    And, having	built up these newer, potentially viable
							    patterns, we have it within	our grasp to replace the older,
							    non-viable patterns	with the newer ones.
	       Two Essays by Andy Hilgartner
							      I	PROMISE	to catalyze this revision of the fundamental
[Andy is interested in anybody's comments on these papers,  lived assumptions of the humans species so that, by	the
which are tangential to	Lojban,	but are	definitely tied	to  year 2007, we have put the new patterns into use planet-
  logic	and language.  You can also write to him for more   wide.
information; indicate whether you have any familiarity with
the theory called 'General Semantics'.	We also	have copies   And I REQUEST your direct	and immediate participation in
 of a couple of	his papers, including one inspired by his   this project.
 contact with Lojban, available	at the special-order price
  of 15c/page.	Andy's address is: 254 Kensington Place,					   C. A. Hilgartner, MD
    Marion OH 43302, and his phone is (614) 389-4595.]

		    STATEMENT OF INTENT					 Course	of Development of a Theory

  I ASSERT that	the patterns by	which we and our ancestors    The theoretical system developed by our research group
for the	past several thousand years have lived have now	    demonstrably and verifiably	opens up a new domain of human
failed us.						    knowledge.	As of this date, it amounts to approximately 50
  In my	view, these patterns center on the lived assumption person-years of innovative work.  In the following four
that "I	already	know how things	REALLY ARE" -- the perhaps  pages, let me tell you something about the background, the
unspoken, even unrecognized, pretense to "absolute	    increasing rigor, and the further promise of this inquiry.
certainty," with a consequent unwillingness to re-examine     Since 1963, the work has gone through at least three
and revise "what I thought I knew."  From that lived	    distinct developmental stages:
assumption follows a certain quarrelsomeness:  If I already   A)  My earliest paper on this topic (1963) presents a
know "how things really	are," and you express a	view which  theory of human behavior, stated in	ordinary scientific
differs	from mine, I will find your PROVOCATIVE	BEHAVIOR a  English, but based on known	premises which no one else had
THREAT to my AUTHORITY.	 And if	I cannot persuade,	    successfully used in this way.  In a paper presented before
manipulate or coerce you to revise what	you say	so it	    the	International Conference on General Semantics in 1965,
matches	what I ALREADY KNOW, I may take	steps to defend	my  I extended this theory of human behavior into the arena of
own TRUTHS by suppressing your mistaken	OPINIONS -- or may  large social institutions.	Also, I	made logical claims for
even set out to	suppress YOU.  And the means of	suppressing the	doctrine:  self-consistency, and parsimony.  When I
YOU range from verbal putdowns,	to fisticuffs, to murder,   gave the paper, I found myself applauded rather than shot
war and	genocide.					    down.
  Today, we know how to	use cosmic forces (such	as nuclear    But, while still at that conference, I came to an
fission	and fusion -- A-bombs and H-bombs) to defend our    uncomfortable insight:  I recognized that at that time, no
"absolute certainties."	 Under these conditions, I assert,  one	had yet	specified the relations	between	logical
those lived assumptions	which lead us to pretend to	    assumptions	and grammar for	even one discursive language.
"absolute certainty" have outlived their usefulness.  To    That means that any	discursive language remains in the role

							   27


of "a language of unknown structure."  Further,	I rec-	      ii)  I can express the central tenet of the developing
ognized	that one cannot	know a doctrine	better than one	    theory in terms of the construct of	an organism making a
knows the language in which one	states the doctrine.	    distinction	or discrimination -- expressible by a sentence
  Therefore, my	theory lacked rigor -- as long as I left it such as "This IS NOT that!"	 In a world of ceaseless change
stated only in a discursive language such as English, I	    ("at-a-date"), this	sentence appears valid in general.
could not back up logical claims made for it.		      iii)  To express the contrary of this tenet requires the
  I left that conference determined to perform a logical    construct of our organism not-making a distinction,
analysis of my doctrine, and to	state it as an axiomatic    expressible	by a sentence such as "This IS that!"  In a
system in a mathematical language of known structure.  I    world of change, this sentence appears never valid.
intended to satisfy myself as to whether one could in fact  Indeed, by the common definition of	the term mistake (Old
back up	the logical claims I had made for it.		    Norse, "to take wrongly"), whenever	an organism non-
  B)  Working with John	F. Randolph, then Fayerweather	    verbally TAKES some	non-verbal this	as if it WERE some
Professor of Mathematics at the	University of Rochester, I  other non-verbal that, he makes a mistake.
succeeded in doing the required	logical	analysis.  We wrote   Let me paraphrase	these simple-sounding phrases into more
four long papers which utilized	an algebraic set theory	    pretentious	logical	terminology:  Where, in	dealing	with
notation -- the	very paradigm of "a mathematical language   his	environment, an	organism non-verbally TREATS this as if
of known structure" -- to put the doctrine into	the form of it were that, in effect he posits the identity of this and
an axiomatic system.					    that -- he errs fundamentally; where he non-verbally
  At that point, we had	something really new:  a logically  distinguishes between them,	he posits their	non-identity --
rigorous and empirically testable theory which		    in that respect, he	does not err.
comprehensively	accounts for how a human deals with	      Then the central postulate of the	developing theory
himself, with his non-living environment, with other humans requires that, on this setting, we disallow	the construct
and (in	principle) with	other species			    of identity	(or the	binary relation	of identical with) in
  To call the theory comprehensive means that one can use   any	guise of form, explicit	or tacit.  In the developing
it to study "happenings" on any	level of interest, from	    frame of reference,	the construct of identical with	has no
that of	molecular structure -- e.g. the	structure of heme   usage except to designate situations in which somebody
molecules with various possible	side chains, only a few	of  makes a mistake.  In discrediting the construct of
which have a shape that	will allow the ring to combine with identity, I	explicitly extend the designated realm of error
divalent iron so as to form the	active center of a	    to include the case	in which our organism posits the
hemoglobin molecule -- up to that of how the human species  identity of	this with this (or of A	with itself).  The
as a whole gains its living in the biosphere.		    construct of self-identity conceals	the claim that we KNOW
  In 1969, the Journal of Theoretical Biology printed three what we have perceived and designated as A -- knowledge we
of these four papers.  That, too, created something of a    do not and cannot have.
stir --	we received more than 1200 requests for	reprints of   To take the rejection of identity	as one's central
one or more of these papers.				    postulate does not lead to paralysis or aphasia.  Instead,
  Meanwhile, I had what	mathematicians refer to	as a "new   it strips away the pretense	to delusional "knowledge,"
toy" --	an empty form composed of empty	set theory symbols, leaving us ready to	act on our assumptions.
devised	originally to account for the behaving-and-	      However, this central tenet MIGHT	contradict the modern
experiencing of	individuals -- and I set about finding out  logical axiom of identity, which states, "For all x	that
what else it could do.	I successfully applied it to a	    belong to the delimited domain D, x	is identical with x."
number of topics:  small group phenomena; large	social sys- Thus, in the mathematical theory of	sets, one cannot
tems; biological theory.  I even made some trespassing	    dispense with the construct	of identity:  for, by postu-
ventures into the physical sciences.  Eventually, I began   late, every	set qualifies as identical with	itself.
using it to focus on the topic of the foundations of logic    Hence, I feared, there might exist or arise a
and mathematics.  And at that point (Fall 1971), I began    contradiction between what my theory SAYS and the notation
developing another uncomfortable insight.		    in which it	says it.  At this point, I can prove that such
  C)  The difficulty centered about a possible		    a contradiction does arise;	then, however, I could only
contradiction between the "content" of the theory and the   sense it as	possible and feel sick to the stomach over it.
notation in which I expressed this "content" --	a collision   Eventually (Christmas 1971) I concluded that, so long as
between	central	premises.  To express this difficulty, I    I continued	using the mathematical theory of sets, I left
will need to state the setting ("universe of discourse")    myself no way of avoiding or otherwise handling that
for the	developing theory, its central tenet, and the	    possible contradiction.  So	I resolved to abandon set
contrary of this central tenet.				    theory, and	all other formalized or	discursive languages
  i)  I	can express the	setting	for this developing theory  from the Western Indo-European (WIE) tradition, and	to
by means of a run-on phrase such as an-organism-as-a-whole- devise my own.
dealing-with-its-environment-at-a-date.	  When one defines    To shorten an already-lengthy story, in the spring of
a notational theory on a setting, one restricts	discussion  1972, I made a fundamental discovery.  It concerns the
to the topics which fit	onto that setting -- thereby	    assumptions	encoded, within	WIE languages such as English
preventing oneself from	unknowingly getting off	the	    or set theory, in the grammatical distinction between noun
subject.						    and	verb.  Briefly,	we tell	the nouns from the verbs by re-

							   28


garding	any noun as identical with itself, and regarding no
verb as	identical with itself.	By the same token, we	      I	don't recall having taken detailed notes at last year's
regard that which we designate by a noun as also self-	    Logfest, hence I was worried at not	being able to recollect
identical (really existing, persisting,	static-and-	    the	discussion sufficiently	to be able to write up my own
unchanging), and that which we designate by a verb as also  version of the Sapir-Whorf debate.	I was hoping that the
not-self-identical (somehow transient).	 In the	WIE pat-    other participants'	reports	in the newsletter would	either
tern, one obtains a "complete sentence"	or a "well-formed   suffice or help to jog my memory.  Of course, these	reports
formula" by placing at least one noun or noun-phrase next   were published last	year, so my memory now requires	drastic
to at least one	verb or	verb-phrase.  Thus, regardless of   jogging for	me to be able to remember the discussion.  At
our intentions,	regardless of whether we noticed or not,    the	moment my memory is extremely vague, so	forgive	factual
every time we form a complete sentence in a WIE	discursive  errors on my part.
language or a well-formed formula from a notational	      I	can only remember that I saw the light bulb go off in
language, we posit at least one	static-and-unchanging	    at least one person's head -- Athelstan's perhaps --
"thing"	which enters into more or less transient	    meaning that I convinced one or more of you	that you have
"relations."  In other words, by utilizing the grammar of   to refine your conception of exactly what "Whorfian
the WIE	languages, we ACT as if, independent of	any	    effects" you anticipate finding and	how to construct an
observer, that which exists independent	of any observer	has adequately defined and controlled test.  I was disappointed
a structure identical with that	of the grammar of the WIE   by pc, however, who	stuck fast to his ill-informed notion
languages.						    that metaphysical bias resides in the grammatical
  This discovery opened	the way	toward the development of   categories,	and that one should commence a Sapir-Whorf
the desired non-WIE formalized language.  I found a way	to  experiment based on	that assumption.  I believe I stressed
disallow the hidden assumption I had disclosed,	and by	    then, and remind you now, that meaningful experiments re-
means of a small number	of explicit logical steps, to	    quire that the variables be	controlled.  Not only that, one
derive a grammar from by chosen	premises.		    must know what the variables are.  In comparing Lojban to
  This too constituted a new development.  Humans had never any	natural	language, there	are not	only several variables
before had a DERIVED grammar to	play with, only	inherited,  involved, but the significance of those variables and their
traditional ones; although the works of	Edward Sapir and    relation to	hidden variables may be	problematic.  Suppose
Benjamin Lee Whorf predict or foreshadow this development.  it turns out, for example, that languages vary greatly in a
  About	then I started collaborating with the linguist	    given set of surface-level grammatical features but	prove
Ronald V. Harrington of	the University of Rochester.  On    not	to have	any significant	difference at the deep-
this derived grammar we	developed a "Let's keep	track of    structural level.  In that case, the surface differences
what we	say" language, analogous to set	theory but	    would be deceptive and should not even be compared one-to-
fundamentally different	in structure.  As one way it	    one, but rather the	structures of the entire grammatical
differs	from set theory	and other traditional WIE nota-	    systems and	their semantic interpretations would have to be
tional languages, the developing notation systematically    investigated, understood, and compared.  The level at which
takes into account the observer.  In this notation, one	    pc is thinking is but a shallow caricature of scientific
finds it impossible to make a statement	except from the	    method.
point of view of "an-observer-observing-the-observed."	      Aside from reconstructing	my own version of last year's
  Subsequently,	we extended the	notation, and		    discussion,	which I	could still attempt to do with the
  i)  translated the findings of the set theory	calculus of prompting of others, I have	nothing	further	to contribute
human behaving-and-experiencing	into the new notation,	    on the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis at this point.  It is	your
obtaining a general theory of social systems;		    move now, and if someone in	the group can refine the Loj-
  ii)  developed a "numbering theory," a "personal	    banist conception of Sapir-Whorf and Lojban's relevance to
geometry", and a "notational physics with physicists in	    it,	then I am open to further discussion.
it";							      I	don't think you	will get very far based	upon your
  iii)	provided evidence suggesting that we humans can	now current thinking about Sapir-Whorf.	 Rather	than worrying
encompass the physical,	biological and human psycho-social  yourself about metaphysical	bias and the ways different
sciences within	a single frame of reference, based on a	    languages supposedly limit what can	be thought, it would be
single set of postulates.  This	possibility seems to me	to  better simply to focus on what a more precise language can
exceed the dreams of the seekers after a unified field	    do.	 As with formal	logic and mathematics, or Arabic
theory in physics.					    numerals as	compared to Roman numerals, it is possible to
  At the very least, the new frame of reference	gives us an extend one's thinking beyond what one can normally do
unfamiliar standpoint from which to view, and re-think,	    otherwise.	This is	not exactly Sapir-Whorf, but it	is
human concerns.	 That alone warrants studying it with care. Lojban's only convincing selling point.  The creation of a
							    cognitive community	that demands precise expression	and
							    provides a language	for it is intriguing even if it	does
	     Letters, Comments,	and Responses		    not	attract	research dollars.  Precision and explicitness
							    in communication, assuming that Lojban is workable in
		     from Ralph	Dumain			    everyday social interaction, can further the expression of
on Sapir-Whorf Discussions at LogFest 89, and other topics  and	maybe even the formulation of thoughts,	and remove sig-

							   29


nificant interpretive ambiguities and other difficulties on mandatory features of the language.	 Together with a basic
the part of the	hearer.	 I say significant, because a lot   lexicon and	a set of examples illustrating the language in
of expressions that would confound a computer are easily    use	(including syntactic features not explicitly described
interpreted without mistakes by	humans.	 You once mentioned elsewhere),	the "16	rules" formed the Fundamento.  Of
the issue of forcing assumptions on the	listener.  In those course, Esperanto like all other languages contains
cases where such "assumptions" actually	imply		    thousands of syntactic rules, some of which	are captured in
misinterpretation of meaning or	intent,	they could be	    prescriptive grammars, and many more of which the speakers
removed	by more	exact expression.  It should be	understood, are	unconscious.  Esperanto	is learned as other languages
though,	that those "assumptions" are not metaphysical	    are	learned, without complete formal grammars at hand, and
except when the	utterance itself involves ideological	    non-Europeans do not have to learn an Indo-European
issues,	in which case the conceptual bias is located in	the language before they learn Esperanto, any more than	they
terminology used in the	utterance.			    would have to learn	French before they could learn English.
  Thanks for finally publishing	my bibliography, after	    Also, Esperanto can	borrow words from any language,	not
stalling for a year using the lamest excuses.  The intent   just European ones.
and viewpoint of my annotated bibliography were	clearly	      On the alleged non-competition between Esperanto and
stated,	hence there never was a	question of misleading the  Lojban.  They are non-competitive if Lojbanists refrain
reader.	 Both the references and my comments help to com-   from pushing Lojban	as an international language, since the
municate to the	reader just how	many factors and	    Sapir-Whorf	hypothesis is of no concern to Esperanto.
subdisciplines are involved in dealing with the	issue of    However, the minute	someone	makes a	claim for a new	inter-
the relationship between language and thought.	Now that    national language, several issues arise.  Anyone coming
the readers know the different things that need	to be	    forth with a new language who looks	like a crackpot
considered, they can take it from there.  Since	I lack the  automatically discredits the international language
time now to take care of it, it	would help you to find a    movement in	the eyes of the	public,	hence Esperantists have
linguist who could find	up-to-date information on advances  a stake in the matter.  In the past, this means that
in linguistic theory since the early 1970s that	bear upon   somebody hides in their attic for 15 years creating	a
clarification of the relation of language to cognition.	    language, self-publishes a little book describing his new
  The closest I	have come to dealing with linguistics in a  language, and announces in a press conference that he has
long time was attending	a linguistics conference here in    just created the now world language.  It is	one thing to
December.  I queried a couple of friends about the current  have a hobby, it is	another	to make	bombastic proclamations
state of linguistic theory, who	were rather cynical.  They  that one's creation	(whether of a language,	a new monetary
did not	feel, however, that any	given school of	thought	was system, or any utopian scheme) will	change the world when
being discriminated against in terms of	research funding;   the	lack of	social realism is so obvious to	all.  Those
the politics is	more personal than doctrinal.  The book	    kind of people are obvious cranks, and hence they
exhibit	was overwhelming; there	is more	going on than	    compromise Esperanto whenever they claim that they have
anyone can assimilate -- books on syntax, discourse analy-  concocted a	new world language, as if the adoption of an
sis, you name it -- it's hard to get a grip on.	 I saw the  international language were	some kind of magic.  Hence
new book that Mouton has published on interlinguistics	    Esperantists have justifiably reacted negatively.
(i.e. international planned languages like Esperanto), but    Now, I do	not claim that Lojban/Lojban is	guilty of this
it was too expensive to	buy even at a discount.	 There were extreme behavior.  The Washington Post article did not cast
6 books	in a series on the DLT project,	the machine	    Lojban in such a light.  You have not yet claimed Lojban to
translation system that	uses Esperanto as the interlan-	    be the future international	language.  But you have	already
guage.	With two other books I know about, that	makes 8	    resorted to	dubious	propaganda in order to make yourself
books in all.  One of those books includes articles about   look good and Esperanto bad.
other machine translation projects, including one that uses   You suggest that,	as Lojban is a superior	engineering
the purportedly	logical	Indian language	Aymara as its	    effort than	Esperanto, it can quickly catch	up even	though
interlanguage!						    Esperanto has a century-long head start.  The creators of
  A few	comments on articles in	your recent newsletters.    Ido	also thought they were superior	language engineers, and
The lengthy article that compares Lojban to Esperanto	    where are they today?  There are social, political and
struck me as much to-do	about nothing, as no Esperantist    economic reasons why no planned language, Esperanto	or
today believes that his	language only has 16 rules.  That   otherwise, has been	universally adopted, and those
was used at one	time as	a propaganda device by careless	    obstacles cannot be	surmounted by the most able of
people,	but I think people are more thoughtful nowadays, at engineers.	Here the narrow, blinkered mentality of	the
least on that point.  Anyway, it is necessary to understand computer specialist	is so painfully	evident.
the historical origin of the "16 rules."  They are not	      There is also the	supposed cultural neutrality of	Lojban
descriptive but	prescriptive.  They came from the effort to that makes it superior to Esperanto.  But Lojban has not
put and	end to the constant attempts at	reforming the	    only neutrality, but cultural nullity.  Esperanto had
grammar	that people who	are never satisfied with the form   social roots (and still does today)	in the circumstances of
of Esperanto or	any other planned language kept	attempting  late 19th century Eastern Europe, and in spite of the
to make.  Adopted as part of the "Fundamento," the 16 rules provinciality of the Warsaw	Ghetto,	Zamenhof and Esperanto
declared those easily describable, non-negotiable,	    still managed to attract the admiration and	loyalty	of

							   30


people throughout the world.  The European "bias" of	    hence metaphysical bias) of	Lojban:	science	fiction	and
Esperanto's grammar is a non-issue, as that is the part	of  computer buffs and the like.
the Sapir-Whorf	hypothesis that	has been thoroughly
discredited.  The European lexicon of the Esperanto	      Bob responds on a	couple of items	- I'm not going	to
language is advantageous to technologically oriented non-   discuss all	of Ralph's points - I'll leave that to the
Europeans, though it may ideologically repulse others.	But community, especially the discussion on Sapir-Whorf.
the speech community of	Esperanto is most diverse, whereas  Suffice it to say that I think Ralph makes some different
the community of Lojban	is extremely uniform and narrow	--  assumptions	than we	do about what kind of useful
computer nerds,	sci-fi buffs, people interested	in logic    information	can be obtained	by studying Lojban in a	Sapir-
and semantics -- not much of a basis for an international   Whorf context.  For	example, he makes comments about the
culture, and certainly not an ideologically neutral or even possibility	that all languages have	a common 'deep
divers culture.	 Esperantists, in spite	of the European	    structure'.	 This may be so, but even if only surface
bias of	their language's lexicon, have risked and even	    structures are directly related to culture,	it would be
sacrificed their lives in fighting racism and fascism; no   useful to confirm it.  (If the only	'important' features
Lojbanist I know would ever make such a	sacrifice.	    about a language's structure are in	its 'deep structure'
  What is most irritating is misusing facts in order to	    and	all language 'deep structures' are the same, then
support	misleading generalizations.  I accept as truthful   Sapir-Whorf	is claiming the	nonsensical idea that all
the statement that while sitting next to the Esperanto	    cultures are the same.)
booth at a sci-fi convention, you did not overhear the	      We of course do not consider that	the Sapir-Whorf	claim
Esperantists speaking Esperanto	to one another.	 You	    of a relationship between culture and a language's grammar
dishonestly suggest by that example that Esperantists are   has	been 'discredited', as both Ralph and Don describe it.
not even accustomed to speaking	the very language they are  It is precisely that claim that Lojban is designed to test.
advertising to others.	What hypocrisy,	in light of the	    Thus, a clear separation from European language structures
fact that Esperanto conversation has been going	on for a    is vital to	Lojban's goals,	and Esperanto's	lack in	this
century	in the most diverse of circumstances, while no	    area is a primary reason for its unsuitability for our
Loglan/	Lojban conversation in the context of any normal    purposes.
social interaction has ever taken place!  I too	have	      I	think Ralph has	an incorrect view of the Lojban
staffed	an Esperanto booth upon	occasion, and I	too have    community.	You are	far more diverse than he claims.  A
only used English to speak to my fellow	American	    large percentage are computer-literate, and	many read
Esperantist booth-mates, because it is basically an	    science fiction, but not all; in any case, even those two
English-speaking environment, and I do not generally speak  categories define widely varied audiences.	I can see that
Esperanto in an	English-speaking setting although I am per- education is inherently a potential	bias, but I challenge
fectly capable of speaking the language.		    Ralph or anyone else to state actual metaphysical biases
  So it	seems that in spite of your lip	service	to non-	    that are common to all members of either group, or to the
competition, you are already pitting Lojban against	    Lojban community.
Esperanto in a competitive fashion, and	you have also	      To tie back to something I said regarding	Don Harlow's
resorted to duplicity in doing so.  Under those		    writings, Lojban's metaphysical diversity can be shown by a
circumstances, you cannot realistically	expect amicable	    wide diversity in political	beliefs	among the community.
relations between Lojban and the Esperanto movement.  You   Within the Lojban community	are sizeable numbers of
know that I do not tolerate dishonest propaganda on the	    libertarians, socialists, and anarchists, extremes of both
part of	Esperantists, as evidenced by my disagreements with the	right and left,	along with more	mainstream political
Don Harlow.  I surely am not going to let the young	    philosophies.  It is an incomplete argument	to infer
upstarts of Lojban get away with any nonsense, especially   metaphysics	from politics, but I think it is a reasonable
when they are highly educated people who claim to be able   idea.
to use their language in order to improve their	thinking      Whether most Lojbanists (the majority of whom probably
and their world	view.					    oppose both	racism and fascism) would die for their
  I enclose a photocopy	of a commentary	on Loglan/Lojban    beliefs, I cannot say.  At least some of our supporters are
from Rick Harrison's The Alembic.  I pass this along for    in the Armed Forces	and are	committed to die for their
the completeness of your archives, not to torment you.	    country if necessary.  Ralph impugns the honor of these and
Mark Tierisch's	reasoning leaves something to be desired in other Lojbanists with his statements.
many parts of this article.  Although this article makes      I	recognize that Esperanto has had its martyrs.  One
Esperanto look good in comparison to Loglan, its reasoning  would hope that martyrdom is not a vital prerequisite to
doesn't	hold up, especially since Esperanto like all other  achieving an international language.  One 'problem'	with
languages has a	lot more than 30 grammatical rules, let	    martyrdom, is that,	while it draws together	the community
alone 16.  The only place where	I unequivocally	agree with  associated with those who have died, that same strong feel-
Tierisch is where he refers to Loglan as not culturally	    ing	alienates those	outside	of the community, and causes
neutral	but as a reflection of the "culture of nerds."	The them to misunderstand.  Some may be	drawn to a movement
disparaging term "nerd"	is hardly necessary, but the	    that people	are willing to die for;	others are repelled by
description accurately pinpoints the subcultural basis (and the	'fanaticism' that they perceive	in such	an attitude.

							   31


  In any event,	fighting racism	and fascism is not what	      Tierisch's letter	made many incorrect claims about the
Lojban is about, although I personally would hope that with language and suggested that	he felt	threatened in some way
increased understanding	of other cultures that is possible  by Lojban's	ideas (perhaps in the way Ralph	suggests
through	learning Lojban, people	would find it more	    Esperantists feel about 'crackpot' language	inventors).  We
difficult to persecute those who differ	from them.	    wrote a reply, but The Alembic folded without printing an-
  I will admit that any	discussion of Esperanto	and Lojban  other issue.
will lead to some comparisons.	Our purpose in the articles   My own feeling is	that people should not feel threatened
was to blunt the validity of such comparisons.	My	    by ideas that differ from their own.  I can	understand that
statements about Esperanto do not claim	that anything is    Esperantists dislike the 'guilt by association' that comes
'wrong'	with it; I merely feel that Lojban is better de-    from association with 'crackpots'.	But this is just part
signed for the purposes	it is meant for	than Esperanto is.  of the territory.  People like playing with	language and
But those purposes are different from Esperanto.	    new	invented 'languages' will crop up all the time.
  Only where we	talk about the potential for Lojban as an   Reacting by	disparaging the	inventor merely	offends	the
international language is there	even a basis for	    inventor; it doesn't stop other inventors, nor helps
comparison.  In	this area, though, I stated that Lojban	    Esperanto's	image.	I think	there are better approaches.
would have no significant role unless both a) Esperanto	      My main point here is that the positive effects possible
clearly	fails as an international language and b) Lojban's  if both of our efforts worked at promoting created
other uses make	it attractive as an international language. languages in general, as well as our specific versions,
The international language goal	is an incidental one for    instead of knocking	at each	other.	The potential benefits
Lojban (though important to some among Lojbanists,	    of cooperation far exceed the benefits we can gain at each
including some who are also Esperantists).  There is plenty other's expense.
of room	for both languages to successfully achieve their	    ___________________________________________
goals.
  My point is that both	languages can gain by cooperation
rather than competition.  An Esperantist is already more    from John Hodges:
open to	the possibilities that make Lojban interesting than
a typical member of the	non-Esperanto public.  Similarly, a ...
higher percentage of Lojbanists	are aware of and interested   I	took to	heart your essay in JL11 that "there is	no
in Esperanto than of the general public.  If this	    competition	between	E. and L., because their goals are
commonalty can be harnessed, positive synergistic effects   different."	 But I'm not sure your argument	succeeds.
are likely.						      The goal of E. is	to be an international language, to be
  In this light, my comments about Esperanto being spoken   "everybody's second	language".  Notice that	this is	a
at convention tables should be taken much more positively.  global ambition, and implies that any other	"second" or
I did not and do not claim that	Esperantists cannot speak   "international" language is	a competitor.  They have an
their language.	 Rather, I believe that	the outside image   established	claim to this role, with 100 years of
of Esperanto as	'useful' and 'important' suffers when they  experience,	10,000 books, and 2,000,000 speakers (1990
do not and they	can; Lojban will similarly suffer if	    World Almanac figure).  Also some martyrs, persecuted by
Lojbanists do not use their language.  My calling this	    the	Nazis and other	militant nationalists.
situation to peoples' attention, and saying that I plan	to    Lojban has three major goals:  1)	to be a	research tool
do differently,	says nothing at	all about the relative	    for	scientific study into the relationships	between
merits of the two languages.  It was a friendly, and I	    language, thought, and culture - we	hope that studies will
thought	constructive, criticism.  (As an aside,	Ralph is    prove that people think more flexibly and/or more logically
incorrect in stating that Lojban has not been used in	    in Lojban than in any other	language;  2) to find computer
'normal' social	conversation.  Extensive use, not yet -	but applications, e.g. in artificial intelligence,
surely within a	year even this will have changed.)	    human/machine interface, and machine translation; 3) to be
  As a final note, Ralph's last	reference is to	an letter   an international language.	(We welcome anyone to use it
in The Alembic that was	a diatribe against Lojban.  In it,  for	anything, but these are	the goals we had in mind during
writer Tierisch	(who hasn't ever been on our mailing list   all	those years of development.)
and is unlikely	to know	much about the language) compares     Goals 1) and 2) are less-than-global ambitions, which
Lojban's rules to Esperanto's 16 that we discussed last	    genuinely do not challenge Esperanto.  But your essay in
issue.	Ralph mentions this, but just a	few paragraphs	    JL11 keeps goal 3),	which does.  You soften	it by saying
earlier	said "no Esperantist today believes that his	    that the challenge will not	be a serious one for many
language only has 16 rules.  That was used at one time as a years, and people should have their	own choice on it,
propaganda device by careless people, but I think people    anyway.  But it is still there, and	there may be a
are more thoughtful nowadays, at least on that point."	Don practical conflict between goals 3)	and 1).
Harlow said something similar.	Apparently they	are wrong.    Goal 1) is to be a research tool for learning about
Perhaps	the leaders of the Esperanto movement know the	    language, and the relationships between language and
significance of	the 16 rules, but the community	of	    thinking.  To achieve our scientific goals,	we want/need to
Esperantists as	a whole	may not.			    gather a body of at	least several hundred fluent L.
							    speakers from a wide variety of linguistic and cultural

							   32


backgrounds, who can participate in controlled studies.	 No remaining places added using lexeme	BAI?  Could we seri-
doubt to get these, we will have to recruit and	teach	    ously imagine making a Lojban Mark II that was a superset
thousands.						    of Esperanto, so that existing E. speakers and books would
  To gather such a varied body of speakers, we could	    remain compatible?	Or perhaps one that was	designed to
translate our teaching materials into Chinese AND Hindi	AND make conversion from Esperanto as easy as possible?
French AND Spanish AND so forth, or we could translate them   I	am out of my depth here.  But if we are	to seriously
into Esperanto,	a relatively simple task.  If we CAN	    recruit among Esperantists,	we may have to commit in
recruit	Esperantists, we should	try to do so.  But CAN we?  advance to something like this, provided the experiments
  It is	clear what the Esperanto community can do for	    show Lojban	Mark II	to be a	worthwhile effort.  Then again,
Lojban.	 But what does Lojban offer the	Esperanto	    perhaps these thoughts are way off base, and the future of
community?  Why	should they host our experiment, given the  Lojban does	not lie	in recruiting Esperantists.  Are we,
conflict implied by our	goal 3)?			    ultimately,	competitors after all?
  One line of thought I	have explored in recent	days (many
of my lines of thought are half-baked -	I am asking for
feedback).  Perhaps we should explicitly make goal 3)	      Bob responds - John stated the 'flaw' in my competition
conditional on prior success in	goals 1) and/or	2), and	    argument better than anyone	else, but I still stand	by what
commit to cooperation with the Esperanto community should   I said above, that both languages can co-exist without
the event arise.					    competition	between	them.  There are some hidden
  We begin by describing Lojban	as "an experimental human   assumptions	behind a deduced 'unavoidable' competition
language".  (I think this is true, anyway.  I expect that   based on John's logic.
our first five years of	use will show us changes we want to   The most important flawed	assumption is natural for most
make, when our 5-year baseline expires.)  We point out that Americans:	that for one language to be 'everyone's	second
carrying a Lojban textbook written in Esperanto	book in	E.  language', there can be no other international language.
book services will hardly threaten the spread of E.; it	is  For	monolingual Americans, learning	a second language seems
just one more cultural opportunity that	opens up if you	    onerous enough - why would anyone want to learn two
learn E.						    'international languages'?
  If the L. experiments	to test	Sapir-Whorf show that, as     Simple.  One learns different languages for different
we hope, people	think more flexibly and/or more	logically   purposes.  Languages are tools for communication; you use
in Lojban than in any other language, OR IF future	    the	best tool available for	the communications job at hand.
computers still	find transcribing/parsing/translating	    By this argument, of course, Don Harlow is right in	using
Esperanto to be	beyond them, while Lojban is translated	    English to talk to another English speaker,	and Esperanto
with ease, THEN	AND ONLY THEN will the question	arise of    when he wants to talk to someone who doesn't know English
whether	to trade in Esperanto for a newer model.  By	    as well as they know Esperanto.  (Which I agree with in
hosting	our experiment,	the E. movement	will have stuffed   general, making exceptions for the times when the language
the ranks of L-speakers	with Esperantists, assuring them    is on display for outsiders, or when a particular edu-
the loudest possible voice in the future development of	    cational purpose would be served.)
Lojban Mark II.						      Especially if Lojban proves Sapir-Whorf true to any
  Carrying the thought further... How much good	would such  extent at all, someone learning Lojban will	think
a voice	do them?  English speakers have	suggested deriving  differently	(and perhaps 'better' by some standard)	than if
the gismu from English alone; this is still a rotten idea   they know only Esperanto or	their native language.
if the favored language	is Esperanto.  Lojbanized gismu	do    We have no problem recruiting Esperantists.  They	have
not resemble their source words	closely	enough.	 Even if    the	same range of interests	as any other group of similar
pure source words are used for gismu, they float in a sea   size.  In fact, Esperantists are a fertile recruiting
of cmavo that makes the	result incomprehensible	to speakers ground because they	are already interested in language.
of the source language.	 Lojban	is just	too radically	      Some Esperantists	will find the design goals of Lojban,
different.  But	current	Lojban has rules of spelling and    or specific	design features, worthy	enough for them	to
word-formation designed	so that	today's	computers, with	    further study the language.	 Then, when they know more,
PRIMITIVE abilities at pattern-recognition, could	    they can decide to study both languages or to just study
transcribe and parse spoken Lojban correctly.  The	    one.  John's argument is flawed here; he assumes that,
abilities of future computers may allow	us to relax those   because the	goal for Esperanto is to become	"everyone's
rules.	(neural	nets, optoelctronics, etc.)		    second language", every Esperantist	holds that goal	as a
  For the rationale above to work, Lojban Mark II would	    nirvana that they cannot turn away from.
have to	be rebuilt from	the ground up.	SO- hypothetical      But Esperanto is not likely to achieve its purpose within
question, for 10 to 20 years hence - if	we wished to make a our	lifetimes.  So many Esperantists will be interested in
language with predicate	grammar, and accommodating the	    the	language that offers them more personal	gratification
limits of computers of the time. and as	compatible as pos-  within their lifetime.  Some will find this	in Lojban;
sible with Esperanto, how close	could we come?	Could,	    possibly others in some other language.  Many, perhaps even
e.g., the prefixes and suffixes	of Esperanto substantially  most, will concentrate on Esperanto, or will work with
replace	to cmavo?  Could all brivla have only one or two    Esperanto and Lojban.  For these, Esperanto	provides the
places,	mimicking conventional parts of	speech,	with the    immediate satisfaction of a	large speaker population with

							   33


which to communicate, while Lojban presents a peculiar in-    People in	the Loglan community are tired of learning a
tellectual challenge that may at some later time prove more changing target.  Regardless of how	flawed Dr. Brown's
rewarding.  There is no	competition implicit in	our	    versions of	Loglan are, the	Lojban development would never
existence for such people.				    have been conceived	of, much less completed, if not	for
  An Esperantist who denies the	value of learning other	    Brown's intellectual property claims that forced us	to work
languages is as	close-minded as	the nationalists that	    from outside rather	than within the	Institute.
oppose Esperanto.  Some	will be	this way, and that is their   If Lojban	does evolve in new ways, the speakers will be
right.	But far	more valuable to both Esperanto	and Lojban  the	ones who decide, as John suggests.  If the speakers are
would be cooperation between the two groups.  Undoubtedly,  Esperantists, some of the underlying concepts of Esperanto
Lojban will attract a lot of people that would not be	    will find their way	into the language.
interested in Esperanto	(as Ralph says,	computer people	and   However, as John points out, Lojban and any natural
other scientists, and science fiction readers, are a	    language are too different.	 Lojban	is also	too different
natural	audience for Lojban).  Some of these may not find   from Esperanto to offer significant	pattern	matching.  A
Lojban to their	liking (too different, too small a speaker  predicate language is too unlike an	Indo-European grammar,
base, etc.), and may proceed onward to discover	Esperanto.  or anything	that can even be described like	an Indo-Eu-
The reverse will be true among Esperanto recruits.  By	    ropean grammar.  If	you rule out changing all the words
having information on both languages available,	people can  once again (a relearning burden that would be unacceptably
make an	informed choice	as to which language serves their   high - as anyone who has used LogFlash with	both Institute
interests.						    Loglan and Lojban words can	testify), there	simply isn't
  A side benefit results.  A cooperative, open,	attitude is that much that is worth changing.  (It is also possible
presented to the public.  This attitude	ameliorates the	    that to make such changes would destroy whatever there is
impression that	international linguists	are fanatical	    about Lojban that makes it worth 'trading in' for.
idealists, an impression that turns off	a lot of people.      No.  Lojban will stand on	its own, and will gain support
Our relaxed attitude towards international language success from Esperantists on its own merits, or not	at all.	 As
has not	only reduced Lojban's 'threat' to Esperanto, it	has long as I have influence, I	will resist attempts to	make
calmed the portion of the Lojban community that	opposes	the there be an	'exclusive or' choice between Lojban and Es-
idealistic 'world language' effort.			    peranto among potential speakers.  If we do	this, there
  Incidentally,	one member of our original class here in    will be no competition.  (Hmmm!  Could increased competi-
the DC-area, Paul Francis O'Sullivan, is a lifetime member  tiveness be	a fallout of linguistic	confusion between
of the local Esperanto chapter.	 He finds no conflict in    'inclusive or' and 'exclusive or'?	A Sapir-Whorf effect
working	with both languages and	is translating the brochure that we might find negated among Lojbanists!)
into Esperanto for us.	(Reviewers are welcome to
volunteer.)  Jamie Bechtel, our	first Lojban 'creative	      Let's turn to one	more letter on Esperanto (and a	few
writer', is also an Esperantist, as is poet Michael Helsem. other subjects), from Paul Doudna.	Bob's responses	to some
Numerous others, too.					    of them are	embedded:
  We are gaining cooperation from Esperantists.	 Bruce Arne
Sherwood, a 'big name' in Esperanto, taught courses and	    ...
wrote articles comparing Loglan	and Esperanto in the early    The discussions of the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis have been
1980's,	and carried on a lengthy correspondence	with pc	to  interesting.  However, I'm inclined	to think that testing
ensure that the	facts were right.   No animosity or	    this hypothesis may	be like	testing	the Shroud of Turin.
competition was	evidenced.  Mike Urban,	an Esperantist	    That is, no	matter how it is tested	and no matter what the
known for developing MacIntosh Hypercard teaching software  results are, people	will continue to believe as they did
for Esperanto (and one of the Worldcon table		    before.
representatives), has advised us on some technical points
of Esperanto, as well as on teaching software.	Etc.	      I	am sending you an article on E-Prime.  If you haven't
  We cannot test Sapir-Whorf based on teaching the language seen this already, I think you will	find it	interesting.
through	Esperanto.  If all of the target population spoke   The	article	is written in E-Prime, which is	almost the same
Esperanto as well as Lojban, there would be no way to	    as English.	 The author obviously believes that language
separate effects of the	two languages from each	other.	We  does have a	significant effect on our thinking.
must use monolingual speakers who learn	Lojban as their
first non-native language, or better, bilinguals raised	      [Bob:  E-Prime is	a variation on English devised by
speaking Lojban	and their native language from birth.  In   General Semanticists that avoids using the verb 'to	be' in
this way, Sapir-Whorf effects would be least hidden by	    all	its forms.  Andy Hilgartner's articles above are
uncontrolled variables (a problem mentioned by Ralph that   written in his version of E-Prime, and Andy, also,
we are indeed concerned	with).				    apparently believes	that language has a significant	effect
  As for Lojban	Mark II, I doubt if it will happen.  If	    on thinking.  Score	one against Ralph's and	Don's claim
there are changes after	5 years, they will be minor,	    that S-W has been totally discredited.]
evolutionary ones.  That is why	we are forcing the 5-year
period,	to ensure that inertia keeps the language stable.     Concerning the Lojban logo, I notice that	most of	the
							    suggestions	involve	some kind of visual ambiguity.

							   34


Considering that one of	the primary claims of Lojban is	its mately the same for	all languages.	A language that	divides
freedom	from ambiguity and also	the fact that some critics  up semantic	space into fewer words tends to	end up with
claim that Lojban is actually more ambiguous than English,  words being	used for multiple meanings.  Lojban has	one
the use	of an ambiguous	design for a logo would	be quite    advantage in that Lojbanists generally try to avoid
ironic.							    unnecessary	figurative extensions of meaning and to	explic-
  I showed the articles	comparing Esperanto and	Lojban to a itly mark those extension where accurate interpretation is
friend of mine who is an Esperantist.  His reactions were   important.]
very negative.	I must agree with him that many	of the
points of comparison were not valid.  The articles	      The article on negation was enlightening,	as far as I
themselves contained some disclaimers, implying	that the    could follow it.  I'm not familiar enough with Lojban
comparison should not be taken too seriously.  In	    grammar to fully appreciate	its significance for Lojban.  I
particular, the	attempt	to compare "rules" I don't think    would have two observations:
really works.  The meaning of the word "rules" is used	      (1) I'm not sure how this	will work in Lojban, but in
quite differently in [discussing] the two languages.	    English, we	typically form negatives which theoretically
  Here are two suggestions for a more meaningful	    represent contradictory statements or complement classes.
comparison:						    In practice, in spite of the language representation, we
  (1) Translate	some sample sentences in English (chosen    tend to think in terms of contrary stereotypes.  To	treat
equally	by Lojbanists and Esperantists)	into both	    these contrary stereotypes as if they were jointly
languages.  Include relevant comments on any peculiar	    exhaustive concepts	(as the	language form would seem to
features of the	translations.				    indicate) can lead to illogical conclusions.  For example,
  (2) Compare the underlying assumptions behind	the two	    "Un-American" and "unchristian", to	give two extreme
languages.  Zamenhof and Brown had in mind quite different  examples.
concepts of what constituted an	ideal language.	 These	      (2) It is	pointed	out, quite correctly, that negation in
concepts of course determined the way the resulting	    English is very complex in practice.  It is	only roughly
language should	be constructed.	 This type of comparison    analogous to the vastly simplified negation	of formal
might be very difficult	since in many cases these underly-  logic.  Basically, the same	conclusion applies to the
ing assumptions	are not	made explicit.			    logical connectives	AND, OR, and IF.  That is, these words
							    (along with	NOT) in	the context of formal logic do not mean
  When I heard a talk on Esperanto about a year	ago, it	    what their counterparts mean in English.  It will be
sounded	almost like the	speaker	was talking about	    interesting	to see if those	who use	Lojban will adhere to
Loglan/Lojban.	There is no ambiguity in Esperanto, it was  the	theoretical meanings of	such words (thus resulting in a
claimed.  (But the two languages mean something	different   logical form of thinking far beyond	what is	normally found
by "ambiguity".)  It was further claimed that Esperanto	is  among human	beings), or will the meanings of these words
culturally neutral.  (Again, the meaning of "cultural	    merely shift, losing their precise logical definition (in
neutrality" is not quite the same in both languages.)	    terms of truth tables) and evolving	to something much
Esperanto is completely	"logical".  (Meaning that the	    closer to English.
grammar	is free	of irregularities typical of most
languages, not that it is based	on a system of logic as	      [Bob:  On	the first, we ended up adding two cmavo	to
Lojban attempts	to do.)	 And of	course the spelling is	    lexeme NAhE, the contrary negation lexeme.	In addition to
completely phonetic.  (Both languages are alike	in this	re- na'e, which	refers to the generalized scalar contrary,
spect, although	Esperanto doesn't have spoken punctuation.) we've added	no'e as	a scalar 'middle' or neutral, and to'e
							    as a polar opposite.  Thus Lojban allows explicit distinc-
[Bob:  A good response and some	good suggestions.  Any	    tions in "un-" that	are not	possible for English.
volunteers among the Esperantists to devise some sentences    On the second, Jim Brown and the Loglan community	in
to translate and/or some lists of assumptions and ideals.   general have looked	at AND,	OR, and	IF, much more
We may need Paul to serve as a moderator to point out where thoroughly than they had NOT.  In addition,	with the
our definitions	don't jibe.]				    possible exception of IF, these do not have	the complex
							    questions of 'scope' that negation has.  We're fairly
  Have the 600 rules of	Lojban been published?	I suspect   confident that no problems remain here.  When I write the
that no	matter how many	rules are stated explicitly, that   textbook on	those parts of the language, we'll be more
there will be a	potentially unlimited number of	implicit    certain.
semantic rules that are	used in	any language to	actually      There should not be much backsliding to English versions
understand what	any given sentence means.		    of the logical connectives if we've	properly taught	them,
							    because the	various	non-logical English versions of	these
  [Bob:	 On the	first: Yes, this issue!	 Though	the number  connectives	are also built into Lojban.  For example, we
is now closer to 550, depending	on how you count.  Every    have causal	connectives for	causal IF, a wide variety of
word has a 'rule' defining its semantic	meaning.  If you    ANDs, and a	flexible restatement of	OR in terms of set
count those as rules, than a language with fewer words has  membership.	 The availability of the English non-logical
fewer rules.  However, you can turn this around.  The	    combining forms should keep	the pure logical connectives
universe of discourse for 'all of language' is approxi-	    'pure'.  We'll certainly find out.	(Note that most	of the

							   35


English-like forms are more highly marked in Lojban than    or use it as the basis for the textbook glossary.  People
the logical connectives, so there will be some caution	    are	encouraged to write in with lists of words they	would
necessary in this area.)				    like to see	defined	in a glossary (other than the obvious
							    Lojban ones).]
  In the process of trying to sort out and file	the
material I have	accumulated over the years about
Loglan/Lojban, I notice	that in	many cases material (such			 le lojbo se ciska
as the article on Lojban Negation) does	not contain the
date and does not contain the name of the author.  I		 First this issue is a little ditty written by
realize	that in	the past I have	written	some things myself  Athelstan.	It's cute, if not profound.  Sing it to	the
that are not properly identified.  However, I think it	    tune of 'Oscar Meyer' jingle.
would be useful	if all material	that is	distributed was
identified with	a date and name.				My Lojban has a	first name
								   it's	'logical', you see
  [Bob:	 Good idea, and	we'll try to do	better.	 We've put	My Lojban has a	second name
out JL with enclosures on the assumption that most people	   the 'language' that's for me
who save the material put it in	notebooks as they get it,	I like to use it ev'ry day
and hence have stuff associated	together in a 'useful'		   and if you ask me why, I'll say
order, which is	usually	not by date.  For next issue, I'll	la lojban. cu se nelci mi
try to come up with a list of our publications of the past,	   gi'e	ve tavla do fo mi
which ones are worth keeping (other than for historical
interest), and explain how Nora	and I have set up notebooks The	last line is pronounced:
to keep	the 'useful' information at hand.
  la lojbangirz. publications often do not bear	an author's	    /lah,LOHZH,bahn.  shoo,seh	NEHL,shee,mee/
name if	we want	the article to be seen as a product of the	       /gee,heh	 veh,TAH,vlah  doh,foh,mee/
organization rather than of an individual.  In such a case,
we'll try to make sure the organization	name is	on it.]	    and	means, roughly:

  Another thing	that I think would be useful would be a			      "Lojban is liked by me,
short glossary of often	used Lojban terms, to be updated at		   and is spoken to you	by me."
frequent intervals.  This might	be published as	a separate
sheet to be kept as reference, or if short enough, included	 Also on a light note, John Cowan made his first Lojban
on the back page of each newsletter.  There are	certain	    effort a real humdinger.  Here's his introduction and the
terms used frequently which I don't always remember (and    text.  See the translation section if you can't figure it
new readers of the newsletter will not know at all).  For   out.  (If you haven't tried	a translation before, you may
example, I am trying to	find the difference in meaning	    want to try	John's journal entries,	which follow this
between	the definitions	of bridi and selbri.  They are	    monstrosity, first.)
defined	somewhere, I'm sure, but I can't locate	the		 In this month's writings, we've tried to use the added
definitions.						    writing conventions	to make	the text easier	to read.  Hope
							    it helps.  Hope we are reasonably consistent in our	usage
  [Bob:	I explained selbri above, but in case you missed    of the conventions.
it, selbri corresponds to the logic term 'predicate', while
bridi (in the gismu list) corresponds to the term	    John:
'predication'.	In other words,	the bridi is the whole	    And	(ta-dah!) my first piece of Lojban.  I'm using a format
sentence, while	the selbri is the thing	in the middle that  similar to JL10's, so you can see what I said, what	I meant
determines the relationship among the sumti.		    to say, and	what I was trying to say.  The original, by the
  We used to have a glossary in	every issue, up	to around   way, is the	1984 winner of the Bulwer-Lytton Fiction
JL4 or JL5, but	it got too big.	 The Overview was written   Contest, an	international bad-writing contest where	the
to be a	textual	glossary for newcomers,	figuring that old-  contestants	submitted the opening paragraph	from "the worst
timers were tired of seeing (and paying	for) the	    of all possible novels".  I	found it in a book called "It
definitions for	words they already knew.  The Overview,	of  Was	A Dark And Stormy Night", a collection of entries.
course,	is getting old,	and has	kunbri for what	is now sel-
bri and	a couple of other minor	errors.	 But the errors
have thus far been seen	as too minor to	justify	a revision
sent to	everybody.
  The textbook will contain a glossary of both Lojban words
of this	sort and English linguistic terms that are used	a
lot in describing the language.	 In addition, Lojbanist
Nancy Thalblum has started putting a glossary together as
she studies the	language.  We may publish this separately,

							   36


Herewith the Lojban:

     ni'oni'o le nimcitno goi ko'a po'u	la ka,as. noi ko'a melbi bai jorne le sramudri noi ke'a	kusru zi'e po le dabli'e
goi ko'e po'u la danlu ku secau	le kecti  .i le'i prenu	poi ke'a se saptutklu zi'e po ko'e ca zbasu lo derxi be	loi
mudri bei leko'a jamfu noi ke'a	cisyselpli  .ibabo le voksa noi	ke'a cladu je klina zi'e po'e la nebnauzag. noi	ke'a te
pemci je tajnau	cu fegcru <<lu ganai le	do fagryrinka cu rinka lei fagri ja'e le nimcitno se jukpa gi do lifri lenu mi
setca le xarci le do se	citka poi ko'a romoi ko'u li'u>>

     As	mentioned earlier, John	Cowan has started writing a Lojban journal.  Here are the first	3 days of his journal
entries.  Only minor corrections were needed.  John's pleasant rhyme (you'll see), used	an incorrect word.  We corrected
the word, calling the result a near-rhyme.
     Most new Lojbanists should	be able	to understand this text	using only the gismu list, rafsi list and cmavo	list,
and making literal translations	and educated guesses as	to how the result goes together.  Try it and see:

					ni'oni'o de'i le djedi po la lunas. vau

     ni'o le mutce cmalu jukni cu cpare	le djacu tubnu	.i carvi ja'e le nu ko'a farlu	.i le solri cu febri'a le carvi
.i le jukni cu rapli cpare

					 ni'oni'o de'i le djedi	po la mars. vau

     ni'o le mi	tixnu po'u la airin. verba  .i ko'a nanca li ci	 .i ko'a kelci je krixa	 .i je ko'a sipna  .i ko'a bacru
fi la gliban.  .i mi bacru fi la gliban. .e la lojban.	.i mi na'e drani bacru fi la lojban.  .i mi zutse  .i je mi
viska le nu le mi tixnu	cu kelci
.i glare
     ni'o mi jdice le nu mi te cmene le'i djedi	le'i plini
     ni'o cusku	fa la viktorias	<<lu mi	ga'i ba'e na'e se zdile	li'u>>	.i di'u	xajmi mi  .i zo	ga'i jibni rimni zo ba'e
la lojban.  .i zo na'e go'i  .i	le nu le'i rimni cu porsi cu xajmi mi

					ni'oni'o de'i le djedi po la saturn. vau

     ni'o cusku	fa la daisets. suzukis.	<<lu mi	po la zen. skicu lo kilycna fo lo na'e kilycna li'u>>
     ni'o mi tirna lo verba zgike  .i ri mutce pluka mi
     ni'o mi pu	tcidu lo cukta be le nu	ke pamoi penmi le na'e terdi prenu po'u	la tranx. bei la alan. din. fostr.

     Next we have a letter and another poem by Michael Helsem, who has been extremely prolific in the last few months
(we are	pleasantly drowning in his Lojban poetry).  Due	to our tight schedule, we've made some changes to what he wrote
that we	haven't	been able to run by him, so hopefully he'll forgive us if we messed something up.  Michael does	follow
the excellent practice of sending us fairly literal English translations of everything he writes so we can (usually)
figure out his intent.
     Michael's text is very complex, indeed probably too complex either	for him	or for a typical reader; it appears that
Michael	was trying to paraphrase his natural English idiom, throwing in	plenty of attitudinals and discursives.
However, the result is worth studying; the letter exemplifies several more esoteric features of	Lojban grammar as well
as the problems	in translating idiom.  At least	look up	the words and make your	best guess what	he's trying to say.
Then check the translation to see what he intended.
     A far better practice in writing your own letters,	by the way, is to figure out what you want to say, then	express
it in short Lojban sentences as	John Cowan did in his journal.	You will find after writing only a few pages that you
will develop a more Lojbanic idiom.
     Michael actually made very	few grammatical	errors.	 There are, however, some 'wrong words', some unfortunate
Americanisms that translate poorly when	he tries to do them literally, and some	equivalents to English pronouns, that in
Lojban are frustratingly vague or misleading.  All in all, though, this	is an excellent	effort.
     I editorially embedded the	original of the	poem included in the letter within the non-grammatical quotes "lo'u ...
le'u"; the poem	had one	'grammatical error' that could not be corrected	without	destroying the sense of	his introductory
comments regardin the poem.

     di'e zirjbo po'a xatra de'i la xav. po'e la mumast.
     ni'o coido'u mi dopeza ledo nu jarco le mi	pemci cu ckire ra'u  .i	puvi'eku mi mutce cutyzu'e pi'o	gi'e pu'i
ninpemci jmina la'u lo mo'amei .u'u ne ki'u lemi cabi'ibajenairu'i .ia li'anai zmadu nu	mutce cutyzu'e	.i ta'onai pu ra
ku mi pinka so'u lepu selja'o ti'u

							   37


     .i	pamai sera'a le	pemci po'u se tcita <<lu leka sarcu kei	vau li'u>> ku'o	mi na jimpe le krinu be	ledo nu	punji zo
<<cu>> le crastu po zo <<nu>> mu'inai lemi pu nu dunda (sei zo <<sabji>> lu'anai cu drani se'u)	lo temge'a tcita (to
te'i zo	<<ba>> vau toi)	pe vi le trixystu ne seba'i  .i	ti jufra <<lu le nunsti	ne sekai leka pratci cu	batci mu'anai
li'u>> vau ?xu
     .i	remai .uocai sera'a le seltcita	be <<lu	le firgai mu'anai vau li'u>> ku	vi le da'amoi vlali'i ku zo <<co>> cu se
setca fi <<lu fasnu cictcima li'u>> ja'e <<lo'u	lo nalsti nu cictcima fasnu le'u>> (sei	zo <<za'i>> basti ?xu be zo
<<nu>> se'u)  .i zo <<fasnu>> ca nalsarcu .i'a	.iku'i ta rinka	lenu mi	ninzga lo puze'u nandu	.i mi su'oroi pilno zo
<<nu>> lo paroi	tortei bo fasnu	gi'e drata go'i	fi lo ranji clatei bo fasnu  .i	re frica valsi cu sarcu	vau pe'i  .ije
.ie mi pujeca luzypli (to tai zirjbo cai vau toi) zo <<go'i>>  .iku'i .ei zasti	fa le nuncumki be lo naldikni se spicru
poi kakne lenu sisti vi	lo crastu mu'anai
     .i	ta'onai	cimai sera'a le	romoi pemci ku le da'aremoi vlali'i cu binxo <<lo'u lo pamei seizga le'u>> vau lu'anai
.io  .i	banzu fa ta
     ni'o levi pemci cu	pilno pa leimi terga'i be fe le	sumti tcita purste (sei	mi camdji djuno	be leri	romoi tarmi
se'u)  .i mi pilno <<lo'u sexebe'i le'u>> zo <<be'i>> vi le pemci noi se tcita <<lu le te pemci	.e le se binxo vau
li'u>>	.i [<<lo'u sa'a]
			 ko mi zasyspo
			 .ije mi ba vuzyvuzyxru
			 sexebe'i do
			 .i makfa
			 .i roroi ku
			 mi'o zukte ra
le'u>> vau sa'a

     Finally, Bob promised to try writing some of his 'natural'	Lojban (almost everything else he's written in the
language has been constrained to a limited vocabulary, such as the short readings in the draft textbook	lessons).  The
issue is so delayed that he promised to	keep it	short this time	(relatively).  Remember.  No translation is provided.
You can	write and ask specific questions if you	make the attempt and get lost.	I can't	promise	perfection at this stuff
yet.

     .uo .uonai	 .i dukti  .i na go'i  .i mi ciksi
     ni'o zu'u zo <<.uo>> noi smuni lenu mulno cilmo ku'o cu mapti leza'i da lojbo gerna .e leza'i de lojbo gismu  .i
so'u cilre girzu zu'o tadni cu mulno  .i so'u drata ke cilre girzu caze'a penmi	joi tadni vijevajevuku	.i cabi'iba le
karni ke cabna selci po'u <<lu ju'i lobypli li'u>> cu se pagbu loi lojbo selsku	 .i ri krasi selci'a bau la lojban.  (to
mi bau la gliban. na pensi ja ciska [sei .ue .o'a lo pluja logji selsku	po'u dei cu frili se'u]	loi mulno selpei pu lenu
mi samci'a dei pe ve'a toi)  .i	la maiky'elsym.	cu te pemci bau	la lojban gi'e ca mansa	ke gerna drani	.i la djan.
kau,n. cu dikni	skuci'a	bau la lojban vi levo'a	seirkarni  .i .ua la lojbangirz. cu se ganzu fo	loi lojbo  .i ri mutce
snada ke mulno selzu'e mi'o pe ve'u
     ni'o zu'unai zo <<.uo>> .ebazibo zo <<.nai>> cu mapti le lojbo pu'u farvi	.i ri ba'e na mulno  .i	.ei .uonai le
ctucku vau  .i mi dunku	ri ki'u	lenu mi	nalbanzu mulri'a  .i mi	xaksu loi dukse	temci le zu'o ganzu joi	si'orcanja joi
flagau joi dintro .ianai .au  .i le vlacku gunka cu balvi  .i .ei la lojbangirz. ba banro zukte	 .i .ei	loi zmadu be loi
ca lobypre ba cilre .a'o le bangu  .i .ei piro lei cempre ba se	ganzu fo lenu pejri'a le cecmu
     ni'o .einai mi zukte pamei	 .i .ei	roko zukte  .i ko cilre	la lojban.  .i ko dunda	piro lei jdini poi te marde
pagbu be le selfai poi dinselxaksu  .i .uuse'i loi nalbanzu jdini cu seldu'u mi	gi'e rinka lenu	mi gunka dirsno
     ni'oku'i .ia ba'a le tcini	cu xagmaubi'o  .i piso'ado ba sidju  .i	so'ida ba cilre	je pilno la lojban.  .i	.ai .au
.eicai ko morji	je tinbe le selsku cnimu'i be la lojbangirz. be'o po'u <<lu .e'osai ko sarji la	lojban li'u>>  .i ganai
ko go'i	gi la lojban. snada gi'e bangu do
     ki'emi'e la lojbab. po'u la bab. leceval,ier.
     fe'o

						      Translations

Our first translation is John Cowan's first paragraph, which we'll repeat so you have it handy:

     ni'oni'o le nimcitno goi ko'a po'u	la ka,as. noi ko'a melbi bai jorne le sramudri noi ke'a	kusru zi'e po le dabli'e
goi ko'e po'u la danlu ku secau	le kecti  .i lei prenu poi ke'a	se saptutklu zi'e po ko'e ca zbasu lo derxi be loi mudri
bei leko'a jamfu noi ke'a cisyselpli  .ibabo le	voksa noi ke'a cladu je	klina zi'e po'e	la nebnauzag. noi ke'a te pemci
je tajnau cu fegcru <<lu ganai le do fagryrinka	cu rinka lei fagri ja'e	le nimcitno se jukpa gi	do lifri lenu mi setca
le xarci le do se citka	poi ke'a romoi ko'u li'u>>

Pidgin translation:

							   38

	Totally	new subject.  The woman-youth known-as she1 who-is-identically the-one-called Kaa who-incidentally-is
beautiful, forcedly is-joined-to the upright-wood such-that it is cruel	and such that it is specific-to	the fight-leader
known-as he2 who-is-identically	the-one-called Animal without the mercy.  The-mass-of persons such-that	they are-simple-
tool-culture-people which-are-specific-to him2 simultaneously make a heap-of some wood at her1 feet such-that they are-
sexually-used.	And-then the voice such-that it	is-loud	and is-clear and is inalienably-possessed-by the-one-called
Beautiful-male-buttocks	who-incidentally-is a poem-maker and a superlative-man angrily-utters, quote, if your fire-
causer causes some fire	with-result the	woman-youth is-something-cooked	then you experience that I insert the weapon
into your something-eaten such-that it is last,	unquote.

English	original:

	The lovely woman-child Kaa was mercilessly chained to the cruel	post of	the warrior-chief Beast, with his
barbarian tribe	now stacking wood at her nubile	feet, when the strong clear voice of the poetic	and heroic Handsomas
roared,	"Flick your Bic, crisp that chick, and you'll feel my steel through your last meal."

John's notes on	the translation:

     There doesn't seem	to be any way to say "mercy" in	Lojban.	 I substituted "pity", which is	adequate in the
negative, because "pitiless" = "merciless", but	pity and mercy are quite distinct in the positive. [Bob:  "mercy" can be
derived	as a scalar negative either from the gismu for "cruel" or for "severe".	 Since he's already used "kusru" in the
text, "naljursa" or "to'e jursa" seem like better choices.]
     I attempted to avoid the excessive	use (to	my way of thinking) of tanru in	much of	the Lojban I've	seen to	date, in
favor of relative clauses.  On the other hand, I'm far from sure that I	have their syntax correct. [Bob:  He was close,
omitting only the zi'e connectives for multiple	relative clauses and phrases attached to the same sumti.]
     I'm rather	proud of "la nebnauzag." = "Handsomas".
     The clumsiness of "fagryrinka rinka lei fagri" is a deliberate attempt to translate "Flick	your Bic" into something
that sounds equally idiotic.  Unfortunately Handsomas loses his	terseness (strong, silent male type) in	Lojban,	at least
in my Lojban.

     [Bob adds:	 The Bulwar-Lytton competition is actually a contest for the worst first-line of a novel.  John's
translation breaks it up into multiple sentences, but it is possible to	combine	all the	separate Lojban	pieces into a
single sentence.  (To make elidable terminators	easier to track, I'm removing John's excess relative clauses; I'm also
making a couple	of other minor changes that I think are	improvements):

     ni'oni'o ba lenu le melbi nimcitno	po'u la	ka,as. goi ko'a	bai jorne binxo	le kusru sramudri po le	dabli'e	po'u la
danlu goi ko'e secau loka naljursa kei kei ca lenu lei se saptutklu po ko'e cu zbasu lo	derxi be loi mudri bei leko'a
cisyselpli jamfu kei le	cladu je klina voksa be	la nebnauzag. noi te pemci je tajnau cu	fegcru <<lu ganai ledo
fagryrinka cu rinka lei	fagri ja'e le nimcitno se jukpa	gi ko lifri leli'i mi setca le xarci ledo se citka poi seri'a
romoi li'u>>


The translation	is fairly close	to John's:

	Totally	new subject.  After the	beautiful woman-youth who-is-identically the-one-called	Kaa (known-as she1)
forcedly joined-becomes-to the cruel upright-wood which-is-specific-to the fight-leader	who-is-identically the-one-
called Animal (known-as	he2) without mercy, and	while the-mass-of simple-tool-culture-people which-are-specific-to him2
make a heap-of wood at her1 sexually-used feet,	the loud and clear voice of the-one-called Beautiful-male-buttocks who-
incidentally-is	a poet and a superlative-man angrily-utters, "if your fire-causer causes some fire with-result of the
woman-youth cooked-thing then (imperative) experience the experience of	my inserting the weapon	into your something-
eaten which is the causedly-therefore last".

     If	that was too hard, you may or may not benefit from the Lojban parser output for	this sample.  In this case, the
parser sufficiently matches the	current	grammar	that I had to make no changes to parse the text.  (The parser version I
used was written last October, showing how stable the core grammar has been for	the last year or so.)  The capitalized
words are all the elidable terminators that were 'left out', each identified by	lexeme.	 The parentheses correspond to
multi-part rules in the	machine	grammar, as explained in the text material accompanying	the machine grammar.

({ni'o ni'o} {<[({ba <le [nu ({<le [melbi nimcitno] KU>	<po'u [la ka,as. (goi {ko'a} GEhU)] GEhU>} {bai	<[jorne	binxo]
[({<le [kusru sramudri]	KU> <po	[(le dabli'e KU) (po'u {la danlu KU <goi [ko'e]	GEhU>} GEhU)] GEhU>} {<se cau> <lo [ka

							   39


(naljursa VAU) kei] KU>}) VAU]>}) kei] KU>} {ca	<le [nu	({<lei [se saptutklu] KU> <po ko'e GEhU>} cu {zbasu <[lo (derxi
{be <loi mudri KU> <bei	[le (ko'a {cisyselpli jamfu}) KU]> BEhO}) KU] VAU>}) kei] KU>})	(le {<cladu je klina> <voksa [be
({la nebnauzag.} {noi <[(te pemci) je tajnau] VAU> KUhO}) BEhO]>} KU)] cu [fegcru ({lu <[(ga nai) ({le <do fagryrinka>
KU} cu {rinka <[(lei fagri KU) (ja'e {le <nimcitno [se jukpa]> KU})] VAU>}) gi (ko CU {lifri <[le (li'i	{mi CU <setca
[({le xarci KU}	{<le [do (se citka)] KU> <poi [({se ri'a} {ro moi}) VAU] KUhO>}) VAU]>}	KEI) KU] VAU>})] FAhO> li'u}
VAU)]> FAhO})


     Next, we have John	Cowan's	journal	entries.  John didn't supply a translation, and	I don't	know Suzuki's non-
Lojbanized first name, but otherwise his writing is quite straightforward.  Unlike Michael's writing, and unlike John's
first Lojban work above, John is choosing to write in simple, methodical sentences.  The result	is that	he makes few and
minor errors.  This is the type	of sentence I think most anyone	can write with ease after the first few	draft textbook
lessons	or some	disciplined sentence building using the	machine	grammar	as described in	the introduction to that
document.


					ni'oni'o de'i le djedi po la lunas. vau

     ni'o le mutce cmalu jukni cu cpare	le djacu tubnu	.i carvi ja'e le nu ko'a farlu	.i le solri cu febri'a le carvi
.i le jukni cu rapli cpare

					       Dated the day of	the Moon.

     The much-small-spider climbs-on-surface the water-tube (John has proposed a place structure change	matching this
usage).	 Rain, with result therefore of	it1 falling.  The sun boil-causes the rain.  The spider	repeatedly-climbs.

     [This is a	translation of a familiar nursery rhyme.  John had used	"febvi"	alone in the next-to-last sentence, with
a strange place	structure result.  In the last sentence, "krefu" might be preferable to	"rapli", being a more literal
translation, but given the way nursery rhymes are so often repeated, "rapli" may be a more correct term.  John's use of
"ko'a" is non-standard,	since he never assigns it.  In some usages, it isn't necessary,	since there is only one	possible
referent.  This	isn't the case here, although it is in the following.]


					 ni'oni'o de'i le djedi	po la mars. vau

     ni'o le mi	tixnu po'u la airin. verba  .i ko'a nanca li ci	 .i ko'a kelci je krixa	 .i je ko'a sipna  .i ko'a bacru
fi la gliban.  .i mi bacru fi la gliban. .e la lojban.	.i mi na'e drani bacru fi la lojban.  .i mi zutse  .i je mi
viska le nu le mi tixnu	cu kelci .i glare
     ni'o mi jdice le nu mi te cmene le'i djedi	le'i plini
     ni'o cusku	fa la viktorias	<<lu mi	ga'i ba'e na'e se zdile	li'u>>	.i di'u	xajmi mi  .i zo	ga'i jibni rimni zo ba'e
la lojban.  .i zo na'e go'i  .i	le nu le'i rimni cu porsi cu xajmi mi

     Dated the day of Mars.
     My	daughter, the one named	Irene, is a child.  She1 is measured in	years the number 3.  She1 plays-and-cries.  And
she1 sleeps.  She1 utters in English.  I utter in English and in Lojban.  I non-correctly utter	in Lojban.  I sit.  And
I see my daughter playing.  Warm! (observative)
     I decide I	will name the set of days, the set of planets.
     Expressed,	by Victoria "We	(Hauteur!) are not amused."  The last sentence is funny	to me.	"ga'i" approximately
rhymes with "ba'e" in Lojban.  "na'e", too.  The event of the set of rhymes being sequential is	funny to me.

     [I	suspect	that John wanted a specific attitudinal	where he said "glare", given the context.  A lot of possible
meanings, otherwise.
     I'm wary about naming "the	set of days, the set of	planets".  I think he wanted "lu'e" (lexeme LAhE) in front of
the second set,	making it that he was naming "the set of days, the symbols for the set of planets".  But this is a
fairly advanced	usage that John	probably hadn't	seen yet.]


					ni'oni'o de'i le djedi po la saturn. vau

     ni'o cusku	fa la daisets. suzukis.	<<lu mi	po la zen. skicu lo kilycna fo lo na'e kilycna li'u>>

							   40


     ni'o mi tirna lo verba zgike  .i ri mutce pluka mi
     ni'o mi pu	tcidu lo cukta be le nu	ke pamoi penmi le na'e terdi prenu po'u	la tranx. bei la alan. din. fostr.

     Dated the day of Saturn.
     Expressed by ?Daisets Suzuki "We of Zen describe a	sharp-shovel (spade) as	a non-sharp-shovel (non-spade)."
     I hear some child-music.  It (the music) pleases me.
     I did-read	a book about the-event-of first-meeting	with-the non-earth-person who is Tranx,	by Alan	Dean Foster.

     [No problems, and the last	sentence was both excellently grammatical, and about as	complex	as I could expect from
most students of the draft lessons studying on their own.  The "ke" in the last	sentence is legal but unneeded,	possibly
a remnant learned from something I wrote more than 1 1/2 years ago, when "nu" unnecessarily required the "ke" following
it.]


     Now, here is the translation and commentary for Michael Helsem's letter.  We'll present the text and translation as
a whole	so you have some idea what the letter is talking about,	then go	back and look at each sentence.	 The italicized
text is	a literal translation, which in	places will be difficult to understand.	 The normal English text is what Michael
was apparently trying to say, paraphrased from his own translation and somewhat	simplified.  It	is not always exactly
what he	said.

di'e zirjbo po'a xatra de'i la xav. po'e la mumast.
     The following utterances are a "purplish-lojbanic"	(figuratively) letter dated that named 6 which is possessed by
     Five-month	(6th of	May).
The following is a letter in "purple Lojban" dated 6 May.


     ni'o coido'u mi dopeza ledo nu jarco le mi	pemci cu ckire ra'u  .i	puvi'eku mi mutce cutyzu'e pi'o	gi'e pu'i
ninpemci jmina la'u lo mo'amei .u'u ne ki'u lemi cabi'ibajenairu'i .ia li'anai zmadu nu	mutce cutyzu'e	.i ta'onai pu ra
ku mi pinka so'u lepu selja'o ti'u
     Greetings!	I, to you-all, for your	showing	my poems, am grateful (Most important point!).	Earlier, throughout this
     space-time, I'm very affair-active	used-ly, and could-and-did poetry-quantity add (to something) in-amount	a too-
     few-some (Repentance!) which (the-too-few-some is justified by my then-until-later-but-not-continuously (Belief but
     Obscurity!) greater state of affair-activity.  Anyway, before that	(an unclear reference),	I comment(ed?) on a few
     of	the earlier shown-things, associated with time unspecified.
Hi, y'all.  Thanks for showing my poems.  Earlier (all over) I was very	busy, and can add too-few poems	because	of my
from-now-on, but not continuously, even	more busy state.  Anyway, before that (the poems), I'll	comment	on a couple of
the previously printed ones, while I'm at it.

     .i	pamai sera'a le	pemci po'u se tcita <<lu leka sarcu kei	vau li'u>> ku'o	mi na jimpe le krinu be	ledo nu	punji zo
<<cu>> le crastu po zo <<nu>> mu'inai lemi pu nu dunda (sei zo <<sabji>> lu'anai cu drani se'u)	lo temge'a tcita (to
te'i zo	<<ba>> vau toi)	pe vi le trixystu ne seba'i  .i	ti jufra <<lu le nunsti	ne sekai leka pratci cu	batci mu'anai
li'u>> vau ?xu
     First, about the poem which is tagged "The	Necessity", I don't understand the reason for:	your putting "cu" on the
     front-site	of "nu"	despite	motive of my previously	giving ["providing" approximately is correct] an interval
     grammar tag, specifically "ba" which is at	the back-site, incidentally with a motive.  This (?) is	a sentence about
     (the quote) "the stopping,	characterized by produce-tool-ness, is biting",	isn't it?
First, about the poem "The Necessity" (the 3rd limerick	in JL11).  I don't understand why you put "cu" before "nu", and
omitted	the "ba" that I	had further back.  I intended the equivalent of	"the stopping, characterized by	produce-tool-
ness, is biting".  (The	answer,	explained below, is that his original English translation was ambiguous	and did	not
convey this meaning to me.)

     .i	remai .uocai sera'a le seltcita	be <<lu	le firgai mu'anai vau li'u>> ku	vi le da'amoi vlali'i ku zo <<co>> cu se
setca fi <<lu fasnu cictcima li'u>> ja'e <<lo'u	lo nalsti nu cictcima fasnu le'u>> (sei	zo <<za'i>> basti ?xu be zo
<<nu>> se'u)  .i zo <<fasnu>> ca nalsarcu .i'a
     Second (whew!) about the be-labelled-by "the face-cover ...", in the next-to-last word-line, "co" is inserted into
     "event-ish	wild-weather" therefore	with result "a non-stop	act of wild-weather event" ("za'i" replaces, doesn't it,
     "nu").  "fasnu" is	unnecessary (Acceptance!).
Second.	 About the poem	"The Unmasking"	(also in JL11).	 If "co" were inserted into the	selbri of the next-to-last line,
would the result be "a non-stop	act of wild-weather event"?  Also, "za'i" should replace "nu", shouldn't it?  I	accept
that "fasnu" is	unnecessary (responding	to one of Bob's	comments in JL11).

							   41

     .iku'i ta rinka lenu mi ninzga lo puze'u nandu  .i	mi su'oroi pilno zo <<nu>> lo paroi tortei bo fasnu gi'e drata
go'i fi	lo ranji clatei	bo fasnu  .i re	frica valsi cu sarcu vau pe'i  .ije .ie	mi pujeca luzypli (to tai zirjbo cai vau
toi) zo	<<go'i>>  .iku'i .ei zasti fa le nuncumki be lo	naldikni se spicru poi kakne lenu sisti	vi lo crastu mu'anai
     But, that causes that I now-observe an in-the-past, for-a-long-time, difficulty.  I a-few-times use "nu" for a one-
     time, short-time-interval,	event, and otherly use ... for a continuing, long-time-interval	event.	Two different
     words are necessary, I opine.  And	(I agree) I then-and-now loose-use, (by	method of purple Lojban!), "go'i".  But
     (Obligation!) existing is the possibility of non-regular piece-utterances which are able at ceasing at-the	in-
     front-of-site (End	of example).
But this raises	a difficulty I've had for a while.  Sometimes I	use "nu" for short, one-time events, and sometimes for
long, continuous events.  I think two words are	necessary.  And	I agree	that I loosely-use "go'i" after	a "purple
Lojban"	fashion.  But there ought to exist the possibility of an unsystematic ellipsis which is	able to	stop short.

     .i	ta'onai	cimai sera'a le	romoi pemci ku le da'aremoi vlali'i cu binxo <<lo'u lo pamei seizga le'u>> vau lu'anai
.io  .i	banzu fa ta
     (Returning	to subject), thirdly, about the	last poem, the antepenultimate word-line becomes "a single self-
     observer",	precisely, respectfully.  Enough, is that.
Thirdly, in the	last poem (in JL11 actually, he	meant the next-to last one), the antepenultimate word-line should indeed
become "lo pamei seizga".
But enough of that.

     ni'o levi pemci cu	pilno pa leimi terga'i be fe le	sumti tcita purste (sei	mi camdji djuno	be leri	romoi tarmi
se'u)  .i mi pilno <<lo'u sexebe'i le'u>> zo <<be'i>> vi le pemci noi se tcita <<lu le te pemci	.e le se binxo vau
li'u>>
     This poem uses one	of my modifications of the argument-label previous-list	[I intensely want to know its (the
     list's) last form.]  I use	??"sexebe'i" for "be'i"	at the poem, which incidentally	is labelled as "The Poet and the
     Thing Become".
This poem uses an extrapolation	from one of the	words in the old lexeme	BAI list.  I sure want to know what the	final
lexeme BAI list	is.  I use "sexebe'i" for "be'i" at the	poem, which I call "The	Poet and the Thing Become".

  .i [<<lo'u sa'a]
			 ko mi zasyspo
			 .ije mi ba vuzyvuzyxru
			 sexebe'i do
			 .i makfa
			 .i roroi ku
			 mi'o zukte ra
le'u>> vau sa'a

     ["	editorially inserted quote for ungrammatical text]
						Temporarily-destroy me;
					    and	I will yonder-yonder return
					       through the medium of you.
						      It's magic.
						     All the time,
						we do it (with purpose)
     ["	editorially inserted end-quote and "vau" to make the non-grammatical quoted poem a valid 'incomplete sentence'.


     Now lets go over it in detail, answering Michael's	questions, and raising a couple	of points about	the language not
covered	in draft textbook lessons (or at least not clearly).  Don't let	the extensive comments imply otherwise - Michael
did an outstanding job considering the complex grammar he tried	to use.	 He made fewer errors than his previous
attempts, and they were	more of	the nature of not knowing the right word and/or	depending on English idiom, than they
were grammatical flaws.
     I've broken the text into individual sentences.  A	parser output is also included for each	line.  The parentheses
match over the whole text, but will not	match perfectly	for each line (there will usually be an	extra right parenthesis
at the end of a	sentence corresponding to a left parenthesis near the beginning	of the text).  We'd like feedback on how
useful the parser outputs are to you.  Do they tell you	anything, or are they just so much gibberish?


							   42


     di'e zirjbo po'a xatra de'i la xav. po'e la mumast.
({di'e CU <[zirjbo po'a	xatra] [(de'i {<la xav.> <po'e [la mumast.] GEhU>}) VAU]>}
     The following utterances are a "purplish-lojbanic"	(figuratively) letter dated that named 6 which is possessed by
     Five-month	(6th of	May).

     Comment: To date the letter, we used "de'i" (associated with date ...) and	not "ca".  Using "ca" claims that it was
a letter at the	time of	the date given,	without	saying anything	about what it is now.  In addition to "de'i", "tu'i" and
"ti'u" perform the same	function for letters, respectively with	regard to location and time-of-day.  None of these three
serve a	'tense'	function; they attach a	date, location or time as a labelling relation.


     ni'o coido'u mi dopeza ledo nu jarco lemi pemci cu	ckire ra'u
{ni'o <coi do'u>} {<[({<[({<[({<[( mi {do <pe [za (le {do <nu [jarco ({le <mi pemci> KU} VAU)] KEI>} KU)] GEhU>}) cu
({ckire	ra'u} VAU)]
     Greetings!	I, to you-all, for your	showing	my poems, am grateful (Most important point!).

     Comments:	In his original, Michael omitted the "do'u" after "coi".  This had strange (and	humorous) effects:  in
"... coi mi dopeza ..."	the "coi" grabs	hold of	the next sumti ("mi"), causing Michael to greet	himself	and imply that
the rest of the	letter is addressed to himself.	 The rest of the sentence then said (to	himself) roughly that "You-all
are grateful to	the showing of my poems	for something unspecified."  Moral: either be specific who you are greeting,
remember to terminate the vocative, or immediately start a new sentence.
     Michael also had attached "lemi pemci" to "jarco" with the	"be" link.  This is grammatical, but wasn't necessary.
"nu" and other abstraction clauses presume that	an entire sentence follows, and	you can	include	all of the sumti you
want without attaching them.  Remember that you	have to	terminate abstractions (with "kei") if another sumti follows (it
doesn't	in this	case), or you'll have the same kind of strange effects as the vocative "coi" caused.
     Mike translated "ra'u" in the above sentence as an	incidental "(of	course)"; his Lojban actually indicates	that his
gratefulness was his most important point of the letter.  Note that Michael's "ra'u" attaches specifically to "ckire",
and not	to the whole sentence.	To apply a discursive or attitudinal to	the sentence as	a whole, you must put it at the
beginning of the sentence, or express the normally elided "vau"	at the end of the sentence and attach the "ra'u" to
that.


     .i	puvi'eku mi mutce cutyzu'e pi'o	gi'e pu'i ninpemci jmina la'u lo mo'amei .u'u ne ki'u lemi cabi'ibajenairu'i .ia
     li'anai zmadu nu mutce cutyzu'e
i [({<pu vi'e> ku} mi) CU ({<[mutce cutyzu'e] [(pi'o KU) VAU]> gi'e pu'i <[ninpemci jmina] [(la'u {<lo [mo'a mei u'u]
KU> <ne	[ki'u (le {mi <[(ca bi'i ba) (je nai) (ru'i ia li'a nai)] [zmadu (nu {<mutce cutyzu'e> VAU} KEI)]>} KU)] GEhU>})
VAU]>} VAU)]>
     Earlier, throughout this space-time, I'm very affair-active used-ly, and could-and-did poetry-quantity add	(to
     something)	in-amount a too-few-some (Repentance!) which (the-too-few-some is justified by my then-until-later-but-
     not-continuously (Belief but Obscurity!) greater state of affair-activity.

     Comment:  Some complicated	but cute tense constructions that come close to	what Michael intended.	What he	said,
"puvi'eku", is kind of self-contradictory; "vi'e" means	throughout an interval of space-time (which includes a time
dimension), but	Michael	has already specified a	specific time as "pu".	"vi'u" is the corresponding space-only interval
'tense', so "puvi'uku" might accomplish	what he	intends.  Another possibility is "pufe'eroroi".	 But Michael has also
relied incorrectly on English idiom, or	he wouldn't have said this at all (Michael isn't really	everywhere doing
anything, though he might feel it sometimes), so I didn't change what he wrote.
     "puvi'uku"	sets the time in the past.  Michael then adds a	second tense, "cabi'ibajenairu'i", apparently not
realizing that this second complicated tense of	the sentence is	an offset from the first.  Compare the English "I
realized three weeks ago that I	would shortly be very busy."
     Note that the parser output breaks	the compound "cabi'ibajenairu'i" into individual words.	 "ca" means "at	the same
time as" the tense implied by "puvi'eku", which	is of course sometime in the past.  The	"bi'i" indicates that there is a
time interval involved,	in this	case starting at "ca" and ending later at "ba".	 But "ba" is still an offset from the
initially set (past) tense of the sentence; thus the sentence refers to	a situation that might be entirely in the past
from NOW, the time when	he wrote the letter, though this seems not to be what Michael intended.	 Moral:	use multiple
tenses in a sentence only when you are fairly sure you know what you are doing.
     One error is as much our fault as his:  Michael used "pi'o", intending "instrumentally" (which normally should be
"sepi'o", but was erroneously listed as	"pi'o" in the October 1988 cmavo list).	 I left	"pi'o" unchanged, though, since
it isn't clear what Michael really meant by "instrumentally".  In this context,	I would	guess that "instrumentally"

							   43


would mean that	he was busy 'using something'.	"pi'o",	on the other hand, means that his busy-ness was	'being used by
someone/something'; i.e. possibly, he was busy in his employment.  Hopefully, this is what he meant.
     Nora recommended adding the "ne" in "... .u'u ne ki'u"... .  Without "ne",	the causal "ki'u" phrase modifies the
whole bridi (in	this case, the 2nd half	of a compound bridi centered on	selbri "ninpemci jmina"); with the "ne", the
phrase is an explanation of the	'too-few-some'.
     Based on my best guess as to what Michael intended, I changed his causal from "ri'a" to "ki'u".  He seems to be
presenting a justification for his too-few-some	of poems.  With	"ri'a",	he is saying that his then-until-later-busy-ness
physically caused the too-few-some.  There is a	second interpretation of Michael's English such	that, using "ri'a" and
no "ne", Michael's busy-ness caused the	adding of too-few-some;	this alternative wasn't	noticed	until just before press
time.

     .i	ta'onai	pu ra mi pinka so'u lepu selja'o ti'u
<i ta'o	nai> <[(pu ra) mi] CU [pinka ({<[so'u BOI] [le (pu selja'o) KU]> <ti'u KU>} VAU)]>}
     Anyway, before that (an unclear reference), I comment(ed?)	on a few of the	earlier	shown-things, associated with
     time unspecified.

     Comments: "pu ra" is unclear here,	the previous sentence is just too complex to figure out	what 'that' is.	 My best
guess is that he intends the "too-few poems", but only by assuming English idiom; Michael isn't	commenting before "the
too-few-some poems (that) were added", since the poems were already written; he	is commenting before he	includes them.
Avoid vague references - they are unfair to the	reader/listener.  My 'lojbanic'	preference would be to say something
like "le pemci kansa deipeza" ("the poems accompany this writing"), then followed by (in this sentence)	"pu la'edi'u"
("before this accompaniment") instead of "pu ra".  Michael also	could also have	been tantalizing and correct with "pu
da'u" ("before what I will eventually express")
     Michael originally	had "pu	ra ku",	which became illegal about a year ago when we increased	the varieties of
elidable terminators, so it isn't Michael's fault.  "ku" closes	a description, or it early-terminates a	sumti tcita that
isn't accompanied by a sumti such as "ra" thus preventing it from absorbing a following	sumti unintentionally; e.g.
"puku mi klama"	("Earlier, I came.") vs. "pu mi	klama" ("Before	me, (something)	comes")
     Michael translated	"ti'u" here as "while I'm at it".  "ti'u", as mentioned	above, is used to tag letters and events
('the 6	o'clock	news').	 Using "ti'u" without a	time is	merely confusing.  There may be	a way to say what he wants
briefly, but it	isn't apparent to me; Michael already used one vague tense marker ("pu ra") in the sentence, and Lojban
gets really nebulous when you pile vagueness upon vagueness.  Given my alternative "pu la'edi'u", described above, the
simple tense "ca" on the selbri, or "caku" at the end would convey "while I'm at it".  Other possibilities exist,
perhaps	using the sumti	tcita "po'i".


     .i	pamai sera'a le	pemci poi se tcita <<lu	leka sarcu kei vau li'u>> ku'o mi na jimpe le krinu be ledo nu punji zo
     <<cu>> le crastu po zo <<nu>> mu'inai lemi	pu nu dunda (sei zo <<sabji>> lu'anai cu drani se'u) lo	temge'a	tcita
     (to te'i zo <<ba>>	vau toi) pe vi le trixystu ne seba'i
{i pa mai} {<[(se ra'a)	({le pemci KU} {poi<[se	tcita] [(lu {<[le (ka {sarcu VAU} kei) KU] vau>	FAhO} li'u) ku'o]>})]
mi> CU <[na jimpe] [(le	{krinu <be [le (do {nu <punji [({<zo cu> <[le crastu KU] [po (zo nu) GEhU]>} {<mu'i nai> <le [mi
(pu {nu	<[dunda	(sei {zo sabji lu'a nai} cu drani se'u)] [({lo <temge'a	[tcita ({to te'i} {<[zo	ba] vau> FAhO} toi)]>
KU} {pe	<vi [(le trixystu KU) (ne {se bai KU} GEhU)]> GEhU}) VAU]> KEI})] KU>})	VAU]> KEI}) KU]	BEhO>} KU) VAU]>})
     First, about the poem which is tagged "The	Necessity", I don't understand the reason for:	your putting "cu" on the
     front-site	of "nu"	despite	motive of my previously	giving ["providing" approximately is correct] an interval
     grammar tag, specifically "ba" which is at	the back-site, incidentally with a motive.

     Comment:  Though very complex, this one made sense	to me.	I took out extraneous "be..bei..." constructs and
replaced "lu...li'u" by	"zo" when he quoted a single word.  The	only grammatical error was minor he originally had *"...
po'u se	tcita ...".  "po'u" indicates a	relative phrase	(a sumti or tagged sumti) follows.  You	need "poi" for a
relative clause	(a full	bridi).

     Michael's question	relates	to the 3rd limerick in JL11.  His original third and fourth lines read ".iku'i le pratci
/ nu sisti ba batci ...", which	I changed to ".iku'i le	pratci / cu nu sisti kei batci", and he	is asking why I	left the
"ba" tense off my rewritten version, using "cu"	instead.
     Answer:  His original English translation of the limerick is a superb example of ambiguous	English.  He said: "But
the produce-tool / cessation bites ...".  This can mean	"But the produce-tool is a cessation biter ..."	or "But	the
produce-tool cessation is a biter ...".	 One always assumes non-figurative usage in Lojban, so only the	first is
plausible - a tool can conceivably 'bite', a 'cessation' isn't a physical thing.

							   44


     Note that his English makes no use	of future tense; I probably ignored the	"ba" since it didn't match his English;
it may have looked like	a typo.	 However, his original is grammatical, and means "But the produce-tool cessation will
bite ..." which	matches	closely	the second, figurative,	usage that Michael intended.
     Given my interpretation of	his English, my	"cu" made the "ba" ungrammatical.  Furthermore,	if I removed the "ba", a
"kei" was required where the "ba" was to close off the "nu", else the event clause would include the "batci": "nu sisti
batci" ("event of cease-r biting ...").
     The peril of trying to write Lojban poetry	at this	early stage is that the	people who read	it may not understand
it, even if it IS correct.  Figurative metaphors are sometimes chancy in English poetry	- in Lojban, with no idiom, they
are nonsense (and in most cases	make illegitimate cultural references, a no-no in a culturally neutral language).  Can
good poetry be written using only 'analytic' metaphors?	 I'd like to see Michael try.
     The answer, then, seems to	be that	my change was incorrect.  Hopefully, we'll remember this when it comes time for
Michael's first	Lojban poetry book.


     .i	ti jufra <<lu le nunsti	ne sekai leka pratci cu	batci mu'anai li'u>> vau ?xu
i (ti CU {jufra	<[lu ({<[le nunsti KU] [ne ({se	kai} {le <ka [pratci VAU] KEI> KU}) GEhU]> cu <[batci mu'a nai]	VAU>}
FAhO) li'u] [vau xu]>})]
     This (?) is a sentence about (the quote) "the stopping, characterized by produce-tool-ness, is biting", isn't it?

     Comments:	Michael's sentence was grammatical, but	malglico (very 'English').
     Warning!  The demonstratives "ti",	"ta", and "tu" are unconscionably vague	in written text!  They presume that the
listener has a way to tell what	the speaker is indicating.  In writing,	the only way to	do this	would be to draw an
arrow to the referenced	item.  ("ti" might be used to 'obviously' refer	to the letter itself, but "deipeza" is much
clearer; better	to avoid these by rule in writing.)
     English pronouns are extremely tricky to translate	into Lojban, since we use them so sloppily in English.	It will
be the mark of malglico	translation (as	opposed	to original Lojban expression) to see sloppy pronouns when Lojban has so
many specific mechanisms for 'pronoun' anaphora	(oops! I promised to use "ba'ivla".)
     In	this case, no ba'ivla could be clear, since Michael intended to	refer to what he had originally	written	in his
letter to me, something	I had to dig out of the	files to check.	 Michael needed	to be explicit:	"lemi selsku" ("my
expression", and possibly even "le ba'emi selsku" to emphasize that it was his version that he wanted me to check).
Even using his English translation of the letter, I would not have assumed 'this' to refer to his original letter; I
only dug it out	because	there was no "ba" in the version printed in JL.	 Moral:	 an unambiguous	language requires that
its speakers remember to check for possible misunderstandings of vague references.
     Having gotten past	the first word of the sentence,	there is a major logic problem of label/reference confusion, a
problem	of the sort made famous	in Through the Looking Glass, when Alice talks with Humpty Dumpty about	what the song
is, what the song is called, what the name is called, etc.  Michael is saying in this bridi that something ("ti") is a
sentence about the quoted text given.  The sentence he is referring to is not about the	quoted text.  He means that his
sentence was intended to say the same thing as the quoted text.	 The term for this is 'indirect	discourse', and	is most
familiar in English in the form	"He said that he was going to the store."  The cmavo "la'e" accomplishes indirect
reference in Lojban; it	refers to the referent of any sumti it precedes.  So Michael should have had "la'elu" at the
start of the quote.
     I added the "vau" to have the true/false question "xu" clearly apply to the whole sentence	and not	just to	the
quote; I wasn't	sure what he was asking.  Colloquial Lojban will almost	certainly express yes/no questions with	the "xu"
at the beginning - it is simplest grammatically.  If the question is about a specific part of the sentence, something we
indicate in English with emphatic stress ("You went to WORK, didn't you?"), then the question will probably still be
pre-marked with	"pau", warning the listener to expect a	question.


     .i	remai .uocai sera'a le seltcita	be <<lu	le firgai mu'anai vau li'u>> ku	vi le da'amoi vlali'i ku zo <<co>> cu se
     setca fi <<lu fasnu cictcima li'u>> ja'e <<lo'u lo	nalsti nu cictcima fasnu le'u>>	(sei zo	<<za'i>> basti ?xu be zo
     <<nu>> se'u)
[i re mai uo cai] [({<[se ra'a]	[le (seltcita {be <lu [({le <firgai mu'a nai> KU} vau) FAhO] li'u> BEhO}) ku]> <vi [le
({da'a moi} vlali'i) ku]>} {zo co}) cu ({se setca} {<[fi (lu {<[fasnu cictcima]	VAU> FAhO} li'u)] [ja'e	({lo'u lo nalsti
nu cictcima fasnu le'u}	{sei <zo za'i> CU <[basti xu] [be (zo nu) BEhO]> se'u})]> VAU})]>
     Second (whew!) about the be-labelled-by "the face-cover ...", in the next-to-last word-line, "co" is inserted into
     "event-ish	wild-weather therefore with result "a non-stop act of wild-weather event" ("za'i" replaces, doesn't it,
     "nu").

							   45


     Comments:	If the "whew" applies to the stuff that	preceded being complete, it should have	gone before this
sentence, which	starts a new topic; Michael's usage suggests that this second point is his concluding one, which is not
the case.  The attitudinal would be clearest in	a separate 'sentence': "... .i .uocai .i remai ...".
     In	an unambiguous language, quotation can be a problem, especially, as in Michael's letter, when he wants only a
few words out of context.  Lojban's grammar requires that a quotation be fully grammatical standing on its own,	and most
out-of-context quotes are not.	The quote must also match the original,	of course - you	can't normally add words inside
the quote to make the text grammatical without telling the listener/reader.  In	English	print, editors abbreviate quotes
and correct grammar by putting interpolated text in brackets and using ellipsis	marks to indicate omitted text (e.g.
"editors abbreviate ...	[with] brackets	..." as	a shortening of	the last sentence).  In	Lojban,	all punctuation	must be
spoken,	so this	isn't easy to do while remaining clear (we do have a way of expressing this when appropriate, though,
which I'll get to in a moment).
     Thus, in Lojban, if what you want to quote	is less	than a complete	sentence, or has omitted text, the easiest way
to do this is with the 'error-quotes' "lo'u ...	le'u".	I changed Michael's second out-of-context quote	to use these (as
well as	some others further on in the letter).
     The other way is to make the result grammatical and mark all the changes to the original quote.  The Lojban words
for "etc." are "vau" and "mu'anai",  The former	is a grammatical particle, of course, marking that there are no	more
sumti being expressed.	The latter is a	discursive having no grammar, and meaning roughly "concluding my examples"; it
thus does not serve the	all-purpose role of English "...".  Lojban simply cannot do the	latter with all	the flexibility
of English and still be	grammatically unambiguous.  I'll discuss this further below when I talk	about Michael's	comments
on "go'i".

     First an interlude	on editorial manipulation of quotes (you probably won't	mind a break from plowing line by line
through	the letter.)
     We've put several features	in the language	to make	manipulating quotes easier, some of which I've added to
Michael's letter.  However, for	extensive use of out-of-context	quotes,	only "lo'u... le'u" is practical if you	want to
keep clear what	was quoted and what wasn't.
     To	summarize the quote manipulation features briefly:
- the word "sa'a" is the most important.  Attaching like a discursive to a word	or a construct,	it says	that word or
     construct wasn't actually part of the original quote.  This allows	you to insert text in an ungrammatical text to
     make it grammatical, while	making it clear	what you added.	 The result is similar to an editor's bracketing text
     that was added (usually after omitting a longer text in a quote) to allow the remainder to	make sense (e.g. "The
     ... [woman] sat next to me").  (By	the way, for sticklers who ask how to quote text with the word "sa'a" embedded,
     a second "sa'a" after the first says that the first is really there.  We think we've provided adequately for the
     infinite series of	complications that can be concocted along this line of analysis.)
- the word "li'o" followed by "sa'a" to	show that the word "li'o" isn't	really part of the quote can be	used to	replace
     the "..." ellipsis	in a quote provided that the result is grammatical.  This usually requires some	other
     modifications to the quote, each marked with "sa'a" as well.
- the 'unquote parentheses' "to'a...to'i", again with "to'a" marked with "sa'a"	to show	they are to be taken
     metalinguistically, are used to interrupt a quote to get back to the "quoter's" level of the sentence.  The classic
     use of this is for	conversation quotations	("That window",	he said, pointing down the hallway, "is	dirty").  In
     such a split quote, the two pieces	are each ungrammatical,	but the	whole is grammatical.  The division in the text
     is	purely stylistic, providing a certain emphasis.	 Note that the material	between	the two	quotes is also fully
     grammatical.  In Lojban we	express	this by	having the quote be the	basic text, jumping out-of-quote with
     "to'asa'a", and then returning to the quote with "to'i" when the commentary is complete.  Again, both the inside of
     the parentheses and the outside have to be	completely grammatical as separate units.  Furthermore,	the 'unquote'
     has the grammar of	a parenthetical	remark - a 'free modifier', and	is mildly constrained on where it can be
     inserted (not in the middle of a digit string representing	a number, for example).
	  For those who	ask, interrupted quotes	are important to Lojban	for literary usage (they are seldom used in
     spoken language); we added	them after Athelstan tried to translate	Saki (see JL10).  They are used	in all natural
     languages that we've investigated,	with few constraints on	where the interruption can occur.  The alternative is
     the stylistically 'boring'	"He said '...'.	She said '...'.	He said	'...'."	which is the 'natural grammar' form for
     both "cusku" and "bacru".
	  Others ask why have all these	unfriendly limits and constraints, as Michael does later in his	letter.	 The
     answer is 'unambiguity', of course.  For these people, there is the 'error	quote' that tells the listener to treat
     the quote as a literal quote, but to not worry about the grammar of the content.  (For out-of-context quotes,
     though, putting a "li'o" discursively after the ending quote would	show that text was omitted, a useful notice that
     makes it clear that the 'error quotes' were used for out-of-context ellipsis, and not to mark truly ungrammatical
     expression.)

							   46


     Now, finally answering Michael's question as I understood it, which is based on his JL11 poem entitled "The
Unmasking", if you insert "co" into "nu	fasnu cictcima", you get "nu fasnu co cictcima".  The former means "event of
being an occurring type	of wild-weather", the latter means "event of being an event of-type wild weather", and is
equivalent to "nu cictcima fasnu" ("event of being a wild-weather event").  The	difference between the two forms is that
the final brivla determines the	place structure	for any	attached sumti.	 Since this selbri is bare within a "nu"
abstraction, that criterion does not apply here	(the place structure of	a "nu" abstraction is constant,	and there are no
expressed sumti	anyway).  The choice then is based on whether the event	that Michael wants to describe (it is inherently
an event because of the	"nu") is a "(weather type of event)-event" or an "(occurring-type of-weather)-event".  The
"fasnu"	still seems redundant.
     Michael also asks about "za'i" in a metalinguistic	parenthesis (he	originally had this parenthesis	in the middle of
the quote - this would have required "sa'a" as mentioned above,	and made the quote grammatically difficult to follow,
where in this case the exact grammar was relevant to his question).
     "za'i" could indeed be used instead of "nu".  "za'i" refers to a subset of	event/state abstractions, for which the
general	word is	"nu".  "za'i" states are those event situations	which are being	seen as	essentially stable and uniform
within the event, which	have either a finite or	an infinite duration, as opposed to being a point event, and which, if
either starting	or stopping boundary exists, it	is effectively a single	point.	Thus we	normally think of 'being awake'
as a 'state', whereas being hit	by a car is a point event, expressed by	the achievement	abstractor "mu'e".  (Obviously,
we don't necessarily think of being hit	by a car as an achievement, but	by Aristotelian	logic it is, based on the
'shape'	of the event, called the "event	contour".)
     I may write more on abstractions for either JL14 or JL15, since they relate also to the changes made to the tense
design.	 Writing them up will help me in creating the textbook sections	on these topics.  But no promises.


     .i	zo <<fasnu>> ca	nalsarcu .i'a
i <[zo fasnu] [ca ({nalsarcu i'a} VAU)]>}
     "fasnu" is	unnecessary (Acceptance!).


     .iku'i ta rinka lenu mi ninzga lo puze'u nandu
{i ku'i} {ta CU	<rinka [(le {nu	<mi CU [ninzga ({lo <[pu ze'u] nandu> KU} VAU)]> KEI} KU) VAU]>})
     But, that causes that I now-observe an in-the-past, for-a-long-time, difficulty.


     .i	mi su'oroi pilno zo <<nu>> lo paroi tortei bo fasnu gi'e drata pilno fi	lo ranji clatei	bo fasnu
i (mi {<su'o roi> <[(pilno {<[zo nu] [lo ({pa roi} {tortei bo fasnu}) KU]> VAU}) gi'e ({drata pilno} {<fi [lo (ranji
{clatei	bo fasnu}) KU]>	VAU})] VAU>})]
     I a-few-times use "nu" for	a one-time, short-time-interval, event,	and otherly use	... for	a continuing, long-time-
     interval event.

     Comment:  Michael had used	"go'i" here where the second "pilno" appears ("... gi'e	drata go'i fi ...").  "go'i",
however, refers	to the bridi in	the previous sentence, not to the first	half of	this compound bridi.  One of "go'i"'s
major purposes,	is to enable answering "xu" questions.	If "go'i" counted bridi	that were pieces of sentences, you would
have trouble answering a "xu" at the beginning of this compound	sentence asking	whether	the entirety were true.
       There is	no member of lexeme GOhA for Michael's purpose,	either - there are several other ways to rephrase what
he wrote.  For example,	in a compound bridi where there	is a common selbri like	this, you can rearrange	the sentence.
I've used subscripted tenses to	deal with the dichotomy	of times, and added in the dichotomy discursives "zu'u"	and
"zu'unai" to show their	usage:


     .i	mi pilno zo <<nu>> lo zu'u paroi tortei	bo fasnu ne su'oroikuxipa .e lo	zu'unai	ranji clatei bo	fasnu ne
     su'oroikuxire
     I use "nu"	for on-the-one-hand a one-time,	short-time-interval, sometimes1, AND, on the other hand	a continuing,
     long-time-interval	event, sometimes2.

Other ways to express the time dichotomy include 'termset' constructions that allow logical connections	between	sets of
sumti.


     .i	re frica valsi cu sarcu	vau pe'i
i [({re	BOI} {frica valsi} KU) cu (sarcu {vau pe'i})]>

							   47


     Two different words are necessary,	I opine.

     Response:	Indeed.	 And we	have five (or more).  As mentioned above, "nu" is the general, abstract	event/state
term, while we have for	words for 4 various kinds of events/states, also within	lexeme "nu".  In most communications, it
is not necessary that you be specific about the	'event contour'; it is irrelevant or obvious from the context.	On the
other hand, if you wish	to make	a distinction in which the kind	of event is important, you can do this as well.
     The Lojban	concept	is to minimize metaphysical assumptions.  In this case,	by this, we mean that we don't require
the speaker to assume that being awake is a 'state', while being hit by	a car is an 'achievement'.  You	can talk about
the 'state' of being hit by a car or the 'achievement' point-event of being awake.  The	former is a bit	mind-boggling,
I'll admit; the	latter occurs for me sometimes when Nora gets up in the	morning	to go to work, at the inhuman hour of
6AM.  Of course, you can choose	not to decide how to think of the event, and use "nu", since Lojban doesn't require you
to specify the type of event in	order for it to	be an event.  This is the same argument	that justifies optional	tense in
Lojban.


     .ije .ie mi pujeca	luzypli	(to tai	zirjbo cai vau toi) zo <<go'i>>
<i je ie> <mi [(pu je ca) ({luzypli <to	[(tai {<zirjbo cai> vau}) FAhO]	toi>} {<zo go'i> VAU})]>}
     And (I agree) I then-and-now loose-use, (by method	of purple Lojban!), "go'i".

     Comment:  The logical connective between sentences	here seems unnecessary.	 The ".i" at the beginning of most
Lojban sentences sentence can be translated as the run-on "and"	that often occurs at the beginning of English sentences
like Michael's;	in Lojban you have to run-on, unless you are done talking or changing subjects.	 malglico!
     (You use the logical connectives between sentences	when there is logical import to	the joining.  For example, in
"da blanu  .i da klama", because there is no logical connective, the two "da"s could refer to different	'something's.
In "da blanu  .ije da klama", both "da"s are 'bound' under the same logical scope, and hence must refer	to the same
thing.)
     Michael loosely-uses the English meaning of the word "loose" in the lujvo "luzypli".  We want Lojban words	to have
a simple, pure meaning,	without	importing all the connotations of English.  I can think	of several meanings for	the
tanru 'loose-user' that	keep us	from wanting to	import this phrase from	English.  What I think Michael intended	is more
clearly	rendered as "jbige'a pilno" ("approximate-grammar use")	or "jbidra pilno" ("approximately-correct use")	 With
these clearer tanru, Michael's comment practically answers itself.
     Michael also probably wanted "ta'i" instead of "tai" in the parenthesis.  Both words convey some senses of	English
"in manner".  "ta'i" refers to a form, while "tai" refers to a method.	The context indicates that he expresses	in the
form of	purple-Lojban.



     .iku'i .ei	zasti fa le nuncumki be	lo naldikni se spicru poi kakne	lenu sisti vi lo crastu	mu'anai
{i ku'i	ei} {zasti <[fa	(le {nuncumki <be [(lo {naldikni <se spicru>} KU) (poi {kakne <[le (nu {sisti <[vi (lo {crastu
mu'a nai} KU)] VAU>} KEI) KU] VAU>} KUhO)] BEhO>} KU)] VAU>})
     But (Obligation!) existing	is the possibility of non-regular piece-utterances which are able at ceasing at-the in-
     front-of-site (End	of example).

     Comment:  Good sentence, with sumti rearrangement to liven	it up.	The relative clause gives a pleasantly Lojbanic
active sense in	talking	about the 'abilities' of an utterance.	 The clause could more briefly be expressed with a
'potential tense', lexeme CAhA:	 "poi ka'e sisti vi lo crastu" ("is-innately-capable-of	ceasing	at-the in-front-of-
site").	 Of course, in a sentence based	on "cumki", the	tense can be optionally	omitted	entirely, since	'possibility'
implies	'timeless capability' in most circumstances.
     I unfortunately can't agree with Michael's	statement.  As I stated	above, the grammar cannot provide total
flexibility to just stop any old place and have	the listener able to unambiguously determine what you meant.
Pragmatically, this may	be desirable, but most incomplete sentences are	grammatically ambiguous.  My favorite example is
the English "I went to the window quickly and ...", which has innumerable possible follow-ons, using several different
grammatical forms.  In English literary	usage, ambiguity is permissible	and sometimes desirable.  In Lojban, it	cannot
be, or we don't	have any special claim as a language.  Lojban, on the other hand, has expressive flexibility that isn't
possible in English, derived from the increased	varieties of vagueness (semantic ambiguity) that Lojban	gains by not
having an ambiguous grammar.
     Pragmatically, whether people will	speak Lojban grammatically, or will 'loose-use'	Lojban is unknown.  Michael
seems to have enough command of	the language to	help set the example for the former, though this will undoubtedly cramp
some of	his poetic style.  But then, Lojban poetry that	uses Lojban's unique distinction between grammatical and
semantic ambiguity will	truly be a new art form.

							   48

     Incidentally, as a	aside that seems relevant here,	John Hodges queries Michael for	comments on the	following (with
input sought from anyone else with an opinion):
     "I've heard that poetry gains beauty from a disciplined structure,	that precision is not the enemy	of art.	 If so,
great.	I have noticed that the	first thing many people	try to do with a 'logical' language is write poetry in it.  This
may be only because it is new and therefore exotic."
     Presuming John's intent:  on the other hand, Lojban may impose a discipline that may make it possible to achieve
'beauty' that isn't possible in	a language as unstructured as English or indeed	in any natural language.  What do people
think on this subject?


     .i	ta'onai	cimai sera'a le	romoi pemci ku le da'aremoi vlali'i cu binxo <<lo'u lo pamei seizga le'u>> vau lu'anai
     .io
(i ta'o	nai ci mai) ({<[se ra'a] [le ({ro moi} pemci) ku]> <le [(da'a re moi) vlali'i] KU>} cu {binxo <[lo'u lo	pa mei
seizga le'u] [vau lu'anai io]>})]
     (Returning	to subject), thirdly, about the	last poem, the antepenultimate word-line becomes "a single self-
     observer",	precisely, respectfully.

     Comment:  Some confusion here as to which poem Michael meant.  Michael really means the next-to-last poem in JL11;
the last one pertains to Sapir-Whorf.  From examining my comments, Michael is choosing one of my alternate expressions
for the	line in	question.


     .i	banzu fa ta
i [banzu ({fa ta} VAU)]>
     Enough, is	that.

     Comment:  Another dangling	demonstrative.	Who knows what "ta" is?	 The bare ".i banzu" would have	been more clear,
and Lojbanic, although this sentence is	the truly appropriate place for	the ".uocai" he	put in an earlier paragraph, as
anyone who has plowed through all this can agree.



     ni'o levi pemci cu	pilno pa leimi terga'i be fe le	sumti tcita purste (sei	mi camdji djuno	be leri	romoi tarmi
     se'u)
ni'o <[({<le [vi pemci]	KU> cu <pilno [({pa BOI} {lei <mi [terga'i (be {fe <le [(sumti tcita) (purste {sei mi CU <camdji
[djuno (be {le <ri [(ro	moi) tarmi]> KU} BEhO)]> se'u})] KU>} BEhO)]> KU}) VAU]>}
     This poem uses one	of my modifications of the argument-label previous-list	[I intensely want to know its (the
     list's) last form.]

     Comment:  Excellent.  Hopefully, Michael will be at least temporarily satisfied by	the cmavo list enclosed.


     .i	mi pilno <<lo'u	sexebe'i le'u>>	zo <<be'i>> vi le pemci	noi se tcita <<lu le te	pemci .e le se binxo vau li'u>>
i {mi CU <pilno	[({<lo'u se xe be'i le'u> <zo be'i>} {vi <[le pemci KU]	[noi ({se tcita} {<lu [({<le [te pemci]	KU> e
<le [se	binxo] KU>} vau) FAhO] li'u> VAU}) KUhO]>}) VAU]>})
     I use ??"sexebe'i"	for "be'i" at the poem,	which incidentally is labelled as "The Poet and	the Thing Become".

     Comment:  Michael used *"mi pilno zo sexebe'i zo be'i ..."	in his original.  "zo" is a very picky single word quote
- it truly wants a single Lojban word.	"sexebe'i" is a	3-word compound, and the "zo" quoted only the first word of it.
Lest you think me to be	picky, Michael's result	was actually grammatical, if nonsense, parsing as (I use "se" with
transmission media "be'i"...), since "xebe'i" is a valid sumti tcita, and in fact was probably the one he wanted based
on his English for the poem.  A	double conversion is meaningless for a modal, which can	only specify one place the im-
plied bridi relationship; using	lexeme SE before a modal indicates that	the indicated non-first	place of the associated
brivla describes the relationship of the attached sumti.
     The cmavo list enclosed with this issue exhaustively interprets the modals	for first two places associated	with
each lexeme BAI	member,	and gives the identified 'useful' ones that access at-least-third places (some of the 2nd place
conversions seem redundant to the unmarked 1st-place modals, such as "du'i" and	"sedu'i").


							   49


     .i	[*<<lo'u sa'a]

			      ko mi zasyspo
			      .ije mi ba vuzyvuzyxru
			      sexebe'i do
			      .i makfa
			      .i roroi ku
			      mi'o zukte ra

     le'u>> sa'a vau sa'a
i ({lo'u sa'a ko mi zasyspo i je mi ba vuzyvuzyxru se xe be'i do i makfa i ro roi ku mi'o zukte	ra le'u	sa'a} vau sa'a)]
FAhO>})
     ["	editorially inserted quote for ungrammatical text]
						Temporarily-destroy me;
					    and	I will yonder-yonder return
					       through the medium of you.
						      It's magic.
						     All the time,
						we do it (with purpose)
     ["	editorially inserted end-quote and "vau" to make the non-grammatical quoted poem a valid 'incomplete sentence'.

     Comment:  Note that the parser makes no attempt to	figure out what	is inside the quotes, which is why "lo'u...le'u"
exist.	There were several minor problems with this succinct poem that totalled	to an overall bad effect; one of the
problems I had to correct to even legally put it in error quotes instead of non-Lojban quotes, which seemed unfair to
Michael, who made a game attempt.
     1.	Of course the erroneous	sumti tcita made the text ungrammatical.  This is actually the only grammar error in the
whole poem, but	warranted the error quotes.
     2.	The lujvo in the second	word is	properly formed, but Michael's original	word *"vuzvuzyxru" was not.  The latter
breaks up morphologically, with	the CV at the beginning	falling	off in spoken form, resulting in *"vu zvuzyxru", which
is based on the	long-rafsi form	for a hypothetical Lojban gismu	*"zvuza" (or some other	final vowel).  The test
described in the lujvo-making algorithm	applies	here:  if you start off	with a CVC rafsi, and the first	consonant
cluster	is a permissible initial, the CV will fall off.	 You have to break up the permissible initial with a hyphen "y"
to keep	this from happening.
     3.	The only other serious problem is "ra" which has no legal referent, since all of the preceding sumti are
personal pronouns which	cannot be anaphorized (oops! se	ba'ivla).  In any case,	from Michael's English translation, he
probably wants "lenu go'i" or some other member	of GOhA, depending on what "it"	is - the English is too	ambiguous for me
to guess.
     On	the other hand,	another	possibility is "le go'i", an option only because he uses "It's magic" as the translation
for the	observative "makfa", which has no sumti.  This suggests	that the "it" in the last line is the same it that is
ellipsized in the observative.	This, if it was	what Michael intended, would be	an new and unforeseen use of Lojban's
unique capability for grammatically unambiguous	ellipsis, a truly Lojbanic poetic usage.
     4.	Not quite as bad are some curious and possibly malglico	word choices.  However,	it is possible that Michael
actually intended what his word	choices	mean:
     "zasyspo" expands literally to "temporary-destroyer"; the underlying tanru	suggests to me that the	brivla relates
to temporarily performing acts of destruction, as opposed to destroying	with temporary effect, which is	what the rest of
the poem implies.  Of course, both are possible	and Michael may	have intended the semantic ambiguity.  But I don't like
it 'enshrined' as a lujvo when I can't be sure what it means.
     "roroi" is	a version of "always" that means literally "at all times" or constantly	over the unspecified interval of
time.  The colloquial English "all-the-time" suggests one of the aspect	tenses like "habitually", "regularly", and
"typically", all found in lexeme TAhE, might have been what Michael intended.
     I suspect that Michael made the bad lujvo discussed in 2. above partially because it looks	and sounds interesting.
It makes me uncomfortable though, to make a lujvo solely for that purpose, when	the lujvo-based	bridi has no grammatical
advantage (in terms of grouping	or terminators)	or Zipfean advantage (length) over the shorter and simpler "mi bavuvu
xruti",	which I	believe	is both	grammatical and	means what Michael intended, keeping the tenses	in the tense place.  I
gave rafsi to the locators of lexeme VA	to allow potential for relative	lujvo such as "the here-sitter and "the	there-
sitter", say, for use by a teacher in a	classroom, where situations might frequently arise for using such relative
words.

     I won't pose an alternative for Michael's poem.  He needs to re-express what he meant.  I ended up	not doing more
of his poetry in this issue (including a few more poems	in the same letter) because a lot of his poems have word-choice

							   50


questions of this sort that I can't quickly resolve.  (This means, Michael, that I'd like you to go through your poems
one more time, looking for the types of	problems I've discussed	here.  Also, try back-translating your poems 'literally'
without	your English handy.)  Michael's	doing an excellent job of exercising the language though.  I just wish he had a
parser so he could see how some	of his sentences are taken.  Perhaps the parser	outputs	above will help	him and	others.
     Michael's expressions are very complex, and sometimes I suspect, very English in phrasing.	 I wrote the
instructions for using the machine grammar specifically	with people like him in	mind.  Several of you, like Michael,
want to	express	very complicated thoughts in Lojban right from the start.  The only way	I can see to accomplish	this,
without	taking the extensive analysis that this	letter required, is for	people to exercise building up sentences from
smaller, simpler pieces, as described in the instructions for the machine grammar, then	seeing what they've built.  If
John Hodges is right about discipline and art, then this kind of disciplined grammar development may be	far more useful
to an artist than creative tanru and lujvo-making, at which Michael is clearly exceptional.

     Now its your turn.	 I'd like to report next issue that we're pleasantly drowning in Lojban	text from all 110+ level
3 students and a few of	the rest of you.

							  co'o